tool of the Government.’ I felt it was a battle of wills. Well, mine was the
strongest, especially as he was responsible for me and had no clue to my
condition of health. ... This is just to tell you not to be anxious. I shall
weather many storms yet, and O how thankful I am you were away!^48The struggle by Emmeline against the Liberal government had become very
much a personal, feminist struggle against an oppressive male state, yet she
knew that it could only be won by women working together, collectively.
Appropriately, her Christmas message to her ‘friends and fellow-soldiers’
stressed the importance of women being united in their fight, so that with the
winning of their political enfranchisement in 1914 they could begin ‘the great
task of national regeneration that lies before the women of the world’.^49
Emmeline had no intention of returning to Holloway on 23 December, when
her licence expired. The Suffragettestated quite openly that she would soon be
travelling to Switzerland, to recover her health, a tale she also told to Ethel.^50
But it was a red herring, a ruse to set the police on a false trail. Emmeline knew
that as a ‘mouse’ she was not allowed to leave England and would be shadowed
by detectives the moment she left her residence. She devised a plan to give the
police the slip, so that she, her brother, Herbert, and Nurse Pine, could all
spend the Christmas holiday in Paris with Christabel. On 22 December she
wrote from Christabel’s Paris flat to an astonished Ethel, explaining how the
ruse had worked:
Yesterday at 11 a.m. I left the house, ostensibly for a drive in Mrs. Sidney
Williams’s car, Miss Pine and my brother with me. In seven minutes we
had given the detective and his motor bike the slip, doubling in and out
of the streets between Pall Mall and Piccadilly, then off as hard as we
could go to Dover where we got the Ostend boat at 4 p.m. We had to
walk from the town station right along the railway line to the pier. Oh,
what a walk! but I did it and we got clean away, I think without being
recognised. Got to Ostend at 8 p.m. Left Brussels at midnight and
arrived here at 6 a.m. to-day. You can imagine how tired I am and what
my back is like. ... I have been given an extra sum to spend on my
holiday and mean to do it, building up strength to go on with the fight.^51Despite the constant fear of a voice announcing that she was arrested again as a
clutching hand suddenly grabbed her shoulder, Emmeline relished the excite-
ment of the chase, especially when she won.
Jessie Kenney pointed out how these short trips to Paris were vital for
Emmeline’s physical and mental well-being, an escape from the strain of her
responsibilities. The very moment Emmeline arrived in the city, which she loved,
‘her spirits soared like that of a girl who had never been to Paris before’. The very
sparseness of the flat, with its few home comforts, encouraged Emmeline and
Christabel to go out a lot, perhaps to the theatre or a café where they sat and
OUSTING OF SYLVIA AND A FRESH START FOR ADELA