outraged and dishonoured like the women in France, in Belgium, in
Serbia, in Montenegro and other invaded countries.^18On another occasion, when Emmeline took the salute as the Petrograd
women’s battalion marched by in an impressive ceremony in St. Isaac’s Square,
she was given a rousing cheer. Although she was now ageing and frail, she stood
erect and poised, looking like an elder statesperson in her white linen suit,
smart black bonnet and gloves to match, her right hand raised in a firm salute.
Botchkareva, who had been wounded and won two St. George’s Crosses for her
bravery in the trenches, was made a full officer of the Russian army that day.
Emmeline spoke of how proud she was of the battalion and explained that
although women in England were not in soldiers’ uniforms, they were doing
soldiers’ work in other ways. The beauty of the short religious service, in which
priests blessed the colours, especially moved her. ‘How Ethel Smyth would love
this singing and music’, she whispered to Jessie, a comment often made on their
frequent visits to the magnificent cathedral in the square where they listened to
the worship. Emmeline had been close to death on more than one occasion in
the past and perhaps now, as she was getting older, she reflected more on the
spiritual meaning of life. When she and Richard had first married, they had
attended church regularly,^19 but ceased to do so after Richard became an
agnostic. And as their children grew older, they had decided to withdraw them
from religious instruction classes at school. But now Emmeline pondered
whether that had been a sensible decision. ‘Your Mother was a wonderful
women’, she confided to Jessie one day. ‘How wise of her to bring you up to go
to Church and Sunday School while you were young, and give you the opportu-
nity when you got older to test all this for yourselves.’^20 As Emmeline reflected
on life with her own daughters, she lamented the discontents of Sylvia and
Adela, despite the amount of money she had spent on them, and drew a
contrast with Jessie’s sisters, Caroline and Jane who, with the minimum of
expenditure and fuss, had trained in Maria Montessori progressive methods of
education and were leading useful and happy lives as teachers. Jessie opined that
part of the problem with Sylvia and Adela was the ‘little jealousy’ they felt
towards Christabel, considered ‘the one and only’ in her mother’s eyes. ‘I have
never had one moment’s trouble with Christabel since she was a baby’, retorted
the proud Emmeline. Jessie also dared to observe that she thought Sylvia was
jealous of Annie, of whom Christabel seemed more fond than of her own
sisters.^21
Emmeline had not been long in Petrograd when a private message reached
her that the deposed Czar and Czarina, now imprisoned at Tsarskoe Selo,
wished to meet her since they had heard much about the British women’s
suffrage campaign. Regretfully, the invitation had to be turned down since, as a
semi-official emissary for Britain, Emmeline had to work with the Provisional
Government. However, Emmeline and Jessie did visit Tsarskoe Selo, but as the
guest of Plekhanov who had been in exile for a number of years and become a
WAR EMISSARY TO RUSSIA