my case to the subscribers or the balance must be paid over to me to
deal with.
After all the money is the children’s & surely I & they know best
how to deal with it.
It is now when none of them, but one is earning that the money is
needed.
I shall most certainly much as I hate the whole humiliating business
not allow the money to remain at the disposal of persons who can
behave as those responsible have done.^57A somewhat humbled Nodal replied immediately on receipt of Emmeline’s
letter, stating that he had been at the Committee meeting when the resolution
was passed and had proposed the handing over of the balance of the fund at the
end of the year, but that his views and that of two other Committee members
were in the minority. In justice to the others, he continued, they were chiefly
influenced by the consideration that the balance of the fund ‘should now be
husbanded for the boy [Harry], to give him the best possible start in life; that it
is more difficult and expensive to do this for a youth than for a girl.’ The
remaining sum was £270 and would be exhausted in less that three years when
Harry would be fifteen. ‘He ought to go to College longer – unless he should
happen to be placed in a good business or profession, where a premium would
probably be required. No money to provide this would then be in the hands of
the Committee.’ In an attempt to act as an intermediary, Nodal emphasised
that he had sent ‘a condensed memorandum’ of Emmeline’s letter to the
Honorary Secretary and suggested to him the desirability of having another
meeting the following week. ‘If you have any views or suggestions, after reading
my letter, perhaps you will write me’, he carefully opined.^58
Emmeline promptly responded to these suggestions in not one but two
letters, both dated the same day, 29 November 1902. In the first she emphasised
that she would have no further dealings with Mr. Dixon, the Honorary
Treasurer. ‘If you will see me I will in confidence tell you all’, she confided.^59
The contents of her letter must then have preyed upon her mind and she
discussed the situation with her children. Later that day she wrote to Nodal
again, saying that since sending her ‘hurried reply’ that morning, she had
thought the matter over ‘more fully’. She appreciated what he had said about
Harry’s education and future and if she had been consulted on that point
beforehand or even had the resolution passed by the Committee been sent to
her, she should not have felt about the matter as she did now. While she agreed
that the majority of the Committee were activated by the best motives and
kind feeling towards her, this did not apply to the Treasurer, Mr. Dixon, and the
Secretary, Mr. Graham. ‘Had Mr. Dixon possessed any delicacy of feeling he
would have resigned his office when our differences occurred at the time he
acted as my legal adviser [in regard to Richard’s estate] & I took my affairs out
of his hands. Since that time I have declined to have any dealings with him.’
WIDOWHOOD AND EMPLOYMENT