The fact that Christabel’s whereabouts were kept secret, and that the
authorities did not know where she was residing, added to Emmeline’s pride in
the political flair of her eldest daughter. That unsigned articles outlining
WSPU policy continued to appear in Christabel’s weekly column inVotes for
Womendeepened the mystery – where was the elusive woman? On 12 April,
when Emmeline wrote to Mrs. Billinghurst thanking her warmly for her contri-
bution towards the cost of the conspiracy trial, she again expressed her
confidence in her eldest daughter. ‘Whatever happens to us we “conspirators”
know that the movement will go on & that our splendid members will be loyal
to my daughter, Annie Kenney & Mrs Tuke who will guide the ship in our
absence.’^51 At a farewell reception for the leaders later that month, before their
expected imprisonment, Emmeline told her followers to remain steadfast and
when it came to political action, not to listen to any friends outside the move-
ment but to trust those whom they had chosen as their leaders. Without
naming Christabel and Annie Kenney, she said, ‘Read the paper. Take your
political instructions from the leading articles. Consult with those who remain
at Clement’s Inn to be consulted with regard to policy.’ Adding a cautionary
note, she pleaded, ‘If there is one thing that could hurt us in prison, if there is
one thing that could break our hearts, it would be the thought that your affec-
tion for us should be used to weaken your determination to go on with this
movement.’^52
In the meantime, Sylvia had returned from the USA on 8 April to find
suffragettes being mobbed in the London streets as resentment against the ‘wild’
women became increasingly physical.^53 Sylvia had heard with dismay about the
mass window-breaking and strongly disapproved, as did the American suffragists
she met.^54 Whether she expressed these views openly to Emmeline is doubtful
since she knew that her mother supported the new policy and did not want to
force a breach with her. But, as a deeply committed socialist and supporter of
the Labour Party, Sylvia still upheld the same view that she held in the summer
of 1909 when the WSPU leadership defended small-scale stone-throwing,
namely that the movement required ‘not more serious militancy by the few, but
a stronger appeal to the great masses to join the struggle’.^55 That her mother
had consistently tried to marshal the support of the public on the women’s ques-
tion, she conveniently ignored; nor did she comment on the failure of the WFL
too in this respect, despite its democratically elected leadership and its close
links to the socialist movement. Sylvia particularly welcomed the growing
commitment of the Labour Party to women’s suffrage, evident at its conference
in early 1912 when a women’s suffrage resolution had been passed, but was only
too well aware that it was Millicent Garrett Fawcett, leader of the NUWSS,
and not the WSPU leadership, who was sympathetic to an electoral alliance
with that body.^56 The political gulf between Emmeline and Christabel on one
side, and Sylvia on the other, was widening.
Sylvia had earned enough in the States to support herself for some time and,
as she explains in her book The suffragette movement, she was now determined to
THE WOMEN’S REVOLUTION