number of pleasurable evenings at the theatre, seeing the renowned French
actress Sarah Bernhardt and attending a production of The winter’s tale.When
Alice Morgan Wright wrote to her, worried about what might happen in the
future if she continued the militant policy, Emmeline replied on 2 October in a
jaunty, optimistic manner:
It will be time enough to worry when something happens & even then
it is superfluous for I always come out at the right end of difficulties &
dangers. The prospect of being an old lady I don’t find at all alluring &
therefore don’t mean to become one a minute sooner than is
inevitable even if I were quite quite sure that you would then be
willing to bear with the humours of a cantankerous old person. No my
dear we must all live in the present as pleasantly as we can. So there is
my sermon.^20That very day, when the Pethick Lawrences arrived at Fishguard, they were
met by a friend who warned them that they were to be ousted from the WSPU.
‘I don’t believe it! Impossible! Incredible! You are dreaming!’ exclaimed
Emmeline Pethick Lawrence.^21 When she and Fred went to Lincoln’s Inn
House the following morning, they found that no rooms had been set aside for
them; Annie Kenney and Mabel Tuke refused to speak to them, conversations
stopped abruptly as they approached. ‘Next day’, recollected Fred, ‘Mrs.
Pankhurst invited us to her room. She then told us that she had decided to
sever our connection with the W.S.P.U.’^22
Both the Pethick Lawrences were shattered. They felt that Christabel, who
had lived with them for six years and whom they treated as a daughter, could
not be party to such a decision, but Emmeline was resolute. She invited the
stunned couple to meet her a few days later in a house in the west of London.
When they arrived, they found to their surprise Christabel there also. Since
Christabel’s residence in Paris had been made public that September, Emmeline
had thought of a ruse to get her daughter to England secretly, under the noses
of the police. She visited France, booking a first class ticket for the home-
bound boat while Christabel, in disguise, slipped unobtrusively on to the same
steamer as a second class passenger. That Christabel had risked detection in
order to speak to them brought little comfort to the Pethick Lawrences since
she told them that she and her mother ‘were absolutely united in this matter’.^23
The Pethick Lawrences realised that appeal was futile and pondered on the
1907 split when they had begged Emmeline Pankhurst to cancel the constitu-
tion and cancel the annual conference. ‘Mrs. Pankhurst was the acknowledged
autocrat of the Union. We had ourselves supported her in acquiring this posi-
tion several years previously; we could not dispute it now.’^24 They decided,
generously, not to drag the issue out into the public arena, for fear of splitting
loyalties in the WSPU and damaging the cause to which they were deeply
committed.
BREAK WITH THE PETHICK LAWRENCES