drank coffee. Sometimes, when Annie Kenney was also there, Emmeline would
take Annie and Jessie to the sales to buy cheaply some smart French clothes. ‘She
loved doing this for us and at times Annie and I would feel that she enjoyed being
“Mother” to us.’ If Jessie was busy working with Christabel, Emmeline would
keep quietly out of the way, in Jessie’s bedroom that she occupied while in the
city (Jessie would move out to a small hotel nearby), relaxing and doing sewing.
‘She would never dream of interrupting Christabel’, wrote Jessie. Berthe, the
housemaid who looked after Christabel, was an autocrat in the kitchen, disliking
anyone else to step into her domain, a trait that Emmeline respected when the
revered Berthe forgot to bring her camomile tea with a little peppermint, as a
relief for her gastric troubles. ‘Jessie, do you think I might have some camomile
tea?’ Emmeline would humbly ask. At mealtimes, however, the roles were
reversed as Emmeline’s dignity and authority were felt by all:
When ... she sat at the table for lunch and dinner, she became the
great lady that she always was, and always in social life, when her
mother was present, Christabel seemed to retire into herself. It was the
same with Adela and Sylvia. If they were thrown together Mrs.
Pankhurst seemed to dominate the scene whatever it was.Jessie remembered that when Emmeline’s kind, genial brother was present,
‘Uncle Herbert’ as they all called him, there would be no ‘shop’ talk but many
stories told of the times when he and his sister were young. She particularly
remembered one such gathering, perhaps Christmas 1913, when they were all
seated at the table. ‘How happy Mrs. Pankhurst was to see her eldest daughter
with a little place of her own, sitting at the head of her own table, doing the
honours of the hostess.’^52
Despite the ‘problem’ of Sylvia and the uncertainty about Adela’s future,
Emmeline seems to have enjoyed that Christmas of 1913, an impression that
she conveyed vividly to Ethel Smyth when she wrote to her on 26 December:
This is more like home to me than anything I have known for years.
Paris suits me and Berthe cooks food that agrees with me. I can potter
about seeing things, shops included – get up and to bed when I like –
see whom I like. And I love being with C. in this way and tidying her
up etc. ... I am much better but weak; the worst is getting the internal
machine to work again after a thirst strike, and this twice repeated
strike with so short an interval makes it harder than ever. But it will
come right in time. ... Don’t, don’t worry about me. ... To-morrow I go
to see Sarah [Bernhardt] in a new play.^53Ethel, for her part, was also writing to her ‘darling Em’ that same day, lamenting
that it took a week for letters to arrive. ‘Keep me always near you – specially at
the worst times – & the best.’^54
OUSTING OF SYLVIA AND A FRESH START FOR ADELA