Vivie of course was convicted. The case was plain from the start, as to her guilt in having organized and carried out the destruction of several great Racing establishments or buildings connected with racing. There had been no loss of life, but great damage to property—perhaps two or three hundred thousand pounds, and a serious interruption in the racing fixtures of the late summer and early autumn. The jury took note that on one occasion the prisoner in the guise of a young man had personally carried out the rescue of two endangered horses; and added a faintly-worded recommendation to mercy, seeing that the incentive to the crimes was political passion.
But the judge put this on one side. In passing sentence he said: "It is my duty, Vivien Warren, to inflict what in my opinion is a suitable and adequate sentence for the crime of which you have been most properly convicted. I must point out to you that whatever may have been your motives, your deeds have been truly wicked because they have exposed hard-working people who had done you no wrong to the danger of being burnt, maimed or killed, or at the least to the loss of employment. You have destroyed property of great value belonging to persons in no way concerned with the granting or withholding of the rights you claim for women. In addition, you have for some time past been luring other people—young men and young women—to the committal of crime as your assistants or associates. I cannot regard your case as having any political justification or standing, or as being susceptible of any mitigation by the recommendation of the jury. The least sentence I can pass upon you is a sentence of Three years' penal servitude."
Vivie took the blow without flinching and merely bowed to the judge. There was the usual "sensation in Court." Women's voices were heard saying "Shame!" "Shame!" "Three cheers for Vivie Warren," and a slightly ironical "Three cheers for David Whatyoumay-callem Williams." The judge uttered the usual unavailing threats of prison for those who profaned the majesty of the Court; Honoria, Rossiter, Praed (in tears), Bertie Adams, looking white and ill, all the noted Suffragists who were out of prison for the time being and could obtain admittance to the Court, crowded round Vivie before the wardresses led her away from the dock, assuring her they would move Heaven and Earth, first to get the sentence mitigated, and secondly to have her removed to the First Division.
But on both points the Government proved adamant. An interview between Rossiter and the Home Secretary nearly ended in a personal assault. All the officials concerned refused to see Honoria, who almost had a serious quarrel with her husband, the latter averring that Vivien Warren had only got what she asked for. Vivien was therefore taken to Holloway to serve her sentence as a common felon.
"Didn't she hunger-strike to force the Authorities to accord her better prison treatment?" She did. But she was very soon, and with extra business-like brutality, forcibly fed; and that and the previous starvation made her so ill that she spent weeks in hospital. Here it was very plainly hinted to her that between hunger-striking and forcible feeding she might very soon die; and that in her case the Government were prepared to stand the racket. Moreover she heard by some intended channel about this time that scores of imprisoned suffragists were hunger-striking to secure her better treatment and were endangering if not their lives at any rate their future health and validity. So she conveyed them an earnest message—and was granted facilities to do so—imploring them to do nothing more on her account; adding that she was resolved to go through with her imprisonment; it might teach her valuable lessons.
The Governor of the prison fortunately was a humane and reasonable man—unlike some of the Home Office or Scotland Yard officials. He read the newspapers and reviews of the day and was aware who Vivie Warren was. He probably made no unfair difference in her case from any other, but so far as he could mould and bend the prison discipline and rules it was his practice not to use a razor for stone-chipping or a cold-chisel for shaving. He therefore put Vivie to tasks co-ordinated with her ability and the deftness of her hands—such as book-binding. She had of course to wear prison dress—a thing of no importance in her eyes—and her cell was like all the cells in that and other British prisons previous to the newest reforms—dark, rather damp, cruelly cold in winter, and disagreeable in smell; badly ventilated and oppressively ugly. But it was at any rate clean. She had not the cockroaches, bugs, fleas and lice that the earliest Suffragists of 1908 had to complain of. Five years of outspoken protests on the part of educated, delicate-minded women had wrought great reforms in our prisons—the need for which till then was not apparent to the perceptions of Visiting Magistrates.
The food was better, the wardresses were less harsh, the chaplains a little more endurable, though still the worst feature in the prison personnel, with their unreasoning Bibliolatry, their contemptuous patronage, their lack of Christian pity—Christ had never spoken to them, Vivie often thought—their snobbishness. The chaplain of her imprisonment became quite chummy when he learnt that she had been a Third Wrangler at Cambridge, knew Lady Feenix, and had lived in Kensington prior to committing the offences for which she was imprisoned. However this helped to alleviate her dreary seclusion from the world as he occasionally dropped fragments of news as to what was going on outside, and he got her books through the prison library that were not evangelical pap.
One day when she had been in prison two months she had a great surprise—a visit from her mother. Strictly speaking this was only to last fifteen minutes, but the wardress who had conceived a liking for her intimated that she wouldn't look too closely at her watch. Honoria came too—with Mrs. Warren—but after kissing her friend and leaving some beautiful flowers (which the wardress took away at once with pretended sternness and brought back in a vase after the visitors had left) Honoria with glistening eyes and a smile that was all tremulous sweetness, intimated that Mrs. Warren had so much to say that she, Honoria, was not going to stay more than that one minute.
Mrs. Warren had indeed so much to impart in the precious half hour that it was one long gabbled monologue.
"When I heard you'd got into trouble, my darling, I was put about. Some'ow I'd never thought of your being pinched and acshally sent to prison. It was in the Belgian papers, and a German friend of mine—Oh! quite proper I assure you! He's a Secretary of their legation at Brussels and ages ago he used to be one of my clients when the Hotel had a different name. Well, he was full of it. 'Madam,' 'e said, 'your English women are splendid. They're going to bring about a revolt, you'll see, and that, an' your Ulster movement 'll give you a lot of trouble next year.'