Footnote:
- [5] Mrs. Clarke was released from Holloway the second time on December 23, 1910. She died on December 25, 1910.
On that day, Saturday, at about the time for our exercise, one of the superior officers came into the ward and, singling me out from the others, ordered me to leave my slippers, bring my shoes to put on outside and follow her. I had already learnt the order of the daily routine, and every event that was slightly exceptional filled me with hope that my turn had come for a “visitor,” but I had had several disappointments in this line and so steeled myself not to expect too readily. I was taken across the yard of the main entrance and ushered through a part of the prison where I had not been before to a row of rooms looking like small offices with glass doors, giving on to a passage. On the door to which I was led was written the word “Solicitor,” and almost before I had time for joyous conjectures as to who my “visitor” could be, the door was opened and my sister, Betty Balfour, was facing me. It was like seeing the sun after a long time of darkness. I only then realised to what an extent the gloom of prison surroundings and anxiety about my home people had taken hold of my mind. The sight of my sister did not dispel them, but seemed to take me from within their grip to an independent position outside of them, the physical trials of my fellow Suffragettes in our ward, the anti-happiness get up of the prison building, clothing, food, equipment, and the general vitality-destroying framework of the prison system and its officials, seemed suddenly to be a thing apart from me instead of one with my very self.
We were told to seat ourselves on opposite sides of a small table and not to touch each other nor pass anything from one to the other. The door was left open and the wardress sat just outside so as to hear, and if necessary control our communications. She was a benignant, kindly woman whom I had not seen before; she reminded me of Madeleine de Rohan, of the Theatre Français, in Le Monde où l’on s’ennui. She was dignified, gentle, sympathetic. I was nevertheless afraid of her, or rather of the office which she filled, and wished her miles away. I never saw her again, either during my month in Holloway or on the many occasions when I have since revisited it on behalf of other prisoners. I have tried several times to write down my impressions of this “visit” from my sister. I have to own myself beaten. The joy of it seems so exaggerated, I cannot trust myself to convey it for publication. All prison sensations are exaggerated from the point of view of those out of prison, that is their essential characteristic. Still more exaggerated must a genuine description of them seem to a prison official who is used to witness without sharing them. For men and women who have experienced them, it is never again possible to discredit their intensity or to be contemptuous towards those who try to give expression to them. My own recollections of prison are isolated from other parts of my life by a kind of halo of reverence. Awe comes over me whenever they are in my mind; this awe and reverence are twice as powerful in connection with those moments when joy had her turn, and these rare occasions of gladness outweigh from their importance the much more numerous experiences of gloom, anxiety, anger and physical suffering.
After twenty minutes of eager and joyful ecstasy of communication, during which I drank in the sight and sound of my sister’s loved personality, the wardress told us that our time was up and I was taken away. My sister and I were allowed to kiss each other before parting. When I got back to hospital I had three very distinct sensations. That of having experienced a good thing which was over; distress at not being able to impart my joy to my companions nor discuss it with them, since none of them knew my sister; indignation when I realised that no ordinary prisoner, who needed the help of joy so much more than I did, and no Suffragette prisoner without influential friends, would be able to have a similar experience until after the first month of imprisonment. In the practical sense more especially, for the settlement of business and family affairs, it is on first being imprisoned that letters and interviews are needed by prisoners.
The glow of my own happiness, however, triumphed over all else until bed time, when with a perversity born, I suppose, of the accumulated fatigue of recent days and nights, the one flaw in my sister’s visit came uppermost in my thoughts and possessed my brain with an unconquerable tyranny. Some days before the deputation, she had been in correspondence with a leading Conservative M.P., one whose lifelong belief in Woman Suffrage had become a little rusty. The questions he put to my sister proved that he had not kept pace with recent events in the movement and was unaware of the tremendous demand made by women themselves for the vote as evidenced by the resolutions, petitions, and unreceived deputations of organised societies of working and professional women, quite apart from the unions that had sprung up everywhere expressly in support of the Suffrage. I had sent her a collection of printed evidence to this effect for the benefit of her correspondent and I inquired of her eagerly that afternoon as to the result. She told me that she had unfortunately lost the papers. I was annoyed and wasted several minutes of our precious time together in reproof. The memory of my anger came back to me now in exaggerated dimensions. Why had I allowed myself to be reproachful to her? She had been so dear to me, so prompt and efficient in her efforts to come and see me, so comforting in her wealth of sympathy, and I had rewarded her with reproaches! As I went back over the scene, my heart was wrung with longing to send her some little message of good-will and my inability to do so appeared to me then as nothing short of a tragedy. For the fiftieth time in those first hours of imprisonment I seemed to be and to feel like a child, at the mercy of fluctuating emotions extreme in their intensity. I longed to be alone, but that night the ward patients kept unusually wide awake and I had to restrain myself over and over again. As the night wore on, the avenue of beds became less troubled, a sense of privacy grew in proportion and at last I gave way to my grief and sobbed. I covered my face in the bedclothes, but in spite of this precaution the wardress heard me and before long she came and stood by my side. I expected a scolding. She very seldom took any notice of the patients till morning, I knew it was her business to reprove me, but on looking up at her face I saw that the customary mask-like expression had vanished. She was kind, she inquired tenderly why I was crying, sat down on my bed and held my hands, told me that my sister would not remember my reproaches but would be unhappy if she knew of my present distress. She did not laugh at me, she showed as much sympathy as a friend. It was a great surprise. She stayed talking to me in whispers for a considerable time, though looking continually towards the door as if in fear of being detected in a kindness, for through the night as through the day, she was liable to unseen inspection through the locked gate and open door, or through the spy-hole of the door when closed. I was most deeply grateful to her, it was a delightful discovery that underneath her rigid exterior she was an unspoiled human being. I longed to return her kindness and ventured to propose that I should rub her chest to ease her hacking cough. At first she would not hear of it, but at last, after I had fetched some ointment from the bed-head of one of the patients who had a cough, she consented and allowed me to open her dress. She seemed much afraid and told me she would probably be dismissed if we were seen. My attempts to allay her distress eased my own mind of its childish trouble, for which reason she had probably allowed me to help her. I would gladly have talked to her all night about prisoners, the working conditions of wardresses, her own life, but this, of course, was forbidden. She soon went back to her table, her face resumed its former expression and I never again held any intercourse with her. If the horrors of prison existence are enshrined in an atmosphere of nightmare, the rare happy moments have the glamour of a good dream. This kind act of the night-wardress remains as one of the sunlit flower patches of my time in Holloway.
The next morning after the superior officer had been her rounds taking temperatures, she beckoned me to her. “What have you been complaining about?” she asked sharply. “I haven’t been complaining,” I answered. “Yes, you have—you complained of something to a visitor.” I then remembered that, when reassuring my sister as to my health and to prove to her the genuineness of my statements as to prison conditions being in no way harmful to me, I had mentioned two things which proved rather trying, viz., that my underclothes and stockings were too short to cover my knees, and the fact that one small towel had to do service for all purposes during a week. I reported this to the wardress, but explained that I had mentioned these not in complaint but to prove to my sister that my discomforts were insignificant. “Well,” she retorted, “next time you have anything to complain of come to me with it—if not I shall get into trouble.” This seemed the very reverse of prison regulations, for usually the trouble was caused by anything out of the ordinary being granted to a prisoner. From that time forward I was supplied with two towels, one of them renewed every week, and two rolls of flannel bandages were brought to me to cover my knees. I supposed that the ordinary cells, to which I expected soon to be transferred, would be much colder than the hospital, so I held the flannel bandages in reserve. After I came out of prison I heard that my family were troubled, knowing how dependent I was upon warm underclothes, especially at night. My eldest brother had interviewed the head of the Prison Commissioners Department, Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, who had said that I should at once be supplied with bed-socks. Bed-socks, of course, do not grow in prisons. They were represented, I suppose, by my flannel bandages, but the official statement had the desired result of quieting my family’s anxiety.