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now, ready to blow like a volcano, and it would all be her fault.
    Oh, yes, she’d done it now.

Seven
    â€˜Elinor, I’m asking you what you just said,’ Walter was saying, his voice taking on the husky note that came with his rising temper, his eyes already glowing with fierce dark light. ‘About your Miss Ainslie.’
    Elinor, returning his stare, managed not to flinch.
    â€˜I said she’d been talking to us about votes for women.’
    â€˜Saying what?’
    â€˜I’ll clear the cups,’ Hessie murmured, half rising, but Walter waved her down.
    â€˜Leave the cups. Let’s hear what the lassie has to tell us.’
    â€˜What’s it to us?’ Corrie asked, drawing on his cigarette, not looking at his father.
    â€˜What’s it to us? I’ll tell you what it is to us. In this house, we want nothing to do with women like that, supposed to be wanting votes, and I want to know what this Miss Ainslie’s been saying about ’em to my daughter.’ Walter leaned forward. ‘So – I’m waiting.’
    â€˜Dad, all she asked was if we’d think about  . . .’ Elinor hesitated, looking down at the table, ‘ . . . think about going to a meeting.’ She slowly raised her eyes again. ‘See what the suffragettes had to say.’
    â€˜Going to a meeting? Joining ’em, she meant?’
    â€˜No, just  . . . finding out what they believe in.’
    â€˜For God’s sake, Elinor, we know what they believe in!’
    Walter brought his fist down to the table with a crash which made the cups rattle and his family jump like puppets on a string.
    â€˜Do we no’ hear what they believe in every day of the week?’ he bellowed. ‘Criminal damage! Setting fire to houses, damaging the King’s portrait, blowing up the Royal Observatory! They don’t give a tinker’s cuss for votes – they just want to cause trouble, get their names in the papers. Why, if they got the vote tomorrow, they wouldn’t know what to do with it, they’d have to ask their husbands to tell ’em what to do, that’s if they’ve got husbands, which half of ’em haven’t because nobody’d take ’em on!’
    â€˜Oh, Dad!’ Elinor groaned. ‘That’s unfair, that’s very unfair.’
    â€˜Unfair, is it? Well, I’ll tell you this, I don’t want you having anything to do with the votes for women brigade, and I don’t want you to have any more to do with your Miss Ainslie, either. It’s clear enough to me that she’s a bad influence on you and I want you out of the Primrose Club and out of her way. When you go back tonight, you can hand your notice in.’
    â€˜My notice?’ Elinor was staring at him with eyes as dark and fiery as his own. ‘Dad, what are you talking about? I’m no’ leaving the Primrose. It’s a grand place to work; I wouldn’t leave it for anything.’
    â€˜You’ll do as I tell you,’ he shouted. ‘You’re no’ twenty-one yet, I’m your father and what I say goes. When you go back to the Primrose tonight, you’ll give in your notice, or you needn’t come back here. You understand? If you stay there, you don’t come here.’
    Walter sat back in his chair, breathing heavily, and with shaking fingers lit another cigarette.
    â€˜Give over looking at me like that, Hessie,’ he ordered heavily. ‘I won’t be disobeyed in my own house. If Elinor wants to see us, she knows what to do.’
    â€˜Walt,’ Hessie cried, twisting her hands together, while her children beside her sat like stones. ‘Walt, you canna ask Elinor to give up her job. She’s happy, she’s doing well  . . .’
    â€˜There’s plenty jobs she can do in this city, Hessie. She doesn’t have to work for a woman with criminal ideas.’
    Criminal ideas.