Primrose Square Read Online Free PDF Page B

the sun’s out again. Just you come back and he’ll no’ turn you away, you’ll see, eh?’
    â€˜No,’ Elinor said firmly, withdrawing from her mother’s clasp and blowing her nose. ‘He’s gone too far. I’m taking him at his word, I won’t be coming back.’
    â€˜Oh, God,’ Corrie groaned. ‘If only I could stand up to him! If only I didn’t let him get away with it – every time – every damn time. You were good, Elinor, giving it to him straight, but I just sat there. What a great Jessie, eh? What a fat lot of use.’
    â€˜You have to keep the peace,’ she told him. ‘There’s no point two of us finishing with him, we have to think of Ma.’
    â€˜Don’t worry about me.’ Hessie sighed, wiping her eyes. ‘I can manage him better than you folk. I know him, I understand him.’
    â€˜Oh, Ma,’ Elinor sighed. ‘Look, I’m away for the tram. I’ll come in and see you at Logie’s, eh? We’ll arrange a meeting.’
    â€˜I’ll walk you to the tram,’ said Corrie, as Hessie, crying again, turned back to the shop door. ‘And then you can fix up to see me some time – if you don’t come back.’
    â€˜I’ve said I won’t be coming back.’ Elinor, taking his arm, shook her head. ‘Dad’s made up my mind for me. I’m definitely going to Miss Ainslie’s meeting now, so that’s me the outcast. If that’s what he wants, I want it, too.’
    And at that the brother and sister, shoulders drooping, made their way slowly through the warm streets to the tram stop. They didn’t speak again until the tram came in sight, when they hugged and said goodbye. There didn’t seem anything else to say.

Eight
    Sometimes, it seemed, the suffragette groups held outdoor meetings, usually attended by a handful of grown-ups and children, who were not above jeering, but the first meeting Elinor went to was in a large church hall in Newington, an area on Edinburgh’s south side. The warm weather had moved away and the evening was chill and wet, but nothing could dampen Miss Ainslie’s enthusiasm as she and Elinor made their way to the meeting under glistening umbrellas.
    â€˜I’m so glad you agreed to come!’ Miss Ainslie told Elinor who, though trying to look confident in her best walking-out jacket and skirt, was still very unsure about this whole venture. ‘It’s such a shame about the weather, but I know you won’t be disappointed. Miss Denny can’t be with us, unfortunately, as she has to be at the club when I am not, but she’s getting quite keen on our work. After all, why should any woman not want the vote?’
    â€˜There is this property qualification, though.’
    Miss Ainslie was silent for a moment.
    â€˜What I’d like to see,’ she said finally, ‘is universal suffrage. That means everyone over twenty-one being given the right to vote.’
    â€˜And is that what the movement wants, too?’
    â€˜Well, I think at present, we’re just trying to have the same rights as men. We could campaign later for an extension to the vote.’
    â€˜Doesn’t seem fair, if you’ve got to have property to be able to vote.’
    â€˜No, I’ll admit, it’s not fair. Does your own father, for instance, have the vote?’
    â€˜No,’ Elinor replied shortly, and said no more. She didn’t want to discuss her father, as she had not yet told the manageress of his views, or that he had forbidden her to go home while she still worked at the Primrose. In fact, she had told no one, for though there was no hope in her mind that the situation would change, she still wanted only to keep it secret.
    â€˜Here we are!’ Miss Ainslie cried, as they reached the open door of the meeting place. ‘Oh, listen to the chatter – seems we have a good audience in spite of the