On the last day of September, Patience’s baby arrived a few days early. The birth had been a difficult one and the labour exhausting, but as soon as Patience saw her son the previous thirty-six hours were swept away in the rush of love she felt for her tiny little boy. Although he was small at six pounds, the baby was perfect and had a fine pair of lungs on him, which he used whenever he wanted feeding or changing. As William remarked after a week, he’d had no idea one so tiny could so quickly have a whole household dancing to his tune.
When Sophy heard the news she would have loved to have been able to make a trip to Sunderland then and there, but having only recently returned to the theatre she felt she couldn’t justify such an indulgence. She had to content herself with sending Patience armfuls of flowers and a promise that she would try and travel up to see little Peter William in the New Year.
There had been one or two changes in Sophy’s work-life, the main one being Kane taking on the role of her agent. He had recently sold his partnerships in several theatres, along with his travelling company, to take on the new venture as theatrical agent, and it was already proving hugely successful. He had many contacts within the entertainment industry and was extremely well thought of, and within three months his books were full. When asked what had prompted such a move, Kane was non-committal, airily passing off such enquiries by saying he’d felt the need for a change for some time and fresh stimulus. Not even to Ralph would he admit that the prime motive had been a wish to inveigle himself more firmly into Sophy’s life.
Sophy had decided to go back to her roots in the theatre. As an established and firm favourite of the West End, she could command a role in any of the major theatres and they would have been delighted to have her, but she felt she wanted to return to the smaller companies which dealt with the taboo subjects such as divorce, sex, women’s rights and prostitution, by little-known playwrights as well as established dramatists like Shaw, Ibsen and Barrie. Kane warned her it was something of a risk. Fans could be fickle and there was no guarantee they would follow her on the strength of her name, but she was determined that when her present contract finished at the end of the year, she would consider her next part very carefully and do something meaningful.
She had also taken up Cat’s baton with regard to the Vote for Women cause, not just because of her friend or the events of the last months, but because the gross inequality women faced in all walks of life had begun to stir her fighting spirit more and more.
So it was, on a cold mid-December afternoon, she attended the first public meeting of the Actresses’ Franchise League which was held at the Criterion Restaurant, a prestigious establishment in the heart of London. Stars of the West End stage arrived dressed to the nines and surrounded by hordes of fans, male and female. It was a truly glittering occasion, and inside the restaurant, four hundred actresses, actors and dramatists listened to numerous telegrams of support from influential men and women of the decade.
The two speakers were both women, but despite the exclusively female membership of the League, the chair was taken by the efficacious actor-manager, Johnston Forbes-Robertson, who was a firm supporter of women’s rights. As would be expected at a meeting made up of a good number of men and women from the entertainment industry, including Shakespearean actresses like Ellen Terry, the darling of the Lyceum Theatre, and comediennes of the calibre of Mrs Kendal, both in their sixties, the speeches were given with flair and a certain amount of facetiousness. However, no one present, including the cynical newspaper reporters, could doubt the genuine passion and determination of those involved.
Sophy had been asked to give a short word of support and she kept it light and amusing – but with a sting in the tail when she asked why the actress’s life was a paradox: off stage she could marry and divorce, even take lovers if she was so inclined, but on stage she was expected to play a dutiful wife and daughter or a ‘scarlet woman’, conventional roles in a predictable mould.
She sat down to a standing ovation, and even Kane – who had escorted her to the event whilst expressing his doubts about Sophy getting too involved in the organisation – had stood to his feet. Sophy enjoyed every minute of the meeting and afterwards, when Kane took her out for a meal before her evening performance at the theatre, had waxed lyrical about her new crusade.