No, she couldn’t do it. She sat quietly, letting the decision settle on her. One part of her wanted to get married and have children of her own, but the other part – the stronger part – felt sick at being caught in a trap. And that was what marriage was, if it went wrong. For a moment she wished she was like several of her actress friends who defied convention and took lovers when they felt like it, but she knew she wasn’t like that either. In that respect she was not her mother’s daughter.
So . . . She lifted her eyes to the sun which was more gentle now it was late afternoon. She would follow that other path which seemed to have become clearer over the last months. In the course of her recent travels she had met one or two women who were managing their own companies and making a success of it. Although it had been exhausting, she had enjoyed helping to produce and direct plays since Christmas, and she knew she was good at it too. She had even helped write some material a few times. Women were beginning to make their mark in the theatre and she wanted to be part of that. She was successful and wealthy. Her chin lifted. If she was going to buy and run her own theatre somewhere, now was the time to do it. And women like Harriet weren’t isolated cases. Actresses had been suffering from great wrongs and would continue to do so until the balance of power become more equal. And how would that happen if women like her, who had the fame and fortune, didn’t stand up and make it possible for their less fortunate sisters?
That night two years ago, she could have been used and cast aside as though a night of rape and violence didn’t matter because she was a woman, and an actress at that. And Cat, dear Cat. It was all so unfair, so wrong.
She had learned a great deal by producing and directing and performing to suffrage audiences in the last six months, but off stage the theatres were controlled almost exclusively by men. She stood up, deciding to walk a while rather than take a cab. She wanted to think.
Why not a theatre where the business management and overall control would be in the hands of herself and other women? Women who could and would enjoy stepping up to the roles of stage-managers, producers and production assistants, directors, scenic artists and the rest of the jobs that had to be done, and done well, for a theatre to be a financial success. Actors and authors could be drawn from both sexes, of course, but in the main it would be women who were the driving force.
Could she do it? Did she have the experience needed to undertake such a venture, or would she find herself overwhelmed by the business side? She shrugged the doubt off. She knew Kane had employed accountants and so on when he had owned his theatres; it wasn’t necessary to do everything yourself. And of course she could do it! If she set her mind to it, she could run a theatre and more. She had to believe in herself. That had been one of the things Patience had said to her over and over again when she was recovering from her collapse after Toby had died.
‘Believe in yourself, Sophy. You must believe in yourself. None of this, Toby and what’s happened, was your fault. It was his. You don’t know your own worth, you never have. You’re an amazing woman.’
She didn’t feel like an amazing woman. Someone like Emmeline Pankhurst or Florence Nightingale was an amazing woman. They had no doubts, no uncertainty about what they were doing, whereas she was racked with them. They had probably never woken in the middle of the night feeling they weren’t worth loving.
The sound of her name being called lifted her out of the maelstrom of her thoughts. There, on the other side of the road, waving with all his might, was Kane. It had been over six months since she had seen him and she didn’t think beyond that in the surprise of the moment. Her lips forming his name, she stepped out towards him, oblivious of the carriage and pair bearing down on her. She saw him shout, turned to see the horses almost upon her, and then she was flying backwards out of the path of the hooves to land at the side of the kerb. The lunge Kane had made to push her out of harm’s way was not enough to carry him clear. As she raised her head she saw him bowled underneath the horses and then the carriage went over him, to the accompaniment of screams and shrieks from onlookers. As the carriage came to a halt a little way down the road, Sophy struggled on to her hands and knees. She was looking straight at the crumpled body lying ominously still, a rivulet of red running into the dust of the road. It had all happened in a moment of time.
Chapter 25
‘I blame myself.’ Sadie repeated the words she had said umpteen times. ‘I should never have told him where to find you. He could have sat and waited for you to come back and this would never have happened.’