During the next weeks Sophy learned a very important lesson which she never forgot. Win your employees’ hearts and they will work for you in a way they never would for mere money. Kane was constantly amazed at the progress being made when he called in, but more so by the happy atmosphere. Some of the women, who had never had anything to be joyful about for years, sang as they worked, and the sense of a little community was strong.
As the women were working full days, Sophy had decided that during this initial phase, each lunchtime Ralph and Harriet would bring food to the theatre. She had noticed in the first day or two that some of the women had had nothing to eat all day and suspected – rightly – that any food available at home went to the man of the house and the children first. So Sadie prepared ham and egg pies, meat rolls and pickled eggs, along with loaves of bread and scones, rice or fruit cake and the odd batch of apple pies. The first morning Sophy was amply rewarded for her generosity by the looks on the women’s faces as Ralph and Harriet laid out the lunch, but she found she had to go into one of the empty dressing rooms and shed a few tears at the sight of women who were clearly half-starved trying not to fall on the food but eat politely.
And so the work progressed, time ticked on and April turned into May and May into June. With the help of the Actresses’ Franchise League Sophy had found her stage-manager, an able producer, a director, and a general assistant to all three. The business side of the theatre, she was taking on herself. The League also put her in touch with two stagehands and a scenic artist.
In the middle of June, just before the Coronation of George V which took place amid sumptuous church and state pageantry, another procession took place which Sophy would have loved to attend, had she had the time. Sixty thousand or so supporters of the enfranchisement of women marched through the streets of London in a five-mile-long line, many dressed as famous women such as Boadicea, Joan of Arc and Queen Victoria. One of the most impressive groups was the seven hundred suffragettes who had been imprisoned for the cause, each proudly displaying a silver arrow as a mark of their suffering and carrying a banner which read From prison to citizenship.
The marchers were drawn from all walks of life and all classes: factory girls and aristocrats, actresses and university graduates, but when Sophy – full of enthusiasm – read the account from the newspaper to her workers the following lunchtime, their reaction was mixed.
‘All that vote stuff won’t make no difference to the likes of us,’ Flo, one of the strongest and best workers, muttered. ‘My Harold will still knock the living daylights out of me if he feels like it.’
‘An’ I wouldn’t know how to vote anyway,’ Peggy, another woman, chimed up. ‘It’s all right for the likes of you, Mrs Gregory. You’re educated and clever, you know about these things. But a vote’d be wasted on me.’
Before Sophy could say anything, Amy, a pretty woman who was married to a brute of a husband and who already had five children at the age of twenty-two, spoke up. Normally quiet and retiring, her voice trembled a little but gathered pace as she said, ‘No, you’re wrong, Peg, you mustn’t say that. A vote wouldn’t be wasted on you. We’re as good as men any day, but until the law’s changed we’ll never have any say. It’s not right how women are treated.’
‘Aye, I know it’s not right, lass, but I’m saying me havin’ the vote’ll make no difference one way or the other.’
‘But it will, don’t you see? And you don’t have to be educated or clever to know the difference between right and wrong, and us not being allowed to vote like a man is wrong. And there’s women like Mrs Gregory, clever women, who can speak proper and argue with them up in London. I’d vote for someone like her, wouldn’t you?’
‘Well aye, aye, but women’ll never be in Parliament, lass.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that, Peggy.’ Sophy entered the discussion. ‘A woman was elected to Parliament in Norway not so long ago. Did you know that?’
Peggy looked at her in amazement, but it was Flo who said, ‘Aye, well that’s Norway, Mrs Gregory. It’s not like here, is it.’
‘It’s just like here, Flo. Women wanted fairness, that’s all. Not to take over so men didn’t have a say, but merely to be able to have their say. And so women, ordinary women like you and Peggy and me, because I’m no different to you except I’ve been lucky, that’s all, they rose up and stood for what they believed in. Like the suffragettes here who are prepared to go to prison, to be force-fed even, for what they know is right.’
‘My Harold says the lot of ’em are frustrated spinsters who need a good—’ Flo stopped abruptly, remembering who she was speaking to.
Sophy had to smile. ‘And you, Flo? What do you think?’ she asked quietly. ‘You have a mind of your own, you know. Your Harold can’t stop you thinking. You work all day as well as running your home and bringing up your children, you make a penny stretch to two and keep the wolf from the door. To my mind that’s heroic, let alone clever.’
Now it was Flo who stared at her in amazement until Peggy chipped in, ‘That means brave, lass.’