Gideon asked one of the women to fetch Mrs. Stevens. “Sit down,” he said to Mrs. Young, pulling over one of the desk chairs for her. “Wouldn’t Mr. Tumulty see you?”
“Oh, he saw me.” She shook her head as if trying to dispel some unpleasant memory.
Mrs. Stevens came hurrying into the room. “Mrs. Young, were you able to—” She stopped when she got a good look at Mrs. Young’s face. “What happened?”
“I was just telling Mr. Bates, Mr. Tumulty met with me. I don’t know how he could have refused. I’ve known him almost my entire life, after all, but it was the strangest thing. He knew all about the writ that Mr. O’Brien had obtained. He even knew the judge’s name. How could he have known that?”
“Someone at the courthouse probably told Warden Whittaker,” Gideon said. “I’m sure Whittaker is keeping his superiors informed. What did he say about it?”
“He told me it was silly for us to go to all that trouble. He said if we would just wait a week, the prisoners would be released.”
Mrs. Stevens huffed derisively. “If they’re going to release them, why do they have to wait a week?”
“That’s what I asked him, but he just started telling me how foolish the women were to start a hunger strike.”
Gideon felt a chill of apprehension. “A hunger strike? Did he mean Miss Paul’s hunger strike at the district jail?”
“No, he was talking about the women in Virginia.”
“Of course,” said Mrs. Stevens. “Lucy Burns is probably leading it. After the way the women were treated that first night, what else could she do?”
She could have thought about the safety of the other women, Gideon thought, imagining his mother wasting away in a prison cell. But that wasn’t fair. His mother was just as likely to be the leader. “What in God’s name is O’Brien doing? He should have gotten the women released by now.”
The telephone rang, startling them all. Gideon ran a hand over his face as one of the women answered it. “Mrs. Stevens, it’s Mr. O’Brien.”
She hurried over and picked up the candlestick phone. “Mr. O’Brien? What’s the situation?”
Gideon and Mrs. Young had followed and stood hovering, straining to make out O’Brien’s words.
“Good heavens, are you sure?” she asked after a few moments.
“What is it?” Gideon asked, somehow resisting the urge to snatch the telephone from her hands.
“Yes, he’s right here. Just a moment.” She handed the telephone to him. “He wants to speak with you. He said he hasn’t been able to find a deputy to serve the warrant.”
“What?” Gideon lifted the earpiece. “You can’t find a deputy?”
“No, they’ve all disappeared,” the tinny voice said.
“What do you mean, disappeared?”
“I mean I’ve got a list of them, and none of them are at home or any other place where they can be found.”
“That’s impossible!”
“Yes, it is, which means that someone has instructed them to hide from me.”
This was worse than they’d feared. “Mrs. Young just returned from seeing Wilson’s secretary, Tumulty, and he told her if we just wait a week, the women will be released.”
“A week? What will happen in a week?”
“I have no idea, but we can’t wait a week. They’ve started a hunger strike.”
“How do you know that?”
“Mr. Tumulty told Mrs. Young.”
“How did he know that?”
“Probably the same way he knew you’d gotten the writ.”
O’Brien swore eloquently. “It makes sense now. I’ve been followed all day. At first I thought I was imagining it, but now . . . They’ve obviously got some detectives watching me.”
“I’m coming back down there. Maybe between the two of us, we can find a deputy to serve the warrant.”
“Take the early train tomorrow. I’ll meet you at the station.”
? ? ?
The first day had been the hardest. elizabeth’s stomach growled and cramped in protest, but she looked at the pinched faces of the other women and thought better of complaining. Usually, the hunger pangs lasted three days, they’d told her, but she’d eaten so little since arriving at the workhouse last Wednesday that they’d stopped after only two. Strangely, she felt suddenly energetic, as if she’d like to go for a walk in the woods. Except for those cursed bloodhounds, of course.
The women were gathered in the gymnasium for their recreation hour before bedtime. Those who had experience with hunger strikes moved among them, sharing information.
“You won’t feel hungry now for a while,” one of them told her.
“How long?” Elizabeth asked.
“A few days, maybe even a few weeks. When you start to feel hungry again, that’s when you have to worry.”
“Why?” Anna asked.
“Because your body is starving then and starting to die.”
“But they’ll let us go before that happens,” someone said. “That’s why we’re doing this, after all.”
Anna slipped her hand into Elizabeth’s. “I couldn’t do this if you weren’t doing it, too. I’d be too frightened.”
“They won’t let us die,” Mrs. Bates said. “Now that they know we’re serious, they’ll force-feed us. We need to be prepared for that.”
Elizabeth remembered all too well the description of force-feeding she’d heard in the police van that day last week when they’d first been arrested.
The guards signaled to them that their hour of “recreation” was over and it was time for bed. The women rose and moved toward the door. When she stood up, Elizabeth had to stop for a minute and wait for her head to clear. The room swam before her, so she closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. A collective gasp startled her, and she opened her eyes to see Anna slumped on the floor. A dozen other women had already rushed to help her, but her face was chalk white and her eyes didn’t even flutter when they tried to haul her to her feet.
“Leave her,” a guard said. “We’ll take her to the infirmary.”
The other women backed away uncertainly, but Elizabeth squeezed in and dropped to her knees beside the unconscious girl. “Anna, wake up!” She grabbed her wrists and tried chafing them.
Mrs. Bates laid a hand on Elizabeth’s shoulder. “It’s for the best. They’ll feed her there.”
“Force-feed her,” Elizabeth said, outraged at Mrs. Bates’s complacency. “And she’ll be terrified if she wakes up all alone.”
Mrs. Bates squeezed her shoulder. “She won’t be alone for long. Look around.”
Elizabeth looked up at the circle of faces and for the first time really saw the changes: the hollow cheeks, the shadowed eyes, the pasty complexions. Even the spark of fanaticism Elizabeth had noticed before was gone from their eyes, replaced by a dull determination.
“Get moving!” the guard shouted, prodding the women into motion. “Don’t worry about your little friend there. We’ll take care of her.” She grinned viciously.