At ten o’clock the orchestra stopped playing and Clarissa stood on the balcony in front of them and made a rousing speech with Godfrey at her side. Ruby had met Clarissa’s husband a few times on her Sunday visits to Foreburn, although he was away more than he was at home, and had found him to be a genuinely nice man with a great sense of humour who was clearly deeply in love with his much younger wife. After giving due homage to Emmeline Pankhurst and other stalwarts of the movement, some of whom had suffered shocking maltreatment in Parliament Square on Black Friday eighteen years before and never recovered, Clarissa went on to say that it was impossible to list all the women who had died or been injured for life in the course of the suffrage agitation in England.

‘But the horrors of prison, of beatings, of hunger strikes and force-feeding did not deter them from fighting for the rights of citizenship,’ Clarissa said passionately.

There was a round of ‘hear, hear’s and some clapping before she continued, ‘On the subject of laws made by men, without the assistance of women but supposedly for their protection and that of children, I’m sure many of us here today appreciate the need for continuing drastic change. Horrors like the “Children’s Charter” of 1906, an Act filled with mistakes and cruelty that put the responsibility for neglect of children on the backs of their mothers who, incidentally, under the laws of England at that time had no rights as parents, meant that even if a mother living in a miserable hovel starved herself in order to feed her children, she was still in danger of being incarcerated in prison for violating the terms of the Charter, with the result that her children would be sent to the workhouse. This Act caused untold misery. Throughout history, governments have devised ways of punishing those they see as “rebellious” women, but now we see real hope of a new age being ushered in. We have two women MPs in Parliament and I believe more will join Nancy Astor and Margaret Wintringham, perhaps even among this present company. As Lady Astor herself is fond of saying, women are braver and more unorthodox than men – we’ve had to be to get where we are now – and we are not afraid to step out of line and flout harsh man-made rules where necessary. So, may I finish by inviting you all to raise your glasses to those women of the past, those of the present and those of the future who will take the cause ever forward, after which do feel free to make your way into the dining room across the hall where a buffet dinner will be served.’

‘Well said, Clarissa,’ Edward murmured as they drank the toast. ‘And to think she was once a disobedient little scrap with permanently scabbed knees and torn clothes who my parents despaired of.’