Petra hurried downstairs, casting a quick glance at the closed door to the breakfast room as she sped past, and attained the pavement with a sigh of relief. She hailed a passing hackney and only seemed to breathe normally when the door was closed and the vehicle had turned onto Mount Street.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Looks like something’s going on at the Hall, ma’am,” the hackney called over his shoulder. “Quite a crowd gathering.”

“Just let me out here,” Petra instructed, reaching into her purse for change. “This’ll do fine. Thank you.” She handed him a few coins and jumped down to the street, hurrying in the direction of the commotion.

Women, for the most part wearing the colors of the Women’s Social and Political Union, seethed around the entrance to Caxton Hall, waving posters as organizers stood on boxes trying to form orderly groups out of the mass.

“Over here, Petra.” Diana hailed Petra from a group forming on the other side of the street. “We’re in the first group with Emmeline, so we’ll be among those knocking at the entrance to St. Stephen’s Hall.” Her eyes shone with excitement and passion. “Can you see Fenella anywhere?”

“Not yet.” Petra took the poster a woman thrust into her hands as she stood on tiptoe to see better over the crowd. “Oh, there she is. Fenella . . . Fenella,” she called, cupping her hands around her mouth as a megaphone.

Fenella waved a hand in acknowledgment and pushed her way through the crowd to where her friends stood.

“Have a poster.” Diana thrust one into her hands. “We’re going to start in a few minutes and hope everyone will somehow fall in after us in some orderly form.”

“There’s so many of us,” Petra said in awe. “No one can ignore a protest this big.”

“We’ll just make sure they don’t.” Christabel Pankhurst appeared beside her mother, Emmeline, a militant gleam in her eye. “I intend to knock a few helmets off if any policeman tries to stop me.”

“That’ll get you convicted of assaulting an officer of the law,” Fenella pointed out. “A bit extreme, don’t you think?”

“If we’re going to fight this fight we have to use every tool at our disposal,” Christabel declared. “Either you believe in it or you don’t. There’s no point in half measures.”

“I think we should try to be as peaceful as possible, my dear,” Emmeline said, trying as always to persuade her daughter to keep her more extreme inclinations in check. “Violence doesn’t really achieve much.”