The Post Office Girls by Poppy Cooper

Author:Poppy Cooper [Cooper, Poppy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hodder and Stoughton
Published: 2020-12-07T17:00:00+00:00

14

‘I forgot to tell you I have a meeting tonight,’ said Milly casually as she and Beth were getting on the Tube at Portland Road Station the next evening.

‘Oh.’ Beth’s heart sank. She had been looking forward to staying with Milly that evening. She’d bought an overnight bag into work and the two of them had mentioned it several times during the day and had walked down to the station together. Why this sudden revelation? ‘Well, never mind. I can just jump off the train at King’s Cross and no harm done.’

Milly laughed. ‘I don’t mean that, you dolt,’ she said. ‘I’ve said you can billet with me and you still can. I want you to come.’

Beth smiled, relieved and pleased the plans hadn’t changed and amused at Milly using the word billet. She liked all the terminology that was bandied round the Depot. She liked reporting for duty and discussing who might be going on leave. They weren’t in the army, but it made her feel useful. Important. Part of something bigger than herself.

Milly was still talking. ‘I was just letting you know,’ she said, voice rising as the train swooshed into the station. ‘You can come to the meeting with me, if you like, or you can stay at my house, or you can just hang around the Roman.’

‘Hang around the Roman’? Is that really what Milly had said? It sounded very strange. Like loitering near a gladiator or something. Whatever could Milly mean? But she just smiled and said ‘thank you’ as they boarded the train. She would find out soon enough and there was no point in showing her ignorance.

‘What’s the meeting about?’ Beth asked instead as the train pulled out of the station.

‘It’s an ELFS meeting,’ said Milly absentmindedly scratching inside her collar and making Beth do the same. It was catching. Like yawning.

‘Elfs?’ echoed Beth

Elves?

Little men with pointed ears?

Milly really seemed to talk double-Dutch sometimes.

‘East London Federation of the Suffragettes,’ elaborated Milly, moving on to scratching behind her ears. ‘I’ve got to go because I’m helping out with the teas, but you don’t.’

Beth hesitated.

Ma had always been very clear on how she felt about the votes for women brigade. Queen Victoria had been outraged by the very notion of suffrage, and so was she. And, to be honest, Beth had never really questioned it. Things had been the same throughout history and worked well enough. She’d seen first-hand that women could – and did – exert influence within the home (no one, not even Pa, dared cross Ma when she got a bee in her bonnet) but everyone knew their place and there was no need to rock the boat.

But did she feel like that anymore?

The war was opening up all sorts of hitherto unheard-of opportunities for women and her gender seemed to be rising to the challenge quite admirably. So maybe it wasn’t that outrageous for women to demand a say in voting for the things that affected them …

So, she’d go to the meeting.

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