Storm and Silence (Storm and Silence 1)

Only, it was nearly as bad. They had all looked so happy a moment ago. Now they looked at me with anxious faces. My friends - the best friends in the world. The people I was going to have to disappoint.

‘Well… not to beat around the bush… to come straight to the point… I can’t come tomorrow.’

‘I don't understand,’ Eve said, a puzzled frown on her face.

‘To the demonstration. I can’t come to the demonstration in Hyde Park tomorrow.’

‘What?’

Patsy had a sergeant major’s voice, and when she used it to full effect the result was deafening. Wincing, I took an involuntary step back.

‘Look, it wasn’t my choice. I didn’t mean to…’

‘You can’t mean that, Lilly! You can’t possibly mean that!’

She advanced on me, hands on hips, a thunderous expression on her normally so cheerful face. With relief I noted that her parasol was leaning against the bench a few yards away.

‘After all the preparation we did, all the planning we put into this? Now you want to draw in your tail and run?’

‘It’s not like that, Patsy, really. I never…’

‘And it was you who came up with the idea in the first place! I thought you were a rebel! I thought you despised oppression just as much as we do!’

‘Well,’ Flora dared to venture, ‘I don't exactly despise op-’

Patsy shot her a steely look. ‘Shut up! You’ll despise oppression if I say you despise oppression, understand?’

‘Yes, Patsy. Of course, Patsy.’

‘Look,’ I tried to reason with her. ‘It’s not like the demonstration won’t happen. I mean, you will all be there, right? Goal achieved.’

‘But you won’t.’ Eve’s voice was much more quiet than usual. She was looking at me, her eyes large, and if I wasn’t mistaken I could see a bit of moisture shimmering in them. ‘It'll feel like a defeat if you aren’t there!’

The words touched me - they more than touched me. They cut me to my very core, sharply and mercilessly.

‘I’m sorry,’ was the only thing I could think to say. ‘I’m really sorry.’

Seeing that I meant it, the moisture in Eve’s eyes spilled over. ‘You can’t do this!’

Patsy stomped over to the bench. At first I thought she was going for her parasol and retreated a few steps, but she picked up a piece of cardboard which had been leaning next to the parasol.

‘Here!’ She held out the cardboard to me. ‘That’s the sign we made for you!’

My throat felt suddenly dry. The sign read in letters even bolder than hers:

VOTES FOR WOMEN, FELLOWS… OR ELSE!

I could hardly hold back my tears. How could I desert them at a time like this? But I couldn’t do anything else.

‘I’m terribly sorry,’ I repeated, feeling tears sting my eyes. One of them rolled down my cheeks and fell on the sign and smeared the paint. ‘But I can’t. I simply can’t be there.’

‘Why? Is something the matter with Ella?’

‘No, not with Ella.’

‘Then what is it?’ Patsy demanded. ‘What is so terribly important that you would abandon us?’

‘I… I can’t tell you.’