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So when Vivie had come out of prison and had promised to write to all the wardresses and to meet them some day on non-professional ground; had found Rossiter waiting for her in his motor and Honoria in hers; had thanked them both for their never-to-be-forgotten kindness, and had insisted on walking away in her rather creased and rumpled clothes of the previous year with Bertie Adams; she sought the hospitality of Praddy at Hans Place.
Never any trouble about making beds like that! The entire furniture of this cosy drawing-room was you'll never guess a tree-stump, meant for a chair, I think. And on this tree-stump was an india-rubber cup. I could just see it across the cell. "At night the wardresses were struck with pity, or perhaps it was the Governor. Anyhow, they brought me a mattress and a rug.
Asquith's meeting, and how they lay now day and night in the black subterranean prison cells, huddled on the tree-stumps that were the only seats, clad in nothing but coarse vests because they would not wear the convict clothes, breathing the foul sewage-tainted air for all but that hour when they were carried up to the cell where the doctor and the wardresses waited to bind and gag them and ram the long feeding-tube down into their bodies.
The food was better, the wardresses were less harsh, the chaplains a little more endurable, though still the worst feature in the prison personnel, with their unreasoning Bibliolatry, their contemptuous patronage, their lack of Christian pity Christ had never spoken to them, Vivie often thought their snobbishness.
The wardresses in the corridors kept close watch, and woe to the girl who made the slightest move. "They ordered us not to move a hand or a foot but to remain perfectly still," wrote one girl. "Even the slightest movement brought down every kind of wrath. We did not dare to move even a toe-nail."
John Day was the social pivot of Rocky Springs, and, to disobey her summons, Helen knew would be to risk a displeasure which would find reflection in every woman in the place. That was a catastrophe she had no desire to face. It was enough for her to remember that she had imprisoned herself in such a place. She had no desire to earn the ill-will of the wardresses. She laughed to herself.
They ran off as soon as they'd sentenced me. I said I wouldn't go to their punishment cells. I told everybody again how lame I was. So five wardresses carried me there, but they dropped me twice on the way. It was a very interesting cell, the punishment cell was. If it had been in the Tower, everybody would go to look at it because of its quaintness. There were two pools of water near to the bed.
As I write I see them sitting before me. After one of my addresses I was speaking to one of the wardresses about their repeated convictions, when the wardress said "Oh, sir, we are glad to see them come back again, for we know that they are far better off with us than they are at liberty. They go out clean and tidy with very much better health than they came in.
Holloway became a home from home, in which beaming wardresses welcomed old offenders, and to which husbands conducted erring wives in taxicabs, much as Ellwood and his brethren marched of themselves from Newgate to Bridewell, explaining to the astonished citizens of London that their word was their keeper. A suffragette's word stood higher than consols, and the war-game was played cards on table.
Their food was beans and millet It was given to the accompaniment of jeers and insults. "You Koreans eat like dogs and cats," the wardresses told them. The routine of life in the prison was very trying. They got up at seven. Most of the day they had to assume a haunched, kneeling position, and remain absolutely still, hour after hour.
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