The Call – Edith Ayrton Zangwill (1924)

I was away in The Lakes last week – and before going away I changed my mind several times about what reading material I was going to take with me. Something for the 1965 club, my kindle for emergencies and something else. In the end I opted for The Call, a pleasingly fat Persephone book which I anticipated having time to get into properly. This is quite a large book – and a lot happens in it, much more than I can talk about here – it is also hugely readable.

First published in 1924 The Call is a novel of women’s suffrage – among other things. It is also about the struggle for a young woman to be taken seriously within the scientific field. The author’s stepmother was the physicist Hertha Ayrton, and many of the struggles described in this novel were endured by Ayrton.

In about 1909 Ursula Winfield is a young woman living in a conventional upper class home in Lowndes Square with her mother and step-father. Ursula is an only child – and on the face of it very different to her mother Mrs Hibbert, who is a fluffy, little woman who greatly enjoys society and is quite used to having young men dance attendance on her. Colonel Hibbert is typical of the type of military man who believes that women are the weaker sex and deserving of respect and protection. Ursula is like neither of them – she spends most of her time thoroughly engaged in scientific research in her laboratory in the attic. She has little interest in what she wears or looks like – the servants regard her with bewilderment, and local society rarely get a glimpse of her.

Despite the very obvious differences between Ursula and her mother – they have a wonderful relationship which is portrayed beautifully by Zangwill. There’s real sympathy and deep affection between these two women. Mrs Hibbert provides us with some of the novel’s lighter moments – though Zangwill does not allow Mrs Hibbert to be just a small, pretty society lady – she has hidden depths as we discover later on.

At this stage of the novel Ursula has absolutely no interest in the WSPU and is in fact quite horrified by many of the reports of suffragettes in the newspapers. She simply has no time to consider what they are doing very deeply – and is really quite puzzled as to why there is so much fuss about a vote.

It is an excursion to Henley that begins to change many things for Ursula. Here, she encounters some suffragettes, talks to one of them on the train home, a young woman who tells her quite confidently that the day will come when Ursula will seek them out. It is at Henley that Ursula first meets Tony Balestier. Ursula has had no thought of romance at this point in her life – she is far too taken up with science – attending meetings at the Chemical society with her friend Professor Smee. Professor Smee has been a great help to Ursula – and she enjoys his company – however the unhappily married Professor has developed strong unrequited feelings for Ursula, feelings which his sad embittered wife quickly becomes aware of. However, it is Tony who Ursula falls for – and he for her. When Tony has to go abroad for a year or so Ursula is still deeply involved in her scientific research.

“Was it only this morning? Then the world had been a clean and pleasant place of healthy men and women. Now it had become rotten, crawling with obscene abomination. These suffragettes talked as if the vote would help! If people were so vile and bestial, nothing could help, nothing! It was all horrible. She did not want to live. Science was dead, futile. Everything was tainted- even Tony.”

Soon, though and almost against her will – Ursula is drawn to the suffragette cause. She is a fine speaker and proves herself an invaluable part of the struggle. She becomes a key figure in the suffragette movement – working alongside the young woman she once met on that train from Henley. Her involvement spans several tumultuous years and the author shows us how the movement organised itself, and grew quickly surprising its detractors.

Zangwill shows us the dreadful inequalities in the justice system at the time. Ursula throws herself wholeheartedly into the cause – and in doing so she risks everything. Her mother and step-father disapprove naturally and like many women she risks her relationships with the people she cares for most. Her activities take up all her time and so her scientific studies are temporarily shelved. She writes to Tony about what she is doing, with no very clear idea of how he will take it, she does know he is quite a conventional young man.

Ursula is imprisoned, endures force feeding – which is quite honestly and uncompromisingly described – and suffers from the after effects of this dreadful treatment.

“The following night, hunger ceased to worry her, but the thirst was horrible. Her lips were like wood, and her tongue seemed to have grown too large for her mouth. She had a backache, too, as well as a headache, which had got steadily worse. And she was so cold; most of the time she was shivering. When the doctor came in the morning, he looked at her sharply. ‘I don’t believe she is drinking the milk.’ He told the wardress.”

Then the First World War comes along, and everything seems to change almost immediately. Everyone accepts the vote will come – soon. Now, Ursula has a very real purpose for her postponed scientific research – she could actually help save men on the front line.

This wonderfully feminist novel is thoroughly involving and an enormously important testament of the struggle for women’s suffrage and for a woman to be taken seriously in the world of science.