Mrs Knox slowly sits
down. Margaret follows her example. They look at one another again.
Mr Knox returns._
KNOX. [shortly and sternly] Amelia: this is your job. [To
Margaret] I leave you to your mother. I shall have my own say in
the matter when I hear what you have to say to her. [He goes out,
solemn and offended].
MARGARET. [with a bitter little laugh] Just what the Suffraget
said to me in Holloway. He throws the job on you.
MRS KNOX. [reproachfully] Margaret!
MARGARET. You know it's true.
MRS KNOX. Margaret: if youre going to be hardened about it, theres
no use my saying anything.
MARGARET. I'm not hardened, mother. But I cant talk nonsense about
it. You see, it's all real to me. Ive suffered it. Ive been shoved
and bullied. Ive had my arms twisted. Ive been made scream with pain
in other ways. Ive been flung into a filthy cell with a lot of other
poor wretches as if I were a sack of coals being emptied into a
cellar. And the only difference between me and the others was that I
hit back. Yes I did. And I did worse. I wasnt ladylike. I cursed.
I called names. I heard words that I didnt even know that I knew,
coming out of my mouth just as if somebody else had spoken them. The
policeman repeated them in court. The magistrate said he could hardly
believe it. The policeman held out his hand with his two teeth in it
that I knocked out. I said it was all right; that I had heard myself
using those words quite distinctly; and that I had taken the good
conduct prize for three years running at school.
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