Chapter 21 Summary: January 1913

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

The chapter opens in January 1913 with Esme riding toward the Bodleian and noticing a crowd gathering at the Martyrs' Memorial. Notices and leaflets announce a peaceful suffrage procession from St. Clement's to the memorial, and the atmosphere crackles with anticipation. Esme works at the Bodleian but returns to find the procession underway, with women outnumbering men three to one.

The peaceful gathering quickly turns violent. Esme is knocked to the ground, and a man with a broken nose spits on her. Tilda appears and rescues her, and Gareth is punched defending them. Tilda invites them both to Old Tom pub on Friday evening.

Back at Sunnyside, Rosfrith and Mrs. Murray express concern about the violence. Lizzie tends to Gareth's lip, and Gareth reveals he attended the procession for the same reason as Esme. When Lizzie questions the suffragettes' tactics, Gareth responds that people have always taken different roads to the same destination.

That evening, Esme returns to the Scriptorium and creates a slip for SISTERHOOD, using Tilda's quotation. She discovers the published definition includes the phrase