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diff --git a/42136-h/42136-h.htm b/42136-h/42136-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..096b81d --- /dev/null +++ b/42136-h/42136-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4985 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Rebel Women, by Evelyn Sharp. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +h2 + { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + page-break-before: always; + } + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +hr.tb {width: 45%;} +hr.chap {width: 65%;} + +p.titletwo + { text-align: center; + font-size: x-large; + font-weight: bold; + } + +ul { list-style-type: none; } + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +th + { + font-weight: normal; + text-align: right; + } + +.tdl {text-align: left;} +.tdr {text-align: right;} +.tdc {text-align: center;} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; +} /* page numbers */ + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.right {text-align: right;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +ins {text-decoration:none; border-bottom: thin dotted gray;} .tnote {border: dashed +1px; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; +padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em;} + +/* Poetry */ +.poem { + margin-left:5%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Rebel women, by Evelyn Sharp + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Rebel women + +Author: Evelyn Sharp + +Release Date: February 19, 2013 [EBook #42136] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REBEL WOMEN *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Carol Spence, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 384px;"> +<img id="coverpage" src="images/cover2.jpg" width="384" height="600" alt="Book cover" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + + + + +<div class="center"><h1>Rebel Women</h1> +<h2>BY<br /> +EVELYN SHARP<br /></h2> +<br /> +<br /> +NEW YORK<br /> +JOHN LANE COMPANY<br /> +MCMX<br /><br /></div> + + + + +<div class="center">Copyright, 1910<br /> +<span class="smcap">By John Lane Company</span><br /><br /></div> + + +<div class="center">Some of these sketches have appeared in<br /> +the <cite>Manchester Guardian</cite>, the <cite>Daily<br /> +Chronicle</cite>, and <cite>Votes for Women</cite>.<br /><br /></div> + + + + +<div class="center"><h2><a name="Contents" id="Contents">Contents</a></h2> + + + +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of Contents"> +<tr><th> </th><th> </th><th>Page</th></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">I. </td><td class="tdl">The Women at the Gate</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_7">7</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">II. </td><td class="tdl">To Prison while the Sun Shines</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_20">20</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">III. </td><td class="tdl">Shaking Hands with the Middle Ages</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">IV. </td><td class="tdl">Filling the War Chest</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_41">41</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">V. </td><td class="tdl">The Conversion of Penelope's Mother</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_51">51</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">VI. </td><td class="tdl">At a Street Corner</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_59">59</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">VII. </td><td class="tdl">The Crank of all the Ages</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_68">68</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">VIII. </td><td class="tdl">Patrolling the Gutter</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">IX. </td><td class="tdl">The Black Spot of the Constituency</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_83">83</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">X. </td><td class="tdl">"Votes for Women—Forward!"</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_92">92</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">XI. </td><td class="tdl">The Person who cannot Escape</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">XII. </td><td class="tdl">The Daughter who Stays at Home</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_110">110</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">XIII. </td><td class="tdl">The Game that wasn't Cricket</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_118"><ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads '119'">118</ins></a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">XIV. </td><td class="tdl">Dissension in the Home</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_123">123</a></td></tr> +</table></div> +<hr class="chap" /> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></p> + + + +<h2><a name="Rebel_Women" id="Rebel_Women">Rebel Women</a><br /><br /></h2> + + + + +<h2><a name="I" id="I">I</a><br /> +The Women at the Gate</h2> + + +<p>"Funny, isn't it?" said the young man on the +top of the omnibus.</p> + +<p>"No," said the young woman from whom he +appeared to expect an answer, "I don't think it is +funny."</p> + +<p>"Take care," said the young man's friend, nudging +him, "perhaps she's one of them!"</p> + +<p>Everybody within hearing laughed, except the +woman, who did not seem to be aware that they +were talking about her. She was on her feet, +steadying herself by grasping the back of the seat +in front of her, and her eyes, non-committal in their +lack of expression, were bent on the roaring, restless +crowd that surged backwards and forwards in +the Square below, where progress was gradually becoming +an impossibility <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'impossibility to'">due</ins> to the stream of traffic +struggling towards Whitehall. The thing she +wanted to find was not down there, among the slipping<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> +horses, the swaying men and women, the moving +lines of policemen; nor did it lurk in those denser +blocks of humanity that marked a spot, here and +there, where some resolute, battered woman was +setting her face towards the gate of St. Stephen's; +nor was the thing she sought to be found behind +that locked gate of liberty where those in possession, +stronger far in the convention of centuries than +locks or bars could make them, stood in their well-bred +security, immeasurably shocked at the scene +before them and most regrettably shaken, as some +of them were heard to murmur, in a lifelong devotion +to the women's cause.</p> + +<p>The searching gaze of the woman on the omnibus +wandered for an instant from all this, away to +Westminster Bridge and the blue distance of Lambeth, +where darting lamps, like will-o'-the-wisps +come to town, added a touch of magic relief to the +dinginess of night. Then she came back again to +the sharp realism of the foreground and found no +will-o'-the-wisps there, only the lights of London +shining on a picture she should remember to the +end of her life. It did not matter, for the thing +beyond it all that she wanted to be sure of, shone +through rain and mud alike.</p> + +<p>"Lookin' for a friend of yours, p'raps?" said a +not unfriendly woman with a baby, who was also +standing up to obtain a more comprehensive view +of what was going on below.</p> + +<p>"No," was the answer again, "I am looking at +something that isn't exactly there; at least——"</p> + +<p>"If I was you, miss," interrupted the facetious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> +youth, with a wink at his companion, "I should +chuck looking for what ain't there, and——"</p> + +<p>She turned and smiled at him unexpectedly. +"Perhaps you are right," she said. "And yet, +if I didn't hope to find what isn't there, I couldn't +go through with what I have to do to-night."</p> + +<p>The amazed stare of the young man covered her, +as she went swiftly down the steps of the omnibus +and disappeared in the crowd.</p> + +<p>"Balmy, the whole lot of 'em!" commented the +conductor briefly.</p> + +<p>The woman with the passionless eyes was threading +her way through the straggling clusters of +people that fringed the great crowd where it thinned +out towards Broad Sanctuary. A girl wearing the +militant tricolour in her hat, brushed against her, +whispered, "Ten been taken, they say; they're +knocking them about terribly to-night!" and +passed noiselessly away. The first woman went +on, as though she had not heard.</p> + +<p>A roar of voices and a sudden sway of the throng +that pinned her against some railings at the bottom +of Victoria Street, announced the eleventh arrest. +A friendly artisan in working clothes swung her up +till she stood beside him on the stone coping, and +told her to "ketch on." She caught on, and recovered +her breath laboriously.</p> + +<p>The woman, who had been arrested after being +turned back from the doors of the House repeatedly +for two successive hours, was swept past in the +custody of an inspector, who had at last put a +period to the mental and physical torment that a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> +pickpocket would have been spared. A swirling +mass of people, at once interested and puzzled, +sympathetic and uncomprehending, was swept +along with her and round her. In her eyes was the +same unemotional, detached look that filled the gaze +of the woman clinging to the railings. It was the +only remarkable thing about her; otherwise, she +was just an ordinary workaday woman, rather +drab-looking, undistinguished by charm or attraction, +as these things are generally understood.</p> + +<p>"Now then, please, every one who wants a vote +must keep clear of the traffic. Pass along the footway, +ladies, if you please; there's no votes to be +had in the middle of the roadway," said the jocular +voice of the mounted constable, who was backing +his horse gently and insistently into the pushing, +struggling throng.</p> + +<p>The jesting tone was an added humiliation; +and women in the crowd, trying to see the last +of their comrade and to let her know that they +were near her then, were beaten back, hot with +helpless anger. The mounted officer came relentlessly +on, successfully sweeping the pavement +clear of the people whom he was exhorting with so +much official reasonableness not to invade the +roadway. He paused once to salute and to avoid +two men, who, having piloted a lady through the +backwash of the torrent set in motion by the plunging +horse, were now hoisting her into a place of +safety just beyond the spot where the artisan +and the other woman held on to the railings.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it terrible to see women going on like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> +this?" lamented the lady breathlessly. "And they +say some of them are quite nice—like us, I mean."</p> + +<p>The artisan, who, with his neighbour, had +managed to evade the devastating advance of the +mounted policeman, suddenly put his hand to his +mouth and emitted a hoarse cheer.</p> + +<p>"Bravo, little 'un!" he roared. "Stick to it! +Votes for women, I say! Votes for women!"</p> + +<p>The crowd, friendly to the point of admiring a +struggle against fearful odds which they yet allowed +to proceed without their help, took up the words +with enthusiasm; and the mud-bespattered woman +went away to the haven of the police station with +her war-cry ringing in her ears.</p> + +<p>The man who had led the cheer turned to the +woman beside him, as though to justify his impulse. +"It's their pluck," he said. "If the unemployed +had half as much, they'd have knocked sense into +this Government long ago!"</p> + +<p>A couple of yards away, the lady was still lamenting +what she saw in a plaintive and disturbed tone. +Unconsciously, she was putting herself on the +defensive.</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't blame them," she maintained, "if +they did something really violent, like—like throwing +bombs and things. I could understand that. +But all this—all this silly business of trying to get +into the House of Commons, when they know +beforehand that they can't possibly do it—oh, it's +so sordid and loathsome! Did you see that woman's +hair, and the way her hat was bashed in, and the +mud on her nose? Ugh!"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> +"You can't have all the honour and glory of war, +and expect to keep your hair tidy too," observed +one of the men, slightly amused.</p> + +<p>"War!" scoffed his wife. "There's none of the +glory of war in this."</p> + +<p>Her glance ranged, as the other woman's had +done, over the dull black stream of humanity rolling +by at her feet, over the wet and shining pavements, +casting back their myriad distorted reflections in +which street lamps looked like grinning figures of +mockery—over the whole drear picture of London +at its worst. She saw only what she saw, and she +shuddered with distaste as another mounted officer +came sidling through the crowd, pursuing another +hunted rebel woman, who gave way only inch by +inch, watching her opportunity to face once more +towards the locked gate of liberty. Evidently, +she had not yet given sufficient proof of her unalterable +purpose to have earned the mercy of +arrest; and a ring of compassionate men formed +round her as a body-guard, to allow her a chance of +collecting her forces. A reinforcement of mounted +police at once bore down upon the danger spot, +and by the time these had worked slowly through +the throng, the woman and her supporters had +gone, and a new crowd had taken the place of the +former one.</p> + +<p>"Oh, there's none of the glory of war in that!" +cried the woman again, a tremble in her voice.</p> + +<p>"There is never any glory in war—at least, not +where the war is," said her second companion, +speaking for the first time. His voice travelled to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> +the ear of the other woman, still clinging to the +railings with the artisan. She glanced round at +him swiftly, and as swiftly let him see that she did +not mean to be recognized; and he went on talking +as if he had not seen her turn round.</p> + +<p>"This is the kind of thing you get on a bigger +scale in war," he said, in a half-jesting tone, as if +ashamed of seeming serious. "Same mud and +slush, same grit, same cowardice, same stupidity and +beastliness all round. The women here are fighting +for something big; that's the only difference. Oh, +there's another, of course; they're taking all the +kicks themselves and giving none of 'em back. +I suppose it has to be that way round when +you're fighting for your souls and not for your +bodies."</p> + +<p>"I didn't know you felt like that about it," said +the woman, staring at him curiously. "Oh, but of +course you can't mean that real war is anything +like this wretched scuffle of women and police!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," returned the other, in the same tone +of gentle raillery. "Don't you remember Monsieur +Bergeret? He was perfectly right. There is no +separate art of war, because in war you merely +practise the arts of peace rather badly, such as +baking and washing, and cooking and digging, +and travelling about. On the spot it is a wretched +scuffle; and the side that wins is the side that +succeeds in making the other side believe it to be +invincible. When the women can do that, they've +won."</p> + +<p>"They don't look like doing it to-night, do they?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> +said the woman's husband breezily. "Thirteen +women and six thousand police, you know!"</p> + +<p>"Exactly. That proves it," retorted the man, +who had fought in real wars. "They wouldn't +bring out six thousand police to arrest thirteen men, +even if they all threw bombs, as your wife here +would like to see."</p> + +<p>"The police are not there only to arrest the +women——"</p> + +<p>"That's the whole point," was the prompt reply. +"You've got to smash an idea as well as an army in +every war, still more in every revolution, which is +always fought exclusively round an idea. If +thirteen women batter at the gates of the House of +Commons, you don't smash the idea by arresting the +thirteen women, which could be done in five minutes. +So you bring out six thousand police to see if that +will do it. That is what lies behind the mud and the +slush—the idea you can't smash."</p> + +<p>A man reeled along the pavement and lurched +up against them.</p> + +<p>"Women in trousers! What's the country +coming to?" he babbled; and bystanders laughed +hysterically.</p> + +<p>"Come along; let's get out of this," said the +woman's husband hurriedly; and the trio went off +in the direction of the hotel.</p> + +<p>The woman with the passionless eyes looked +after them. "He sees what we see," she murmured.</p> + +<p>"Seems he's been in the army, active service, +too," remarked the artisan in a sociable manner. +"I like the way he conversed, myself."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> +"He understands, that is all," explained his +companion. "He sees what it all means—all this, +I mean, that the ordinary person calls a failure +because we don't succeed in getting into the House. +Do you remember, in 'Agamemnon'—have you +read 'Agamemnon'?"</p> + +<p>It did not strike her as strange that she should be +clasping iron railings in Westminster, late on a +wet evening, talking to a working-man about Greek +tragedy. The new world she was treading to-night, +in which things that mattered were given their true +proportions, and important scruples of a lifetime +dwindled to nothingness, gave her a fresh and a +whimsical insight into everything that happened; +and the odd companion that chance had flung her, +half an hour ago, became quite easily the friend she +wanted at the most friendless moment she had ever +known.</p> + +<p>The man, without sharing her reasons for a +display of unusual perception, seemed equally +unaware of any strangeness in the situation.</p> + +<p>"No, miss, I haven't read it," he answered. +"That's Greek mythology, isn't it? I never learnt +to speak Greek."</p> + +<p>"Nor I," she told him; "but you can get it +translated into English prose. It reminds me always +of our demonstrations in Parliament Square, +because there is a chorus in it of stupid old men, +councillors, they are, I think, who never understand +what is going on, however plainly it is put to them. +When Cassandra prophesies that Agamemnon is +going to be murdered—as we warn the Prime<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> +Minister when we are coming to see him—they +pretend not to see what she is driving at, because +if they did, they would have to do something. +And then, when her prophecy comes true and he is +murdered—of course, the analogy ends here, +because we are not out to murder anybody, only to +make the Prime Minister hear our demands—they +run about wringing their hands and complaining; +but nobody does anything to stop it. It really is +rather like the evasions of the Home Office when +people ask questions in Parliament about the +prison treatment of the Suffragettes, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Seems so," agreed her new friend, affably.</p> + +<p>"And then," continued the woman, scorn rising +in her voice, "when Clytaemnestra comes out of the +house and explains why she has murdered her +husband, they find plenty to say because there is a +woman to be blamed, though they never blamed +Agamemnon for doing far worse things to her. +That is the way the magistrate and the daily +papers will talk to-morrow, when our women are +brought up in the police court."</p> + +<p>"That's it! Always put all the blame on the +women," said the artisan, grasping what he could +of her strange discourse.</p> + +<p>Big Ben tolled out ten strokes, and his companion, +catching her breath, looked with sudden +apprehension at the moving, throbbing block of +people, now grown so immense that the police, +giving up the attempt to keep the road clear, were +merely concerned in driving back the throng on four +sides and preserving an open space round the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> +cluster of buildings known to a liberty-loving +nation as the People's House. The gentlemen, who +still stood in interested groups behind the barred +gates of it, found the prospect less entertaining +now that the action had been removed beyond the +range of easy vision; and some of the bolder ones +ventured out into the hollow square, formed by an +unbroken line of constables, who were standing +shoulder to shoulder, backed by mounted men +who made little raids from time to time on the +crowd behind, now fast becoming a very ugly one. +Every possible precaution was being taken to avoid +the chance of annoyance to any one who might still +wish to preserve a decorous faith in the principle +of women's liberty.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, somewhere in that shouting, hustling, +surging mass of humanity, as the woman onlooker +knew full well, was the twelfth member of the +women's deputation that had been broken up by +the police, two hours ago, before it could reach +the doors of the House; and knowing that her +turn had come now, she pictured that twelfth woman +beating against a barrier that had been set up +against them both ever since the world grew +civilized. There was not a friend near, when she +nodded to the artisan and slipped down from her +temporary resting-place. The respectable and +sympathetic portion of the crowd was cut off from +her, away up towards Whitehall, whither it had +followed the twelfth woman. On this side of +Parliament Square all the idlers, all the coarse-tongued +reprobates of the slums of Westminster,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> +never far distant from any London crowd, were +herded together in a stupid, pitiless, ignorant mob. +The slough of mud underfoot added the last sickening +touch to a scene that for the flash of an instant +made her heart fail.</p> + +<p>"St. James's Park is the nearest station, miss," +said the man, giving her a helping hand. "Don't +advise you to try the Bridge; might find it a bit +rough getting across."</p> + +<p>She smiled back at him from the kerbstone, where +she stood hovering a second or two on the fringe +of the tumult and confusion. Her moment's +hesitation was gone, and the sure look had come +back to her eyes.</p> + +<p>"I am not going home," she told him. "I am +the thirteenth woman, you see."</p> + +<p>She left the artisan staring at the spot near the +edge of the pavement where the crowd had opened +and swallowed her up.</p> + +<p>"And she so well-informed too!" he murmured. +"I don't like to think of it—I don't like to think +of it!"</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>Shortly after midnight two men paused, talking, +under the shadow of Westminster Abbey, and +watched a patrol of mounted police that ambled +at a leisurely pace across the deserted Square. The +light in the Clock Tower was out. Thirteen women, +granted a few hours' freedom in return for a word +of honour, had gone to their homes, proudly conscious +of having once more vindicated the invincibility +of their cause; and some five or six<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> +hundred gentlemen had been able to issue in safety +from the stronghold of liberty, which they had once +more proved to themselves to be impregnable. And +on the morrow the prisoners of war would again +pay the price of the victory that both sides thought +they had won.</p> + +<p>"If that is like real war too," said one of the +men to the other, who had just made these observations +aloud, "how does anybody ever know which +side has won?"</p> + +<p>"By looking to see which side pays the price of +victory," answered the man who had fought in +real wars.</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2><a name="II" id="II">II</a><br /> +To Prison while the Sun Shines</h2> + + +<p>Once, when I went to Holloway Gaol to visit +a friend who had been sent there by a puzzled +Government, the wardress who led me across the +echoing stone yard was inspired to make a little +pleasant conversation.</p> + +<p>"It's pretty here in summer," she remarked +sombrely.</p> + +<p>At the time it was natural, perhaps, to credit +her with a grim sense of humour; but a morning +spent not long afterwards in a London police +court suggested another explanation. You cannot +sit in a police court and watch while men and women +pass out into captivity, without realizing how +many there are of us who go through the world +snatching desperately at the air for some of the +colour of life. I think my wardress-guide would +scarcely have burst out with her involuntary remark +had not some one come in from the outside to +remind her that she lived in a grey semblance of a +world, full of people who had tried to take a short +cut to happiness and managed to get lost on the +way. It was her instinctive human defence of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> +system that thinks to cure a desire for sunshine +by shutting it out.</p> + +<p>All the people I saw convicted in the police court +that morning went to prison while the sun shone; +for it was one of those irrepressible summer days +that even London smoke cannot succeed in dimming. +The brilliance of it had touched the official soul +of the constable who guarded the door; and the +little crowd on the pavement, clamouring with or +without justification for admittance, was at least +being handled with wit and good humour.</p> + +<p>"Only those under remand, if you please!" +remonstrated the doorkeeper politely, placing on +one side the little woman who was waving a visiting-card +at him. "Press, did you say, madam? +Pressing to get in, I should call it, wouldn't you? +Well, well, I can't say what might happen presently +if you care to wait on the chance. Those under +remand only. Yes, yes, to be sure! If you were +let out on bail the previous evening, you're under +remand; but you're not a prisoner yet, or you +wouldn't be out here, would you now? Pass inside, +please. The other lady is your mother? Some +of you ladies can show a lot of mothers to-day, it +seems to me. Right along the footway, ladies, if +you please. Those under remand only!"</p> + +<p>A man with a blue paper in his hand made a +path with some difficulty through the crowd of +waiting women who continued to throng the +pavement with courageous patience. He was +admitted without question, but wore the air of a +man who felt that his natural prerogative as a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> +frequenter of police courts was being infringed. +Certainly the constable who guarded the door +took far less interest in him than in the ladies on +remand; and he was received without any wit at +all. After him came the gentlemen of the press, +who were also passed in without comment; and +seeing this, the lady with the visiting-card resumed +her plea.</p> + +<p>"Oh, come along," said the indulgent constable; +and she found herself at last inside, confronted by +more constables and an inspector. They were +all smiling. She dived in her bag for credentials, +but was instantly waved aside with fresh +humour.</p> + +<p>"We don't ask any questions, and it's best to give +no answers," she was told pleasantly, as they took +her across an empty ante-room that seemed unnecessarily +large, into a crowded court that was +certainly unnecessarily small. It was all very +still; the wit and the clamour and the sunshine +outside seemed suddenly very far away.</p> + +<p>Admitting freely that tradition and fact are at +variance in most countries, one felt that the little +judgment hall, with its want of space, of sunlight, +of air and sound and all the things that matter, was +strangely at war with the accepted notion of the +publicity of British justice. The British public was +there, it is true—a dozen strong, perhaps, very +self-conscious, and eaten up with pride at having +succeeded in getting past the constable at the door. +But it was a distinctly exclusive, not to say private, +sort of public.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> +One forgot all this, however, when the magistrate +came in and began to hear the cases. There were +a good many, and they were heard with extraordinary +rapidity. I suppose the offenders knew +beforehand what they were charged with—an +advantage they sometimes had over the magistrate +when he mixed up the charge sheets. But the +British public, jammed together on the one bench +reserved for it, could only gather occasionally +why this or that person was fined or sent to prison +or remanded. One thing could be clearly deduced +from the progress of that heart-breaking procession +of human failures, as they passed, generally in +hopeless silence, from the greyness of the police +court to the more complete greyness beyond. They +were all people who had snatched desperately at the +air for some of the colour of life, and had succumbed +helplessly before they found it.</p> + +<p>No court of justice could help them. You could +not expect a magistrate, faced with something like +forty cases, to stop and consider the terrible monotony +of existence that had driven the little scullery-maid +to be "drunk and disorderly," or the poor +clerk to steal his employer's money, thinking to +steal his happiness with it; or the lad with the +jolly fearless face to beg in the streets because he +was "out of work"—at fifteen!—or the boy, +whose eyes were swollen with crying, to be so unmanageable +that his father had to bring him to a +place where no child should be, at an age when, in +happier circumstances, he would be just starting for +Eton with a prospect before him of unlimited opportunities<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> +for "ragging."<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> The magistrate was not +unkind; nobody was unkind. All the prisoners +were scrupulously asked if they had anything to +say, if they would like to call a witness. Anything +to say! You might as well try to discharge a +mountain torrent through a bath tap. As for +witnesses, a bewildered woman, convicted of +drunkenness because she had been found lying +unconscious on the pavement, could not be expected +under the circumstances to have secured a witness +to prove her contention that she was merely faint. +One by one, they all shook their heads mutely, +and went away to prison while the sun shone.</p> + +<p>Then the remand prisoners, the women who had +thronged the doorstep in the early morning, who +were there to answer for their rebellious manner of +demanding a human and a political right, were +brought into the dock by ones and twos; and there +crept a change, a subtle change, into the musty atmosphere +of ages. The court was still bathed in its +queer half light. There was the same feeling in it +of spectral unreality. You knew even more certainly +than before that the machinery of the little +judgment hall was entirely inadequate to deal with +the prisoners in the dock. But the hopelessness of +the whole thing was gone. These were not people +whose spirit had been driven out of them by monotony +and bad luck, as it had been driven out of the +derelicts who stood in the dock before them. These +were not people who were going to give in before +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>they had won from life what they demanded from +it. It may be a perilous business to hunt down the +colour of life for other people; but it is a less +hopeless kind of job than hunting it down for +yourself.</p> + +<p>The great British public, represented by the +handful of spectators who had evaded the censorship +of the constable at the door, might, without +cudgelling its brains unduly, have found some +connection between the dreary convictions it had +just witnessed, between the clumsy if kindly +handling of habitual offenders, and this passage +through the dock of imperturbably serene young +women who, by the grace of God and the aid of a +good cause, did not belong to the criminal classes. +It might even have discovered that the one set of +offenders had brought the other after it, into a police +court on a summer morning.</p> + +<p>There was the same rapidity in hearing the cases, +the same courteous farce of asking for questions +that could only be answered outside the police +court, and then, perhaps, only once in a hundred +years or so. And there was the same unimaginative +treatment of those who thought it worth while to +accept the invitation to speak.</p> + +<p>"Have you anything to say?" came the regulation +enquiry, hallowed by centuries of official belief +in the innocence of unconvicted prisoners who yet +felt their cases to be prejudged. Then, as the +woman in the dock showed every indication of +having a great deal to say, this would be followed +up with a hasty "Yes, yes; but I have nothing to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> +do with that. I am here to administer the law as +it stands."</p> + +<p>So the law was administered as it stood; and +the colour of life still flickered elusive beyond +the grasp of all of us, as thirteen more offenders, +a rebel woman every one of them, went away to +prison while the sun shone.</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2><a name="III" id="III">III</a><br /> +Shaking Hands with the Middle Ages</h2> + + +<p>"Going to be a good meeting, don't you +think?" chatted one of the men wearing +a steward's button to a woman dressed in black, +who sat in the front row of the little block of seats +reserved for ladies, just below the platform.</p> + +<p>She gave an indifferent glance round the hall.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she acquiesced; "I suppose it is. I've +never been to a political meeting before."</p> + +<p>"Really?" said the steward blandly. "Quite +an experience for you, then, with a Cabinet Minister +coming!"</p> + +<p>He hurried away, unaware of the touch of condescension +that had jarred indescribably, and spoke +in an eager undertone to a large stout gentleman +who was inspecting tickets at the ladies' entrance.</p> + +<p>"It's all right," he said officiously. "I've just +been talking to her. She isn't one of them."</p> + +<p>The stout gentleman looked over his shoulder. +"Who? That one next my wife? Oh, no! She's +not their sort. Besides, they all wear green or +purple, or both. I'm up to their dodges by this +time—just had to turn away quite a nice little +girl in a green hat——"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> +"My sister!" observed the other. "Oh, it +don't matter; I let her in by the side door, and it +won't do her any harm. They've got so out of +hand, some of these canvassers, since the general +election."</p> + +<p>The large steward observed with an indulgent +smile that one must make allowances. He did not +say for what or for whom, but his meaning seemed +to be clear to the other steward.</p> + +<p>"The eternal feminine, eh?" he remarked with +a knowing nod; and all the men standing round +laughed immoderately. Under cover of this exhibition +of humour, a girl in grey, with a fur cap and +muff, was allowed to pass in without any special +scrutiny. She moved very deliberately along the +front chairs, which were now filled, stood for an +instant facing the audience while she selected her +seat, then made her way to one in the middle of a +row.</p> + +<p>"Votes for women!" piped a wit in the gallery, +reproducing the popular impression of the feminine +voice; and the audience, strung up to the point of +snatching at any outlet for emotion, rocked with +mirth.</p> + +<p>The girl in grey joined in the laughter. "Every +one seems very jumpy to-night," she observed to +her neighbour, a lady in tight black satin who wore +the badge of some Women's Federation. "I was +actually taken for a Suffragette in the market-place +just now."</p> + +<p>"Were you, now?" returned the lady, sociably. +"No wonder they're a trifle apprehensive after the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> +way those dreadful creatures went on at the Corn +Exchange, last week. You were there, perhaps?"</p> + +<p>The girl in grey said she was there, and the +Federation woman proceeded to converse genially. +"Thought I'd seen your face somewhere," she said. +"A splendid gathering, that would have been a +glorious triumph for the Party, if it hadn't been for +those——" She paused for a word, and found it +with satisfaction—"females. Females," she repeated +distinctly. "You really can't call them anything +else."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you can't," said the girl demurely. +The sparkle lit up her eyes again. "Our minister +called them bipeds, in the pulpit, last Sunday," she +added.</p> + +<p>"And so they are!" cried the lady in tight black +satin. "So they are."</p> + +<p>"They are," agreed the girl in grey.</p> + +<p>In the front row of chairs, speculation was rife +as to the possible presence of Suffragettes. The +wife of the man at the door, a homely little woman +with a pleasant face, was assuring everybody who +cared to know that the thing was impossible.</p> + +<p>"They've drafted five hundred police into the +town, I'm told; and my husband arranged for +thirty extra stewards at the last minute, because +the detectives wired that two of them had travelled +down in the London train," she informed a circle +of interested listeners.</p> + +<p>"Is that why there are so many men wearing +little buttons?" asked the woman on her left. "I +wondered if that was usual at political meetings."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> +"I think I heard you say you'd never been to +a meeting before, didn't I?" said her neighbour +pleasantly. "Neither have I, and I wouldn't be +wasting my time here to-night if it wasn't to please +my husband. He likes to see women take an interest +in politics; it was him that got our member a hundred +and twenty-eight canvassers, last election. Oh, +he thinks a lot of women, does my husband; says +he hasn't any objection to their having a vote, either, +only they ought to be ashamed of themselves for +going on so about it. I don't hold with votes myself. +It's only men that's got all that idle time +on their hands, and if they're respectable married +men, there's nothing else to occupy them but politics. +But for a woman it's work, work, work, +from her wedding-day till her funeral, and how can +she find time for such nonsense? 'You've got to be +made to think, Martha,' he says to me, coming here +to-night. Think? If a woman stops to think, she +don't stop with her husband, chances are. Of +course, he don't believe me when I say that. He's +too sure of me, that's where it is."</p> + +<p>"That is always where it is," said the woman in +black, quietly.</p> + +<p>Her neighbour took out some knitting. "They +laugh at me for bringing my knitting everywhere," +she said. "I can't listen if I sit idle. Not that I +want to listen," she concluded, as she settled down +comfortably to the counting of stitches.</p> + +<p>The organ boomed out a jerky tune with elephantine +lightness, and the audience vented its impatience +in a lusty rendering of some song about England<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> +and liberty. The music was uninspiring, the words +were clap-trap, and seemed to convey the singular +idea that freedom had been invented and patented +within recent years by a particular political party; +but the indifferent expression of the woman in black +changed and softened as the chorus rose and fell, +and a tall man with a lean, humorous face, who +stood looking at her, gave her a smile of understanding +as the echoing sounds died away. He too +was wearing a steward's button, she noticed.</p> + +<p>"There's a sort of barbaric splendour about that, +isn't there?" he remarked.</p> + +<p>She felt none of the irritation that had been +roused by the conversational advances of the other +steward. It was a relief, indeed, to talk about +something ordinary with a man who, she felt instinctively, +knew how to give even ordinary things +their true values.</p> + +<p>"It's the whole effect," she answered impulsively. +"The cathedral outside, and this thirteenth-century +interior, and then—this!" She looked round the +magnificent old County Hall, and along the densely +packed rows of restless modern men and women, +and then back again, half whimsically, at the man +who had spoken to her. "It is like reaching back +to shake hands with the Middle Ages," she said.</p> + +<p>"To fight with the Middle Ages," he amended, +and they both laughed. "You will find," he added, +narrowing his eyes a little to look at her, "that the +Middle Ages generally win, when we hold political +meetings here in the provinces."</p> + +<p>There was a distant sound of cheering, and every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> +one stiffened into attention. A stir ran round the +hall; doors were closed with a good deal of noise, +and the stewards, looking apprehensively at the +little block of seats in the front, gradually closed +round them until the gangways were entirely blocked +at that end of the hall. One lady, who complained +that she could not see the platform for stewards, +instantly found herself placed under observation, +and was only freed from suspicion when one of the +gentlemen identified her as his aunt and pledged his +word that she did not want a Parliamentary vote. +Her neighbours congratulated her, but in accents +that betrayed disappointment.</p> + +<p>The stir was followed by an expectant hush. +The tall man looked steadily at the fingers of the +woman in black, which locked and unlocked ceaselessly, +though she leaned back in her chair with a +vast assumption of unconcern. Those tireless, +nervous hands told him what he wanted to know.</p> + +<p>The little officious steward was back at his side, +whispering in his ear. He shook his head impatiently +in reply.</p> + +<p>"I'm not going to stay," he said shortly. +"You've got enough without me, even to deal with +two Suffragettes who may not be here; and—well, +it's a sickening business, and I'd sooner be out +of it."</p> + +<p>He went, and all that was of her world seemed +to the woman in black to go with him, as she looked +after him, half disappointed, half contemptuous. +Up to this point, the Middle Ages were certainly +winning, she decided.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> +The next quarter of an hour was the longest she +had ever lived through. Afterwards, looking back, +she remembered every detail of what took place, +all the impressiveness of it, all the ironic absurdity. +At the time, it felt like holding one's breath for +interminable minutes while unfamiliar things went +on somewhere in the thick of a mist, as things +happen in a bad dream that just escapes the final +incoherence of a nightmare.</p> + +<p>There was the roar that broke through the mist +in a huge wave of sound, when the speakers walked +on to the platform. Looking round at that swaying, +white-faced multitude, mad with a hero-worship +that lost not a jot of its attraction in her eyes because +for her there was no hero, the woman in the front +row, who had never been to a political meeting +before, felt a moment's amazement at her own +temerity in coming there, alone with one other, to +defy an enthusiasm that had all the appearance +of invincibility. Then the mist began to roll away, +as somebody started the usual popular chorus. +Translated in terms of jolly good-fellowship, hero-worship +no longer appeared unconquerable.</p> + +<p>To the woman in black it seemed as though a +thousand chairs scraped, a thousand throats grated, +while the audience settled down, and the chairman +delivered carefully prepared compliments, and the +great man sorted slips of paper. Then two women, +out of the hundred or so who had been admitted +because they did not appear to want the historic +liberties they came to applaud, clenched lips and +hands as the roar burst out once more.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> +The great man was on his feet, facing it with a +gratified smile. To one at least of his audience +that smile restored a courage that was in full flight +the minute before. That he should strike so egregiously +the wrong note, that a fine situation should +be met with affability, argued something wrong +with the situation or something wrong with the +man. There was a false note, too, in that second +roar, and it stopped so unexpectedly that one man +was left cheering alone in a high, falsetto voice, +provocative of instant derision. The fineness had +gone out of the situation, and the immediate future +of the woman in black, full as it was of unfamiliar +fears, came back into some sort of a line with the +present.</p> + +<p>The absolute silence that greeted the opening +period of the ministerial oration had something +abnormal in it. It was a silence that almost hurt. +The smallest movement put stewards on the alert, +made heads go round. The speaker felt the strain, +shuffled his notes, stumbled once or twice. Yet, as +the tension tightened to breaking-point, the woman +in the front row knew the grip over her own nerves +to be strengthening by minutes. In the mental +commotion around her, she felt the battle already +half won that she had come to fight.</p> + +<p>A man's voice, challenging a fact, caused a sensation +of relief out of all proportion to the slightness +of the interruption. Some wag said amiably, +"Turn him out!" and there was laughter. The +man, a well-known local Socialist, repeated his objection, +and was supported this time by several other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> +voices. There was quite a little stir, and the great +man put out his hand benevolently.</p> + +<p>"No, no, gentlemen, let him stay!" he adjured +the stewards, none of whom had shown one sign +of wishing to do otherwise. "I stand here as the +champion of free speech——"</p> + +<p>The rest of his sentence was drowned in a spontaneous +outburst of applause, during which it was +to be supposed that he dealt with the objection +that had been raised, for when his words again +became audible he had gone on to another point. +His next interrupter was a Tariff Reformer, at +whose expense he was courteously humorous. +The emotional audience rewarded him with appreciative +laughter, in which the Tariff Reformer +joined good-humouredly. Speaker and listeners +were rapidly coming into touch with one another.</p> + +<p>The great man, growing sure of his ground, made +an eloquent appeal to the records of the past. The +woman, who had never heard a politician speak +before, leaned forward, hanging on every word. +She felt strangely elated, strangely sure of herself, +now. This man, believing all that about liberty, +seeing all that behind the commonplace of democracy, +should surely understand where others had +failed even to tolerate. She felt disproportionately +irritated by the click of knitting-needles, wondering +how any woman could occupy mind and fingers +with wool while eternal principles of justice were +being thundered over her head. Then there came +a pause in the thunder; and sight and sound were +blotted out as she took the opportunity, rose to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> +her feet, and stared up blindly at the spot where +she knew the speaker to be standing.</p> + +<p>"Then give all that to the women," she said, +in a voice she never seemed to have heard before. +"If you think so much of justice and freedom for +men, don't keep it any longer from the women."</p> + +<p>For a little space of time, a couple of seconds, +probably, her eyes went on seeing nothing, and +her ears drummed. She thought she had never +known what it really meant to be alone until that +moment. She was a woman who had known loneliness +very early, when it came to her in an uncongenial +nursery; she knew it still, in some houses, +where everything was wrong, from the wall-papers +to the people. But the meaning of utter isolation +she had never learnt until that moment when +clamour and confusion reigned around her and she +saw and heard none of it.</p> + +<p>Then her senses were invaded by the sound and +the look of it all; and to her own perplexity she +found herself on the point of smiling.</p> + +<p>She thought of a hundred things, many of them +irrelevant, as she tried in vain to walk to the door, +and was obstructed at every step by stewards, who +fought to get hold of some part of her in their +curious method of restoring order and decorum. +She wondered why the meeting was interrupting +itself with such complete success, because one woman +had made the mistake of thinking that the hero +they had welcomed with bad music was a man who +meant what he said. She thought of plays she +had seen, dealing with the French Revolution, very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> +bad plays most of them, she reminded herself as +she was dragged this way and that by excited +gentlemen, divided in opinion as to the door by +which she was to be ejected. The sea of distorted +faces past which they took her, the memory of the +knitting-needles, even the intolerable smile of the +great man as he made little jokes about her for the +amusement of the platform—all this was very suggestive +of the French Revolution, as portrayed in a +badly written play. In all the plays she had seen, +however, she did not remember that there had +ever been women who cried a little, or men who +sat silent and ashamed, yet not sufficiently ashamed +to put a stop to what was going on. These two +things appeared to be really happening, here and +there among the audience; and she supposed this +was why they hurt the most.</p> + +<p>She thought of the fastidiousness that made her +a jest to her friends, as she felt her hat knocked sideways, +looked down and saw the lace at her wrists +dangling in rags. The blow that some one aimed +at her, as she was dragged unresisting by, seemed +a little thing in comparison with those torn strips +of lace. Apparently, she was not alone in this +eccentric adjustment of proportions; for the little +fussy steward who, unbalanced to the point of irresponsibility, +had struck the blow, was apologizing +clumsily the next minute for treading on her skirt. +He did not seem to understand when she told him +gently that he was the man who had boasted of +protecting women since the world began.</p> + +<p>Sky and stars looked very remote when at last<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> +by circuitous ways they brought her to a door and +thrust her out into the night. A final push from the +gentleman who liked to see women take an interest +in politics, sent her stumbling down stone steps into +a moonlit market-place. Everything looked very +big, very still, out there, after the banality and +the bad staging of the play from which she had +just made her unrehearsed exit. In the clearness +of thought that came to her, freed at last of hands +that dragged at her and voices that coarsened to +say things to her that she only now dimly began +to comprehend, she knew what it was that had made +women, ordinary quiet women like herself, into +rebels who were out to fight for the right to protect +themselves even against their protectors.</p> + +<p>A cheer greeted her from the farther side of the +market-place, where the police kept back a crowd +that had waited all the evening to see the two Suffragettes +from London, and not, as the local paper +afterwards somewhat flamboyantly put it, to "worship +from afar the apostle of progress and democracy, +almost as the servants of the gods might +wait at Olympic banquets for crumbs to fall from +the rich man's table." It was a friendly cheer, she +noticed, though this did not matter much. Nothing +seemed to matter much, just then, except that the +black mass of the cathedral towered overhead and +looked unshakable.</p> + +<p>A little altercation floated down to her from the +top of the steps, as she leaned motionless against +the worn stones of the old balustrade.</p> + +<p>"Martha! You of all people! Disgracing me<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> +like that! However did you come to be mistaken +for one of those screaming——?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I couldn't stand the humbug of it, there! +Talking about free speech and all that fal-lal nonsense, +and then——! I wouldn't let my cat be +treated as they treated her, all for nothing——"</p> + +<p>"Nothing, do you call it? Coming here on purpose +to interrupt——"</p> + +<p>"So did that ranting Socialist you think so much +of! So did Mr. What's-his-name with the husky +voice. Why didn't they tear <em>them</em> to pieces? Now, +you listen to me, James. You brought me here +to-night because you said I'd got to be made to +think. Very well. I've been made. If you don't +like it, you should ha' let me stay at home, as I +wanted to."</p> + +<p>She stuffed a mass of dropped stitches into a +torn work-bag, and went down the steps, her chin +in the air. "If that's politics," she called back +to him from the pavement, "then it's time women +got the vote, if it's only to put a stop to them!"</p> + +<p>The girl in grey came round the corner of the +building and joined her comrade, who still waited +in the shadow cast by the cathedral. Her muff was +gone, her cap lopped over one eye, and she held her +hand to her throat where the collar had been +wrenched at; but her eyes shone with their unalterable +courage and spirit. She knew better than +any one that every skirmish in the battle they were +out to fight was always won before a single blow +was struck.</p> + +<p>"All right, are you? You did splendidly, for a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> +first shot! Come along to the Martyrs' Cross; the +police say we may hold a meeting there. Oh, I +know you never have, but you can come and try. +Any <em>idiot</em> can speak after being chucked out of a +Cabinet Minister's meeting!"</p> + +<p>Encouraged by this quaint process of exhaustion +to regard herself as an orator, the woman who had +never been to a political meeting till she went to be +thrown out of one, walked across the market-place +to shake hands with the Middle Ages on a spot +where men and women were made to die, centuries +ago, for having been born too soon.</p> + +<p>She found the girl in grey cheerfully assuring an +interested crowd that she stood there as the champion +of free speech.</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2><a name="IV" id="IV">IV</a><br /> +Filling the War Chest</h2> + + +<p>As a passer-by, I had known that spot in a busy +street all my life; or rather, I thought I knew +it. It was only when I took my courage in both +hands and a money-box in one of them, and went +to stand there every day for a week, that I discovered +how wide a gulf it is that separates the +passer-by from those who are passed by.</p> + +<p>It was all right as long as the sun shone and sent +charming side-lights across the bunches of colour +in the flower-lady's basket, and put gay and human +feelings into the heart of the public so that it +lingered and bought daffodils and pink newspapers +and ephemeral air-balls from my companions of the +gutter, and even sometimes gave me a coin as well +as an amused smile. One liked it almost as well +when the wind blew up unimportant showers, so +hurriedly and unexpectedly that the rain seemed +almost out of breath when it came; for this turned +the bit of western sky that blocked the end of the +street into a fine country sky, that ought to have +swept across a moor instead of scudding past a +London Tube station. But when it snowed, or +rained long and uncompromisingly, and when the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> +wind blew swift and cold without blowing up anything +interesting with it, there were no street effects +and no smiles, and the public shut its impressionable +heart against colour and pink news and polemics, +and everything else we were hawking; and +one learned suddenly the meaning of being passed +by. Perhaps it was worth learning—one of those +odd, disagreeable experiences that are worth gathering +up by the way when you stand on the edge +of a London pavement, helping to fill a war chest +for rebel women. Certainly I might not otherwise +have reached the heart of my fellows in the +gutter.</p> + +<p>"It's a 'ard life, ain't it?" said the flower-lady +sympathetically. I had known her in the past, too—the +past that seemed so long ago and yet dated +back only to last week—had sometimes bought +flowers of her because she looked cold, and had +generally found her unprepossessing and much inclined +to grumble. I thought I knew now, as I +stamped my feet to keep warm, and shook my +box invitingly in front of cold and distant people +who refused to be invited, how very much she +might have had to grumble at. The queer part of +it was that she was not grumbling now; she had +ceased to grumble, in fact, for the very reason that +made me understand for the first time why she +should grumble. Standing there beside her, in +God's rain that knew no respect of persons, I was +no longer a client out of whom another penny might +with tact be wheedled; I was just a boon companion, +bent like herself on wheedling that penny from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> +a miserly public that eternally hurried by. So she +gave me her pity, though I wore a fur coat and +she only a threadbare shawl, and the same biting +wind bit at us both.</p> + +<p>The newspaper sellers at first held aloof; so did +the girl who sold air-balls.</p> + +<p>"I haven't took a bloomin' copper all the afternoon," +she complained, looking pointedly after the +lady who had just dropped a shilling in my box. I +considered the wisdom of explaining that what I +was doing was going to help her in the long run, +but decided that under similar circumstances I +should prefer a more practical and immediate evidence +of good-will from any one who offered me +such an explanation. For the worst of the long run, +mean this what it may, is that it never, never +runs.</p> + +<p>Luckily for our future relations, a gust of wind +carried off a blue air-ball, and in the chase that +followed I came off victorious, and was able to +hand it to the owner with a disarming smile. She +unbent slightly in return.</p> + +<p>"Dessay you find it chilly out here, not bein' used +to it," she suggested, pulling the knot in the string +tighter with her teeth.</p> + +<p>"What are they doin' it for? That's what I +arst! What are they doin' it for?" said the lame +newsboy in a slightly peevish tone.</p> + +<p>My agility in capturing the air-ball had made +him sore, I think, though he had no reason to feel +any envy on that score. Seeing the alertness and +speed with which he dragged his useless limb after<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> +him when he came to show me anything uncomplimentary +about the Suffragettes that happened to +appear in his pink newspaper, I could but marvel +at the thought of what he might have accomplished +on two legs. One could only suppose that his +agility, like the flower-lady's sympathy, was the result +of a lifelong evasion of difficulties.</p> + +<p>The elderly gentleman who sold the penny Conservative +paper knew why we were doing it. He +never failed to wink joyously to his friends if a +male elector stopped to argue across my money-box +about the cause for which I was shaking it.</p> + +<p>"Doin' it to git theirselves 'usbands, that's what +they're doin' it for," he would say conclusively, +in denial of the usual contention of the anti-suffragist, +that we are doing it because of our distaste for +husbands.</p> + +<p>When the enemy attacked, my fellow-hawkers +waited with grim anticipation for my replies.</p> + +<p>"Is not this a terrible condescension on your +part?" asked one disapproving lady, putting up +her lorgnette to read the inscription on the box. +"Oh, I quite believe in your cause, but why do +this sort of thing? How much better to get round +the men another way!"</p> + +<p>She looked gently pained when I explained rather +obviously that I should consider that a condescension, +and so would the right sort of man; and my +companions looked with puzzled eyes after the retreating +lady who seemed to belong to a strange +world out of their ken, in which helplessness had a +market value. It was pleasantly illuminating to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> +find, however, as the week wore on, that they had +come to accept me as an equal, not because I could +hold my own against the passer-by, but because +they saw me, like themselves, exposed to all the +discomforts of being passed by. That, I am sure, +is why the elderly paper-seller gave me so much +friendly information about goloshes, and why the +lame boy observed so sympathetically, one wet evening, +that I had had a quiet day.</p> + +<p>"Yes; nice and quiet, wasn't it?" I answered +gladly, being a militant suffragist of many and +strenuous experiences that would not generally be +called either nice or quiet. It was only when I +caught his astonished expression that I understood +him to be referring, not to political passions, but +to trade.</p> + +<p>Even when you are filling the war chest at the +edge of the pavement it is not impossible, I find, +to spare a little pity for those who pass as well as +for those who are passed by. "<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">L'homme oisif tue +le temps; le temps tue l'homme oisif</i>," as it is expressed +by the nation that knows better than any +other, possibly, how to kill time gracefully. Time +seemed to be killing a good many idle people, I +thought, during the week of days that I stood outside +that Tube station. The habitual hawker, of +course, was a loiterer by profession; so was the +friendly constable who remarked, "Well, you ladies +do have to face somethink, you do!" referring, I +imagine, to the snow, which was soft and soothing +compared to some of the street witticisms I had +to face in the course of business. The real waster<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> +was rather the person who stood at the entrance +of the station, sometimes for hours, waiting, not +for something to happen, or even in most cases for +somebody to come, but just waiting.</p> + +<p>Sometimes the idler was a man. For one whole +afternoon it was a man with a pale and purposeless +blue eye that stamped him at once as being one of +those who, in killing time, are being gradually killed +by it. He said something about the weather to the +policeman, something about the winners to the +boy who sold pink information about winners; but +he did not spend a halfpenny on the information, +nor did he look as though he had spent a halfpenny +on information in the whole of his life. Even when +a motor-car broke down opposite, he did not cross +the road to look at it. You have to be really interested +in life, I suppose, to form one of a street +crowd.</p> + +<p>Most of the women loiterers seemed to be the +victims, either of their small unearned incomes, or +of somebody else's unpunctuality. One of these, +after stamping her feet in unison with mine for +more than half an hour, asked me if I had seen a +lady in a green hat. I think I had seen hundreds, +which was not very helpful; but the enquiry made +an opening, and I shook my box gently and seductively +in her direction. She was quite affable, told +me she had believed in woman suffrage all her +life, and thought it an excellent idea for other +people to stand out in the rain collecting money +for it.</p> + +<p>"It gives you a pinched look, and then people<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> +throw you something before they see what it is +for," she added genially.</p> + +<p>Evidently my complexion had not taken her unawares +in this way, for she made no effort to support +the cause in which she had believed all her +life. She had so many claims, she said. I understood +what she meant when one of the claims, +wearing a mountainous hat in emerald-green straw, +bore down upon her with torrential apologies for +being late, and carried her off to the shops.</p> + +<p>"It's for something to do up my every-evening +black, and you have such a good eye for colour," +was the cryptic remark I overheard, as they went. +In about half an hour they were back again, and +the girl in the green mountain was dropping two-pence +in my box. She smiled rather nicely, and +on a sudden impulse I asked her what she had +bought for the every-evening black.</p> + +<p>She stared, laughed a little, and ended on a +sigh. "Nothing," she confessed. "Isn't it +tragic?"</p> + +<p>"It must be," I tried to agree. I suppose I +succeeded in sounding a human note, for she still +lingered.</p> + +<p>"I hope you'll get your vote soon, and not have +to go on wasting your time like this," she said.</p> + +<p>"It isn't my vote particularly, or my waste of +time," I called after her. But she was gone, her +ridiculous hat bobbing up and down in the crowd +like a Chinese lantern on a stick; and I wondered +if she would some day make a truce with time and +save her soul alive.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> +Time, though a deadly murderer, does not succeed +in killing all the people who are trying so hard +to kill him; and hope, even for a serious cause, +lurked sometimes in that stream of bored and idle +passers-by, who seemed so bent on cheating their +nature out of everything it demanded of them. It +was always a pleasant shock when women and girls, +wearing the most preposterous hats and the most +fearsome of purple-spotted veils, slid something into +my hand and hurried on, trying to look as if they +had done nothing of the kind. And my knowledge +of things human played me entirely false over the +expensive dowager in sable and velvet.</p> + +<p>She had stood in front of the nearest shop +window for some minutes, discussing with a +patient companion the rival qualities of jet +trimming and gold braid. "Jet lasts," she observed +ponderously.</p> + +<p>"It does last," agreed the companion.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps that gold edging would look handsomer," +proceeded the old lady, assailed by sudden +doubts.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, it might," said the companion hastily, +adapting her tone.</p> + +<p>"You are looking at the wrong one," said the old +lady bluntly. "It isn't likely I should put a four-three +edging on my best satin between-wrap." +Then she veered round and saw me.</p> + +<p>Naturally I expected something very cutting, the +more so that a kindly supporter threw me a shilling +just then from the top of an omnibus, and a +money-box not being so handy as a tambourine,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> +I spent the next few seconds grovelling in the +snow at the lady's feet. When I came up again, +successful but apprehensive, I found her smiling +blandly.</p> + +<p>"If I were ten years younger I should be out +in the street fighting with you," was the astonishing +remark that accompanied a handsome donation to +the war chest.</p> + +<p>"Do come, all the same," I urged, caught by +the lightning gleam in her little grey eye. But +she shook her head and returned to the jet and +the gold edging—a wicked waste of a warlike +grey eye!</p> + +<p>So the week drew to an end, and I was no longer +to be numbered among those who are passed by +at the edge of the pavement. In my foolishness I +thought it would be easy to remain on friendly +terms with my fellow-hawkers of yesterday; and +with that idea in my mind I took an early opportunity +of returning to the spot and buying a halfpenny +pink paper and a penny white paper and a +blue air-ball and a bunch of daffodils.</p> + +<p>I met with a chilly civility from them all, with +the exception of the flower lady, who shamelessly +overcharged me for the daffodils.</p> + +<p>"Yes, lady, they are dear this morning; cost me +that in the market, they did—thank you, lady, +much obliged, I'm sure. Yes, it is cold for a body, +sitting out here all day."</p> + +<p>That was all—from the friend and sister who +had almost offered me her shawl, a week ago, because +she saw me shivering.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> +The sun was shining, and the snow had gone, +and I suppose the patch of sky at the western end +of the street was all right. But I had been put +back in my place as a passer-by; and neither sun +nor sky belonged to me any longer.</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2><a name="V" id="V">V</a><br /> +The Conversion of Penelope's Mother</h2> + + +<p>"In converting the heathen," I told Penelope, +"never make the mistake of converting your +friends. There is nothing so unconquerable as the +immortal grudge that your friend owes you for +having had the impertinence to interfere with his +opinions. You see, friendship, being a rare and +elusive and provoking condition of the soul, has +nothing to do with opinions. It matters what your +casual acquaintance thinks about the subject of the +hour, because you have to talk with him. It doesn't +matter in the least what your friend thinks, because +there is no conversation among friends, there is only +intercourse, which has nothing to do with opinions. +Naturally, I am not talking of eternal truths, +because if your friend does not see eye to eye with +you about those, no friendship is possible. One +never converts people to eternal truths, only to +the particular manifestation of these that is being +revealed to the age through which we are +passing."</p> + +<p>"According to that," objected Penelope, "there +is no possibility of converting people to anything,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> +unless they are already converted without knowing +it."</p> + +<p>"Exactly," I said. "That is why it is waste of +time as well as impertinence to convert the person +who is your friend. And as your mother is one of +the few mothers I know who is also a friend to her +children, I strongly advise you not to——"</p> + +<p>"That is all very well," again objected Penelope; +"but mother has not yet discovered that she is +converted to the particular manifestation of eternal +truth known as Votes for Women; and, to put it +plainly, you can't go on living with some one who +thinks all suffragists are hooligans, when you are +one of the hooligans."</p> + +<p>"Theoretically," I argued, "you could, if——"</p> + +<p>"But I don't live with mother theoretically," interrupted +Penelope; "and if you seriously mean +that you cannot convert her because of the immortal +grudge she would owe you for doing it, I suppose I +shall have to take that risk myself. It is not at all +easy to convert an old lady to eternal truth at the +mouth of an ear-trumpet," she added insinuatingly.</p> + +<p>In the end I was persuaded to undertake the +conversion, being no wiser than other apostles of +great movements who have bartered friendships +for causes since the world began; and Sarah's greeting, +when she opened the door to me the day I +called upon Penelope's mother by appointment, was +therefore disconcerting.</p> + +<p>"Miss Penelope said, would you please wait in +the back drawing-room till she's finished converting +the mistress," said Sarah in the impassive tone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> +of one whom no message, however strange, could +disconcert. "It's the Suffragettics, I think," she +added for my enlightenment. To Sarah all manifestations +of the eternal truths rest on the level +of rheumatics and other mortal infirmities.</p> + +<p>I suggested that, folding-doors not being soundproof, +I had better wait downstairs. Sarah led the +way up to the back drawing-room without giving +this proposal a moment's serious consideration.</p> + +<p>"You can hear anything that's said to the +mistress from the top of the house to the bottom—that +is, if the mistress can hear it," she explained +unemotionally.</p> + +<p>The controversy had reached the acute stage +when I arrived in the back drawing-room, an unwilling +eavesdropper. This I gathered from the +significant circumstance that both speakers were +talking at once. Presently there came a calm, +in the course of which Penelope seemed to be +getting on rather well. She was keeping her +temper wonderfully, I thought, and was apparently +convincing the enemy beyond the power of retort. +The absence of retort became, indeed, astonishing, +until it was explained by a sudden interruption +from Penelope's mother, just as her daughter +reached a fine pitch of persuasive eloquence.</p> + +<p>"I can't hear a word you are saying, my dear. +I wish you would pick up my ear-trumpet," said +Penelope's mother, breaking unconsciously into the +middle of a sentence.</p> + +<p>Evidently the ear-trumpet was found and adjusted, +for retorts came thick and fast as soon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> +as Penelope began patiently to say it all over +again.</p> + +<p>"What rubbish, child!" was an early interruption. +"I have never done anything to hinder your +development, as you call it. I drew the line at +ju-jitsu, I admit, because I didn't like the appearance +of the unpleasant little yellow person with the +pigtail—he had no pigtail? Well, he was the +style of person to whom one expects to find a +pigtail attached. That is neither here nor there—"</p> + +<p>"No, mother darling, it isn't," interposed Penelope +firmly; "and I never said you hindered my +development. We are not Suffragettes because +we have personal grievances, but because of the +general attitude towards women——"</p> + +<p>"You will never persuade me, my dear, that +you can cure anybody's attitude towards women by +knocking off policemen's helmets——"</p> + +<p>"We don't knock off——"</p> + +<p>"I am convinced, Penelope, that I have seen a +picture, in the <cite>Daily Illustrated</cite>, I think it was, of a +woman knocking off a policeman's helmet. Her +mouth was wide open, and she was doing it with an +umbrella—a dreadful, ill-bred, unwomanly creature +she looked! I remember it distinctly. The +<cite>Daily Illustrated</cite> is a most respectable paper; it +would never——"</p> + +<p>"Darling, you know you have told me over and +over again how all the respectable papers of the +day called Florence Nightingale a dreadful, unwomanly +creature for wanting to go out to the war +to nurse grown-up men without a chaperon, instead<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> +of staying at home to nurse the baby she hadn't +got," shouted Penelope down the ear-trumpet.</p> + +<p>"And so they did," cried her mother, as though +her veracity were being called in question. "All +sorts of wicked and untrue things were said about +that noble woman, for whom I have the utmost +veneration, because she taught me to air a room +by opening the window a few minutes at the bottom +instead of opening the door. Oh! it was shocking +the things they said about her! But now——"</p> + +<p>"Now," said the wily Penelope, "no woman +in England is more honoured. That shows, doesn't +it, that we should not believe everything the +papers——"</p> + +<p>"Penelope," said her mother abruptly, "I have +dropped my ear-trumpet again, so you had better +ring the bell for tea."</p> + +<p>Signs of the fray were still evident when Sarah +admitted me to the front drawing-room. The ear-trumpet +was sticking out of the coal-box, always +a sign of mental disturbance in Penelope's home; +and both she and her mother were looking for the +spectacles which had been swept momentarily out of +existence.</p> + +<p>"I cannot think what I did with them," complained +Penelope's mother, as though her loss were +not an hourly occurrence. "If you had not upset +me so dreadfully, Penelope——"</p> + +<p>Then she looked up and saw me, Sarah's lusty +announcement of my name having passed over her +unheeded through the temporary disablement of +the ear-trumpet. With a royal gesture of her hand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> +she banished eternal truths and their tiresome +topical manifestations to oblivion, and received me +in the grand manner that was designed, fifty years +ago, to hide from visitors and servants alike that +the head of the house ever had any private emotions +or any public interests. Now, as then, it deceived +nobody; but it bridged the gulf between +eternal truths and afternoon tea very pleasantly.</p> + +<p>"How charming of you to look in just as Penelope +and I were going to have tea! Come and sit +near me," was the gracious greeting I received. +She turned a serene countenance towards Penelope, +who was showing no inherited instinct for bridging +impassable gulfs. "My dear, can you find my ear-trumpet? +I am sure I had it a moment ago."</p> + +<p>"You had," murmured the rebellious Penelope. +"It might just as well have stayed in the coal-box +the whole time, for all the good it was to either +of us!"</p> + +<p>It was only when, at the conclusion of a blameless +discourse on ribbon embroidery, Penelope +had been sent upstairs to look for a piece of needle-work, +that Penelope's mother stopped being my +Early Victorian hostess and became the mother +of all the ages.</p> + +<p>"I suppose," she said, with the true motherly +mixture of appeal and disapproval in her tone, +"it is you who have converted Penelope to all this +nonsense."</p> + +<p>"No," I said. "The age has converted her. +Penelope is the child of the age."</p> + +<p>"She has no business to be anybody's child but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> +her mother's," was the indignant reply. "When I +was a girl daughters were their mother's own +children——"</p> + +<p>I interrupted to ask if she really thought that +this had ever been true. The ear-trumpet described +furious circles in the air—another danger signal, +as I knew from experience.</p> + +<p>"When I was a girl," said Penelope's mother +once more, "we had the good manners not to let +our mothers guess that we knew more than they +did—even if we did."</p> + +<p>I asked a depressed Penelope, on the way downstairs, +why she had not taken my advice and left me +to risk my friendship with her mother, instead of +imperilling her own?</p> + +<p>"It was idiotic of me," confessed Penelope; +"she said something unfair about 'those dreadful +women,' so I had to say I was one of them; and +after that I had to go on, naturally. But if I +haven't converted mother in the drawing-room, +I seem to have succeeded incidentally in converting +cook in the kitchen. It's a pity there were not a +few more Antis concealed about the house while I +was at the ear-trumpet, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Listen!" I interrupted.</p> + +<p>Sarah was clearing away tea, and through the +open drawing-room door came scraps of conversation.</p> + +<p>"It is only right to study both sides of a question, +Sarah."</p> + +<p>"Yes'm."</p> + +<p>"Florence Nightingale, the noblest Englishwoman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> +who ever lived—I hope you open the window and +not the door, when you wish to air your bedroom, +Sarah?—Florence Nightingale was misrepresented +just in the same way."</p> + +<p>"Yes'm."</p> + +<p>"I think I shall stop your monthly magazine and +order a suffrage periodical for the kitchen instead."</p> + +<p>"Yes'm. We have two of Miss Penelope's +already. Thank you, ma'am."</p> + +<p>Penelope and I fled downstairs to escape detection.</p> + +<p>"She was converted all the time; I told you she +would be," I remarked on the doorstep.</p> + +<p>"Now for the immortal grudge!" sighed Penelope.</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2><a name="VI" id="VI">VI</a><br /> +At a Street Corner</h2> + + +<p>"People of London!" faltered the lady who +had just stepped upon the sugar-box at the +edge of the pavement.</p> + +<p>The people of London, who happened just then +to be a very little girl carrying a very large baby, +stared in some astonishment. Another lady, who +had been distributing handbills farther along the +street, came back and prompted the speaker +encouragingly.</p> + +<p>"Go on; that's splendid!" she said with friendly +warmth.</p> + +<p>The woman on the sugar-box, who had never +stood on a sugar-box before, smiled wanly. "Why +do they never have earthquakes except in countries +where people don't want them?" she sighed. +Her friend being engaged at the moment in pressing +a handbill upon the little girl, who obligingly +gripped the baby with one hand and her chin in +order to take it, there came no response to the appeal +of the orator in the gutter; and she pulled herself +together and made a fresh start.</p> + +<p>"People of London!" she repeated amiably.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> +"We have come here to tell you about 'Votes +for——'"</p> + +<p>"Why, it's these 'ere Suffra<em>gites</em>!" suddenly +yelled the people of London, shifting the baby +on to the other arm; and the debutante on the +sugar-box broke down and laughed deprecatingly.</p> + +<p>"I really must wait for some more people," she +protested.</p> + +<p>"You needn't," said her more experienced +companion. "They always come along fast enough +as soon as they see some one like you standing +on a sugar-box."</p> + +<p>"That doesn't surprise me," remarked the inexperienced +one, thinking regretfully of a happy +past in which the chief aim of a well-ordered life +had been to avoid doing anything that would +attract attention.</p> + +<p>"Here they come," continued the lady with the +handbills. "Just keep them going while I get rid +of these, there's a dear! It doesn't matter what +you say," she added consolingly, as she went +towards two approaching women with outstretched +hand and an ingratiating smile.</p> + +<p>"<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Ah! ce sont les suffragettes!</i>" exclaimed one of +these unexpectedly. "<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Nous sommes des suffragistes +françaises, nous aussi! Vive le féminisme!</i>"</p> + +<p>"Oh, how perfectly delightful!" said the English +suffragist, beaming on them. "Do stop and +listen. <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Nous allons avoir un</i>—oh, bother! What +is 'meeting'?—<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">un rendez-vous, mesdames!</i>"</p> + +<p>"<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Tiens!</i>" gasped the French suffragists, as well +they might.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> +At this moment the speaker, her mind a blank +concerning all the carefully prepared sentences +she had been learning by heart for days, could be +heard announcing that she would now call upon +the other lady to address the meeting; and the +crowd, increasing every minute, cheered inconsequently.</p> + +<p>"Well, there ain't much of her, but give 'er a +chaunce!" remarked a wit, as the second speaker +mounted the sugar-box.</p> + +<p>A small boy hitched up his trousers and moved +off. "I shall turn into a woman if I stay here," he +observed.</p> + +<p>"No such luck for you, my boy!" came the +quick retort from the rickety platform, and the +impressionable crowd grinned with appreciation.</p> + +<p>The speaker pounced upon her opportunity +and began to sketch the history of Reform. She +used long words purposely, so they made an instant +show of listening, it being out of the question, of +course, to allow that any woman, least of all a +Suffragette, could talk over their heads. The +astonishing statement that women in the past +had enjoyed a certain measure of political power, +was, however, too much for one youth.</p> + +<p>"Where did you git that from?" he shouted.</p> + +<p>"My friend has forgotten his history," said +the speaker indulgently. "It is an historical +fact——"</p> + +<p>The interrupter turned his back contemptuously +on the sugar-box, and addressed the audience in a +loud and overpowering voice.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> +"Look at 'er!" he adjured them, jerking his +thumb over his shoulder. "History, she says! +Believin' what she's towld in a book. Ain't that +jest like a woman?"</p> + +<p>Having thus disposed of the facts of history, he +went on to deal more largely with the question as a +whole. "Pack o' women!" he snorted. "Why +don't they stay at 'ome and mind the baby? +Why don't they cook the old man's dinner? Why +don't they——?"</p> + +<p>"This gentleman evidently thinks it is question +time," struck in the real speaker with undisturbed +composure. "Perhaps, when he reaches the age +that will entitle him to use a vote, he will know +more about the procedure of a political meeting——"</p> + +<p>"Well, you ain't got a vote yourself, anyhow!" +said the incensed youth, turning round amid the +laughter of the crowd to face the woman on the +sugar-box, which, of course, was exactly what she +wanted him to do.</p> + +<p>"Ah, I was wrong," she smiled back at him. +"I see you do know something about the present +political situation. If you will kindly keep your +questions till I have finished speaking, I shall be +very happy to——"</p> + +<p>"Yuss!" agreed a supporter. "Stow it, Jim, +till the lidy's had 'er say."</p> + +<p>"But I don't want to hear no bloomin' Suffragette," +grumbled the youth, angrily conscious that +the crowd was no longer with him.</p> + +<p>"Then git out!" advised the crowd; and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> +speaker's voice was drowned for a minute or so +in the altercation that followed.</p> + +<p>"What's it all about?" asked one woman of +another, at the edge of the crowd.</p> + +<p>The other, encircling a large bundle with her +arms, shook her head.</p> + +<p>"I dunno," she said; "but I loves to 'ear 'em +talk."</p> + +<p>The woman on the sugar-box was just giving the +obvious reply to another interrupter, who wanted +to know how a woman could find time to vote if +she had a husband and six children to look +after.</p> + +<p>"How does a man find time to vote, if he has a +wife and six children to support?" she demanded; +and the woman with the bundle nodded approvingly.</p> + +<p>"Now she's talkin' sense, and I likes sense," +she remarked to her companion. "I don't 'old +with women bein' Prime Ministers, but I likes +sense."</p> + +<p>The hostile youth, growing tired of being made +the sport of the crowd, moved off with the remark +that he would like "to see 'em all drowned"; +and the speaker profited by a temporary lull and +began to talk of economics. She held her audience +now without difficulty, telling them things about +the labour market that they knew to be true; +and a kind of tense hush was over the crowd round +the sugar-box, when a well-dressed woman came +strolling along the pavement on her way home +from the Park.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> +"Why, I do believe that is a real live Suffragette! +How chic!" she exclaimed with an amused smile.</p> + +<p>The Suffragette caught the remark, and determined +to catch the woman who made it. In a +minute or two the amused smile was gone, and +another comment floated up to the sugar-box.</p> + +<p>"Jack, are you there? You must come and +listen to this—you positively must! I—I had no +idea they were like that!"</p> + +<p>The woman in the French hat was won, but the +crowd was again temporarily lost, and wild din +reigned for the next few moments while supporters +yelled for silence and opponents sang songs. At +the first semblance of a pause, the Suffragette broke +in again, the smile still predominating.</p> + +<p>"I can see how anxious you are to help the +Suffragettes," she said sweetly; and once more she +carried the joking, irresponsible crowd along with +her. "You women who are here, come to our +demonstration in Hyde Park next Sunday——"</p> + +<p>"Hold on, young woman, who's going to cook +the Sunday dinner for the kids?" interposed a +voice.</p> + +<p>"Your wife will cook it before she starts," was +the ready rejoinder. "Or, better still, she can cook +it overnight, and you can bring it with you and eat +it in the Park——"</p> + +<p>"What price roast pork and greens in Hyde +Park?" demanded a sporting-looking gentleman +in a terrific waistcoat.</p> + +<p>"It won't hurt you to have cold pork and salad +just for once," said the resourceful speaker. "Only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> +think how the children will love a picnic, and a picnic +like ours, too, with eighty women-speakers at the +end of it! You know how dull picnics generally +are when there is nothing more to eat——"</p> + +<p>"Eighty of 'em! How about Holloway?" +jeered the man in the waistcoat.</p> + +<p>She turned on him swiftly. "If you had your +vote taken from you to-morrow, wouldn't you +have the pluck to go to prison to get it back?" she +asked, suddenly in deadly earnest.</p> + +<p>Any crowd loves a fighter, and this one howled +with delight. The lady in the French hat noticed +that listening women, who had hitherto shown no +open approval of what was said, nodded furtively +and caught their breath when the speaker fired up +in defence of women.</p> + +<p>"Why, they go to prison because they like it, +don't they?" observed the amused man who answered +to the name of Jack. He had not intended +this for an audible interruption, but nothing escaped +the ear of the woman on the sugar-box.</p> + +<p>"If you think a woman's ordinary life outside +prison is as dreary as all that, don't you think it's +time you gave her the power to improve her conditions, +so that she needn't go to Holloway for a +pleasant change?" she shot back at him, hot with +scorn; and again listening women flushed with +nervous pleasure. "Some of our comrades are +coming out of prison next Saturday," the speaker +went on rapidly; "and if you want to give them a +welcome, as I know you do"—here she paused to +allow time for yells of derision and references to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> +skilly—"come and walk in our procession from +Holloway gates."</p> + +<p>"What! And be taken for gaol-birds too? +Not much!" roared the man of sporting appearance.</p> + +<p>"We'll come, miss; we'll be there!" suddenly +called the woman with the bundle; and curiously +enough, the crowd respected that and stopped +jeering. But the speaker of a hundred open-air +meetings, knowing her crowd better than it knew +itself, saw that it had had enough, and called for +questions. These were swiftly disposed of, being +principally of the wash-tub order, already answered +in her speech; and observing serenely that she +concluded everybody was now converted, the +Suffragette came down from her perch.</p> + +<p>She and her companion were instantly swallowed +up in the jostling, chattering crowd, and the well-dressed +woman appealed to Jack.</p> + +<p>"Do help them to get out of this," she said, +clutching anxiously at his arm. "They'll be +crushed to death, I know they will!"</p> + +<p>"Eh, what? My dear girl, they're much better +able to take care of themselves than I am," observed +Jack tranquilly. "Besides, they're not being +crushed to death. You couldn't crush a Suffragette +if you tried."</p> + +<p>A sudden swirl of the stream swept them face to +face with the two suffragists, who, still distributing +handbills to right and left of them as they came, +were composedly wedging a way for themselves +through the dispersing people.</p> + +<p>"I—I think you're splendid; and so does Jack!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> +cried their new supporter, flinging mere accuracy +to the winds. "And I'm coming to Holloway +Gates on Saturday and to Hyde Park on Sunday—and +so is Jack!"</p> + +<p>"Eh what?" said Jack mildly.</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2><a name="VII" id="VII">VII</a><br /> +The Crank of all the Ages</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><span class="smcap">Votes for Women</span>, price one penny!<br /></div> +<div class="poem">Articles by Annie Kenney,<br /></div> +<div class="poem">Mrs. Lawrence, Christabel,<br /></div> +<div class="poem">Other Suffragettes as well.<br /></div> +<div class="poem">Men and women, come and buy—<br /></div> +<div class="poem">As you pass and hear the cry—<br /></div> +<div class="poem"><span class="smcap">Votes for Women!</span> here we sell<br /></div> +<div class="poem">Articles by Christabel,<br /></div> +<div class="poem">Mrs. Lawrence, Annie Kenney—<br /></div> +<div class="poem"><span class="smcap">Votes for Women</span>, price one penny!<br /></div> + +<div class="poem"><span style="padding-left: 6.5em;">(New Street Cries, 1909.)</span><br /><br /></div> + + +<p>I never knew until I became a regular newspaper +seller, one day in every week, how many +people there are in the world bent on reforming it. +You do not discover this so long as you merely sell +papers in a spasmodic fashion, appearing on fine +days at the edge of the pavement with a bundle of +<cite>Votes for Women</cite> under your arm, and going off to +tea as soon as these are sold out. Any element of +amateurishness at once adds an air of detachment +to the paper seller and keeps the world from really +making friends with her. But as soon as the public +grasps that she is a fixture, just as much so as the +seller of pink football news or of green politics, +except that her stock is renewed by a purple, white<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> +and green pony trap instead of by a panting boy on +a bicycle, then every kind of crank who is out for an +airing thinks she is there to listen to his views on +every conceivable subject, from food reform up to +simplicitarianism.</p> + +<p>You divide the world into three kinds of people, +roughly speaking, when you sell papers as a professional +and not as an amateur. There is the person +who wants to buy a paper. There is the person +who wants to know where the nearest tea-shop is, or +which omnibus goes to the Circus, or whether you +have seen any one with pink wings—the last being +a reference to millinery and not to aviation. This +person really makes one feel like a professional +newsboy at a street corner. Lastly, there is the +crank. The crank does not want to buy a paper, or +to seek information; he merely wants to talk. He +leaves the ordinary newsvendor in peace, recognizing +that he is there merely for the purpose of selling +news, whereas the seller of suffrage papers represents +an attempt to reform the world as well. So +her pitch becomes a common meeting-ground for +cranks.</p> + +<p>If it be true that the character of an age is to be +found in the character of its cranks, the period we +are passing through will present extraordinary difficulties +to the chronicler of the future. That is the +worst of living in an age when most of the big things +have been established in theory, though some still +remain to be established in fact. It was quite easy +to be a crank with distinction when people tortured +you for saying the world was round. Now, you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> +have to fall back on rational dress or Swedish exercises, +or a whole host of minor movements to educate +public opinion, and the real crank has a hard +struggle for existence. Personally, standing as I believe +for one of the few big things that still have +to be fought for because they are not yet established +in fact, I have always felt inclined to look upon these +lesser attempts to improve humanity as fads. But I +find from standing at the edge of the pavement that +the hall-mark of every crank is a firm belief that all +the other cranks are only faddists.</p> + +<p>"No," said the tailor-made lady with firmness, as +she prepared to pass on after reading my newsbill; +"I have no time for fads. Before I married, when +I earned my own living and paid rates and taxes and—and +gas, I quite believed in this sort of thing. In +fact, I never condemn any woman for wanting a +vote."</p> + +<p>She seemed to think that she deserved some praise +for this evidence of self-restraint; and I said something +inane about thinking of other people. She +looked injured.</p> + +<p>"Naturally, I do not mean that I lead an idle or a +selfish life," she said. "Sport, that is my strong +point—outdoor sport." I suppose she gathered +that this did not quite fill my conception of human +usefulness, for she added hastily—"And charity. +Sport and charity—that is my life."</p> + +<p>"You could indulge in both, selling our paper," I +said. I concluded from the haste with which she +went away that she did not agree with me.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said the elderly gentleman, who excused<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> +himself quite unnecessarily for buying a paper by +explaining that it was for his wife, "who is quite +foolish about your question,"—"the great mistake +you ladies make is in not concentrating upon the +educational test. You'd have thousands more on +your side—myself, in fact—if you didn't want to +flood the electorate with illiterate——"</p> + +<p>An interruption occurred here, as the conductor +of a waiting omnibus whistled to me for a paper and +gave me his confidential opinion that we "were +going to get it soon." The elderly gentleman +turned triumphantly to the nearest newsboy.</p> + +<p>"There! What did I say?" he demanded. +"Socialists, every one of them! Socialists!"</p> + +<p>The newsboy shrugged his shoulders as he looked +after him, then turned and gave me a wink out of +pure friendliness. "Chronic, ain't it?" he remarked.</p> + +<p>Everything, by the way, is "chronic" to my companions +in the paper-selling trade; and I have some +difficulty in not letting the expression, whatever it +may mean, creep into my vocabulary.</p> + +<p>The temperance reformer was less easy to rout +because he was so desperately in earnest. It was no +use pointing out to him that we were both travelling +along the same road, really. His was the one and +only possible scheme for regenerating the world, and +the women who actually wanted the power to help +him were wilfully obstructing his path.</p> + +<p>"Local option!" he repeated several times with +enthusiasm, describing circles on the pavement with +his umbrella and effectually keeping all possible<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> +customers at a distance. "Local option! That's +the ticket. Votes for women, indeed!"</p> + +<p>I said mildly that I supposed the reform of the +goose was always the fad of the gander, and was +sorry to see that he appeared hurt. "Of course," I +added hurriedly, "I admit that I am the goose." +He still looked offended, but the remark happily put +him to flight after he had spoilt the newspaper trade +at our corner for nearly ten minutes.</p> + +<p>The most determined instance of the crank who +sees all the rest of the world as faddists, or worse, is, +I think, the animal faddist. Of course, we all advocate +kindness to animals: but that is different from +being a faddist about it. Still, I admit I am a little +prejudice in the matter, owing to my encounter with +the old lady, the toy dog, and the Kindness-to-pet-animals +Christmas card.</p> + +<p>She arrived breathless on the kerb at my side, +having been placed there by a policeman, while +criticism of the toy dog rained plentifully from a +brewer's dray, a bicycle, and a taxicab, all of which +were mixed up in the road through their noble endeavours +not to annihilate the yapping creature. +I came into the situation because I unwound its +chain, which had tied itself round the old lady's +skirts, and placed the thing on her ermine muff. I +received no acknowledgment of all this—first, +because I picked him up by the head, seeing nothing +else large enough to afford one a grip, and secondly, +because she discovered I was a Suffragette.</p> + +<p>"You ought to be locked up in a lunatic asylum," +she said sternly.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> +For a moment I did not see the connection. Then +I made allowances for her age and the peril she had +just gone through and said—"Oh, no!" as soothingly +as I could.</p> + +<p>She put the dog with some difficulty inside her +muff, tail first, which I felt was an indignity it +scarcely deserved, even if it had dislocated the traffic. +"When the world is full of tortured and suffering +dumb animals!" she went on, glaring at the +contents bill that fluttered from my hand.</p> + +<p>I wished energetically that dumbness had been +one of the disabilities of the particular tortured +animal she was still trying to back into a hot ermine +muff, for when I tried to say that my only objection +to dumb animals was that they were never dumb, +my remark was drowned in piercing yelps.</p> + +<p>At the end of ten minutes I had learnt every +detail of her private and special society for protecting +pampered pets against those who pampered them—this, +by the way, was not what she called it—and +of the dear little children who paid their pennies +weekly, and of the Christmas card to advertise the +cause, that she had designed herself. The Christmas +card was extricated from the ermine muff, with +no inconsiderable ingenuity, for the toy dog, making +a wild dash for liberty, very nearly emerged with it; +and my criticism was condescendingly invited. It +is not easy to give an intelligent opinion on a drawing +of a cat, a dog, a donkey, a parrot, a tadpole, a +pony, a pigeon, and a newt; and I found I had said +quite the wrong thing when I murmured that it was +very pretty. Prettiness, I was told sternly, was not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> +its object. I looked again, and was fortunately +inspired to detect that she had not included a rabbit. +She thought she might squeeze in the rabbit between +the Newfoundland dog and the newt; and after that +I forced my own goods upon her in a determined +manner until she went.</p> + +<p>It is sometimes helpful to remind yourself, if you +are the crank who stands at a street corner selling +papers for a cause, that cranks are the salt of the +earth. But, as Henry Harland once wrote in a +frivolous moment—"<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Il faut souffrir pour être sel.</i>"</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII">VIII</a><br /> +Patrolling the Gutter</h2> + + +<p>"I suppose we had better start," faltered the +tall woman in purple.</p> + +<p>"I can't think of a reasonable excuse for delaying +any longer," sighed the girl in green.</p> + +<p>"Come along!" said a third, making a great +show of the courage she did not feel.</p> + +<p>Nobody came along. Under some pretext or +another we still lingered, though there were ten of +us and the space in our Suffragette shop was uncomfortably +limited. Most people, the even tenor +of whose lives had not been ruffled by the call of a +great cause, might have thought the day an unpropitious +one to choose for patrolling the gutter, even +for the sake of advertising a meeting of rebel women +in the Albert Hall. A strong south-west wind, a +real London drizzle overhead and thick mud underfoot, +could hardly be held to offer striking attractions +to a band of naturally timorous ladies, girt about +with sandwich-boards, preparing to issue forth in +procession into the conventional streets of Kensington. +If we had been less timorous we should probably +have postponed the expedition; but the last fear<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> +that rebel women ever learn to overcome is the fear +of being thought afraid, so this was an alternative +that did not suggest itself to anybody.</p> + +<p>"I never realized before what it meant to be a +belted knight, but I do now," remarked our literary +member, trying in vain to free her hands from their +cardboard bonds in order to straighten a crooked +hat. "If anything or anybody were to unhorse us +and make us bite the dust—isn't that what belted +knights were always doing to one another in the +Middle Ages?—we should have to lie on our +backs, as they did, till some one came and picked +us up."</p> + +<p>"I feel like a pantomime super, myself," observed +somebody else, twirling round in order to get a +full-length back view of herself in the glass. "I +shall never get accustomed to the make-up," +she added ruefully, as she once more swept the +greater part of our stock of pamphlets from the +counter to the floor, and had to stand helpless +and repentant while the shop secretary picked +them up, not for the first time in the course of +these trial manœuvres.</p> + +<p>"If you don't start soon, there will be nothing +saleable left in the place," said the shop secretary +pointedly.</p> + +<p>"Well, what are you waiting for?" demanded +the girl in green, trying to infuse a little real impatience +into her tone.</p> + +<p>"Courage," confessed the woman in purple, +gloomily.</p> + +<p>"Oh, nonsense!" said our literary member,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> +without, however, moving any nearer to the door. +"Think of George Herbert:</p> + +<div class="poem">God gave thy soul brave wings; put not those feathers<br /></div> +<div class="poem">Into a bed to sleep out all ill weathers."<br /></div> + +<p>We all tried to think of George Herbert, but without +marked success.</p> + +<p>"I can't think of anything but the ill weather +waiting for us outside and all the people I know in +Kensington," said the tall woman, voicing bluntly +and concisely what the rest of us were feeling.</p> + +<p>"Do you think the people we know would ever +recognize us in these things?" asked some one in a +moment of real inspiration; and under the influence +of this new and cheering suggestion we formed up +hastily in single file and really made a start.</p> + +<p>The secretary of another local branch, who had +dropped in to seek recruits for a similar poster parade +in her district, observed significantly as we filed +past her that it was most important to be as well +dressed as possible in her neighbourhood. Neither +this, nor the first comment that reached our ears as +we plunged into the street, added particularly to our +good opinion of ourselves.</p> + +<p>"Well, I must say you ladies don't think of appearances, +that you don't!" was the comment of +the street. At a less sensitive moment we might +have derived comfort from the tone of admiration +in which this was uttered. As it was, an outrageous +remark that followed did far more to raise our +drooping spirits. This one was made by a girl, wearing +a flaming hat and blouse that not one of us would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> +have had the courage to put on before going for a +walk, even if supported by so magnificent a youth as +the one on whose arm she leaned as she criticized.</p> + +<p>"Brazen, ain't they?" she said.</p> + +<p>After that, it was easy to laugh and go ahead in a +world that could always be counted upon to feed the +most unsatisfied sense of humour. Otherwise, for +the first half-hour or so, I doubt if we should have +felt acutely conscious of anything but the traffic. +Glorious as it may seem to the imaginative to suffer +for a cause, one finds it difficult, when carrying sandwich-boards +in its service, to detach from this distant +and problematic reward the more immediate prospect +of being run down from behind by a skidding +motor-omnibus. In time, no doubt, it would be +possible to acquire the easy swagger of the real +sandwich man, though the real sandwich man would +under no circumstances be submitted, as we were, +to a definite onslaught from every impudent tradesman's +boy who whizzed past us on a tricycle. As it +was, no one could have said that our pace bore the +slightest resemblance to the leisurely saunter of the +professional patroller of the gutter. In spite of +conscientious efforts on our part to maintain the +regulation distance from one another, none of us +could resist the impulse to catch up the next woman +in front; and as our leader, the tall woman in +purple, desired nothing more than to cover the +prescribed route and return to the shelter of home +as quickly as possible, only he who ran could have +read the announcement printed on our boards, as we +raced breathlessly along the edge of the pavement.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> +At the same time, we found, nobody had the slightest +difficulty in reading the identity of those who +carried the boards.</p> + +<p>"Suffer-a-gettes! Look at 'em!" roared an +omnibus driver.</p> + +<p>"Well, why not?" responded a gallant cabman +from the shelter we were approaching. "Why +shouldn't Mrs. Pank'urst 'ave a vote, same as you +an' me? Ain't she got as much sense in her 'ead as +what <em>I</em> 'ave?" He modulated his belligerent shout +to a dulcet undertone as we came alongside. "The +whole of the four-wheel trade is with you, ladies," +he told us confidentially.</p> + +<p>A block in the traffic caused us all to close up for +a moment, and we compared notes hurriedly.</p> + +<p>"Not so bad as we expected, is it?" said our +literary comrade, who was one of those to overhear +the friendly remark made by the representative of +the four-wheel trade.</p> + +<p>The girl in green reserved her opinion. "It +makes one feel desperately sorry for the poor men +who have to do this sort of thing, not for a cause, +but for a living," she said feelingly.</p> + +<p>The girl in green was by nature sentimental. +Having once sold a suffrage paper in the street for +half a day, she found herself incapable ever afterwards +of resisting the appeal of the street hawker, +with the result that her flat became a depôt for +patent toasting-forks, bone collar-studs, and quivering, +iridescent beetles. Her latest conviction that +a human link existed between her and all sandwich-men +received, however, a slight shock as soon as we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> +encountered one of these. Melting with compassion, +she tried in a single look to express all she felt +for his hard lot, but was met by a still more eloquent +expression of pity from his eye—the one that did +not wink—and became henceforth a little dubious +about that particular human link. We tried, but +without much success, to rekindle her faith in human +links generally, by pointing out that his scorn was +probably aroused by the unprofessional appearance +of her sandwich boards, one of which was slipping +its ribbon moorings as she went by.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the most startling conversion we made +in the course of our parade was that of the baby. +Up to that moment it had been a plain and placid, +contented baby, banging its Teddy bear happily +against the side of the perambulator. When it saw +our procession coming along, with flying colours and +flapping boards, it dropped the Teddy bear on the +pavement and emitted an amazing remark that +sounded to all of us, except our literary member, +like "Ga-ga-ga-ga-<em>ga</em>!" Our literary member, being +imaginative, declared that what the baby really +said was—"Hooray! Votes for Women!"—and +the baby's nurse, who had to soil her white +cotton gloves by picking the Teddy bear out of the +mud, seemed inclined to agree with her.</p> + +<p>"Them 'orrible Suffragettes!" she said crossly; +and remembering the militant countenance of the +baby we had converted, we felt bound to forgive +her for feeling uneasy about the baby's future. +Our triumph was short-lived, however, for we were +scarcely out of hearing of the baby's gurgles when a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> +gentleman outside a public-house informed us, with +some difficulty of utterance, that we were a disgrace +to our sex.</p> + +<p>"What do they mean, blocking up the King's +'Ighway, undreds and undreds of 'em?" he grumbled +fiercely. As the girl in green observed, he was +not in a condition when it would be fair to challenge +his ability to count.</p> + +<p>On the whole, the triumphs won as usual, and the +insults were too funny and pathetic, both at once, to +hurt much. There was the lady who told us very +distinctly what she thought of us, and then dropped +her skirts in the mud, a real feminine sacrifice, to +take one of our handbills, because her hard heart +was melted by the absent-minded smile of our literary +member, who mistook her for a supporter. +There was the clergyman who stood with his hat in +his hand the whole time our procession was going by; +there was the sentimentalist who, after telling each +one of us in turn to go home and mind the baby, +said in a tone of concentrated despair to the last of +us—"What would you do if you had twins?" +And, of course, there was the messenger-boy who +stood just out of reach and yelled—"Want yer +rights? Then you won't git 'em! Sooner give 'em +to tomcats, I would!"</p> + +<p>By the time we arrived in sight of home, even the +woman in purple had become hardened to the perils +and vicissitudes of the road and smiled quite easily +at the postman who stood at the corner of the street. +But when we found ourselves inside the shop, in full +view of the shop looking-glass, it required all our<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> +newly won insensibility to stifle an inward consciousness +that the glories of a militant campaign still +remained rather spiritual than actual. Our hair was +damp and straight, our cardboard armour limp and +bent; our skirts were caked with mud, and our +boots strongly resembled those that one sometimes +sees sticking out of river sand at low tide. For +once, our literary comrade refrained from asking us +to turn to George Herbert or anybody else for poetic +consolation.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, the postman's criticism became +wildly, disproportionately cheering.</p> + +<p>"Votes for women!" he shouted after us with a +sneer, as we slowly passed indoors out of his sight. +"Votes for a few rich women, that's all you're +after!"</p> + +<p>Under the circumstances, it was very pleasant to +be mistaken for representatives of the rich and cultured +classes.</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2><a name="IX" id="IX">IX</a><br /> +The Black Spot of the Constituency</h2> + + +<p>I am inclined to think that the best general is he +who never listens to warnings. Nobody, for +instance, warned us not to hold a meeting in the +Council Schools, where a number of apparently +educated, if very young, gentlemen came to express +their political opinions through the medium of +motor-horns and chemical explosives. The warning +would have made no difference, of course; the point +is that it was never uttered. When, on the other +hand, we announced that we meant to carry our election +campaign into the black spot of the constituency, +where a criminal population congregated +thickly in a few mean streets, warnings came quick +and fast. They were the normal warnings, telling +how the police hesitated to penetrate there after +dark, how it was never safe at any time of day for +a woman to walk there alone, and so on, and so on. +There is a black spot like that in most cities, and +the same things, rightly or wrongly, are generally +said about it. But when you are a pioneer, however +humble a pioneer, you discover that the one +person who may walk with safety in the heart of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> +criminal district is the rebel man or woman who is +out fighting for a human cause.</p> + +<p>No doubt, the elementary school child looks upon +the Prime Minister who arranges for a general +election to occur during the Christmas holidays as a +sort of fairy godfather; but the pioneer, who hopes +to advance her cause as a by-product of a Parliamentary +election, would find the political situation +considerably simplified by the elimination of the +juvenile element. Anthropologists probably know +all kinds of reasons why the young human creature +always wants to throw things at what he cannot +understand; and if I had to humanize the embryonic +hooligan of our back streets, I believe I should +begin by setting up a mysterious-looking target, a +different one every day, in a prominent place, in order +to gratify this elemental instinct at the least possible +cost to the pioneer. Not having thought of +this simple plan in time, however, those of us who +first penetrated the black spot of our constituency +on a canvassing expedition met with a good deal of +concrete obstruction.</p> + +<p>"I am used to banana skins," remarked one canvasser, +on her return to the committee rooms; "I +can even bear mud; and stones are never aimed +with enough determination to matter much; but I +should like to draw the line at red herrings. There +is something so peculiarly atmospheric about red +herrings."</p> + +<p>"Chestnuts are worse," said another woman, producing +the one that she had intercepted on its way +towards her face. "When I am advancing a suffrage<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> +argument for the hundredth time, there is a +nasty subtle significance about a chestnut."</p> + +<p>The tax collector, happening to stroll in just then +to buy a ticket for a meeting, kindly tendered us his +sympathy. He had frequently to endure the same +unfriendly treatment at the hands of children, he +told us, when he visited their homes in his official +capacity. This information did not meet with the +response he evidently expected from us, and realizing +that voteless women could not be reasonably +expected to feel furiously hostile towards anybody +who pelted a tax collector, he admitted a difference +in the point of view and beat a tactful retreat, warning +us as he went to refrain from attempting an +open-air meeting in the criminal district.</p> + +<p>"You won't do any good there," he assured us; +"they are too stupid to understand, and they may +make things very unpleasant for you."</p> + +<p>This would have been true, perhaps, of an open-air +meeting in a respectable neighbourhood, not to +say of a drawing-room meeting anywhere. In a +respectable, law-abiding district, it is always difficult +and frequently dangerous to hold an open-air meeting. +To begin with, you have to stand for some +time without any audience at all, saying "We are +the Suffragettes; we have come here to talk about +votes for women," over and over again, with an +ingratiating smile, to a policeman with a coldly +detached air, and, perhaps, a young man on the +opposite side of the road, who is longing to listen +but dare not cross over for fear of being identified +with lawless young women whose husbands and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> +babies languish untended in the theoretical home. +Afterwards, when these preliminary efforts have +successfully assembled an audience, it is generally +one that is too stupid to understand, and it frequently +makes things unpleasant for the speaker. +All this may be confidently expected to happen in +respectable neighbourhoods, where the standard of +conduct is conventional enough to have brought +unconventionality within the jurisdiction of lynch +law.</p> + +<p>In the black spot of our constituency, however, +these familiar difficulties scarcely seemed to exist +for the open-air speaker, least of all the preliminary +difficulty of collecting an audience. The moment +our wagon appeared, flying the tricolour flag that +stood for no party cry and for no party candidate, +the audience came in rushes from all the alleys and +dens in the neighbourhood, and in less than two +minutes one looked down upon a swaying mass of +tattered and slatternly humanity that would have +been horribly pathetic if for one moment it had been +less than human. As it was, one merely realized +that when the narrow barrier of circumstance that +separates the fortunates from the unfortunates of +this world has once been swept away, human points +of contact are multiplied, not diminished.</p> + +<p>The audience naturally gave the speaker in the +lorry no time to make philosophic reflections.</p> + +<p>"Don't look as though she'd been fed on skilly, +do she?" was a sally that produced instant applause.</p> + +<p>"Here, miss!" shouted a young hooligan, pushing +into prominence a good-looking girl whose open,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> +laughing face might have belonged to any child of +twenty in any sheltered home. "She's been to +'Olloway; can she have a vote?"</p> + +<p>"Not much!" roared the crowd.</p> + +<p>Our militant member, distributing leaflets on the +edge of the crowd, smiled on the girl as she went +shuffling off. "I've been to prison myself," she +said, by way of breaking the ice; "what can you +have done at your age to get there?"</p> + +<p>The girl threw back her head with another laugh. +"Oh, a drop of beer and a few words with a copper!" +was the easy reply.</p> + +<p>After that, it was a simple matter to get into +conversation, and other women, who were not laughing, +gathered round to listen.</p> + +<p>"You Suffragettes have made things in the 'jug' +a lot better for us pore women," said one, +more intelligent-looking than the rest. "They +give us chiny mugs now, 'stead of them tins, +and——"</p> + +<p>"I 'ope as you'll git inter Parlyment, that I do!" +chimed in another.</p> + +<p>"Yuss! Good luck to you!" cried a chorus of +voices.</p> + +<p>They vented their new-found enthusiasm upon a +bibulous gentleman, who was asserting with drowsy +monotony that he didn't want women to have votes, +not he! He wanted them to love, honour, and +obey——</p> + +<p>"Stow it!" they broke in impatiently. "Forgettin' +your manners, ain't you?"</p> + +<p>The woman in the lorry was telling them why she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> +went to prison, two months ago. She soon had her +audience well in hand, human points of contact not +being far to seek in a crowd to whom it was at least +unnecessary to explain that women did not go to +gaol for fun. A passer-by, who happened to drift +there from the prosperous part of the constituency, +stopped to make this hackneyed insinuation and was +well hooted for his pains by a crowd that knew more +than he did of the experiences described by the +speaker. Even the drowsy sentimentalist, realizing, +one might almost suppose, that his proper place +was rather at a drawing-room meeting than at a +street-corner one, went elsewhere in search of love +and obedience; and the crowd of derelicts that +remained, growing more numerous every minute, +pressed closer and closer to the lorry till they +swarmed up the wheels and over the sides and sat +at the feet of the woman who had been where they +had been, and suffered what they had suffered, for a +cause they dimly began to understand because it +appeared to be connected with prison and suffering. +Even their primitive minds could receive an impression +of the woman standing up above them, against +the crude light of the street lamp, standing for something +that was going to bring a little warmth and +brilliance into a cold neutral world, the warmth and +brilliance that they had somehow missed. Emphatically, +these people were not of the stuff that melodrama +and novelettes are made of. They had never +discovered what is sensationally called the romance +of crime, and there was nothing splendid or attractive +in the offences that had sent them to gaol. Some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> +day or another, in a dull past, they had exchanged +the dinginess of unemployment for the ingloriousness +of petty crime, that was all.</p> + +<p>A woman, bedraggled and dishevelled, strayed +across from the public-house and stood for a moment +gazing vacantly up at the trim little figure of +the woman in the cart. She was past listening to +anything that might be said.</p> + +<p>"Shameless!" she commented, and drifted away +again, unheeded. The adjustment of standards was +bewildering; and one felt that here was another +interrupter whose mental attitude was that of the +drawing-room and not of the street corner.</p> + +<p>The speaker made an end and asked for questions. +They did not come with any rapidity. People who +have done with the conventions of conduct are not +anxious to know what is to become of the baby and +the washing of the housewife who wants to cast a +vote at a Parliamentary election. There was a +pause; then the speaker declared the meeting closed. +The meeting, however, declined to be closed. The +crowd stood motionless, waiting for more; and they +had it, when a real electioneer, wearing party colours +and bristling with party commonplaces, stepped up +to the fringe of the audience. He brought a breath +of prosperous unreality with him, and when his +objection, the usual apprehensive one about future +women members of Parliament, was aptly answered +from the lorry, the habitués of the place broke into +noisy exultation.</p> + +<p>"Nipped 'im in the bud, she has! Give it 'im +agin, miss; give it 'im 'ot!"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> +As it happened, she had to give it to him again +and again, he being one of those hecklers who are +never nipped in the bud, but think that if they ask +the same question often enough they will catch the +speaker unawares in the end. Unable to do this, +after failing to accept or indeed to comprehend the +answer that was patiently repeated four times, the +ingenuous heckler wanted to know if the lady did +not think he could sufficiently safeguard her interests +in Parliament, and went away feeling sure he had +the best of it, but wondering slightly why she +laughed so immoderately at his parting shaft.</p> + +<p>The wagon moved slowly off, and the meeting +reluctantly broke up. The woman who had been +speaking looked down upon her slowly dispersing +audience, and tried to draw conclusions.</p> + +<p>"One feels at home with these people," she said. +"I wonder why it is?"</p> + +<p>"Society has broken down their barriers, and +they haven't learnt to set up new ones," suggested +some one.</p> + +<p>"'The saints and the sinners meet in the gaols,'" +quoted our literary member, softly. "Suffragettes +forced to be sinners, and sinners who are not given a +chance to be saints—oh, it's easy to see why we +two should be fellow-creatures!"</p> + +<p>The saints and the sinners, slouching back to their +dens, passed a similar verdict, if differently expressed, +on the woman who had been speaking.</p> + +<p>"Good old sport, that's what <em>I</em> call the old gal!" +cried a young fellow, challenging criticism in a +threatening tone.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> +"Same 'ere," returned the pretty girl-sinner, or +saint, not laughing this time, as she looked after the +flapping flag that had brought a streak of colour, for +one hour of her turbulent existence, into the black +spot of the constituency.</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2><a name="X" id="X">X</a><br /> +"Votes for Women—Forward!"</h2> + + +<p>When our local committee determined, in the +words of the minutes book, to open a shop and +offices in the local main street, "for the dissemination +of suffrage literature," we made up our minds +that we would not be amateur shopkeepers. The +success of our venture, we argued solemnly, depended +on convincing the neighbourhood that we +meant to be taken as seriously as any other tradesman +in the street. Unfortunately, in saying this, we +reckoned without our customer; for, if you attempt +to be taken seriously as a shopkeeper, the one error +to be avoided is that of taking the customer seriously.</p> + +<p>Naturally, we began by taking the customer very +seriously. The first one who entered the shop was +instantly confronted with three eager shop assistants, +who asked him breathlessly and in unison what they +might have the pleasure of showing him. He replied +politely that he had known perfectly well what +they might have the pleasure of showing him, before +they asked him what it was, but that their unbroken +front and commercial zeal had entirely put it out of +his head. Two of us thereupon beat a wise retreat<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> +and left the field to the militant member of our committee, +who promptly told our first customer that she +was sure he wanted a suffrage tie in the colours. He +agreed to this, dubiously at first, afterwards with real +alacrity when she offered him the alternative of a tobacco-pouch, +prettily decorated with a hand-painted +sketch of Holloway Gaol, done from memory.</p> + +<p>"I never smoke a pipe," he explained, excusing +himself for his firmness over the tobacco-pouch; +"but I can wear the tie, perhaps, when I call on +people who won't allow me to talk about votes for +women."</p> + +<p>"This tie will speak for itself," said the shop +assistant.</p> + +<p>"It will," agreed her customer with a warmth +that seemed to us excessive, until we perceived that +the tie was oozing forth in all directions from the +insufficient piece of paper in which it was being +wrapped up.</p> + +<p>After the departure of our first customer, we reconsidered +the position. It was evident that as +shopkeepers we started with a distinct handicap, +being ourselves amateurs in selling, whereas no +customer is ever an amateur in buying. A woman +may never have entered a suffrage shop in order to +buy an instructive pamphlet, but most women know +how to pass a pleasant half-hour in a hat shop without +buying anything. We must be on our guard, +we decided, against the customer who came, not to +buy, but to shop, the opportunities open to the +customer for falling short of the shopkeeper's ideal +of her being greatly multiplied when the shop at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> +which she shops is one for the dissemination of +suffrage literature and not for the display of spring +millinery. Also, on the initiative of the militant +member of our committee, it was resolved that only +one person at a time should serve any one customer, +and that if a second customer should enter while +everybody was still hunting for the pamphlet the +first customer wanted to buy, somebody should call +"Shop!" in a professional tone up the spiral staircase, +in order to disabuse the minds of both customers +of the notion that we were new at our work. +We found, on carrying this last precept into practice, +that it had a marked effect on the waiting customer, +though very little on the mythical resources of the +spiral staircase.</p> + +<p>Having settled down to wait for the customers +who were going to make our shop a thriving business, +we found that the majority of them belonged +to those who went out to shop and not to buy. +Numbers of them, indeed, seemed to be there on the +assumption that if you want to buy something, one +shop is as good as another in which to seek it. A +good deal of useful experience is probably gained +in this way by the one who shops; but when you are +the shopkeeper, you wish it could be gained at somebody +else's expense. We felt this very strongly the +day that our door was burst abruptly open by a +ragged, unkempt gentleman who wanted a soup +ticket.</p> + +<p>The childlike confidence of this particular gentleman +in the ability of the Suffragettes to supply his +wants, was at once pathetic and complimentary;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> +but the pathos of it did not reveal itself to the +haughty, disapproving lady who was already in the +shop, giving advice to us all. She left at once, +clearly convinced that really good unsought advice +was wasted on people who kept such low company, +an opinion that would have been startlingly confirmed +had she waited long enough to see the ticket-of-leave +man.</p> + +<p>The ticket-of-leave man came in to ask if we could +give him a job. Obviously, he belonged to the great +army of those who can do "anything"; we had no +job to give, and told him so—a little curtly, I am +afraid, as a consequence of many previous interruptions +from those who did not come to buy. He +stood a moment, fumbling at the latch of the door +without raising it; then he turned round again.</p> + +<p>"Don't send me away, lady," he pleaded. "I've +been to prison too, same as all of you."</p> + +<p>The woman who alone among us answered to this +generic description of a mild and blameless local +committee, came swiftly forward.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry," she said. "What can we do for +you, and what made you come to us?"</p> + +<p>The man jerked his hand towards the corner of +the street where a policeman stood on the point. +"Said he couldn't help me himself," was the reply. +"Oh, he spoke kind enough, I'm not complaining of +the coppers——"</p> + +<p>"No, of course not," agreed our militant member. +"He's especially nice, that one. He's the one that +arrested me in Parliament Square."</p> + +<p>Another customer, who was making a genuine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> +purchase, was struck speechless by this calm announcement +on the part of an amiable-looking shop +assistant; but the ticket-of-leave man went on with +his tale unemotionally.</p> + +<p>"He said to me—'You go to the Suffragettes +yonder,' he said; 'they'll help you if anyone can,' +he said. So I came in on the chance like."</p> + +<p>We were rather sorry that our friend on the point +sent us no more ticket-of-leave men to vary the +monotony of business life and to add to the circle of +acquaintance of our militant member. She, however, +always maintained that it was an error of +judgment, if not of taste, on our part, to present +the policeman who had once arrested her with the +hand-painted tobacco-pouch, though she admitted +that he might use it for the rest of his life without +discovering what the sketch of Holloway Gaol was +meant for.</p> + +<p>The customer who was most destructive of our +peace was the kind of amiable person who, having +completed an infinitesimal purchase, stayed to chat, +monopolizing the one shop chair and barricading a +diminutive counter against anybody else who might +really want to buy something. We greatly preferred +the flippant jester who, attracted by our ingenuous +notice inviting people to come in and ask for +what they did not see in the window, would sometimes +put his head in at the door to ask facetiously +for a vote; but we were rather glad that the humorist +of the street was, as a rule, too short to reach the +latch, and had to satisfy his sense of humour by assuming +that the name of every woman in the shop,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> +not excluding the charwoman, was Pankhurst, a quip +that afforded exquisite joy to the little crowd that +loved to hang round our doorway, besides advertising +the object of our shop very nicely. Sometimes, +the limitations of the street repertoire became a +little tiresome. Admitting that the phrase "Votes +for Women" could not be said seriously too often +in a reactionary world, we felt that it was out of +place when hurled as an original remark through the +letter-box by somebody who instantly ran away. +This method of backing a belief in any cause, though +practised in high places, might well be eradicated, +we thought, in very small and very elementary +school children before it was too late; so we caught +one of them, a little girl staggering under the burden +of a large baby, and made her listen to reason. She +was extremely friendly about it, said she didn't see +but what we were right, even if we did smack policemen's +faces, and kindly promised to come and have +a look round, as soon as her little sister was free to +take over the responsibility of the baby.</p> + +<p>It became increasingly difficult to sustain our professional +pose as the shop grew more popular, because +kindly old ladies insisted on coming in to ask +if we took our meals regularly, and to beg us not to +fall down the spiral staircase, which looked perilous, +I suppose, to any one who saw us for the first time +steering a tea-tray down its ramifications, but always +seemed to us pleasantly emblematic of our mounting +aspirations. Curiously enough, it was on the day +the shop was photographed that we finally won our +way to the respect of the trade, though at the time<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> +nothing in our business experience had made us feel +so much like children playing at shop.</p> + +<p>Everything in the neighbourhood under the age of +twelve rushed helter-skelter to the spot. As fast as +the photographer swept them to one side of the +pavement, they closed up on the other; and only his +experienced agility and a lightning camera enabled +him to procure a picture that did not resemble an +advertisement of the Children's Holiday Fund. All +this was in the nature of a Roman holiday for the +neighbourhood, but we, summoned to the doorstep +to form part of the picture, felt it was to be counted +among the lesser sacrifices that have to be made for +a cause. The bystanders, of course, did not take +this view of our behaviour.</p> + +<p>"Look at 'em," said one of these, just as we were +miserably submitting to being grouped in self-conscious, +affectionate attitudes that did not remotely +convey the business-like relations of a business-like +committee. "That's what they like! +Votes for women, indeed!"</p> + +<p>Fixed by the glassy eye of the camera, we were +unable to reply to this; so our scornful critic went +away, doubtless confirmed in his belief that there is +no higher reward for a rebel woman than that of +standing in a thin blouse, at a street corner, to be +photographed, blown about by a cutting east wind, +jostled by yelling children, and exposed to the chance +of recognition at any minute by some disapproving +friend or relative.</p> + +<p>"Nobody will ever look upon us as real people in +business, after that," sighed one of our shop assistants<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> +when we regained comparative privacy behind +the counter.</p> + +<p>"Nobody," acquiesced our militant member, +gloomily. "And only this morning, I was really +feeling like a genuine tradesman when I took down +the shutters and agreed with the man next door that +trade will never improve as long as this Government +is in power."</p> + +<p>"Our trade certainly won't," agreed a chorus of +anti-Government agitators.</p> + +<p>The door was suddenly flung open, and a boy came +in and flung a sovereign on the counter.</p> + +<p>"Could you oblige Mr. Bunting with change, +please, miss?" he asked briskly.</p> + +<p>That was all. There was no condescension in his +tone. There was no impudence in his manner. He +did not ask if we wanted our rights now, or if we +would sooner wait till we got them. He did not say +he had no wish to see women sitting in <em>his</em> Parliament. +He just stood there, as shopman to shopman, +waiting to effect a trade transaction that raised us, +once and for all, beyond the level of amateurs.</p> + +<p>Nothing approaching a sovereign's worth of +change was in the chocolate-box hopefully described +by us as the till; but our militant member, now as +ever, knew how to rise to a great occasion. She +looked up from the column of figures she had hastily +pretended to be adding up when the shop bell +tinkled, seemed to take in the boy's request with +difficulty, called "Forward, dear, please!" in a +languid tone up the spiral staircase, then returned +to the column of figures. No lady of business experience<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> +in any shop or any post office could have +been more exasperatingly irrelevant.</p> + +<p>The rest of us looked fearfully at the boy in front +of the counter. He was kicking his heels together +and whistling tunelessly. Her procedure had, indeed, +not erred in a single detail; and he saw nothing +aggressive in her behaviour. Henceforth we +knew we could count on being treated in the trade +as equals.</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2><a name="XI" id="XI">XI</a><br /> +The Person who cannot Escape</h2> + + +<p>The lady of the manor seemed gently amused +when I criticized the architecture of the +cottage in which I had taken rooms, on the farther +side of the village.</p> + +<p>"It is not picturesque, like those that belong to +us," she admitted; "and I always think it was a +little unwise of Horace to let that piece of land for +building purposes without having the plans submitted +to us first. Still, the land was no good for +anything else, not even for allotments; and if we +had stipulated for gables and things of that sort we +might have it still on our hands, a prey to taxation."</p> + +<p>"I'm not thinking of the outside," I said; "it's +the inside that matters when you have to live in a +place. Nor am I thinking of myself, being in a +position to leave whenever I find it impossible to +endure the discomfort another minute——"</p> + +<p>"My dear," said the lady of the manor, looking +concerned, "is it as bad as that? I told you it was +absurd to expect to find rooms in a primitive place +like this——"</p> + +<p>"I am not thinking of myself," I repeated, "but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> +of poor Mr. and Mrs. Jim Bunce, who have to live +there always because there isn't another cottage in +the place, to say nothing of all the little Bunces, +three boys and a little——"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" she smiled, instantly reassured; "don't +worry about them. They are not writing books, like +their lodger. You must remember that the poor do +not feel things, as you and I do; otherwise, they +would appreciate nice houses when they get them. +Only think how disheartened Horace and I were +over those sweet gabled cottages we re-fronted for +them down by the marsh——"</p> + +<p>"Were those the ones you told me on no account +to go to?" I interrupted, presuming unkindly on an +old friendship.</p> + +<p>I was told not to be unreasonable. "Naturally, +I advised you to go to a newer place where the sanitation +would be better," said my hostess. "I am +sorry you don't like the Bunces' house, but that is +your own fault for not coming here when you were +invited."</p> + +<p>"It seems to me rather more the fault of the man +who built the Bunces' house," I represented, still +unreasonably, as I gathered from her expression. +"Have you seriously studied its front elevation? +A child could draw it on a slate:—two rooms upstairs, +two rooms downstairs; two windows upstairs, +two windows downstairs; chimneys anywhere you +like, but never in direct communication with fireplaces, +as the lodger discovers when the fire is +lighted in the sitting-room."</p> + +<p>"It is no use trying to teach these people anything,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> +murmured the lady of the manor; "of +course, damp wood, badly laid——"</p> + +<p>"It reminds me," I continued, "of a dolls' house +I once had, made out of a packing-case, neatly +divided into four compartments, with a staircase +jammed against one side of it and brought to an +abrupt termination by the doorstep. The staircase +is exactly like my dolls' house one, so steep that a +false step lands one straight in the front garden +with no conscious interval for falling. Mrs. Jim +kindly provides against this contingency by leaving +the front door always open," I added hastily, in +deference to a look of renewed concern.</p> + +<p>The lady of the manor agreed that there was +something in what I said about the defects of +modern architecture. "They do not build as they +once did," she observed sententiously; "but then, +the peasantry is not what it used to be. If the +poor were still thrifty and hard-working, and did +their own brewing and baking——"</p> + +<p>"How can they?" I interposed. "You should +see Mrs. Bunce's daily attempt to cook me a milk-pudding +in an oven that never bakes anything +equally on both sides, and sometimes refuses to +bake at all. Oh! I never know what or why the +poor are supposed to brew, but I do know that +they cannot bake in the houses they are obliged to +live in."</p> + +<p>"My dear," was the reply I received to all this, +"you have only yourself to blame for seeking impossibilities +in a country cottage, when you might +have settled down with your typewriter in the blue<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> +room over the library, and had your meals regularly. +I do not pity you in the least."</p> + +<p>"I do not pity myself," I said. "The person +to be pitied is the person who cannot escape, never +the person who can."</p> + +<p>As I walked back to the cottage that was built +on the plan of a dolls' house, I wondered how long +it would be before I availed myself of my privilege +of escape. When I first became Mrs. Jim Bunce's +lodger, a polite fiction existed that I was to dwell +apart in the two front rooms, away from the family, +a detached and superior position that might have +made the writing of books a possibility. Unfortunately, +this magnificent isolation had to yield +to the force of numbers. There was only a sketchy, +ill-fitting door between me and the kitchen, and I +shared to some extent in the family joys and +sorrows—they were generally sorrows—even +when this was closed. More often it gave way before +sudden pressure, and burst open to admit a +crawling baby, followed by an assortment of small +boys, pigs, chickens, puppies, and anything else that +was young and undisciplined, brought up tempestuously +at the rear by Mrs. Bunce and a broom. The +writing of books did not thrive under these conditions, +nor in the more strenuous moments that followed +when the baby girl, bored and whimpering, +had been carried off and set upon the flagstones +under my window with nothing more thrilling to +engage her attention than a piece of firewood.</p> + +<p>The baby for once was not crying when I arrived +back at my rooms, a state of grace that was accounted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> +for when I came upon her mother, who +was laying my tea, with the baby tucked under +one arm.</p> + +<p>"She be that okkard I canna keep her quiet +another way," was Mrs. Jim's simple explanation +of her feat of skill.</p> + +<p>It seemed an opportunity to make friends with +the greatest disturber of my peace, and I rashly +flirted with the baby until it was converted into the +firmest of allies. Nothing, as it turned out, could +have been more destructive of my future hopes of +accomplishing work. If it was difficult to write +when the baby cried, it became impossible when the +baby laughed. I cannot recommend the game of +"peep-bo" to any one who seriously wishes to combine +business and recreation, though the baby's +mother seemed to regard it habitually from this point +of view. I have seen her play "peep-bo" while she +mixed puddings, fed pigs or boys, washed clothes, +scrubbed floors, buried a dead chicken, or parcelled +out the weekly income into its amazing weekly +budget. Perhaps she led a less chequered existence +during the month I stayed with her; for without +acquiring her agility in doing housework with the +baby under one arm, I became an expert in distracting +the baby's attention from an insistent +tooth, and found this far harder work than any job +I was ever paid for. I came to the conclusion +that one does not know much about hard work until +one has lived with somebody whose work is never +done and never paid for.</p> + +<p>This was particularly impressed upon me one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> +evening, when, having put the children to bed, +fed every live thing that clamoured in the thickly +populated back yard, cleared away her husband's +supper and watched him start for the village club, +Mrs. Bunce told me she was going to step across the +road to do the week's washing for a sick neighbour. +This little act of humanity, mentioned so casually +as to divest it of the slightest taint of charity, kept +her at the wash-tub till past midnight; and at five +the next morning I heard her go downstairs to get +her man's breakfast. After that, one felt it would +be an immense relief to hear her grumble. She +never did; and there were moments when I began to +see points in the comfortable theory held by the +lady of the manor with regard to the insensibility of +"these people."</p> + +<p>There was the day, for instance, when the baby, +after crying fretfully for two hours, took to battering +a saucepan lid with a tin spoon. I had borne +its wails with set teeth, but this new and excruciating +din took me into the back room, bent on remonstrance. +I was met with a beatific smile from Mrs. +Jim, who was peeling potatoes at the sink.</p> + +<p>"Bless her heart!" she said placidly. "That +be the first time as ever she's been quiet this +morning!"</p> + +<p>Finally came the day when stolid, undemonstrative +Mrs. Bunce upset all theories as to the wonderful +patience of the poor. The lady of the manor +called with an annual invitation to a mothers' tea. +It was Saturday afternoon, and the weekly house-cleaning +was in full swing. The inopportune visitor,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> +stepping over a heap of small boys whose +tangled arms and legs suggested the interior of a +fisherman's worm-can, came next upon the baby, +who, in her week-end pinafore, was still hopefully +sucking a spoon that had once held jam. The +jam was distributed impartially over the baby's +countenance, and no one could pretend she was +looking her best, a criticism that might have been +applied with equal truth to her mother, who was +engaged in cleaning the kitchen flues. The general +effect of Mrs. Bunce's home was certainly not that +of the picturesque cottage interior so dear to the +imagination of those who live remotely in manor-houses; +and it was easy to see that this lady of the +manor welcomed such a heaven-sent opportunity +of being feudal, as she alluded in a perfectly kind +and courteous manner to the disarranged condition +of the kitchen stove and the mottled complexion +of the baby.</p> + +<p>She gave her invitation as a sort of consolation +prize at the end, and went away without waiting to +hear if it was accepted—as in the good old days, +I suppose, when a refusal would have been met +with the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">oubliette</i>. I walked up the road with her, +and learned how necessary it was to speak out +now and then; otherwise these young mothers +grew so careless and slovenly. The idea of slovenliness +in connection with this particular young +mother, who to my knowledge did the work of all +the servants in the manor-house, in addition to +being a wife and a mother and a dressmaker, left +me incapable of speech.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> +Mrs. Jim Bunce, who had remained silent and +immovable while the duty of the rich in speaking +plainly to the poor was being fulfilled, sat playing +with the baby on her lap when I returned to the +house. There was just time to reflect that she had +chosen a curious moment at which to suspend +her weekly attack upon the flues, before she gave +me a further surprise.</p> + +<p>"You wouldna think as I didn't never want to +have a girl when I had this one, would ye, miss?" +she jerked out abruptly.</p> + +<p>Still failing to understand that anything unusual +was happening, I said something stupid and polite +about a personal preference for little girls. She +smiled across at me rather queerly as she started +suddenly to her feet and caught the baby to her +with a quick, passionate gesture that made it cry +out with astonishment.</p> + +<p>"It bain't that," she said roughly. "I didna +want to bring another woman into it."</p> + +<p>She stood there, looking at me fiercely, and the +baby gave another whimper to express its outraged +sense of the fitness of things. There was nothing +heroic in the woman's figure; I think her hair +was coming down, and there was soot about her, +and her blouse wore a general air of bulgy disorder. +At her feet lay strewn the symbols of inartistic +toil, a hairless stove broom, a cracked saucer with a +mess of blacklead in it, some indescribable bits of +rag. Over it all hung the sickly smell of stale, +unventilated air, mingled with the fumes of damp +and smouldering wood. It was assuredly not the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> +setting for a great situation. Yet, as we stood +there, looking at each other, in the little hush that +fell upon us after that outburst of the rebel mother, +I found myself wondering if I had ever known how +great situations are made.</p> + +<p>The baby struggled to escape from an embrace +it did not understand; and, of course, the baby +was right. Mrs. Jim Bunce recognized the call of +convention, and acknowledged it by giving a sound +scolding to those portions of her family that happened +to be within reach. The flues were attacked +afresh with tempestuous energy; the baby was +left sobbing and neglected in one corner, the +sprawling boys scurried to another. I was told as +plainly as looks could tell that my place on a Saturday +afternoon was not the home.</p> + +<p>I decided that this was not the moment to explain +to Mrs. Jim Bunce that an age was dawning in which +women would be glad instead of afraid "to bring +another woman into it."</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2><a name="XII" id="XII">XII</a><br /> +The Daughter who stays at Home</h2> + + +<p>"I suppose you think," Penelope threw at me +with unnecessary vehemence, "that it is +only the daughter who lives away from home who +is really a rebel."</p> + +<p>"On the contrary," I said, "most rebellion is +bred in the home. Napoleon said——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know what Napoleon said," interrupted +Penelope. "At least, I know the kind of thing he +must have said, if you want to quote it. Seriously, +I don't think you know what it feels like to be the +daughter who comes back to live at home, after +being handicapped by a modern education. You +see, the daughter has gone on, and the home hasn't. +It isn't mother's fault, because she naturally thought +she was fitting me for home life when she let me take +a college course in housewifery. But what is the +use of knowing all about the chemistry of cooking +and the science of house-cleaning, if you have to +apply it in a home that has stayed in the same place +for a hundred years? Everything and everybody is +against one, from the abominable kitchen-range to +the cook who has been with mother ever since she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> +was married. You are going to say Napoleon +again."</p> + +<p>"I was going to say," was the cautious reply she +received to this, "that the only victories which leave +no regret are those that are gained over ignorance."</p> + +<p>"Who said that?" demanded Penelope suspiciously.</p> + +<p>"Napoleon," I admitted.</p> + +<p>"Now that we have got rid of Napoleon," proceeded +Penelope, coldly, "perhaps you will take +some interest in—oh, what rubbish to say that +about the victories that are gained over ignorance! +All the victories you win at home are victories over +ignorance, and they always leave regret behind, always, +always! That is why it is much worse to win +than to lose, when you fight at home, ever so much +worse!"</p> + +<p>"Having got rid of Napoleon," I said soothingly, +"why do we not talk as though we had? Tell me +what is wrong with your mother's house, from the +college point of view."</p> + +<p>Penelope stopped looking crestfallen, and chuckled. +"It is all creepers outside and old sinks inside," +she exclaimed concisely. "But when I said +that to mother, she didn't understand one bit. She +even seemed a little hurt. I didn't mean to hurt anybody's +feelings, naturally; I was trying to be funny. +Do you think," she added irrelevantly, "that there +was ever a time when my grandmother called my +mother new-fangled?"</p> + +<p>Knowing Penelope's mother, I said I thought this +possible; knowing Penelope, I went on to suggest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> +that tact was an excellent substitute for humour in +the home.</p> + +<p>"I know," she sighed. "But it is only in books +that the daughter of the house is a monument of +tact and goes about her household duties, rattling +an enormous bunch of keys and singing snatches of +gay song. I don't know how you sing snatches of +anything, but if it in the least resembles what Sarah +sings when she is cleaning plate, I am very glad that +only one of us does it. Of course, there is mother's +old bunch of keys if I want to rattle as I walk; but +as soon as I found out that only two of these opened +anything, I took off those two and tied them together +with a piece of ribbon. Even mother admitted the +wisdom of suppressing five-and-twenty keys that +belonged to no existing locks; but Cook regards my +piece of unofficial key ribbon as one more proof of +new-fangled ways. You don't know how difficult it +is to be a daughter of the house with success when +half the house knew you as a baby, and the other +half wishes it had never known you and your new-fangled +ways at all."</p> + +<p>I asked for details of the new-fangled ways, and +the unsuccessful daughter of the house cheered up +slightly. "You should have seen their faces," she +said, "when I drew up a time-table of meals for +a whole week in advance, to save wasting Cook's +time, and mine, every morning. Cook nearly gave +notice."</p> + +<p>To my objection that somebody's unusual appetite +or the arrival of an unexpected guest would upset +the time-table for the rest of the week, she retorted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> +that the same might be said of the time-table for any +one day. "In both cases you would merely send out +for something extra," she represented. "But I +can't induce Cook to see that. She says it has never +been done that way, and—oh, you know the rest! +It's so queer, isn't it, that people think there is something +abnormal and unfeminine about you if you get +the housekeeping done in ten minutes instead of +spreading it over the whole morning? Besides, +when I set out to make a list of meals for a whole +week, I choose a moment when I am feeling hungry +and therefore inspired. That gives one a chance of +inventing something new; but if I go into the +kitchen directly I have eaten a large breakfast, +the thought of more meals is intolerable, and I +say 'Yes' to all the dull old dishes that Cook +suggests."</p> + +<p>The housework led to more rebellion, she proceeded +to complain. "I did my best to persuade +Sarah that if she would do the cleaning in a labour-saving +sort of way she would probably have time +to go for a walk every day before luncheon. That +caused a revolution." Pressed for particulars of the +revolution, Penelope chuckled again. "First, there +was Cook, who said she had never been in any place +where the housemaid went for a walk before luncheon; +she further intimated that she could not stay +in a place where the housemaid, etc., etc. Then +there was mother, who said that, of course, she +would not dream of interfering when I was doing +everything so nicely, and all that; but if I went away +at any time it would be very awkward for her, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> +she couldn't have the maids going for walks at all +hours of the day, with no one to see where they +went. I pointed out to her that I should not dream +of seeing where they went, if I were at home, +also that they already went out on stated evenings, +when it might be even more desirable and +was certainly less possible to see where they +went. Mother was just beginning to understand—mother +is splendid, really, you know!—when Sarah +spoiled everything by declaring that nothing would +induce her to go out in the morning. She had never +been expected to do such a thing in any other +place, and she wasn't going to be put upon now. +If she could have another evening instead and +an extra Sunday—well, after that, all was sound +and confusion, and mother issued from the +struggle kind but triumphant. Since the plate-cleaning +episode, which followed close upon the +revolution, I have felt a mere flattened failure of a +daughter."</p> + +<p>The plate-cleaning episode had been caused by the +attempted introduction of a cleaning-cloth, which +dispensed with the necessity for plate powder or +metal paste. "Sarah seemed quite pleased about +it at first," said Penelope with a sigh. "She +pretended to understand perfectly when I explained +how nice it would be to have a clean and empty +housemaid's cupboard, instead of having every +shelf crowded with plate-brushes and bits of sodden +rag and tins of sticky brass paste, and that horrid +saucer full of plate powder that sprinkles pink dust +over everything when it gets dry. You know that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> +kind of cupboard, don't you? Well, Sarah took +to the idea like a lamb, and everything was going +splendidly when mother caught her rubbing up the +drawing-room candlesticks with my new patent +cloth; and because I couldn't prove on the spur +of the moment that the Sheffield plate would be +none the worse for it fifty years hence, mother said +she had the utmost confidence in my judgment, +but she could not help feeling that the old way +was safer. After that, I found Cook putting the +cloth on the fire with the tongs, while Sarah hoped +impressively at the top of her voice that she hadn't +given herself blood-poisoning by using the nasty-smelling +thing. So now all the old pink saucers +and tins and things have reappeared in the housemaid's +cupboard, and the plate-cleaning once more +occupies the whole of the morning, and the brass +occupies another and the stair-rods another, to +say nothing of all the useless copper pots and pans +on the kitchen chimney-piece that Cook never +uses, but won't let me put away—oh, we are jogging +along quite comfortably now in the dear old +way of a hundred years ago!"</p> + +<p>The sequel to this occurred about a week later, +when I went to call on Penelope's mother and found +ladders placed against the front of the house, +and the trailing creepers of ages given over to the +ministrations of the local nurseryman.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Penelope's mother, complacently, +"they should have been cut before. Creepers are +unhealthy things; they shut out light and air and +spoil the window architecture. As Penelope says,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> +the outside is the only part of any house on which +the architect has expended either skill or attention, +so it is a pity to hide it."</p> + +<p>I said something polite down her ear-trumpet +about new ways of looking at these things; and +Penelope's mother smiled in agreement. "Some +people do not know how to move with the times," +she said. "Because a thing was done in a certain +way a hundred years ago, let it be done in that +way for ever and ever, they say. Yet, by bringing +intelligence to bear upon the common things of +every day, even toil may become a pleasure, and +duty—well, duty almost ceases to exist. Of +course, I am speaking figuratively," she added +hastily, as if she felt she had gone too far.</p> + +<p>Not knowing exactly how duty could be a figure +of speech, or how, indeed, it could ever be anything +else, I remained silent before this reincarnation of +the earliest Victorian lady I know; and Penelope's +mother took up the silver teapot—not, however, +to pour out tea, but to point out to me its shining +surface.</p> + +<p>"In my housemaid's cupboard," she said proudly, +"you will find no pieces of sodden rag, no tins of +sticky brass paste, or that unpleasant saucer that +sprinkles pink dust over everything within reach. +We have banished all that in favour of—ah, Penelope, +my dear, run and ask Sarah for one of my +new cleaning-cloths, will you?"</p> + +<p>In the doorway stood Penelope, mockery shining +from her eyes.</p> + +<p>"And you dare to tell me that tact is more useful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> +in the home than a sense of humour!" she cried, +in a voice that thrilled with scorn.</p> + +<p>"At all events," I retorted, "you must admit +that Napoleon——"</p> + +<p>Penelope went hastily to fetch her mother's new +cleaning-cloth.</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII">XIII</a><br /> +The Game that wasn't Cricket</h2> + + +<p>Down the alley where I happen to live, playtime +draws a sharp line between the sexes. It +is not so noticeable during working hours, when +girls and boys, banded together by the common +grievance of compulsory education, trot off to school +almost as allies, even hand-in-hand in those cases +where protection is sought from the little girl by +the little boy who raced her into the world and +lost—or won—by half a length. But when +school is over sex antagonism, largely fostered by +the parent, immediately sets in. Knowing the size +of the average back yard in my neighbourhood, +I have plenty of sympathy for the mother who +wishes to keep it clear of children. But I always +want to know why, in order to secure this privacy, +she gives the boy a piece of bread-and-dripping and +a ball, while the girl is given a piece of bread-and-dripping +and a baby. And I have not yet decided +which of the two toys is the more destructive of my +peace.</p> + +<p>Every evening during the summer, cricket is +played just below my window in the hour preceding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> +sunset. Cricket, as played in my alley, is less +noisy than football, in which anything that comes +handy as a substitute for the ball may be used, +preferably an old, jagged salmon-tin. But cricket +lasts longer, the nerves of the parents whose windows +overlook the cricket ground being able to +stand it better. As the best working hour of my +day is destroyed equally by both, I have no feeling +either way, except that the cricket, as showing a +more masterly evasion of difficulties, appeals to me +rather more. It is comparatively easy to achieve +some resemblance to a game of football even in a +narrow strip of pavement bordered by houses, where +you can place one goal in the porch of the model +dwellings at the blind end of the alley, and the other +goal among the motor traffic at the street end. But +first-class cricket is more difficult of attainment when +the field is so crowded as to make it hard to decide +which player out of three or four has caught +you out, while your only chance of not being run +out first ball is to take the wicket with you—always +a possibility when the wicket is somebody's +coat that has a way of getting mixed up with the +batsman's feet.</p> + +<p>In spite of obstacles, however, the cricket goes +on every evening before sunset; and all the while, +the little girl who tripped to school on such a gay +basis of equality with her brother only a few hours +back, sits on the doorstep minding the baby. I +do not say that she actively objects to this; I +only know with acute certainty that the baby objects +to it, and for a long time I felt that it would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> +be at least interesting to see what would happen +if the little girl were to stand up at the wicket +for a change while her brother dealt with the +baby.</p> + +<p>And the other evening this did happen. A +mother, making one of those sorties from the domestic +stronghold, that in my alley always have +the effect of bringing a look of guilt into the faces +of the innocent, shouted something I did not hear, +picked up the wicket, cuffed somebody's head with +it and made him put it on, gave the baby to a +brother, and sent his sister off to the oil-shop with a +jar in one hand and a penny tightly clasped in the +other. The interruption over, the scattered field +re-formed automatically, somebody else's jacket +was made into a mound, and cricket was resumed +with the loss of one player, who, by the way, +showed an astonishing talent for minding the +baby.</p> + +<p>Then the little girl came back from the oil-shop. +I know not what spirit of revolt entered suddenly +her small, subdued soul; perhaps the sight of a +boy minding the baby suggested an upheaval of the +universe that demanded her instant co-operation; +perhaps she had no distinct idea in her mind beyond +a wish to rebel. Whatever her reasons, there +she stood, <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'hat'">bat</ins> in hand, waiting for the ball, while +the baby crowed delightedly in the unusual embrace +of a boy who, by all the laws of custom, was unsexing +himself.</p> + +<p>Another instant, and the air was rent with sound<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> +and fury. In front of the wicket stood the Spirit +of Revolt, with tumbled hair and defiant eyes, +breathless with much running, intoxicated with +success; around her, an outraged cricket team, +strong in the conventions of a lifetime, was protesting +fiercely.</p> + +<p>What had happened was quite simple. Grasping +in an instant of time the only possible way of +eluding the crowd of fielders in the narrow space, +the little impromptu batswoman had done the obvious +thing and struck the ball against the wall +high over their heads, whence it bounded into the +open street and got lost in the traffic. Then she +ran till she could run no more. Why wasn't it +fair? she wanted to know.</p> + +<p>"'Cause it ain't—there!" was one illuminating +reply.</p> + +<p>"'Cause we don't never play that way," was +another upon which she was quick to pounce.</p> + +<p>"You never thought of it, that's why!" she retorted +shrewdly.</p> + +<p>She was desperately outnumbered. It was magnificent, +but it wasn't cricket; moreover, her place +was the doorstep, as she was speedily reminded +when the door reopened and avenging +motherhood once more swooped down upon the +scene. A shake here, a push there—and the boy +was back again at the wicket, while a weeping baby +lay unheeded on the lap of a weeping Spirit of +Revolt.</p> + +<p>And the queer thing is that the innovation made<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> +by the small batswoman in her one instant of wild +rebellion has now been adopted by the team that +plays cricket down my alley, every evening before +sunset.</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2><a name="XIV" id="XIV">XIV</a><br /> +Dissension in the Home</h2> + + +<p>"I should be delighted to get up a meeting +for you in my house," said the enthusiastic +new recruit. "I always have said that women who +paid rates and taxes—I beg your pardon? Oh, +speakers—of course, speakers! Well, they must +be the very best you have; people get so easily bored, +don't they? And that's so bad for the cause." She +reflected an instant, then fired off the names of three +famous Suffragettes and was astonished to hear that +the well-known leaders rarely had time to address +drawing-room meetings.</p> + +<p>"Isn't that rather a mistake?" she suggested, +with the splendid effrontery of the new recruit. +"It is so important to attract the leisured woman +who won't go to public meetings for fear of being +stuck with a hatpin. I'm really afraid my crowd +won't come unless they see a name they know on +the cards." Finding that this made no appeal to +one who had heard it often before, she asked in a resigned +tone if a window breaker would be available. +"If I could put on the invitation card—'Why +I broke a Prime Minister's window, by One who +has done it,' they'd come in flocks. No, it wouldn't +matter <em>much</em> if she had broken somebody else's window.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> +As long as she had broken something—do +<em>you</em> speak, by the way? Your voice is hardly +strong enough, perhaps?"</p> + +<p>The suffrage organiser, hoarse with having held +two open-air meetings a day for the past week, admitted +that she did speak sometimes. "I've been +to prison too, if that is any good," she added cynically.</p> + +<p>The cynicism was unperceived. "Have you? +But that will be perfectly delightful! Can I +promise them that you will speak about picking +oakum and doing the treadmill? Oh, don't they? +I thought all the Suffragettes picked oakum in Holloway, +and that was why they—never mind! +You've really eaten skilly, and that ought to fetch +them, if anything will. The Chair? Oh, I really +don't think I <em>could</em>;—I should die of terror, I +know I should. What should I have to do? Yes, +I suppose I could tell them why I want a vote. I +always have said that women who paid rates and +taxes—yes, Wednesday at nine o'clock. You'll +come and dine first, won't you? It's so good for +the unconverted to meet you at dinner, just to see +that you do know how to hold a knife and fork. +My husband is so very much opposed; I like to do +all I can in a <em>quiet</em> way to show him that the Suffragettes +are <em>not</em> all—can't you really? Well, +come as early as you can; I shall be simply dead +with nervousness if I'm left unsupported. By the +way, you'll wear your most feminine frock, won't +you? I hope you don't mind my mentioning it, but +it is so important to impress the leisured woman—to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> +say nothing of my husband! I am so anxious to +avoid causing dissension in the home; I think that +would be <em>wrong</em>, don't you? Of course, I shall let +them all think that you may turn up in goloshes and +spectacles; it will make the contrast all the greater, +and that is so good for the cause!"</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Fontenella wants to give a drawing-room +meeting," said the organiser, when she returned to +the office. "She seems to have a curious set of +friends who look upon suffrage as a sort of music +hall entertainment; so she wants me to speak because +I have picked oakum in Holloway, and you, +because you have broken something. I think she +must be an Anti by birth."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," answered the woman who had broken +something. "She is really a Suffragette by birth, +and only an Anti by marriage. I am glad we have +won her back again."</p> + +<p>"Then why does she talk as if we were all +mountebanks?" asked the other, unconvinced.</p> + +<p>The breaker of Government plate glass shook her +head slowly. "I don't know," she said. "I think, +perhaps, it may be because she has lived eleven +years with somebody from whom she is obliged to +conceal what she really feels about things."</p> + +<p>"She isn't obliged to conceal anything; nobody +is!" cried the organiser, hotly. "If these people +had the courage to show fight—"</p> + +<p>"They have—when the fight is worth it," struck +in the older woman. "Those are just the people +whose courage is inexhaustible, when real courage +is required. I don't know why it is so, unless it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> +is that they haven't wasted it over things that don't +matter, and so they have a reserve fund to draw +upon for a great occasion. That's the best of a +cause like ours—it furnishes them with the great +occasion."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Fontenella's reserve fund must be colossal," +said the organiser, still unconvinced.</p> + +<p>The audience that was lured to Mrs. Fontenella's +house on Wednesday evening by a prospect of meeting +two eccentric females who had been to gaol—doubtless +because they richly deserved it—was +composed of the elements that usually go to make +up such audiences. It was very rich, very idle, very +limited; it was polite by education and rather insolent +by nature; and, with the exception of one or +two of the men, who nursed an academic belief +in the woman's vote because they hoped that under +masculine influence it might be used to strengthen +the right political party, it was not interested in politics. +The men were there because they thought it +was a sporting idea of the most popular hostess in +their set to pretend to be a Suffragette; and the +women were there to show their disapproval of a +shrieking minority, who, for the sake of notoriety, +were rapidly destroying the ideal of womanhood +that had been implanted in every Englishman's +breast by his mother;—at least, those were the +reasons they gave one another for being there, as +they sat in rows on gilded upright chairs, waiting +for the fun to begin. When it did begin, they experienced +a distinct sensation of having been cheated +of their entertainment.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> +It was not that they found it difficult to recognise +the most popular hostess they knew in the +apologetic lady who stood up, glittering with gems, +against an expensive background of hothouse plants, +and read out platitudes from a type-written paper +in a high-pitched, jerky voice; though everything +was wrong in that opening speech from the Chair. +It was flippant without being funny; it threw up +defences where it should have attacked; it jarred +where it should have conciliated. One at least of +the two women who shared the platform with her, +chafing under the huge mistake of her speech, felt +inclined to agree with the audience that the speaker +was only pretending to be a Suffragette. It was not +this that disappointed the audience, however. It had +expected nothing else from one of its own set, who +was obviously unfitted both by nature and upbringing +to sustain a part that she had only assumed because +it was something new—just as she might +have hired a pianola or a gramophone when these +two were novelties. But it was not fair to invite +people to meet two hooligans who had fought with +policemen, and then to confront them with two normal +looking, normally dressed women, of whom it +was impossible to believe anything that was not +consistent with breeding and good form. Disappointment +grew when the faltering little speech of +the Chairman came to an end, and the younger of +the two Suffragettes, with a fleeting glance at her +notes, rose to her feet. A woman who had picked +oakum and defied wardresses—their hostess had +omitted no detail likely to attract her "crowd"—had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> +no right to a soft, humorous voice, or to an +educated accent. Entertainment there was of a +sort; for the most obdurate Anti-suffragist could +scarcely have remained proof against the wit and +good temper of the girl who stood there, undaunted +by the atmosphere of opposition that filled the room, +turning the laugh against her opponents with every +point that she made. Still, it was not the kind of +entertainment they had been led to expect, and a +certain amount of discomfiture mingled with the +laughter and the applause that she won by the time +she sat down.</p> + +<p>Then the older woman, the one who had broken +windows, took her place. There was nothing conciliatory, +nothing amusing in what she said. She +did not raise a laugh once; she uttered no sort of +appeal; she never so much as hinted at an apology +for what she and other women like her had felt impelled +to do. She made some of her listeners +angry; some of them she moved deeply; others she +greatly perplexed; but she left none of them precisely +where they had been when she began to speak, +and when she sat down there was hardly any applause. +Nearly every man in the room was staring +at his boots; the women played with their lace and +their rings, avoiding one another's eyes. A few +were horribly ashamed of having tears in theirs.</p> + +<p>The Chairman did not rise for a moment or two. +She was scribbling something rapidly on a piece of +paper, which she twisted up and sent down the +length of the brilliantly lighted room to a man who +stood lounging carelessly in the doorway. He untwisted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> +it with extreme deliberation, crushed it up +in his hand when he had read it, and looked his +wife straight in the eyes, across the backs of the +waiting people in the chairs. She met his look for +just two seconds before she stood up and cleared +her throat.</p> + +<p>The rows of people in the chairs stirred with a +sensation of relief. Eloquence and wit, they knew, +were not in the repertory of Mrs. Fontenella when +she was posing as a Suffragette; but at least she +could be counted upon not to make them feel uncomfortable. +When she stood there silent, gripping +the table with both hands and looking straight +down the room, along the road that her twisted +scrap of paper had taken to the man in the doorway, +they began to think something was a little wrong.</p> + +<p>Did she, realising that the last speaker had overstepped +the limits of good taste, feel incapable of +dealing with the situation? It was certainly a little +awkward for her to continue to occupy the Chair, +under the circumstances.</p> + +<p>"Ask for questions," prompted the organiser +who sat on her left; and she pushed the agenda +paper towards her, thinking she was nervous and +could think of nothing to say.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fontenella was not nervous. She glanced +round at her prompter with a reassuring smile and +brushed aside the agenda paper. Then she faced +the crowd she had brought there under false pretences, +and gave them the second shock they had +received that evening.</p> + +<p>"Friends," she said, in a voice that no longer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> +faltered or apologised, a voice that was pitched exactly +right and held her listeners strangely, "the +last speaker has told us that another deputation of +women will try to reach the presence of the Prime +Minister, next week. You know what that means—almost +certain imprisonment for the women who +go on that deputation, but also a certain chance for +every one of us to do something towards winning +a great reform. I am going on that deputation. +Which of you will come with me?"</p> + +<p>Those who managed furtively to look round at +the man in the doorway, were extremely puzzled +by the interested smile he wore.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>"You were right about that woman, and I was +utterly wrong," confessed the organiser, as she +walked away from the house with the other speaker. +"I do hope she won't have a bad time with that +Anti husband of hers!"</p> + +<p>"You never know," said her companion, who +had seen the interested smile of the man in the +doorway. "That's the blessed thing about marriage;—you +never know."</p> + +<p>"What!" exclaimed the younger woman. "Do +you mean to say he is a Suffragette by birth, too?"</p> + +<p>"No," was the reply. "I should say he was an +Anti by birth; but I think he may be a Suffragette +by marriage, though I doubt if he or his wife had +found it out until to-night."</p> + +<p>In a long and brilliantly lighted drawing-room, +desolate with its rows of empty chairs, the popular +hostess who was also a Suffragette stood alone with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> +the man whose smile had puzzled every one who +saw it, half-an-hour ago, except the woman who +had broken windows.</p> + +<p>"It's simply magnificent of you," said his wife.</p> + +<p>He took a walk round and moved some of the +expensive hothouse plants. "I hate these things," +he said. "Why do we have them? Let's open +some more windows and get rid of the smell."</p> + +<p>She laughed, and watched him go across to +manipulate blinds and bolts. "You are always the +same man I married, even when you are quite different, +as you were this evening," she remarked, +with equal inconsequence.</p> + +<p>"You're not the same woman as the one I married!" +he shot back at her.</p> + +<p>"But I am!" she cried. "I am, I am! And +that's the whole point!"</p> + +<p>He looked round at her, the smile back in his +face. "Perhaps it is," he said. "Perhaps it is. +Pity we've both missed it for eleven years, isn't it?"<br/></p> + + +<h2>THE END<br/><br/></h2> + + + + +<div class="center"><h2>THE MARTYRDOM OF MAN</h2> + +<h3>BY +WINWOOD READE</h3></div> + +<p class="center"><i>Cloth. 12mo. $1.50 net. Postage 15 cents</i></p> + +<p class="center"><i>A Biographical Sketch of the Author and an Estimate of his<br /> +Work. Also Portrait Frontispiece</i></p> + +<p>Some of the Topics:</p> + +<p>Egypt—Western Asia—The Greeks—The Macedonians—The +Natural History of Religion—The Israelites—The Jews—The +Character of Jesus—The Character of Mahomet—Ancient +Europe—The Slave Trade—Abolition in Europe—Abolition +in America—Animal Period of the Earth—The Future +of the Human Race—The Religion of Reason and Love.<br/></p> + + +<div class="center"><h2>SOCIALISM AND SUCCESS</h2> + +<h2>Some Uninvited Messages</h2> + +<h3>BY +W. J. GHENT</h3></div> + +<p class="center"><i>$1.00 net. Postage 15 cents</i></p> + +<p>"Socialism and Success" bears a pertinent message "To +the Seekers of Success," "To the Reformers," "To the +Retainers," "To Some Socialists," "To Mr. John Smith, +Workingman," and "To the Sceptics and Doubters." +Every reader will find food for thought in its keen analysis +of motives, its fearless criticism, and its pointed suggestion. +Although a socialist, Mr. Ghent is not blind to the faults and +weaknesses of the socialist movement, and he states them +frankly.</p> + +<p>This is a book that will cause controversy, a book that +hits hard at human foibles, a book that will win high praise +and severe censure. No socialist or non-socialist can afford +to miss the live argument and pithy suggestion contained in +its pages.<br/></p> + + +<div class="center"><h2> +BERNARD SHAW<br /> +AS ARTIST-PHILOSOPHER<br /> +</h2> + +<h3><small>BY</small> RENEE M. DEACON</h3></div> + +<p class="center"><i>Cloth. 16mo. $1.00 net. Postage 10 cents</i></p> + +<p>*<sub><big>*</big></sub>* A brief account of the Shavian philosophy, in which +the main trend of Bernard Shaw's thought is clearly indicated, +and his attitude toward life is revealed.</p> + +<p>*<sub><big>*</big></sub>* "Perhaps the best examination of Bernard Shaw +that has been published in English."—<cite>Dundee Advertiser.</cite></p> + +<p>"Full of quick and suggestive ideas. Many will gain a +new and perhaps a truer view of Shaw, his work and his intentions, +through this thoughtful work."—<cite>Chicago Record-Herald.</cite><br/></p> + + +<div class="center"><h2>SOCIALISM AND SUPERIOR BRAINS</h2> + +<h3><small>BY</small> BERNARD SHAW</h3></div> + +<p class="center"><i>Cloth. 16mo. 75 cents net. Postage 10 cents</i></p> + +<p>Portrait frontispiece by the author. A new book by +Bernard Shaw, dealing with the following topics:</p> + +<ul><li>The Able Author.</li> +<li>The Able Inventor.</li> +<li>Ability at Supply-and-Demand Prices.</li> +<li>The Ability that Gives Value for Money.</li> +<li>Waste of Ability and Inflation of Its Prices by the Rich.</li> +<li>Artificial Rent of Ability.</li> +<li>Artificial Ability.</li> +<li>How Little Really Goes to Ability, etc., etc.</li> +</ul> + +<p>"Written with that matchless virility for which Mr. Shaw +is so famous. Socialism has never had, and probably never +will have, a better and abler exponent and defender."—<cite>Dundee Advertiser.</cite><br/></p> + +<div class="center"><h2> +MODERN WOMAN AND HOW TO<br /> +MANAGE HER<br /> +</h2> + +<h3>BY +WALTER M. GALLICHAN</h3></div> + +<p class="center"><i>Cloth. 12mo. $1.50 net. Postage 10 cents</i></p> + +<p>*<sub><big>*</big></sub>* "It is from the man's point of view, of course—and Mr. +Gallichan has done it well and interestingly.... Every husband +should get this book—and every wife with any common sense at +all."—<cite>The Bookman</cite> (London).</p> + +<p>SOME OF THE TOPICS DISCUSSED</p> + +<ul><li>The Duel in Love</li> +<li>The War in Wedlock</li> +<li>The Battle in Politics</li> +<li>The Strife in Breadwinning</li> +<li>The Feud in the Family, etc.</li> +</ul> + +<p>"A book for a host of men to read, and one that a number of them +will chuckle heartily over. An education in itself for almost all +men, and, we would say, the modern woman."—<cite>Tourist Magazine.</cite></p> + +<p>"A keen, clear-eyed study of many important questions relating to +women and, therefore, to the life of to-day and the life of the future."—<cite>Book +News Monthly.</cite></p> + +<p>"Has many unusual features and is never dull."—<cite>New Orleans Picayune.</cite></p> + +<p>"Should be in every household."—<cite>Boston Herald.</cite></p> + +<p>"Very amusing."—<cite>The Smart Set.</cite></p> + +<p>"A volume that will stimulate thought and provide discussion. It +is never dull."—<cite>San Francisco Bulletin.</cite><br /><br /></p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h2>FOOTNOTES:</h2> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> Since the above was written children's courts have been +established.</p></div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="tnote"><h3>Transcriber's Notes:</h3> <p>Obvious punctuation errors +repaired.</p> + +<p>The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the +corrections. Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will <ins +title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'apprear'">appear</ins>.</p> + +<p>Table of Contents: Error in original lists 'Chapter XIII.' as starting +on page 119; changed to 118 for actual starting page in book.</p> + +<p>Page 7: word 'due' added to text (impossibility due to)</p> + +<p>Page 120: word 'hat' changed to 'bat'</p></div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Rebel women, by Evelyn Sharp + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REBEL WOMEN *** + +***** This file should be named 42136-h.htm or 42136-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/4/2/1/3/42136/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Carol Spence, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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