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@@ -1,38 +1,4 @@ -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: ASCII - -*** 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.) - - - - - - - - +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42136 *** Rebel Women @@ -1481,8 +1447,8 @@ you say," she added consolingly, as she went towards two approaching women with outstretched hand and an ingratiating smile. "_Ah! ce sont les suffragettes!_" exclaimed one of these unexpectedly. -"_Nous sommes des suffragistes francaises, nous aussi! Vive le -feminisme!_" +"_Nous sommes des suffragistes françaises, nous aussi! Vive le +féminisme!_" "Oh, how perfectly delightful!" said the English suffragist, beaming on them. "Do stop and listen. _Nous allons avoir un_--oh, bother! What is @@ -1852,7 +1818,7 @@ determined manner until she went. 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--"_Il faut souffrir pour etre sel._" +moment--"_Il faut souffrir pour être sel._" @@ -1990,7 +1956,7 @@ cause, but for a living," she said feelingly. 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 depot for patent toasting-forks, bone +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 encountered one of these. Melting @@ -2246,7 +2212,7 @@ 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 habitues of the place +Parliament, was aptly answered from the lorry, the habitués of the place broke into noisy exultation. "Nipped 'im in the bud, she has! Give it 'im agin, miss; give it 'im @@ -3421,362 +3387,4 @@ Page 120: Phrase 'hat in hand' changed to 'bat in hand' 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.txt or 42136.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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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.) - - - - - - - - - - Rebel Women - - BY - EVELYN SHARP - - - NEW YORK - JOHN LANE COMPANY - MCMX - - - - - Copyright, 1910 - BY JOHN LANE COMPANY - - - - -Some of these sketches have appeared in the _Manchester Guardian_, the -_Daily Chronicle_, and _Votes for Women_. - - - - - Contents - - - Page - - I. The Women at the Gate 7 - - II. To Prison while the Sun Shines 20 - - III. Shaking Hands with the Middle Ages 27 - - IV. Filling the War Chest 41 - - V. The Conversion of Penelope's Mother 51 - - VI. At a Street Corner 59 - - VII. The Crank of all the Ages 68 - - VIII. Patrolling the Gutter 75 - - IX. The Black Spot of the Constituency 83 - - X. "Votes for Women--Forward!" 92 - - XI. The Person who cannot Escape 101 - - XII. The Daughter who Stays at Home 110 - - XIII. The Game that wasn't Cricket 118 - - XIV. Dissension in the Home 123 - - - - -Rebel Women - - - - -I - -The Women at the Gate - - -"Funny, isn't it?" said the young man on the top of the omnibus. - -"No," said the young woman from whom he appeared to expect an answer, "I -don't think it is funny." - -"Take care," said the young man's friend, nudging him, "perhaps she's -one of them!" - -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 due to the -stream of traffic struggling towards Whitehall. The thing she wanted to -find was not down there, among the slipping 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. - -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. - -"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. - -"No," was the answer again, "I am looking at something that isn't -exactly there; at least----" - -"If I was you, miss," interrupted the facetious youth, with a wink at -his companion, "I should chuck looking for what ain't there, and----" - -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." - -The amazed stare of the young man covered her, as she went swiftly down -the steps of the omnibus and disappeared in the crowd. - -"Balmy, the whole lot of 'em!" commented the conductor briefly. - -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. - -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. - -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 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. - -"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. - -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. - -"Isn't it terrible to see women going on like this?" lamented the lady -breathlessly. "And they say some of them are quite nice--like us, I -mean." - -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. - -"Bravo, little 'un!" he roared. "Stick to it! Votes for women, I say! -Votes for women!" - -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. - -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!" - -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. - -"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!" - -"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. - -"War!" scoffed his wife. "There's none of the glory of war in this." - -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. - -"Oh, there's none of the glory of war in that!" cried the woman again, a -tremble in her voice. - -"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 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. - -"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." - -"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!" - -"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." - -"They don't look like doing it to-night, do they?" said the woman's -husband breezily. "Thirteen women and six thousand police, you know!" - -"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." - -"The police are not there only to arrest the women----" - -"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." - -A man reeled along the pavement and lurched up against them. - -"Women in trousers! What's the country coming to?" he babbled; and -bystanders laughed hysterically. - -"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. - -The woman with the passionless eyes looked after them. "He sees what we -see," she murmured. - -"Seems he's been in the army, active service, too," remarked the artisan -in a sociable manner. "I like the way he conversed, myself." - -"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'?" - -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. - -The man, without sharing her reasons for a display of unusual -perception, seemed equally unaware of any strangeness in the situation. - -"No, miss, I haven't read it," he answered. "That's Greek mythology, -isn't it? I never learnt to speak Greek." - -"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 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?" - -"Seems so," agreed her new friend, affably. - -"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." - -"That's it! Always put all the blame on the women," said the artisan, -grasping what he could of her strange discourse. - -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 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. - -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, 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. - -"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." - -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. - -"I am not going home," she told him. "I am the thirteenth woman, you -see." - -She left the artisan staring at the spot near the edge of the pavement -where the crowd had opened and swallowed her up. - -"And she so well-informed too!" he murmured. "I don't like to think of -it--I don't like to think of it!" - - * * * * * - -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 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. - -"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?" - -"By looking to see which side pays the price of victory," answered the -man who had fought in real wars. - - - - -II - -To Prison while the Sun Shines - - -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. - -"It's pretty here in summer," she remarked sombrely. - -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 system that thinks to cure a desire for sunshine by -shutting it out. - -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. - -"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!" - -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 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. - -"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. - -"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. - -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. - -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. - -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 -for "ragging."[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. - - [A] Since the above was written children's courts have been established. - -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 -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. - -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. - -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. - -"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 do with that. -I am here to administer the law as it stands." - -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. - - - - -III - -Shaking Hands with the Middle Ages - - -"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. - -She gave an indifferent glance round the hall. - -"Yes," she acquiesced; "I suppose it is. I've never been to a political -meeting before." - -"Really?" said the steward blandly. "Quite an experience for you, then, -with a Cabinet Minister coming!" - -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. - -"It's all right," he said officiously. "I've just been talking to her. -She isn't one of them." - -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----" - -"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." - -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. - -"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. - -"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. - -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." - -"Were you, now?" returned the lady, sociably. "No wonder they're a -trifle apprehensive after the way those dreadful creatures went on at -the Corn Exchange, last week. You were there, perhaps?" - -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." - -"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. - -"And so they are!" cried the lady in tight black satin. "So they are." - -"They are," agreed the girl in grey. - -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. - -"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. - -"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." - -"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." - -"That is always where it is," said the woman in black, quietly. - -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. - -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 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. - -"There's a sort of barbaric splendour about that, isn't there?" he -remarked. - -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. - -"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. - -"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." - -There was a distant sound of cheering, and every 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. - -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. - -The little officious steward was back at his side, whispering in his -ear. He shook his head impatiently in reply. - -"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." - -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. - -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. - -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. - -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. - -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. - -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. - -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 voices. There was quite a little stir, and the great man -put out his hand benevolently. - -"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----" - -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. - -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 her feet, and stared up blindly at -the spot where she knew the speaker to be standing. - -"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." - -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. - -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. - -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 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. - -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. - -Sky and stars looked very remote when at last 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. - -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. - -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. - -"Martha! You of all people! Disgracing me like that! However did you -come to be mistaken for one of those screaming----?" - -"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----" - -"Nothing, do you call it? Coming here on purpose to interrupt----" - -"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 _them_ 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." - -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!" - -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. - -"All right, are you? You did splendidly, for a 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 _idiot_ can speak -after being chucked out of a Cabinet Minister's meeting!" - -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. - -She found the girl in grey cheerfully assuring an interested crowd that -she stood there as the champion of free speech. - - - - -IV - -Filling the War Chest - - -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. - -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 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. - -"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 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. - -The newspaper sellers at first held aloof; so did the girl who sold -air-balls. - -"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. - -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. - -"Dessay you find it chilly out here, not bein' used to it," she -suggested, pulling the knot in the string tighter with her teeth. - -"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. - -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 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. - -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. - -"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. - -When the enemy attacked, my fellow-hawkers waited with grim anticipation -for my replies. - -"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!" - -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 -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. - -"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. - -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. "_L'homme oisif tue le temps; le -temps tue l'homme oisif_," 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 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. - -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. - -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. - -"It gives you a pinched look, and then people throw you something -before they see what it is for," she added genially. - -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. - -"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. - -She stared, laughed a little, and ended on a sigh. "Nothing," she -confessed. "Isn't it tragic?" - -"It must be," I tried to agree. I suppose I succeeded in sounding a -human note, for she still lingered. - -"I hope you'll get your vote soon, and not have to go on wasting your -time like this," she said. - -"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. - -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. - -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. - -"It does last," agreed the companion. - -"Perhaps that gold edging would look handsomer," proceeded the old lady, -assailed by sudden doubts. - -"Oh, yes, it might," said the companion hastily, adapting her tone. - -"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. - -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, 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. - -"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. - -"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! - -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. - -I met with a chilly civility from them all, with the exception of the -flower lady, who shamelessly overcharged me for the daffodils. - -"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." - -That was all--from the friend and sister who had almost offered me her -shawl, a week ago, because she saw me shivering. - -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. - - - - -V - -The Conversion of Penelope's Mother - - -"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." - -"According to that," objected Penelope, "there is no possibility of -converting people to anything, unless they are already converted -without knowing it." - -"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----" - -"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." - -"Theoretically," I argued, "you could, if----" - -"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. - -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. - -"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 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. - -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. - -"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. - -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. - -"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. - -Evidently the ear-trumpet was found and adjusted, for retorts came thick -and fast as soon as Penelope began patiently to say it all over again. - -"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--" - -"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----" - -"You will never persuade me, my dear, that you can cure anybody's -attitude towards women by knocking off policemen's helmets----" - -"We don't knock off----" - -"I am convinced, Penelope, that I have seen a picture, in the _Daily -Illustrated_, 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 _Daily Illustrated_ is a most respectable -paper; it would never----" - -"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 of staying at home to nurse the baby -she hadn't got," shouted Penelope down the ear-trumpet. - -"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----" - -"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----" - -"Penelope," said her mother abruptly, "I have dropped my ear-trumpet -again, so you had better ring the bell for tea." - -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. - -"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----" - -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 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. - -"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." - -"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!" - -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. - -"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." - -"No," I said. "The age has converted her. Penelope is the child of the -age." - -"She has no business to be anybody's child but her mother's," was the -indignant reply. "When I was a girl daughters were their mother's own -children----" - -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. - -"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." - -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? - -"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?" - -"Listen!" I interrupted. - -Sarah was clearing away tea, and through the open drawing-room door came -scraps of conversation. - -"It is only right to study both sides of a question, Sarah." - -"Yes'm." - -"Florence Nightingale, the noblest Englishwoman 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." - -"Yes'm." - -"I think I shall stop your monthly magazine and order a suffrage -periodical for the kitchen instead." - -"Yes'm. We have two of Miss Penelope's already. Thank you, ma'am." - -Penelope and I fled downstairs to escape detection. - -"She was converted all the time; I told you she would be," I remarked on -the doorstep. - -"Now for the immortal grudge!" sighed Penelope. - - - - -VI - -At a Street Corner - - -"People of London!" faltered the lady who had just stepped upon the -sugar-box at the edge of the pavement. - -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. - -"Go on; that's splendid!" she said with friendly warmth. - -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. - -"People of London!" she repeated amiably. "We have come here to tell -you about 'Votes for----'" - -"Why, it's these 'ere Suffra_gites_!" 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. - -"I really must wait for some more people," she protested. - -"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." - -"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. - -"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. - -"_Ah! ce sont les suffragettes!_" exclaimed one of these unexpectedly. -"_Nous sommes des suffragistes françaises, nous aussi! Vive le -féminisme!_" - -"Oh, how perfectly delightful!" said the English suffragist, beaming on -them. "Do stop and listen. _Nous allons avoir un_--oh, bother! What is -'meeting'?--_un rendez-vous, mesdames!_" - -"_Tiens!_" gasped the French suffragists, as well they might. - -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. - -"Well, there ain't much of her, but give 'er a chaunce!" remarked a wit, -as the second speaker mounted the sugar-box. - -A small boy hitched up his trousers and moved off. "I shall turn into a -woman if I stay here," he observed. - -"No such luck for you, my boy!" came the quick retort from the rickety -platform, and the impressionable crowd grinned with appreciation. - -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. - -"Where did you git that from?" he shouted. - -"My friend has forgotten his history," said the speaker indulgently. "It -is an historical fact----" - -The interrupter turned his back contemptuously on the sugar-box, and -addressed the audience in a loud and overpowering voice. - -"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?" - -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----?" - -"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----" - -"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. - -"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----" - -"Yuss!" agreed a supporter. "Stow it, Jim, till the lidy's had 'er say." - -"But I don't want to hear no bloomin' Suffragette," grumbled the youth, -angrily conscious that the crowd was no longer with him. - -"Then git out!" advised the crowd; and the speaker's voice was drowned -for a minute or so in the altercation that followed. - -"What's it all about?" asked one woman of another, at the edge of the -crowd. - -The other, encircling a large bundle with her arms, shook her head. - -"I dunno," she said; "but I loves to 'ear 'em talk." - -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. - -"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. - -"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." - -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. - -"Why, I do believe that is a real live Suffragette! How chic!" she -exclaimed with an amused smile. - -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. - -"Jack, are you there? You must come and listen to this--you positively -must! I--I had no idea they were like that!" - -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. - -"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----" - -"Hold on, young woman, who's going to cook the Sunday dinner for the -kids?" interposed a voice. - -"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----" - -"What price roast pork and greens in Hyde Park?" demanded a -sporting-looking gentleman in a terrific waistcoat. - -"It won't hurt you to have cold pork and salad just for once," said the -resourceful speaker. "Only 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----" - -"Eighty of 'em! How about Holloway?" jeered the man in the waistcoat. - -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. - -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. - -"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. - -"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 skilly--"come and walk in our -procession from Holloway gates." - -"What! And be taken for gaol-birds too? Not much!" roared the man of -sporting appearance. - -"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. - -She and her companion were instantly swallowed up in the jostling, -chattering crowd, and the well-dressed woman appealed to Jack. - -"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!" - -"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." - -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. - -"I--I think you're splendid; and so does Jack!" 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!" - -"Eh what?" said Jack mildly. - - - - -VII - -The Crank of all the Ages - - VOTES FOR WOMEN, price one penny! - Articles by Annie Kenney, - Mrs. Lawrence, Christabel, - Other Suffragettes as well. - Men and women, come and buy-- - As you pass and hear the cry-- - VOTES FOR WOMEN! here we sell - Articles by Christabel, - Mrs. Lawrence, Annie Kenney-- - VOTES FOR WOMEN, price one penny! - - (New Street Cries, 1909.) - - -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 _Votes for Women_ 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 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. - -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. - -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 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. - -"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." - -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. - -"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." - -"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. - -"Ah!" said the elderly gentleman, who excused 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----" - -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. - -"There! What did I say?" he demanded. "Socialists, every one of them! -Socialists!" - -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. - -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. - -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. - -"Local option!" he repeated several times with enthusiasm, describing -circles on the pavement with his umbrella and effectually keeping all -possible customers at a distance. "Local option! That's the ticket. -Votes for women, indeed!" - -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. - -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. - -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. - -"You ought to be locked up in a lunatic asylum," she said sternly. - -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. - -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. - -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. - -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 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. - -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--"_Il faut souffrir pour être sel._" - - - - -VIII - -Patrolling the Gutter - - -"I suppose we had better start," faltered the tall woman in purple. - -"I can't think of a reasonable excuse for delaying any longer," sighed -the girl in green. - -"Come along!" said a third, making a great show of the courage she did -not feel. - -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 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. - -"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." - -"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 manoeuvres. - -"If you don't start soon, there will be nothing saleable left in the -place," said the shop secretary pointedly. - -"Well, what are you waiting for?" demanded the girl in green, trying to -infuse a little real impatience into her tone. - -"Courage," confessed the woman in purple, gloomily. - -"Oh, nonsense!" said our literary member, without, however, moving any -nearer to the door. "Think of George Herbert: - - God gave thy soul brave wings; put not those feathers - Into a bed to sleep out all ill weathers." - -We all tried to think of George Herbert, but without marked success. - -"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. - -"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. - -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. - -"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 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. - -"Brazen, ain't they?" she said. - -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. At -the same time, we found, nobody had the slightest difficulty in reading -the identity of those who carried the boards. - -"Suffer-a-gettes! Look at 'em!" roared an omnibus driver. - -"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 _I_ '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. - -A block in the traffic caused us all to close up for a moment, and we -compared notes hurriedly. - -"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. - -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. - -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 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. - -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-_ga_!" 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. - -"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 gentleman outside a public-house informed us, with some -difficulty of utterance, that we were a disgrace to our sex. - -"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. - -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!" - -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 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. - -On the other hand, the postman's criticism became wildly, -disproportionately cheering. - -"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!" - -Under the circumstances, it was very pleasant to be mistaken for -representatives of the rich and cultured classes. - - - - -IX - -The Black Spot of the Constituency - - -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 criminal district is the rebel man or -woman who is out fighting for a human cause. - -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. - -"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." - -"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 argument for the hundredth time, there is a nasty subtle -significance about a chestnut." - -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. - -"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." - -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 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. - -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. - -The audience naturally gave the speaker in the lorry no time to make -philosophic reflections. - -"Don't look as though she'd been fed on skilly, do she?" was a sally -that produced instant applause. - -"Here, miss!" shouted a young hooligan, pushing into prominence a -good-looking girl whose open, laughing face might have belonged to any -child of twenty in any sheltered home. "She's been to 'Olloway; can she -have a vote?" - -"Not much!" roared the crowd. - -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?" - -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. - -After that, it was a simple matter to get into conversation, and other -women, who were not laughing, gathered round to listen. - -"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----" - -"I 'ope as you'll git inter Parlyment, that I do!" chimed in another. - -"Yuss! Good luck to you!" cried a chorus of voices. - -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---- - -"Stow it!" they broke in impatiently. "Forgettin' your manners, ain't -you?" - -The woman in the lorry was telling them why she 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 day or -another, in a dull past, they had exchanged the dinginess of -unemployment for the ingloriousness of petty crime, that was all. - -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. - -"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. - -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. - -"Nipped 'im in the bud, she has! Give it 'im agin, miss; give it 'im -'ot!" - -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. - -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. - -"One feels at home with these people," she said. "I wonder why it is?" - -"Society has broken down their barriers, and they haven't learnt to set -up new ones," suggested some one. - -"'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!" - -The saints and the sinners, slouching back to their dens, passed a -similar verdict, if differently expressed, on the woman who had been -speaking. - -"Good old sport, that's what _I_ call the old gal!" cried a young -fellow, challenging criticism in a threatening tone. - -"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. - - - - -X - -"Votes for Women--Forward!" - - -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. - -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 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. - -"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." - -"This tie will speak for itself," said the shop assistant. - -"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. - -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 -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. - -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. - -The childlike confidence of this particular gentleman in the ability of -the Suffragettes to supply his wants, was at once pathetic and -complimentary; 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. - -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. - -"Don't send me away, lady," he pleaded. "I've been to prison too, same -as all of you." - -The woman who alone among us answered to this generic description of a -mild and blameless local committee, came swiftly forward. - -"I'm sorry," she said. "What can we do for you, and what made you come -to us?" - -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----" - -"No, of course not," agreed our militant member. "He's especially nice, -that one. He's the one that arrested me in Parliament Square." - -Another customer, who was making a genuine 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. - -"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." - -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. - -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, 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. - -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 nothing in our business experience had made us feel -so much like children playing at shop. - -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. - -"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!" - -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. - -"Nobody will ever look upon us as real people in business, after that," -sighed one of our shop assistants when we regained comparative privacy -behind the counter. - -"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." - -"Our trade certainly won't," agreed a chorus of anti-Government -agitators. - -The door was suddenly flung open, and a boy came in and flung a -sovereign on the counter. - -"Could you oblige Mr. Bunting with change, please, miss?" he asked -briskly. - -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 _his_ 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. - -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 in any shop or any post office could have been more -exasperatingly irrelevant. - -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. - - - - -XI - -The Person who cannot Escape - - -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. - -"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." - -"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----" - -"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----" - -"I am not thinking of myself," I repeated, "but 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----" - -"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----" - -"Were those the ones you told me on no account to go to?" I interrupted, -presuming unkindly on an old friendship. - -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." - -"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." - -"It is no use trying to teach these people anything," murmured the lady -of the manor; "of course, damp wood, badly laid----" - -"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. - -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----" - -"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." - -"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 room over the -library, and had your meals regularly. I do not pity you in the least." - -"I do not pity myself," I said. "The person to be pitied is the person -who cannot escape, never the person who can." - -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. - -The baby for once was not crying when I arrived back at my rooms, a -state of grace that was accounted for when I came upon her mother, who -was laying my tea, with the baby tucked under one arm. - -"She be that okkard I canna keep her quiet another way," was Mrs. Jim's -simple explanation of her feat of skill. - -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. - -This was particularly impressed upon me one 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." - -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. - -"Bless her heart!" she said placidly. "That be the first time as ever -she's been quiet this morning!" - -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, 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. - -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 -_oubliette_. 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. - -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. - -"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. - -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. - -"It bain't that," she said roughly. "I didna want to bring another woman -into it." - -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 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. - -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. - -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." - - - - -XII - -The Daughter who stays at Home - - -"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." - -"On the contrary," I said, "most rebellion is bred in the home. Napoleon -said----" - -"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 was married. You are going to say Napoleon again." - -"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." - -"Who said that?" demanded Penelope suspiciously. - -"Napoleon," I admitted. - -"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!" - -"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." - -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?" - -Knowing Penelope's mother, I said I thought this possible; knowing -Penelope, I went on to suggest that tact was an excellent substitute -for humour in the home. - -"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." - -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." - -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 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." - -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 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." - -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 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!" - -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. - -"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, 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." - -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. - -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. - -"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?" - -In the doorway stood Penelope, mockery shining from her eyes. - -"And you dare to tell me that tact is more useful in the home than a -sense of humour!" she cried, in a voice that thrilled with scorn. - -"At all events," I retorted, "you must admit that Napoleon----" - -Penelope went hastily to fetch her mother's new cleaning-cloth. - - - - -XIII - -The Game that wasn't Cricket - - -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. - -Every evening during the summer, cricket is played just below my window -in the hour preceding 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. - -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 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. - -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. - -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, -bat 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. - -Another instant, and the air was rent with sound 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. - -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. - -"'Cause it ain't--there!" was one illuminating reply. - -"'Cause we don't never play that way," was another upon which she was -quick to pounce. - -"You never thought of it, that's why!" she retorted shrewdly. - -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. - -And the queer thing is that the innovation made 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. - - - - -XIV - -Dissension in the Home - - -"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. - -"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 _much_ if she had broken somebody -else's window. As long as she had broken something--do _you_ speak, by -the way? Your voice is hardly strong enough, perhaps?" - -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. - -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 _could_;--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 _quiet_ way to show him that -the Suffragettes are _not_ 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 say nothing of my husband! I am so -anxious to avoid causing dissension in the home; I think that would be -_wrong_, 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!" - -"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." - -"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." - -"Then why does she talk as if we were all mountebanks?" asked the other, -unconvinced. - -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." - -"She isn't obliged to conceal anything; nobody is!" cried the organiser, -hotly. "If these people had the courage to show fight--" - -"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 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." - -"Mrs. Fontenella's reserve fund must be colossal," said the organiser, -still unconvinced. - -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. - -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 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. - -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. - -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 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. - -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. - -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. - -"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. - -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. - -"Friends," she said, in a voice that no longer 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?" - -Those who managed furtively to look round at the man in the doorway, -were extremely puzzled by the interested smile he wore. - - * * * * * - -"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!" - -"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." - -"What!" exclaimed the younger woman. "Do you mean to say he is a -Suffragette by birth, too?" - -"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." - -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 the man whose smile had puzzled every one who saw it, -half-an-hour ago, except the woman who had broken windows. - -"It's simply magnificent of you," said his wife. - -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." - -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. - -"You're not the same woman as the one I married!" he shot back at her. - -"But I am!" she cried. "I am, I am! And that's the whole point!" - -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?" - - -THE END - - - - -THE MARTYRDOM OF MAN - -BY -WINWOOD READE - -_Cloth. 12mo. $1.50 net. Postage 15 cents_ - -_A Biographical Sketch of the Author and an Estimate of his Work. Also -Portrait Frontispiece_ - -Some of the Topics: - -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. - - -SOCIALISM AND SUCCESS - -Some Uninvited Messages - - BY - W. J. GHENT - -_$1.00 net. Postage 15 cents_ - -"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. - -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. - - -BERNARD SHAW -AS ARTIST-PHILOSOPHER - -BY RENEE M. DEACON - -_Cloth. 16mo. $1.00 net. Postage 10 cents_ - -*.* 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. - -*.* "Perhaps the best examination of Bernard Shaw that has been -published in English."--_Dundee Advertiser._ - -"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."--_Chicago Record-Herald._ - - -SOCIALISM AND SUPERIOR BRAINS - -BY BERNARD SHAW - -_Cloth. 16mo. 75 cents net. Postage 10 cents_ - -Portrait frontispiece by the author. A new book by Bernard Shaw, dealing -with the following topics: - - The Able Author. - The Able Inventor. - Ability at Supply-and-Demand Prices. - The Ability that Gives Value for Money. - Waste of Ability and Inflation of Its Prices by the Rich. - Artificial Rent of Ability. - Artificial Ability. - How Little Really Goes to Ability, etc., etc. - -"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."--_Dundee Advertiser._ - - -MODERN WOMAN AND HOW TO -MANAGE HER - -BY - -WALTER M. GALLICHAN - -_Cloth. 12mo. $1.50 net. Postage 10 cents_ - -.*. "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."--_The Bookman_ -(London). - -SOME OF THE TOPICS DISCUSSED - - The Duel in Love - The War in Wedlock - The Battle in Politics - The Strife in Breadwinning - The Feud in the Family, etc. - -"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."--_Tourist Magazine._ - -"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."--_Book News Monthly._ - -"Has many unusual features and is never dull."--_New Orleans Picayune._ - -"Should be in every household."--_Boston Herald._ - -"Very amusing."--_The Smart Set._ - -"A volume that will stimulate thought and provide discussion. It is -never dull."--_San Francisco Bulletin._ - - - * * * * * - -Transcriber's Notes: - -Obvious punctuation errors repaired. - -'oe' ligatures have been changed to read simply 'oe'. - -Italics in the text have been replaced by _underscores_. - -Table of Contents: Error in original lists 'Chapter XIII.' -as starting on page 119; changed to 118 to match actual -starting page in book. - -Page 7: Word 'due' added to text (impossibility due to) - -Page 120: Phrase 'hat in hand' changed to 'bat in hand' - - - - - -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 42136-8.txt or 42136-8.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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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>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42136 ***</div> <div class="figcenter" style="width: 384px;"> <img id="coverpage" src="images/cover2.jpg" width="384" height="600" alt="Book cover" /> @@ -2070,7 +2032,7 @@ 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> +françaises, nous aussi! Vive le féminisme!</i>"</p> <p>"Oh, how perfectly delightful!" said the English suffragist, beaming on them. "Do stop and @@ -2553,7 +2515,7 @@ manner until she went.</p> 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> +frivolous moment—"<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Il faut souffrir pour être sel.</i>"</p> <hr class="chap" /> @@ -2733,7 +2695,7 @@ but for a living," she said feelingly.</p> 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 +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 @@ -3074,7 +3036,7 @@ 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 +from the lorry, the habitués of the place broke into noisy exultation.</p> <p>"Nipped 'im in the bud, she has! Give it 'im @@ -4603,383 +4565,6 @@ on page 119; changed to 118 for actual starting page in book.</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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