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diff --git a/42136-0.txt b/42136-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..053e1f8 --- /dev/null +++ b/42136-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3390 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42136 *** + + 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 THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42136 *** |