The last of the Trafalgar Square meetings was half over when the great
chocolate-coloured motor, containing three persons besides the
chauffeur, slowed up on the west side of the square. Neither of the two
ladies in their all-enveloping veils was easily recognizable, still less
the be-goggled countenance of the Hon. Geoffrey Stonor. When he took off
his motor glasses, he did not turn down his dust collar. He even pulled
farther over his eyes the peak of his linen cap.
By coming at all on this expedition, he had given Jean a signal proof of
his desire to please her--but it was plain that he had no mind to see in
the papers that he had been assisting at such a spectacle. While he gave
instructions as to where the car should wait, Jean was staring at the
vast crowd massed on the north side of the column. It extended back
among the fountains, and even escaped on each side beyond the vigilance
of the guardian lions. There were scores listening there who could not
see the speakers even as well as could the occupants of the car. In
front of the little row of women on the plinth a gaunt figure in brown
serge was waving her arms. What she was saying was blurred in the
general uproar.
'Oh, that's one!' Jean called out excitedly. 'Oh, let's hurry.'
But even after they left the car and reached the crowd, to hurry was a
thing no man could do. For some minutes the motor-party had only
occasional glimpses of the speakers, and heard little more than
fragments.
'Who is that, Geoffrey?'
'The tall young fellow with the stoop? That appears to be the chairman.'
Stonor himself stooped--to the eager girl who had clutched his sleeve
from behind, and was following him closely through the press. 'The
artless chairman, I take it, is scolding the people for not giving the
woman a hearing!' They laughed together at the young man's foolishness.
Even had an open-air meeting been more of a commonplace to Stonor, it
would have had for him that effect of newness that an old thing wears
when seen by an act of sympathy through new eyes.
'You must be sure and explain _everything_ to me, Geoffrey,' said the
girl. 'This is to be an important chapter in my education.' Merrily and
without a shadow of misgiving she spoke in jest a truer word than she
dreamed. He fell in with her mood.
'Well, I rather gather that he's been criticizing the late Government,
and Liberals have made it hot for him.'
'I shall never be able to hear unless we get nearer,' said Jean,
anxiously.
'There's a very rough element in front there----'
'Oh, don't let us mind!'
'Most certainly I mind!'
'Oh, but I should be miserable if I didn't hear.'
She pleaded so bewitchingly for a front seat at the Show that
unwillingly he wormed his way on. Suddenly he stood still and stared
about.
'What's the matter?' said Lady John.
'I can't have you ladies pushed about in this crowd,' he said under his
breath. 'I must get hold of a policeman. You wait just here. I'll find
one.'
The adoring eyes of the girl watched the tall figure disappear.
'Look at her face!' Lady John, with her eyeglass up, was staring in the
opposite direction. 'She's like an inspired charwoman!'
Jean turned, and in her eagerness pressed on, Lady John following.
The agreeable presence of the young chairman was withdrawn from the
fighting-line, and the figure of the working-woman stood alone. With her
lean brown finger pointing straight at the more outrageous of the young
hooligans, and her voice raised shrill above their impertinence--
'I've got boys of me own,' she said, 'and we laugh at all sorts o'
things, but I should be ashymed, and so would they, if ever they wus to
be'yve as you're doin' to-d'y.'
When they had duly hooted that sentiment, they were quieter for a
moment.
'People 'ave been sayin' this is a Middle-Class Woman's Movement. It's
a libel. I'm a workin' woman m'self, the wife of a workin' man----'
'Pore devil!'
'Don't envy 'im, m'self!'
As one giving her credentials, she went on, 'I'm a Pore Law
Guardian----'
'Think o' that, now! Gracious me!'
A friendly person in the crowd turned upon the scoffer.
'Shut up, cawn't yer.'
'Not fur you!
Further statements on the part of the orator were drowned by--
'Go 'ome and darn your ol' man's stockin's.'
'Just clean yer _own_ doorstep.'
She glowered her contempt upon the interrupters.' It's a pore sort of
'ousekeeper that leaves 'er doorstep till Sunday afternoon. Maybe that's
when you would do your doorstep. I do mine in the mornin', before you
men are awake!' They relished that and gave her credit for a bull's eye.
'You think,' she went on quietly, seeing she had 'got them'--'you think
we women 'ave no business servin' on Boards and thinking about
politics.' In a tone of exquisite contempt, 'But wot's politics!' she
demanded. 'It's just 'ousekeepin' on a big scyle.' Somebody applauded.
'Oo among you workin' men 'as the most comfortable 'omes? Those of you
that gives yer wives yer wyges.'
'That's it! That's it!' they roared with passion.
'Wantin' our money.'
'That's all this agitation's about.'
'Listen to me!' She came close to the edge of the plinth. 'If it wus
only to use fur _our_ comfort, d'ye think many o' you workin' men would
be found turnin' over their wyges to their wives? No! Wot's the reason
thousands do--and the best and the soberest? Because the workin' man
knows that wot's a pound to _'im_ is twenty shillins to 'is wife, and
she'll myke every penny in every one o' them shillins _tell_. She gets
more fur 'im out of 'is wyges than wot 'e can. Some o' you know wot the
'omes is like w'ere the men _don't_ let the women manage. Well, the Poor
Laws and the 'ole Government is just in the syme muddle because the men
'ave tried to do the national 'ousekeepin' without the women!'
They hooted, but they listened, too.
'Like I said to you before, it's a libel to say it's only the well-off
women wot's wantin' the vote. I can tell you wot plenty o' the poor
women think about it. I'm one o' them! And I can tell you we see there's
reforms needed. _We ought to 'ave the vote_; and we know 'ow to
appreciate the other women 'oo go to prison for tryin' to get it for
us!'
With a little final bob of emphasis, and a glance over her shoulder at
the old woman and the young one behind her, she was about to retire. But
she paused as the murmur in the crowd grew into distinct phrases.
''Inderin' policemen!'--'Mykin' rows in the street;' and a voice called
out so near Jean that the girl jumped, 'It's the w'y yer goes on as
mykes 'em keep ye from gettin' votes. They see ye ain't fit to 'ave----'
And then all the varied charges were swallowed in a general uproar.
'Where's Geoffrey? Oh, _isn't_ she too funny for words?'
The agitated chairman had come forward. 'You evidently don't know,' he
said, 'what had to be done by _men_ before the extension of suffrage in
'67. If it hadn't been for demonstrations----' But the rest was drowned.
The brown-serge woman stood there waiting, wavering a moment; and
suddenly her shrill note rose clear over the indistinguishable Babel.
'You s'y woman's plyce is 'ome! Don't you know there's a third of the
women in this country can't afford the luxury of stayin' in their 'omes?
They _got_ to go out and 'elp make money to p'y the rent and keep the
'ome from bein' sold up. Then there's all the women that 'aven't got
even miserable 'omes. They 'aven't got any 'omes _at all_.'
'You said _you_ got one. W'y don't you stop in it?'
'Yes, that's like a man. If one o' you is all right he thinks the rest
don't matter. We women----'
But they overwhelmed her. She stood there with her gaunt arms
folded--waiting. You felt that she had met other crises of her life with
just that same smouldering patience. When the wave of noise subsided
again, she was discovered to be speaking.
'P'raps _your_ 'omes are all right! P'raps your children never goes
'ungry. P'raps you aren't livin', old and young, married and single, in
one room.'
'I suppose life is like that for a good many people,' Jean Dunbarton
turned round to say.
'Oh, yes,' said her aunt.
'I come from a plyce where many fam'lies, if they're to go on livin' _at
all_, 'ave to live like that. If you don't believe me, come and let me
show you!' She spread out her lean arms. 'Come with me to Canning
Town--come with me to Bromley--come to Poplar and to Bow. No, you won't
even think about the over-worked women and the underfed children, and
the 'ovels they live in. And you want that _we_ shouldn't think
neither----'
'We'll do the thinkin'. You go 'ome and nuss the byby.'
'I do nurse my byby; I've nursed seven. What have you done for yours?'
She waited in vain for the answer. 'P'raps,' her voice quivered, 'p'raps
your children never goes 'ungry, and maybe you're satisfied--though I
must say I wouldn't a thought it from the look o' yer.'
'Oh, I s'y!'
'But we women are not satisfied. We don't only want better things for
our own children; we want better things for all. _Every_ child is our
child. We know in our 'earts we oughtn't to rest till we've mothered 'em
every one.'
'Wot about the men? Are _they_ all 'appy?'
There was derisive laughter at that, and 'No! No!' 'Not precisely!'
'_'Appy?_ Lord!'
'No, there's lots o' you men I'm sorry for,' she said.
'Thanks, awfully!'
'And we'll 'elp you if you let us,' she said.
''Elp us? You tyke the bread out of our mouths.'
'Now you're goin' to begin about us blackleggin' the men! _W'y_ does any
woman tyke less wyges than a man for the same work? Only because we
can't get anything better. That's part the reason w'y we're yere to-d'y.
Do you reely think,' she reasoned with them as man to man; 'do you
think, now, we tyke those low wyges because we got a likin' fur low
wyges? No. We're just like you. We want as much as ever we can get.'
''Ear! 'ear!'
'We got a gryte deal to do with our wyges, we women has. We got the
children to think about. And w'en we get our rights, a woman's flesh and
blood won't be so much cheaper than a man's that employers can get rich
on keepin' you out o' work and sweatin' us. If you men only could see
it, we got the syme cause, and if you 'elped us you'd be 'elpin'
yerselves.'
'Rot!'
'True as gospel!' some one said.
'Drivel!'
As she retired against the banner with the others, there was some
applause.
'Well, now,' said a man patronizingly, 'that wusn't so bad--fur a
woman.'
'N--naw. Not fur a woman.'
Jean had been standing on tip-toe making signals. Ah, at last Geoffrey
saw her! But why was he looking so grave?
'No policeman?' Lady John asked.
'Not on that side. They seem to have surrounded the storm centre, which
is just in front of the place you've rather unwisely chosen.' Indeed it
was possible to see, further on, half a dozen helmets among the hats.
What was happening on the plinth seemed to have a lessened interest for
Jean Dunbarton. She kept glancing sideways up under the cap brim at the
eyes of the man at her side.
Lady John on the other hand was losing nothing. 'Is _she_ one of them?
That little thing?'
'I--I suppose so,' answered Stonor, doubtfully, though the chairman,
with a cheerful air of relief, had introduced Miss Ernestine Blunt to
the accompaniment of cheers and a general moving closer to the monument.
Lady John, after studying Ernestine an instant through her glass, turned
to a dingy person next her, who was smoking a short pipe.
'Among those women up there,' said Lady John, 'can you tell me, my man,
which are the ones that a--that make the disturbances?'
The man removed his pipe and spat carefully between his feet. Then with
deliberation he said--
'The one that's doing the talking now--she's the disturbingest o' the
lot.'
'Not that nice little----'
'Don't you be took in, mum;' and he resumed the consolatory pipe.
'What is it, Geoffrey? Have I done anything?' Jean said very low.
'Why didn't you stay where I left you?' he answered, without looking at
her.
'I couldn't hear. I couldn't even see. Please don't look like that.
Forgive me,' she pleaded, covertly seeking his hand.
His set face softened. 'It frightened me when I didn't see you where I
left you.'
She smiled, with recovered spirits. She could attend now to the thing
she had come to see.
'I'm sorry you missed the inspired charwoman. It's rather upsetting to
think--do you suppose any of our servants have--views?'
Stonor laughed. 'Oh, no! Our servants are all too superior.' He moved
forward and touched a policeman on the shoulder. What was said was not
audible--the policeman at first shook his head, then suddenly he turned
round, looked sharply into the gentleman's face, and his whole manner
changed. Obliging, genial, almost obsequious. 'Oh, he's recognized
Geoffrey!' Jean said to her aunt. 'They _have_ to do what a member tells
them! They'll stop the traffic any time to let Geoffrey go by!' she
exulted.
Stonor beckoned to his ladies. The policeman was forging a way in which
they followed.
'This will do,' Stonor said at last, and he whispered again to the
policeman. The man replied, grinning. 'Oh, really,' Stonor smiled, too.
'This is the redoubtable Miss Ernestine Blunt,' he explained over his
shoulder, and he drew back so that Jean could pass, and standing so,
directly in front of him, she could be protected right and left, if need
were, by a barrier made of his arms.
'Now can you see?' he asked.
She looked round and nodded. Her face was without cloud again. She
leaned lightly against his arm.
Miss Ernestine had meanwhile been catapulting into election issues with
all the fervour of a hot-gospeller.
'What outrageous things she says about important people--people she
ought to respect and be rather afraid of,' objected Jean, rather
scandalized.
'Impudent little baggage!' said Stonor.
Reasons, a plenty, the baggage had why the Party which had so recently
refused to enfranchise women should not be returned to power.
'You're in too big a hurry,' some one shouted. 'All the Liberals want is
a little time.'
'Time! You seem not to know that the first petition in favour of giving
us the Franchise was signed in 1866.'
'How do _you_ know?'
She paused a moment, taken off her guard by the suddenness of the
attack.
'_You_ wasn't there!'
'That was the trouble. Haw! Haw!'
'That petition,' she said, 'was presented forty years ago.'
'Give 'er a 'reain' now she _'as_ got out of 'er crydle.'
'It was presented to the House of Commons by John Stuart Mill. Give the
Liberals time!' she echoed. 'Thirty-three years ago memorials in favour
of the suffrage were presented to Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli. In
1896, 257,000 women of these British Isles signed an appeal to the
members of Parliament. Bills or Resolutions have been before the House,
on and off, for the last thirty-six years. All that "time" thrown away!
At the opening of this year we found ourselves with no assurance that if
we went on in the same way, any girl born into the world in our time
would ever be able to exercise the rights of citizenship though she
lived to be a hundred. That was why we said all this has been in vain.
We must try some other way. How did you working men get the suffrage, we
asked ourselves. Well, we turned up the records--and we _saw_. We don't
want to follow such a violent example. We would much rather not--but if
that's the only way we can make the country see we're in earnest--we are
prepared to show them!'
'An' they'll show _you_!'
'Give ye another month 'ard!'
In the midst of the laughter and interruptions, a dirty, beery fellow of
fifty or so, from whom Stonor's arm was shielding Jean, turned to the
pal behind him with--
'Ow'd yer like to be _that_ one's 'usband? Think o' comin' 'ome to
_that_!'
'I'd soon learn 'er!' answered the other, with a meaning look.
'Don't think that going to prison again has any fears for us. We'd go
for life if by doing that we got freedom for the rest of the women.'
'Hear! Hear!'
'Rot!'
'W'y don't the men 'elp ye to get yer rights?'
'Here's some one asking why the men don't help. It's partly they don't
understand yet--they _will_ before we've done!' She wagged her head in a
sort of comical menace, and the crowd screamed with laughter--'partly,
they don't understand yet what's at stake----'
'Lord!' said an old fellow, with a rich chuckle. 'She's a educatin' of
us!'
'--and partly that the bravest man is afraid of ridicule. Oh, yes, we've
heard a great deal all our lives about the timidity and the
sensitiveness of women. And it's true--we _are_ sensitive. But I tell
you, ridicule crumples a man up. It steels a woman. We've come to know
the value of ridicule. We've educated ourselves so that we welcome
ridicule. We owe our sincerest thanks to the comic writers. The
cartoonist is our unconscious friend. Who cartoons people who are of no
importance? What advertisement is so sure of being remembered? If we
didn't know it by any other sign, the comic papers would tell us--_we've
arrived_!'
She stood there for one triumphant moment in an attitude of such
audacious self-confidence, that Jean turned excitedly to her lover
with--
'I know what she's like! The girl in Ibsen's "Master Builder"!'
'I don't think I know the young lady.'
'Oh, there was a knock at the door that set the Master Builder's nerves
quivering. He felt in his bones it was the Younger Generation coming to
upset things. He _thought_ it was a young man----'
'And it was really Miss Ernestine Blunt? He has my sympathies.'
The Younger Generation was declaring from the monument--
'Our greatest debt of gratitude we owe to the man who called us female
hooligans!'
That tickled the crowd, too; she was such a charming little pink-cheeked
specimen of a hooligan.
'I'm being frightfully amused, Geoffrey,' said Jean.
He looked down at her with a large indulgence. 'That's right,' he said.
'We aren't hooligans, but we hope the fact will be overlooked. If
everybody said we were nice, well-behaved women, who'd come to hear us?
_Not the men._'
The people dissolved in laughter, but she was grave enough.
'Men tell us it isn't womanly for us to care about politics. How do they
know what's womanly? It's for women to decide that. Let them attend to
being manly. It will take them all their time.'
'Pore benighted man!'
'Some of you have heard it would be dreadful if we got the vote, because
then we'd be pitted against men in the economic struggle. But it's too
late to guard against that. It's fact. But facts, we've discovered, are
just what men find it so hard to recognize. Men are so dreadfully
sentimental.' She smiled with the crowd at that, but she proceeded to
hammer in her pet nail. 'They won't recognize those eighty-two women out
of every hundred who are wage-earners. We used to believe men when they
told us that it was unfeminine--hardly respectable--for women to be
students and to aspire to the arts that bring fame and fortune. But men
have never told us it was unfeminine for women to do the heavy drudgery
that's badly paid. That kind of work had to be done by somebody, and men
didn't hanker after it. _Oh_, no! Let the women scrub and cook and wash,
or teach without diplomas on half pay. That's all right. But if they
want to try their hand at the better-rewarded work of the liberal
professions--oh, very unfeminine indeed.'
As Ernestine proceeded to show how all this obsolete unfairness had its
roots in political inequality, Lady John dropped her glass with a sigh.
'You are right,' she said to Jean. 'This is Hilda, harnessed to a
purpose. A portent to shake middle-aged nerves.'
With Jean blooming there before him, Stonor had no wish to prove his own
nerves middle-aged.
'I think she's rather fun, myself. Though she ought to be taken home and
well smacked.'
Somebody had interrupted to ask, 'If the House of Commons won't give you
justice, why don't you go to the House of Lords?'
'What?' She hadn't heard, but the question was answered by some one who
had.
'She'd 'ave to 'urry up. Case of early closin'!'
'You'll be allowed to ask any question you like,' she said, 'at the end
of the meeting.'
'Wot's that? Oh, is it question time? I s'y, miss, 'oo killed Cock
Robin?'
'I've got a question, too,' a boy called through his hollowed hands.
'Are--you--married?'
'Ere's your chance. 'E's a bachelor.'
'Here's a man,' says Ernestine, 'asking, "If the women get full
citizenship, and a war is declared, will the women fight?"'
'Haw! haw!'
'Yes.'
'Yes. Just tell us _that_!'
'Well'--she smiled--'you know some say the whole trouble about us is
that we _do_ fight. But it's only hard necessity makes us do that. We
don't want to fight--as men seem to--just for fighting's sake. Women are
for peace.'
'Hear! hear!'
'And when we have a share in public affairs there'll be less likelihood
of war. Wasn't it a woman, the Baroness von Suttner, whose book about
peace was the corner-stone of the Peace Congress? Wasn't it that book
that converted the millionaire maker of armaments of war? Wasn't it the
Baroness von Suttner's book that made Nobel offer those great
international prizes for the Arts of Peace? I'm not saying women can't
fight. But we women know all war is evil, and we're for peace. Our
part--we're proud to remember it--our part has been to go about after
you men in war time and _pick up the pieces_!'
A great shout went up as the truth of that rolled in upon the people.
'Yes; seems funny, doesn't it? You men blow people to bits, and then we
come along and put them together again. If you know anything about
military nursing, you know a good deal of our work has been done in the
face of danger; _but it's always been done_.'
'That's so. That's so.'
'Well, what of it?' said a voice. 'Women must do something for their
keep.'
'You complain that more and more we're taking away from you men the work
that's always been yours. You can't any longer keep woman out of the
industries. The only question is, on what terms shall she continue to be
in? As long as she's in on bad terms, she's not only hurting herself,
she's hurting you. But if you're feeling discouraged about our competing
with you, we're willing to leave you your trade in war. Let the men take
life! We _give_ life!' Her voice was once more moved and proud. 'No one
will pretend ours isn't one of the dangerous trades either. I won't say
any more to you now, because we've got others to speak to you, and a new
woman helper that I want you to hear.'
With an accompaniment of clapping she retired to hold a hurried
consultation with the chairman.
Jean turned to see how Geoffrey had taken it. 'Well?'
He smiled down at her, echoing, 'Well?'
'Nothing so _very_ reprehensible in what she said, was there?'
'Oh, "reprehensible"!'
'It makes one rather miserable all the same.'
He pressed his guardian arm the closer. 'You mustn't take it as much to
heart as all that.'
'I can't help it. I can't indeed, Geoffrey. I shall _never_ be able to
make a speech like that.'
He stared, considerably taken aback. 'I hope not indeed.'
'Why? I thought you said you wanted me to----'
'To make nice little speeches with composure? So I did. So I do----' as
he looked down upon the upturned face he seemed to lose his thread.
She was for helping him to recover it. 'Don't you remember how you
said----'
'That you have very pink cheeks? Well, I stick to it.'
She smiled. 'Sh! Don't tell everybody.'
'And you're the only female creature----'
'That's a most proper sentiment.'
'The only one I ever saw who didn't look a fright in motor things.'
'I'm glad you don't think me a fright. Oh!'--she turned at the sound of
applause--'we're forgetting all about----'
A big sandy man, not hitherto seen, was rolling his loose-knit body up
and down the platform, smiling at the people and mopping a great bony
skull, on which, low down, a few scanty wisps of colourless hair were
growing.
'If you can't afford a bottle of Tatcho,' a boy called out, 'w'y don't
you get yer 'air cut?'
He just shot out one hand and wagged it in grotesque greeting, not in
the least discomposed.
'I've been addressin' a big meetin' at 'Ammersmith this morning, and
w'en I told 'em I wus comin' 'ere this awfternoon to speak fur the
women--well--then the usual thing began.'
An appreciative roar rose from the crowd.
'Yes,' he grinned, 'if you want peace and quiet at a public meetin',
better not go mentionin' the lydies these times!'
He stopped, and the crowd filled in the hiatus with laughter.
'There wus a man at 'Ammersmith, too, talkin' about Woman's sphere bein'
'Ome. 'Ome do you call it? _'Ome!_' and at the word his _bonhomie_
suffered a singular eclipse. ''Ome!' he bellowed, as if some one had
struck him in a vital spot, and the word was merely a roar of pain.
'_'Ome!_ You've got a kennel w'ere you can munch your tommy. You got a
corner w'ere you can curl up fur a few hours till you go out to work
again. But 'omes! No, my men, there's too many of you ain't able to
_give_ the women 'omes fit to live in; too many of you in that fix fur
you to go on jawin' at those o' the women 'oo want to myke the 'omes a
little more deservin' o' the name.'
'If the vote ain't done us any good,' a man bawled up at him, ''ow'll it
do the women any good?'
'Look 'ere! See 'ere!' he rolled his shapeless body up and down the
stone platform, taking in great draughts of cheer from some invisible
fountain. 'Any men here belongin' to the Labour Party?' he inquired.
To an accompaniment of shouts and applause he went on, smiling and
rubbing his hands in a state of bubbling Brotherliness.
'Well, I don't need tell those men the vote 'as done us _some_ good.
They _know_ it. And it'll do us a lot more good w'en you know 'ow to use
the power you got in your 'and.'
'Power!' grumbled an old fellow. 'It's those fellows at the bottom of
the street'--he hitched his head toward St. Stephen's--'it's them that's
got the power.'
The speaker pounced on him. 'It's you and men like you that give it to
them. Wot did you do last election? You carried the Liberals into
Parliament Street on your own shoulders. You believed all their fine
words. You never asked yerselves, "Wot's a Liberal, anyway?"'
In the chorus of cheers and booing some one sang out, 'He's a jolly good
fellow!'
'No 'e ain't,' said the Labour man, with another wheel about and a
pounce. 'No 'e ain't, or, if 'e's jolly, it's only because 'e thinks
you're such a cod-fish you'll go swellin' 'is majority again.'
Stonor joined in that laugh. He rather liked the man.
'Yes, it's enough to make any Liberal "jolly" to see a sheep like you
lookin' on, proud and 'appy, while you see Liberal leaders desertin'
Liberal principles.'
Through the roar of protest and argument, he held out those grotesque
great hands of his with the suggestion--
'You show me a Liberal, and I'll show you a Mr. Facing-both-ways. Yuss.
The Liberal, 'e sheds the light of his warm and 'andsome smile on the
workin' man, and round on the other side 'e's tippin' the wink to the
great landowners. Yuss. That's to let 'em know 'e's standin' between
them and Socialists. Ha! the Socialists!' Puffing and flushed and
perspiring he hurled it out again and again over the heads of the
people. 'The Socialists! Yuss. _Socialists!_ Ha! ha!' When he and the
audience had a little calmed down, 'The Liberal,' he said, with that
look of sly humour, ''e's the judicial sort o' chap that sits in the
middle.'
'On the fence.'
He nodded. 'Tories one side, Socialists the other. Well, it ain't always
so comfortable in the middle. No. Yer like to get squeezed. Now, I says
to the women, wot I says is, the Conservatives don't promise you much,
but wot they promise they _do_.' He whacked one fist into the other with
tremendous effect.
'This fellow isn't half bad,' Stonor said to Lady John.
'But the Liberals, they'll promise you the earth and give you the whole
o' nothin'.'
There were roars of approval. Liberal stock had sunk rather low in
Trafalgar Square.
'Isn't it fun?' said Jean. 'Now aren't you glad I brought you?'
'Oh, this chap's all right!'
'We men 'ave seen it 'appen over and over. But the women can tyke an
'int quicker 'n what we can. They won't stand the nonsense men do. Only
they 'aven't got a fair chawnce even to agitate fur their rights. As I
wus comin' up ere, I 'eard a man sayin', "Look at this big crowd. W'y,
we're all _men_! If the women want the vote, w'y ain't they here to s'y
so?" Well, I'll tell you w'y. It's because they've 'ad to get the dinner
fur you and me, and now they're washin' up dishes.'
'D'you think we ought to st'y at 'ome and wash the dishes?'
He laughed with good-natured shrewdness. 'Well, if they'd leave it to us
once or twice per'aps we'd understand a little more about the Woman
Question. I know w'y _my_ wife isn't here. It's because she _knows_ I
can't cook, and she's 'opin' I can talk to some purpose. Yuss,'--he
acknowledged another possible view,--'yuss, maybe she's mistaken.
Any'ow, here I am to vote for her and all the other women, and to----'
They nearly drowned him with '_Oh-h!_' and 'Hear! hear!'
'And to tell you men what improvements you can expect to see w'en women
'as the share in public affairs they ought to 'ave!'
Out of the babel came the question, 'What do you know about it? You
can't even talk grammar.'
His broad smile faltered a little.
'Oh, what shame!' said Jean, full of sympathy. 'He's a dear--that funny
cockney.'
But he had been dashed for the merest moment.
'I'm not 'ere to talk grammar, but to talk Reform. I ain't defendin' my
grammar,' he said, on second thoughts, 'but I'll say in pawssing that if
my mother 'ad 'ad 'er rights, maybe my grammar would 'ave been better.'
It was a thrust that seemed to go home. But, all the same, it was clear
that many of his friends couldn't stomach the sight of him up there
demeaning himself by espousing the cause of the Suffragettes. He kept
on about woman and justice, but his performance was little more than
vigorous pantomime. The boyish chairman looked harassed and anxious,
Miss Ernestine Blunt alert, watchful.
Stonor bent his head to whisper something in Jean Dunbarton's ear. She
listened with lowered eyes and happy face. The discreet little
interchange went on for several minutes, while the crowd booed at the
bald-headed Labourite for his mistaken enthusiasm. Geoffrey Stonor and
his bride-to-be were more alone now in the midst of this shouting mob
than they had been since the Ulland House luncheon-gong had broken in
upon and banished momentary wonderment about the name--that name
beginning with V. Plain to see in the flushed and happy face that Jean
Dunbarton was not 'asking questions.' She was listening absorbed to the
oldest of all the stories.
And now the champion of the Suffragettes had come to the surface again
with his--
'Wait a bit--'arf a minute, my man.'
'Oo you talkin' to? I ain't your man!'
'Oh, that's lucky for me. There seems to be an individual here who
doesn't think women ought to 'ave the vote.'
'One? Oh-h!'
They all but wiped him out again in laughter; but he climbed on the top
of the great wave of sound with--
'P'raps the gentleman who thinks they oughtn't to 'ave a vote, p'raps 'e
don't know much about women. Wot? Oh, the gentleman says 'e's married.
Well, then, fur the syke of 'is wife we mustn't be too sorry 'e's 'ere.
No doubt she's s'ying, "'Eaven be prysed those women are mykin' a
demonstrytion in Trafalgar Square, and I'll 'ave a little peace and
quiet at 'ome for one Sunday in me life."'
The crowd liked that, and found themselves jeering at the interrupter as
well as at the speaker.
'Why, you'--he pointed at some one in the crowd--'_you_'re like the man
at 'Ammersmith this morning. 'E wus awskin' me, "'Ow would you like men
to st'y at 'ome and do the fam'ly washin'?" I told 'im I wouldn't advise
it. I 'ave too much respect fur'--they waited while slyly he brought
out--'me clo'es.'
'It's their place,' said some one in a rage; 'the women _ought_ to do
the washin'.'
'I'm not sure you aren't right. For a good many o' you fellas from the
look o' you, you cawn't even wash yourselves.'
This was outrageous. It was resented in an incipient riot. The helmets
of the police bobbed about. An angry voice had called out--
'Oo are you talkin' to?'
The anxiety of the inexperienced chairman was almost touching.
The Socialist revelled in the disturbance he'd created. He walked up and
down with that funny rolling gait, poking out his head at intervals in a
turtle-esque fashion highly provocative, holding his huge paws kangaroo
fashion, only with fingers stiffly pointed, and shooting them out at
intervals towards the crowd in a very ecstasy of good-natured contempt.
'Better go 'ome and awsk yer wife to wash yer fice,' he advised. '_You_
cawn't even do _that_ bit o' fam'ly washin'. Go and awsk _some_ woman.'
There was a scuffle in the crowd. A section of it surged up towards the
monument.
'Which of us d'you mean?' demanded a threatening voice.
'Well,' said the Socialist, coolly looking down, 'it takes about ten of
your sort to make a man, so you may take it I mean the lot of you.'
Again the hands shot out and scattered scorn amongst his critics.
There were angry, indistinguishable retorts, and the crowd swayed. Miss
Ernestine Blunt, who had been watching the fray with serious face,
turned suddenly, catching sight of some one just arrived at the end of
the platform. She jumped up, saying audibly to the speaker as she passed
him, 'Here she is,' and proceeded to offer her hand to help some one to
get up the improvised steps behind the lion.
The Socialist had seized with fervour upon his last chance, and was
flinging out showers of caustic advice among his foes, stirring them up
to frenzy.
Stonor, with contracted brows, had stared one dazed instant as the head
of the new-comer came up behind the lion on the left.
Jean, her eyes wide, incredulous, as though unable to accept their
testimony, pressed a shade nearer the monument. Stonor made a sharp move
forward, and took her by the arm.
'We're going now,' he said.
'Not yet--oh, _please_ not just yet,' she pleaded as he drew her round.
'Geoffrey, I do believe----'
She looked back, with an air almost bewildered, over her shoulder, like
one struggling to wake from a dream.
Stonor was saying with decision to Lady John, 'I'm going to take Jean
out of this mob. Will you come?'
'What? Oh, yes, if you think'--she had disengaged the chain of her
eyeglass at last. 'But isn't that, surely it's----'
'Geoffrey----!' Jean began.
'Lady John's tired,' he interrupted. 'We've had enough of this
idiotic----'
'But you don't see who it is, Geoffrey. That last one is----' Suddenly
Jean bent forward as he was trying to extricate her from the crowd, and
she looked in his face. Something that she found there made her tighten
her hold on his arm.
'We can't run away and leave Aunt Ellen,' was all she said; but her
voice sounded scared. Stonor repressed a gesture of anger, and came to a
standstill just behind two big policemen.
The last-comer to that strange platform, after standing for some seconds
with her back to the people and talking to Ernestine Blunt, the tall
figure in a long sage-green dust coat and familiar hat, had turned and
glanced apprehensively at the crowd.
It was Vida Levering.
The girl down in the crowd locked her hands together and stood
motionless.
The Socialist had left the platform with the threat that he was 'coming
down now to attend to that microbe that's vitiating the air on my right,
while a lady will say a few words to you--if she can myke 'erself
'eard.'
He retired to a chorus of cheers and booing, while the chairman, more
harassed than ever, it would seem, but determined to create a diversion,
was saying that some one had suggested--'and it's such a good idea I'd
like you to listen to it--that a clause shall be inserted in the next
Suffrage Bill that shall expressly give to each Cabinet Minister, and to
any respectable man, the power to prevent a vote being given to the
female members of his family, on his public declaration of their lack
of sufficient intelligence to entitle them to one.'
'Oh! oh!'
'Now, I ask you to listen as quietly as you can to a lady who is not
accustomed to speaking--a--in Trafalgar Square, or--a--as a matter of
fact, at all.'
'A dumb lady!'
'Hooray!'
'Three cheers for the dumb lady!'
The chairman was dreadfully flustered at the unfortunate turn his speech
had taken.
'A lady who, as I've said, will tell you, if you'll behave
yourselves----'
'Oh! oh!'
'Will tell you something of her impression of police-court justice in
this country.'
Jean stole a wondering look at Stonor's sphinx-like face as Vida
Levering came forward.
There she stood, obviously very much frightened, with the unaccustomed
colour coming and going in her white face--farther back than any of the
practised speakers--there she stood like one who too much values the
space between her and the mob voluntarily to lessen it by half an inch.
The voice was steady enough, though low, as she began.
'Mr. Chairman, men, and women----'
'Speak up.'
She flushed, came nearer to the edge of the platform, and raised the key
a little.
'I just wanted to tell you that I was--I was present in the police court
when the women were charged for creating a disturbance.'
'You oughtn't to get mix'd up in wot didn't concern you!'
'I--I----' She stumbled and stopped.
'Give the lady a hearing,' said a shabby art-student, magisterially. He
seemed not ill-pleased when he had drawn a certain number of eyes to his
long hair, picturesque hat, and flowing Byronic tie.
'Wot's the lydy's nyme?'
'I ain't seen this one before.'
'Is she Mrs. or Miss?'
'She's dumb, anyway, like 'e said.'
'Haw! haw!'
The anxious chairman was fidgeting in an agony of apprehension. He
whispered some kind prompting word after he had flung out--
'Now, see here, men; fair play, you know.'
'I think I ought----' Vida began.
'No wonder she can't find a word to say for 'em. They're a disgryce,
miss--them women behind you. It's the w'y they goes on as mykes the
Govermint keep ye from gettin' yer rights.'
The chairman had lost his temper. 'It's the way _you_ go on,' he
screamed; but the din was now so great, not even he could be heard. He
stood there waving his arms and moving his lips while his dark eyes
glittered.
Miss Levering turned and pantomimed to Ernestine, 'You see it's no use!'
Thus appealed to, the girl came forward, and said something in the ear
of the frantic chairman. When he stopped gyrating, and nodded, Miss
Blunt came to the edge of the platform, and held up her hand as if
determined to stem this tide of unfavourable comment upon the dreadful
women who were complicating the Election difficulties of both parties.
'Listen,' says Ernestine; 'I've got something to propose.' They waited
an instant to hear what this precious proposal might be. 'If the
Government withholds the vote because they don't like the way some of us
ask for it, let them give it to the quiet ones. Do they want to punish
all women because they don't like the manners of a handful? Perhaps
that's men's notion of justice. It isn't ours.'
'Haw! haw!'
'Yes'--Miss Levering plucked up courage, seeing her friend sailing along
so safely. 'This is the first time I've ever "gone on," as you call it,
but they never gave me a vote.'
'_No_,' says Miss Ernestine, with energy--'and there are'--she turned
briskly, with forefinger uplifted punctuating her count--'there are two,
three, four women on this platform. Now, we all want the vote, as you
know.'
'Lord, yes, we know _that_.'
'Well, we'd agree to be disfranchised all our lives if they'd give the
vote to all the other women.'
'Look here! You made one speech--give the lady a chance.'
Miss Blunt made a smiling little bob of triumph. 'That's just what I
wanted you to say!' And she retired.
Miss Levering came forward again. But the call to 'go on' had come a
little suddenly.
'Perhaps you--you don't know--you don't know----'
'_How_'re we going to know if you can't tell us?' demanded a sarcastic
voice.
It steadied her. 'Thank you for that,' she said, smiling. 'We couldn't
have a better motto. How _are_ you to know if we can't somehow manage to
tell you?' With a visible effort she went on, 'Well, _I_ certainly
didn't know before that the sergeants and policemen are instructed to
deceive the people as to the time such cases are heard.'
'It's just as hard,' said a bystander to his companion, '_just_ as hard
for learned counsel in the august quiet of the Chancery Division to find
out when their cases are really coming on.'
'You ask, and you're sent to Marlborough Police Court,' said Miss
Levering, 'instead of to Marylebone.'
'They oughter send yer to 'Olloway--do y' good.'
'You go on, miss. Nobody minds 'im.'
'Wot can you expect from a pig but a grunt?'
'You are told the case will be at two o'clock, and it's really called
for eleven. Well, I took a great deal of trouble, and I didn't believe
what I was told.' She was warming a little to her task. 'Yes, that's
almost the first thing we have to learn--to get over our touching faith
that because a man tells us something, it's true. I got to the right
court, and I was so anxious not to be late, I was too early.'
'Like a woman!'
'The case before the Suffragists' was just coming on. I heard a noise. I
saw the helmets of two policemen.'
'No, you didn't. They don't wear their helmets in court.'
'They were coming in from the corridor. As I saw them, I said to myself,
"What sort of crime shall I have to sit and hear about? Is this a
burglar being brought along between the two big policemen, or will it be
a murderer? What sort of felon is to stand in the dock before the
people, whose crime is, they ask for the vote?" But try as I would, I
couldn't see the prisoner. My heart misgave me. Is it some poor woman, I
wondered?'
A tipsy tramp, with his battered bowler over one eye, wheezed out,
'Drunk again!' with an accent of weary philosophy. 'Syme old tyle.'
'Then the policemen got nearer, and I saw'--she waited an instant--'a
little thin, half-starved boy. What do you think he was charged with?'
'Travellin' first with a third-class ticket.' A boy offered a page out
of personal history.
'Stealing. What had he been stealing, that small criminal? _Milk._ It
seemed to me, as I sat there looking on, that the men who had had the
affairs of the world in their hands from the beginning, and who've made
so poor a business of it----'
'Oh, pore devils! give 'em a rest!'
'Who've made so bad a business of it as to have the poor and the
unemployed in the condition they're in to-day, whose only remedy for a
starving child is to hale him off to the police court, because he had
managed to get a little milk, well, I did wonder that the men refuse to
be helped with a problem they've so notoriously failed at. I began to
say to myself, "Isn't it time the women lent a hand?"'
'Doin' pretty well fur a dumb lady!'
'Would you have women magistrates?'
She was stumped by the suddenness of the query.
'Haw! haw! Magistrates and judges! _Women!_'
'Let 'em prove first they're able to----'
It was more than the shabby art-student could stand.
'The schools are full of them!' he shouted. 'Where's their Michael
Angelo? They study music by thousands: where's their Beethoven? Where's
their Plato? Where's the woman Shakespeare?'
'Where's their Harry Lauder?'
At last a name that stirred the general enthusiasm.
'Who is Harry Lauder?' Jean asked her aunt.
Lady John shook her head.
'Yes, wot 'ave women ever _done_?'
The speaker had clenched her hands, but she was not going to lose her
presence of mind again. By the time the chairman could make himself
heard with, 'Now, men, it's one of our British characteristics that
we're always ready to give the people we differ from a hearing,' Miss
Levering, making the slightest of gestures, waved him aside with a low--
'It's all right.'
'These questions are quite proper,' she said, raising her voice. 'They
are often asked elsewhere; and I would like to ask in return: Since when
was human society held to exist for its handful of geniuses? How many
Platos are there here in this crowd?'
'Divil a wan!' And a roar of laughter followed that free confession.
'Not one,' she repeated. 'Yet that doesn't keep you men off the
register. How many Shakespeares are there in all England to-day? Not
one. Yet the State doesn't tumble to pieces. Railroads and ships are
built, homes are kept going, and babies are born. The world goes
on'--she bent over the crowd with lit eyes--'the world goes on _by
virtue of its common people_.'
There was a subdued 'Hear! hear!'
'I am not concerned that you should think we women could paint great
pictures, or compose immortal music, or write good books. I am
content'--and it was strange to see the pride with which she said it, a
pride that might have humbled Vere de Vere--'I am content that we should
be classed with the common people, who keep the world going. But'--her
face grew softer, there was even a kind of camaraderie where before
there had been shrinking--'I'd like the world to go a great deal better.
We were talking about justice. I have been inquiring into the kind of
lodging the poorest class of homeless women can get in this town of
London. I find that only the men of that class are provided for. Some
measure to establish Rowton Houses for Women has been before the London
County Council. They looked into the question very carefully--so their
apologists say. And what did they decide? They decided that they could
do nothing.
'Why could that great, all-powerful body do nothing? Because, they said,
if these cheap and decent houses were opened, the homeless women in the
streets would make use of them. You'll think I'm not in earnest, but
that was actually the decision, and the reason given for it. Women that
the bitter struggle for existence had forced into a life of horror might
take advantage of the shelter these decent, cheap places offered. But
the _men_, I said! Are the men who avail themselves of Lord Rowton's
hostels, are _they_ all angels? Or does wrong-doing in a man not matter?
Yet women are recommended to depend on the chivalry of men!'
The two tall policemen who had been standing for some minutes in front
of Mr. Stonor in readiness to serve him, seeming to feel there was no
further need of them in this quarter, shouldered their way to the left,
leaving exposed the hitherto masked figure of the tall gentleman in the
motor cap. He moved uneasily, and, looking round, he met Jean's eyes
fixed on him. As each looked away again, each saw that for the first
time Vida Levering had become aware of his presence. A change passed
over her face, and her figure swayed as if some species of
mountain-sickness had assailed her, looking down from that perilous high
perch of hers upon the things of the plain. While the people were asking
one another, 'What is it? Is she going to faint?' she lifted one hand to
her eyes, and her fingers trembled an instant against the lowered lids.
But as suddenly as she had faltered, she was forging on again, repeating
like an echo of a thing heard in a dream--
'Justice and chivalry! Justice and chivalry remind me of the story that
those of you who read the police-court news--I have begun only lately to
do that--but _you_'ve seen the accounts of the girl who's been tried in
Manchester lately for the murder of her child.'
People here and there in the crowd regaled one another with choice
details of the horror.
'Not pleasant reading. Even if we'd noticed it, we wouldn't speak of it
in my world. A few months ago I should have turned away my eyes and
forgotten even the headline as quickly as I could.'
'My opinion,' said a shrewd-looking young man, 'is that she's forgot
what she meant to say, and just clutched at this to keep her from drying
up.'
'Since that morning in the police-court I read these things. This, as
you know, was the story of a working girl--an orphan of seventeen--who
crawled with the dead body of her new-born child to her master's back
door and left the baby there. She dragged herself a little way off and
fainted. A few days later she found herself in court being tried for the
murder of her child. Her master, a married man, had of course reported
the "find" at his back door to the police, and he had been summoned to
give evidence. The girl cried out to him in the open court, "You are the
father!" He couldn't deny it. The coroner, at the jury's request,
censured the man, and regretted that the law didn't make him
responsible. But'--she leaned down from the plinth with eyes
blazing--'he went scot free. And that girl is at this moment serving her
sentence in Strangeways Gaol.'
Through the moved and murmuring crowd, Jean forced her way, coming in
between Lady John and Stonor, who stood there immovable. The girl
strained to bring her lips near his ear.
'Why do you dislike her so?'
'I?' he said. 'Why should you think----'
'I never saw you look as you did;' with a vaguely frightened air she
added, 'as you do.'
'Men make boast'--the voice came clear from the monument--'that an
English citizen is tried by his peers. What woman is tried by hers?'
'She mistakes the sense in which the word was employed,' said a man who
looked like an Oxford Don.
But there was evidently a sense, larger than that one purely academic,
in which her use of the word could claim its pertinence. The strong
feeling that had seized her as she put the question was sweeping the
crowd along with her.
'A woman is arrested by a man, brought before a man judge, tried by a
jury of men, condemned by men, taken to prison by a man, and by a man
she's hanged! Where in all this were _her_ "peers"? Why did men, when
British justice was born--why did they so long ago insist on trial by "a
jury of their peers"? So that justice shouldn't miscarry--wasn't it? A
man's peers would best understand his circumstances, his temptation, the
degree of his guilt. Yet there's no such unlikeness between different
classes of men as exists between man and woman. What man has the
knowledge that makes him a fit judge of woman's deeds at that time of
anguish--that hour that some woman struggled through to put each man
here into the world. I noticed when a previous speaker quoted the
Labour Party, you applauded. Some of you here, I gather, call yourselves
Labour men. Every woman who has borne a child is a Labour woman. No man
among you can judge what she goes through in her hour of darkness.'
Jean's eyes had dropped from her lover's set white face early in the
recital. But she whispered his name.
He seemed not to hear.
The speaker up there had caught her fluttering breath, and went on so
low that people strained to follow.
'In that great agony, even under the best conditions that money and
devotion can buy, many a woman falls into temporary mania, and not a few
go down to death. In the case of this poor little abandoned working
girl, what man can be the fit judge of her deeds in that awful moment of
half-crazed temptation? Women know of these things as those know burning
who have walked through fire.'
Stonor looked down at the girl at his side. He saw her hands go up to
her throat as though she were suffocating. The young face, where some
harsh knowledge was struggling for birth, was in pity turned away from
the man she loved.
The woman leaned down from the platform, and spoke her last words with a
low and thrilling earnestness.
'I would say in conclusion to the women here, it's not enough to be
sorry for these, our unfortunate sisters. We must get the conditions of
life made fairer. We women must organize. We must learn to work
together. We have all (rich and poor, happy and unhappy) worked so long
and so exclusively for men, we hardly know how to work for one another.
But we must learn. Those who can, may give money. Those who haven't
pennies to give, even those people are not so poor but what they can
give some part of their labour--some share of their sympathy and
support. I know of a woman--she isn't of our country--but a woman who,
to help the women strikers of an oppressed industry to hold out, gave a
thousand pounds a week for thirteen weeks to get them and their children
bread, and help them to stand firm. The masters were amazed. Week after
week went by, and still the people weren't starved into submission.
Where did this mysterious stream of help come from? The employers
couldn't discover, and they gave in. The women got back their old
wages, and I am glad to say many of them began to put by pennies to help
a little to pay back the great sum that had been advanced to them.'
'She took their pennies--a rich woman like that?'
'Yes--to use again, as well as to let the working women feel they were
helping others. I hope you'll all join the Union. Come up after the
meeting is over and give us your names.'
As she turned away, 'You won't get any men!' a taunting voice called
after her.
The truth in the gibe seemed to sting. Forestalling the chairman,
quickly she confronted the people again, a new fire in her eyes.
'Then,' she said, holding out her hands--'then _it is to the women I
appeal_!' She stood so an instant, stilling the murmur, and holding the
people by that sudden concentration of passion in her face. 'I don't
mean to say it wouldn't be better if men and women did this work
together, shoulder to shoulder. But the mass of men won't have it so. I
only hope they'll realize in time the good they've renounced and the
spirit they've aroused. For I know as well as any man could tell me, it
would be a bad day for England if all women felt about all men _as I
do_.'
She retired in a tumult. The others on the platform closed about her.
The chairman tried in vain to get a hearing from the swaying and
dissolving crowd.
Jean made a blind forward movement towards the monument. Stonor called
out, in a toneless voice--
'Here! follow me!'
'No--no--I----' The girl pressed on.
'You're going the wrong way.'
'_This_ is the way----'
'We can get out quicker on this side.'
'I don't _want_ to get out.'
'What?'
He had left Lady John, and was following Jean through the press.
'Where are you going?' he asked sharply.
'To ask that woman to let me have the honour of working with her.'
The crowd surged round the girl.
'Jean!' he called upon so stern a note that people stared and stopped.
Others--not Jean.