“My dear, how did you ever manage to get here? How could you venture
out? Isn’t it terrible, my dear?” exclaims Mrs. de Lacy Trevor, as her
friend Lady Manderton enters her boudoir in the snug Piccadilly mansion,
already introduced to the reader, on the morning following upon the
events related in the last chapter. Outside, the streets are filled with
an angry and excited crowd. The rougher element have taken advantage of
the _mêlée_, to introduce themselves into its midst, and are parading
the streets, causing confusion and terror to the more respectable and
orderly portion of the crowd, whose presence is to be accounted for by
totally different circumstances to those which have attracted the
irredeemable portion of Society. The news of the verdict and sentence on
Hector D’Estrange, the confession as to sex of the late Prime Minister,
the daring and masterly rescue of the prisoner by Flora Desmond and her
White Guards, the devoted resistance of the crowd to the charge of the
Blues under Colonel Delamere, and the ultimate escape of Gloria de Lara
from her pursuers, has spread like wild-fire through the metropolis.
London has been in a state of the greatest excitement throughout the
night. The most startling and improbable rumours have been afloat as to
the intentions of the Government, while the people are loudly clamouring
for a squashing of the verdict, an annulment of the sentence, and a free
pardon for their idol, to many more than ever popular now that her sex
is disclosed. For, let it be whispered, that this disclosure has
operated in winning over to Gloria de Lara’s side many a wavering mind,
which is able now to recognise in the brilliant successful life of
Hector D’Estrange, the unanswerable and irrefutable proof of woman’s
power to equal man in all things, provided fair play and equal
opportunities be given to her. Of the murder of Lord Westray, her
adherents believe her to be absolutely guiltless, and are loud in
condemnation of the verdict.
Such is the position of affairs on the morning in question,—a position
sufficiently grave, to warrant the calling out of the troops to assist
the police in maintaining order, amidst this wholly unparalleled scene
of public protest and sympathy.
There is a quiet smile on Lady Manderton’s face as she answers her
friend.
“I came here on foot, Vivi, and I have come to say good-bye. Ah, Vivi!
you need not stare, dear. I’m not the old Dodo you have been accustomed
to. Great God! why were not my eyes opened before, all the time that
Hector D’Estrange has been working for us? But it is not too late. I can
retrieve the past even yet, by working on behalf of Gloria de Lara’s
cause. Ay, Vivi, it is a cause well worth dying for.”
“Why, Dodo, you must be clean gone cracked! What are you going to do?”
Lady Manderton takes a newspaper out of her pocket, and hands it to Mrs.
de Lacy Trevor. “Have you read this?” she inquires at the same time.
Mrs. de Lacy Trevor opens it and reads.
THE GREAT D’ESTRANGE TRIAL.
SPEECHES OF THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL AND
HECTOR D’ESTRANGE.
THE JUDGE’S SUMMING UP.
VERDICT AND SENTENCE.
EXTRAORDINARY CONFESSION OF THE PRISONER.
SENTENCE OF DEATH.
DARING RESCUE OF THE PRISONER.
BY LADY FLORA DESMOND AND WHITE GUARDS.
DETERMINED RESISTANCE TO THE MILITARY.
GREAT LOSS OF LIFE.
DEATH OF THE POLICEMAN FORTESCUE, WHO WAS IN
CHARGE OF THE PRISONER.
WARRANTS OUT FOR THE ARREST OF GLORIA DE LARA
AND LADY FLORA DESMOND.
Beneath these startling announcements Mrs. de Lacy Trevor further reads
much of which she did not know. Then she lays down the paper.
“My dear, it’s like a dream,” she exclaims. “What will happen?”
“What has happened already,” answers Lady Manderton. “Revolution. Vivi,”
she continues eagerly, “I suppose it’s no use asking you to take the
step I’m going to? I’m going to throw in my lot with Gloria de Lara, and
help her by every means in my poor power.”
“Dodo! what do you mean?” cries her friend in a horrified voice.
“I mean what I have said, Vivi,” answers Lady Manderton in a quiet, sad
voice. “Vivi, I can’t tell you how terribly I feel my past wasted life.
But it was not all my fault. I was brought up to nothing better, and
probably should never have realised it, if Hector D’Estrange had not
been born. Ah, Vivi! Gloria’s life has opened my eyes. I see now that if
woman had fair play, women in the position of you and I, Vivi, would
never throw away and waste our lives as we have done. But, thank God,
there is a chance of remedying it. At any rate, I’ll do my best. For
Gloria de Lara’s noble cause I would die willingly a thousand times.”
She has taken her friend’s hand as she speaks. “Good-bye, Vivi,” she
says gently.
But Vivi has risen and thrown her arms round Lady Manderton’s neck.
“Don’t, don’t, Dodo! You musn’t go! There are going to be terrible
doings; I can see that plainly. Oh, Dodo! please don’t go.”
There is just a slight curl of contempt upon the lips of Lady
Manderton’s handsome mouth as she kisses the weak, timid woman, whom all
these years she has been contented to call friend. Then she gently
undoes the tightly clasped hands of Vivi Trevor from around her neck,
and presses her firmly but kindly back into her seat. “I have no fear,
Vivi. There, now, don’t cry; you will hear of me soon, dear—God grant
better employed than I have been. There now, think of what I’ve said.
Good-bye.” The next moment she is gone, and Vivi Trevor is left alone.
For a time she sits like one in a dream, then she rises and walks to the
window. The crowd is still surging to and fro. All traffic is rendered
impossible save on foot. Mounted policemen and military patrol the
street, interfering as little as possible with the people, who, save for
the rougher element already mentioned, are orderly enough, albeit
excited and angry.
“What will happen?” mutters Vivi to herself. “What a strange sight!
Never realised before what a number of people London contains, and what
a strange-looking lot, too! Didn’t think there were such people in
existence.”
There is a knock at her boudoir door as she stands thus soliloquising to
herself.
“Come in,” she answers.
It is Marie, the French maid, and she is the bearer of a note.
“A letter for madame,” she says.
“Marie, what a fearful crowd!” exclaims her mistress. “What will happen?
Have you ever seen anything like it before?”
“Mais jamais, jamais de ma vie, madame,” answers the Frenchwoman
shuddering. “C’est terrible.”
“Marie, you can bring me my coffee and bread-and-butter now,” continues
Vivi, as she turns the note over in her hand and looks at it curiously.
It is from Mr. Trevor.
“Madame will have to take _café noir_ this morning,” remarks the maid
gloomily.
“_Café noir?_ You know I hate it, Marie.”
“Tant pis, madame,” replies the woman, with a shrug of the shoulders.
“But no milkman has called, and there is no milk in the house.”
“But we shall starve, Marie!” exclaims her mistress.
“Je le crois bien, madame,” is all the other replies as she leaves the
room. Marie is not a stranger to revolution. She was in Paris as a young
girl during the revolt which cost Napoleon III. his throne. She knows
well the suffering which an upheaval of the people always brings with
it. She will be astonished at nothing that may come. Has she not been
detailing her experiences downstairs to the frightened servants, who are
undergoing _their_ first hardships in Mr. and Mrs. de Lacy Trevor’s
luxurious service by having to go without milk in their tea that
morning? Do they, by any chance, cast a thought to the suffering
thousands who have no tea into which to put either milk or sugar,—those
suffering thousands whose condition and very existence has given the
brain of Gloria de Lara many a racking thought, as—when in power—she has
pondered the problem, so far unravelled, of their amelioration and
upraising? Not a bit of it. These servants do not realise a suffering
which they have never seen. It is just the world’s way. Not one half of
it knows how the other half lives.
Left alone, Vivi Trevor opens her husband’s note. She thinks it strange
he should write to her. He has never written to her before while staying
under the same roof. She has not set eyes on him since the day before,
when he parted with her after the trial, conviction, and sentence of
Hector D’Estrange. He had not come in to dinner that night, nothing out
of the way to Vivi, the comings and goings of her husband being of small
importance or interest to her. These two have drifted more than ever
apart since the days when Mr. Trevor first had his eyes opened by the
Eton boy’s article in the _Free Review_. He has never sought to
interfere with his wife’s goings on, feeling that to do so would only
make his desolate home more unhomely and comfortless than ever. It is
therefore with some surprise that Vivi reads the following:—
“MY DEAREST VIVI,—You will wonder at these few lines, but I feel I owe
you some little explanation, though whether you will care about it I
know not. Our lives as regards one another have not been over happy;
at least I can speak for myself in saying so. I do not blame you,
Vivi, for the want of affection you have always shown me, or for your
goings on with other men. The fault lies in your bringing up, and the
false position in which your sex is placed by man’s unnatural laws. I
learnt to recognise this long ago, and to acknowledge the teaching of
Hector D’Estrange as true and just. That noble genius, now unveiled to
a wondering world as Gloria de Lara, is paying the penalty of her
attempt to naturalise woman’s position in this world, as a lead up to
many and much-needed social reforms. I feel strongly that in this
moment of trial she should receive the support of all men and women,
high and low, rich and poor, who feel with her, and I have determined
to place my services at her disposal. This, Vivi, will naturally take
me away from you for a time, perhaps for ever. Who knows? Only God.
You will not miss me, for I have never been anything to you. I do not
blame you, dearest, for I ought never to have married you. Still I
loved you, and love you still; that is my only plea, and I ask your
forgiveness. You will perhaps accord it when you realise that I am
giving my life to the upraising of your sex, and to attaining its
freedom, thereby accomplishing the first great step in the direction
of social reform, on which the gaze of Gloria de Lara is fixed. How
this struggle will end I know not. It will be the greatest revolution
this world has ever known,—far-reaching in its results, and, let us
hope and pray, bringing about a final, fair, and lasting settlement of
that all-momentous question, which has given to the world its noblest
woman in Gloria de Lara. Good-bye, Vivi.
“Your ever-devoted husband,
“LAUNCELOT TREVOR.”
She lays the letter down on her lap, and sits staring at it. Her
thoughts fly back across the years of her wedded life, years spent in
vain amusements and false excitements. She cannot recall a single kindly
or unselfish act on her part towards the man who has loved her so
devotedly and tenderly, nor can she lay hold of one single act of
usefulness upon which she can look back with either pleasure or
satisfaction. Very acutely she feels this now; and yet has it been
entirely her own fault?
“What else could I do?” she murmurs to herself. “I was never brought up
to think of anything else. Mother bade me marry well and quickly. That’s
exactly what I did do. What other opening was given me? None. If I had
been a man, and properly educated, I might have done something; but as
it was, what else could I do?”
Her thoughts are flying on ahead now, to that vague future of which she
can know nothing till it comes. Yet what hope does that glance ahead
bring to Vivi Trevor? Absolutely none. In the past her life had been
wasted, and now the future, when regarded, brings her nothing but the
vague dread of growing old and _passée_, with nothing to turn to when
that time comes, nothing to console her for the gay, giddy life which
she has led in the past.
She is beginning to understand Lady Manderton’s words and action better
now. Launcelot Trevor’s note has opened her eyes very wide. Vivi vividly
sees what she has never seen before, for she is beginning to think for
the first time.
She throws herself face downwards on the sofa upon which she had been
reclining so daintily, when Lady Manderton called in upon her but a
short time since. There is a big black void all round Vivi Trevor’s
heart, a dull, hopeless feeling of despair. Large tears are welling up
into her beautiful eyes, and bitter sobs shake her slight, girlish
frame.
Poor Vivi! She is truly miserable, and yet she has no idea how to end
that misery. In a like position, Lady Manderton had risen equal to the
occasion; but then the latter is of different stuff to her hitherto gay,
unthinking friend, a woman of stronger brain and sterner mould, one who
is able to make up her mind, and act promptly when occasion requires it.
There she lies, this victim of neglected childhood and unfair, unnatural
laws. She lies there, a living protest against the selfishness and
conceit that have built up that wall within which she lies imprisoned.
Of what good is life to such as she, whose education since childhood has
been vain, mindless, ephemeral? If Vivi Trevor had never been born, the
world would have lost nothing. And yet, as a drop is to an ocean, so is
the life of this one despairing soul to the thousands who, like her,
have gone down to their graves in uselessness and obscurity, not because
in natural body and mind they were unfitted to work in the great army of
man, not because in desire and willingness they were found wanting, but
because of that barrier, that artificial mountain which one sex has
forbidden the other sex to climb, which one sex has erected in the face
of Nature, to shut out the operations of Nature’s laws.
These words but reflect the thoughts of thousands, who, wearily
struggling along the path of life, ask themselves wonderingly, “Why
existence, if this is all it brings?” Many a tired and saddened soul has
lain itself down to die, with the undefined feeling that the wasted life
left behind might not have been if only—only—ay, if only what? Gloria de
Lara, Flora Desmond, and others, could answer that vague, yearning cry.
They would reply, “If only Nature had been obeyed.” Therein lies the
secret of the troubles of this world, the suffering, agony, and misery
that millions have to put up with, while a clique lives and reigns,
making laws and leading the multitude by the nose under the guise of
liberty and freedom! For every happy heart, thousands there are of
wretched ones; for every well-fed mortal, thousands there are who starve
and suffer. The world is old, its years unknown to the ken of man.
Through all these years man has ruled therein, and this is what he has
brought it to! Can he do nothing better? Yes, but only hand in hand with
woman. Nature declares it; and he who would fight against Nature, must
create the evils that torture the world.
[Illustration]