JANE
"We've begun, ye see," said Susan Foley.
It was two minutes past five, and Miss Ingate and Audrey, followed by Nick
with her slung arm, entered the sheeted living-room. Tremendous feats had
been performed. All the Moncreiff and Ingate luggage, less than two hours
earlier lying at the Charing Cross Hotel, was now in two adjoining rooms on
the third floor of the great house in Paget Gardens. Drivers and loiterers
had assisted, under the strict and taciturn control of Susan Foley. Also
Nick, Miss Ingate, and Audrey had had a most intimate conversation, and the
two latter had changed their attire to suit the station of campers in a
palace.
"It's lovely to be quite free and independent," Audrey had said, and the
statement had been acclaimed.
Jane Foley was seated opposite her sister at the small table plainly set
for five. She rose vivaciously, and came forward with outstretched hand.
She wore a blue skirt and a white blouse and brown boots. She was
twenty-eight, but her rather small proportions and her plentiful golden,
fluffy hair made her seem about twenty. Her face was less homely than
Susan's, and more mobile. She smiled somewhat shyly, with an extraordinary
radiant cheerfulness. It was impossible for her to conceal the fact that
she was very good-natured and very happy. Finally, she limped.
"Susan _will_ have the meals prompt," she said, as they all sat down. "And
as Susan left home on purpose to look after me, of course she's the
mistress. As far as that goes, she always was."
Susan was spreading jam on a slice of bread-and-butter for the one-armed
Nick.
"I dare say you don't remember me playing the barrel organ all down Regent
Street that day, do you?" said Miss Ingate.
"Oh, yes; quite well. You were magnificent!" answered Jane, with blue eyes
sparkling.
"Well, though I only just saw you--I was so busy--I should remember you
anywhere, Miss Foley," said Miss Ingate.
"Do you notice any difference in her?" questioned Susan Foley harshly.
"N-o," said Miss Ingate. "Except, perhaps, she looks even younger."
"Didn't you notice she's lame?"
"Oh, well--yes, I did. But you didn't expect me to mention that, did you? I
thought your sister had just sprained her ankle, or something."
"No," said Susan. "It's for life. Tell them about it, Jenny. They don't
know."
Jane Foley laughed lightly.
"It was all in the day's work," she said. "It was at my last visit to
Holloway."
Audrey, gazing at her entranced, like a child, murmured with awe:
"Have you been to prison, then?"
"Three times," said Jane pleasantly. "And I shall be going again soon. I'm
only out while they're trying to think of some new way of dealing with me,
poor things! I'm generally watched. It must cost them a fearful lot of
money. But what are they to do?"
"But how were you lamed? I can't eat any tea if you don't tell me--really I
can't!"
"Oh, all right!" Jane laughed. "It was after that Liberal mass meeting in
Peel Park, at Bradford. I'd begun to ask questions, as usual, you
know--questions they can't answer--and then some Liberal stewards, with
lovely rosettes in their buttonholes, came round me and started cutting my
coat with their penknives. They cut it all to pieces. You see that was the
best argument they could think of in the excitement of the moment. I
believe they'd have cut up every stitch I had, only perhaps it began to
dawn on them that it might be awkward for them. Then two of them lifted me
up, one by the feet and the other by the shoulders, and carried me off.
They wouldn't let me walk. I told them they'd hurt my leg, but they were
too busy to listen. As soon as they came across a policeman they said they
had done it all to save me from being thrown into the lake by a brutal and
infuriated mob. I just had enough breath left to thank them. Of course, the
police weren't going to stand that, so I was taken that night to London.
Everything was thought of except my tea. But I expect they forgot that on
purpose so that I should be properly hungry when I got to Holloway.
However, I said to myself, 'If I can't eat and drink when _I_ want, I won't
eat and drink when _they_ want!' And I didn't.
"After I'd paid my respects at Bow Street, and was back at Holloway, I just
stamped on everything they offered me, and wrote a petition to the Governor
asking to be treated as a political prisoner. Instead of granting the
petition he kept sending me more and more beautiful food, and I kept
stamping on it. Then three magistrates arrived and sat on my case, and
sentenced me to the punishment cells. They ran off as soon as they'd
sentenced me. I said I wouldn't go to their punishment cells. I told
everybody again how lame I was. So five wardresses carried me there, but
they dropped me twice on the way. It was a very interesting cell, the
punishment cell was. If it had been in the Tower, everybody would go to
look at it because of its quaintness. There were two pools of water near to
the bed. I was three days in the cell, and those pools of water were always
there; I could see them because from where I lay on the bed the light
glinted on them. Just one gleam from the tiny cobwebby window high up. I
hadn't anything to read, of course, but even if I'd had something I
couldn't see to read. The bed was two planks, just raised an inch or two
above the water, and the pillow was wooden. Never any trouble about making
beds like that! The entire furniture of this cosy drawing-room was--you'll
never guess--a tree-stump, meant for a chair, I think. And on this
tree-stump was an india-rubber cup. I could just see it across the cell.
"At night the wardresses were struck with pity, or perhaps it was the
Governor. Anyhow, they brought me a mattress and a rug. They told me to get
up off the bed, and I told them I couldn't get up, couldn't even turn over.
So they said, 'Very well, then; you can do without these things,' and they
took them away. The funny thing was that I really couldn't get up. If I
tried to move, my leg made me want to shriek.
"After three days they decided to take me to the prison hospital. I
shrieked all the way--couldn't help it. They laughed. So then I laughed. In
the hospital, the doctor decided that my left ankle was sprained and my
right thigh broken. So I had the best of them, after all. They had to admit
they were wrong. It was most awkward for them. Then I thought I might as
well begin to eat. But they had to be very careful what they gave me. I
hadn't had anything for nearly six days, you see. They were in a fearful
stew. Doctor was there day and night. And it wasn't his fault. I told him
he had all my sympathies. He said he was very sorry I should be lame for
life, but it couldn't be helped, as the thigh had been left too long. I
said, 'Please don't mention it.'"
"But did they keep you after that?"
"Keep me! They implored my friends to take me away. No man was ever more
relieved that the poor dear Governor of Holloway Prison, and the Home
Secretary himself, too, when I left in a motor ambulance. The Governor
raised his hat to two of my friends. He would have eaten out of my hand if
I'd had a few more days to tame him."
Audrey's childlike and intense gaze had become extremely noticeable. Jane
Foley felt it upon herself, and grew a little self-conscious. Susan Foley
noticed it with eager and grim pride, and she made a sharp movement instead
of saying: "Yes, you do well to stare. You've got something worth staring
at."
Nick noticed it, with moisture in her glittering, hysteric eyes. Miss
Ingate noticed it ironically. "You, pretending to be a widow, and so
knowing and so superior! Why, you're a schoolgirl!" said the expressive
curve of Miss Ingate's shut lips.
And, in fact, Audrey was now younger than she had ever been in Paris. She
was the girl of six or seven years earlier, who, at night at school, used
to insist upon hearing stories of real people, either from a sympathetic
teacher or from the other member of the celebrated secret society. But she
had never heard any tale to compare with Jane Foley's. It was incredible
that this straightforward, simple girl at the table should be the
world-renowned Jane Foley. What most impressed Audrey in Jane was Jane's
happiness. Jane was happy, as Audrey had not imagined that anyone could be
happy. She had within her a supply of happiness that was constantly
bubbling up. The ridiculousness and the total futility of such matters as
motor-cars, fine raiment, beautiful boudoirs and correctness smote Audrey
severely. She saw that there was only one thing worth having, and that was
the mysterious thing that Jane Foley had. This mysterious thing rendered
innocuous cruelty, stupidity and injustice, and reduced them to rather
pathetic trifles.
"But I never saw all this in the papers!" Audrey exclaimed.
"No paper--I mean no respectable paper--would print it. Of course, we
printed it in our own weekly paper."
"Why wouldn't any respectable paper print it?"
"Because it's not nice. Don't you see that I ought to have been at home
mending stockings instead of gallivanting round with Liberal stewards and
policemen and prison governors?"
"And why aren't you mending stockings?" asked Audrey, with a delicious
quizzical smile that crept gradually through the wonder and admiration in
her face.
"You pal!" cried Jane Foley impulsively. "I must hug you!" And she did.
"I'll tell you why I'm not mending' stockings, and why Susan has had to
leave off mending stockings in order to look after me. Susan and I worked
in a mill when she was ten and I was eleven. We were 'tenters.' We used to
get up at four or five in the morning and help with the housework, and then
put on our clogs and shawls and be at the mill at six. We worked till
twelve, and then in the afternoon we went to school. The next day we went
to school in the morning and to the mill in the afternoon. When we were
thirteen we left school altogether, and worked twelve hours a day in the
mill. In the evenings we had to do housework. In fact, all our housework
was done before half-past five in the morning and after half-past six in
the evening. We had to work just as hard as the men and boys in the mill.
We got a great deal less money and a great deal less decent treatment; but
to make up we had to slave in the early morning and late at night, while
the men either snored or smoked. I was all right. But Susan wasn't. And a
lot of women weren't, especially young mothers with babies. So I learnt
typewriting on the quiet, and left it all to try and find out whether
something couldn't be done. I soon found out--after I'd heard Rosamund
speak. That's the reason I'm not mending stockings. I'm not blaming
anybody. It's no one's fault, really. It certainly isn't men's fault. Only
something has to be altered, and most people detest alterations. Still,
they do get done somehow in the end. And so there you are!"
"I should love to help," said Audrey. "I expect I'm not much good, but I
should love to."
She dared not refer to her wealth, of which, in fact, she was rather
ashamed.
"Well, you can help, all right," said Jane Foley, rising. "Are you a
member?"
"No. But I will be to-morrow."
"They'll give you something to do," said Jane Foley.
"Oh yes!" remarked Miss Ingate. "They'll keep you busy enough--_and_ charge
you for it."
Susan Foley began to clear the table.
"Supper at nine," said she curtly.