WE ASSIST AT A FUNCTION IN THE MODERN SMITHFIELD, BUT NOT QUITE TO
THE DEATH
"Do come at once. Drusilla has been arrested."
So ran the frenzied pencil note in Naomi's hand, on the fly-leaf of a
new novel, which was brought to me one morning by the boot and knife
boy at Queen Anne's Gate.
I went immediately, accompanied by the boy, who evidently knew what
was wrong.
"Miss Drusilla and the other Sufferagettes," he said, "have been
having another turn-up with the Prime Minister. They keep the pot
boiling, don't they, sir?"
"Do you think women ought to have the vote?" I asked him.
"My mother says," he replied, "that all the clever women have it
already."
"Has she got it?" I asked.
He grinned. "I should rather say she had," he answered.
Drusilla's mother was in a state of profound dejection and
semi-collapse. "I don't know what Alderley will say," was the burden
of her lament.
I told her it was very fortunate he was away. He would have time to
think it over and take a kindly view.
"A daughter of mine in prison," said my sister. "The shame of it."
"Oh no," I said, "not at all. There is no shame in political
offence. The fight for freedom, you know. Think of Joan of Arc.
Think of--of--Jael and Sisera. Some one must always suffer before
justice is done."
This cheered the poor mother a little, but all my good efforts were
undone by Lionel, who rushed in at this moment, pale with fury.
Neither Naomi nor I could check his ravings for some minutes, and his
mother accepted them as a true picture of the case. Naturally. Was
he not her son, while I was only her step-brother twice his age?
Lionel, I need hardly say, disregarded the seriousness of the cause
of female enfranchisement. His principal concern was the name of
Wynne, and L. Wynne in particular, and the effect of Drusilla's
martyrdom upon it. How could he walk to the wicket, in the Middlesex
and Surrey match to-morrow, with the knowledge of this outrage not
only in his own mind but only too evidently in that of every
spectator at the Oval? How could he do himself justice as a bat
under such a humiliation? And think of the report the next
day--"Wynne, the brother of the notorious Suffragette, secured a
well-merited duck," or, "To be 'caught out' seems just now to run in
the Wynne family." Lionel's fancy played with the theme like a comic
journalist in an evening paper. He covered himself with gratuitous
ridicule.
"My dear boy," I said at last, "how extraordinarily out of date you
are. You are making two of the least pardonable mistakes of your
age--you are taking something seriously and you are disregarding the
benefits of advertisement."
He turned on me like a tiger. "Oh yes," he said, "you never find
fault with anything. You just smile and enjoy it."
"I can't find much fault with Drusilla," I said humbly, "because she
is sincere. There is no harm in wanting to be considered more
important than you are: it is not wrong to want to vote. Personally
I hope I shall never vote again, but that is not virtue in me--it is
deplorable, unpatriotic weakness. Drusilla takes a passionate
interest in public affairs and wants to be allowed to participate in
them, and considers it an injustice that she should not be allowed to
because she is a woman and not a man. In her excitement for this
cause she and her friends seem to have gone a little too far and have
come into collision with a law and the police. That is all. There
is no disgrace; on the contrary, it is a merit in any one to-day to
be ready to suffer for any cause."
Seeing that I might as well be talking to a pillar box, I stopped
there, although it also occurred to me to say that I could imagine an
intelligent Japanese looking with more admiration upon sisters who
wanted votes than brothers who struck and pursued a ball all day.
I did, however, add, "Instead of ranting about your own reputation as
a cricketer, you ought to be hurrying as fast as you can to the
police court, to bail her out--if she will let you, which I
doubt--and be rather proud to think that you have so determined and
plucky a sister. I will come with you if you like."
Lionel, I regret to say, replied briefly that he would be damned if
he did anything of the kind, and so I went alone, as Naomi could not
leave her mother.
What nice people the police are! To the well-to-do and law-abiding
they have a quiet, gentle, paternal way that soothes and reassures.
They write things in books like recording angels. They hold out hope.
"Miss Drusilla Wynne? Oh yes," said the officer in charge. "Taken
into custody for creating a disturbance in Downing Street with other
females. The magistrate will hear the case in about half an hour. A
special sitting."
Yes, he added, I might see her; but they were all very excited, and
had been singing their war-song.
A policeman led me to Drusilla's cell and told me the story on the
way. It seemed that the Prime Minister had made an announcement
unpalatable to the sisterhood, whose knife, the officer added, had
been in him for some time, and certain picked heroines among them had
paid him a call of protest.
"No harm in that," said A-27, "but they wouldn't go away when told,
and created a disturbance, so we had to bring them to the station.
Very voilent they were, too, some of them; but not your young lady, I
hope. Let me see, what did you say her name was?"
I told him.
"Oh yes. Wynne," he said (and my thoughts flew instantly to poor
Wragg in Arnold's preface), "Wynne. No, she was all right--went like
a lamb. In point of fact, I apprehended her myself. A pretty little
piece in green and terra-cotta. Seemed to me she was doing what she
was told, more than what she wanted to."
Poor Drusilla--if she could have heard that! Nothing so enrages as
truth.
I was allowed to talk to her in the presence of the constable, who,
with his helmet off, had quite the air of a man and a brother--a far
more sympathetic brother than Lionel, indeed.
"I'm very sorry," she said, "but I can't pay the fine. None of the
others will, and I'm not going to desert them."
"Does that mean Holloway?" I asked the policeman.
"That's right," he said: "Holloway."
"In Black Maria?" I asked.
"That's right: Black Maria," he said.
"How long do you think it will be?" I asked.
"A week or ten days for the first offenders," he said; "a fortnight
for the old parliamentary hands."
I told Drusilla about her mother; but it did not move her. "It is
mother's battle we are fighting as well as our own," she replied.
"Women should hang together."
"Not hang," I said: "it's not as bad as that."
A-27 laughed, and Drusilla turned on him furiously.
"Why should policemen be men?" she cried. "That's another injustice.
If women have to be arrested, they ought to be arrested by their own
sex."
"I quite agree with you, miss," said the constable. "And so would
all my mates, very heartily. Yes, and all our missuses too. It's no
bean-feast taking a woman to the station, I can tell you. The police
have their feelings as well as any one else, and they never feel so
little like men as they do when they're apprehending a female
offender. Now you, miss, as I was telling this gentleman here, came
along quiet and peaceable; but do you think I was proud of having my
hand on you? Not a bit of it. I could have sunk into the earth for
shame. Votes for women I don't believe in, and never shall; but
policewomen for women I would plump for."
At this moment a messenger came to say that the magistrate was ready,
and I had to leave Drusilla and enter the court. The hearing took
only a short time. There were several offenders, some of whom had
been in similar _mêlées_ before. They all refused to pay the fine
and received varying sentences, as A-27 had foretold.
Drusilla, however, was discharged with a caution, a result due partly
to her pacific behaviour with her constable, and partly, I have no
doubt, to her father's standing at the Bar; for although there may
not be (as some aver) one law for the rich and one for the poor,
there is certainly one law for a colleague and one for a stranger,
and so there always will be. As Trist says, the human organism
presents few attractions as a resting-place to the bacillus of
impartiality.
In discharging her (to her very obvious distress), the magistrate
made some kind if antiquated remarks. He pointed out that there were
other rights to be considered as well as the right to vote. There
were, for example, the parents' right to be free from anxiety as to
what their daughters were doing; the right to be exempted from such
annoyance and grief as the imprisonment of their daughters would
bring; and so forth. He meant well, but Drusilla was white with
disagreement and indignation.
"If every one thought about others like that," she said, on the way
home, "there would be no progress whatever. Progress is based on
disregard of old-fashioned feelings." (Where did she get that?)
"True enough," I agreed. "But progress also comes from independence.
I take it for granted that all those other brave ladies who have
refused to pay their fines, and have gone to Holloway, have their own
homes and incomes. They are in a position to defy the law. But
where is your income? where is your home?"
This hit Drusilla rather hard. "If it came to that," she said, "I
would leave home at once and earn my own living."
"But you have not done so," I said, "and one cannot have it both
ways. One cannot enjoy both the sheltered advantages of the
dependent and the fierce joys of the independent. You have been a
gambler this morning. You were playing a game which might cost you
money you did not possess and would have to be paid by some one who
disapproved of the whole thing."
"But I was prepared to go to prison," said Drusilla.
"Quite true," I said. "But what about your time there? It does not
belong to you. Your father paid for you to be at the Slade. No," I
said, "you are a dependent and must behave accordingly. But when you
earn your own living, there is nothing you cannot do. If you still
want the vote, and there is no other way of getting it but by
encamping on the Prime Minister's doorstep, why, you must encamp
there and I will help you. But so long as you are taking your
father's money, and living under his roof, I fancy you must behave."
And so I restored her to her mother.
My next step was to return swiftly to the police court to try a
little corruption and bribery; but I am not good at this, and my
suggestion that Wing was the correct spelling of Drusilla's surname
(I had not only her father's comfort but her grandmother's in mind)
failed dismally. In this world, although deceptions are welcomed
everywhere, it is only on certain conditions, one of which is that
they must be carried through with a high hand. I did not comply with
this rule; and when I began to fumble for a sovereign, the
inspector's cold eye paralysed my fingers. So Wynne it
remained--Drusilla Wynne, aged twenty-two.
Alderley, as it happened, said nothing, but he acted promptly. He
told Drusilla very kindly but decisively that he did not want her to
go to the Slade any more. He would find her private instruction, he
said, or perhaps she might join a class in a studio, but he wanted
the Slade lessons to cease. This was very hard, and I sympathised
with her; but, as I pointed out, and I am sure Naomi did too, her
father had the right to dictate, and one cannot expect to be a
revolutionary on plum cake, so to speak.
So Drusilla fared to Gower Street no more; and as for the little
bearded men with the blue shirts, they gradually disappeared and no
doubt found other comrades, as artists and socialists quickly do.
The chief cause of anxiety at Queen Anne's Gate that then remained
was old Mrs. Wynne. Could the news be kept from her? We wondered
for a few days, and then at last her daughter-in-law knew the worst,
for a letter from Ludlow arrived with reference to the matter.
"How strange," the old lady wrote, "that there should be two girls of
the same age named Drusilla Wynne, for Drusilla is by no means a
common name, and there has been a Drusilla Wynne in our family for
generations. My eye caught it in a report of the deplorable incident
proceeding from this new outcry. Another strange thing is that this
other Drusilla Wynne is described as the daughter of a well-known
barrister; but life is full of coincidences. You must remind me,
when I see you next, to tell you of a very remarkable one which has
just happened to me in connection with a knitting-needle and dear
Canon Hoadley."
"So that's all right," said Drusilla's mother.
"Yes, and jolly lucky," said Lionel.
"I think," said Drusilla, "it's all wrong. You talk as if I were
ashamed of it as well as all the rest of you, but I'm not, and I
think it's horrible to deceive Grandmamma like that. In fact I shall
blame myself as long as I live for letting Kent interfere at all."
"You couldn't help it," I said meekly.
"If you hadn't gone to the court," said Drusilla, "to see the police
and talk the magistrate over" (the woman's view of the English law!)
"I should have gone to prison, and then Grandmamma would certainly
have known. I wish I had stopped you. The next time I shall go
through with it, I promise you, so you'd better all look out.
Meanwhile, I shall write to Grandmamma and tell her everything."
"Don't be such an ass," said Lionel.
"My dear child," said her mother, "do you really think that is
necessary?"
"Really," replied Drusilla firmly.
"Oh, Kent," said her mother to me, "do convince her how unnecessary
that is. Poor Grandmamma--at her age too! Surely there is no need.
I don't want ever to interfere in a case of conscience, but surely
there are times ... Truth.... Surely now and then silence ... and
it's too difficult. Kent, you know what I mean, do tell her."
"I'm awfully sorry," I said, "but I'm afraid Drusilla is right.
There was not, as you say, the slightest need to inform old Mrs.
Wynne off her own bat; but I don't see how she can let the present
misunderstanding continue and retain that admiration of herself which
is needful for us all to get through life decently."
I did not mean this to be cruel, but Lionel, who cannot forgive his
sister for entertaining views so uncomfortable to himself at his club
(and who is, moreover, a Turk at heart, like most Englishmen) added
the poison.
"No," he said, "martyrs must advertise or they won't keep going. It
is by letting every one know about their courage that they get it and
keep it."
Poor Drusilla! this is the hardest cut of all, for there was just
enough truth to sting--her revolt being largely imitative. She flung
out of the room in a rage.
Naomi, who had taken no part in the discussion except to try to stop
Lionel, followed her.
Alderley, when told about it, took, I think, a wise course.
"Certainly she must unburden, if she wishes to," he said; "but she
must go to Ludlow and tell the story in person. I won't have it done
by letter."
And so Drusilla, very unwillingly, when the time came (our moral duty
being often a confoundedly uncomfortable thing, which it is far
simpler to neglect) was packed off to Ludlow with her poor little
history of revolt, which (as her father had foreseen) was becoming a
good deal of a bore.
The old lady, like her son, took it very well, Drusilla's honesty in
the matter pleasing her far more than the unwomanliness of the
conduct displeased her. Moreover, very old people rather like a
little dare-devil in the young. But Drusilla had her punishment too.
"Well, well," Grandmamma said, "we won't say any more about it. What
we must do for you now, my dear, is to find you a nice husband;" the
result being a series of garden-parties and picnics at which curates
and youthful squires were shamelessly paraded before our little
firebrand, almost as if she had been a marriageable South Sea
islander, as indeed she practically was. When it comes to marriage
we are all savages.
Drusilla, however, to use a phrase of Lionel's, was not taking any.
She frightened the squires with her politics, and the curates with
her theology, or the want of it.
"My dear Grandmamma," she said, "I don't want to marry."
"Nonsense, child," said the old lady; "of course you want to marry.
All women do. What you mean is, you don't want to marry any one that
you don't want to marry."
Drusilla did not acquiesce, but the chorus of Alf Pinto's latest
song, as repeated far too often by Dollie Heathcote and Lionel, ran
through her head--
"Mr. Right! Mr. Right!
He may not have knocked just yet;
But cheer up, girls, he is putting on his boots,
And he'll soon be here, you bet."
Mr. Right! Mr. Right! Was there a Mr. Right for every one? she
wondered; for obviously the music-hall philosophy was a little too
general. Statistics alone proved that.
As it turned out--but we shall see.