"Well, s"pose I do," grumbled the cherub. "Think I do it for pleasure?
Tell you what, if I hadn"t got squiffy at the beginning I"d have gone off me bloomin" chump. I was in Buenos Ayres, went off with a waiter to get married. He was in a restaurant, Highgate way, where I was in service. I found out all about it when I got there. O Lor! Why, we jolly well _had_ to drink, what with those Argentines who"re half monkeys and the good of the house! Oh, Lor!" She smiled. "Those were high old times," she said inconsequently, overwhelmed by the glamour of the past. There was silence.
"I see," said Victoria suddenly. "I"ve never seen it before. If you want to get on, you"ve got to run on business lines. No ties, no men to bleed you. Save your money. Don"t drink; save your looks. Why, those are good rules for a bank cashier! If you trip, down you go in the mud and n.o.body"ll pick you up. So you"ve got to walk warily, not look at anybody, play fair and play hard. Then you can get some cash together and then you"re free."
There was silence. Victoria had faced the problem too squarely for two of her guests. Lissa looked dreamily towards the garden, wondering where Fritz was, whether she was wise in loving; Duckie, conscious of her heavy legs and incipient dropsy, blushed, then paled. Alone, Zoe, stiff and energetic like the determined business woman she was, wore on her lips the enigmatic smile born of a nice little sum in French three per cents.
"I must be going," said Duckie hoa.r.s.ely. She levered herself off the sofa. Then, almost silently, the party broke up.
CHAPTER XIII
LIFE pursued its even tenour; and Victoria, watching it go by, was reminded of the endless belt of a machine. The world machine went on grinding, and every breath she took was grist thrown for ever into the intolerable mill. It was October again, and already the trees in the garden were shedding fitful rains of glowing leaves. Alone the elder tree stood almost unchanged, a symbol of the everlasting. Now and then Victoria walked round the little lawn with Snoo and Poo, who were too shivery to chase the fat spiders. Often she stayed there for an hour, one hand against a tree trunk, looking at nothing, bathed in the mauve light of the dying year. Already the scents of decay, of wetness, filled the little garden and struck cold when the sun went down.
Every day now Victoria felt her isolation more cruelly. Solitude was no longer negative; it had materialised and had become a solid inimical presence. When the sun shone and she could walk the milky way of the streets, alone but feeling with every sense the joy of living time, there was not much to fear from solitude; there were things to look at, to touch, to smell. Now solitude no longer lurked round corners; at times a gust of wind carried its icy breath into her bones.
She was suffering, too, a little. She felt heavy in the legs, and a vein in her left calf hurt a little in the evening if she had walked or stood much. Soon, though it did not increase, the pain became her daily companion, for even when absent it haunted her. She would await a twinge for a whole day, ready and fearful, bracing herself up against a shock which often found her unprepared. At all times too the obsession seemed to follow her now. Perhaps she was walking through Regent"s Park, buoyant and feeling capable of lifting a mountain, but the thought would rush upon her, perhaps it was going to hurt. She would lie awake too, oblivious of the heavy breathing by her side, rested, all her senses asleep, and then though she felt no pain the fear of it would come upon her and she would wrestle with the thought that the blow was about to fall.
Sometimes she would go out into the streets, seeking variety even in a wrangle between her Pekingese and some other dog. This meant that she must separate them, apologise to the owner, exchange perhaps a few words. Once she achieved a conversation with an old lady, a kindly soul, the mistress of a poodle. They walked together along the Ca.n.a.l, and the futile conversation fell like balm on Victoria"s ears. The freshness of a voice ignorant of double meanings was soft as dew. They were to meet again, but the old lady was a near neighbour and she must have heard something of Victoria"s reputation, for when they met again opposite Lord"s, the old lady crossed over and the poodle followed her haughtily, leaving Snoo and Poo disconsolate and wondering on the edge of the pavement.
One morning Augusta came into the boudoir about twelve, carrying a visiting card on a little tray.
"Miss Emma Welkin," read Victoria. "League of the Rights of Women. What does she want, Augusta?"
"She says she wants to see Mrs Ferris, Mum."
"League of the Rights of Women? Why, she must be a suffragist."
"Yes, Mum. She wear a straw hat, Mum," explained Augusta with a slight sniff.
"And a tweed coat and skirt, I suppose," said Victoria smiling.
"Oh, yes, Mum. Shall I say go away?"
"M"m. No, tell her to come in."
While Augusta was away Victoria settled herself in the cushions. Perhaps it might be interesting. The visitor was shown in.
"How do you do?" said Victoria holding out her hand. "Please sit down.
Excuse my getting up, I"m not very well."
Miss Welkin looked about her, mildly surprised. It was a pretty room, but somehow she felt uncomfortable. Victoria was looking at her. A capable type of femininity this; curious, though, in its thick man-like clothes, its strong boots. She was not bad looking, thirty perhaps, very erect and rather flat. Her face was fresh, clean, innocent of powder; her eyes were steady behind gla.s.ses; her hair was mostly invisible, being tightly pulled back. There were firm lines about her mouth. A fighting animal.
"I hope you"ll excuse this intrusion," said the suffragist, "but I got your name from the directory and I have come to . . . to ascertain your views about the all-important question of the vote." There was a queer stiltedness about the little speech. Miss Welkin was addressing the meeting.
"Oh? I"m very much interested," said Victoria. "Of course I don"t know anything about it except what I read in the papers."
The grey eyes glittered. Evangelic fervour radiated from them. "That"s what we want," said the suffragist. "It"s just the people who are ready to be our friends who haven"t heard our side and who get bia.s.sed. Mrs Ferris, I"m sure you"ll come in with us and join the Marylebone branch?"
"But how can I?" asked Victoria. "You see I know nothing about it all."
"Let me give you these pamphlets," said the suffragist. Victoria obediently took a leaflet on the marriage law, a pamphlet on "The Rights of Women," a few more papers too, some of which slipped to the floor.
"Thank you," she said, "but first of all tell me, why do you want the vote?"
The suffragist looked at her for a second. This might be a keen recruit when she was converted. Then a flood of words burst from her.
"Oh, how can any woman ask, when she sees the misery, the subjection in which we live. We say that we want the vote because it is the only means we have to attain economic freedom . . . we say to man: "Put your weapon in our hands and we will show you what we can do." We want to have a voice in the affairs of the country. We want to say how the taxes we pay shall be spent, how our children shall be educated, whether our sons shall go to war. We say it"s wrong that we should be disfranchised because we are women . . . it is illogical . . . we must have it."
The suffragist stopped for a second to regain breath.
"I see," said Victoria, "but how is the vote going to help?"
"Help," echoed Miss Welkin. "It will help because it will enable women to have a voice in national affairs."
"You must think me awfully stupid," said Victoria sweetly, "but what use will it be to us if we do get a voice in national affairs?"
Miss Welkin ignored the interruption.
"It is wrong that we should not have a vote if we are reasonable beings; we can be teachers, doctors, chemists, factory inspectors, business managers, writers; we can sit on local authorities, and we can"t cast a vote for a member of Parliament. It"s preposterous, it"s . . ."
"Yes, I understand, but what will the vote do for us? Will it raise wages?"
"It must raise wages. Men"s wages have risen a lot since they got the vote."
"Do you think that"s because they got the vote?"
"Yes. Well, partly. At any rate there are things above wages," said the suffragist excitedly. "And you know, we know that the vote is wanted especially because it is an education; by inducing women to take an interest in politics we will broaden their minds, teach them to combine and then automatically their wages will rise."
"Oh, yes." Victoria was rather struck by the argument. "Then," she said, "you admit men are superior to women?"
"Well, yes, at any rate at present," said the suffragist rather sulkily.
"But you must remember that men have had nearly eighty years training in political affairs. That"s why we want the vote; to wake women up. Oh, you have no idea what it will mean when we get it. We shall have fresh minds bearing on political problems, we shall have more adequate protection for women and children, compulsory feeding, endowment of mothers, more education, shorter hours, more sanitary inspection. We shall not be enslaved by parties; a n.o.bler influence, the influence of pure women will breathe an atmosphere of virtue into this terrible world."
The woman"s eyes were rapt now, her hands tightly clenched, her lips parted, her cheeks a little flushed. But Victoria"s face had hardened suddenly.
"Miss Welkin," she said quietly, "has anything struck you about this house, about me?"
The suffragist looked at her uneasily.
"You ought to know whom you are talking to," Victoria went on, "I am a . . . I am a what you would probably call . . . well, not respectable."
A dull red flush spread over Miss Welkin"s face, from the line of her tightly pulled hair to her stiff white collar; even her ears went red.
She looked away into a corner.
"You see," said Victoria, "it"s a shock, isn"t it? I ought not to have let you in. It wasn"t quite fair, was it?"