Vida caught her by the coat. "Where are the others? The rest of your _good_ speakers?"
"Scattered up and down. Getting ready for the General Election. That"s why we have to break in new people. Oh, she sent me some notes, that girl did. I must give them back to her."
Ernestine stooped and opened the portfolio on Miss Levering"s lap. She rummaged through the bulging pockets.
"I thought," said Miss Levering, with obvious misgiving, "I thought I hadn"t seen that affected-looking creature before."
"Oh, she"ll get over all that," Ernestine whispered. "You haven"t much opinion of our crowds, but they can teach people a lot."
"Teach them not to hold their heads like a broken lily?"
"Yes, knock all sorts of nonsense out and stiffen them up wonderfully."
She found the sc.r.a.p of paper, and shut the portfolio with a snap.
"Now!"
She stood up, took in the fact of the audience having increased and a policeman in the offing. She summoned her allies.
"It"s nearly time for those Army and Navy workers to come out. The men will come first," she said, "and five minutes after, they let the women out. I"ll begin, and then I think you"d better speak next," she said, handing the die-away young woman her notes. "These seem all right."
"Oh, but, Miss Blunt," she whispered, "I"m so nervous. How am I ever to face all those men?"
"You"ll find it quite easy when once you are started," said Ernestine, in a quiet undertone.
"But I"m so afraid that, just out of pure nervousness, I"ll say the wrong thing."
"If you do, I"ll be there," returned the chairman, a little grimly.
"But it"s the very first time in my life----"
"Now, look here----"
Ernestine reached out past this person who was luxuriating in her own emotions, and drew the ample mauve matron into the official group close to where Miss Levering sat nursing the handbills.
"It"s easy enough talking to these little meetings. They"re quite good and quiet--not a bit like Hyde Park." (One of the young men poked the other. They exchanged looks.) "But there are three things we all agree it"s just as well to keep in mind: Not to talk about ourselves"--she measured off the t.i.t-bits of wisdom with a slim forefinger--"not to say anything against the press, and, if possible, remember to praise the police."
"Praise the police!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the mauve matron.
"Sh!" said Ernestine, softly. But not so easily was the tide of indignation stemmed.
"I saw with my own eyes----" began the woman.
"Yes, yes, but----" she lowered her voice, Borrodaile had to strain to catch what she said, "you see it"s no use beating our heads against a stone wall. A movement that means to be popular must have the police on its side. After all, they do very well--considering."
"Considering they"re men?" demanded the matron.
"Anyhow," Ernestine went on, "even if they behaved ten times worse, it"s not a bit of good to antagonize the police or the press. If they aren"t our friends, we"ve got to make them our friends. They"re both _much_ better than they were. They must be encouraged!" said the wise young Daniel, with a little nod. Then as she saw or felt that the big matron might elude her vigilance and break out into indiscretion, "Why, we had a reporter in from the _Morning Magnifier_ only to-day. He said, "The public seems to have got tired of reading that you spit and scratch and prod policemen with your hatpins. Now, do you mind saying what is it you really do?" I told him to come here this afternoon. Now, when I"ve opened the meeting, _you"ll_ tell him!"
"Oh, _dear_!" the young woman patted her fringe, "do you suppose we"ll be in the _Magnifier_ to-morrow? How dreadful!"
During this little interchange a procession of men streaming homeward in their hundreds came walking down the Embankment in twos and threes or singly, shambling past the loosely gathered a.s.semblage about the bench.
The child on the riverward side still clutching its penny was unceremoniously ousted. As soon as Ernestine had mounted the seat the slackly held gathering showed signs of cohesion. The waiting units drew closer. The dingy procession slowed--the workmen, looking up at the young face with the fluttering sycamore shadows printed on its pink and white, grinned or frowned, but many halted and listened. Through the early part of the speech Miss Levering kept looking out of the corner of her eye to see what effect it had on Borrodaile. But Borrodaile gave no sign. Ernestine was trying to make it clear what a gain it would be, especially to this cla.s.s, if women had the vote. An uphill task to catch and hold the attention of those tired workmen. They hadn"t stopped there to be made to think--if they weren"t going to be amused, they"d go home.
A certain number did go home, after pausing to ask the young Reformer, more or less good-humouredly, why she didn"t get married. Lord Borrodaile had privately asked for enlightenment on the same score. Vida had only smiled. One man varied the monotony by demanding why, if it would be a good thing for the working cla.s.s to have women voting, why didn"t the Labour Party take up the question.
"Some of the Labour Party have," Ernestine told them, "but the others are afraid. They"ve been told that women are such slaves to convention--such timid creatures! They know their own women aren"t, but they"re doubtful about the rest. The Labour Party, you know"--she spoke with a condescending forbearance--"the Labour Party is young yet, and knows what it"s like to feel timid. Some of the Labour men have the wild notion that women would all vote Conservative."
"So they would!"
But Ernestine shook her head. "While we are trying to show the people who say that, that even if they were right, it would be no excuse whatever for denying our claim to vote whichever way we thought best.
While we are going to the root of the principle of the thing, another lot of logical gentlemen are sure to say, "Oh, it would never do to have women voting. They"d be going in for all sorts of new-fangled reforms, and the whole place would be turned upside down!" So between the men who think we"d all turn Tory and the men who are sure we"d all be Socialists, we don"t seem likely to get very far, unless we do something to show them we mean to have it for no better reason than just that we"re human beings!"
"Isn"t she delightfully--direct!" whispered Miss Levering, eager to cull some modest flower of praise.
"Oh, direct enough!" His tone so little satisfied the half-maternal pride of the other woman that she was almost prepared for the slighting accent in which he presently asked, "Is this the sort of thing that"s supposed to convert people to a great const.i.tutional change?"
"It isn"t our women would get the vote," a workman called out. "It"s the rich women."
"Is it only the rich men who have the vote?" demanded Ernestine. "You know it isn"t. We are fighting to get the franchise on precisely the same terms as men."
For several moments the wrangle went on.
"Would wives have a vote?"
She showed how that could be made a matter of adjustment. She quoted the lodger franchise and the latch-key decision.
Vida kept glancing at Borrodaile. As still he made no sign, "Of course,"
the lady whispered across the back of the bench, "of course, you think she"s an abomination, but----?" she paused for a handsome disavowal.
Borrodaile looked at the eager face--Vida"s, for Miss Blunt"s was calm as a May morning. As he did not instantly speak, "But you can"t deny she"s got extremely good wits."
He seemed to relent before such persuasiveness. "She"s got a delicious little face," he admitted, thinking to say the most.
"Oh, her _face_! That"s scarcely the point."
"It"s always the point."
"It"s the principle that"s at stake," Ernestine was saying. "The most out-and-out Socialist among us would welcome the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of six d.u.c.h.esses or all the women born with red hair; we don"t care on what plea the entering wedge gets in. But let me tell you there aren"t any people on earth so blind to their own interests as just you working men when you oppose or when you are indifferent to women"s having votes. All women suffer--but it"s the women of your cla.s.s who suffer most. _Isn"t_ it? Don"t you men know--why, it"s notorious!--that the women of the working cla.s.s are worse sweated even than the men?"
"So they are!"
"If you don"t believe me, _ask_ them. Here they come."
It was well contrived--that point! It struck full in the face of the homeward-streaming women who had just been let out.
"We know, and you men know----" the speaker nailed her advantage, "that even the Government that"s being forced to become a model employer where men are concerned, the very _Government_ is responsible for sweating thousands of women in State employments! We know and you know that in those work-rooms over yonder these very women have been sitting weighed down by the rumour of a reduction in their wages already so much below the men"s. They"ve sat there wondering whether they can risk a strike.
Women--it"s notorious," she flung it out on a wave of pa.s.sion, "women everywhere suffer most from the evils of our social system. Why not?
They"ve had no hand in it! Our social system is the work of men! Yet we must work to uphold it! this system that crushes us. We must swell the budget, we must help to pay the bill! What _fools_ we"ve all been! What fools we are if we don"t do something!"