The Convert Part 18

Vida, from the first, had never explained or excused herself to him, so that when he asked at luncheon what she was going to do with this fine Sunday afternoon, she had simply smiled, and said, 'Oh, I have a tryst to keep.'

It was her sister who added anxiously, 'Is Wood leading now at the Queen's Hall Concerts?' And so, without actually committing herself to a lie, gave the impression that music was to be their quest.

An hour later, while the old man was nursing his gout by the library window, he saw the ladies getting into a hansom. In spite of the inconvenience to his afflicted member he got up and opened the window.

'Don't tell me you're doing anything so rational--you two--as going to a concert.'

'Why do you say that? You know I never like to take the horses out on Sunday----'

'Rubbish! You think a dashing, irresponsible hansom is more in keeping with the Factory Girls' Club or some giddy Whitechapel frivolity!'

Mrs. Fox-Moore gave her sister a look of miserable apprehension; but the younger woman laughed and waved a hand. She knew that, even more than the hansom, their 'get up' had given them away. It must be confessed she had felt quite as strongly as her sister that it wouldn't do to be recognized at a Suffragette meeting. Even as a nameless 'fine lady'

standing out from a mob of the dowdy and the dirty, to be stared at by eyes however undiscerning, under circ.u.mstances so questionable, would be distinctly distasteful.

So, reversing the order of Nature, the b.u.t.terfly had retired into a 'grubby' state. In other words, Vida had put on the plainest of her discarded mourning-gowns. From a small Tuscan straw travelling-toque, the new maid, greatly wondering at such instructions, had extracted an old paste buckle and some violets, leaving it 'not fit to be seen.' In spite of having herself taken these precautions, Vida had broken into uncontrollable smiles at the apparition of Mrs. Fox-Moore, asking with pride--

'Will I do? I look quite like a Woman of the People, don't I?'

The unconscious humour of the manifestation filled Miss Levering with an uneasy merriment every time she turned her eyes that way.

Little as Mr. Fox-Moore thought of his wife's taste, either in clothes or in amus.e.m.e.nts, he would have been more mystified than ever he had been in his life had he seen her hansom, ten minutes later, stop on the north side of Trafalgar Square, opposite the National Gallery.

'Look out and see,' she said, retiring guiltily into the corner of the conveyance. 'Are they there?' And it was plain that nothing could more have relieved Mrs. Fox-Moore at that moment than to hear 'they' were not.

But Vida, glancing discreetly out of the side window, had said--

'There? I should think they are--and a crowd round them already. Look at their banners!' and she laughed as she leaned out and read the legend, 'We demand VOTES FOR WOMEN' inscribed in black letters on the white ground of two pieces of sheeting stretched each between a pair of upright poles, standing one on either side of the plinth of Nelson's column. In the very middle, and similarly supported, was a banner of blood red. Upon this one, in great white letters, appeared the legend--

'EFFINGHAM, THE ENEMY OF WOMEN AND THE WORKERS.'

As Vida read it out--

'_What!_' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed her sister. 'They haven't really got that on a banner!' And so intrigued was she that, like some shy creature dwelling in a sh.e.l.l, cautiously she protruded her head out of the shiny, black sheath of the hansom.

But as she did so she met the innocent eye of a pa.s.ser-by, tired of craning his neck to look back at the meeting. With precipitation Mrs.

Fox-Moore withdrew into the innermost recesses of the black sh.e.l.l.

'Come, Janet,' said Vida, who had meanwhile jumped out and settled the fare.

'Did that man know us?' asked the other, lifting up the flap from the back window of the hansom and peering out.

'No, I don't think so.'

'He stared, Vida. He certainly stared very hard.'

Still she hesitated, clinging to the friendly shelter of the hansom.

'Oh, come on! He only stared because---- He took you for a Suffragette!'

But the indiscretion lit so angry a light in the lady's eye, that Vida was fain to add, 'No, no, do come--and I'll tell you what he was really looking at.'

'What?' said Mrs. Fox-Moore, putting out her head again.

'He was struck,' said Vida, biting her lip to repress smiles, 'by the hat of the Woman of the People.'

But the lady was too entirely satisfied with her hat to mind Vida's poking fun at it.

'"Effingham, the Enemy!"' Mrs. Fox-Moore read for herself as they approached the flaunting red banner. 'How perfectly outrageous!'

'How perfectly _silly_!' amended the other, 'when one thinks of that kind and charming Pillar of Excellence!'

'I told you they were mad as well as bad.'

'I know; and now we're going to watch them prove it. Come on.'

'Why, they've stopped the fountains!' Mrs. Fox-Moore spoke as though detecting an additional proof of turpitude. 'Those two policemen,' she went on, in a whisper, 'why are they looking at _us_ like that?'

Vida glanced at the men. Their eyes were certainly fixed on the two ladies in a curious, direct fashion, not exactly impudent, but still in a way no policeman had ever looked at either of them before. A coolly watchful, slightly contemptuous stare, interrupted by one man turning to say something to the other, at which both grinned. Vida was conscious of wishing that she had come in her usual clothes--above all, that Janet had not raked out that 'jumble sale' object she had perched on her head.

The wearer of the incriminatory hat, acting upon some quite una.n.a.lyzed instinct to range herself unmistakably on the side of law and order, paused as they were pa.s.sing the two policemen and addressed them with dignity.

'Is it safe to stop and listen for a few minutes to these people?'

The men looked at Mrs. Fox-Moore with obvious suspicion.

'I cawn't say,' said the one nearest.

'Do you expect any trouble?' she demanded.

There was a silence, and then the other policeman said with a decidedly snubby air--

'It ain't our business to go _lookin'_ fur trouble;' and he turned his eyes away.

'Of course not,' said Vida, pleasantly, coming to her sister's rescue.

'All this lady wants to be a.s.sured of is that there are enough of you present to make it safe----'

'If ladies wants to be safe,' said number one, 'they'd better stop in their 'omes.'

'That's the first rude policeman I ever----' began Mrs. Fox-Moore, as they went on.

'Well, you know he's only echoing what we all say.'

Vida was looking over the crowd to where on the plinth of the historic column the little group of women and a solitary man stood out against the background of the banners. Here they were--these new Furies that pursued the agreeable men one sat by at dinner--men who, it was well known, devoted their lives--when they weren't dining--to the welfare of England. But were these frail, rather depressed-looking women--were they indeed the ones, outrageously daring, who broke up meetings and bashed in policemen's helmets? Nothing very daring in their aspect to-day--a little weary and preoccupied they looked, as they stood up there in twos and threes, talking to one another in that exposed position of theirs, while from time to time about their ears like spent bullets flew the spasmodic laughter and rude comment of the crowd--strangely unconscious, those 'blatant sensation-mongers,' of the thousand eyes and the sea of upturned faces!

'Not _quite_ what I expected!' said Mrs. Fox-Moore, with an unmistakable accent of disappointment. It was plainly her meaning that to a general reprehensibleness, dulness was now superadded.

'Perhaps these are not the ones,' said Vida, catching at hope.

Mrs. Fox-Moore took heart. 'Suppose we find out,' she suggested.