The Convert Part 33

'Yes, but he advised me not to go. "You're quite right," he said. "Don't you think of bothering," he said. "I've looked over the lot," he said, "and there isn't a week-ender among 'em."'

Upon the general laugh that drew Hermione and Captain Beeching into the group, Jean precipitated herself gaily into the conversation. 'Have they told you about Mrs. Freddy's friend who came to tea here in the winter?'

she asked Hermione. 'He was a member of Parliament, too--quite a little young one--he said women would never be respected till they had the vote!'

Mr. Greatorex snorted, the other men smiled, and all the women, except Aunt Lydia, did the same.

'I remember telling him,' Mrs. Heriot said, with marked severity, 'that he was too young to know what he was talking about.'

'Yes, I'm afraid you all sat on the poor gentleman,' said Lord Borrodaile.

'It was such fun. He was flat as a pancake when we'd done with him. Aunt Ellen was here. She told him with her most distinguished air she didn't want to be respected.'

'Dear Lady John!' murmured Miss Levering. 'I can hear her!'

'Quite right,' said Captain Beeching. 'Awful idea to think you're _respected_.'

'Simply revolting,' agreed Miss Heriot.

'Poor little man!' laughed Jean, 'and he thought he was being _so_ agreeable!'

'Instead of which it was you.'

Miss Levering said the curious words quite pleasantly, but so low that only Jean heard them.

The girl looked up. 'Me?'

'You had the satisfaction of knowing you had made yourself immensely popular with all other men.'

The girl flushed. 'I hope you don't think I did it for that reason.'

The little pa.s.sage was unnoticed by the rest of the company, who were listening to Lord Borrodaile's contented p.r.o.nouncement: 'I'm afraid the new-fangled seed falls on barren ground in our old-fashioned gardens--_pace_ my charming sister-in-law.'

Greatorex turned sharply. 'Mrs. Tunbridge! G.o.d bless my soul, you don't mean----'

'There is one thing I will say for her'--Mrs. Freddy's brother-in-law lazily defended the honour of the house--'she doesn't, as a rule, obtrude her opinions. There are people who have known her for years, and haven't a notion she's a light among the misguided.'

But Greatorex was not to be rea.s.sured. 'Mrs. Tunbridge! Lord, the perils that beset the feet of man!' He got up with a half-comic ill humour.

'You're not going!' The hostess flitted over to remonstrate. 'I haven't had a word with you.'

'Yes, yes; I'm going.'

Mrs. Freddy looked bewildered at the general laugh.

'He's heard aspersions cast upon your character,' said Lord Borrodaile.

'His moral sense is shocked.'

'Honestly, Mrs. Tunbridge'--Farnborough was for giving her a chance to clear herself--'what do you think of your friends' recent exploits?'

'My friends?'

'Yes; the disorderly women.'

'They are not my friends,' said Mrs. Freddy, with dignity, 'but I don't think you must call them----'

'Why not?' said Lord Borrodaile. '_I_ can forgive them for worrying the Liberals'--he threw a laughing glance at Greatorex--'but they _are_ disorderly.'

'Isn't the phrase consecrated to a different cla.s.s?' said Miss Levering, quietly.

'You're perfectly right.' Greatorex, for once, was at one with Lord Borrodaile. 'They've become nothing less than a public nuisance. Going about with dog-whips and spitting in policemen's faces.'

'I wonder,' said Mrs. Freddy, with a hara.s.sed air--'I wonder if they did spit!'

'Of course they did!' Greatorex exulted.

'You're no authority on what they do,' said Mrs. Freddy. 'You run away.'

'Run away?' He turned the laugh by precipitately backing away from her in a couple of agitated steps. 'Yes, and if ever I muster up courage to come back, it will be to vote for better manners in public life, not worse than we have already.'

'So should I,' observed Mrs. Freddy, meekly. 'Don't think I defended the Suffragettes.'

'But still,' said Miss Levering, with a faint accent of impatience, 'you _are_ an advocate for the Suffrage, aren't you?'

'I don't beat the air.'

'Only policemen,' Greatorex mocked.

'If you cared to know the att.i.tude of the real workers in the Reform,'

Mrs. Freddy said plaintively, 'you might have seen in any paper that we lost no time in dissociating ourselves from the two or three hysterical----' She caught her brother-in-law's critical eye, and instantly checked her flow of words.

There was a general movement as Greatorex made his good-byes. Mrs.

Heriot signalled her daughter.

In the absence of the master, Lord Borrodaile made ready to do the honours of the house to a lady who had had so little profit of her visit. Beeching carried off the reluctant Farnborough. Mrs. Freddy kept up her spirits until after the exodus; then, with a sigh, she sat down beside Vida. 'It's true what that old cynic says,' she admitted sorrowfully. 'The scene has put back the Reform a generation.'

'It must have been awfully exciting. I wish I'd been there,' said Jean.

'I _was_ there.'

'Oh, was it as bad as the papers said?'

'Worse. I've never been so moved in public--no tragedy, no great opera ever gripped an audience as the situation in the House did that night.

There we all sat breathless--with everything more favourable to us than it had been within the memory of woman. Another five minutes and the resolution would have pa.s.sed. Then--all in a moment'--Mrs. Freddy clasped her hands excitedly--'all in a moment a horrible, dingy little flag was poked through the grille of the Woman's Gallery--cries--insults-- scuffling--the police--the ignominious turning out of the women--_us_ as well as the---- Oh, I can't _think_ of it without----' She jumped up and walked to and fro. 'Then the next morning!' She paused. 'The people gloating. Our friends antagonized--people who were wavering--nearly won over--all thrown back! Heart-breaking! Even my husband! Freddy's been an angel about letting me take my share when I felt I must--but, of course, I've always known he doesn't like it. It makes him shy. I'm sure it gives him a horrid twist inside when he sees even the discreetest little paragraph to say that I am "one of the speakers." But he's always been an angel about it before this. After the disgraceful scene, he said, "It just shows how unfit women are for any sort of coherent thinking or concerted action."'

'To think,' said Jean, more sympathetically, 'that it should be women who've given their own scheme the worst blow it ever had!'

'The work of forty years destroyed in five minutes!'