The Convert Part 38

'"Nor bit, nor scratched, nor any of those things. And since the papers have lied about that," I said to myself, "I'll go to headquarters for information."'

'What papers do you read?'

'Oh, practically all. This house is like a club for papers and magazines. My brother-in-law has everything.'

'The _Clarion_?'

'No, I never saw the _Clarion_.'

'The _Labour Leader_?'

'No.'

'The _Labour Record_?'

'No.'

'It is the organ of our party.'

'I--I'm afraid I never heard of any of them.'

Miss Claxton smiled.

'I'll take them in myself in future,' said the lady on the sofa. 'Was it reading those papers that set you to thinking?'

'Reading papers? Oh, no. It was----' She hesitated, and puckered up her brows again as she stared round the room.

'Yes, go on. That's one of the things I wanted to know, if you don't mind--how you came to be identified with the movement.'

A little wearily, without the smallest spark of enthusiasm at the prospect of imparting her biography, Miss Claxton told slowly, even dully, and wholly without pa.s.sion, the story of a hard life met single-handed from even the tender childhood days--one of those recitals that change the relation between the one who tells and the one who listens--makes the last a sharer in the life to the extent that the two can never be strangers any more. Though they may not meet, nor write, nor have any tangible communication, there is understanding between them.

At the close Miss Levering stood up and gave the other her hand. Neither said anything. They looked at each other.

After the lady had resumed her seat, Miss Claxton, as under some compulsion born of the other's act of sympathy, went on--

'It is a newspaper lie--as you haven't needed to be told--about the spitting and scratching and biting--but the day I was arrested; the day of the deputation to Effingham, I saw a policeman knocking some of our poorer women about very roughly' (it had its significance, the tone in which she said 'our poorer women'). 'I called out that he was not to do that again. He had one of our women like this, and he was banging her against the railings. I called out if he didn't stop I would make him.

He kept on'--a cold glitter came into the eyes--'and I struck him. I struck the coward in the face.'

The air of the mild luxurious room grew hot and quivered. The lady on the sofa lowered her eyes.

'They must be taught,' the other said sternly, 'the police must be taught, they are not to treat our women like that. On the whole the police behave well. But their power is immense and almost entirely unchecked. It's a marvel they are as decent as they are. How should _they_ be expected to know how to treat women? What example do they have? Don't they hear constantly in the courts how little it costs a man to be convicted of beating his own wife?' She fired the questions at the innocent person on the sofa, as if she held her directly responsible for the need to ask them. 'Stealing is far more dangerous; yes, even if a man's starving. That's because bread is often dear and women are always cheap.'

She waited a moment, waited for the other to contradict or at least resent the dictum. The motionless figure among the sofa cushions, whose very look and air seemed to proclaim 'some of us are expensive enough,'

hardly opened her lips to say, as if to herself--

'Yes, women are cheap.'

Perhaps Miss Claxton thought the agreement lacked conviction, for she went on with a harsh hostility that seemed almost personal--

'We'd rather any day be handled by the police than by the self-const.i.tuted stewards of political meetings.'

Partly the words, even more the look in the darkening face, made Miss Levering say--

'That brings me to something else I wanted to be enlightened about. One reason I wrote to ask for a little talk with _you_ specially, was because I couldn't imagine your doing anything so futile as to pit your physical strength--considerable as it may be--but to pit your muscle against men's is merely absurd. And I, when I saw how intelligent you were, I saw that you know all that quite as well as I. Why, then, carry a whip?'

The lowered eyelids of the face opposite quivered faintly.

'You couldn't think it would save you from arrest.'

'No, not from arrest.' The woman's mouth hardened.

'I know'--Miss Levering bridged the embarra.s.sment of the pause--'I know there must be some rational explanation.'

But if there were it was not forthcoming.

'So you see your most indefensible and even futile-appearing action gave the cue for my greatest interest,' said Vida, with a mixture of anxiety and bluntness. 'For just the woman you were, to do so brainless a thing--what was behind? That was what I kept asking myself.'

'It--isn't--only--_rough_ treatment one or two of us have met'--she pulled out the words slowly--'it's sometimes worse.' They both waited in a curious chill embarra.s.sment. 'Not the police, but the stewards at political meetings, and the men who volunteer to "keep the women in order," they'--she raised her fierce eyes and the colour rose in her cheeks--'as they're turning us out they punish us in ways the public don't know.' She saw the shrinking wonder in the woman opposite, and she did not spare her. 'They punish us by underhand maltreatment--of the kind most intolerable to a decent woman.'

'Oh, no, no!' The other face was a flame to match.

'Yes!' She flung it out like a poisoned arrow.

'How _dare_ they!' said Vida in a whisper.

'They know we dare not complain.'

'Why not?'

A duller red overspread the face as the woman muttered, 'n.o.body, no woman, wants to talk about it. And if we did they'd only say, "See!

you're killing chivalry." _Chivalry!_' She laughed. It was not good to hear a laugh like that.

The figure on the sofa winced. 'I a.s.sure you people don't know,' said Vida.

'It's known well enough to those who've had to suffer it, and it's known to the brutes of men who----'

'Ah, but you _must_ realize'--Miss Levering jumped to her feet--'you must admit that the great ma.s.s of men would be indignant if they knew.'

'You think so?' The question was insulting in its air of forbearance with a fairy-tale view of life.

'Think so? I _know_ it. I should be sorry for my own powers of judgment if I believed the majority of men were like the worst specimens--like those you----'

'Oh, well, we don't dwell on that side. It's enough to remember that women without our incentive have to bear worse. It's part of a whole system.'

'I shall never believe that!' exclaimed Vida, thinking what was meant was an organized conspiracy against the Suffragettes.

'Yes, it's all part of the system we are in the world to overturn. Why should we suppose we'd gain anything by complaining? Don't hundreds, thousands of meek creatures who have never defied anybody, don't they have to bear worse ignominies? Every man knows that's true. Who troubles himself? What is the use, we say, of crying about individual pains and penalties? No. The thing is to work day and night to root out the system that makes such things possible.'