The Convert Part 50

'No; they drink and they die. I was ill for three months after my first experience even of the tramp ward.'

'Was that the first thing you tried?'

'No. The first thing I tried was putting on a Salvation Army bonnet, and following the people I wanted to help into the public-houses, selling the _War Cry_.'

'May one wear the uniform who isn't a member of the Army?'

'It isn't usual,' she said slowly. And then, as though to give the _coup de grace_ to the fine lady's curiosity, 'But that was child's play.

Before I sampled the tramp ward, I covered myself with Keating's powder from head to foot. It wasn't a bit of good.'

'When may I come and talk to you?'

'h.e.l.lo, Mrs. Thomas!' Vida turned and found the Lady Sophia at her side.

'Why, father!--Oh, I see, Miss Levering. Well'--she turned to the woman in the corner--'how's the House of Help?'

'Do you know about Mrs. Thomas's work?' Vida asked.

'Well, rather! I collect rents in her district.'

'Oh, do you? You never told me.'

'Why should I tell you?'

Ernestine was dismissing the meeting.

'You are very tired,' said Lord Borrodaile, looking at Vida Levering's face.

'Yes,' she said. 'I'll go now. Come, Sophia!'

'We shall be here on Thursday,' Ernestine was saying, 'at the same hour, and we hope a great many of you will want to join us.'

'In a trip to 'Olloway? No, thank you!'

Upon that something indistinguishable to the three who were withdrawing was said in the group that had sn.i.g.g.e.red through Mrs. Thomas's speech.

Another one of that choice circle gave a great guffaw. There were still more who were amused, but less indiscreetly. Three men, looking like gentlemen, paused in the act of strolling by. They, too, were smiling.

'You laugh!' Ernestine's voice rang out.

'Wait a moment,' said Vida to her companions.

She looked back. It was plain, from Ernestine's face, she was not going to let the meeting break up on that note.

'Don't you think it a little strange, considering the well-known chivalry among men--don't you think it strange that against no reform the world has ever seen----?'

'Reform! Wot rot!'

'If you don't admit it's reform, call it revolt!' She threw the red-hot word out among the people as if its fire scorched her. 'Against no revolt has there ever been such a torrent of ridicule let loose as against the Women's Movement. It almost seems as if--in spite of men's well-known protecting tenderness towards woman--it almost seems as if there's nothing in this world so funny to a man as a woman!'

'Haw! Haw! Got it right that time!'

Borrodaile was smiling, too.

'Do you know,' Vida asked, 'who those men are who have just stopped?'

'No.'

'I believe Ernestine does.'

'Oh, perhaps they're bold bad members of Parliament.'

'Some of us,' she was saying, 'have read a little history. We have read how every struggle towards freedom has met with opposition and abuse. We expected to have our share of those things. But we find that no movement before ours has ever had so much laughter to face.' Through the renewed merriment she went on: 'Yes, you wonder I admit that. We don't deny anything that's true. And I'll tell you another thing! We aren't made any prouder of our men-folk by the discovery that behind their old theory of woman as "half angel, half idiot," is a sneaking feeling that "woman is a huge joke."'

'Or just a little one for a penny like you!'

'Men have imagined--they imagine still, that we have never noticed how ridiculous _they_ can be. You see'--she leaned over and spoke confidentially--'we've never dared break it to them.'

'Haw! Haw!'

'We know they _couldn't bear it_.'

'Oh-h!'

'So we've done all our laughing in our sleeves. Yes--and some years our sleeves had to be made--like balloons!' She pulled out the loose alpaca of her own while the workmen chuckled with appreciation.

'I bet on Ernestine any'ow', said a young man, with an air of admitting himself a bold original fellow.

'Well, open laughter is less dangerous laughter. It's even a guide; it helps us to find out things some of us wouldn't know otherwise. Lots of women used to be taken in by that talk about feminine influence and about men's immense respect for them! But any number of women have come to see that underneath that old mask of chivalry was a broad grin.--We are reminded of that every time the House of Commons talks about us.'

She flung it at the three supercilious strangers. 'The dullest gentleman there can raise a laugh if he speaks of the "fair s.e.x." Such jokes!--even when they are clean such poor little feeble efforts that even a member of Parliament couldn't laugh at them unless he had grown up with the idea that woman was somehow essentially funny--and that _he_, oh, no! there was nothing whatever to laugh at in man. Those members of Parliament don't have the enlightenment that you men have--of hearing what women _really_ think when we hear men laugh as you did just now about our going to prison. They don't know that we find it just a little strange'--she bent over the scattering rabble and gathered it into a sudden fellowship--'doesn't it strike you, too, as strange that when a strong man goes to prison for his convictions it is thought to be something rather fine (I don't say it is myself--though it's the general impression). But when a weak woman goes for _her_ convictions, men find it very humorous indeed. Our prisoners have to bear not only the hardships of Holloway Gaol, but they have to bear the worse pains and penalties inflicted by the general public. You, too, you laugh! and yet I say'--she lifted her arms and spread them out above the people--'I say it was not until women were found ready to go to prison--not till then was the success of the cause a.s.sured.' Her bright eyes were shining brighter still with tears.

'If prison's so good fur the cause, why didn't _you_ go?'

'Here's a gentleman who asks why I didn't go to prison. The answer to that is, I did go.'

She tossed the information down among the cheers and groans as lightly as though it had no more personal significance for her than a dropped leaflet setting forth some minor fact.

'That delicate little girl!' breathed Vida.

'You never told _me_ that item in her history,' said Borrodaile.

'She never told me--never once spoke of it! They put her in prison!' It was as if she couldn't grasp it.

'Of course one person's going isn't of much consequence,' Ernestine was winding up with equal spirit and _sang-froid_. 'But the fact that dozens and scores--all sorts and conditions--are ready to go--_that_ matters!

And that's the place our reprehensible tactics have brought the movement to. The meeting is closed.'

They dropped Sophia at her own door, but Lord Borrodaile said he would take Vida home. They drove along in silence.

When they stopped before the tall house in Queen Anne's Gate, Vida held out her hand.