Delia Blanchflower by Mrs. Humphry Ward (top 10 most read books in the world TXT) 📖

The Movement was indeed wonderful! How it broke down class barriers, and knit all women together! As her eyes fell on the picture of Lady Blanchflower, in a high cap and mittens, over the mantelpiece, Miss Toogood felt a sense of personal triumph over the barbarous and ignorant past.

"What I mind most is the apathy of people--the people down here. It's really terrible!" said the science mistress, in her melancholy voice. "Sometimes I hardly know how to bear it. One thinks of all that's going on in London--and in the big towns up north--and here--it's like a vault. Everyone's really against us. Why the poor people--the labourers' wives--they're the worst of any!"

"Oh no!--we're getting on--we're getting on!" said Miss Toogood, hastily. "You're too despondent, Miss Jackson, if you'll excuse me--you are indeed. Now I'm never downhearted, or if I am, I say to myself--'It's all right somewhere!--somewhere that you can't see.' And I think of a poem my father was fond of--'If hopes are dupes, fears may be liars--And somewhere in yon smoke concealed--Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers--And but for you possess the field!' That's by a man called Arthur Clough--Miss Blanchflower--and it's a grand poem!"

Her pale blue eyes shone in their wrinkled sockets. Delia remembered a recent visit to Miss Toogood's tiny parlour behind the front room where she saw her few customers and tried them on. She recollected the books which the back parlour contained. Miss Toogood's father had been a bookseller--evidently a reading bookseller--in Winchester, and in the deformed and twisted form of his daughter some of his soul, his affections and interests, survived.

"Yes, but what are you going to give us to _do_, Miss Blanchflower?" said Kitty Foster, impatiently--"I don't care what I do! And the more it makes the men mad, the better!"

She drew herself up affectedly. She was a strapping girl, with a huge vanity and a parrot's brain. A year before this date a "disappointment" had greatly embittered her, and the processions and the crowded London meetings, and the window-breaking riots into which she had been led while staying with a friend, had been the solace and relief of a personal rancour and misery she might else have found intolerable.

"_I_ can't do anything--not anything public"--said Miss Jackson, with emphasis--"or I should lose my post. Oh the slavery it is! and the pittance they pay us--compared to the men. Every man in the Boys' school get L120 and over--and we're thought lucky to get L80. And I'll be bound we work more hours in the week than they do. It's _hard_!"

"That'll soon be mended," said Miss Toogood hopefully. "Look at Norway! As soon as the women got the vote, why the women's salaries in public offices were put up at once."

The strong, honest face of the teacher refused to smile. "Well it isn't always so, Miss Toogood. I know they say that in New Zealand and Colorado--where we've got the vote--salaries aren't equal by any manner of means."

The dressmaker's withered cheek flushed red.

"'_They_ say'"--she repeated scornfully. "That's one of the Anti dodges--just picking out the things that suit 'em, and forgetting all the rest. Don't you look at the depressing things--I never do! Look at what helps us! There's a lot o' things said--and there's a lot of things ain't true--You've got to pick and choose--you can't take 'em as they come. No one can."

Miss Jackson looked puzzled and unconvinced; but could think of no reply.

The two persons in the distance appeared in the archway between the drawing-rooms, Gertrude Marvell leading. Everyone looked towards her; everybody listened for what she would say. She took Delia's chair, Delia instinctively yielding it, and then--her dark eyes measuring and probing them all while she talked, she gave the little group its orders.

Kitty Foster was to be one of the band of girl-sellers of the _Tocsin_, in Latchford, the day of the meeting. The town was to be sown with it from end to end, and just before the meeting, groups of sellers, in the "Daughters'" black and orange, were to appear in every corner of the square where the open-air meeting was to be held.

"But we'll put you beside the speaker's waggon. You're so tall, and your hair is enough to advertise anything!" With a grim little smile, she stretched out a hand and touched Kitty Foster's arm.

"Yes, isn't it splendid!" said Delia, ardently.

Kitty flushed and bridled. Her people in the farmhouse at home thought her hair ugly, and frankly told her so. It was nice to be admired by Miss Blanchflower and her friend. Ladies who lived in a big house, with pictures and fine furniture, and everything handsome, must know better than farm-people who never saw anything but their cattle and their fields.

"And you"--the clear authoritative voice addressed Miss Toogood--"can you take round notices?"

The speaker looked doubtfully at the woman's lame foot and stick.

Miss Toogood replied that she would be at Latchford by midday, and would take round notices till she dropped.

The teacher who could do nothing public, was invited to come to Maumsey in the evening, and address envelopes. Miss Marvell had lately imported a Secretary, who had set up her quarters in the old gun room on the ground floor, and had already filled it with correspondence, and stacked it with the literature of the Daughters.

Miss Jackson eagerly promised her help.

Nothing was apportioned to Marion Andrews. She sat silent following the words and gestures of that spare figure in the grey cloth dress, in whom they all recognised their chief. There was a feverish brooding in her look, as though she was doubly conscious--both of the scene before her, and of something only present to the mind.

"You know why we are holding these meetings"--said Gertrude Marvell, presently.

No one answered. They waited for her.

"It is a meeting of denunciation," she said, sharply. "You know in the Land League days in Ireland they used to hold meetings to denounce a landlord--for evictions--and that landlord went afterwards in fear--scorned--and cursed--and boycotted. Well, that's what we're going to do with Ministers in their own localities where they live! We can't boycott yet--we haven't the power. But we can denounce--we can set people on--we can hold a man up--we can make his life a burden to him. And that's what we're going to do--with Sir Wilfrid Lang. He's one of this brutal Cabinet that keeps women in prison--one of the strongest of them. His speeches have turned votes against us in the House of Commons, time after time. We mean to be even with Sir Wilfrid Lang!"

She spoke quite quietly--almost under her breath; but her slender fingers interlocked, and a steady glow had overflowed her pale cheeks.

A tremor passed through all her listeners--a tremor of excitement.

"What can we _do_?" said Miss Toogood at last, in a low voice. Her eyes stared out of her kind old face, which had grown white. "Ah, leave that to us!" said Miss Marvell, in another voice, the dry organising voice, which was her usual one. And dropping all emotion and excitement, she began rapidly to question three out of the four women as to the neighbourhood, the opinions of individuals and classes, the strength in it of the old Suffrage societies, the presence or absence of propaganda. They answered her eagerly. They all felt themselves keyed to a higher note since she had entered the room. They had got to business; they felt themselves a power, the rank and file of an "army with banners," under direction. Even Delia, clearly, was in the same relation towards this woman whom the outer world only knew as her--presumably--paid companion. She was questioned, put right, instructed with the rest of them. Only no one noticed that Marion Andrews took little or no part in the conversation.

An autumn wind raged outside, and the first of those dead regiments of leaves which would soon be choking the lanes were pattering against the windows. Inside, the fire leapt as the daylight faded, helped by a couple of lamps, for Maumsey knew no electricity, and Delia, under Gertrude's prompting, had declared against the expense of putting it in. In the dim illumination the faces of the six women emerged, typical all of them of the forces behind the revolutionary wing of the woman's movement. Enthusiasms of youth and age--hardships of body and spirit--rancour and generous hope--sore heart and untrained mind--fanatical brain and dreaming ignorance--love unsatisfied, and energies unused--they were all there, and all hanging upon, conditioned by something called "the vote," conceived as the only means to a new heaven and a new earth.

* * * * *

When Delia had herself dismissed her guests into the darkness of the October evening, she returned thoughtfully to where Gertrude Marvell was standing by the drawing-room fire, reading a letter.

"You gave them all something to do except that Miss Andrews, Gertrude? I wonder why you left her out?"

"Oh, I had a talk with her before."

The tone was absent, and the speaker went on reading her letter.

"When you took her into the back drawing-room?"

The slightest possible flicker passed through Gertrude's drooped eyelids.

"She was telling me a lot about her home-life--poor oppressed thing!"

Delia asked no more. But she felt a vague discomfort.

Presently Gertrude put down her letter, and turned towards her.

"May I have that cheque, dear--before post-time? If you really meant it?"

"Certainly." Delia went to her writing-table, opened a drawer and took out her cheque-book.

A laugh--conscious and unsteady--accompanied the dipping of her pen into the ink.

"I wonder what he'll say?"

"Who?"

"Mr. Winnington--when I send him all the bills to be paid."

"Isn't he there to pay the bills?"

Delia's face shewed a little impatience.

"You're so busy, dear, that I am afraid you forget all I tell you about my own affairs. But I _did_ tell you that my guardian had trustingly paid eight hundred pounds into the bank to last me till the New Year, for house and other expenses--without asking me to promise anything either!"

"Well, now, you are going to let us have L500. Is there any difficulty?"

"None--except that the ordinary bills I don't pay, and can't pay, will now all go in to my guardian, who will of course be curious to know what I have done with the money. Naturally there'll be a row."

"Oh, a row!" said Gertrude Marvell, indifferently. "It's your own money, Delia. Spend it as you like!"

"I intend to," said Delia. "Still--I do rather wish I'd given him notice. He may think it a mean trick."

"Do you care what he thinks?"

"Not--much," said Delia slowly. "All the same, Gertrude"--she threw her head back--"he is an awfully good sort."

Gertrude shrugged her shoulders.

"I daresay. But you and I are at war with him and his like, and can't stop to consider that kind of thing. Also your father arranged that he should be well paid for his trouble."

Delia turned back to the writing-table, and wrote the cheque.

"Thank you, dearest," said Gertrude Marvell, giving a light kiss to the hand that offered the cheque. "It shall go to headquarters this evening--and you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that you've financed all the three bye-election campaigns that are coming--or nearly."