The Balliols Page 9

  Her eyes shone with an enthusiasm that was not ridiculous; that was saved from being ridiculous by the alacrity with which she reverted to her brisk, competent officialdom.

  “Let me see. Do you feel ready to begin at once? There is a meeting at the Colingdale Town Hall. Asquith’s speaking. They have had special cards printed, so as to keep us out. But we’ve got hold of the cards; got some of our own printed to look just the same. Twenty-four of us are going. Separately, of course. We shall sit in different parts of the house. When question time begins we’ll start one by one getting up and asking questions. He won’t answer, of course. He never does. Then we stand on our chairs simultaneously and shout ‘Votes for Women!’ We’ll be flung out. But we’ll have ruined the meeting. Would you like to come?”

  For answer Stella stretched her hand out for the ticket.

  Immediately on her return to her office, she sent a message to Mr. Beccles’ secretary, to ask if she might see him. Within a few minutes a reply had come. Would she follow the messenger at once?

  It was the first time she had seen Mr. Beccles since her return from her father’s funeral. He greeted her with an air of serious, rather patronizing sympathy.

  “So you’re back, Miss Balliol? Well, well. I know how you must be feeling. I remember when my own father died. Twenty years ago it is now. Life’s never quite the same afterwards. Still, one has to go on, make the best of things. It’s hard at first. Perhaps that’s what you’ve come to me about. I’d been thinking about it myself. A change of scene, perhaps. Half of your holiday; or indeed, your whole holiday, if you should wish it. It can be arranged quite easily.”

  “I haven’t come about that, Mr. Beccles. I’ve come to resign my position here.”

  “What?”

  The dismay on his face was extremely flattering to Stella’s self-esteem. So he has valued me. He’ll miss me here. He hasn’t liked me. He’s distrusted me. But he’s known I was a good worker.

  His astonishment was short-lived. He was too good a tactician to allow her to see more than a flash of his discomposure. He leant forward across the table, revolving a pen between his fingers in his most confidential manner.

  “This is a surprise to me. And not by any means a pleasant one. You won’t need my assurance on that point. But surely we can find some way of avoiding it. I imagine that you may find at such a time a number of things to do; in connection with your father’s death. Your instinct perhaps is to say, ‘I must have six months clear. Then I’ll find something else.’ A very natural instinct, Miss Balliol. But, seriously, I think you would be unwise to follow it. After all, capable though you are, there are a great many competent young women looking for a very small number of well-paid posts.”

  He smiled with a knowing facetiousness. Stella knew what was in his mind. He was trying to recover from the high impression of her value that his first astonishment had given her.

  “It isn’t that.”

  “No? Then perhaps you were thinking of applying for some post somewhere else; or indeed, have already been offered some post by another house. Very likely a better offer. I know that such salaries are being paid nowadays. At the same time, the bird in the hand, you know. It’s no good taking a well-salaried post, if the organization is unsound and the salary is going to stop within a week or so. There’s no point in that, Miss Balliol, is there?” His face assumed an exceedingly avuncular expression. “At the same time,” he added, his face brightening to an “every cloud has a silver lining” look, “I don’t really see why with a little persuasion the directors shouldn’t be coaxed into raising your salary a little.”

  Stella had watched his gambit with amusement.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Beccles. It isn’t that. I’ve decided to give up office work altogether.”

  “So?” The pouncing look came into his eyes. “So that’s it, is it? I might have suspected—how stupid of me, a legacy, the need for office work removed.”

  “More or less.”

  “Ah, well.…” Mr. Beccles sat back in his chair. His most benevolent expression on his face, but a spirit of genuine spite beneath his friendliness. He’s never liked me. He’s resented my independence! His next remark proved to her that she had guessed right.

  “So that’s the explanation, is it? Well, we shall be sorry to lose you; very, very sorry. We always appreciated the way you worked for us. At the same time, I can’t pretend that I don’t think you’re wise. It’s all very well to talk of women working on equal terms with men. No one’s more pleased than I to see women support themselves. But only when they need; only when they absolutely need, Miss Balliol. You’ll never persuade me that an office desk is the real place for a woman.”

  She made no reply. Her blood boiled angrily. As he had known it would. That’s what he thinks of me; of my high-vaunted independence. Just a façade; to convince myself and my world that I was acting of choice, not of necessity. As soon as I had a chance of flinging up the job I’ve taken it. Proving that women were at heart what he had always maintained they were: cats who wanted to sit in front of a warm fire; who, whatever they might argue, only really wanted one thing: a man who will support them. If not a husband, then a father. Well, he can think it, if he chooses.

  She left his room, fretting with irritation. Men: they all thought the same things about one. It was so hard to answer them, since ninety per cent, of women were like that; since they’d been trained to be like that; since they’d acquired through generations the characteristics of the sea anemone: beautiful and useless. But lots of them weren’t like that. The rest of them were not going to be like that. Men—they’d show them.…

  It was in a heightened state of excitement and rebellion that she presented her card that evening at the doorway of the Colingdale Town Hall. There was a large crowd streaming towards the door. It was a masculine audience, for the most part. Each person held his card for the doorkeeper to examine. As Stella passed into the hall, an argument was in progress.

  “But I tell you I was sent a card. I’ve lost it,” a man was insisting angrily.

  “And I’m telling you that no one can get in without a card.”

  “But I had a card.”

  “There’s no proof of that.”

  “Proof to hell! You’ll get the proof of that when I vote Tory at the next election.”

  At that point a policeman intervened.

  “Come along now, come along. We can’t have any of this nonsense here.”

  Stella chuckled to herself. She liked to think that a man who had a perfect right to be there should be refused admittance, while she who had no right at all should be walking quickly to a seat.

  She arrived five minutes before the meeting was due to start. The hall was already three quarters full. She found a seat, however, in the centre. She looked round her with a slow, searching glance. Somewhere in this audience were the twenty-three other rebels. She wondered which they were. The rows of faces had the uniform expression of a crowd. There was nothing to distinguish any one from any other. Some were older, some prettier, some better dressed. But there was no look of individuality. The people with that look were being officious at the doorway or were waiting in the dressing-room for the signal to begin the meeting. On her right was a callow, pimply-faced youth; ill-dressed and earnest-looking: the kind of young man who went to night schools to improve himself. On her left was a middle-aged, prosperous-looking member of the lower middle classes. He was fat and there was a strain on the buttons of his waistcoat. A large gold watch-chain hung with insignia was looped across his stomach. What would they think if they were told that they were sitting next a suffragist?”

  She waited impatiently through the preliminaries. The chairman, leading the way up the stairs, then standing aside so that their distinguished visitor could take precedence upon the platform; the thin file of local dignitaries, some in dark lounge suits, two or three in full evening dress; the applause of the audience; the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s bow; the hesitation round th
e chairs; the little jokes and the self-conscious laughs; the seating, then the chairman leaning forward across the table, his whispered consultation with the Chancellor; then two loud taps upon the table, a slow rising to his feet, a clearing of his throat; then the first sentence of his introduction. “I consider it, ladies and gentlemen, no mean honour that I should sit here on such an evening as your chairman.…”

  It was a bromidic speech. It lasted for ten minutes. It did exactly what such a speech should not do. It left the audience limp and listless; in a mood of “Well, we’ll give this fellow one chance. If he doesn’t get our attention within three minutes, we’ll go to sleep.”

  Asquith rose to his feet. He bent his head forward in acknowledgment of the applause. His large-featured, florid face, crowned with its helmet of grey hair, possessed a dignity that put him, before he had spoken a single word, in a different class from the other men upon the platform. He paused, leaning forward, his hands upon the table. It was a dramatic pause. At last you felt that something worth listening to was to be said. Then he began to speak in slow, quiet sentences that gave the impression that a liner does when it draws slowly from a harbour: a gradual gathering of strength. That impression remained right through his speech. You always felt that he was capable of greater speed and greater strength; that he had something held in reserve; even when the pace quickened, when his voice was raised.

  It was the first time that Stella had heard him speak. She had regarded him for many months now as the arch-enemy. The Liberal party that had betrayed the woman’s party under Gladstone had again betrayed the women under Campbell Bannerman. Asquith was the premier’s adjutant. He was more to blame than C.B. But as she listened, she forgot he was the enemy. She surrendered to the power of his personality. Her eyes fixed upon his face, she found herself following his sentences, so that her lips were actually forming the words he used. She had listened in her time to a great deal of forceful argument; much of it from powerful speakers, lit by passion. But she had never before listened to a speech that carried so much weight. She felt that each argument was based on knowledge: knowledge of the past, knowledge of men’s minds. Each least opinion seemed the result of a considered judgment, a weighing of all the evidence. There was no guesswork. Absorbed in the conduct of the argument, she forgot the reason for her presence there.

  She did not remember it till the speech was over; till Asquith in a burst of applause had taken his seat, with the chairman leaning across the table, whispering. Then she realized. Her cheeks flamed hotly. That’s how it was, of course. That’s how it always was. Man with his inherited capacity to impress woman! She had been sitting like any schoolgirl, lapping up arguments just because they bore the stamp of masculine assurance. No wonder men like Beccles were contemptuous of her. Women like herself gave them the right to be. Her anger was as great as her previous absorption had been. She had not only the enemy in others to fight but the enemy in herself.

  Her fists clenched tightly as the chairman rose for his brief bromidic testimony. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, though our distinguished guest has only a short time further at our disposal, he will be very pleased to answer any questions.” “To try to answer any questions,” Mr. Asquith corrected him.

  There was a ripple of laughter that heightened Stella’s irritation. Yes, that was the way they got their effects; with that power of theirs to turn the laugh against their opponents; never answering questions, avoiding them, making it look as though they had been answered; because they had made an audience giggle. Men… they’d show them.…

  There was the second or two of hesitation that always follows when questions are invited; when everyone is shy of being the first to speak; when everyone is waiting for a lead; when there is a self-conscious nudging of elbows; a whispered “Yes, go on, Bill. You ask him.” That ends with someone getting up and saying, “Well, just to start the ball rolling…” and asking some very absurd question that places the chief speaker in an immediately strong position.

  That is what ordinarily happens. In another second on this occasion it would have happened. But from the centre of the room a voice called out, not in the diffident, self-apologetic manner of a first questioner, but with a peremptory sergeant-major’s voice, like an order on parade.

  “When is the government going to keep its promise to women?”

  There was a hush: then a ripple of laughter. One or two whispers: “Suffragists.” “Where?” “What is it?” “That’s her, with the purple hat.” Asquith rose to his feet. There was a bland smile upon his face.

  “I can assure you that the question of Woman’s Suffrage is occupying a great deal of my colleagues’ time.”

  He underlined “a great deal.” There was a roar of laughter. It was the kind of reply that maddened Stella. She jumped up.

  “That question has not been answered.”

  Mr. Asquith turned towards her slowly.

  “My impression was.…”

  He was interrupted by a loud-yelled “Votes for Women!” just below the platform. From the audience came a murmur of disapproval. There was an angrily loud “Shut up!” The sense of opposition stimulated Stella. She jumped to her seat. “I demand an answer. Taxation without representation is tyranny.”

  Within a minute the orderly meeting had become a pandemonium. Women were crying “Votes for Women!” There were shouts of “Throw them out! “Policemen were hurrying down the gangways. The chair on which Stella stood was pulled from beneath her, throwing her forward so that she barked her shin against the chair in front. The pain made her lose her temper. She tried to pull back the chair which the man from behind had taken. He resisted. He was stronger than she was. Suddenly she changed her tactics. She pushed instead of pulling. He went over backwards, loosening his hold upon the chair. She dragged it from him. He ducked. “Now, now,” he said, and catching her arm, twisted her wrist behind her. He was rough and hurt her. She lashed backwards with her foot. The high heel caught him on the ankle. He gave her wrist a twist that made her cry. “Hi, bobbie, I give this girl in charge.” A large policeman pushed his way through the chairs towards her. She ducked, struggled; an elbow caught her a fierce blow on the cheekbone. She kicked at the policeman’s shins. But his hands were strong; his fingers gripped her tightly by the arm and neck. He pushed her towards the gangway. Once there, she found herself submitting meekly to his force.

  “You’re going to spend the night in gaol,” he told her grimly.

  Next morning she was brought before the magistrate. During the long night in the small hard cell, she had phrased and rephrased the defence that she would make. She would not be allowed to speak long. She would have to say only what was essential. Every point must tell. That was how she had argued during the long night, when she had paced, with the fever of hysteria still on her, backwards and forwards, up and down. But towards morning, exhausted in mind and body, resting on the narrow bed, she had grown drowsy and slipped into sleep. She had woken stiff and cold; her body bruised and aching, her anger subsided, the courage ebbed from her. In the small tarnished mirror a draggled reflection stared back at her. Her hair was tousled, her cheeks pale. There was a dark swelling beneath her eyes. “I look a sight.” She felt one, too. This must be what men felt like when they talked about the morning after. She recalled detail by detail the hectic passages of the night before. She could not believe that it had ever happened. She recalled phrase by phrase the speech with which she was to make her defence in court that morning. Her heart sank at the prospect. “I’ll never manage it,” she thought. It was not courage she lacked, but strength. One began a thing when one was in the mood; when one’s blood was hot. One could do anything then. But when one’s blood was cold, when one was tired, when one’s head ached and one’s body ached, in the cold grey morning light.… It was different then. “I’ve got to put a bold face on it.”

  She had pictured the scene in court as an extension of the scene in the hall; in terms of high dramatics. But it was in actual fact as
different as her own mood was different. She could not associate the free fight, the brutality, the anger, the abuse of the previous evening with the mild, tired, bald-headed gentleman seated at a desk. Nor did the very correct, very respectful constable in the witness-box seem the same person whose fingers had bruised her neck and arms. She listened to the evidence as though she were hearing an impersonal story that did not concern herself. It sounded so matter of fact.

  “I observed the accused, your Honour, struggling with two members of the audience. I took her by the arms. She resisted me. I had to use considerable force to eject her from the hall.”

  “In what condition would you say she was?”

  “Extremely excitable, your Honour.”

  “Would you say she was under the influence of alcohol?”

  “Oh no, your Honour.”

  The evidence only lasted a few minutes. The half-dozen people in the gallery listened to it with listless, apathetic expressions on their faces. The case, clearly, did not interest them. Stella did not see how, from the evidence, it could be expected to interest anyone. It was a singularly unstimulating atmosphere for heroics.

  The magistrate turned to her.

  “Do you wish to cross-examine the constable?”

  “No.”

  “You admit the substantial truth of his evidence?”

  “Yes.”

  “That amounts to a plea of guilty.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “It does. Now, let me see,” he shuffled among some papers.

  Now’s the time for my speech. I must pull myself together. I mustn’t stammer. I mustn’t stumble. I’ll just say what I’ve got to say without frills; straightforwardly. I’ll tell him that I’m proud of what I’ve done; that he can put me into prison if he likes. But that won’t stop me; nor will it stop any other woman who’s worth anything. I’m not going to be hysterical or excitable. I’ll just tell them the truth: simply.