two days after mr. brumley's visit susan burnet reached black strand. she too had been baffled for a while. for some week or more she couldn't discover the whereabouts of lady harman and lived in the profoundest perplexity. she had brought back her curtains to the putney house in a large but luggable bundle, they were all made and ready to put up, and she found the place closed and locked, in the charge of a caretaker whose primary duty it was to answer no questions. it needed several days of thought and amazement, and a vast amount of "i wonder," and "i just would like to know," before it occurred to susan that if she wrote to lady harman at the putney address the letter might be forwarded. and even then she almost wrecked the entire enterprise by mentioning the money, and it was by a quite exceptional inspiration that she thought after all it was wiser not to say that but to state that she had finished the curtains and done everything (underlined) that lady harman had desired. sir isaac read it and tossed it over to his wife. "make her send her bill," he remarked.
whereupon lady harman set mrs. crumble in motion to bring susan down to black strand. this wasn't quite easy because as mrs. crumble pointed out they hadn't the slightest use for susan's curtains there, and lady harman had to find the morning light quite intolerable in her bedroom—she always slept with window wide open and curtains drawn back—to create a suitable demand for susan's services. but at last susan came, too humbly invisible for sir isaac's attention, and directly she found lady harman alone in the room with her, she produced a pawn ticket and twenty pounds. "i 'ad to give all sorts of particulars," she said. "it was a job. but i did it...."
the day was big with opportunity, for sir isaac had been unable to conceal the fact that he had to spend the morning in london. he had gone up in the big car and his wife was alone, and so, with susan upstairs still deftly measuring for totally unnecessary hangings, lady harman was able to add a fur stole and a muff and some gloves to her tweed gardening costume, walk unchallenged into the garden and from the garden into the wood and up the hillside and over the crest and down to the high-road and past that great advertisement of staminal bread and so for four palpitating miles, to the railway station and the outer world.
she had the good fortune to find a train imminent,—the twelve-seventeen. she took a first-class ticket for london and got into a compartment with another woman because she felt it would be safer.
10
lady harman reached miss alimony's flat at half-past three in the afternoon. she had lunched rather belatedly and uncomfortably in the waterloo refreshment room and she had found out that miss alimony was at home through the telephone. "i want to see you urgently," she said, and miss alimony received her in that spirit. she was hatless but she had a great cloud of dark fuzzy hair above the grey profundity of her eyes and she wore an artistic tea-gown that in spite of a certain looseness at neck and sleeve emphasized the fine lines of her admirable figure. her flat was furnished chiefly with books and rich oriental hangings and vast cushions and great bowls of scented flowers. on the mantel-shelf was the crystal that amused her lighter moments and above it hung a circular allegory by florence swinstead, very rich in colour, the awakening of woman, in a heavy gold frame. miss alimony conducted her guest to an armchair, knelt flexibly on the hearthrug before her, took up a small and elegant poker with a brass handle and a spear-shaped service end of iron and poked the fire.
the service end came out from the handle and fell into the grate. "it always does that," said miss alimony charmingly. "but never mind." she warmed both hands at the blaze. "tell me all about it," she said, softly.
lady harman felt she would rather have been told all about it. but perhaps that would follow.
"you see," she said, "i find——my married life——"
she halted. it was very difficult to tell.
"everyone," said agatha, giving a fine firelit profile, and remaining gravely thoughtful through a little pause.
"do you mind," she asked abruptly, "if i smoke?"
when she had completed her effect with a delicately flavoured cigarette, she encouraged lady harman to proceed.
this lady harman did in a manner do. she said her husband left her no freedom of mind or movement, gave her no possession of herself, wanted to control her reading and thinking. "he insists——" she said.
"yes," said miss agatha sternly blowing aside her cigarette smoke. "they all insist."
"he insists," said lady harman, "on seeing all my letters, choosing all my friends. i have no control over my house or my servants, no money except what he gives me."
"in fact you are property."
"i'm simply property."
"a harem of one. and all that is within the provisions of the law!"
"how any woman can marry!" said miss agatha, after a little interval. "i sometimes think that is where the true strike of the sex ought to begin. if none of us married! if we said all of us, 'no,—definitely—we refuse this bargain! it is a man-made contract. we have had no voice in it. we decline.' perhaps it will come to that. and i knew that you, you with that quiet beautiful penetration in your eyes would come to see it like that. the first task, after the vote is won, will be the revision of that contract. the very first task of our women statesmen...."
she ceased and revived her smouldering cigarette and mused blinking through the smoke. she seemed for a time almost lost to the presence of her guest in a great daydream of womanstatecraft.
"and so," she said, "you've come, as they all come,—to join us."
"well," said lady harman in a tone that made agatha turn eyes of surprise upon her.
"of course," continued lady harman, "i suppose—i shall join you; but as a matter of fact you see, what i've done to-day has been to come right away.... you see i am still in my garden tweeds.... there it was down there, a sort of stale mate...."
agatha sat up on her heels.
"but my dear!" she said, "you don't mean you've run away?"
"yes,—i've run away."
"but—run away!"
"i sold a ring and got some money and here i am!"
"but—what are you going to do?"
"i don't know. i thought you perhaps—might advise."
"but—a man like your husband! he'll pursue you!"
"if he knows where i am, he will," said lady harman.
"he'll make a scandal. my dear! are you wise? tell me, tell me exactly, why have you run away? i didn't understand at all—that you had run away."
"because," began lady harman and flushed hotly. "it was impossible," she said.
miss alimony regarded her deeply. "i wonder," she said.
"i feel," said lady harman, "if i stayed, if i gave in——i mean after—after i had once—rebelled. then i should just be—a wife—ruled, ordered——"
"it wasn't your place to give in," said miss alimony and added one of those parliament touches that creep more and more into feminine phraseology; "i agree to that—nemine contradicente. but—i wonder...."
she began a second cigarette and thought in profile again.
"i think, perhaps, i haven't explained, clearly, how things are," said lady harman, and commenced a rather more explicit statement of her case. she felt she had not conveyed and she wanted to convey to miss alimony that her rebellion was not simply a desire for personal freedom and autonomy, that she desired these things because she was becoming more and more aware of large affairs outside her home life in which she ought to be not simply interested but concerned, that she had been not merely watching the workings of the business that made her wealthy, but reading books about socialism, about social welfare that had stirred her profoundly.... "but he won't even allow me to know of such things," she said....
miss alimony listened a little abstractedly.
suddenly she interrupted. "tell me," she said, "one thing.... i confess," she explained, "i've no business to ask. but if i'm to advise——if my advice is to be worth anything...."
"yes?" asked lady harman.
"is there——is there someone else?"
"someone else?" lady harman was crimson.
"on your side!"
"someone else on my side?"
"i mean—someone. a man perhaps? some man that you care for? more than you do for your husband?..."
"i can't imagine," whispered lady harman, "anything——" and left her sentence unfinished. her breath had gone. her indignation was profound.
"then i can't understand why you should find it so important to come away."
lady harman could offer no elucidation.
"you see," said miss alimony, with an air of expert knowledge, "our case against our opponents is just exactly their great case against us. they say to us when we ask for the vote, 'the woman's place is the home.' 'precisely,' we answer, 'the woman's place is the home. give us our homes!' now your place is your home—with your children. that's where you have to fight your battle. running away—for you it's simply running away."
"but——if i stay i shall be beaten." lady harman surveyed her hostess with a certain dismay. "do you understand, agatha? i can't go back."
"but my dear! what else can you do? what had you thought?"
"you see," said lady harman, after a little struggle with that childish quality in her nerves that might, if it wasn't controlled, make her eyes brim. "you see, i didn't expect you quite to take this view. i thought perhaps you might be disposed——if i could have stayed with you here, only for a little time, i could have got some work or something——"
"it's so dreadful," said miss alimony, sitting far back with the relaxation of infinite regrets. "it's dreadful."
"of course if you don't see it as i do——"
"i can't," said miss alimony. "i can't."
she turned suddenly upon her visitor and grasped her knees with her shapely hands. "oh let me implore you! don't run away. please for my sake, for all our sakes, for the sake of womanhood, don't run away! stay at your post. you mustn't run away. you must not. if you do, you admit everything. everything. you must fight in your home. it's your home. that is the great principle you must grasp,—it's not his. it's there your duty lies. and there are your children—your children, your little ones! think if you go—there may be a fearful fuss—proceedings. lawyers—a search. very probably he will take all sorts of proceedings. it will be a matrimonial case. how can i be associated with that? we mustn't mix up women's freedom with matrimonial cases. impossible! we dare not! a woman leaving her husband! think of the weapon it gives our enemies. if once other things complicate the vote,—the vote is lost. after all our self-denial, after all our sacrifices.... you see! don't you see?...
"fight!" she summarized after an eloquent interval.
"you mean," said lady harman,—"you think i ought to go back."
miss alimony paused to get her full effect. "yes," she said in a profound whisper and endorsed it, "oh so much so!—yes."
"now?"
"instantly."
for an interval neither lady spoke. it was the visitor at last who broke the tension.
"do you think," she asked in a small voice and with the hesitation of one whom no refusal can surprise; "you could give me a cup of tea?"
miss alimony rose with a sigh and a slow unfolding rustle. "i forgot," she said. "my little maid is out."
lady harman left alone sat for a time staring at the fire with her eyes rather wide and her eyebrows raised as though she mutely confided to it her infinite astonishment. this was the last thing she had expected. she would have to go to some hotel. can a woman stay alone at an hotel? her heart sank. inflexible forces seemed to be pointing her back to home—and sir isaac. he would be a very triumphant sir isaac, and she'd not have much heart left in her.... "i won't go back," she whispered to herself. "whatever happens i won't go back...."
then she became aware of the evening newspaper miss alimony had been reading. the headline, "suffrage raid on regent street," caught her eye. a queer little idea came into her head. it grew with tremendous rapidity. she put out a hand and took up the paper and read.
she had plenty of time to read because her hostess not only got the tea herself but went during that process to her bedroom and put on one of those hats that have contributed so much to remove the stigma of dowdiness from the suffrage cause, as an outward and visible sign that she was presently ceasing to be at home....
lady harman found an odd fact in the report before her. "one of the most difficult things to buy at the present time in the west end of london," it ran, "is a hammer...."
then a little further: "the magistrate said it was impossible to make discriminations in this affair. all the defendants must have a month's imprisonment...."
when miss alimony returned lady harman put down the paper almost guiltily.
afterwards miss alimony recalled that guilty start, and the still more guilty start that had happened, when presently she went out of the room again and returned with a lamp, for the winter twilight was upon them. afterwards, too, she was to learn what had become of the service end of her small poker, the little iron club, which she missed almost as soon as lady harman had gone....
lady harman had taken that grubby but convenient little instrument and hidden it in her muff, and she had gone straight out of miss alimony's flat to the post office at the corner of jago street, and there, with one simple effective impact, had smashed a ground-glass window, the property of his majesty king george the fifth. and having done so, she had called the attention of a youthful policeman, fresh from yorkshire, to her offence, and after a slight struggle with his incredulity and a visit to the window in question, had escorted him to the south hampsmith police-station, and had there made him charge her. and on the way she explained to him with a newfound lucidity why it was that women should have votes.
and all this she did from the moment of percussion onward, in a mood of exaltation entirely strange to her, but, as she was astonished to find, by no means disagreeable. she found afterwards that she only remembered very indistinctly her selection of the window and her preparations for the fatal blow, but that the effect of the actual breakage remained extraordinarily vivid upon her memory. she saw with extreme distinctness both as it was before and after the breakage, first as a rather irregular grey surface, shining in the oblique light of a street lamp, and giving pale phantom reflections of things in the street, and then as it was after her blow. it was all visual impression in her memory; she could not recollect afterwards if there had been any noise at all. where there had been nothing but a milky dinginess a thin-armed, irregular star had flashed into being, and a large triangular piece at its centre, after what seemed an interminable indecision, had slid, first covertly downward, and then fallen forward at her feet and shivered into a hundred fragments....
lady harman realized that a tremendous thing had been done—irrevocably. she stared at her achievement open-mouthed. the creative lump of iron dropped from her hand. she had a momentary doubt whether she had really wanted to break that window at all; and then she understood that this business had to be seen through, and seen through with neatness and dignity; and that wisp of regret vanished absolutely in her concentration upon these immediate needs.
