the suffragette went up to london on monday—bank holiday—to contemplate finally the ruin of her work. for it was dead. i suppose if she had not felt so old and tired she might have thought of a fresh beginning, but she was always more passionate than persistent.
i don’t think the brown borough ever made her suffer so much as it did the day she came back to it and found no place for her. you must remember she had always put work before pleasure, and a new joy born had no place in her mind with the pain of work killed. the gardener of yesterday retreated from the foreground of her mind, and for a while she never thought at all of the gardener of to-morrow.
henceforward we part company with that suffragette whom i have loved perhaps a good deal, and of whom you have wearied. her heart seemed to take on a different colour as she returned for the last time to the brown borough. what she had preached for years conquered her beyond hope at last, the world she had fought became suddenly victor.
she went to jenny wigsky, and found her gone.
she went to see ’tilda, who was out. but ’tilda’s mother spoke out ’tilda’s mind.
306she went to see the priest’s sister, and she was away for easter. but the priest was at home.
“i had no wish ever to see you again,” said the priest. “but it is as well that we should meet, for i should like to make my position and that of my sister perfectly clear to you, yerce, yerce.”
“it is perfectly clear,” said the suffragette, who felt curiously numb.
“excuse me, but i do not wish that you should go away under the delusion that you are in the right though persecuted, and in your self-absorption proceed to make havoc of another field of work. setting aside the fact that you have been guilty of bad faith towards us, you have approached the work from a wilfully wrong standpoint. you have mixed your despicable little political jealousies with christian work, to the serious danger of young and innocent souls.”
“i worked for the honour of women, and you—possibly—for the honour of your god. certainly your work sounds better—to men.”
“if there is a thing that women excel in, it is the art of evading the point,” said the priest bitterly. “the affair, bluntly put, is this: jane wigsky, an idle, vicious, and immoral girl, had the impudence to go to my very good friend, mr. smith, of smith, bird and co., and, presuming on her showy appearance, to apply for a responsible post, a post which is in every way suited to be the reward of virtue, rather than something for the covetous to grasp at. mr. 307smith is, as i say, a friend of mine, and a most generous friend to the church, having only last week presented a beautiful carved chancel screen. naturally it was my duty to tell him all i knew about the girl.”
“and what did you know?”
“i am not obliged to answer to you for my statements, but, as a matter of fact, i told him that the girl was not a ‘stayer’—in colloquial language—and that she was of immoral tendency.”
“that was only what you fancied. what did you know?”
there was a swallowing sound in the priest’s throat, a sound as of one keeping his temper.
“may i ask if you are aware that the girl has now disappeared, with her lover?”
“but that was since you wrote.”
“i have not worked for twenty-two years among the poor without reaching a certain insight into character; i am not blind to such things, whatever you may be, yerce, yerce. but that is beside the point. i reminded smith that he might be able to give her less important employment—i was willing to help the girl up to a certain point. i suggested a protégé of my own for the better post, to whom the generous opportunity offered would be far more suitable, a very deserving young man, who is debarred from ordinary employment by the loss of a leg. mr. smith accepted my suggestion, and offered jane wigsky a post as packer, at seven-and-six a week, a much 308larger wage than she has been getting lately. she refused, and put the responsibility of her refusal on you. she also mentioned that other girls in the church club were under your influence on the question of wages. i made enquiries and found that my sister’s club was in a fair way to turn into a female trade union, an abominable anomaly. i took the only course possible. i dismissed all the misguided girls from the club. there is nothing more to be said.”
“nothing,” said the suffragette, who had become very white, “except—what must your god be like to have a servant like you?”
“if you are going to blaspheme,” said the priest, “kindly leave my house at once.”
“if god is like that ...” she said, “i pray the devil may win.”
she ran out of the house childishly, and slammed the door.
the gardener, on tuesday morning, was parting his hair for the third time, when he received a telegram:
“don’t come.—suffragette.”
it startled him, but not very much. he looked at the third attempt at a parting in the glass, and saw that it was an excellent parting for a man on his wedding-day. he reflected that a militant suffragette would naturally tend to become ultra-militant on this final day. and if the worst came to the worst, it could do no harm to go up and find out how bad the 309worst was. so he went up to london by the eleven train.
he was to meet her at the little bun-shop that clings for protection to the brown borough town hall. there the suffragette had a fourpenny meal daily, and there they had arranged to have an eightpenny meal together, before assuming the married pose. there was a “wedding-shop” round the corner. i don’t suppose any couple ever made less impressive plans.
and the gardener pursued the plan. he entirely ignored the telegram.
i don’t know whether the suffragette was confident that he would obey it, or that he would ignore it. i am entirely doubtful about her state of mind on that day. but i know that when the gardener arrived at the bun-shop she was there, facing the door, already half-way through her fourpenny lunch. which appears to show that—if her telegram was genuine—she put implicit faith in his obedience. in this case she was presumably displeased to see him. her face, however, looked too tired to change its expression in any way.
“didn’t you get my wire?” she said.
“what is a wire to me?” asked the gardener, sitting down.
there was a long pause, during which he ordered a welsh rarebit from a waitress who, six months ago, would have furnished him with an ideal of womanhood.
310“why did you wire?” he asked presently.
“i have to go on a journey,” said the suffragette, waving at the mustard-coloured portmanteau, which was seated on a chair beside her.
“in that case, so have i,” said the gardener. “we’ll get married first, and then go on the journey together.”
no reply. their talk was like broken fragments thrown upon a sea of ice. it hurried, faltered, stopped, and then froze into a background of silence.
the gardener noticed that the suffragette was trembling violently, and with a great effort he made no comment on this discovery.
finally she rose, leaving quite twopence-halfpenny worth of her meal hiding beneath her knife and fork.
“you’ll have to show me where this registry office is,” said the gardener, “and also what to do. i don’t know how one gets married.”
“neither do i,” said the suffragette.
“i’ll carry your bag.”
“i like carrying things. i hate being helped. you must always remember that i am a militant suffragette.”
“i am never allowed to forget it,” sighed the gardener, his ardour rather damped. “are we getting near the place?”
“very near.”
they stopped at the steps of a church.
“we might have thought it our duty to be married in a church,” she said. “what a merciful escape!”
311he was silent.
“i hate god,” she added.
“don’t,” said the gardener. “you’re too excited. don’t tremble like that. don’t hate god. after all, he made the world—a green sane world—with you and me in it....”
“he made it with you in it. but i got in by mistake.”
“what a happy mistake!” said the gardener. “come into the church, my dear, and rest for a moment. don’t try to look too deep into the reasons of things, you’ll only get giddy.”
he took her hand, and they went up the steps together.
“it’s a fine church,” he said. “that screen’s a fine bit of carving.” he felt as if he had taken charge of his suffragette’s nerves, and he busied his brain in the composition of cool and commonplace remarks.
“that chancel screen is dirty. it’s the gift of foul hands, bought with foul money. do you think me mad?”
“you are, rather, you know. pull yourself together. surely you’re not frightened of getting married to me?”
the suffragette laughed. “you wonderfully faithful friend,” she said.
the gardener was not a religious young man. he was not quite rare enough in texture for that, and he was a little too clever for the religion of his fathers. 312the christian pose had never appealed to him, it was not unique enough. all his life he had seen prayer used as a method of commercial telegraphy. you wanted a thing, and from a kneeling position you informed heaven of your order. if it was complied with, you knew that you must be appreciated in high quarters; if it was ignored, you supposed that your message had miscarried, and despatched another. at any rate it cost nothing.
but the gardener had a vague reverence inborn in him. during his everyday life he posed as an unbeliever. when in his own unposing company he passively believed in something he had never defined. but under stained-glass windows or the benediction of music, under arched forests and a sinless sky, under the passionate sane spell of the sea, under the charm of love, he knew that he worshipped. for he was a poet without the means of proving it, and to such god is a secret mouthpiece, and a salvation.
so, at the back of the church, beside the suffragette, he pressed his face into his hands, and his elbows on to his knees, and found to his surprise that his heart was beating violently. between his fingers he could see the east window. its blood-like splashes of red, its banners of unearthly blue, its blur of golden haloes glorified the sunlight. it seemed to have a colour for each of his days; he found his childhood in it, and his little ambitions, his pale tra-la-la days, and the babyhood of his heart, red hair he found, and the ardour of the sea, and love.... 313and presently he looked round and found his companion had gone from his side.
he could see her, with her chin up, looking defiantly at the altar. the sunlight dramatically touched her distant face, and it was like a pin-prick in the twilight of the church. it was but seldom that nature provided a good setting for my suffragette.
it was only when he saw her with the mustard-coloured portmanteau raised shoulder high that he realised what she was doing. the knowledge tore a gash across his dreams, and severed him from himself. he did not move. he watched her throw the portmanteau at the foot of the chancel screen. he saw her wrap her arms about her face and swing round on her heel. he hardly heard the explosion, but directly afterwards he realised how loud it had been.
smoke danced across the altar, smoke blotted out the window, smoke threaded the lace of the shattered screen. smoke.... silver in the sunlight ... blue round the altar ... and grey—dead grey—over the little crumpled body of the criminal. smoke stood over her, a transitory monument—like a tree—like a curse.
yes, i pose of course. but the question is—how deep may a pose extend?
