if one will dig deeply enough into the psychology of those great enthusiasms which have altered the course of history, one will generally discover some personal, overlaid, self-forgotten motive which bred the martyrs and kindled the leaders necessary to arrest the attention of the world, and make the vast number of converts essential to give any cause dignity and insure to it victory. it may be an acute disappointment in human nature, some assault upon highest instincts or treasured convictions, or even disappointed ambition; but above all is it likely to have its seed in that burning hatred of injustice which animates all minds with a natural bias for reform. the prophets may have been inspired and preordained, but leaders and martyrs hardly, although they are entitled to the first rank in the history of the great causes.
with bridgit herbert it had been not only the profound reaction of a fine mind from the empty life of society, but the bitter recognition that she had lavished the wealth of her nature on a handsome fool, who laughed and kissed her when her ego struggled out of its embryo and looked for wings on his. then had come the amazing discovery that the men she most liked, of whose friendly devotion she had felt assured, had no possible use for her when they found that she purposed to console herself with her intellect instead of with themselves; that so slight was the impression the greatness in her nature had made on them, they would be the first to balk her on every issue she held most dear. her vanity soon healed, but she had been cut to the quick; and all the obstinacy, scorn, and strength in her arose, and counselled her to pay back to man something of what woman had suffered at his hand throughout the ages.
it is possible that if christabel pankhurst, bred on suffrage as she was, had not been refused admission to the bar when she applied to the benchers of lincoln’s inn fields, she might not have conceived the militant movement at the psychological moment. julia needed no further inducement to enter the career she once for all elected to follow that afternoon in chelsea, but she, too, needed the sharp personal jolt to banish the abstract, and substitute the concrete enthusiasm; and she got it long before her impersonal ardor had time to cool.
ten days after she had received her first instructions, she arrived with mrs. lime in the midland town where the by-election campaign was to open. mrs. lime was an experienced heckler, and was already acquainted with the inside of prison and gaol, but unknown in the midlands. julia had found much inspiration in mrs. lime, a typical product of that awakening which began in 1901. her small body looked as if it might have an unbreakable skeleton of steel, and her gaunt, dark, rapt face was deeply lined, although she was but twenty-four. like annie kenny, she had been a half-timer at the loom at the age of ten, and had worked in the cotton mill until she married a plumber eight years later. her husband died when she was twenty-two, and she was using his savings in the cause which she knew to be the one hope for thousands of girls, overworked and underfed, as she had been. in her early youth she had managed, against desperate odds, to acquire an education of sorts, and her speeches were remarkably effective; terse, logical, and informing. once she would have worshipped the luminous beauty of this new recruit, but now she merely regarded it as a practical asset.
“don’t let yourself run down,” she said to julia as they sat in their hotel the night before the opening of the campaign, discussing their own. “keep that hair bright, and wear your good clothes, as long as you’ve got them. our ladies think too little about clothes, and its natural, being at this business all their lives, as you might say. but with you it’s different. you’ve got the born style, and you’d have hard work looking dingy. don’t try. you’ve got just the air and the beauty to attract the crowd at the street corner, although you’ll soon be too familiar a figure to the police to get past the door. but ugly little things like me can do the heckling.”
the liberal candidate made his first speech on the following night, but neither julia nor mrs. lime found it possible to enter the hall. men were learning wisdom. all women without cards or escorts were barred. both the girls were roughly handled as they attempted again and again to obtain entrance; and as there was no crowd outside to address, they went back to the hotel to await the candidate’s return. they sat in the passage, and when he came in, shortly after eleven o’clock, mrs. lime immediately confronted him.
“you will tell us, if you please,” she said, “what you mean to do about giving the ballot to women.”
the candidate, who had congratulated himself upon accomplishing the exclusion of suffragettes from the hall, and had even taken the precaution to leave by the back door, colored with annoyance; and his eyes flashed contempt upon the plain little figure planted in his path.
“i state my intentions on the platform,” he said haughtily, and attempted to brush past her. but mrs. lime changed her own position and once more impeded his progress.
“your intentions regarding votes for women,” she said in her even emotionless voice. “you are said to oppose it. i warn you that unless you assert that this is not true, and that you will do all in your power to assist us in winning the ballot, we shall do all we can to defeat you in this election.”
“we?” he laughed outright. “how many more of them are there like you?”
julia rose and came forward. “two,” she said. “and two against one is a proportion never to be despised.”
the man stared at her and his overbearing manner underwent a change.
“oh, you!” he said. “well you might get something out of a man if you tried hard enough.”
france had more than once burst out that his wife had the north pole in her eyes, that it was a waste of time to look for it anywhere else; and the frozen stare which this candidate received dashed his mounting ardor. he frowned heavily. “i say!” he said. “get out of this. it’s no business for you.”
“since when have politics ceased to be the business of english women? you will declare for us publicly and unmistakably, or i shall make it my business to defeat you.”
he stared at her again, this time in some dismay. he had yet to learn the power of women in general, when possessed of the brain and courage and holy fervor that are no mean substitutes for beauty and family, but he well knew the power that women of the class to which this antagonist belonged had wielded in the political history of england. for a moment he hesitated. what was a promise to a woman? and it would be safe to get rid of this woman as quickly as possible. the other, of course, didn’t matter. but he was an honest man in politics, whatever his other failings, and he would as soon have given the vote to the devil as to women. he turned on his heel.
“do your worst,” he said. “that’s all you’ll get out of me.”
the next day julia hired a motor car, and they pursued the candidate from town to town and village to village. he was contesting a large borough, whose member, returned at the general election, had died suddenly. it contained several towns and many villages. in the latter, julia and mrs. lime visited every cottage, petted the children, distributed their literature, promised all they conscientiously could if the ballot were given to women, and implored help in defeating a man who was an avowed enemy. they converted most of the women, and made no little impression on the men, most of them colliers, who gathered about their car in the evenings. the car impressed the men almost as much as the eloquence of the speakers. their thick heads, generally thicker at eight in the evening, were as impervious to female suffrage as the heads at westminster, but julia and mrs. lime had borrowed all the arguments of the conservative candidate and used them with no less eloquence, and the more penetrating ingenuity of their sex.
at every hall they were refused admittance. julia soon grew accustomed to being pulled about; her arms were black and blue; and she had twice been obliged to invest in new hats both for herself and mrs. lime. her diffidence had vanished, and, her fighting blood up, and now completely interested, she spoke whenever the opportunity offered.
one dark night, when they had had the usual experience at the hall entrance, they were prowling about hoping to find an unguarded door, when they espied a scaffolding under one of the high windows. it was elevated on a rough trestle. the same idea animated them simultaneously. without a word they climbed the precarious foothold, tearing their skirts, and splintering their hands, and felt their way along the scaffolding until they were close to the window. then they unrolled their white banners inscribed “votes for women,” and waited. the candidate, who possessed the inestimable advantage of belonging to the party just come into power, was lauding its virtues, promising all things in its name, and reiterating the abominations, now somewhat stale, of the party that was responsible for the colossal war taxes, and the industrial depression. there were pertinent questions asked, which he answered good-naturedly; for although he would fain have gone through his carefully rehearsed speech uninterrupted, he was far too keen a politician to insult a voter.
“now!” whispered mrs. lime, and simultaneously two heads appeared at the window, two banners were waved, and julia, having the more carrying voice, cried out:?—
“and how about votes for women?”
if a flaming sword had appeared, there could not have been more excitement. the candidate turned purple. the chairman jumped to his feet, crying “outrageous,” and the audience took up the word and shouted it, some shaking their fists. several men ran down the aisle.
“the stewards!” whispered mrs. lime, “and they’ll be joined by the door police.”
it was darker than ever without, after the glare of the hall, but once more they felt their way along the scaffolding, reached the uprights, and clambered down just as a dark mass turned the corner of the building.
there was no time to cross the street. mrs. lime seized julia’s hand and darted under the trestle. “lie down with your face to the wall, and close,” she commanded.
their clothes were dark and they were unobserved by the men, who stood for a moment looking up.
“i’ll go up this side,” said one of the policemen, after straining the back of his neck in vain, “and you go up the other. the rest look in that shed behind. that’s where they likely are.”
the men mounted gingerly, the others disappeared. mrs. lime gave julia a tug, they wriggled out, and ran round to the front entrance. before those on the rear benches knew what was happening, the two girls were halfway down the middle aisle. then another roar arose.
“put them out! put them out!”
julia and mrs. lime attempted to mount a bench, but were pulled down. about them was a sea of astonished indignant faces, such as, no doubt, confronted the british working-man years before when he so far forgot himself as to demand equal political rights with the gentry and the employer. julia laughed outright as she saw those scandalized faces, but it would have fared ill with them when the police and stewards came running back, had not several gentlemen, who, unwilling to see violence done to women, however they might disapprove of their tactics, formed a bodyguard, and escorted them to the door. quite satisfied with their night’s work they went to their inn and slept soundly.
