The Man with the Double Heart Part 20

No. Sunday supper. How stupid I am!--I never can remember dates."

Upstairs Mrs. Uniacke was lying back against the pillows and enjoying the rare luxury of a quiet rest in bed.

"I hope they're getting on all right?" Her thoughts were with the pair below. "I don't know how it is that Jill seems always to upset Stephen."

She knew her children resented his presence and the claim he made upon her time. But habit was too strong for her, and each day cemented the tie. She had always leaned. From nursery days she had never learnt to stand alone, and since her husband's death Stephen had slowly become a part of her life.

The friends.h.i.+p was that rare achievement, a purely platonic affair.

Perhaps, as her children grew older, strong and capable, she missed the sense of tenderness about her, the touch of baby clinging hands. With all her utterly feminine nature, she longed to comfort and to guide.

And in this parasite who had crept into the heart of her home she found the two attributes needed in her barren and widowed life.

She could "mother" him. He loved "fuss," with none of her children's independence. And at the same time she could lean on his young strength and masculine mind.

But her thoughts of him were utterly pure. It was no sentimental affair cropping up in her middle age with a last desperate clutch at romance.

And to strengthen the link between them stood the Cause--the cry of Woman's wrongs; the excitement of new-found power and the secret thrill of martyrdom.

She had reached an impressionable age, and broken by her great sorrow--for her husband had been the love of her life--her arms went out to her suffering sisters.

If only she could ease the burden, throw her failing strength into the balance, she could die with the sense of something achieved.

Humbly she offered her "widow's mite."

Meanwhile in the dingy dining-room Jill had checked her love of fun.

Her natural courtesy forbade an open quarrel with her mother's guest.

She felt she had gone quite far enough...!

a.s.suming a more serious air, she asked the man for information respecting the long day's work.

Stephen, a little mollified by a gla.s.s of the late Colonel's port, smoking an excellent cigarette (recommended by him to Mrs. Uniacke), launched forth into description of a visit to a factory; a lengthy investigation of wages and the hours allotted to the female "hands"; while Jill sat at the end of the table, listening thoughtfully.

She held as yet no settled opinions on the question of Woman's Suffrage. Undetermined, she kept herself, by McTaggart's advice, slightly aloof.

Nevertheless the atmosphere of the house stimulated thought. It made life a bigger affair to picture a broader field for her s.e.x.

"You say"--she leaned her chin on her hands, her dark-fringed eyes full of light. "That the finer, more delicate work is undertaken by the women. That they do it better, are paid less ... No, it doesn't sound a bit fair!"

"Ah! you begin to see," said Somerfield. "They do it too in less time.

Their fingers are smaller, their work neater--in fact it's economy to employ them."

"Then what do you propose?" said Jill--"to get them paid the same as men?"

"Undoubtedly--or even more. It's their due--and we shall see it's _done_."

"But--wait a minute. You can't make money. I mean--it's got to come from somewhere. And if the employers can't give more, I suppose ...

they'll take it from the men?" She went on thoughtfully, thinking aloud. "They could level down and pay all alike. Is that the idea?"

Somerfield nodded. "Well--one of them--but there are other methods."

"Let's stick to the first." Jill was logical, true to the broad college training.

It saved her from the common pitfall of feminine minds in argument.

She could weigh the various pros and cons free from personalities.

"I suppose most of the men are married?"

"About two-thirds, roughly speaking."

"Then what about _their_ wives and children? If you cut down the wages the husbands earn won't it come pretty hard on them? It seems unfair that the factory women--who are most of them, I suppose, unmarried--should take the bread out of the mouths of their married sisters--and the children."

Somerfield looked annoyed.

"Oh, I don't say that would happen exactly. There are other ways ...

But what we want is to see women get decent wages, full value for their work. The employers will have to come forward. If we make a strong stand they're bound to give way..."

"Strikes?" Jill raised her eyebrows. "I thought they ruined the nation's trade? And that women always suffered more--the wives and mothers in these times. Besides..." relentlessly she pursued her way with a child's honest search for knowledge. "I don't really understand ... But, supposing that wages all round are raised, well then the employers--to make a profit--will have to sell at a higher cost. And won't that make living dearer?--in case of food and necessities?"

"Not in the end. You ought to study Political Economy. I doubt if it much affects the cla.s.s we're working for at any rate. It may hit ours!" He smiled sadly with an air of secret martyrdom--"And the rich too, I sincerely hope!"

"But if you keep on 'hitting the rich'"--Jill adopted his expression--"and the large cla.s.s of employers--won't they some day have to retrench? And doesn't that mean cutting down employment in every grade--for women too?"

"More likely smaller dividends!" Somerfield sneered. "These syndicates and capitalists are the curse of England"--his voice rose--"that's where the people's money goes--back to the pockets of the rich!"

"But aren't there a lot of decent people, middle-cla.s.s and rather poor, investors too, dependent on dividends? Oh, I can't understand it all!--It seems to me whatever you do to alter the distribution of wealth you ruin some one--and always, _always_ it pans out harder for those who work!"

"We're not talking of Socialism," Somerfield hastily interposed--"we're discussing the need for the Vote--for women to have a hand in the Government. To see that their own s.e.x don't suffer--to put down all sorts of wrongs that have lingered on from feudal days when women were nothing more than slaves!"

"It sounds glorious." Jill was moved, but the doubt still haunted her.

"If only one could pick the women. They're such a lot of us, you see--and--really--some are awful fools!"

"And what about the present Government? And the next too, if it comes to that! D'you think their brains are above suspicion?" He gave her a mocking glance.

"No." Jill nodded her head. "But allowing that they're rather stupid, do you want to add to the general confusion by pairing them with the other s.e.x--an equal number of ignorant women?"

"Oh! you're _hopeless_!" He got up and poured himself out another gla.s.s from the port decanter on the sideboard. "I thought you really wanted to learn?"

"So I do." Jill sat tight. "But I won't be swept off my feet by ... a sort of hypnotism of s.e.x! I want to keep an unprejudiced eye. _Of course_ I'd like to see women take a leading place everywhere. But if they make a mess of it, we're worse off than we were before. We stand to lose as well as gain by rus.h.i.+ng into public life." She threw back a lock of hair that had fallen forward, blinding her.

"Now, look here, Stephen, we've got a lot ... I'm not talking of influence and the right to expect chivalry--which by the way I think we're losing, through the tactics of the Militants! You've only to stand in a Suffrage crowd and listen to some of the remarks. Why, fifty ... a hundred years ago ... a decent man would have taken umbrage. Men were run through in those days for far less said of their sisters or wives! But--to go back---we've got _some_ pull. To begin with, men, when they marry, keep us! I dare say I'm old-fas.h.i.+oned.

Yes--of course! I knew you'd laugh!--but it's big, really. It means a home--and protection--and a fair chance for ... bringing up a family."

She flushed slightly under his smile, but went on bravely with her argument.

"It seems to me that by and by we'll have to work, share and share alike, ill or well, on equal terms. And what's to become of our home life--and--well ... the next generation?"

Stephen saw his chance at last.