The Convert Part 19

They had penetrated the fringe of a gathering composed largely of weedy youths and wastrel old men. A few there were who looked like decent artizans, but more who bore the unmistakable aspect of the beery out-of-work. Among the strangely few women, were two or three girls of the domestic servant or Strand Restaurant cas.h.i.+er cla.s.s--wearers of the cheap lace blouse and the wax bead necklace.

Mrs. Fox-Moore, forgetting some of her reluctance now that she was on the spot, valiantly followed Vida as the younger woman threaded her way among the constantly increasing crowd. Just in front of where the two came to a final standstill was a quiet-looking old man with a lot of unsold Sunday papers under one arm and wearing like an ap.r.o.n the bill of the _Sunday Times_. Many of the boys and young men were smoking cigarettes. Some of the older men had pipes. Mrs. Fox-Moore commented on the inferior taste in tobacco as shown by the lower orders. But she, too, kept her eyes glued to the figures up there on the plinth.

'They've had to get men to hold up their banners for them,' laughed Vida, as though she saw a symbolism in the fact, further convicting these women of folly.

'But there's a well-dressed man--that one who isn't holding up anything that I can see--what on earth is _he_ doing there?'

'Perhaps he'll be upholding something later.'

'Going to speak, you mean?'

'It may be a debate. Perhaps he's going to present the other side.'

'Well, if he does, I hope he'll tell them plainly what he thinks of them.'

She said it quite distinctly for the benefit of the people round her.

Both ladies were still obviously self-conscious, occupied with the need to look completely detached, to advertise: '_I'm_ not one of them! Never think it!' But it was gradually being borne in upon them that they need take no further trouble in this connection. n.o.body in the crowd noticed any one except 'those ordinary looking persons,' as Mrs. Fox-Moore complainingly called them, up there on the plinth--'quite like what one sees on the tops of omnibuses!' Certainly it was an exercise in incongruity to compare these quiet, rather depressed looking people with the vision conjured up by Lord John's 'raving lunatics,' 'worthy of the straight jacket,' or Paul Filey's 's.e.xless monstrosities.'

'It's rather like a jest that promised very well at the beginning, only the teller has forgotten the point. Or else,' Vida added, looking at the face of one of the women up there--'or else the mistake was in thinking it a jest at all!' She turned away impatiently and devoted her attention to such sc.r.a.ps of comment as she could overhear in the crowd--or such, rather, as she could understand.

'That one--that's just come--yes, in the blue tam-o'-shanter, that's the one I was tellin' you about,' said a red-haired man, with a cheerful and rubicund face.

'_Looks_ like she'd be 'andy with her fists, don't she?' contributed a friend alongside. The boys in front and behind laughed appreciatively.

But the ruddy man said, 'Fists? No. _She's_ the one wot carries the dog-whip;' and they all craned forward with redoubled interest. It is sad to be obliged to admit that the two ladies did precisely the same.

While the boys were, in addition, cat-calling and inquiring about the dog-whip--

'That must be the woman the papers have been full of,' Mrs. Fox-Moore whispered, staring at the new-comer with horrified eyes.

'Yes, no doubt.' Vida, too, scrutinized her more narrowly.

The wearer of the 'Tam' was certainly more robust-looking than the others, but even she had the pallor of the worker in the town. She carried her fine head and shoulders badly, like one who has stooped over tasks at an age when she should have been running about the fields. She drew her thick brows together every now and then with an effect of determination that gave her well-chiselled features so dark and forbidding an aspect it was a surprise to see the grace that swept into her face when, at something one of her comrades said, she broke into a smile. Two shabby men on Vida's left were working themselves into a fine state of moral indignation over the laxity of the police in allowing these women to air their vanity in public.

'Comin' here with tam-o'-shanters to tell us 'ow to do our business.'

'It's part o' wot I mean w'en I s'y old England's on the down gryde.'

'W'ich is the one in black--this end?' his companion asked, indicating a refined-looking woman of forty or so. 'Is that Miss----?'

'Miss,' chipped in a young man of respectable appearance just behind.

'_Miss?_ Why, that's the mother o' the Gracchi,' and there was a little ripple of laughter.

'Hasn't she got any of her jewels along with her to-day?' said another voice.

'What do they mean?' demanded Mrs. Fox-Moore.

Vida shook her head. She herself was looking about for some one to ask.

'Isn't it queer that you and I have lived all this time in the world and have never yet been in a mixed crowd before in all our lives?--never _as a part of it_.'

'I think myself it's less strange we haven't done it before than that we're doing it now. There's the woman selling things. Let us ask her----'

They had noticed before a faded-looking personage who had been going about on the fringe of the crowd with a file of propagandist literature on her arm. Vida beckoned to her. She made her way with some difficulty through the chaffing, jostling horde, saying steadily and with a kind of cheerful doggedness--

'Leaflets! Citizens.h.i.+p of Women, by Lothian Scott! Labour Record! Prison Experiences of Miss----'

'How much?' asked Miss Levering.

'What you like,' she answered.

Miss Levering took her change out in information. 'Can you tell me who the speakers are?'

'Oh, yes.' The haggard face brightened before the task. 'That one is the famous Miss Claxton.'

'With her face screwed up?'

'That's because the sun is in her eyes.'

'She isn't so bad-looking,' admitted Mrs. Fox-Moore.

'No; but just wait till she speaks!' The faded countenance of the woman with the heavy pile of printed propaganda on her arm was so lit with enthusiasm, that it, too, was almost good-looking, in the same way as the younger, more regular face up there, frowning at the people, or the sun, or the memory of wrongs.

'Is Miss Claxton some relation of yours?' asked Mrs. Fox-Moore.

'No, oh, no, I don't even know her. She hasn't been out of prison long.

The man in grey--he's Mr. Henry.'

'Out of prison! And Henry's the chairman, I suppose.'

'No; the chairman is the lady in black.' The pamphlet-seller turned away to make change for a new customer.

'Do you mean the mother of the Gracchi?' said Vida, at a venture, and saw how if she herself hadn't understood the joke the lady with the literature did. She laughed good-humouredly.

'Yes; that's Mrs. Chisholm.'

'What!' said a decent-looking but dismal sort of shopman just behind, 'is that the mother of those dreadful young women?'

Neither of the two ladies were sufficiently posted in the nefarious goings on of the 'dreadful' progeny quite to appreciate the bystander's surprise, but they gazed with renewed interest at the delicate face.

'What can the man mean! She doesn't _look_----' Mrs. Fox-Moore hesitated.

'No,' Vida helped her out with a laughing whisper; 'I agree she doesn't _look_ big enough or bad enough or old enough or bold enough to be the mother of young women renowned for their dreadfulness. But as soon as she opens her mouth no doubt we'll smell the brimstone. I wish she'd begin her raging. Why are they waiting?'

'It's only five minutes past,' said the lady with the literature. 'I think they're waiting for Mr. Lothian Scott. He's ill. But he'll come!'

As though the example of his fidelity to the cause nerved her to more earnest prosecution of her own modest duty, she called out, 'Leaflets!

Citizens.h.i.+p of Women, by Lothian Scott!'