A Girl Among the Anarchists Part 6

"Is that a threat?" inquired White, growing visibly paler, and glancing nervously towards the door.

"No, it is only the expression of a personal opinion," I replied. At this moment the door opened, and M'Dermott appeared.

"Well, are you coming with the keys? We are getting tired of waiting,"

he inquired.

"This man," said I, pointing with scorn at the abject carriage-builder, "now refuses to let me the shop on the ground that he disapproves of revolutionary literature."

M'Dermott gave a low whistle, "Oh, that's how the wind blows, is it?"

he remarked; "I thought I saw some 'narks' hanging round. So this is the turn your benevolent interest in my grand-daughter has taken? Well, come along, Isabel, we have no time to waste, and I am sure this good gentleman will not feel comfortable till we are off the premises. He is afraid we might waste some dynamite on him, I do believe."

At the word dynamite White seized a bell-pull and rang it violently, and we could not help laughing heartily, as we left the office, at his evident terror. Whilst crossing the yard we saw two well-known detectives lurking on the premises. White had evidently thought it necessary to take precautions against possible outrage.

We found Kosinski patiently waiting. He did not seem much surprised at our news, and in answer to my inquiry as to what on earth we were to do, he suggested that we should take the barrow back to Slater's Mews, and then resume our search for a shop. This advice was so obvious and tame that it almost surprised me coming from him, still there was nothing for it, and back we went, looking somewhat more bedraggled (it had now come on to rain) and decidedly crestfallen. We found Short as we had left him, but I was still too indignant at his conduct to deign to answer his inquiries. I was tired and worried, and could almost have wept with annoyance. Kosinski at last came to the rescue. When he had brought the last parcel up the stairs and deposited it on the floor he came up to me.

"If you like we might go and look at a workshop I have heard of and which might suit. Some German comrades rented it for some time; I believe they used it as a club-room, but I dare say it would answer your purpose, and I believe it is still unoccupied."

Of course I readily a.s.sented; it was indeed a relief to hear of some definite proposal, and together we set off. Little M'Dermott, who evidently did not much relish Short's company, armed himself with leaflets and set off on a propagandising expedition, and Kosinski and I wended our way in search of the office. At last we stopped in front of a little green-grocer's shop in a side street off the Hampstead Road. "The place I mean is behind here," explained Kosinski; "the woman in the shop lets it; we will go in and speak with her."

Kosinski stepped inside and addressed a voluminous lady who emerged from the back shop.

"Oh, good day, Mr. Cusins," she exclaimed, a broad smile overspreading her face; "what can I do for you?"

Kosinksi explained our errand, and the good lady preceded us up a narrow yard which led to the workshop in question. She turned out to be as loquacious as she was bulky, a fair specimen of the good-natured c.o.c.kney gossip, evidently fond of the convivial gla.s.s, not over-choice in her language, the creature of her surroundings, which were not of the sweetest, but withal warm-hearted and sympathetic, with that inner hatred of the police common to all who belong to the coster cla.s.s, and able to stand up for her rights, if necessary, both with her tongue and her fists. She showed us over a damp, ill-lighted bas.e.m.e.nt shop, in a corner of which was a ladder leading to a large, light shop, which seemed well suited to our purpose, meanwhile expatiating on its excellencies. I was satisfied with it, and would have settled everything in a few minutes, but Mrs. Wattles was not to be done out of her jaw.

"I'm sure you'll like this place, my dear, and I'm glad to let it to you, for I've known your 'usband some time. I used to see 'im come when those others Germans was 'ere, and----"

"Kosinski is not my husband," I interrupted. "I'm not married."

"Oh, I see, my dear; just keeping company, that's all. Well, I don't blame yer; of course, 'e is a furriner; but I'm not one to say as furriners ain't no cla.s.s. I was in love with an I-talian organ-grinder myself, when I was a girl, and I might 'ave married 'im for all I know, ef 'e 'adn't got run in for knifin' a slop what was always a aggravatin'

'im, poor chap. And I don't say but what I shouldn't be as well off as what I am now, for Wattles, 'e ain't much cla.s.s."

I ventured some sympathetic interjection and tried to get away, but her eye was fixed on me and I could not escape.

"It was a long time before I forgot 'im, and when my girl was born I called 'er Ave Maria, which was a name I used to 'ear 'im say, and a very pretty one too, though Wattles does say it's a 'eathen-sounding name for the girl. I was just like you in those days, my dear," she said, surveying my slim figure with a critical eye. "No one thought I should make old bones, I was that thin and white, and nothin' seemed to do me no good; I took physic enough to kill a 'orse, and as for heggs an' such like I eat 'undreds. But, lor', they just went through me like jollop. It was an old neighbour of ours as cured me; she said, says she, 'What you want, Liza, is stimilant; stout 'ud soon set you right.'

An' sure enough it did. I took 'er advice, an' I've never 'ad a day's illness since, though Wattles's been mighty troublesome at times, and would 'av driven me to my grave long ago if it 'adn't been for stout.

You should take it, miss; you'd soon be as like me, and as 'arty too.

Two gla.s.ses at dinner and two at supper is my allowance, and if I chance to miss it, why I jest seems to fall all of a 'eap like, an' I 'ears my in'ards a gnawin' and a gnawin' and a cryin' out for stout."

I felt quite overcome at this charming picture of my future self, if only I followed Mrs. Wattles's advice. I expressed my intention of thinking the matter over, and, after shaking hands, paying a deposit on the rent--which she informed me she should expend in drinking my health--and settling to move in on the morrow, I made good my escape.

Cheered and elated by our success, I returned with Kosinksi to the office of the _Bomb_. He was naturally very nervous and reticent with women, but the events of this long day had broken down some of the barriers between us, and I found it less difficult to talk to him as we trudged on our way.

"I hope you will help us with the new paper," I said. "I feel really very unfit for the responsibility of such a task, but Armitage thinks I shall manage all right, and I do not wish to be a mere amateur, and s.h.i.+rk the hard work entailed by our propaganda. You see, I remember your words that night at Chiswick. I hope you do not still think that I am merely playing."

He positively blushed at my words, and stammered out: "Oh no, I do not in the least doubt your sincerity. I am sure you do your best, only I have seen so much harm done by women that I am always on my guard when they propose to share in our work. But you are not a woman: you are a Comrade, and I shall take much interest in your paper."

We met Armitage coming up Red Lion Street. He greeted us with a look of relief. "Where on earth have you been?" he exclaimed; "I went to the address you gave me, but when I inquired for you the fellow looked as scared as if he had seen a ghost, and said he knew nothing about you, that I must have made a mistake; and when I insisted and showed him the address you had written, seemed to lose his head, and rang a bell and called for help as if I were going to murder him. I thought he must be mad or drunk, and so turned on my heel and came away. In the yard I recognised some of our friends the detectives, and I felt quite anxious about you. At Slater's Mews the door is locked; there is no light, and n.o.body answered when I knocked. I am quite relieved to see you. I was beginning to fear you had all got run in."

"Well, you see we are still alive and in fighting form. As you say the _Bomb_ has closed, I suppose Short has gone off to the music-hall with Simpkins, as he hinted at doing. Anyhow, come home with me; you too, Kosinksi, if you don't mind; there is a lot to say, and many things to settle, and we can settle everything better there than here in the street."

My proposal was agreed to, and we all three repaired to Fitzroy Square, where over a cup of tea we settled the last details of the move, including the name of our new paper, which was to be known as the _Tocsin_.

CHAPTER VI

A FOREIGN INVASION

Thus was the question of the new paper and its quarters settled. The shop, as I had hoped, did well enough for our purposes. True, the district in which it lay was neither salubrious nor beautiful, and the constant and inevitable encounters with loquacious Mrs. Wattles and her satellites something of a trial; but we were absorbed in our work, absorbed in our enthusiasms, utterly engrossed in the thought of the coming revolution which by our efforts we were speeding on.

During the first months, besides writing and editing the _Tocsin_, I was very busily employed in learning how to set type, and print, and the various arts connected with printing--and as I grew more proficient at the work my share of it grew in proportion.

The original staff of the _Tocsin_ consisted of Armitage, Kosinksi, and myself, with Short occupying the well-nigh honorary post of printer, aided by occasional a.s.sistance or hindrance from his hangers-on. But our staff gradually increased in number if not in efficiency; old M'Dermott was a frequent and not unwelcome visitor, and as time went on he gradually settled down into an inmate of the office, helping where he could with the work, stirring up lagging enthusiasms, doing odd cobbling jobs whenever he had the chance, and varying the proceedings with occasional outbursts of Shakespearian recitation. These recitations were remarkable performances, and made up in vigour for what they perhaps lacked in elegance and _finesse_. Carter would at times put in an appearance, mostly with a view to leaning up against a type-rack or other suitable article of furniture, and there between one puff and another at his pipe would grumble at the const.i.tution of the universe and the impertinent exactions of landlords. Another Englishman who in the earlier days frequented the _Tocsin_ was a tall, thoughtful man named Wainwright, belonging to the working-cla.s.ses, who by the force of his own intelligence and will had escaped from the brutishness of the lowest depths of society in which he had been born.

Thus with little real outside a.s.sistance we worked through the spring and early summer months. Besides bringing out our paper we printed various booklets and pamphlets, organised Anarchist meetings, and during some six weeks housed a French Anarchist paper and its staff, all of whom had fled precipitately from Paris in consequence of a trial.

The lively French staff caused a considerable revolution in Lysander Grove, which during several weeks rang with Parisian argot and Parisian fun. Many of these Frenchmen were a queer lot. They seemed the very reincarnation of Murger's Bohemians, and evidently took all the discomforts and privations of their situation as a first-cla.s.s joke.

Kosinksi detested them most cordially, though, spite of himself, he was a tremendous favourite in their ranks, and the unwilling victim of the most affectionate demonstrations on their part: and when, with a shrug of his shoulders and uncompromising gait, he turned his back on his admirers, they would turn round to me, exclaiming fondly--

_"Comme il est drole, le pauvre diable!"_

They could not understand his wrath, and were obstinately charmed at his least charming traits. When he was singularly disagreeable towards them, they summed him up cheerfully in two words, _Quel original!_ They soon learned, however, not to take liberties with Kosinski, for when one sprightly little man of their number, who affected pretty things in the way of cravats and garters, presumed to dance him round the office, the Russian, for once almost beside himself, seized his persecutor by the shoulders and dropped him over the bal.u.s.trade below, amid the cheers of all present.

He appeared, however, to be their natural prey, and his quaint habit of stumbling innocently into all manner of blunders was a perpetual fount of amus.e.m.e.nt to the humour-loving Gauls. His timidity with women, too, was a perennial joy, and innumerable adventures in which he figured as hero were set afloat.

One little escapade of Kosinski's came somehow to the knowledge of the French Comrades, and he suffered accordingly. Although careless and s.h.a.ggy enough in appearance in all conscience, Kosinski happened to be fastidiously clean about his person. I doubt whether he was ever without a certain small manicure set in his pocket, and an old joke among his Russian friends was that he had failed to put in an appearance on some important occasion--the rescue of a Nihilist from prison, I believe--because he had forgotten his tooth-brush. This was of course a libel and gross exaggeration, but his extreme personal cleanliness was none the less a fact. Now when he first reached London he had scarcely left the station, besooted and begrimed after his long journey, when his eye was arrested by the appearance of a horse-trough. "Most opportune!"

mused Kosinski, "how public-spirited and hygienic this London County Council really is!" and straightway divesting himself of his hat and collar and similar enc.u.mbrances, and spreading out on the rim of the trough his faithful manicure set and a few primitive toilette requisites secreted about his person, he commenced his ablutions, sublimely unconscious of the attention and surprise he was attracting. Before long, however, a riotously amused crowd collected round, and the Russian had finally to be removed under police escort, while attempting to explain to the indignant officer of the law that he had merely taken the horse-trough as a convenient form of public bath for encouraging cleanliness among the submerged tenth.

With the departure of the _ca-Ira_ the office resumed once more, during a brief interval, the even tenor of its ways. Kosinski who, in a spirit of self-preservation, had practically effaced himself during its sojourn, made himself once more apparent, bringing with him a peculiar Swede--a man argumentative to the verge of cantankerousness--who for hours and days together would argue on obscure questions of metaphysics.

He had argued himself out of employment, out of his country, almost out of the society and the tolerance of his fellows. Life altogether was one long argument to this man, no act or word, however insignificant, could he be induced to pa.s.s over without discussing and dissecting, proving or disproving it. Free-love was his particular hobby, though this, too, he regarded from a metaphysical rather than a practical point of view. Like everything else in his life it was a matter for reason and argument, not for emotion; and he and Kosinski would frequently dispute the question warmly.

One day, not long before Christmas, and after I had been nearly a year in the movement, when all London was lost in a heavy fog and the air seemed solid as a brick wall, there landed at the _Tocsin_ a small batch of three Italians fresh from their native country. It was the year of the coercion laws in Italy, of the "domicilio coatto" (forced domicile), and the Anarchists and Socialists were fleeing in large numbers from the clutches of the law.

None of these Southerners had ever been in England before, and having heard grim tales of the lack of suns.h.i.+ne and light in London, they took this fog to be the normal condition of the atmosphere. Stumbling into the lighted office from the blind stifling darkness outside, the leader of the party, a remarkably tall handsome man well known to me by reputation and correspondence, gave vent to a tremendous sigh of relief and exclaimed in his native tongue:

"Thank Heaven, friends, we have overcome the greatest danger of all and we are here at last, and still alive!"

They then advanced towards me and Avvocato Guglielmo Gnecco held out his hand. "You are Isabel Meredith?" he said in a sonorous voice, and I gave an affirmative nod. "I am very glad to meet you at last, Comrade," and we all shook hands. "So this is London! I had heard grim enough tales of your climate, but never had I conceived anything like this. It is truly terrible! But how do you live here? How do you get through your work?...

How do you find your way about the streets? Why, we've been wandering about the streets ever since eleven o'clock this morning, walking round and round ourselves, stumbling over kerb-stones, appealing to policemen and pa.s.sers-by, getting half run over by carts and omnibuses and cabs.

Giannoli here sees badly enough at all times, but to-day he has only escaped by the skin of his teeth from the most horrid series of deaths.

Is it not so, Giacomo?" Giannoli, who had been engaged in enthusiastic greetings with Kosinski, who was evidently an old friend, looked up at this.

"Oh, I've had too much of London already," he exclaimed fervently. "We must leave here for some other country to-night or to-morrow at the latest. We should be better off in prison in Italy than at liberty here.

You see, Comrade," he said, turning to me with a smile, "we Anarchists all belong to one nationality, so I have no fear of wounding your patriotic sentiments."

"But London is not always like this, I a.s.sure you," I began.