Rebel women Part 10

"I suppose you think," Penelope threw at me with unnecessary vehemence, "that it is only the daughter who lives away from home who is really a rebel."

"On the contrary," I said, "most rebellion is bred in the home. Napoleon said----"

"Oh, I know what Napoleon said," interrupted Penelope. "At least, I know the kind of thing he must have said, if you want to quote it. Seriously, I don't think you know what it feels like to be the daughter who comes back to live at home, after being handicapped by a modern education. You see, the daughter has gone on, and the home hasn't. It isn't mother's fault, because she naturally thought she was fitting me for home life when she let me take a college course in housewifery. But what is the use of knowing all about the chemistry of cooking and the science of house-cleaning, if you have to apply it in a home that has stayed in the same place for a hundred years? Everything and everybody is against one, from the abominable kitchen-range to the cook who has been with mother ever since she was married. You are going to say Napoleon again."

"I was going to say," was the cautious reply she received to this, "that the only victories which leave no regret are those that are gained over ignorance."

"Who said that?" demanded Penelope suspiciously.

"Napoleon," I admitted.

"Now that we have got rid of Napoleon," proceeded Penelope, coldly, "perhaps you will take some interest in--oh, what rubbish to say that about the victories that are gained over ignorance! All the victories you win at home are victories over ignorance, and they always leave regret behind, always, always! That is why it is much worse to win than to lose, when you fight at home, ever so much worse!"

"Having got rid of Napoleon," I said soothingly, "why do we not talk as though we had? Tell me what is wrong with your mother's house, from the college point of view."

Penelope stopped looking crestfallen, and chuckled. "It is all creepers outside and old sinks inside," she exclaimed concisely. "But when I said that to mother, she didn't understand one bit. She even seemed a little hurt. I didn't mean to hurt anybody's feelings, naturally; I was trying to be funny. Do you think," she added irrelevantly, "that there was ever a time when my grandmother called my mother new-fangled?"

Knowing Penelope's mother, I said I thought this possible; knowing Penelope, I went on to suggest that tact was an excellent subst.i.tute for humour in the home.

"I know," she sighed. "But it is only in books that the daughter of the house is a monument of tact and goes about her household duties, rattling an enormous bunch of keys and singing s.n.a.t.c.hes of gay song. I don't know how you sing s.n.a.t.c.hes of anything, but if it in the least resembles what Sarah sings when she is cleaning plate, I am very glad that only one of us does it. Of course, there is mother's old bunch of keys if I want to rattle as I walk; but as soon as I found out that only two of these opened anything, I took off those two and tied them together with a piece of ribbon. Even mother admitted the wisdom of suppressing five-and-twenty keys that belonged to no existing locks; but Cook regards my piece of unofficial key ribbon as one more proof of new-fangled ways. You don't know how difficult it is to be a daughter of the house with success when half the house knew you as a baby, and the other half wishes it had never known you and your new-fangled ways at all."

I asked for details of the new-fangled ways, and the unsuccessful daughter of the house cheered up slightly. "You should have seen their faces," she said, "when I drew up a time-table of meals for a whole week in advance, to save wasting Cook's time, and mine, every morning. Cook nearly gave notice."

To my objection that somebody's unusual appet.i.te or the arrival of an unexpected guest would upset the time-table for the rest of the week, she retorted that the same might be said of the time-table for any one day. "In both cases you would merely send out for something extra," she represented. "But I can't induce Cook to see that. She says it has never been done that way, and--oh, you know the rest! It's so queer, isn't it, that people think there is something abnormal and unfeminine about you if you get the housekeeping done in ten minutes instead of spreading it over the whole morning? Besides, when I set out to make a list of meals for a whole week, I choose a moment when I am feeling hungry and therefore inspired. That gives one a chance of inventing something new; but if I go into the kitchen directly I have eaten a large breakfast, the thought of more meals is intolerable, and I say 'Yes' to all the dull old dishes that Cook suggests."

The housework led to more rebellion, she proceeded to complain. "I did my best to persuade Sarah that if she would do the cleaning in a labour-saving sort of way she would probably have time to go for a walk every day before luncheon. That caused a revolution." Pressed for particulars of the revolution, Penelope chuckled again. "First, there was Cook, who said she had never been in any place where the housemaid went for a walk before luncheon; she further intimated that she could not stay in a place where the housemaid, etc., etc. Then there was mother, who said that, of course, she would not dream of interfering when I was doing everything so nicely, and all that; but if I went away at any time it would be very awkward for her, as she couldn't have the maids going for walks at all hours of the day, with no one to see where they went. I pointed out to her that I should not dream of seeing where they went, if I were at home, also that they already went out on stated evenings, when it might be even more desirable and was certainly less possible to see where they went. Mother was just beginning to understand--mother is splendid, really, you know!--when Sarah spoiled everything by declaring that nothing would induce her to go out in the morning. She had never been expected to do such a thing in any other place, and she wasn't going to be put upon now. If she could have another evening instead and an extra Sunday--well, after that, all was sound and confusion, and mother issued from the struggle kind but triumphant. Since the plate-cleaning episode, which followed close upon the revolution, I have felt a mere flattened failure of a daughter."

The plate-cleaning episode had been caused by the attempted introduction of a cleaning-cloth, which dispensed with the necessity for plate powder or metal paste. "Sarah seemed quite pleased about it at first," said Penelope with a sigh. "She pretended to understand perfectly when I explained how nice it would be to have a clean and empty housemaid's cupboard, instead of having every shelf crowded with plate-brushes and bits of sodden rag and tins of sticky bra.s.s paste, and that horrid saucer full of plate powder that sprinkles pink dust over everything when it gets dry. You know that kind of cupboard, don't you? Well, Sarah took to the idea like a lamb, and everything was going splendidly when mother caught her rubbing up the drawing-room candlesticks with my new patent cloth; and because I couldn't prove on the spur of the moment that the Sheffield plate would be none the worse for it fifty years hence, mother said she had the utmost confidence in my judgment, but she could not help feeling that the old way was safer. After that, I found Cook putting the cloth on the fire with the tongs, while Sarah hoped impressively at the top of her voice that she hadn't given herself blood-poisoning by using the nasty-smelling thing. So now all the old pink saucers and tins and things have reappeared in the housemaid's cupboard, and the plate-cleaning once more occupies the whole of the morning, and the bra.s.s occupies another and the stair-rods another, to say nothing of all the useless copper pots and pans on the kitchen chimney-piece that Cook never uses, but won't let me put away--oh, we are jogging along quite comfortably now in the dear old way of a hundred years ago!"

The sequel to this occurred about a week later, when I went to call on Penelope's mother and found ladders placed against the front of the house, and the trailing creepers of ages given over to the ministrations of the local nurseryman.

"Yes," said Penelope's mother, complacently, "they should have been cut before. Creepers are unhealthy things; they shut out light and air and spoil the window architecture. As Penelope says, the outside is the only part of any house on which the architect has expended either skill or attention, so it is a pity to hide it."

I said something polite down her ear-trumpet about new ways of looking at these things; and Penelope's mother smiled in agreement. "Some people do not know how to move with the times," she said. "Because a thing was done in a certain way a hundred years ago, let it be done in that way for ever and ever, they say. Yet, by bringing intelligence to bear upon the common things of every day, even toil may become a pleasure, and duty--well, duty almost ceases to exist. Of course, I am speaking figuratively," she added hastily, as if she felt she had gone too far.

Not knowing exactly how duty could be a figure of speech, or how, indeed, it could ever be anything else, I remained silent before this reincarnation of the earliest Victorian lady I know; and Penelope's mother took up the silver teapot--not, however, to pour out tea, but to point out to me its s.h.i.+ning surface.

"In my housemaid's cupboard," she said proudly, "you will find no pieces of sodden rag, no tins of sticky bra.s.s paste, or that unpleasant saucer that sprinkles pink dust over everything within reach. We have banished all that in favour of--ah, Penelope, my dear, run and ask Sarah for one of my new cleaning-cloths, will you?"

In the doorway stood Penelope, mockery s.h.i.+ning from her eyes.

"And you dare to tell me that tact is more useful in the home than a sense of humour!" she cried, in a voice that thrilled with scorn.

"At all events," I retorted, "you must admit that Napoleon----"

Penelope went hastily to fetch her mother's new cleaning-cloth.

XIII

The Game that wasn't Cricket

Down the alley where I happen to live, playtime draws a sharp line between the s.e.xes. It is not so noticeable during working hours, when girls and boys, banded together by the common grievance of compulsory education, trot off to school almost as allies, even hand-in-hand in those cases where protection is sought from the little girl by the little boy who raced her into the world and lost--or won--by half a length. But when school is over s.e.x antagonism, largely fostered by the parent, immediately sets in. Knowing the size of the average back yard in my neighbourhood, I have plenty of sympathy for the mother who wishes to keep it clear of children. But I always want to know why, in order to secure this privacy, she gives the boy a piece of bread-and-dripping and a ball, while the girl is given a piece of bread-and-dripping and a baby. And I have not yet decided which of the two toys is the more destructive of my peace.

Every evening during the summer, cricket is played just below my window in the hour preceding sunset. Cricket, as played in my alley, is less noisy than football, in which anything that comes handy as a subst.i.tute for the ball may be used, preferably an old, jagged salmon-tin. But cricket lasts longer, the nerves of the parents whose windows overlook the cricket ground being able to stand it better. As the best working hour of my day is destroyed equally by both, I have no feeling either way, except that the cricket, as showing a more masterly evasion of difficulties, appeals to me rather more. It is comparatively easy to achieve some resemblance to a game of football even in a narrow strip of pavement bordered by houses, where you can place one goal in the porch of the model dwellings at the blind end of the alley, and the other goal among the motor traffic at the street end. But first-cla.s.s cricket is more difficult of attainment when the field is so crowded as to make it hard to decide which player out of three or four has caught you out, while your only chance of not being run out first ball is to take the wicket with you--always a possibility when the wicket is somebody's coat that has a way of getting mixed up with the batsman's feet.

In spite of obstacles, however, the cricket goes on every evening before sunset; and all the while, the little girl who tripped to school on such a gay basis of equality with her brother only a few hours back, sits on the doorstep minding the baby. I do not say that she actively objects to this; I only know with acute certainty that the baby objects to it, and for a long time I felt that it would be at least interesting to see what would happen if the little girl were to stand up at the wicket for a change while her brother dealt with the baby.

And the other evening this did happen. A mother, making one of those sorties from the domestic stronghold, that in my alley always have the effect of bringing a look of guilt into the faces of the innocent, shouted something I did not hear, picked up the wicket, cuffed somebody's head with it and made him put it on, gave the baby to a brother, and sent his sister off to the oil-shop with a jar in one hand and a penny tightly clasped in the other. The interruption over, the scattered field re-formed automatically, somebody else's jacket was made into a mound, and cricket was resumed with the loss of one player, who, by the way, showed an astonis.h.i.+ng talent for minding the baby.

Then the little girl came back from the oil-shop. I know not what spirit of revolt entered suddenly her small, subdued soul; perhaps the sight of a boy minding the baby suggested an upheaval of the universe that demanded her instant co-operation; perhaps she had no distinct idea in her mind beyond a wish to rebel. Whatever her reasons, there she stood, bat in hand, waiting for the ball, while the baby crowed delightedly in the unusual embrace of a boy who, by all the laws of custom, was uns.e.xing himself.

Another instant, and the air was rent with sound and fury. In front of the wicket stood the Spirit of Revolt, with tumbled hair and defiant eyes, breathless with much running, intoxicated with success; around her, an outraged cricket team, strong in the conventions of a lifetime, was protesting fiercely.

What had happened was quite simple. Grasping in an instant of time the only possible way of eluding the crowd of fielders in the narrow s.p.a.ce, the little impromptu batswoman had done the obvious thing and struck the ball against the wall high over their heads, whence it bounded into the open street and got lost in the traffic. Then she ran till she could run no more. Why wasn't it fair? she wanted to know.

"'Cause it ain't--there!" was one illuminating reply.

"'Cause we don't never play that way," was another upon which she was quick to pounce.

"You never thought of it, that's why!" she retorted shrewdly.

She was desperately outnumbered. It was magnificent, but it wasn't cricket; moreover, her place was the doorstep, as she was speedily reminded when the door reopened and avenging motherhood once more swooped down upon the scene. A shake here, a push there--and the boy was back again at the wicket, while a weeping baby lay unheeded on the lap of a weeping Spirit of Revolt.

And the queer thing is that the innovation made by the small batswoman in her one instant of wild rebellion has now been adopted by the team that plays cricket down my alley, every evening before sunset.

XIV

Dissension in the Home

"I should be delighted to get up a meeting for you in my house," said the enthusiastic new recruit. "I always have said that women who paid rates and taxes--I beg your pardon? Oh, speakers--of course, speakers!

Well, they must be the very best you have; people get so easily bored, don't they? And that's so bad for the cause." She reflected an instant, then fired off the names of three famous Suffragettes and was astonished to hear that the well-known leaders rarely had time to address drawing-room meetings.

"Isn't that rather a mistake?" she suggested, with the splendid effrontery of the new recruit. "It is so important to attract the leisured woman who won't go to public meetings for fear of being stuck with a hatpin. I'm really afraid my crowd won't come unless they see a name they know on the cards." Finding that this made no appeal to one who had heard it often before, she asked in a resigned tone if a window breaker would be available. "If I could put on the invitation card--'Why I broke a Prime Minister's window, by One who has done it,' they'd come in flocks. No, it wouldn't matter _much_ if she had broken somebody else's window. As long as she had broken something--do _you_ speak, by the way? Your voice is hardly strong enough, perhaps?"

The suffrage organiser, hoa.r.s.e with having held two open-air meetings a day for the past week, admitted that she did speak sometimes. "I've been to prison too, if that is any good," she added cynically.

The cynicism was unperceived. "Have you? But that will be perfectly delightful! Can I promise them that you will speak about picking oak.u.m and doing the treadmill? Oh, don't they? I thought all the Suffragettes picked oak.u.m in Holloway, and that was why they--never mind! You've really eaten skilly, and that ought to fetch them, if anything will. The Chair? Oh, I really don't think I _could_;--I should die of terror, I know I should. What should I have to do? Yes, I suppose I could tell them why I want a vote. I always have said that women who paid rates and taxes--yes, Wednesday at nine o'clock. You'll come and dine first, won't you? It's so good for the unconverted to meet you at dinner, just to see that you do know how to hold a knife and fork. My husband is so very much opposed; I like to do all I can in a _quiet_ way to show him that the Suffragettes are _not_ all--can't you really? Well, come as early as you can; I shall be simply dead with nervousness if I'm left unsupported. By the way, you'll wear your most feminine frock, won't you? I hope you don't mind my mentioning it, but it is so important to impress the leisured woman--to say nothing of my husband! I am so anxious to avoid causing dissension in the home; I think that would be _wrong_, don't you? Of course, I shall let them all think that you may turn up in goloshes and spectacles; it will make the contrast all the greater, and that is so good for the cause!"

"Mrs. Fontenella wants to give a drawing-room meeting," said the organiser, when she returned to the office. "She seems to have a curious set of friends who look upon suffrage as a sort of music hall entertainment; so she wants me to speak because I have picked oak.u.m in Holloway, and you, because you have broken something. I think she must be an Anti by birth."