Kameneff and I dined later at the Café Royal, and then went on to a Revue, which was very bad, but the audience laughed a good deal, and Kameneff wondered at their childish appreciation of rubbish.
August 22nd.
Twelve hours with Kameneff!!!
He arrived at 11 a.m. with a huge album of photographs of the Revolution, very interesting. After looking at it he sat to me for an hour. We then lunched at Claridges’. After lunch we went for a taxi drive along the Embankment, and passing the Tate Gallery, went in. It is being re-arranged, but we found the Burne-Jones’ that Kameneff was looking for. He stood for a long time before “The King and the Beggar-maid.” I suppose that in the new system all the beggar-maids are queens, and that the real kings sit at their feet.
At 4 o’clock we went to Trafalgar Square to see what was going on. The Council of Action were having a meeting. Kameneff assured me that he must not go near the platform, or be recognised by his friends, as he was under promise to the Government to take no part in demonstrations, nor to do any propaganda work. However, I dragged him by the hand to the outskirts of the crowd, and for no reason that I can explain, the shout went up, “Gangway for speakers,” and a channel opened up before us, and we were rushed along it. Happily for Kameneff, there was a hitch as we approached the platform. The crowd thought that a policeman was favouring us unduly, and getting us to the platform, and a youngish man said: “Stop that, policeman, this is a democratic meeting” and tried to prevent us going any farther. For awhile I felt the hostility of the people around me.
One of the speakers, referring to the spirit of 1914, said that we had given our husbands and sons then, but that we did not mean ever to give them again, and, I, thinking of Dick, joined in the shouts of “Never, never!” with some feeling, and I felt the atmosphere kindlier around me after that. When Lansbury tried to speak, he was acclaimed with cheers, and had to wait patiently while they sang “For he’s a jolly good fellow,” and cheered him again.
He seemed to me to talk less of “Class” and more of “Cause.” Just for a second he paused when saying, “What we have to do, is to stop——” I filled in the gap with “Mesopotamia.” Whereupon the crowd shouted “Here, here!” and “God bless you!” After that I was one of them. Then someone recognised Kameneff, and the whisper went round and spread like wildfire. The men on either side of him asked if they might announce that he was there, to which he answered a most emphatic “No.”
When Lansbury had finished speaking, there was an appeal for money for the “Cause.” It was interesting to watch the steady rain of coins, and very touching were the pennies of the poor. Lansbury buried his face in his hat for protection.
After that we went away, and a gangway was made for us, and all along the whisper went of “Kameneff,” and the faces that looked at us were radiant as though they beheld a saviour.
We took a taxi and drove to Hampton Court, and went into the park, to get away from the Sunday crowd. We sat on Kameneff’s coat on the grass in the middle of an open space, and the air was heavy and the sun fitful, as though a storm impended. The distant elms were heavy green, and there was a great stillness and calm.