“I think I shall come down to your parish as an antidote,” said the suffragette, “the only sort of Anti I ever could tolerate.”
Certainly my suffragette is not worthy to be the heroine of a book. I must apologise for presenting a nature so undiluted by any of the qualities that go to make good fiction. A pun, I admit, is the last straw, but it is unfortunately a straw occasionally clutched at by erring humanity, though rarely admitted by the novelist.
“I should not advise you to choose the Brown Borough for the scene of your endeavour,” said the priest hurriedly. “There is little scope for workers unconnected with a church there. I had in my mind for you the neighbourhood of Southwark, or Walworth, South London. Much more suitable, yerce, yerce. The Brown Borough is very unhealthy for those unaccustomed to London slums.”
“Yet your sister gained weight and lost hysteria there,” said the suffragette maliciously. “I myself might be said to have room for improvement on both these points.”
“I strongly advise you to choose another parish,” said the priest, bitterly repenting of his zeal. “So much excellent work has been done in the Brown Borough that the majority of the people ought by now to be on the way to find salvation, both in body and soul.”
“That’s why I propose to come as an antidote,” said the suffragette.
The conversation closed itself. They opened the Spectator and Votes for Women simultaneously.
London provided the sort of weather it reserves for those who return from sun-blessed lands. It was a day with rain in the past and rain in the future, but never rain in the present. The sort of day that makes you feel glad you thought of bringing your umbrella, and then sorry to find you left it in the last bus. The streets looked like wet slates splashed with tears.
The suffragette kept a lonely flat not far from Covent Garden, apparently with the object of ensuring herself the right to exercise a vote when she should have procured that luxury. For she very seldom put the flat to the ordinary uses of flats. It contained a table and two chairs, as a provision against the unlikely event of its owner’s succumbing to social weaknesses. It also contained a bed. Curtains and carpets, and any cooking arrangement more elaborate than a gas-ring, are not included in the Theory of the Hair Shirt, the motto of which is, “I can very well do without.”
The suffragette deposited the mustard-coloured portmanteau at this Spartan abode, and went to report herself to her Society. She was not a famous suffragette. If I told you her name, you would not raise your eyebrows and laugh facetiously and say, “Oh—that maniac....” She was nominally one of the rank and file, although, being rebellious even against co-rebels, she seldom acted under orders.