“It’s dog-stealing,” she thought, “no less. Miss Brown may return to the Island any time crying out for Scottie to come and comfort her. And Scottie will be languishing in England, undergoing quarantine. We are dog-thieves.”
The “we” sent a little heat-wave over the place where her heart should have been.
She had been working very hard all day, walking about the Brown Borough collecting its worries. She was so tired that she could not rest, could not go to bed, could not do anything except sit on her hearthrug and think feverishly of things that did not matter.
Outwardly the suffragette, when in her dressing-gown, and with her hair drawn into a small smooth plait, approached more nearly her vocation than under any other circumstances. She was a nun, dedicated to an unknown God.
“A person to see you,” said the landlady, and flung open the door. The suffragette shot to her feet, with a momentary terrible suspicion that the landlady had said “parson.” Visions of a bashful curate brought face to face with a militant suffragette in her dressing-gown, were, however, swept away by the entrance of Miss Wigsky.
“It’s a —— shime,” remarked the visitor loudly, discarding the convention of greeting.
“Sure to be,” said the suffragette, sinking down upon the hearthrug again. “Nearly everything’s that kind of shame. Sit down and tell me.”
“I tol’ you I’d got a job, you know, at Smiff’s—boot-uppers. A lucky find it were, I thought, ten shillin’ a week an’ I was to be learnt ’ow to work a machine. ’E ses ’e thought I was a likely sort on Monday when I went, but ’e ses as ’e was goin’ to learn me somethink, an’ ’e wanted a special sort of gel, like, ’e ars’t for references. Knowin’ as ’e was a religious sort of gentleman, an’ give ’eaps of money to the Church, I tol’ ’im Farver Christopher for my reference, because Farver Christopher’s known Muvver sence she married, an’ allus said ’e would ’elp ’er whenever ’e could. So when I went agine yesterday, to Smiff’s, ’e ses as ’ow Farver Christopher ’adn’t spoke well of me—said I was unreliable, an’ never stuck to one job. So Mr. Smiff ses in thet cise I wouldn’t suit, but ’e ses as I looked likely ’e’d give me a job as packer at six shillin’. I ses as I couldn’ afford to tike so little money, an’ I tol’ ’im about you an’ the Suffragette Gels. ’E ses you oughter be ashimed of yoursel’, an’ ’e’d write an’ tell Farver Christopher as ’ow ’is Club was an ’otbed of somethink or other. I ’ites Farver Christopher—curse ’im—an’ ’e miking belief to be so ’elpful. I was in my first job free years, an’ jus’ because I chucked the —— job ’e found for me, ’e does me dirty like this. Curse ’im.”
“Don’t,” said the suffragette. “Suffragettes don’t waste breath in cursing—even when there seems to be nothing to do but curse.”
“This evenin’ ...” continued Miss Wigsky, “I went to the Club to see if you was there, though it wasn’t your night. Farver Christopher turned me out, ’e did. ’E’s turned out fifteen of the gels, an’ tol’ them never to come back no more. ’E found out from the others which was the suffragette gels, an’ turned ’em out. I stood up to ’im, and arsk’ ’im wotever we’ve done that’s wrong, there ain’t no ’arm, I ses, in tryin’ to get a livin’ wige. I arsk’ ’im ’ow ’e’d like to live under seven shillin’ a week. ’E ses as ’ow God ’ad called us to this stite of life, an’ it was wicked to try an’ alter it. ’E ses as women are pide what they’re worth, an’ God mide rich an’ poor an’ men an’ women, an’ never meant the poor to be rich, or women to be pretending they was as good as men ... I spit at ’im, miss, I ’ope you’ll excuse me.”