The Lion's Share by Arnold Bennett (booksvooks TXT) 📕

poor things! I'm generally watched. It must cost them a fearful lot of money. But what are they to do?"

"But how were you lamed? I can't eat any tea if you don't tell me--really I can't!"

"Oh, all right!" Jane laughed. "It was after that Liberal mass meeting in Peel Park, at Bradford. I'd begun to ask questions, as usual, you know--questions they can't answer--and then some Liberal stewards, with lovely rosettes in their buttonholes, came round me and started cutting my coat with their penknives. They cut it all to pieces. You see that was the best argument they could think of in the excitement of the moment. I believe they'd have cut up every stitch I had, only perhaps it began to dawn on them that it might be awkward for them. Then two of them lifted me up, one by the feet and the other by the shoulders, and carried me off. They wouldn't let me walk. I told them they'd hurt my leg, but they were too busy to listen. As soon as they came across a policeman they said they had done it all to save me from being thrown into the lake by a brutal and infuriated mob. I just had enough breath left to thank them. Of course, the police weren't going to stand that, so I was taken that night to London. Everything was thought of except my tea. But I expect they forgot that on purpose so that I should be properly hungry when I got to Holloway. However, I said to myself, 'If I can't eat and drink when _I_ want, I won't eat and drink when _they_ want!' And I didn't.

"After I'd paid my respects at Bow Street, and was back at Holloway, I just stamped on everything they offered me, and wrote a petition to the Governor asking to be treated as a political prisoner. Instead of granting the petition he kept sending me more and more beautiful food, and I kept stamping on it. Then three magistrates arrived and sat on my case, and sentenced me to the punishment cells. They ran off as soon as they'd sentenced me. I said I wouldn't go to their punishment cells. I told everybody again how lame I was. So five wardresses carried me there, but they dropped me twice on the way. It was a very interesting cell, the punishment cell was. If it had been in the Tower, everybody would go to look at it because of its quaintness. There were two pools of water near to the bed. I was three days in the cell, and those pools of water were always there; I could see them because from where I lay on the bed the light glinted on them. Just one gleam from the tiny cobwebby window high up. I hadn't anything to read, of course, but even if I'd had something I couldn't see to read. The bed was two planks, just raised an inch or two above the water, and the pillow was wooden. Never any trouble about making beds like that! The entire furniture of this cosy drawing-room was--you'll never guess--a tree-stump, meant for a chair, I think. And on this tree-stump was an india-rubber cup. I could just see it across the cell.

"At night the wardresses were struck with pity, or perhaps it was the Governor. Anyhow, they brought me a mattress and a rug. They told me to get up off the bed, and I told them I couldn't get up, couldn't even turn over. So they said, 'Very well, then; you can do without these things,' and they took them away. The funny thing was that I really couldn't get up. If I tried to move, my leg made me want to shriek.

"After three days they decided to take me to the prison hospital. I shrieked all the way--couldn't help it. They laughed. So then I laughed. In the hospital, the doctor decided that my left ankle was sprained and my right thigh broken. So I had the best of them, after all. They had to admit they were wrong. It was most awkward for them. Then I thought I might as well begin to eat. But they had to be very careful what they gave me. I hadn't had anything for nearly six days, you see. They were in a fearful stew. Doctor was there day and night. And it wasn't his fault. I told him he had all my sympathies. He said he was very sorry I should be lame for life, but it couldn't be helped, as the thigh had been left too long. I said, 'Please don't mention it.'"

"But did they keep you after that?"

"Keep me! They implored my friends to take me away. No man was ever more relieved that the poor dear Governor of Holloway Prison, and the Home Secretary himself, too, when I left in a motor ambulance. The Governor raised his hat to two of my friends. He would have eaten out of my hand if I'd had a few more days to tame him."

Audrey's childlike and intense gaze had become extremely noticeable. Jane Foley felt it upon herself, and grew a little self-conscious. Susan Foley noticed it with eager and grim pride, and she made a sharp movement instead of saying: "Yes, you do well to stare. You've got something worth staring at."

Nick noticed it, with moisture in her glittering, hysteric eyes. Miss Ingate noticed it ironically. "You, pretending to be a widow, and so knowing and so superior! Why, you're a schoolgirl!" said the expressive curve of Miss Ingate's shut lips.

And, in fact, Audrey was now younger than she had ever been in Paris. She was the girl of six or seven years earlier, who, at night at school, used to insist upon hearing stories of real people, either from a sympathetic teacher or from the other member of the celebrated secret society. But she had never heard any tale to compare with Jane Foley's. It was incredible that this straightforward, simple girl at the table should be the world-renowned Jane Foley. What most impressed Audrey in Jane was Jane's happiness. Jane was happy, as Audrey had not imagined that anyone could be happy. She had within her a supply of happiness that was constantly bubbling up. The ridiculousness and the total futility of such matters as motor-cars, fine raiment, beautiful boudoirs and correctness smote Audrey severely. She saw that there was only one thing worth having, and that was the mysterious thing that Jane Foley had. This mysterious thing rendered innocuous cruelty, stupidity and injustice, and reduced them to rather pathetic trifles.

"But I never saw all this in the papers!" Audrey exclaimed.

"No paper--I mean no respectable paper--would print it. Of course, we printed it in our own weekly paper."

"Why wouldn't any respectable paper print it?"

"Because it's not nice. Don't you see that I ought to have been at home mending stockings instead of gallivanting round with Liberal stewards and policemen and prison governors?"

"And why aren't you mending stockings?" asked Audrey, with a delicious quizzical smile that crept gradually through the wonder and admiration in her face.

"You pal!" cried Jane Foley impulsively. "I must hug you!" And she did. "I'll tell you why I'm not mending' stockings, and why Susan has had to leave off mending stockings in order to look after me. Susan and I worked in a mill when she was ten and I was eleven. We were 'tenters.' We used to get up at four or five in the morning and help with the housework, and then put on our clogs and shawls and be at the mill at six. We worked till twelve, and then in the afternoon we went to school. The next day we went to school in the morning and to the mill in the afternoon. When we were thirteen we left school altogether, and worked twelve hours a day in the mill. In the evenings we had to do housework. In fact, all our housework was done before half-past five in the morning and after half-past six in the evening. We had to work just as hard as the men and boys in the mill. We got a great deal less money and a great deal less decent treatment; but to make up we had to slave in the early morning and late at night, while the men either snored or smoked. I was all right. But Susan wasn't. And a lot of women weren't, especially young mothers with babies. So I learnt typewriting on the quiet, and left it all to try and find out whether something couldn't be done. I soon found out--after I'd heard Rosamund speak. That's the reason I'm not mending stockings. I'm not blaming anybody. It's no one's fault, really. It certainly isn't men's fault. Only something has to be altered, and most people detest alterations. Still, they do get done somehow in the end. And so there you are!"

"I should love to help," said Audrey. "I expect I'm not much good, but I should love to."

She dared not refer to her wealth, of which, in fact, she was rather ashamed.

"Well, you can help, all right," said Jane Foley, rising. "Are you a member?"

"No. But I will be to-morrow."

"They'll give you something to do," said Jane Foley.

"Oh yes!" remarked Miss Ingate. "They'll keep you busy enough--_and_ charge you for it."

Susan Foley began to clear the table.

"Supper at nine," said she curtly.


CHAPTER XXII


THE DETECTIVE

Audrey and Miss Ingate were writing letters to Paris. Jane Foley had gone forth again to a committee meeting, which was understood to be closely connected with a great Liberal demonstration shortly to be held in a Midland fortress of Liberalism. Miss Nickall, in accordance with medical instructions, had been put to bed. Susan Foley was in the basement, either clearing up tea or preparing supper.

Miss Ingate, putting her pen between her teeth and looking up from a blotting-pad, said to Audrey across the table:

"Are you writing to Musa?"

"Certainly not!" said Audrey, with fire. "Why should I write to Musa?" She added: "But you can write to him, if you like."

"Oh! Can I?" observed Miss Ingate, grinning.

Audrey knew of no reason why she should blush before Miss Ingate, yet she began to blush. She resolved not to blush; she put all her individual force into the enterprise of resisting the tide of blood to her cheeks, but the tide absolutely ignored her, as the tide of ocean might have ignored her.

She rose from the table, and, going into a corner, fidgeted with the electric switches, turning certain additional lights off and on.

"All right," said Miss Ingate; "I'll write to him. I'm sure he'll expect something. Have you finished your letters?"

"Yes."

"Well, what's this one on the table, then?"

"I shan't go on with that one."

"Any message for Musa?"

"You might tell him," said Audrey, carefully examining the drawn curtains of the window, "that I happened to meet a French concert agent this morning who was very interested in him."

"Did you?" cried Miss Ingate. "Where?"

"It was when I was out with Mr. Foulger. The agent asked me whether I'd heard a man named Musa play in Paris. Of course I said I had. He told me he meant to take him up and arrange a tour for him. So you might tell Musa he ought to be prepared for anything."

"Wonders will never cease!" said Miss Ingate. "Have I got enough stamps?"