Delphi Complete Works of Jerome K. Jerome (Illustrated) (Series Four) (320 page)

ELIZABETH The chains have always been stretched for the few. My sympathies are with my class.

ANNYS But men like Geoffrey — men who are devoting their whole time and energy to furthering our cause; what can you have to say against them?

ELIZABETH Simply that they don’t know what they’re doing. The
French Revolution was nursed in the salons of the French nobility.
When the true meaning of the woman’s movement is understood we
shall have to get on without the male sympathiser.

[A pause.]

ANNYS What do you understand is the true meaning of the woman’s movement?

ELIZABETH The dragging down of man from his position of supremacy.
What else can it mean?

ANNYS Something much better. The lifting up of woman to be his partner.

ELIZABETH My dear Annys, the men who to-day are advocating votes for women are doing so in the hope of securing obedient supporters for their own political schemes. In New Zealand the working man brings his female relations in a van to the poll, and sees to it that they vote in accordance with his orders. When man once grasps the fact that woman is not going to be his henchman, but his rival, men and women will face one another as enemies.

[The door opens. HAKE announces LADY MOGTON and DORIAN ST. HERBERT. LADY MOGTON is a large, strong-featured woman, with a naturally loud voice. She is dressed with studied carelessness. DORIAN ST. HERBERT, K.C., is a tall, thin man, about thirty. He is elegantly, almost dandily dressed.]

ANNYS [Kissing her mother.] Have you had lunch?

LADY MOGTON In the train.

PHOEBE [Who has also kissed her mother and shaken hands with ST. HERBERT.] We are all here except Villiers. She’s coming. Did you have a good meeting?

LADY MOGTON Fairly. Some young fool had chained himself to a pillar and thrown the key out of window.

PHOEBE What did you do?

LADY MOGTON Tied a sack over his head and left him there.

[She turns aside for a moment to talk to ST. HERBERT, who has taken some papers from his despatch-box.]

ANNYS [To ELIZABETH.] We must finish out our talk some other time. You are quite wrong.

ELIZABETH Perhaps.

LADY MOGTON We had better begin. I have only got half an hour.

JANET I saw Mrs. Villiers. She promised she’d come.

LADY MOGTON You should have told her we were going to be photographed. Then she’d have been punctual. [She has taken her seat at the table. ST. HERBERT at her right.] Better put another chair in case she does turn up.

JANET [Does so.] Shall I take any notes?

LADY MOGTON No. [To ANNYS.] Give instructions that we are not to be interrupted for anything. [ANNYS rings bell.]

ST. HERBERT [He turns to PHOEBE, on his right.] Have you heard the latest?

There was an old man of Hong Kong,
Whose language was terribly strong.

[Enter HAKE. He brings a bottle and glass, which he places.]

ANNYS Oh, Hake, please, don’t let us be interrupted for anything.
If Mrs. Mountcalm-Villiers comes, show her up. But nobody else.

HAKE Yes, ma’am.

ST. HERBERT [Continuing.]

It wasn’t the words
That frightened the birds,
’Twas the ‘orrible double-entendre.

LADY MOGTON [Who has sat waiting in grim silence.] Have you finished?

ST. HERBERT Quite finished.

LADY MOGTON Thank you. [She raps for silence.] You will
understand, please, all, that this is a private meeting of the
Council. Nothing that transpires is to be allowed to leak out.
[There is a murmur.] Silence, please, for Mr. St. Herbert.

ST. HERBERT Before we begin, I should like to remind you, ladies, that you are, all of you, persons mentally deficient -

[The door opens. MRS. MOUNTCALM-VILLIERS enters, announced by
HAKE. She is a showily-dressed, flamboyant lady.]

[HAKE goes out.]

MRS. MOUNTCALM-VILLIERS I AM so sorry. I have only just this minute — [She catches sight of ST. HERBERT.] You naughty creature, why weren’t you at my meeting last night? The Rajah came with both his wives. We’ve elected them, all three, honorary members.

LADY MOGTON Do you mind sitting down?

MRS. MOUNTCALM-VILLIERS Here, dear? [She takes the vacant chair.]
So nice of you. I read about your meeting. What a clever idea!

LADY MOGTON [Cuts her short.] Yes. We are here to consider a very important matter. By way of commencement Mr. St. Herbert has just reminded us that in the eye of the law all women are imbeciles.

MRS. MOUNTCALM-VILLIERS I know, dear. Isn’t it shocking?

ST. HERBERT Deplorable; but of course not your fault. I mention it because of its importance to the present matter. Under Clause A of the Act for the Better Regulation, &c., &c., all persons “mentally deficient” are debarred from becoming members of Parliament. The classification has been held to include idiots, infants, and women.

[An interruption. LADY MOGTON hammers.]

Bearing this carefully in mind, we proceed. [He refers to his notes.] Two years ago a bye-election took place for the South-west division of Belfast.

MRS. MOUNTCALM-VILLIERS My dear, may I? It has just occurred to me. Why do we never go to Ireland?

LADY MOGTON For various sufficient reasons.

MRS. MOUNTCALM-VILLIERS So many of the Irish members have expressed themselves quite sympathetically.

LADY MOGTON We wish them to continue to do so. [Turns to ST.
HERBERT.] I’m sorry.

ST. HERBERT A leader of the Orange Party was opposed by a Nationalist, and the proceedings promised to be lively. They promised for a while to be still livelier, owing to the nomination at the last moment of the local lunatic.

PHOEBE [To ANNYS.] This is where we come in.

ST. HERBERT There is always a local lunatic, who, if harmless, is generally a popular character. James Washington McCaw appears to have been a particularly cheerful specimen. One of his eccentricities was to always have a skipping-rope in his pocket; wherever the traffic allowed it, he would go through the streets skipping. He said it kept him warm. Another of his tricks was to let off fireworks from the roof of his house whenever he heard of the death of anybody of importance. The Returning Officer refused his nomination — which, so far as his nominators were concerned, was intended only as a joke — on the grounds of his being by common report a person of unsound mind. And there, so far as South-west Belfast was concerned, the matter ended.

PHOEBE Pity.

ST. HERBERT But not so far as the Returning Officer was concerned. McCaw appears to have been a lunatic possessed of means, imbued with all an Irishman’s love of litigation. He at once brought an action against the Returning Officer, his contention being that his mental state was a private matter, of which the Returning Officer was not the person to judge.

PHOEBE He wasn’t a lunatic all over.

ST. HERBERT We none of us are. The case went from court to court.
In every instance the decision was in favour of the Returning
Officer. Until it reached the House of Lords. The decision was
given yesterday afternoon — in favour of the man McCaw.

ELIZABETH Then lunatics, at all events, are not debarred from going to the poll.

ST. HERBERT The “mentally deficient” are no longer debarred from going to the poll.

ELIZABETH What grounds were given for the decision?

ST. HERBERT [He refers again to his notes.] A Returning Officer can only deal with objections arising out of the nomination paper. He has no jurisdiction to go behind a nomination paper and constitute himself a court of inquiry as to the fitness or unfitness of a candidate.

PHOEBE Good old House of Lords!

[LADY MOGTON hammers.]

ELIZABETH But I thought it was part of the Returning Officer’s duty to inquire into objections, that a special time was appointed to deal with them.

ST. HERBERT He will still be required to take cognisance of any informality in the nomination paper or papers. Beyond that, this decision relieves him of all further responsibility.

JANET But this gives us everything.

ST. HERBERT It depends upon what you call everything. It gives a woman the right to go to the poll — a right which, as a matter of fact, she has always possessed.

PHOEBE Then why did the Returning Officer for Camberwell in 1885 -

ST. HERBERT Because he did not know the law. And Miss Helen Taylor had not the means possessed by our friend McCaw to teach it to him.

ANNYS [Rises. She goes to the centre of the room.]

LADY MOGTON Where are you going?

ANNYS [She turns; there are tears in her eyes. The question seems to recall her to herself.] Nowhere. I am so sorry. I can’t help it. It seems to me to mean so much. It gives us the right to go before the people — to plead to them, not for ourselves, for them. [Again she seems to lose consciousness of those at the table, of the room.] To the men we will say: “Will you not trust us? Is it harm we have ever done you? Have we not suffered for you and with you? Were we not sent into the world to be your helpmeet? Are not the children ours as well as yours? Shall we not work together to shape the world where they must dwell? Is it only the mother-voice that shall not be heard in your councils? Is it only the mother- hand that shall not help to guide?” To the women we will say: “Tell them — tell them it is from no love of ourselves that we come from our sheltered homes into the street. It is to give, not to get — to mingle with the sterner judgments of men the deeper truths that God, through pain, has taught to women — to mingle with man’s justice woman’s pity, till there shall arise the perfect law — not made of man nor woman, but of both, each bringing what the other lacks.” And they will listen to us. Till now it has seemed to them that we were clamouring only for selfish ends. They have not understood. We shall speak to them of common purposes, use the language of fellow-citizens. They will see that we are worthy of the place we claim. They will welcome us as helpers in a common cause. They -

[She turns — the present comes back to her.]

LADY MOGTON [After a pause.] The business [she dwells severely on the word] before the meeting -

ANNYS [She resents herself meekly. Apologising generally.] I must learn to control myself.

LADY MOGTON [Who has waited.] — is McCaw versus Potts. Its bearing upon the movement for the extension of the franchise to women. My own view I venture to submit in the form of a resolution. [She takes up a paper on which she has been writing.] As follows: That the Council of the Woman’s Parliamentary Franchise League, having regard to the decision of the House of Lords in McCaw v. Potts -

ST. HERBERT [Looking over.] Two t’s.

LADY MOGTON — resolves to bring forward a woman candidate to contest the next bye-election. [Suddenly to MRS. MOUNTCALM- VILLIERS, who is chattering.] Do you agree or disagree?

MRS. MOUNTCALM-VILLIERS My dear! How can you ask? Of course we all agree. [To Elizabeth.] You agree, don’t you?

ELIZABETH Of course, even if elected, she would not be allowed to take her seat.

PHOEBE How do you know? Nothing more full of surprises than
English law.

LADY MOGTON At the present stage I regard that point as immaterial. What I am thinking of is the advertisement. A female candidate upon the platform will concentrate the whole attention of the country on our movement.

ST. HERBERT It might even be prudent — until you have got the vote- -to keep it dark that you will soon be proceeding to the next inevitable step.

ELIZABETH You think even man could be so easily deceived!

ST. HERBERT Man has had so much practice in being deceived. It comes naturally to him.

ELIZABETH Poor devil!

LADY MOGTON The only question remaining to be discussed is the candidate.

ANNYS Is there not danger that between now and the next bye- election the Government may, having regard to this case, bring in a bill to stop women candidates from going to the poll?

ST. HERBERT I have thought of that. Fortunately, the case seems to have attracted very little attention. If a bye-election occurred soon there would hardly be time.

LADY MOGTON It must be the very next one that does occur — wherever it is.

JANET I am sure that in the East End we should have a chance.

PHOEBE Great Scott! Just think. If we were to win it!

ST. HERBERT If you could get a straight fight against a Liberal I believe you would.

ANNYS Why is the Government so unpopular?

ST. HERBERT Well, take the weather alone — twelve degrees of frost again last night.

JANET In St. George’s Road the sewer has burst. The water is in the rooms where the children are sleeping. [She clenches her hands.]

MRS. MOUNTCALM-VILLIERS [She shakes her head.] Something ought really to be done.

LADY MOGTON Has anybody any suggestion to make? — as regards the candidate. There’s no advantage in going outside. It will have to be one of ourselves.

MRS. MOUNTCALM-VILLIERS Won’t you, dear?

LADY MOGTON I shall be better employed organising. My own feeling is that it ought to be Annys. [To ST. HERBERT.] What do you think?