Some Do Not . . ._ A Novel - Ford Madox Ford [59]
'You don't know the case of the Pimlico army clothing factory workers or you wouldn't say the vote would be no use to women.'
'I know the case perfectly well,' Tietjens said: 'It came under my official notice, and I remember thinking that there never was a more signal instance of the uselessness of the vote to anyone.'
'We can't be thinking of the same case,' she said.
'We are,' he answered. 'The Pimlico army clothing factory is in the constituency of Westminster; the Under-Secretary for War is member for Westminster; his majority at the last election was six hundred. The clothing factory employed seven hundred men at 1s. 6d. an hour, all these men having votes in Westminster. The seven hundred men wrote to the Under-Secretary to say that if their screw wasn't raised to two bob they'd vote solid against him at the next election...'
Miss Wannop said: 'Well then!'
'So,' Tietjens said: 'The Under-Secretary had the seven hundred men at eighteenpence fired and took on seven hundred women at tenpence. What good did the vote do the seven hundred men? What good did a vote ever do anyone?'
Miss Wannop checked at that and Tietjens prevented her exposure of his fallacy by saying quickly:
'Now, if the seven hundred women, backed by all the other ill-used, sweated women of the country, had threatened the Under-Secretary, burned the pillar-boxes, and cut up all the golf greens round his country house, they'd have had their wages raised to half a crown next week. That's the only straight method. It's the feudal system at work.'
'Oh, but we couldn't cut up golf greens,' Miss Wannop said. 'At least the W.S.P.U. debated it the other day, and decided that anything so unsporting would make us too unpopular. I was for it personally.'
Tietjens groaned:
'It's maddening,' he said, 'to find women, as soon as they get in Council, as muddleheaded and as afraid to face straight issues as men!...'
'You won't, by-the-by,' the girl interrupted, 'be able to sell our horse to-morrow. You've forgotten that it will be Sunday.'
'I shall have to on Monday, then,' Tietjens said. 'The point about the feudal system...'
Just after lunch--and it was an admirable lunch of the cold lamb, new potatoes and mint-sauce variety, the mint-sauce made with white wine vinegar and as soft as kisses, the claret perfectly drinkable and the port much more than that, Mrs Wannop having gone back to the late professor's wine merchants--Miss Wannop herself went to answer the telephone...
The cottage had no doubt been a cheap one, for it was old, roomy and comfortable; but effort had no doubt, too, been lavished on its low rooms. The dining-room had windows on each side and a beam across; the dining silver had been picked up at sales, the tumblers were old cut glass; on each side of the ingle was a grandfather's chair. The garden had red brick paths, sunflowers, hollyhocks and scarlet gladioli. There was nothing to it all, but the garden-gate was well hung.
To Tietjens all this meant effort. Here was a woman who, a few years ago, was penniless, in the most miserable-off circumstances, supporting life with the most exiguous of all implements. What effort hadn't it meant! and what effort didn't it mean? There was a boy at Eton...a senseless, but a gallant effort.
Mrs Wannop sat opposite him in the other grandfather's chair; an admirable hostess, an admirable lady. Full of spirit in dashes; but tired. As an old horse is tired that, taking three men to harness it in the stable yard, starts out like a stallion, but soon drops to a jog-trot. The face tired, really; scarlet-cheeked with the good air, but seamed downward. She could sit there at ease, the plump hands covered with a black lace shawl, and descending on each side of her lap, as much at ease as any other Victorian great lady. But at lunch she had let drop that she had written for eight hours every day for the last four years--till that day--without missing a day. To-day being Saturday, she had no leader to write:
'And, my darling boy,' she had said to him. 'I'm giving it to you. I'd give it to no other soul but your father's son. Not even to...' And she had named the name that she most respected. 'And that's the truth,' she had added. Nevertheless, even over lunch, she had fallen into abstractions, heavily and deeply, and made fantastic misstatements, mostly about public affairs...It all meant a tremendous record...