bridgit met julia at the train and there was purpose in her eye. julia laughed, knowing that her time had come, but returned the warm embrace with which she was greeted, and allowed herself to be carried without protest to the house in south audley street. mrs. herbert was no less handsome and fascinating than of old, but if anything she was still more upright of carriage, determined of eye, and expressive of ardent purpose. widowed long before the war, geoffrey’s death had made no change whatever in her life, although she had sent after him the sincere and hearty regret she would have felt for the loss of any friend. as she was needed in south africa she had gone there, made herself useful without any fuss, and returned as soon as she could to her work in england. this work was now clearly defined. bridgit herbert, indeed, was not the woman to spend any great amount of time seeking or floundering. no dreamer, her mind, once awakened to the futilities of the life of pleasure, her energies roused, she had applied herself immediately to a survey and study of her times, and found the work which coincided with her particular talents. horrified and disgusted with poverty, she sought and found the obvious remedy in the socialism of the advanced and more practical of the fabians, although the “ideology” of the older socialists would have made little appeal to her. soon convinced, however, that socialism could make little headway against the individualistic and acquisitive mind of the twentieth century male, her fighting blood had warred with her direct practical mind until she had happened to go to the north with an inspector of factories, and listened to somewhat of christabel pankhurst’s propaganda in behalf of woman’s suffrage among the trade-union organizations, a factor in politics of increasing power. she was struck, not only by the abominable grievances of the working women in general and the factory women in particular, but by their intelligence; nor was she long discovering that the average of intelligence all over england was higher among poor women than among poor men. where a man grew dull in the routine of his work and further blunted his faculties in the public house, his wife, with her manifold petty interests and schemings to make a little money go a long way, and filled with ever changing anxieties for her children, was far more alert of mind and eager for improvement. it did not take either mrs. pankhurst or her sleepless daughters to remind bridgit that in this great body of women lay the future hope of socialism, or of any reform directed against the elimination of poverty. but this army was of no more consequence at present than an army of ants. it must have the ballot, and bridgit had spent much of her time in the last two or three years among the working women of england, educating them to a sense of their responsibilities. it was not until 1903 that the women of the middle class were generally roused from the apathy into which they had fallen, with the exception of spurts, since 1884, and the woman’s social and political union was formed by mrs. pankhurst; but when julia arrived in london, the old movement was beginning to lift its head, and bridgit herbert was not the only hopeful and far-seeing mind at work.
“and what is it you want?” asked julia, listening to the old familiar and beloved roar of london. they were in mrs. herbert’s den, and the hostess, her eyes still radiant with hospitality, was standing behind the low fire-screen with a hand on either point. julia wondered if white lodge were a nightmare.
“the vote. because the time has come, men having made a mess of most things, for women to apply their higher faculties to the domestic affairs of the nation; also because the condition of poor women and children in this country is appalling, and men have proved their utter indifference to a fact which is also a factor in so many great incomes. moreover, men have had their day, just as monarchies and aristocracies have had their day. the day of woman and the working-class is dawning, and it is high time.”
“and are women ready?”
“those that are not can be taught. that is what we are for.”
“we? i suppose,” with a sigh of resignation, “that is my métier, what i have been struggling toward all this time.”
“you recognize that you have abilities at last, then?”
“oh, yes, and i shouldn’t wonder if i had ambition, but just now i don’t feel either ambitious or energetic. i’m wild to go to india and the rest of the east?—”
“oh, nonsense, we’ve a great fight coming, and you must brace up and be one of the generals. time enough to idle when you are old. just now, until we can shut france up and ask the courts to give you an income, you are going to be my secretary?—”
“do you really need one?”
“do i? well, rather. i had one of the best, but her mother is ill and she may not be able to return to me for months. you’ll have tons of letters to write.”
“so much the better, for i couldn’t live on even your charity.”
“charity? when my only chance to have an intimate friend is in a secretary, i am so rushed? i’m companionless, but life is frantically interesting.”
and if julia found herself unable to reach this pitch of enthusiasm, she certainly found the new book of life offered for her daily reading quite absorbing enough to fill her time and thoughts. her clerical hours were short. the rest of the day, and often during half the night, she was seeing all the problems at first hand. she went daily with bridgit to the east side and saw poverty outside of books; poverty, unthinkable, criminal, fleshless, stinking. at night she dreamed that all the babies in the world were wailing for food, all the mothers were emaciated, with eyes of bitter resignation, all the little girls pinched and old and hard. herded misery, hopeless filth, black despair. julia was quite unable to recall the reverse side of the picture, in which many were healthy in spite of poverty, and cheerful if only because temperament is stronger than circumstance. she hoped that some day she should fully wake up and burn with a zeal as great as bridgit’s, but now her brain was tired, and, had she but known it, she protested against living for others until she had lived for herself first. quite as unconsciously her mind was made up to live her eastern romance the moment she was free. she heard not a word from france, but guessed the truth; he had forgotten her. if this were the case, however, it might mean that at any moment he would be a dangerous lunatic, and she felt that the duke should be warned. as this was a delicate task, and as her uneasiness grew, she finally, on bridgit’s advice, wrote to his firm of solicitors. solicitors are probably the most conservative members of conservative england; but full of duty withal. the junior member found himself overtaken by a storm near white lodge and craved hospitality of his patron’s distinguished kinsman. france, either because suspicion was still active in a brain not clouded, but blazing with a light unknown to common mortals, or because he happened to be in a good humor, had never appeared to better advantage. the solicitor returned to london so inflamed with indignation that the letter he wrote to julia breathed his contempt for her entire sex. julia shrugged her shoulders and dismissed the matter from her mind. let them work out their own destinies.
when she was not haunting the slums, she was attending meetings: fabian, labor, working-women, co?perators’, old and new suffrage; at all of which the eternal problem of poverty was the main topic of discussion. she was also taken to visit the slaughter-houses, where the ignorance and savagery of the women employed was primeval. she visited the textile factories of the north, where the work of women and children at the loom was relieved only by alternate hours of drudgery in the home, and where there seemed no object in living whatever. the pit-brow women, at least, had developed the strength and endurance of men, and no doubt would have proved equally efficient in war.
manchester was a very hot bed of social reform, and julia was shown all the horrors to which reform owed its concept. she wondered increasingly at the frail fabric of aristocracy and wealth that tottered on its heaving foundations, and conceived some measure of respect for its cleverness.
this drastic experience was enlivened now and again by glimpses of ishbel, still the merriest, and now the happiest, of mortals. the lines of fatigue and anxiety had disappeared, she was once more the prettiest woman in london, and she needed but the halo of her future position as countess of dark to make good people wonder how they could have forgotten it. julia thought her the most fortunate of women, if only because she was realizing all the romantic dreams of her girlhood on the bogs. dark was handsome, clever, kind, almost unselfish. he was profoundly in love and he had a very decent income. above all he had the most romantic title in the british peerage—earl of dark! no wonder those fluttering moths of american girls wanted titles. such a one would make the dullest man in england look romantic to yearning republican eyes, when even an ishbel was enchanted at the prospect of owning it.
“and yet i am the most practical of mortals—the half of me!” she said gayly, one day, as they sat in the boudoir over the shop, drinking tea unseasoned with reform. “odd and modern combination!”
“but you’ll give up the shop?”
“not really. it is co?perative now, and too many would suffer if i neglected it altogether, or withdrew. i must continue to see that it remains a success, for it is something to have solved the problem of living for a few women, at least.”
julia hastily changed the subject.
“shall you become a society beauty again?”
“i’ve hardly thought of it. i mean to be happy, and i think we’ll travel and live in the country for a year. society is always with us. that first year! no duties shall share an hour of it.”
“right you are. i never could love and never want to, and i’m quite resigned to becoming a torch-bearer, suffering martyrdom, if necessary, in the cause of woman, but meanwhile i’ve something up my sleeve. i dare not mention it to bridgit again, and shall have to run away when my time comes, but i can confide in you. the moment i am free i am going to india—persia—arabia—and stay there until some other part of me is gratified, i hardly know what. i only know that the call is unceasing and that i never can accomplish anything here, whole-heartedly, at least, until i have got that off my mind.”
“by all means, go. it’s unhealthy to repress your strongest personal desires, and you are young yet. i wonder, by the way, if you will ever have the zeal of these other women? you have a sort of sardonic humor?—”
“i want a career, and in this rising inevitable woman’s movement lies my chance. when my time comes, my zeal will be great enough—for all they can give me i’ll pay them back a hundred fold. i want power if only because nothing less will pay the debt of these last years, and i am horribly sorry for the poor of the world. when i am ready i shall jump into the arena with my torch, but i’ll find myself wholly in the east first.”
“why not go now? i can let you have the money.”
“no, i’ll wait.”
as it happened she did not have long to wait. she and bridgit were driving home one evening after talking to an intelligent club of east end women, when they heard the familiar cry of “extra,” and a flaming handbill was waved in front of the window as the brougham was blocked. bridgit, whose quick glance overlooked nothing, exclaimed, “great heaven!” and leaned out, throwing the boy a sixpence.
“what is it?” asked julia, languidly. she had been forced on to the platform, and was still cold from fright. “a strike?”
bridgit lifted the tube and gave an order to the coachman that made julia sit erect.
“kingsborough house.” then to her companion, “france tried to kill the duke this afternoon.”
they found kingsborough house in confusion, the flunkys looking as flabby as if the ramrods in their backs had dissolved, leaving nothing but the sawdust stuffing. the duchess was in hysterics upstairs (“she is sure to be an anti,” remarked mrs. herbert); the duke was under the care of his doctor; but lady arabella received them, and graciously observed that she was glad to see that julia still felt herself a member of the house of france. she told them the story, which was brief enough. france had suddenly appeared that afternoon, and upon being shown into the duke’s study had sprung upon his kinsman before the footman had closed the door, demanding that he should abdicate in his favor, threatening him with immediate death if he refused. the footman had called other footmen, and it had taken four of them to hold france down while the duke, his coat torn off and his face bleeding, had himself telephoned for the police. france meanwhile had struggled like a demon, shouting that he had come to kill not only the duke but the boy, that his time had come to live and theirs to die, that they were deliberate malicious enemies who stood between him and the greatness which would permit him to send his invitations to the crowned heads of europe; and “heaven knows what else,” added the distressed lady arabella. “to think of poor harold going mad. at first we thought he might merely have been drinking, but with the police came poor edward’s doctor, and he pronounced him as mad as a hatter. do stay here with me to-night, julia. you are a clever little thing, and always keep your wits about you.”
julia remained at kingsborough house for several days. when the duke heard what little of her own story she was willing to tell, and that she had endeavored to protect him through his solicitors, he was honest enough to admit that he would have been hard to convince of a kinsman’s insanity, and generous enough to be grateful to her. indeed, so relieved was he at his narrow escape, and at the report of the lunacy commission which incarcerated france for life, that he bubbled over with something like human nature; and, as the expensive sanatorium would cut deeply into his cousin’s original income, announced his intention of giving julia for life seven hundred and fifty of the thousand pounds he had so long allowed her husband. julia refused this offer, until the duke told her impatiently that if she did not take it he would merely pay harold’s expenses in the sanatorium, and leave her to the courts, also that she was legally a member of his family, and pride, therefore, absurd. julia turned this over, and concluding that the house of france owed her a good deal more than it could ever pay, consented and thought no more about it. a month later she was on a p. and o. steamer bound for india.