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&rs............