Guardian and ward -- Fiction; Women -- Suffrage -- Great Britain -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
Meanwhile the shouts and booing of the hostile portion of the
audience--just augmented by a number of rough-looking men from the
neighbouring brickfields--prevented most of the remarks delivered by
the male speaker on the cart from reaching the audience.
"Cowards!" said an excited woman's voice--"that's all they can
do!--howl like wild beasts--that's all they're fit for!"
Winnington turned to see a tall girl, carrying an armful of newspapers.
She had flaming red hair, and she wore a black and orange scarf, with a
cap of the same colours. "Foster's daughter," he thought, wondering.
"What happens to them all!" For he had known Kitty Foster from her
school days, and had never thought of her except as a silly simpering
flirt, bent on the pursuit of man. And now he beheld a maenad, a fury.
Suddenly another woman's voice cut across the others--
"Aren't you ashamed of those colours! Go home--and take them off. Go
home and behave like a decent creature!"
Heads were turned--to see a middle-aged woman of quiet dress and
commanding aspect, sternly pointing to the astonished Kitty Foster.
"Do you see that girl?"--the woman continued, addressing her
neighbours,--"she's got the 'Daughters'' colours on. Do you know what
the Daughters have been doing in town? You've seen about the destroying
of letters in London. Well, I'll tell you what that means. I had a
little servant I was very fond of. She left me to go and live near her
sister in town. The sister died, and she got consumption. She went into
lodgings, and there was no one to help her. She wrote to me, asking me
to come to her. Her letter was destroyed in one of the pillar-boxes
raided--by those women--" She pointed. "Then she broke her heart
because she thought I'd given her up. She daren't write again. And now
I've found her out--in hospital--dying. I've seen her to-day. If it
hadn't have been for these demented creatures she might ha' lived for
years."
The woman paused, her voice breaking a little. Kitty Foster tossed her
head.
"What are most women in hospital for?" she said, shrilly. "By the fault
of men!--one way or the other. That's what we think of."
"Yes I know--that's one of the shameless things you say--to us who have
husbands and sons we thank God for!" said the elder woman, quivering.
"Go and get a husband!--if you can find one to put up with you, and
hold your tongue!" She turned her back.
The girl laughed affectedly.
"I can do without one, thank you. It's you happy married women that are
the chief obstacle in our path. Selfish things!--never care for anybody
but yourselves!"
"Hallo--Lathrop's down--that's Miss Blanchflower!" said Andrews,
excitedly. "Let's go on!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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