Walter Besant
The Revolt of Man
CHAPTER IX
THE GREAT CONSPIRACY
ONE morning, after six weeks of this pleasant life, Lord Chester, who had made excellent use of his time, and was now as completely a man as his companions, was summoned to the Bishop’s study, and there received a communication of the greatest importance.
The Professor was the only other person present.
‘I have thought it prudent, Lord Chester,’ said the Bishop gravely, ‘to acquaint you with the fact that the time is now approaching when the great Attempt will be made. Are you still of the same mind? May we look for your devotion – even if we fail?’
‘You may, my lord.’ The young man held out his hand, which the aged Bishop clasped.
‘It is good,’ he said, ‘to see the devotion of youth ready to renounce life and its joys; to incur the perils of death and dishonour. This seems hard even in old age, when life has given all it has to give. But in young men – Yet, my son, remember that the martyr does but change a lower life for a higher.’
‘I give you my life, if so it must be,’ Lord Chester repeated.
‘We take what is offered cheerfully. You must know then, my lord, that the ground has been artfully prepared for us. This conspiracy, which you have hitherto thought confined to one old man’s house and half a dozen young men living with him, is in reality spread over the whole country. We have organisations, great or small, in nearly every town of England. Some of them have as yet only advanced to the stage of discontent; others have been pushed on to learn that the evil condition of men is due chiefly to the government of women; others have learned that the sex which rules ought to obey; others, that the worship of the Perfect Woman is a vain superstition: none have gone so far as you and your friends, who have learned more – the faith in the Perfect Man. That is because you are to be the leaders, you yourself to be the Chief.
‘Now, my lord, the thing having so far advanced, the danger is, that one or other of our secret societies may be discovered. True, they do not know the ramifications or extent of the conspiracy. They cannot, therefore, do us any injury by treachery or unlucky disclosures; yet the punishment of the members would be so severe as to strike terror into the rest of our members. Therefore, it is desirable to begin as soon as possible.’
‘To-day!’ cried the young Chief.
‘No – not to-day, nor to-morrow. The difficulty is, to find some pretext, – some reasonable pretext – under cover of which we might rise.’
‘Can we not invent something.’
‘There are the convicts. We might raise a force, and liberate those of the prisoners who are victims of the harsh laws of violence and the refusal to take a husband’s evidence when accused by a wife. Then the country would be with us. But I shrink from commencing this great rebellion with bloodshed.’
He paused and reflected for a time.
‘Then there is the labour cry. We might send our little force into the towns, and call on the workmen to rise for freedom. But suppose they would not rise? Then – more bloodshed.
‘Or we might preach the Faith throughout the land, as Clarence Veysey wants to do. But I incline not to the belief in wholesale miracles, and the age of faith is past, and the number of our preachers is very small.’
‘You will be helped,’ said the Professor, ‘in a quarter where you least suspect. I, too, with my girls, have done my little.’
She proceeded to open a packet of papers, which she laid before the young Chief.
‘What are these?’ he asked.
‘They are called Tracts for the Times,’ she replied. ‘They are addressed to the Women of England.’
He took them up and read them carefully one by one.
‘Who wrote these?’
‘The girls and I together. We posted them wherever we could get addresses – to all the undergraduates, to all the students of hospitals, Inns of Court, and institutions of every kind; to quiet country vicarages; to rich people and poor people, – wherever there was a chance, we directed a tract.’
‘You have done well,’ said the Bishop.
‘They have been found out, and a reward is offered for the printers. As they were printed in the cellars of this house, the reward is not likely to be claimed. They were all posted here, which makes the Government the more uneasy. They believe in the spread of what they call irreligion among the undergraduates. Unfortunately, the undergraduates are as yet only discontented, because all avenues are choked.’
The Bishop took up one of the tracts again, and read it thoughtfully. It was headed, Tracts for the Times: For Young Women, and was the first number. The second title was Work and Women.
The writer, in brief telling paragraphs, very different from the long-winded, verbose style everywhere prevalent, called upon women seriously to consider their own position, and the state that things had been brought to by the Government of the Peeresses. Every profession was crowded: the shameful spectacle of women begging for employment, even the most ill-paid, was everywhere seen; the law in both branches was filled with briefless and clientless members; there were more doctors than patients; there were more teachers than pupils; there were artists without number who produced acres of painted canvas every year and found no patrons; the Church had too many curates; while architects, journalists, novelists, poets, orators, swarmed, and were all alike ravenous for work at any rate of pay, even the lowest. The happiest were the few who could win their way by competitive examination into the Civil Service; and even there, the Government having logically applied the sound political axioms of supply and demand to the hire of their servants, they could hardly live upon their miserable pay, and must give up all hopes of marriage. There was a time, the tract went on, when men had to do all the work, including the work of the professions. In those days all kinds of work were considered respectable, so that there was not this universal run upon the professions. And in those days, said the writer, the axiom of open competition in professional charges was not acted up to, insomuch that physicians, barristers, and solicitors charged a sum agreed upon by themselves – and that an adequate sum – for services rendered; while the pay of the Service was given in consideration to the amount required for comfortable living. The only way out of the difficulty, concluded the author, was to limit the number of those who entered the professions, to regulate the charges on a liberal scale, and to increase the pay of the Services. As for the rest, if women must work, they must do the things which women can do well – sew, make dresses, cook, and, in fact, perform all those services which were thought menial, unless, indeed, they preferred the hard work of men in the fields and at the looms.
The second tract treated of the Idleness of Men.
By the wisdom of their ancestors, it had been ordained that every man should be taught a handicraft, by means of which to earn his own living. This wholesome rule had been allowed to fall into abeyance; for while some sort of carpenter’s work was nominally and officially taught in boys’ schools, it had long been considered a mark of social inferiority for man to do any work at all. ‘We educate our men,’ the tract went on, ‘in the practice of every gymnastic and athletic feat; we turn them out strong, active, able to do and endure, and then we find nothing for them to do. Is it their fault that they become vacuous, ill-tempered, discontented, the bane of the house which their virtues ought to make a happy home? What else can we expect? Whence the early falling off into fat cheeks and flabby limbs? whence the love of the table – that vice which stains our manhood? whence the apathy at Church services? – whence should they come but from the forced idleness, the lack of interest in life?’
The tract went on to call for a reform in this as in other matters. Let the men be set to work; let men of all classes have to work. Why should women do all, as well as think for all? ‘It must be considered, again, that every man cannot be married; indeed, under the present state of things few women can think of marriage till they have arrived at middle age, and therefore most men must remain single. Why should we doom them to a long life of forced inaction? Happier far the rustic who ploughs the field, or the cobbler who patches the village boots.’ Then there followed an artful and specious reference to old times: ‘Under the former régime, men worked, and women, in the freedom of the house, thought. The nominal ruler was the Hand; the actual, the Head. In those days, the flower of woman’s life was not wasted in study and competition. The maidens were wooed while they were young and beautiful; their lovers worked for them, surrounded them with pleasant things, lapped them in warmth, brought them all that they could desire, made their lives a restful dream of love. It has come to this, O women of the New Faith, that you have thrown away the love of men, and with it the whole joy of creation! You worship the Woman; your mothers, happier in their generation, were contented each to be worshipped by a man.’
‘That is very good,’ said the Bishop.
Then the Professor produced another and a more dangerous manifesto, addressed to the young men of England. It was dark and mysterious: it bade them be on the watch for a great and glorious change; they were to remember the days when men were rulers; they were to distrust their teachers, and especially the priestesses; they were to look with loathing upon the inaction to which they were condemned; they were told to ask themselves for what end their limbs were strong if they were to do nothing all their lives; and they were taught how, in the old days, the men did all the work, and were rewarded by marrying young and lovely women. This tract had been circulated from hand to hand, none of the agents in its distribution knowing anything of the plot.
There were others, all turning upon the evils of the times, and all recalling the old days when women sat at home.
‘We want,’ said the Bishop, ‘a pretext, – we want a spark which shall set fire to this mass of discontent.’
That very night there was a stormy debate in the House of Peeresses. The Duchess of Dunstanburgh, whose Ministry was kept in power by nothing but the stern will of their leader, because it had never commanded the confidence or even the respect of the House, came down with a bundle of papers in her hand. They were these very tracts. She read them through, one by one. She informed the House that these tracts had been circulated wholesale: from every town in the country she received intelligence that they had been taken from some girl’s hands, – in many cases from the innocent hands of young men. She said that it had been ascertained so far that the tracts were posted from Cambridge; it was believed they were the work of certain mischievous and infidel undergraduates. She had taken the unusual course of instituting a college visitation, so far without effect. Meantime she assured the House that if the author of these tracts could be discovered, no punishment would be too severe to meet the offence.
The Countess of Carlyon rose to reply. She said that no one regretted more than herself the tone of these tracts. At the same time there was, without doubt, ample cause for discontent. The professions were crammed; thousands of learned young women were asking themselves where they were to look for even daily bread. In the homes, the young men, seeing the misery, were, for their part, asking why they should not work, if work of any kind were to be got. To sit at home, and starve in gentility, was a hard thing to do, even by the most patient and religious young man; while for a girl to see the days go by barren and unprofitable, while her beauty withered, – to have no hope of marriage; to see the man she might have loved taken from her – here the Countess faced the Duchess with indignant eyes – taken from her by one old enough to be his grandmother, – surely here was cause enough for discontent! She urged the appointment of a commission for the consideration of grievances; and she urged, further, that the evidence of men, old and young, should be received – especially on two important points: first, whether they really liked a life of inaction; and secondly, whether they really liked marrying their grandmothers.
The scene which followed this motion was truly deplorable. The following of Lady Carlyon consisted of all the younger members of the House – a minority, but full of life and vigour; on the opposite side were the old and middle-aged Peeresses, who had been brought up in the doctrine of woman’s divine right of authority, and of man’s divine rule of obedience. The elders had a tremendous majority, of course; but not the less, the fact that such a motion could be made was disquieting. The debate was not reported, but it got abroad; and while the tracts circulated more widely than ever, no more were seized, because they were all kept hidden, and circulated underhand.
From end to end of the country, the talk was of nothing but of the old times. Was it true, the girls asked, that formerly the women ruled at home, while the men did all the work? If that was so, would no one find a compromise by which they could restore that part, at least, of the former régime? Oh, to end these weary struggles, – these studies, which led to examinations; these examinations, which led to diplomas; these diplomas which led to nothing; these agonising endeavours to trample upon each other, to push themselves into notoriety, to snatch the scraps of work from each other’s hands! Oh, to rest, to lie still, to watch the men work! Oh – but this they whispered with clasping of hands – oh, to be worshipped by a lover young and loyal! What did the tract say? Happy women of old, when there was no Perfect Woman, but each was the goddess of one man!
CHAPTER X
THE FIRST SPARK
IN the early autumn the Cambridge party broke up. Clarence Veysey was the first to go. His sisters wanted him at home, they said.
‘They are good girls,’ he sighed, ‘and less unsexed than most of their sex. Thanks to my reputation for ill health, they do not interfere with my pursuits, and I can read and meditate. Writing is, of course, dangerous.’
Lord Chester had not been long at the Professor’s before he discovered two of those open secrets which are known by everybody. They were naturally affairs of the heart. It was pleasant to find that the young priest, the ardent apostle of the old Faith, was in love, and with Grace Ingleby. The courtship was cold, yet serious; he loved her with the selfish affection of men who have but one absorbing interest in life, and yet want a wife in whom to confide, and from whom to receive undivided care and worship. This he would find in Grace Ingleby, – one of those fond and faithful women who are born full of natural religion, to whom love, faith, and enthusiasm are as the air which they breathe.
The other passion was of a less spiritual kind. Algy Dunquerque, in fact, was in love with Faith Ingleby, – head over ears in love, madly in love, – and she with him. He would break off the most absorbing conversation – even a speculative discussion as to how they would carry themselves, and what they would say, when riding in the cart to execution – in order to walk about under the trees with the girl.
‘The fact is,’ he explained, ‘that if it were not for Faith and for you, I doubt if I should have been secured at all for the Revolution. One more good head would have been saved.’
Another complication made his case serious, and added fresh reasons for despatch in the work before them. His mother addressed him, while he was at Cambridge, a long and serious letter – that kind of letter which must be attended to.
After compliments of the usual kind to the Professor and to Lord Chester, – it was for the sake of this young man’s friendship, and its possible social advantages, that Algy, as well as Jack Kennion, was permitted to stay so long from home, – Lady Dunquerque opened upon business of a startling nature. She reminded her son that he was now two-and-twenty years of age, a time when many young men of position are already established. ‘I have been willing,’ she said, ‘to give you a long run of freedom, – partly, I confess, because of your friendship for Lord Chester, who, though in many respects not quite the model for quiet and home-loving boys’ – here Algy read the passage over again, and nodded his head in approbation – ‘will be quite certainly the Duke of Dunstanburgh, and in that position will be the first gentleman of England. But an event has occurred, an event of such good fortune, that I am compelled to recall you without delay. You have frequently met the great lawyer Frederica Roe, Q.C. You will, I am sure, be pleased to learn’ – here Algy took the hand of Faith Ingleby, and held it, reading aloud – ‘that she has asked for your hand.’
‘I am greatly pleased,’ said Algy. ‘Bless the dear creature! She dresses in parchment, Faith, my angel: if you prick her, she bleeds ink; if she talks, it is Acts of Parliament; and when she coughs, it is a special pleading. Her complexion is yellow, her eyes are invisible, she has gone bald, and she is five-and-fifty. What good fortune! What blessed luck!’ Then he went on with his letter.
‘Of course I hastened to accept. She will be raised to the Peerage whenever a vacancy occurs on the Bench. I confess, my dear son, that this match, so much beyond our reasonable expectations, so much higher than our fortune and position entitled us to hope for on your behalf – a match in all respects, and from every point of view, so advantageous – pleases your father and myself extremely. The disparity of age is not greater than many young men have to encounter, and it is proved by numberless examples to be no bar to real happiness. I say this because, in the society of Lord Chester, you may have imbibed – although I rely upon your religious principles – some of those pernicious doctrines which are, falsely perhaps, attributed to him. However, we hope to see you return to us as you left us, submissive, docile, and obedient. And your friendship with Lord Chester may ultimately prove of the greatest advantage to you,’ ‘I hope it will,’ said Jack, laughing, as he read this passage. ‘Your father begs me to add that Frederica, who is only a few years older than himself, is in reality, though somewhat imperious and brusque in manner, a most kind-hearted woman, and likely to prove the most affectionate and indulgent of wives.’
‘What do you think of that, brothers mine?’ he asked, folding up the letter. They looked at each other.
‘Oh, begin at once!’ cried Faith, clasping her hands. ‘They will marry you all, the horrid creatures, before you have struck the first blow. Do you hear, Algy? begin at once.’
‘It is serious,’ said Jack. ‘If pity is any good to you, Algy, you have it. A crabbed old lawyer – a soured, peevish, argumentative Q.C.’ He shuddered. ‘It is already Vacation; she is sure to want to push on the marriage without delay. What are we to do?’
He looked at Lord Chester for a reply.
‘My own case,’ said the young Chief, ‘comes before the House in October. The first blow, so far as I am concerned, must be struck before then.’
‘For Heaven’s sake,’ cried Algy, ‘strike it before this old lawyer swallows me up! I feel like a piece of parchment already. A little delay I can manage; a toothache, a cold, a sore throat – anything would do – but that would only delay the thing a week.’
The little party was broken up. Jack Kennion alone remained. He had obtained permission to accompany Lord Chester to Chester Towers, his country seat. The Professor and the girls were to go too – an arrangement sanctioned by Lady Boltons, happily ordered abroad to drink the waters.
Three weeks passed. Letter after letter came from Algy. His fiancée was pressing on the marriage; he had resorted to every expedient to postpone it; he knew not what he could do next; the day had to be named; wedding presents were coming in; and the learned lawyer proved more odious than could be imagined.
Lord Chester was not idle.
He was sitting one afternoon at this time, Algernon’s last despairing letter in his pocket, on a hill-side four or five miles from the Castle. Beside him stood a young gamekeeper, Harry Gilpin, stalwart and brawny: there was no shooting to be done, but he carried his gun.
‘It is our only chance, Harry,’ said Lord Chester, in low, earnest tones. ‘We must do it. Things are intolerable.’
‘If there’s any chance in it; but it is a poor chance at best.’
‘What, Harry! would you not follow me?’
‘I’ll follow your lordship wherever you lead. I’ll go for your lordship wherever you point. Don’t think I’m afeard for myself. I’m but a poor creature – easy to find plenty as good as me; and if so be I must end my days in a convict-prison, why, I’d rather do it for you, my lord, than for lying accusations.’
‘Good, Harry,’ Lord Chester held out his hand. ‘We understand each other. Death rather than a convict-prison. We strike for freedom. Tell me next about the discontent.’
‘All the country-side is discontented, along o’ the old women. It’s this way, my lord. We get on right well, let us marry our own gells. When the gells gets shoved out o’ the way, and we be told by the Passon to marry this old woman, an’ that, why … ‘tis nature.’
‘It is, Harry, and my case as well as yours. Then if all are discontented, we may get all to join us.’
‘Nay, my lord; many are but soft creatures, and mortal afraid of the women. We shall get some, but we must make them desperate afore they’ll fight.’
‘You keepers can shoot. How many can we reckon on?’
Harry laughed.
‘When your lordship lifts up your little finger,’ he replied, ‘there’s not a keeper for miles and miles round that won’t run to join you, nor a stable-boy, nor a groom, nor a gardener. Ay! a hundred and fifty men, counting boys, will come in, once pass the word. A Chester has lived in these parts longer than men can remember.’
‘Do they remember, Harry, that a Chester once ruled this country?’
‘Ay … so some say … in the days when … but there! it is an old story.’
‘But the girls, Harry, who have lost their lovers, – your own girl, what will she do?’
‘They whimper a bit; they have a row with the old woman; and then the Passon steps in and talks about religion, and they give in.’
‘What! If they saw a chance, if they thought they could get their sweethearts back again, would they not rejoice?’
Harry hesitated.
‘Some would, some wouldn’t. You see, my lord, it’s their religion stands in the way; and their religion means everything. What they say is, that if they married their sweethearts, these being young and proper men, and masterful, they would perhaps get put upon; whereas, they love to rule their husbands. But some would … yes, some would.’
Lord Chester rose, and began slowly to return home across the fields.
A hundred and fifty, and all true and loyal men! As the occupation of most of them prevented their going to church, and kept them apart from the rest, in a kind of loneliness, they were comparatively uninfluenced by religion; and though their wives drew the pay, the keepers understood little about obedience, and indeed had everything their own way. A hundred and fifty men! – a little army. Never before had he felt so grateful for the preservation of game.
‘You said, Harry, a hundred and fifty men!’
‘A hundred and fifty men, my lord, of all ages, by to-morrow morning, if you want them, and no doubt a hundred and fifty more the day after. Why, there are seventy men on the Duchess’s estate alone, counting the rangers, the gardeners, the keepers, stable-boys, and all.’
Three hundred men!
Lord Chester was silent. He had communicated enough of the plot. Harry knew that his master, like himself, was threatened with an elderly wife. He also knew that his master proposed an insurrection against the marriage of young men against their wills. Further, Harry did not inquire.
Now, while the leader of the Revolt was considering what steps to take, – nothing is harder in revolutions than to make a creditable and startling commencement, – accident put in his way a most excellent beginning. There was a hard-working young blacksmith in the village – a brawny, powerful man of thirty or thereabouts. No better blacksmith was there within thirty miles: his anvil rang from morning until night; he was as handsome in a rough fashion as any man need be; and he ought to have been happy. But he was not, for he was married to a termagant. Not only did this wife of his take all his money, which was legitimate, but she abused him with the foulest reproaches, accusing him perpetually of wife-beating, of infidelity, of drunkenness, and of all the vices to which male flesh is liable, threatening him in her violent moods with imprisonment.
That morning there had been a more than usually violent quarrel. The scolding of the beldam in her house was heard over the whole village, so that the men trembled and grew pale, thus admonished of what an angry woman can say. During the forenoon there was peace, the blacksmith working quietly at his forge. In the dinner-hour the row began again, worse than ever. At two o’clock the poor man came out with hanging head and dejected face to his work. One or two of the elder women admonished him against exasperating his wife; but he replied nothing. Children, for whom the unlucky smith had ever a kind word and a story, came as usual, and stayed outside waiting. But there was no word of kindness for them that day. Men passed down the village street and spoke to him; but he made no reply. Then the village cobbler, a widower, and independent, and so old and crusty of temper that no one was likely to marry him, came forth from his shop and spoke to him.
‘How goes it, Tom?’
‘Bad,’ said Tom. ‘Couldn’t be worse. And I wish I was dead – dead and buried and out of it.’
The cobbler shook his head and retired.
Then there came slowly down the street, carrying a basket with vegetables, a young woman of five-and-twenty, and she stopped in front of the forge, and said softly, ‘Poor Tom! I heard her this morning.’
Tom looked up and shook his head. His eyes, which were soft and gentle, were full of tears.
And then … then … the wife rushed upon the scene. Her eyes were red, her lips were quivering, her whole frame shook with passion. For she was no longer simply in a common, vulgar, everyday rage; she was in a rage of jealousy. She seized the younger woman by the arm, dragged her into the middle of the road, and threw herself before her husband in a fine attitude. ‘Stand back!’ she cried. ‘You … you … Susan! He is my man, not yours – not yours.’
‘Poor fellow!’ said Susan. She was a young person with black hair and resolute eyes, and it was well known that she had regarded Tom as her sweetheart. ‘Poor fellow! It was a bad job indeed for him when he became your man.’
.........
A war of words between an elderly woman, who may be taunted with her years, her jealousy, her lack of children, teeth, and comeliness, and a young woman, who may be charged with many sins, is at best a painful thing to witness, and a shameful thing to describe. Suffice it to say, that the elder lady was completely discomfited, and that long after she was extinguished, the girl continued to pour upon her the vials of her wrath. The whole village meanwhile – all the women, and such of the men as were too old for work – crowded round, taking part in the contest. Finally, the wife, stung by words whose bitterness was embittered by their truth, cried aloud, taking the bystanders to witness, that the husband for whose sake, she said, she had endured patiently the falsehoods and accusations of yonder hussy, was nothing better than a beater, a striker, a kicker, a trampler, and a cuffer of his wife.
‘I’ve borne it long,’ she cried, ‘but I will bear it no longer. To prison he shall go. If I am an old woman, and like to die, you shall never have him – do you hear? To prison he shall go, and for life.’
At these words a dead silence fell on all.
The blacksmith stood still, saying not a word, leaning on his hammer. Then his wife spoke again, but slowly.
‘Last night,’ she said, ‘he dragged me round the room by the hair of my head; this morning he knocked me down with his fist; and last Sunday, after church, he kicked me off my chair; yesterday fortnight he beat me with a poker – ’
‘Lies! lies!! LIES!!!’ cried Susan. ‘Tom say they are lies.’
Tom shook his head but spoke never a word.
‘Tom!’ she cried again, ‘they will take you to prison; say they are lies.’
Then he spoke.
‘I would rather go to prison.’
‘Don’t believe her,’ Susan cried. ‘Don’t believe her. Why, she’s got no hair to be pulled… Don’t … Oh! oh! oh!’
She burst into an agony of weeping.
The women clamoured round the group, – some for justice, because wife-beating is an awful sin; some for mercy, because this woman was in her fits of wrath a most notorious liar, and not a soul believed her accusations.
It was in the midst of this altercation that there arrived on the scene, from opposite points, Lord Chester with Harry, and two of the rural police.
‘Take him into custody,’ gasped the blacksmith’s wife. ‘Take him to prison. Oh, the wretch! oh, the wife-beater! oh, I am beaten to a jelly – I am bruised black and blue!’
Lord Chester stepped before the unhappy blacksmith.
‘Stay!’ he said to the policewomen. ‘Not so fast. Tom, what do you say?’ he asked the blacksmith.
‘I never laid hand on her,’ said the unhappy man. ‘But all’s one for that. I suppose I’ll have to go to prison, my lord. Anyhow, there can’t be no prison worse than this life. I’m glad and happy to be rid of her.’
‘Stay again,’ said his lordship. The people gathered closer in wonder. The masterful young lord looked as if he meant to interfere. ‘Some of you,’ he said, ‘take this woman away, and look for any marks of violence. No,’ as the elder women pressed forward, ‘not you who have got young husbands of your own, and would like to get rid of them yourselves perhaps. Some of you girls take her.’
