"She has a right to be on the lawn on Cup Day or in the front circle on first nights. She'd surprise some of the grandees, and with her vivacity and courage she'd make a furore for a time."

"She'd make a good sport if she were a man," a.s.sented Ernest. "No running stiff or jamming a jock on the post or anything like that from her--she'd always. .h.i.t straight out from the shoulder and above the belt."

"Yes; she has particularly infatuated me, and I'd like to save her from Eweword."

"Marry him to the girl Grosvenor while you're about it and that will dispose of him and suit her, for she strikes me as anxious for matrimony."

"She hasn't been--" I began.

"Oh, no, I think she's a splendid woman in every way, but--"

"_But_, even the finest and most chivalrous man, while he thinks the only sphere for women is matrimony, yet is shocked if a woman betrays in the least way that her ambitions lie in the domestic line--strange inconsistency. However, you will not let Dawn know my ideas of disposing of her;" and with the want of perspicacity of his s.e.x, or else with a wonderful power of covering his thoughts excelling that of women, and of which women never suspect men, Ernest promised without sensing what I had in view.

SEVENTEEN.

MRS BRAY AND CARRY COME TO ISSUES.

Contention arose in the Clay household next day, Dawn's singing lessons being at the root of the trouble. It was her week in the kitchen, and that she should be two days absent from the cooking, displeased Carry.

"Well, if you don't think the place fair, you can go!" said grandma.

"But I think you're a fool, an' you're giving me a lot of worry. It's all very fine in other people's places, but some day w'en you have a home of your own you'll know the worry of it. Next time I make a arrangement with a girl she'll have to take a extra day in the kitchen without humbuggin'."

"I'll vote for me grandma on that bill," said Andrew, "for I've often been give the pip by who is in the kitchen an' who is out of it.

Grandma, did you hear the latest? Young Jack Bray's been in another orange orchard and didn't do a get quick enough, and has got took up, and his father will have to pay money to keep him out of quod."

The old lady bristled.

"Didn't I tell you! Who knows how to receive these things best now?

I've always believed in rarin' me family me own way, an' Mrs Bray is a fine woman, moral and decent, but she's got too many stones to throw at others and doesn't see to it sharp enough that less stones can't be threw at her. I thought she didn't take it serious enough. You'd have been in this too only for me dreadin' the spark. What are they goin'

to do?"

"Pay the money, of course; an' Mr Bray is goin' to tan the hide off Jack."

"Some people don't get frightened of dishonesty unless it costs 'em something," said the old lady.

"Well, I'll vote for me grandma every time," said Andrew, "and Jim Clay every second time," as he went out the door, "and meself the most times of all," he concluded in the back yard.

Mrs Bray dropped in that afternoon for a chat, and grandma mentioned that we were without afternoon tea because Carry had "jacked up" about getting it, for reasons before mentioned.

"Just like her!" said Mrs Bray; "she gives herself as much side as if she was one of us. She's the sort of girl who wouldn't think twice of telling you to do a thing yourself, and you've made an awful fool of her by making so much of her. Them things of girls _earnin' their own livin'_ ought to be kept in their place more," was the utterance of a woman who believed herself a staunch advocate for the freedom of her s.e.x; but when Mrs Bray spoke of s.e.x she meant self.

"That ain't the point," said grandma; "I never think it anythink but a credit to a girl to be earnin' her living, an' would never be narrer enough to make them feel it. I always make a practice of treatin' the girls as near equal as within reason, for Carry's every bit as fine-lookin' an' good a girl as me own, an' if I wasn't here, wouldn't Dawn have to be foragin' for herself too? but there's reason in everythink, and Carry might be a bit obligin'."

"Of course she ought to be; but what could you expect of her, took up with that Larry Witcom, an' does the a.s.s think he really wants her?

He's only got her on a string for his own amus.e.m.e.nt? He goes to see that Dora Cowper at the same time; Jack seen him there. I wonder will _he_ be scared off by being thought a ketch before the pot's boiled, so to speak. Good ketches, eh? I don't see nothing in none of them.

They're only thought something because men is scarce here; they've all cleared out to the far out places, and West Australia. It's like a year the pumpkins is scarce, you can sell little things you'd hardly throw to the pigs another time, and that's the way it is with the few paltry fellers round here. It makes me mad to see the girls after them--_the fools!_ and the men grinnin' behind their backs. There's that Ada Grosvenor, if Eweword just calls up and talks to her she tells you about it as if it was something, and inviting him down there, an' then the blessed fellers gets to think they're G.o.ds. It makes me sick!"

"Yes," said grandma; "I see the girls after fellers now,--there's that Danby for instance, he's a fine lump of a man, but w'en I was a girl I wouldn't have made toe-rags of a policeman."

"Yes, a blessed feller strollin' up and down the street lookin' at his toes or runnin' in a drunk. I say, did you hear the latest about old Rooney-Molyneux? He didn't believe in women having the vote, didn't consider they had intellect to vote, so _he_ says (not as much brain as he has, don't you see, to marry a woman, and a baby to be coming and nothing to put on its back, while he strolls round and gets drunk), but now they've got the vote, he says (the great Lord Muck Rooney-Molyneux says it, remember) that it is their _duty_ to use it, and he intends to _make_ (mind you, _make_; I'd like to hear a man say he'd _make_ me do anything; I'd scald him, see if I wouldn't, and that's what wants doing with half the men anyhow, for the way they carry on to women), and he's going to _make_ his wife go round canva.s.sing, _Now_! Men make me sick; w'en they're boys they're that troublesome they ought to be kep' under a tub, and we'n they get older they're that cantankerous and self-important they all want killin'

off."

"I'll bet Mrs Rooney won't be workin' for a different man to him. If her convictions led her that way, you'd see he'd have a flute about her not bein' fit to be out of her home," said grandma astutely.

"Yes, that's the way with 'em; first they thought the world would tumble to pieces if women stirred out of the house for a minute to vote, and now that we've got the vote in spite of them, they'd make their wives walk round after votes for their side whether they was able or not."

"They kicked agen us having the vote, and now we've got it they think we ought to vote with them like as if we was a appendage of theirs; men will be learnt different to that by-and-by, but it's best to go gradual; they've had as much as they can swaller for a time."

"Ain't it just the very devil to them to think women is considered as important as themselves now, instead of something they could just do as they like with? Old Hollis there says he won't vote this year because the women have one. Did you ever hear of an insult like that?

He says the monkeys will have a vote next, and that shows you what men think of women,--like as if they was some sort of animals."

"Well, if you ask me," said grandma, "the monkeys have been havin' a vote all along in the case of old Hollis."

Any further discussion in this line was terminated by the entrance of Carry, with her good-looking face flushed and hard set, as, rolling down her sleeve and b.u.t.toning it aggressively as the finishing touch to her toilet after completing her afternoon's work, she confronted Mrs Bray, on battle bent.

"Well, Mrs Bray, I'd like to have given my opinion of you to your teeth long ago, but I held my tongue as it wasn't my house, and some people have different tastes and have folk around that I'd be a long time having anything to do with. Now, I think things do concern me, and I'm going to have my say; I couldn't have it sooner because I'm a _thing_ earning my living and had to finish my work. I haven't got a home of my own, and like some people, if I had, I'd be in it teaching my dirty rude brats not to be thieves. I wouldn't for everlasting be at other people's places scandalising people twice as good as myself. I didn't think Mrs Clay was the sort of person to go t.i.ttle-tattling--she can please herself; but it doesn't concern you if I do put on airs. I want to know what you mean by that I should be kept in my place. I'll swear I know how to carry my day as well as you do, and to keep in my place too well to be going round meddling with other people's business."

"I didn't say nothing but was correct, an' what right have you to come bullying me? It's like your impudence--you a hussy out to work for your living at a few shillings a-week, and calling yourself a _lady_ help when you're a servant, that's what you are; to bully _me_, a woman with a good home, and the mother of a family."

Carry snorted contemptuously.

"That old 'mother of a family' racket needn't be brought forward. It doesn't hold as much water as it used to. Women are thought just as much of now who are good useful workers in the world, and not tied up to some man and the mother of a few weedy kids that aren't any credit to king or country."

"Mercy!" exclaimed grandma. "What am I to?"

"Let 'em fight it out," I laconically advised in an aside, and she seemed disposed to take my advice.

"You dare," bl.u.s.tered Mrs Bray. "And what else have you got to say?"

"I want an explanation of the aspersion on my character when you said I had taken up with Larry Witcom. I'm not going to stand anything on my character in that line if I _am_ earning my living, and you _are_ the mother of one or fourteen families, all as great a credit to you as the one Jack represents. And as for me earning my living, what are _you_ doing? If a man wasn't keeping you to suit himself, how would you be earning your living? I could earn my living the same way as you are doing to-morrow if I liked; but of the two, I think my present occupation is the decentest and less dependent. Apart from your bullying selfishness, a nice sensible way you have of talking! If you killed off the men, who would you have to keep you? And that's a nice civilised way to speak about your fellow creatures anyhow; whether they be men or black gins, they've just as much place in the scheme of creation as you have. We would have been a long time getting the vote or any other decent right if the men were like you. It's because you are the same stamp as so many of the men that we've been kept down so long as we have; and now, what about me taking up with Larry Witcom?"

"Well, it's well known what Larry is."

"Well, what is he?"

"You ask him about Mrs Park's divorce case."

"I hope you don't think your old man is a saint, do you? As big a fool as you are, you're surely not fool enough for that, are you? Perhaps he isn't as clean a potato as Larry if it was all brought out."

"But he's a married man this many a year, with a married daughter, and his young days are lived down long ago."

"Well, so would Larry be married many a year and have things lived down in time, and not as many to live down either as your husband has at present, if things are true; for all your everlasting shepherding he gets off the chain sometimes."

Hoity-toity! this was putting a fuse to gunpowder.