Kitabı oku: «The Revolt of Man», sayfa 12

CHAPTER XIV
THE ARMY OF AVENGERS

THE awful nature of the crisis, and the strangeness of the sight, kept the streets in the neighbourhood of the Camp in Hyde Park full of women, young and old. They roamed about among the tents, looking at the sullen faces of the men, examining their arms, and gazing upon them curiously, as if they were wild beasts. Not one among them expressed the least friendliness or kind feeling. The men were regarded by those who paid them, as well as by the rebels, with undisguised loathing.

About midnight the crowd lessened; at two o’clock, though there were still a few stragglers, most of the curious and anxious politicians had gone home to bed; at three, some of them still remained; at four – the darkest and deadest time of an autumn night – all were gone home, every special constable even, and the Camp was left in silence, the men in their tents, and asleep.

There still remained, however, a little crowd of some two or three dozen girls; they were collected together about the Marble Arch. They had formed, during the evening, part of the crowd; but now that this was dispersed, they seemed to gather together, and to talk in whispers. Presently, as if some resolution was arrived at, they all poured into the Park, and entered the sleeping Camp.

The men were lying down, mostly asleep; but they were not undressed, so as to be ready for their early march. No sentries were on duty, nor was there any watch kept.

Presently the girls found, in the darkness, a cart containing drums. They seized them and began drumming with all their might. Then they separated, and ran about from tent to tent; they pulled and haled the sleepers, startled by the drums, into terrified wakefulness; they cried as soon as their men were wide awake, ‘Wake up all! – wake up! – run for your lives! – the rebels will be on us in ten minutes! They are a hundred thousand strong: run for your lives! – they have sworn to hang every Convict Warden who is not shot. Oh, run, run, run!’ Then they ran to the next tent, and similarly exhorted its sleepers. Consider the effect of this nocturnal alarm. The men slept eight in a tent. There were about thirty girls, and somewhat more than a thousand tents. It is creditable to the girls that the thirty made so much noise that they seemed like three thousand to the startled soldiers. To be awakened suddenly in the dead of night, to be told that their enemies were upon them, to hear cries and screams of warning, with the beating of drums, produced exactly the consequences that were expected. The men, who had no experience of collective action, who had no officers, who had no heart for their work, were bewildered; they ran about here and there, asking where was the enemy: then shots were heard, for the girls found the rifles and fired random shots in the air; and then a panic followed, and they fled – fled in wild terror, running in every direction, leaving their guns behind them in the tents, so that in a quarter of an hour there was not one single man of all the Army of Avengers left in the Camp.

The orders were that the march should begin about six o’clock in the morning – that is, as soon after sunrise as was possible.

It was also ordered that the Army of Avengers should be followed by the Head of the Police Department, Lady Princetown, with her assistant secretaries, clerks, and officers, and that they should be supplied with tumbrils for the conveyance to prison of any who might escape the vengeance prepared for them and be taken prisoners.

At a quarter past six o’clock an orderly clerk proceeded to the Camp. To her great joy the Camp was empty; she did not observe the guns lying about, but as there were no men visible, she concluded that the Army was already on the march. She returned and reported the fact.

Then the order of the Police Procession was rapidly arranged; and it too followed, as they thought, the march of the Avengers.

By this time a good many women were in the streets or at the windows of the houses. Most of the streets were draped with black hangings, in token of general shame and woe that man should be found so inexpressibly guilty. The church bells tolled a knell; a service of humiliation was going on in all of them, but men were not allowed to participate. It was felt that it was safer for them to be at home. Consequently, the strange spectacle of a whole city awake and ready for the day’s work, without a single man visible, was, for one morning only, seen in London.

The Police Procession formed in Whitehall, and slowly moved north. It was headed by Lady Princetown, riding, with her two assistant secretaries; after them came the chief clerks and senior clerks of the Department, followed by the messengers, police constables, and servants, who walked; after them followed, with a horrible grumbling and grinding of wheels, the six great black tumbrils intended for the prisoners.

The march was through Regent Street, Oxford Street, the Tottenham Court Road, Chalk Farm, and so up Haverstock Hill. Everywhere the streets were lined with women, who looked after the dreadful signs of punishment with pity and terror, even though they acknowledged the justice and necessity of the step.

These men, they told each other, had torn down Religion, scoffed at things holy, and proclaimed divorce where the husband had been forced to marry; they pretended that theirs was the right to rule; they were going to destroy every social institution. Should such wretches be allowed to live?

Yet, always, the whisper, the suspicion, the doubt, the question, put not in words, but by looks and gestures, – ‘What have we women done that we should deserve to rule? and which among us does not know that the Religion of the Perfect Woman was only invented by ourselves for the better suppression of man? Who believes it? What have we done with Love?’

And the sight, the actual sight, of those officers of law going forth to bring in the prisoners, was a dreadful thing to witness.

Meantime, what were the Army of Avengers doing?

Slaughtering, shooting down, bayoneting, no doubt. No farther off than the heights of Hampstead their terrible work was going on. It spoke well for the zeal of these devoted soldiers that they had marched so early in the morning that no one had seen them go by. Very odd, that no one at all had seen them. Would Lord Chester escape? And what – oh what! – would be done with Lady Carlyon, Professor Ingleby and her two daughters, and the crowd of girls who had flocked to London with the rebels? Hanging – mere hanging – was far too good for them. Let them be tortured.

The Procession reached the top of Haverstock Hill. Hampstead Hill alone remained. In a short time the relentless Lady Princetown would be on the field of action. Strange, not only that no sign of the Army had been seen, but that no firing had been heard! Could Lord Chester have fled with all his men?

Now just before the Police Procession reached the Heath, they were astonished by a clattering of mounted soldiers, richly dressed and gallantly armed, who rode down the narrow streets of the town and surrounded them. They were a detachment of cavalry headed by Captain Dunquerque, who saluted Lady Princetown laughing. All the men laughed too.

‘I have the honour,’ he said, ‘to invite your ladyship to take a seat in a tumbril. You are my prisoner.’

‘Where – where – where is the Army?’

‘You mean the Convict Wardens? They fled before daylight. Come, my lads, time presses.’

They were actually in the hands of the enemy!

In a few moments the whole of the Chiefs of the great Police Department were being driven in the rumbling black tumbrils, followed by the Lancers, towards the rebel camp. They looked at each other in sheer despair.

‘As for you women,’ said Captain Dunquerque, addressing the clerks and constables, ‘you can go free. Disperse! Vanish!’

He left them staring at each other. Presently a few turned and hurried down the Hill to spread the news. But the greater part followed timidly, but spurred by curiosity, into the Camp.

Here, what marvels met their eyes!

Men, such as they had never dreamed of, bravely dressed, and bearing themselves with a gallant masterfulness which frightened those who saw it for the first time. Presently a trumpet blew and the men fell in. Then the astonished women saw that wonderful thing, the evolutions of an army. The regiments were drawn up in a great hollow square. At one corner stood the fatal black tumbril with Lady Princetown and her aides sitting dolefully and in amazement. Bands of music stood in the centre. Presently Lord Chester, the Chief, rode in with his Staff, and the bands broke out in triumphal strains.

‘Men of England!’ he cried, ‘our enemies have fled. There is no longer any opposition. We march on London immediately.’

The shouts of the soldiers rent the air. When silence was possible, the Bishop, venerable in lawn-sleeves and cassock, spoke, —

‘I proclaim Edward, sometime called Earl of Chester, lawful hereditary King of Great Britain and Ireland. God save the King!’

Then the officers of the Staff did homage, bending the knee and kissing the hand of their Sovereign. And the bands struck up again, playing the old and wellnigh forgotten air ‘God save the King!’ And the soldiers shouted again. And Lady Princetown saw, indeed, that the supremacy of women was gone.

Then the march on London was resumed.

After the advance-cavalry came the Guards, preceding and following the King. Before him was borne the Royal Standard, made long ago for such an occasion by Grace and Faith Ingleby. The bands played and the soldiers sang ‘God save the King’ along the streets. The houses were crowded with women’s faces – some anxious, some sad, some angry, some rejoicing, but all frightened; and the wrath of those who were wrathful waxed fiercer when the company of girls followed the soldiers, dressed in ‘loyal’ ribbons and such finery as they could command, and singing, like the men, ‘God save the King.’

The House of Peeresses was sitting in permanence. Some of the ladies had been sitting all night; a few had fallen asleep; a few more had come to the House early, unable to keep away. They all looked anxious and haggard.

At nine o’clock the first of the fugitives from the Police Procession arrived, and brought the dreadful news that the Army of Avengers had dispersed without striking a blow, that Lady Princetown was a prisoner, and that the rebels would probably march on London without delay.

Then the Duchess of Dunstanburgh informed the terror-stricken House that she had ordered out the three regiments of Guards. They were to be hurled, she said, at the rebels; they would serve to harass and keep them in check while a new army was gathered together. She exhorted the Peeresses to remain calm and collected, and, above all, to be assured that there was not the slightest reason for alarm.

Alas! the barracks were empty!

What then, had become of the Guards?

At the first news of the dispersion of the Avengers, the wives of the Guardsmen, acting with one common consent, made for the barracks and dragged away the soldiers, every woman her own husband to her own home, where she defied the clerks of the War Office, who rushed about trying to get the men together. For greater safety the women hid away the boots – those splendid boots without which the Horse Guards would be but as common men. Of the three thousand, there remained only two orphan drummer-boys and a sergeant, a widower without sisters. To hurl this remnant against Lord Chester was manifestly too absurd even for the clerks of the War Office. Besides, they refused to go.

On the top of this dreadful news, the House was informed by the Chancellor that the officers sent to carry out the arrest of Lady Carlyon reported that her ladyship had fled, and was now in Lord Chester’s camp with the rebels.

What next?

‘The next thing, ladies,’ said a middle-aged Peeress who had been conspicuous all her life for nothing in the world except an entire want of interest in political questions, ‘is that our reign is over. Man has taken the power in his own hands. For my own part, I am only astonished that he has waited so long. It needed nothing but the courage of one young fellow to light the fire with a single spark. I propose that a vote of thanks be passed to her Grace the Duchess of Dunstanburgh, whose attempt to marry a man young enough to be her great-grandson has been the cause of this House’s overthrow.’

She sat down, and the Duchess sprang to her feet, crying out that the House was insulted, and that these traitorous words should be taken down.

‘We shall all be taken down ourselves,’ replied the noble lady who had spoken, ‘before many hours. Can we not devise some means of dying gracefully? At least let us spare ourselves the indignity of being hustled down the steps of Westminster Hall, as the unlucky Department of Police has been this morning hustled on Hampstead Heath.’

Several proposals were made. It was proposed to send a deputation of religion. But the Preaching Sisters had been rejected with scorn, when the army was still small and hesitating. What would happen, now that they were victorious? It was proposed that they should send a thousand girls, young, beautiful, and richly dressed, to make overtures of peace, and charm the men back to their allegiance. The young Lady Dunlop – aged eighteen – icily replied that they would not get ten girls to go on such an errand.

It was proposed, again, that they should send a messenger offering to treat preliminaries on Hampstead Hill. The messenger was despatched – she was the Clerk of the House – but she never came back.

Then the dreadful news arrived that the conqueror had assumed the title of King, and was marching with all his forces to Westminster, in order to take over the reins of power.

At this intelligence, which left nothing more to be expected but complete overthrow, the Peeresses cowered.

‘As everything is gone,’ said the middle-aged lady who had first expressed her opinion, ‘and as the streets will be extremely uncomfortable until these men settle down, I shall go home and stay there. And I should recommend your ladyships to do the same, and to keep your daughters at home until they can learn to behave – as they have tried to make the men behave. My dears, submission belongs to the sex who do none of the work.’

She got up and went away, followed by about half the House. About a hundred Peeresses were left.

‘I,’ said the Duchess of Dunstanburgh, ‘shall remain with the Chancellor till I am carried out.’

‘I,’ said the Chancellor, ‘shall remain to protest against the invasion of armed men and the trampling upon law.’

‘And I,’ said young Lady Dunlop, loud enough to be heard all over the House, ‘shall remain to see Lord Chester – I mean, His Majesty the King. He is a handsome fellow, and of course Constance will be his Queen.’

‘Ladies,’ said the Duchess, dignified and austere to the last, ‘it is at least our duty to make a final stand for religion.’

Lady Dunlop scoffed. ‘Religion!’ she cried. ‘Have we not had enough of that nonsense? Which of us believes any more in the Church? Even men have ceased to believe – especially since they were called upon to marry their grandmothers. The Perfect Woman! Why, we are ourselves the best educated, the best bred, the best born – and look at us! As for me, I shall go over to Lord Chester’s religion, and in future worship the Perfect Man, if he likes to order it so.’

The Duchess made no reply. She had received so many insults; such dreadful things had been said; her cherished faiths, prejudices, and traditions had been so rudely attacked, – that all her forces were wanted to maintain her dignity. She sat now motionless, expectant, haggard. The game was played out. She had lost. She would have no more power.

It was then about half-past three in the afternoon. They waited in silence, these noble ladies, like the Senators of Rome when the Gaul was in the streets – without a word. Before long the tramp of feet and the clatter of arms were heard in Westminster Hall.

The very servants and officers, the clerks, of the House, had run away; there was not a woman in the place except themselves: the House looked deserted already.

There hung behind the Chancellor a heavy curtain rich with gold and lace: no one in that House had ever seen the curtain drawn. Yet it was known that behind it stood the image in marble of the only Sovereign acknowledged by the House – the Perfect Woman.

When the trampling of feet was heard in Westminster Hall, the Duchess of Dunstanburgh rose and slowly walked – she seemed ten years older – towards this curtain: when the doors of the House were thrown open violently, she stood beside the Chancellor, her hand upon the curtain.

Tan-ta-ra-ta-ra! A flourish of trumpets, and the trumpeters stood aside.

The Guards came after, marching up the floor of the House. They formed a lane. Then came the Bishop in his robes, preceded by his chaplain, the Rev. Clarence Veysey, surpliced, carrying a Book upon a velvet cushion; then the officers of the Staff with drawn swords; last, in splendid dress and flowing robes, the King himself.

As he entered, the Duchess drew aside the curtain and revealed, standing in pure white marble, with undraped limbs, wonderful beyond expression, the Heaven-descended figure of the Perfect Woman.

‘Behold!’ she cried. ‘Revere the Divine Effigy of your Goddess.’

The young priest in surplice and cassock sprang upon the platform on which the figure stood and hurled it upon the floor. It fell upon the marble pavement with a crash.

‘So fell the great God Dagon,’ he cried.

Then no more remained. The ladies rose with a shriek, and in a moment the House was empty. It is not too much to say that the Duchess scuttled.

And while the King took his place upon the throne, the bands struck up again, the soldiers shouted, volleys of guns were fired for joy, and the bells were rung.

Strange to say, the dense crowd which gathered about the army of victory outside the Hall consisted almost wholly of women.

CONCLUSION

THE Great Revolution was thus accomplished. No woman was insulted: there was no pillage, no licence, no ill-treatment of anybody, no revenge. The long reign of woman, if it had not destroyed the natural ferocity and fighting energy of men, had at least taught them respect for the weaker sex.

The next steps, are they not written in the Books of the Chronicles of the country?

A few things remain to be noted.

Thus, because the streets were crowded with women come out to see, to lament, sometimes to curse, a proclamation was made ordering all women to keep within doors for the present, except such as were sent out to exercise children, and such as received permission for special purposes: they were forbidden the right of public meeting; the newspapers were stopped; religious worship of the old kind was prohibited.

These apparently harsh and arbitrary measures, tendered necessary by the refractory and mutinous conduct of the lower classes of women, who resented their deposition, were difficult to enforce, and required that every street should be garrisoned. To do this, thirty thousand additional men were needed: these were sent up by Jack Kennion, who had recruited double that number. As the women refused to obey, and it was impossible to use violence towards them, the men were ordered to turn the hose upon them. This had the desired effect; and a few draggled petticoats, lamentable in themselves, proved sufficient to clear the streets.

Then the word was given to bring out all the men and parade them in districts. Indeed, before this order, there were healthy and encouraging signs on all sides that the spirit of revolt was spreading even in the most secluded homes.

The men who formed the first army were entirely country born and bred. They had been accustomed to work together, and freedom became natural to them from the first. The men whom the Order of Council brought out of the houses of London were chiefly the men of the middle class – the most conventional, the worst educated, the least valuable of any. They lacked the physical advantages of the higher classes and of the lower; they were mostly, in spite of the laws for the Promotion of Health and Strength of Man, a puny, sickly race; they had been taught a trade, for instance, which it was not considered genteel to practice; they were not allowed to work at any occupation which brought in money, because it was foolishly considered ungentlemanly to work for money, or to invade, as it was called, woman’s Province of Thought. Yet they had no money and no dot; they had very little hope of marrying; and mostly they lounged at home, peevish, unhappy, ignorantly craving for the life of occupation.

Yet when the day of deliverance came, they were almost forcibly dragged out of the house, showing the utmost reluctance to go, and clinging like children to their sisters and mothers.

‘Alas!’ cried the women, ‘you will find yourselves among monsters and murderers, who have destroyed Religion and Government. Poor boys! What will be your fate?’

They were brought in companies of a hundred each before the officers of the Staff. At first they were turned out to camp in Hyde Park and other open places, where the best among them, finding themselves encouraged to cheerfulness, and in no way threatened or ill treated by these monsters, began to fraternise, to make friends, to practise gymnastics, to entertain rivalries, and in fact to enter into the body corporate. To such as these, who were quickly picked out from the ignoble herd, this new life appeared by no means disagreeable. They even began to listen to the words of the new Preachers, and the doctrines of the new Religion; they turned an obedient ear to the exhortations of those who exposed the inefficacy of the old Government. Finally, they were promoted to work of all kinds in the public departments, or were enlisted in the Army. It presently became the joy of these young fellows to go home and show their new ideas, their new manners, their new uniforms, and their new religion to the sisters whose rule they acknowledged no longer.

There came next the feeble youths who had not the courage to shake off the old chains, or the brains to adopt the new teaching. These poor creatures could not even fraternise; they knew not how to make friends. It was thought that their best chance was to be kept continually in barracks, there to work at the trade they had been taught, to eat at a common table, to live in common rooms, and to be made strong by physical exercise. Out of this poor material, however, very little good stuff could be made. In the long-run, they were chiefly turned into copying-clerks, the lowest and the meanest of all handicrafts.

Allusion has been made to the barracks in which were confined the unmarried men who had no friends to keep them. Among these were the poor creatures afflicted with some impediment to marriage, such as hump-back, crooked back, consumptive tendencies, threatenings of heart disease, cerebral affections, asthma, gout, and so forth. They were employed in houses of business at a very small rate of pay, receiving in return for their labour nothing for themselves but free board and lodging in the barracks. It is curious to relate that these poor fellows proved in the reorganisation of civic matters the most useful allies: they had lived so long together that they knew how to act together; they were so cheap as servants, and so good, that they had been entrusted with most important offices; in short, when the Government seemed about to fall to pieces by the threatened closing of all the mercantile houses, these honest fellows stepped to the front, took the reins, directed the banks, received the new men-clerks, taught and assigned their duties, and, in fine, carried on the trade of the country.

The question of religion was the greatest difficulty. Where were the preachers? There were but two or three in whom trust could be placed; and these, though they did their best, could not be everywhere at once. Therefore, for a while, the Religion of the Perfect Woman having been abolished, there seemed as if nothing else would take its place.

The Government for the present consisted of the titular King, who was not yet crowned, and the Council of State. There were no ministers, no departments, no Houses of Parliament. As regards the Lower House, it would have been unwise to elect it until the constituencies had learned by experience in local matters, something of the Art of Government. But the Upper? Consider that for two hundred years the title had descended through the mother to the eldest daughter. This being reversed, it became necessary to seek out the rightful heirs to the old titles by the male line. No titles were to be acknowledged except those which dated back to the old kings. These, which had been bestowed in obedience to the old laws, were to be claimed by their rightful owners. Now, it is easy to see that while a title held the female branches of the House together, because each would hope that the intervening claimants would drop out, the male branches would not be so careful to preserve their genealogies, and so a great many titles would be lost. This, indeed, proved to be the case, and out of the six hundred Peers who enjoyed their rank under Victoria of the nineteenth century, scarcely fifty were recovered. Many of these, too, were persons of quite humble rank, who had to be instructed in the simplest things before they were fit to wear a coronet.

All later titles were swept away together; nor was any woman allowed a title save by marriage, unless she was the daughter of a Duke, a Marquis, or an Earl, when she might bear a courtesy-title. Of course, the late Peeresses found themselves not only deprived of their power, but even of their very names; and it was the most cruel of all the misfortunes which befell the old Duchess of Dunstanburgh, that she found herself reduced from her splendid position to plain and simple Mrs Pendlebury, which had been the name of her third husband. All her estates went from her, and she retired to a first-floor lodging at Brighton, where she lived on the allowance made her by the Relief Commission appointed by Government for such cases as hers.

As regards public opinion on this and other changes, there was none, because Society was as yet not re-established; and the new daily papers were only feeling their way slowly to the expression of opinion. It remains to be told how these changes were received by the sex thus rudely set aside and deposed.

It cannot be denied that among the elders there was disaffection amounting to blind hatred. Yet what could they do? They could no longer combine; they had no papers; they had no club; they had no halls; they had no theatres for meeting; they had no discussion-forums, – as of old. Even they had no churches; and although in the past days they seldom went into a church, regarding religion as a thing belonging to men, they now made it their greatest grievance, that religion had been abolished. In private houses the worship of the Perfect Woman was long continued by those who had been brought up in that faith, and in days when it was actually believed in and accepted.

As for the younger women, they, too, differed: The lower orders, for a long time, regretted their ancient liberty, when they could leave the husband to work in the house, children and all, and talk together the livelong day. But in time they came round. The middle-aged women, especially those of the professional classes, no doubt suffered greatly by being deprived of the work which was to them their chief pleasure. Some compensation was made to them by a system of partnership, in which practice in their own houses and private consultations were allowed some of them for life. As for the very young, it took a short time indeed to reconcile them to the change.

No more reading for professions! Hurrah! Did any girl ever really like reading law? No more drudgery in an office! Very well. Who would not prefer liberty and seeing the men work?

They gave in with astonishing readiness to the new state of things. They ceased to grumble directly they realised what the change meant for them.

First, no anxiety about study, examinations, and a profession. Next, no responsibilities. Next, unlimited time to look after dress and matters of real importance. Then, no longer having to take things gravely on account of the weaker sex, – the men, who now took things merrily – even too merrily. Lastly, whereas no one was formerly allowed to marry unless she could support a husband and family, and then one had to go through all sorts of humiliating conferences with parents and guardians, – under the new régime every man seemed making love with all his might to every girl. Could anything be more delightful? Was it not infinitely better to be wooed and made love to when one was young, than to woo for oneself when one had already passed her best?

Then was born again that sweet feminine gift of coquetry: girls once more pretended to be cruel, whimsical, giddy, careless, and mischievous; the hard and anxious look vanished from their faces, and was replaced by sweet, soft smiles; flirtation was revived under another name – many names. A maiden loved to have half a dozen – yea, she did not mind half a hundred – dangling after her, or kneeling at her feet, men were taught that they must woo, not be wooed, and that a woman’s love is not a thing to be had for the mere asking: and dancing was revived – real honest dancing of sweetheart and maid. There was laughter once more in the land; and all the songs were rewritten; and such pieces were enacted upon the stage as would but a month ago have taken everybody’s breath away. And there was a general burning of silly books and bad pictures; and they began to open churches for the new Worship, and always more and more the image of the Divine Man filled woman’s heart.