Affinities and Other Stories Part 37

But the men came in just then, and I did not learn. It was rather a ghastly evening. We were all most polite and formal and Basil took me home. I told him about my house at home in the United States, and the way I'd been treated, and having nothing at the end of a year but plumber's bills and tax receipts.

"I'm glad you haven't any particular income," he said at last. "That's one element of discord removed."

"I don't understand."

"Yes, you do," he said calmly. "You know exactly what I mean, and what I hope and what I feel. I don't dare to say it, because if I start I'll--Madge, I shall _not_ propose to you until my Uncle Egbert dies. I don't want you until I can support you comfortably--that's a lie. I want you d.a.m.nably, all the time."

I do not remember that we said anything more until we reached Daphne's.

Then, as he helped me out, I said:

"How old is Uncle Egbert?"

"Eighty-six," he replied grimly, and went away without shaking hands.

Well, to go back to Poppy, for of course it is her story I am telling, not mine. Mother came over soon after that and I went with her to Mentone for two months. Then she went back to America from Genoa, and I went back to London. Mother is the sweetest person in the world, and I adore her, but she represents the old-fas.h.i.+oned woman, and of course I stand for the advanced. For instance, she was much more interested in Basil Ward than in the Cause, and she absolutely disapproved of Poppy's stand about the income tax.

"I don't care to discuss the Cause," she said to me. "We have trouble enough now with only the men voting. Why should we double our anxieties?"

"That's silly, mother," I retorted. "Because one baby is a trouble and naughty sometimes, should one have only one child?"

Basil met me at Charing Cross, and I knew there was something up by the very way his stick hung to his arm.

"How's everything?" I asked, when he had called a cab and settled me in it. "How nice and sooty it is, after the Riviera!"

"Filthy hole!" said Basil grumpily. "Haven't had a decent day since you left."

(This was remarkable, because the papers had all said the weather in London was wonderful for that time of year.)

"And Poppy?"

"Poppy's a fool," Basil broke out. "I'm glad you're back, Madge. Maybe you can do something with her."

But he refused to tell me anything further. He asked if I would mind going directly to Lancaster Gate, and sat back in a corner eyeing me most of the way.

"You make me nervous," I said at last. "If you can't look at me pleasantly, why look at all?"

"I can't help looking at you, and I'm blessed if I can look pleasant.

Madge, just how much is your heart and soul in the--er--Cause?"

Well, I was pretty tired of being questioned all the time. I said:

"There isn't any sacrifice I wouldn't make for it."

"If you were married----"

"I wouldn't marry a man who didn't think as I do."

He seemed to drop back further into his corner.

The whole thing puzzled me. For Basil said nothing, but looked dejected and _beaten_, somehow. And yet he had always believed that women should vote.

We found Poppy in her studio, but Viv's workroom below was empty and the door into the pa.s.sage stood open. His desk was orderly and his pens in a row. It looked queer. Poppy was painting, standing before a huge canvas and looking very smeary; she gave me a cheek to kiss, and she was thin!

Positively thin!

"You're looking very fit, Maggie," she said, without a smile. "We've missed her, haven't we, Basil?"

Basil grunted something. Suddenly it occurred to me that he and Poppy hardly glanced at one another, and that he was still holding his hat and gloves. Their constraint, and Viv not around and everything--I was very uncomfortable. Of course, if Basil cared for Poppy and I used to think he did, and if Vivian had found it out--

"No, thanks, Poppy," said Basil, "I'll--I'll drop in again."

"Crumpets for tea!" said Poppy. They'd engaged the cook for her crumpets.

"Thanks awfully," Basil muttered and having said something about seeing me again very soon, he got out. I stared after him. Could this be Basil the arrogant? Basil the abject? This brooding individual who did nothing but stare at me as if he were trying to work something out!

Poppy came over to me, with her fists in the pockets of her painting ap.r.o.n, and looked down at me.

"Frightened, like all the rest!" she said. "They say I'm responsible for hundreds of broken engagements! They made the law themselves, and now, when they see it in operation, they squeal."

It came over me then; Poppy's strained eyes, and her painting without a cigarette, and Basil looking so queer.

"Then Viv----"

"Viv is in jail, my dear," she said. "Men made the law, of course, but I wish you'd hear them! The Husband's Liability Act, child. A married woman's husband is responsible for her debts. I refused to pay my income tax as taxation without representation. Viv got stubborn, and said _he_ wouldn't. Result, the entire male population screaming for help, engaged men breaking with Suffragist fiancees, the population prospects of the country poor, and--Viv in jail!"

I could hardly speak for a minute.

"That--that's what is wrong with Basil?"

"Of course I'm sorry, Maggie. You see, you have an income of your own and at any moment, by refusing to pay the tax on it, you can send Basil to jail."

"If he were any sort of a husband," I said furiously, "he could pay the tax and save all the trouble."

"Not at all. The men have banded together. They call it the Husband's Defence! They take turns at visiting Viv, and sending him books and things. It's--it's maddening."

Poppy asked me to stay with her. She was really in a bad way. She wasn't eating or sleeping, and that very night a crowd of men gathered in front of the house, and hissed and called her things. One of them made a speech. We listened from behind the curtains. He said his wife was holding out her taxes on him and he expected to "go up" the next day.

Poppy went out on the balcony and tried to tell them why she had done it, and that it was a matter of principle, and all that. But they would not listen, and only jeered. She came back into the drawing room quite beaten, and covered her face with her hands.

It was the next evening that Basil told us that Vivian, feeling as he did that he represented the married men of the Kingdom and that he stood for principle also, had gone on a hunger strike!

After all, it was Daphne who came to the rescue. She came over to luncheon the day after and found Poppy in bed with cold cloths on her head, and her wedding ring off. Daphne sniffed.

"You and Viv are two children," she said. "You're a silly for thinking you can beat the government at its own game, which is taxation, and Viv's a fool for letting you be one."

Poppy is not placid of disposition, and she flung the cold cloths at Daphne and ordered her out. But Daphne only wrung out the cloths and hung them up, and raised the shades.

"You haven't got a headache; you have a pain in your disposition," she said. "Put this on again."