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"Bindle!" snapped Mrs. Bindle over her shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Spindle, my mistake."
Mrs. Bindle stalked along the passage, through the front door and out of the gate, leaving Mrs. Gilkes murmuring deprecatingly that she "'adn't no 'eart for a fight."
Although she would not own it, Mrs. Bindle was discouraged by the failure of her first attempt at strike-breaking. But for her good-fortune in encountering Mrs. Hopton at her second venture, she might even have relinquished the part of Lysistrata and have returned home to prepare Bindle's dinner.
It was with something like misgiving that she knocked at No. 32 Wessels Street. This feeling was accentuated when the door was opened with great suddenness by an enormously big woman with a square chin, fighting eyes, and very little hair.
With arms akimbo, one elbow touching either side of the passage, as if imbued with the sentiments of Horatius Cocles, Mrs. Hopton stood with tightly-shut mouth regarding her caller. As soon as Mrs. Bindle had made her mission known, however, Mrs. Hopton's manner underwent an entire change. Her hands dropped from her hips, her fixed expression relaxed, and she stood invitingly aside.
"I'm your woman," she cried. "You come in, Mrs. – "
"Bindle!" prompted Mrs. Bindle.
"You come in, Mrs. Bindle, you got the woman you want in Martha 'Opton. Us women 'ave stood this sort of thing long enough. I've always said so."
She led the way into an airless little parlour, in which a case of wax-fruit, a dusty stuffed dog and a clothes-horse hung with the familiarities of Mrs. Hopton's laundry, first struck the eye.
"I've always said," continued Mrs. Hopton, "that us women was too meek and mild by half in the way we takes things. My man's a fool," she added with conviction. "'E's that easily led by them arbitrators, that's wot I call 'em, that they makes 'im do just wotever they wants, dirty, lazy set o' tykes. Never done a day's work in their lives, they 'aven't, not one of 'em."
"That's what I say," cried Mrs. Bindle, for once in her life finding a congenial spirit outside the walls of the Alton Road Chapel. "I've locked up my house," she continued, "and put a note on the door that I've struck too."
The effect of these words upon Mrs. Hopton was startling. Her head went back like that of a chicken drinking, her hands rose once more to her hips, and her huge frame shook and pulsated as if it contained a high-power motor-engine. Mrs. Bindle gazed at her with widened eyes.
"Her-her-her!" came in deep, liquid gutturals from Mrs. Hopton's lips. "Her-her-her!" Then her head came down again, and Mrs. Bindle saw that the grim lips were parted, displaying some very yellow, unprepossessing teeth. Mrs. Hopton was manifesting amusement.
Without further comment, Mrs. Hopton left the room. In her absence, Mrs. Bindle proceeded to sum-up her character from the evidence that her home contained. The result was unfavourable. She had just decided that her hostess was dirty and untidy, without sense of decency or religion, when Mrs. Hopton re-entered. In one hand she carried a piece of paper, in the other a small ink-bottle, out of which an orange-coloured pen-holder reared its fluted length.
Clearing a space on the untidy table, she bent down and, with squared elbows and cramped fingers, proceeded to scrawl the words: "I have struck too. M. Hopton."
Then, straightening herself, she once more threw back her head, and another stream of "Her-her-her's" gushed towards the ceiling.
"Now I'll come with you," she said at length. Without waiting to don cloak or bonnet, she proceeded to pin the notice on the front door, which she bolted on the inside. She then left by the scullery door, locking it, just as Mrs. Bindle had done, and carrying with her the key.
Although Mrs. Bindle felt that she suffered socially from being seen with the lumbering, untidy Mrs. Hopton, she regarded it as a sacrifice to a just cause. It was not long, however, before she discovered that she had recruited, not a lieutenant, but a leader.
Seizing the list of names and addresses from her companion's hand, Mrs. Hopton glanced at it and turned in the direction of the street in which lived the timid Mrs. Gilkes. As they walked, Mrs. Bindle told the story of Mrs. Gilkes's cowardice, drawing from the Amazon-like Mrs. Hopton the significant words "Leave 'er to me."
"Now then, none of this," was her greeting to Mrs. Gilkes as she opened her front door. "Out you comes and joins the strike-breakers. None o' your nonsense or – " she paused significantly.
Mrs. Gilkes protested her cowardice, she grovelled, she dragged in her sister, Mary, and the wrathful Gilkes; but without avail. Almost before she knew what had happened, she was walking between Mrs. Hopton and Mrs. Bindle, the back-door key clasped in one hand, striving to tie the strings of her bonnet beneath a chin that was obviously too shallow for the purpose. In her heart was a great terror; yet she was conscious of a strange and not unpleasant thrill at the thought of her own daring. She comforted herself with Mrs. Hopton's promise of protection against her lord's anger.
The overpowering personality of Mrs. Hopton was too much for the other wives. The one or two who made a valiant endeavour to stand out were overwhelmed by her ponderous ridicule, which bordered upon intimidation.
"'Ere, get a pen an' ink," she would cry and, before the reluctant housewife knew what had happened, she had announced that she too had struck, and Mrs. Hopton's army had been swelled by another recruit.
At one house they found the husband about to sit down to an early dinner. That gave Mrs. Hopton her chance.
"You lazy, guzzling, good-for-nothing son of a God-damn loafer!" she shouted, her deep voice throbbing with passion. "Call yourself a man? Fine sort of man you are, letting your wife work and slave while you strike and fill your belly with beef and beer. I've seen better things than you thrown down the sink, that I 'ave."
At the first attack, the man had risen from the table in bewilderment. As Mrs. Hopton emptied upon him the vials of her anger, he had slowly retreated towards the scullery door. She made a sudden movement in his direction; he turned – wrenched open the door, and fled.
"I'm sorry to interrupt you, Mrs. – "
"Bolton," said the neat little woman.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Bolton," said Mrs. Hopton; "but we're going to break this 'ere strike, me and Mrs. Bindle and all these other ladies." She waved her hand to indicate the army she had already collected.
Then she went on to explain; but Mrs. Bolton was adamant against all her invitations to join the emancipationists.
"I suppose we got to fight your battle," Mrs. Hopton cried, and proceeded to drench her victim with ridicule; but Mrs. Bolton stood fast, and the strike-breakers had to acknowledge defeat.
It was Mrs. Bindle's idea that they should hold a meeting outside the organising secretary's house. The suggestion was acclaimed with enthusiasm.
"Let's get a tidy few, first," counselled Mrs. Hopton. "It'll make 'im think 'arder."
At the end of an hour, even Mrs. Hopton was satisfied with the number of her supporters, and she gave the word for the opening of hostilities.
That afternoon, just as he was rising from an excellent meal, Mr. James Cunham was surprised to find that his neatly-kept front-garden was filled with women, while more women seemed to occupy the street. Neighbours came out, errand-boys called to friends, that they might not miss the episode, children paused on their way to school; all seemed to realise the dramatic possibilities of the situation.
Mrs. Hopton played a fugue upon Mr. Cunham's knocker, bringing him to the door in person.
"Well, monkey-face," she boomed. There was a scream of laughter from her followers.
Mr. Cunham started back as if he had been struck.
"Want to starve us, do you?" continued Mrs. Hopton.
"What's all this about?" he enquired, recovering himself. He was a man accustomed to handling crowds, even unfriendly crowds; but never had he encountered anything like the cataract of wrathful contumely that now poured from Mrs. Hopton's lips.
"Just 'ad a good dinner, I suppose," she cried scornfully. "Been enjoyin' it, eh? Cut from the joint and two vegs, puddin' to follow, with a glass of stout to wash it down. That the meenyou, eh? What does it cost you when our men strike? Do you 'ave to keep 'alf a dozen bellies full on a pound a week?"
There was a murmur from the women behind her, a murmur that Mr. Cunham did not like.
"Nice little 'ouse you got 'ere," continued Mrs. Hopton critically, as she peered into the neat and well-furnished hall. "All got out o' strikes," she added over her shoulder to her companions. "All got on the do-nothin'-at-all-easy-purchase-system."
This time there was no mistaking the menace in the murmur from the women behind her.
"You're a beauty, you are," continued Mrs. Hopton. "Not much sweat about your lily brow, Mr. Funny Cunham."
Mr. Cunham felt that the time had come for action.
"What's the meaning of this?" he demanded. "Why have you come here, and who are you?"
"Who are we?" cried Mrs. Hopton scornfully. "He asks who we are," she threw over her shoulder.
Again there was an angry murmur from the rank and file.
"We're the silly fools wot married the men you brought out on strike," said Mrs. Hopton, looking the organising secretary up and down as if he were on show. "Creases in 'is trousers, too," she cried. "You ain't 'alf a swell. Well, we just come to tell you that the strike's orf, because we've struck. Get me, Steve?"
"We've declared a lock-out," broke in Mrs. Bindle with inspiration.
Back went Mrs. Hopton's head, up went her hands to her hips, and deep-throated "Her-her-her's" poured from her parted lips.
"A lock-out!" she cried. "Her-her-her, a lock-out! That's the stuff to give 'em!" and the rank and file took up the cry and, out of the plenitude of his experience, Mr. Cunham recognised that the crowd was hopelessly out of hand.
"Are we down-hearted?" cried a voice, and the shrieks of "No!" that followed confirmed Mr. Cunham in his opinion that the situation was not without its serious aspect.
He was not a coward and he stood his ground, listening to Mrs. Hopton's inspiring oratory of denunciation. It was three o'clock before he saw his garden again – a trampled waste; an offering to the Moloch of strikes.
"Damn the woman!" he cried, as, shutting the door, he returned to the room he used as an office, there to deliberate upon this new phase of the situation. "Curse her!"
III
It was nearly half-past ten that night when Bindle tip-toed up the tiled-path leading to the front door of No. 7 Fenton Street.
Softly he inserted his key in the lock and turned it; but the door refused to give. He stepped back to gaze up at the bedroom window; there was no sign of a light.
It suddenly struck him that the piece of paper on the door was not the same in shape as that he had seen at dinner-time. It was too dark to see if there was anything written on it. Taking a box of matches from his pocket, he struck a light, shielding it carefully so that it should shine only on the paper.
His astonishment at what he read caused him to forget the lighted match, which burnt his fingers.
"Well, I'm blowed!" he muttered. "If this ain't it," and once more he read the sinister notice:
"You have struck. We women have declared a lock-out.
"E. Bindle."
After a few minutes' cogitation, he tip-toed down the path and round to the back of the house; but the scullery door was inflexible in its inhospitality.
He next examined the windows. Each was securely fastened.
"Where'm I goin' to sleep?" he muttered, as once more he tip-toed up the path.
After a further long deliberation, he lifted the knocker, gave three gentle taps – and waited. As nothing happened, he tried four taps of greater strength. These, in turn, produced no response. Then he gave a knock suggestive of a telegraph boy, or a registered letter. At each fresh effort he stepped back to get a view of the bedroom window.
He fancied that the postman-cum-telegraph-boy's knock had produced a slight fluttering of the curtain. He followed it up with something that might have been the police, or a fire.
As he stepped back, the bedroom-window was thrown up, and Mrs. Bindle's head appeared.
"What's the matter?" she cried.
"I can't get in," said Bindle.
"I know you can't," was the uncompromising response, "and I don't mean you shall."
"But where'm I goin' to sleep?" he demanded, anxiety in his voice.
"That's for you to settle."
"'Ere, Lizzie, come down an' let me in," he cried, falling to cajolery.
For answer Mrs. Bindle banged-to the window. He waited expectantly for the door to be opened.
At the end of five minutes he realised that Mrs. Bindle had probably gone back to bed.
"Well, I can't stay 'ere all the bloomin' night, me with various veins in my legs," he muttered, conscious that from several windows interested heads were thrust.
Fully convinced that Mrs. Bindle was not on her way down to admit him, he once more fell back upon the knocker, awakening the echoes of Fenton Street.
At the sound of the window-sash being raised, he stepped back and looked up eagerly.
"'Ere, wot the – !"
Something seemed to flash through the night, and he received the contents of the ewer full in the face.
"That'll teach you to come waking me up at this time of night," came the voice of Mrs. Bindle, who, a moment later, retreated into the room. Bindle, rightly conjecturing that she had gone for more water, retired out of reach.
"You soaked me through to the skin," he cried, when she re-appeared.
"And serve you right, too, you and your strikes."
"But ain't you goin' to let me in?"
"When the strike's off the lock-out'll cease," was the oracular retort.
"But I didn't want to strike," protested Bindle.
"Then you should have been a man and said so, instead of letting that little rat make you do everything he wants, him sitting down to a good dinner every day, all paid for out of strikes."
There were sympathetic murmurs from the surrounding darkness.
"But – " began Bindle.
"Don't let me 'ear anything more of you to-night, Joe Bindle," came Mrs. Bindle's uncompromising voice, "or next time I'll throw the jug an' all at you," and with that she banged-to the window in a way that convinced Bindle it was useless to parley further.
"Catch my death o' cold," he grumbled, as he turned on a reluctant heel in the direction of Fulham High Street, with the intention of claiming hospitality from his sister-in-law, Mrs. Hearty. "Wot am I goin' to do for duds," he added. "Funny ole bird I should look in one of 'Earty's frock-coats."
IV
The next morning at nine o'clock, the wives of the strikers met by arrangement outside the organising secretary's house; but the strikers themselves were before them, and Mr. Cunham found himself faced with the ugliest situation he had ever encountered.
At the sight of the groups of strikers, the women raised shrill cries. The men, too, lifted their voices, not in derision or criticism of their helpmates; but at the organising secretary.
The previous night the same drama that had been enacted between Bindle and Mrs. Bindle had taken place outside the houses of many of the other strikers, with the result that they had become "fed up to the blinkin' neck with the whole ruddy business."
"Well!" cried Mrs. Hopton as, at the head of her legion of Amazons, she reached the first group of men. "How jer like it?"
