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The men turned aside, grumbling in their throats.
"Her-her-her!" she laughed. "Boot's on the other foot now, my pretty canaries, ain't it? Nobody mustn't do anythink to upset you; but you can do what you streamin' well like, you lot o' silly mugs!
"Wotjer let that little rat-faced sniveller turn you round 'is little finger for? You ain't men, you're just Unionists wot 'ave got to do wot 'e tells you. I see 'im yesterday," she continued after a slight pause, "'aving a rare ole guzzle wot you pays for by striking. 'Ow much does it cost 'im? That's wot I want to know, the rat-faced little stinker!"
At that moment "the rat-faced little stinker" himself appeared, hat on head and light overcoat thrown over his arm. He smiled wearily, he was not favourably impressed by the look of things.
His appearance was the signal for shrill shouts from the women, and a grumbling murmur from the men.
"'Ere's Kayser Cunham," shouted one woman, and then individual cries were drowned in the angry murmur of protest and recrimination.
Mr. Cunham found himself faced by the same men who, the day before, had greeted his words with cheers. Now they made it manifest that if he did not find a way out of the strike difficulty, there would be trouble.
"Take that!" roared Mrs. Hopton hoarsely, as she snatched something from a paper-bag she was carrying, and hurled it with all her might at the leader. Her aim was bad, and a small man, standing at right angles to the Union secretary, received a large and painfully ripe tomato full on the chin.
Mrs. Hopton's cry was a signal to the other women. From beneath cloaks and capes they produced every conceivable missile, including a number of eggs far gone towards chickenhood. With more zeal than accuracy of aim, they hurled them at the unfortunate Mr. Cunham. For a full minute he stood his ground valiantly, then, an egg catching him between the eyes brought swift oblivion.
The strikers, however, did not manifest the courage of their leader. Although intended for the organising secretary, most of the missiles found a way into their ranks. They wavered and, a moment after, turned and fled.
Approaching nearer, the women concentrated upon him whom they regarded as responsible for the strike, and their aim improved. Some of their shots took effect on his person, but most of them on the front of the house. Three windows were broken, and it was not until Mrs. Cunham came and dragged her egg-bespattered lord into the passage, banging-to the street door behind her, that the storm began to die down.
By this time a considerable crowd of interested spectators had gathered.
"Just shows you what us women can do if we've a mind to do it," was the oracular utterance of one woman, who prided herself upon having been the first arrival outside the actual combatants.
"She ain't 'alf a caution," remarked a "lady friend," who had joined her soon after the outbreak of hostilities. "That big un," she added, nodding in the direction of Mrs. Hopton, who, arms on hips and head thrown back, was giving vent to her mirth in a series of "her-her-her's."
A policeman pushed his way through the crowd towards the gate. Mrs. Hopton, catching sight of him, turned.
"You take my advice, my lad, and keep out of this."
The policeman looked about him a little uncertainly.
"What's the matter?" he enquired.
"It's a strike and a lock-out," she explained, "an' they got a bit mixed. We ain't got no quarrel with a good-looking young chap like you, an' we're on private premises, so you just jazz along as if you 'adn't seen us."
A smile fluttered about the lips of the policeman. The thought of passing Mrs. Hopton without seeing her amused him; still he took no active part in the proceedings, beyond an official exhortation to the crowd to "pass along, please."
"Well, ladies," said Mrs. Hopton, addressing her victorious legions; "it's all over now, bar shoutin'. If any o' your men start a-knockin' you about, tell 'em we're a-goin' to stand together, and just let me know. We'll come round and make 'em wish they'd been born somethink wot can't feel."
That morning the manager at the yard received a deputation from the men, headed by Mr. Cunham, who, although he had changed his clothes and taken a hot bath, was still conscious of the disgusting reek of rotten eggs. Before dinner-time the whole matter had been settled, and the men were to resume work at two o'clock.
Bindle reached home a few minutes to one, hungry and expectant. The notice had been removed from the front door, and he found Mrs. Bindle in the kitchen ironing.
"Well," she demanded as he entered, "what do you want?"
"Strike's orf, Lizzie," he said genially, an anxious eye turned to the stove upon which, however, there were no saucepans. This decided him that his dinner was in the oven.
"I could have told you that!" was her sole comment, and she proceeded with her ironing.
For a few minutes Bindle looked about him, then once more fixed his gaze upon the oven.
"Wot time you goin' to 'ave dinner, Lizzie?" he asked, with all the geniality of a prodigal doubtful of his welcome.
"I've had it." Mrs. Bindle's lips met in a hard, firm line.
"Is mine in the oven?"
"Better look and see."
He walked across to the stove and opened the oven door. It was as bare as the cupboard of Mrs. Hubbard.
"Wot you done with it, Lizzie?" he enquired, misgiving clutching at his heart.
"What have I done with what?" she snapped, as she brought her iron down with a bang that caused him to jump.
"My little bit o' groundsel."
"When you talk sense, perhaps I can understand you."
"My dinner," he explained with an injured air.
"When you've done a day's work you'll get a day's dinner, and not before."
"But the strike's orf."
"So's the lock-out."
"But – "
"Don't stand there 'butting' me. Go and do some work, then you'll have something to eat," and Mrs. Bindle reversed the pillow-case she was ironing, and got in a straight right full in the centre of it, whilst Bindle turned gloomily to the door and made his way to The Yellow Ostrich, where, over a pint of beer and some bread and cheese, he gloomed his discontent.
"No more strikes for me," said a man seated opposite, who was similarly engaged.
"Same 'ere," said Bindle.
"Bob Cunham got a flea in 'is ear this mornin' wot 'e's been askin' for," said the man, and Bindle, nodding in agreement, buried his face in his pewter.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Hopton was explaining to a few personal friends how it all had happened.
"She done good work in startin' of us orf," was her tribute to Mrs. Bindle; "but I can't say I takes to her as a friend."
CHAPTER II
MRS. BINDLE'S WASHING-DAY
I
Shoooooooossssh!
Like a silver flash, the contents of a water-jug descended upon the back of the moth-eaten sandy cat, engaged in excavating Mrs. Bindle's geranium-bed.
A curve of yellow, and Mrs. Sawney's "Sandy" had taken the dividing wall between No. 7 and No. 9 in one movement – and the drama was over.
Mrs. Bindle closed her parlour-window. She refilled the jug, placing it ready for the next delinquent and then returned to her domestic duties.
On the other side of a thin partitioning wall, Mrs. Sawney left the window from which she had viewed her cat's attack upon Mrs. Bindle's geranium-bed, and Mrs. Bindle's counter-attack upon Sandy's person. Passing into the small passage she opened the front door, her lips set in a determined line.
"Sandy, Sandy, Sandy, Sandy," she called, in accents that caused Sandy, now three gardens away, to pause in the act of shaking his various members one by one, in an endeavour to disembarrass himself of the contents of Mrs. Bindle's water-jug.
"Sandy, Sandy, Sandy, Sandy," cooed Mrs. Sawney. "Poor pussy."
The tone of his mistress' voice rendered Sandy suspicious as to her intentions. He was a cat who had fought his way from kittenhood to a three-year-old, and that with the loss of nothing more conspicuous than the tip of his left ear. He could not remember the time when he had not been engaged in warfare, either predatory or defensive, and he had accumulated much wisdom in the process.
"Sandy, Sandy, Sandy, Sandy. Puss, puss, puss." Mrs. Sawney's tone grew in mellowness as her anger increased. "Poor pussy."
With a final shake of his near hind leg, Sandy put two more gardens between himself and that voice, and proceeded to damn to-morrow's weather by washing clean over his right ear.
Mrs. Sawney closed her front-door and retired to the regions that knew her best. In her heart was a great anger. Water had been thrown over her cat, an act which, according to Mrs. Sawney's code of ethics, constituted a personal affront.
It was Monday, and with Mrs. Sawney the effect of the Monday-morning feeling, coupled with the purifying of the domestic linen, was a sore trial to her never very philosophical nature.
"To-morrow'll be 'er washing-day," she muttered, as she poked down the clothes in the bubbling copper with a long stick, bleached and furred by constant immersion in boiling water. "I'll show 'er, throwing water over my cat, the stuck-up baggage!"
Late that afternoon, she called upon Mrs. Grimps, who lived at No. 5, to return the scrubbing-board she had borrowed that morning. With Mrs. Sawney, to borrow was to manifest the qualities of neighbourliness, and one of her grievances against Mrs. Bindle was that she was "too stuck up to borrow a pin."
Had Sandy heard the sentiments that fell from his mistress's lips that afternoon, and had he not been the Ulysses among cats that he undoubtedly was, he would have become convinced that a new heaven or a new earth was in prospect. As it was, Sandy was two streets away, engaged in an affair with a lady of piebald appearance and coy demeanour.
When, half an hour later, Mrs. Sawney returned to No. 9, her expression was even more grim. The sight of the pink tie-ups with which the white lace curtains at No. 7 were looped back, rendered her forgetful of her recently expressed sentiments. She sent Sandy at express speed from her sight, and soundly boxed Harriet's ears. Mrs. Sawney was annoyed.
II
All her life Mrs. Bindle had been exclusive. She prided herself upon the fact that she was never to be seen gossiping upon doorstep, or at garden-gate. In consequence, she was regarded as "a stuck-up cat"; she called it keeping herself to herself.
Another cause of her unpopularity with the housewives of Fenton Street was the way she stared at their windows as she passed. There was in that look criticism and disdain, and it inspired her neighbours with fury, the more so because of their impotence.
Mrs. Bindle judged a woman by her windows – and by the same token condemned her. Fenton Street knew it, and treasured up the memory.
It was this attitude towards their windows, more than Mrs. Bindle's exclusiveness in the matter of front-door, or back-door gossip, that made for her unpopularity with those among whom circumstances and the jerry-builder had ordained that she should spend her days. She regarded it as a virtue not to be on speaking terms with anyone in the street.
For the most part, Mrs. Bindle and her immediate neighbours lived in a state of armed neutrality. On the one side was Mrs. Sawney, a lath of a woman with an insatiable appetite for scandal and the mouth of a scold, whose windows were, in Mrs. Bindle's opinion, a disgrace; on the other was Mrs. Grimps, a big, jolly-looking woman, who laughed loudly at things, about which Mrs. Bindle did not even permit herself to think.
In spite of the armistice that prevailed, there were occasions when slumbering dislike would develop into open hostilities. The strategy employed was almost invariably the same, just as were the forces engaged.
These encounters generally took place on Tuesdays, Mrs. Bindle's washing-day. To a woman, Fenton Street washed on Monday, and the fact of Mrs. Bindle selecting Tuesday for the cleansing her household linen was, in the eyes of other housewives, a direct challenge. It was an endeavour to vaunt her own superiority, and Fenton Street, despite its cockney good-nature, found it impossible to forgive what it regarded as "swank".
The result was that occasionally Fenton Street gave tongue, sometimes through the medium of its offspring; at others from the lips of the women themselves.
Mrs. Grimps and Mrs. Sawney had conceived a clever strategy, which never failed in its effect upon their victim. On Mrs. Bindle's washing-days, when hostilities had been decided on, Mrs. Grimps would go up to the back-bedroom window, whilst Mrs. Sawney would stand at her back-door, or conversely. From these positions, the fences being low, they had an excellent view of the back garden of No. 7, and would carry on a conversation, the subject of which would be Mrs. Bindle, or the garments she was exposing to the public gaze.
The two women seemed to find a never-ending source of interest in their neighbour's laundry. Being intensely refined in all such matters, Mrs. Bindle subjected her weekly wash to a strict censorship, drying the more intimate garments before the kitchen fire. This evoked frankly-expressed speculation between her two enemies as to how anyone could live without change of clothing.
In her heart, Mrs. Bindle had come to dislike, almost to dread, washing-days, although she in no way mitigated her uncompromising attitude towards her neighbours.
When, on the Wednesday morning following one of these one-sided battles, Mrs. Bindle went out shopping, her glances at the front-windows of Mrs. Grimps's house, or those of Mrs. Sawney, according to the direction she took, were steadier and more critical than ever. Mrs. Bindle was not one to strike her flag to the enemy.
Soon after nine on the Tuesday morning after Sandy had constituted himself a casus belli, Mrs. Bindle emerged from her scullery carrying a basketful of clothes, on the top of which lay a handful of clothes-pegs. Placing the basket on the ground, she proceeded to wipe with a cloth the clothes-line, which Bindle had put up before breakfast.
The sight of her neat, angular form in the garden was the signal for Mrs. Grimps to come to her back door, whilst Mrs. Sawney ascended her stairs. A moment later, the back window of No. 9 was thrown up with a flourish, and the hard face of Sandy's mistress appeared.
It was a curious circumstance that, although there was never any pre-arrangement, Mrs. Sawney always seemed to appear at the window just as Mrs. Grimps emerged from her back door, or the order would be reversed. Never had they been known both to appear together, either at window or at door. Their mutual understanding seemed to be that of the ancient pair in the old-fashioned weather-indicator.
"Good morning, Mrs. Grimps," called Mrs. Sawney from her post of vantage.
"Good morning, Mrs. Sawney," responded Mrs. Grimps. "Beautiful day, ain't it?"
"Fine dryin' weather," responded Mrs. Sawney.
"I see you got your washin' finished early yes'day."
"Yes, an' a rare lot there was this week," said Mrs. Sawney, settling her arms comfortably upon the window-sill. "You 'ad a tidy bit, too, I see."
"Yes," replied Mrs. Grimps, picking a back-tooth with a hair-pin. "Mr. Grimps is like Mr. Sawney, must 'ave 'is clean pair o' pants every week, 'e must, an' a shirt an' vest, too. I tell 'im he ought to 'ave been a millionaire."
"Ah!" said Mrs. Sawney, "I sometimes wishes my 'usband would be content with calico linings to 'is trousers, like some folks I could name. 'E's afraid o' them rubbin' 'im, 'e says; but then 'e always was clean in 'is 'abits."
This remark was directly levelled at Mrs. Bindle's censorship of everything appertaining to nether-laundry.
"Well, I must say I sympathises with 'im," remarked Mrs. Grimps, returning the hair-pin to where it belonged. "When I sees some folks' washing, I says to myself, I says, 'Wot can they wear underneath?'"
"An' well you might, Mrs. Grimps," cried Mrs. Sawney meaningly. "P'raps they spend the money on pink ribbons to tie up their lace curtains. It's all very well to make a show with yer windows, but," with the air of one who has made an important discovery, "you can't be clean unless you're clean all over, I says."
Whilst these remarks were being bandied to and fro over her head, Mrs. Bindle had been engaged in pegging to the clothes-line the first batch of her week's wash. Her face was grimmer and harder than usual, and there was in her eyes a cold, grey look, suggestive of an iron control.
"Yes," proceeded Mrs. Grimps, "I always 'ave said an' always shall, that it's the underneaths wot count."
Mrs. Bindle stuck a peg in the corner of a tablecloth and, taking another from her mouth, she proceeded to the other end of the tablecloth and jabbed that, too, astride the line.
"'Always 'ave dainty linjerry, 'Arriet,' my pore mother used to say," continued Mrs. Sawney, "an' I always 'ave. After all, who wants three pillow-cases a week?"
This was in the nature of a direct challenge, as Mrs. Bindle had just stepped back from attaching to the line a third pillow-case, which immediately proceeded to balloon itself into joyous abandon.
"If you are religious, you didn't ought to be cruel to dumb animals," announced Mrs. Grimps, "throwin' water over the pore creatures."
"That sort never is kind to any think but theirselves," commented Mrs. Sawney, with the air of one who is well-versed in the ways of the devout.
Each time Mrs. Bindle emerged from her scullery that morning, her two relentless neighbours appeared as if by magic, and oblique pleasantries ebbed and flowed above her head.
