While the fierce struggle for Fort Warden was proceeding, and while Nicholas Jardine lay dying, the Vice-President of the Council and her adherents were engaged in desperate efforts to strengthen the grip of Woman on the governance of England. To wrest to their own advantage the crisis that would arise on the expected death of the President was of paramount importance to the Kellick party. To turn it to their destruction was the anxious object of their political opponents. Thus was foreshadowed—for the critical hour—a fierce and crucial struggle for supremacy. The chief directors of the counteracting movement, General Hartwell, the woman-hater, and Sir Robert Herrick, wise in counsel and learned in law, were in constant conference. They met daily, and their conferences and study of reports often lasted far into the night.
The outcome of their labours was to be seen in the creation of an association, which Linton had mentioned to Zenobia. It embodied both men and women, who styled themselves, as a bond of union, the Friends of the Ph?nix. The general aim of this association was to re-establish man in his proper position in the State, and the particular aim to bring about the restoration of the long-lost leader, Wilson Renshaw.
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The last mentioned feature of the programme, though at first received with natural incredulity, presently acted with magical effect in quickening public interest; and when secret, but authoritative, assurances were forthcoming that Renshaw still lived, had been released by the Mahdi, and was about to return to England, vast numbers speedily enrolled themselves as Friends of the Ph?nix. The great strength of the movement lay in the voluntary enlistment of hosts of disciplined men. The Police, the regular Army, and the Territorials, furnished many thousands of recruits.
The old Household troops followed General Hartwell almost to a man; the Corps of Commissionaires followed suit. These men, in turn, rendered excellent, because unsuspected, service as propagandists among the humbler classes of the civil population. Evidences of disgust and discontent with the aggressive dominion of Woman were found on every side.
The time was almost ripe. It looked as if but a match were needed to produce a vast and far-reaching conflagration; and the main problem that exercised the minds of General Hartwell and Sir Robert was how, when the moment came, to use the ready instruments of revolt without incurring the risk of bloodshed and the development of civil war. Every possible precaution was taken. The Friends of the Ph?nix pursued their plans with the utmost secrecy, it being realised that, in order that the projected coup d'état might succeed, it was essential that it should take the Kellick faction completely by surprise.
Finally, it was decided to seize the occasion of a banquet in the City, at which it was known that the Vice-President would make an oratorical bid for a new mandate from the nation. This banquet, post[Pg 166]poned from time to time in consequence of events at Dover and the President's illness, was to take place shortly after Mr. Jardine's funeral. It was announced that reasons of State and public convenience rendered further delay impossible; "Reasons of State" meant the interests of the Kellick faction; "Public convenience" had reference to the opening of a new London railway tube.
An extension of the old Tube from the Post Office, via Gresham Street, to the Guildhall, had long been a cherished scheme of the City Fathers. The old approach through King Street and Cheapside to the head-quarters of the Corporation was only suitable for use in fine weather. But whatever changes and chances had befallen London during the first forty years of the twentieth century, British weather had developed but little alteration, and certainly no improvement. That State processions and civic functions should be spoilt by drizzle, rain, or fog, as so frequently had happened to pageants of the past, was felt to be not merely inconvenient, but quite uncalled for. The new alternative route presented many advantages. Celebrities and non-celebrities bound for the City on great occasions would be enabled to enter a special train at the West End, and could come to the surface in Guildhall Yard. The feast of oratory and the flow of champagne might thus be attained without the disadvantage of a preliminary journey through the rain-swept streets of the murky city. In like manner the members and officers of the corporation would enjoy similar immunity whenever official occasion required them to go westward.
The feminine note in politics had something to do with the project; for woman, advanced woman, in her hours of ease and finery did not like to have her feathers and laces spoilt by London smuts and[Pg 167] drizzle; and woman, of course, had become very much in evidence in the City of London. Facetious persons went so far as to say that the City Fathers had been superseded by the City Mothers, and further justified their views by treating the male minority as indistinguishable from a set of old women. The arrival of Woman as a member of County Councils and other public bodies, not to say in Parliament itself, long ago had rendered it practically certain that the conservatism of the City must ultimately yield to the onslaughts of the sex. In the fulness of time a woman took her place on the Bench as Chief Magistrate of the City of London. A wondering world was called upon, for the first time, to do honour to a Lady Mayoress, who shone with no reflected light. She herself was the Sun of the City firmament. Lord Mayor for some years there was none.
The Lady Mayoress who held office at the critical period that had now arrived was a devoted ally of the Vice-President, and bent on advancing in every possible way the authority and interests of her sex. To this end the Corporation, which had largely subsidised the new branch tube, had solicitously waited the opportunity to entertain the acting representative of government in honour of the occasion. On the day of the banquet, the principal City streets presented their normal appearance to the eyes of all ordinary observers. The Vice-President and her supporters were to travel to the Guildhall by the new route. There was no occasion, therefore, for decoration, or for the special services of the military, or even of the police. Nevertheless, large numbers of uniformed men might have been observed moving through the side streets in small parties. In th............