his own answers, to speak of the injustices that made his own anger burn or the complacency he would have scalded with his contempt. Nor was it time to philosophize. He was here to learn if this woman could have abandoned pleading and argument and the consent to law that kept the community from barbarism, if she had put her own sense of right and equity before all others and cut the throats of two men.
'All you seem to be saying, Mrs. Ivory, is that the satisfied do not often seek change; it is the dissatisfied who press for improvement, or merely for their turn to have the power and the rewards.'
Again her face tightened with anger, which was now directed at him.
'For a moment, Mr. Pitt, I thought you had imagination, pity even. Now I see you are as complacent, insensitive, and frightened for your own miserable little niche in society as the rest of your kind!''
His voice dropped. 'Who are my kind, Mrs. Ivory?'
'The people with power, Mr. Pitt!' She almost spat the words. 'Men-almost all men! Women are born into life and must take our father's name, his rank in life. He decides where and how we will live. In the house, his word is law- he decides whether we shall be educated or not, what we will do, if we shall marry, when, and to whom. Then our husbands decide what we shall say, do, even think! They decide what faith we shall profess, what friends we may or may not meet, what shall happen to our children. And we have to defer to them, whatever we actually think, to pretend they are cleverer than we are, subtler, wiser, have more imagination-even if they are so stupid it is painful!' She was breathing hard, her whole body shaking.
'Men make the laws and administer them; the police are men; judges are men-everywhere I turn my life is dictated by men! Nowhere can I appeal to a woman, who might understand what I really feel!
'Do you know, Mr. Pitt, it is only four years ago that I 120
ceased to be in law a chattel to my husband? A thing, an object belonging to him like his other household goods, a chair or a table, or a bale of linen. Then the law-man's law- at last recognized that I am actually a person, a human being, independent of anyone else, with my own heart and my own brain. When I am hurt it is not my husband who bleeds, it is I!'
Pitt had not known it. The women in his own family were so mightily independent it had never occurred to him to consider their legal standing. He did know that married women had been entitled to retain and administer their own property only six years ago; in fact when he had first met Charlotte in 1881, he would in law have been the owner of her money, such as it was, even her clothes, upon then- marriage. He had not thought of it until someone had made a vicious remark as to his change in fortune.
'And you find protestations and pleadings are no use?' he said fatuously, hating having to be so false to the understanding, even the empathy he felt. He had grown up the son of servants on a country estate; he knew about obedience and ownership.
Her disgust stung. ' 'You are either a fool, Mr. Pitt, or else you are deliberately patronizing me in a fashion both contemptible and completely pointless. If you are trying to make me say that I consider there are occasions when violence is the only means left to someone suffering intolerable wrongs, then consider me to have said it.'' She glared at him, defying him to make the next, inevitable charge.
'I am not a fool, Mrs. Ivory,' he said instead, meeting her blazing eyes. 'Nor do I imagine you are. Whatever you pleaded for to Mr. Etheridge, it was not that he should change the whole order of society and give to women an equality they have never enjoyed in all our two thousand years. You may be marvelously ambitious, but you will have started with something more specific, and I think more personal. What was it?'
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The rage died away again suddenly, like a force that has been so violent it has consumed all its fuel, and only the pain was left. She sat down on a cushioned wood settle and stared not at him but at the garden through the open window.
'I imagine if I do not tell you, then you will only go and dig it up elsewhere, perhaps less accurately. I was married fifteen years ago, to William Ivory. My property was not great, but it would have been more than enough for me to live on in some comfort. Of course, on my wedding day it became his. I have never seen it since.'
Her hands were completely calm in her lap; she held a lace handkerchief, which she had pulled from her pocket, but she did not twist it. Only the whiteness of her knuckles betrayed the straining muscles.
'But that is not my
