My wife is a woman of violent emotions and sudden and immature fancies. She has unfortunately little sense of what is fit, and is most self-indulgent of her whims. It pains me to say so, but I cannot consider her a suitable person to undertake the upbringing of a child, most especially a girl, whom she would imbue with her own wild and unbecoming ideas.
I do not wish to have to inform you, but circumstances compel me. My wife has taken up several socially contentious and radical causes, including that of desiring the parliamentary franchise for women. She has taken her support for this extraordinary cause so far as publicly to visit and be seen with Miss Helen Taylor, a most fanatic and revolutionary person who parades herself wearing trousers!
She has also sought the company and expressed considerable admiration for a Mrs. Annie Bezant, who has also left the home of her husband, the Reverend Bezant, and employs herself stirring up industrial ill-will among match girls and the like employed in the factory of Bryant and Mays. She is fomenting unrest and advocating strikes!
I am sure you can see from this that my wife is no fit person to have the custody of my daughter, and I therefore request that you offer her no further assistance in the matter. It can only lead to distress for my daughter, and if her mother should prevail, to her ruin.
Your obedient servant, William Ivory
And Etheridge's copy of his reply:
Dear Mr. Ivory,
Thank you for your letter regarding your wife, Florence Ivory, and the custody of your daughter. I have met with 140
Mrs. Ivory and found her a strong-willed woman of forcible and perhaps ill-found opinions regarding certain social issues, but her behavior was perfectly seemly, and she is obviously devoted to her daughter, who is well cared for, in good health, and progressing with her education in a most satisfactory manner.
While I agree with you that Miss Taylor's behavior is quite extreme and cannot possibly profit her cause, I do not believe that your wife's support of her constitutes sufficient ill judgment to make her unfit to care for her child, and as you know, the law now allows a woman, if widowed, to be sole guardian of her children. Therefore I feel in this instance that so young a girl as Pansy is best cared for by her mother, and I hope that this will continue to be the case.
Yours sincerely, Vy vyan Etheridge
Here, as was clear from the handwriting of the letter which followed, a fourth voice joined the correspondence.
Dear Vyvyan,
I hear from William Ivory, a good friend of mine, that you have befriended his unfortunate wife in the matter of the custody of their daughter Pamela. I must tell you that I feel you are ill-advised in the matter. She is a headstrong woman who has publicly espoused some highly contentious and undesirable causes, including the parliamentary franchise for women, and worse than that, industrial militancy among some of the most unskilled labor in the city.
She has openly expressed her sympathy with the match girls at Bryant and Mays and encouraged them to withdraw their labor!
If we support such people, who knows where the general dissension and upheaval may end? You must be aware that there is unrest in the country already, and a strong element that desires the overthrow of the social order, to 141
be replaced with God knows what! Anarchy, by the way they speak.
I must strongly recommend that you give no further aid of any sort to Florence Ivory, indeed that you assist poor William to obtain custody of his unfortunate child forthwith, before she can be further injured by the eccentric and undisciplined behavior of her mother.
I remain yours in friendship, Garnet Royce, M.P.
Garnet Royce! So the civilized and arbitrary Garnet Royce, so solicitous of his sister's affairs, so concerned to be helpful, was the one who had sided with convention, and robbed Florence Ivory of her child. Why? Ignorance-conservatism-returning some old favor-or simply a belief that Florence did not know how to care for her own child's welfare?
He turned back to the copy
