She was to be disappointed. They were at home and willing to receive her; in fact, they made her welcome.
'Come in, Miss Ellison,' Africa said hastily. Her face 213
was pale, but there were spots of color high on her cheeks, and smudges of shadow under her eyes, from fear and too little sleep. 'I am so glad you have called again. We were quite concerned lest this latest horror should have turned you from our cause. The whole matter is a nightmare.' She led Charlotte towards the charming sitting room, with its flowered curtains and its plants. Sunlight streamed through the windows, and three blue hyacinths filled the room with a perfume so heady, at another time it would have distracted the attention.
Now however Charlotte had eyes and thoughts only for Florence Ivory, who sat in a rattan chair with cushions of green and white, a raffia basket in her hands, which she was mending. She looked up at Charlotte with a face more guarded than her companion's.
'Good afternoon, Miss Ellison. It is very civil of you to call. May I presume from your presence that you are still engaged in our cause? Or have you come to tell me that you now consider it past help?'
Charlotte was a little stung; there was in Florence's turn of phrase a whole array of assumptions which she found offensive.
'I shall not give up, Mrs. Ivory, until the matter is either won or lost, or until I find some evidence of your guilt which makes pursuing it further morally impossible,'' she replied crisply.
Florence's remarkable face, with its widely spaced eyes full of haunting intelligence, seemed for a moment on the edge of laughter; then reality asserted itself and she gestured to the chair opposite and invited Charlotte to be seated.
'What else can I tell you? I knew Cuthbert Sheridan only by reputation, but I have met his wife on a number of occasions. In fact I may have been instrumental in her joining the movement for women's suffrage.'
Charlotte observed the pain in the woman's face; saw the irony in the eyes, the bitterness in the mouth, the small, bony
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hands clenched on the raffia basket. 'May I presume that Mr. Sheridan did not approve?' she asked.
'You may,' Florence agreed dryly. She regarded Charlotte closely, and her expression gradually became one of barely disguised contempt. Only her need for help and a residue of good manners concealed it at all. 'It is a subject which produces great emotion, Miss Ellison, of which you seem to be largely unaware. I have no idea what your life has been. I can only assume you are one of those comfortable women who are satisfactorily provided for in all material ways and are happy to pay for your keep with a docile temperament and skill in keeping a home-or organizing others who do it for you-and that you consider yourself fortunate to be in such a position.'
'You are quite right-you do have no idea what my life has been!' Charlotte said extremely sharply. 'And your assumptions are impertinent!' As soon as the words were out of her mouth she remembered how this woman had suffered, had lost her children, and she realized with a flood of shame that perhaps she was precisely as comfortable as Florence had accused her of being. She had little money, certainly, but what part of life's ease or joy was that? She had enough. She had never been hungry, and she was not so often cold. She had her children, and Pitt treated her not as a possession, which in law she had indeed been until only recently, but as a friend. As she sat in the green and white chair with the sun coming in through the garden windows and the air full of the scent of the hyacinths, she realized with a powerful gratitude that she had freedom an uncounted number of women would have given all their silks and servants to possess.
Florence was staring at her, and for the first time since they had met, there was confusion in her face.
'I apologize,' Charlotte said with great difficulty. She found this woman highly irritating, profound as her pity for her was. 'My rudeness was unnecessary, and in some ways you are perfectly correct. I cannot truly understand your an-
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ger, because I have not been a victim of the wrongs of which you speak. Please tell me.'
Florence's eyebrows rose. 'For goodness' sake, tell you what? The social history of women?'
' 'If that is the issue,'' Charlotte replied.''Is that why these men were killed?'
