Bethlehem Road - Anne Perry [10]
Here and there were a few who were smarter; some young with a touch of elegance, others matronly, ample bosoms draped with furs and beads, hats sprouting feathers.
But it was their faces that interested Charlotte most, the fleeting expressions chasing across them as they listened to the ideas that almost all society found revolutionary, unnatural, and either ridiculous or dangerous, depending on their perception of any real change awakening from them.
In some she saw interest, even the glimmer of belief. In others there was confusion: the thought was too big to accept, required too great a break with the inbred teaching of mother and grandmother, a way of life not always comfortable but whose hardships were at least familiar. In some there was already derision and dislike, and the fear of change.
One face held Charlotte’s attention particularly, round and yet delicately boned, intelligent, curious, very feminine, and with a strong, stubborn jaw. It was the expression which drew Charlotte, a mixture of wonder and doubt, as though new thoughts were entering the woman’s mind and enormous questions arose out of them instantly. Her eyes were intent on the speaker, afraid lest she lose a word. She seemed oblivious of the women packed close to her; indeed, when one jostled against her and a feather from a rakish hat brushed her cheek she did no more than blink without turning to see who the offender might be.
With the third speaker, a thin, overearnest woman of indeterminate age, the hecklers began. Their voices were still moderately good-natured, but their questions were sharp.
“Yer sayin’ as women knows as much abaht business as men? That don’t say much fer yer man, then, do it?”
“That is if yer ’as one!” There was a roar of laughter, half raucous, half pitying: a single woman was in most eyes a sad object, a creature who had failed in her prime objective.
The woman on the platform winced so very slightly that it might even have been Charlotte’s imagination. She was used to this particular taunt and had grown to expect it.
“You have one?” she flung back with certainty blazing in her face. “And children, do you?”
“Sure I ’ave! Ten of ’em!”
There were more shouts of laughter.
“Do you have a maid, and a cook, and other servants?” the woman on the platform asked.
“Course I don’t! Wotcher think I am? I ’ave one girl as scrubs.”
“Then you manage the household yourself?”
There was silence, and Charlotte glanced at the woman with the remarkable face and saw that already she understood what the speaker was intending. Her face was keen with appreciation.
“Course I do!”
“Accounts, budgeting, the purchase of clothes, the use of fuel, the discipline of your ten children? Seems to me you know a great deal about business—and people. I daresay you are a pretty good judge of character too. You know when you are being lied to, when someone is trying to give you short change or sell you shoddy goods, don’t you?”
“Yeah ...” the woman agreed slowly. She was not yet ready to concede, not in front of so many. “Don’t mean I know ’ow ter run a country!”
“Does your husband? Could he run a country? Could he even run your house?”
“Isn’t the same!”
“Does he have a vote?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Isn’t your judgment as good as his?”
“My dear good woman!” another voice burst in, rich and piled with scorn, and heads turned towards the wearer of a plum-colored hat. “You may be very proficient at buying enough potatoes to feed your family and assessing the cost