Bethlehem Road - Anne Perry [95]
“Do you give your mother a gift at Christmas, or on her birthday?”
“What?”
Florence repeated the question with a harsh, derisory impatience in her voice.
“Yes. What has that to do with suffrage, for heaven’s sake?”
“Do you know that in law you cannot give anyone a gift, anyone at all, from the day you become betrothed—not married, betrothed—without your fiancé’s permission?”
“No, I—”
“And that until four years ago even your clothes and effects belonged to your husband? And if you inherited money, jewelry from your mother, anything, it belonged to him also? If you worked at anything and earned money, that also was his, and he could require it be paid directly to him, so you could not even touch it. Did you think you could make a will, so you could leave your belongings to your daughter, or your sister, or a friend, or reward a servant? So you can—so long as your husband approves! And if at any time he disapproves or changes his mind, or others change it for him, then you cannot! Even after you are dead! Did you know that? Or did you imagine that your dresses, your shoes, your handkerchiefs, your hairpins were your own? They are not! Nothing is yours. Certainly not your body!” Her mouth curled in memory of an old pain, one so deep no balm had ever reached it. “You cannot refuse your husband, regardless of his treatment of you, or how many others he may have lain with, in love or in lust. You cannot even leave his roof unless he gives you his permission! If you do, he can have the law bring you back and prosecute anyone who gives you shelter—even if it is your own mother!
“And if he does allow you to leave, your property remains his, as does anything you might earn, and he has no obligation to give you, or your children, should he permit you to take them, a single penny to keep you from starvation or freezing.
“No—don’t interrupt me!” Florence Ivory shouted when Charlotte opened her mouth to speak. “Damn your complacency! Did you imagine you had any say in what should happen to your children? Even your baby still at the breast? Well you don’t! They are his, and he may do with them as he pleases—educate them or not, teach them anything he cares to, or nothing, discipline them and care for their health or welfare as he likes. When he makes a will he has the right to dispose of what property used to be yours before you married him however he pleases. He can leave your jewelry to his mistress, if he likes. Did you know that, Miss Ellison? Do you think Parliament would make laws like that if it were answerable to women voters as well as men? Do you?”
Again Charlotte opened her mouth to say something, but she was overwhelmed by the flood of injustices, and over and above that the scalding outrage that burned through Florence’s thin body. Charlotte sank onto the arm of her chair. Florence was not merely cataloguing the inequities of the law, she was crying out from her own pain. It was nakedly apparent, even if Charlotte had not known from Pitt how she had lost first her home, and her son, then her beloved daughter. She had never considered divorce or separation because it had not occurred in her family or any of her friends. Of course she had known for years that it was commonly believed that men had natural appetites which must be satisfied, and decent women did not; therefore it was to be expected that a man might commit adultery, and a wife’s only course was to conduct herself so she was never forced into a position where she was seen to know of it. It was not grounds for divorce for a wife, and anyway, a divorced woman ceased to exist in society, and a working woman would be on the streets dependent on whatever skills she had to earn her keep—and her skills would be minimal, and domestic. No one took a divorced woman into service.
“That, Miss Ellison, is a fraction of the reason why I want women to have a right to vote!” Florence was staring at her, pale now, exhausted by her own emotions and all the relieved pain, the struggles that had been lost one by one. There was