Half Moon Street - Anne Perry [64]
“Of course I do!” she responded indignantly. “Any sane and civilized person knows there are some things you cannot say without corrupting our entire way of life. Where there is no reverence for things which are sacred, for the home and all it embodies, no safety for the mind, then the entire nation begins to crumble. Did they not teach you history wherever you come from? You must have heard of Rome?”
Joshua kept his temper superbly. There was even a shadow of amusement in his eyes.
“London,” he replied. “I come from London, the other side of the river, five miles away from here. And certainly I have heard of Rome, and of Egypt, and Babylon, and Greece and Inquisitorial Spain. So far as I know, Greece had the best theatre, although Egypt had some excellent poetry.”
“They were heathens.” The old lady dismissed them with a flick of her hand, perilously close to the milk jug. “The Greeks had all sorts of gods who behaved appallingly, if the stories we hear are to be believed. And the Egyptians were worse. They worshipped animals. If you can imagine such a thing!”
“There was one pharaoh who set up his own new religion believing in and worshipping only one God,” Joshua told her with a smile.
She looked startled. “Oh . . . well, I daresay that is a step forward. It didn’t last, though, did it?”
“No,” he agreed. “They accused him of blasphemy and obliterated everything he had done.”
She glared at him. It was a moment before she recovered her thought. “You weren’t talking about blasphemy. You said ‘obscene.’ ”
“That’s a matter of view as well,” he argued. “What is beautiful to one may be obscene to another.”
“Nonsense!” Her face was flushed pink. “Every decent person knows what is obscene, intrusive into other people’s private lives and feelings, and where it is unforgivable to trespass, and only the most vulgar and depraved would wish to.”
“Of course there are—” he began.
“Good!” The word was like a trap closing. “Then that is the end of the subject. My tea is cold. Will you be good enough to send for some more.” It was a command, not a request.
Caroline rang the bell. She could see the anger inside Joshua, barely suppressed by a thin veneer of courtesy because of the old lady’s age, and because she had been Caroline’s mother-in-law and she was a guest in their home, however unwillingly.
Caroline found herself saying what she knew Joshua wished to. “Everybody agrees there are things which should not be said, the disagreement is as to which things they are.”
“All things that flout morality and disregard the decent sensibilities of men and women,” Mariah Ellison said flatly. “You may have lost sight of what they are, but most of us have not. Ask any of those who used to be your friends. Thank God the Lord Chamberlain knows.”
Caroline held her tongue with difficulty, and only because she knew the pointlessness of arguing any further.
The maid came and was sent for fresh tea. Joshua rose and excused himself, kissing Caroline on the cheek and wishing the old lady a pleasant day.
Caroline picked up the newspaper again and looked at an article about Cecily Antrim. Above it, there was a sketch of her from a play-bill, looking beautiful and intense. It was that which first caught her attention.
Yesterday Miss Cecily Antrim protested vigorously against the Lord Chamberlain’s censorship of her new play, The Lady’s Love, which is not now to be performed, because of its indecency and the tendency to degrade public morality and cause distress and outrage.
Miss Antrim marched up and down the Strand carrying a placard and causing a nuisance, until the police were called to oblige her to desist. She claimed afterwards that the play was a valid work of art questioning misconceptions about women’s feelings and beliefs. She said that refusing to allow it to be performed was to deny women the freedom granted men to explore a far better understanding of those sides of their nature which are profound, and often the wellspring of controversial acts.
Mr. Wallace Albright, for the Lord Chamberlain