Silence in Hanover Close - Anne Perry [43]
“Yes,” Charlotte agreed with a candid smile. “Indeed I have. It casts a new meaning upon ‘making a virtue of necessity.’ It is one of the hypocrisies that irritates me the most.”
“You’ll see a great deal of it. You’d do well to hide your feelings and learn to hold conversation with yourself.”
“I fear you are right.”
“I am most certainly right.” Adeline stood up. She really was very gaunt, but there was a strength of vitality in her which made her the most interesting person in the house. She looked at the picture again. “Do you know that a courtesan named Theodora rose to be empress of Byzantium?” she said quite casually. “I wonder if she wore outrageous colors. I love royal blues and peacock greens and scarlets and saffron yellow—even the names of them sound good— but I dare not wear them. Garrard wouldn’t give me a moment’s peace. He would certainly stop my dress allowance.” She stared fixedly at the picture as if she could see beyond it. “You know, there was a woman who used to visit this house, once or twice, in the middle of the night, very beautiful, like a black swan. She wore gowns of blazing cerise, not fiery, not a yellow red like flames, but shot with blues. Fearful color on anyone else. I should look like a nightmare in it.” She turned round with a look of faint surprise. “But she looked marvelous. Can’t imagine what she was doing here, except to see Julian, perhaps; but he really should have been more discreet. Garrard would have been furious. Still, since he began courting Veronica York, as far as I know, he has been above reproach, and that is all one can reasonably expect of a man. A man’s past is his own affair. I wish it were so for a woman, but I am not ingenuous enough to believe it ever will be.”
Charlotte’s mind was whirling. Adeline had said so much, she needed time to disentangle it.
“I have an aunt whom you would like,” she said, realizing even as she spoke how daring she had become. “Lady Cumming-Gould. She is nearly eighty, but she is marvelous. She believes in women having the vote for Parliament, and she is prepared to fight to help bring it about.”
“How unselfish of her.” Adeline’s eyes were bright, although there was self-mockery as well as enthusiasm in them. “She will not live to see it.”
“Don’t you think so? If we all pressed as hard as we could, would not men eventually see the justice of it, and . . .” The expression on Adeline’s face made Charlotte feel naïve, and her voice died away.
“My dear,” Adeline said, shaking her head slightly. “Of course if we all spoke together we could persuade men, or even force them—but we never do speak together. How often have you seen half a dozen women agree and band together for a cause, let alone half a million?” Her thin fingers smoothed over the velvet back of the chair. “We all live our separate lives, in our own kitchens if we are poor, our withdrawing rooms if we are well-to-do; and we do not cooperate for anything, but see ourselves as rivals for the few eligible and well-financed men that are available. Men, on the other hand, work fairly well together, imagining themselves the protectors and providers of the nation, obliged to do everything they can to preserve the situation precisely as it is—in their control—on the assumption that they know best what is right for us and must see that we get it, come hell or high water.” Her head jerked up. “And there are only too many women who are happy to assist them, since the status quo suits them very well also, and they are invariably the people with power.”
“Miss Danver! I think you are a revolutionary!” Charlotte said with delight. “You must meet Great-aunt Vespasia; you’d love each other.”
Before Adeline could respond there were footsteps in the passageway and Harriet