Southampton Row - Anne Perry [35]
The Bishop had declined the course. He must have indigestion again, but it did not stop him from declaiming on the weaknesses, specifically the lack of religious faith, in the Liberal Party’s parliamentary candidate for Lambeth South. It seemed the unfortunate man’s wife met with his particular disfavor, although he admitted freely that so far as he was aware, he had never met her. But reports had it that she admired a most regrettable kind of person, some of those extraordinary Socialists who called themselves the Bloomsbury set, and had radical and absurd notions of reform.
“Isn’t Sidney Webb one of that group?” the archdeacon enquired with a twitch of distaste.
“Indeed he is, if not the leading member,” another man replied, hunching his shoulders a little. “He was the man who encouraged those wretched women to go on strike!”
“And the candidate for Lambeth South admires this?” the archdeacon’s wife asked incredulously. “But it is the beginning of civil disorder and complete chaos! He is inviting disaster.”
“Actually, I believe it was Mrs. Serracold who expressed the opinion,” the Bishop corrected. “But of course were he a man of substance and judgment he would not have permitted it.”
“Quite. Absolutely.” The archdeacon nodded with vigor.
Listening to them, seeing their faces, Isadora warmed to Mrs. Serracold instinctively, although she had never met her, either. If she had had a vote, she would have cast it for the woman’s husband, who apparently was standing for Lambeth South. It was no sillier reason than most men had for voting as they did. It was usually based upon whatever their fathers had done before them.
Now the Bishop was talking about the sanctity of women’s role as protectors of the home, keepers of a special place of peace and innocence where the men who fought the world’s battles could retreat to heal their souls and restore their minds, ready to rejoin the fray the following morning.
“You make us sound like a cross between a hot bath and a glass of warm milk,” she said into a moment’s silence while the archdeacon drew in his breath to answer.
The Bishop stared at her. “Excellently put, my dear,” he said. “Both cleansing and refreshing, a balm to the inner man and to the outer.”
How could he so misunderstand her? He had known her for more than a quarter of a century, and he thought she was agreeing with him! Did he not recognize sarcasm when he heard it? Or was he clever enough to turn it against her, disarm her by seeming to take it at face value?
She met his eyes across the table, almost hoping that he was mocking her. It would at least be a communication, an intelligence. But he was not. He looked back at her blankly, and turned to the archdeacon’s wife and began wittering on about memories of his blessed mother, who, as Isadora remembered her, had been actually quite fun, and certainly not the characterless creature he was painting with his words.
But how many people she knew tended not to see their parents as the rest of the world did, but rather as stereotypes of mother and father as they held them to be, good or bad? Perhaps she had not known her own parents so very well?
The women at the table said very little. It would be considered rude for them to speak across the men’s conversation, and they were not equipped to join in. They believed women to be good by nature—at least the best of them; the worst were at the very roots of damnation. There were not so many in between. But being good and knowing anything about goodness were not the same thing. It was for women to do it, and men to talk about it and, when necessary, to tell women how it should be done.
Since she was neither required nor permitted to contribute to the discussion, other than by a pleasant and interested expression, she allowed her mind to wander. Curious how many of her mental images involved faraway places, especially over the sea. She thought of the vast spaces of the ocean with a level horizon on every side, trying to imagine what it would feel like to have only a deck beneath your feet, constantly