Twenty-Four

The train ride home to London was notably awkward. Lord David rode along with them, so the complete and utter silence she had dreaded was avoided. Leo was solicitous to her and behaved as if things were normal between them. Cora supposed they were. His cool reserve and her uncertainty were how things had always been. One weekend away where they gave in to their baser desires need not change that. Once or twice David studied her as if he suspected something was amiss, but other than that, she assumed she pulled off the ploy of aloof wife. Their conversation flowed until they began talking about players in their football league and she stared out at the countryside wondering how she would make it through the next two years. Her husband already had half her heart.

She took dinner in her room that night, claiming fatigue. Leo did not knock at her door. When she awoke the next morning, he had already left for his offices at Lords. Cora solemnly refused to cry again and set about her day. Her first task was to finish rewriting the opening of his speech. After luncheon, she planned to visit Miss Sharma and view the photographs she had taken to document the poor sanitation conditions in Clarkston, and then she’d pay a visit to her sisters. She hadn’t decided if she would share with them everything that had happened with Leo. It seemed too personal to speak of, but she was so confused by everything, she wanted the comfort only they could provide.

There was an odd stillness in the house even as the servants moved about. She supposed it was her own pain that made it seem that way. Resolved to not allow her husband to hurt her anymore, she pulled her shoulders back and made her way into his study and the table where she had taken to working during the day. The waiting tray of tea and orange cream biscuits made her smile. She had first tasted them at the wedding breakfast and loved them. Mrs. Anderson took good care of her. There was always refreshment waiting for her.

Usually, the table was bare, aside from the tray, but today there was a stack of newsprint. Edgecomb typically sent a boy to collect several papers each day, so these must have accumulated while they were out of town. She picked them up intending to set them aside, but she remembered the horrible things that had been written in some of them earlier. It couldn’t hurt to look and see what else might have been written since. Surely, the topic of the state of their marriage had been laid to rest by now.

Pouring herself a cup of tea, she settled herself and opened one of the newspapers. A quick scan yielded nothing about her or Leo. More confident now, she picked up the second. This one was not so tame. Toward the last page in a section called Tidbits, the unknown author elaborated on the dinner party she had attended with Leo last week where she had sparred with Lord Bolingrave.

Although it did not name her, it labeled her a “women’s rights advocate” who spoke with a “passionate and misguided fever” and had hardly allowed the men to get a word in edgewise. Bolingrave was treated as one of the poor and unfortunate men who had been forced to listen to her diatribe. He had been interviewed for his opinion on the exchange and asked if he would like to reply, as he had not been given a chance to reply during the dinner conversation. He had submitted a letter to the paper.

It read:

Thank you to the editors of this esteemed newspaper for seeking my opinion on this matter. I will give it here as I have given it many times to anyone who will listen. This idea of the new woman and the theory of women’s rights is not new at all. The theory will run its course as it has in the past. It is in direct opposition to human law and a man’s duty to labor for his family. The woman’s place in nature is that of carer and nurturer. Nature will always prevail. I will give the women’s rights set their due, however, and concede they have the right idea in utilizing women to solve the problems facing us. Take, for instance, the sanitation concerns facing our great country. Many of these issues could be solved by our women would they only take their minds from dissonance to harmony. Women (traditional women) are homemakers while men are out in the world. Everyone knows that sanitation begins at home. Let this new woman be a sanitary reformer with a mission to ensure our homes are clean. Let her master physiology and use modern advances to keep her home free of dirt and disease. Let her allow sunlight and fresh air into her home to drive out the dark and damp where disease flourishes. Let her labor to keep the pipes and sewers of her home clean. Let her master chemistry so that she may ensure the water she gives her family is clean. Let her learn the properties of food so that she might feed her children the most nutritious morsels. We have millions of women at our disposal for the task. Put them to work to bring cleanliness to all homes. We know more about sanitation than we ever have before. Instead of utilizing this knowledge, women are out marching and joining committees and educating themselves to take jobs from the men who depend on those jobs. The care of children and home is left to servants and elderly caretakers. Were women to spend their time in useful and wholesome endeavors, our world, and indeed their very health and happiness, would be better for it.

Cora was livid when she finished his letter. She could not—would not—let this go unanswered. She reached for a blank sheet of parchment and wrote her own letter to the editor of that newspaper. She wrote that the fact that he would blame the inadequate infrastructure of a rapidly changing population on women seeking to be seen as full members of society was abhorrent. He was fighting the sanitation bill that Devonworth and others were struggling to pass. He claimed it wasn’t necessary and that the expense would be an unfair burden to place on landowners. She suspected he was being paid by those same landowners, but she couldn’t prove it. Instead of claiming any sort of responsibility as a government official for the lack of infrastructure, he was laying the blame on women.

She stopped short of calling him any number of the names that came to mind. She also did not include her husband’s name. She only barely managed to not sign the letter Cora Devonworth. She wanted to, but doing so would cause more harm than good. She could not risk antagonizing him when Leo was still courting his unlikely vote. The name she used was the same one she had used back home when she had written for the feminist periodical. It had served her well then and it would do so now.

Lavender Starling had come back to life.