The Sleeping Sword (19 page)

The candidate, Mr. Colclough, and his colleague Mr. Sheldon both made themselves very pleasant, enquiring most attentively as to the health of my husband, my father, my father-in-law, my grandfather Mayor Agbrigg, my grandmother's stepson Liam Adair, and any other male relative of mine who might be likely to vote for them. But the possibility of my own vote, which had never been great had now, I was given to understand, been rendered null and void by the simple act of matrimony.

‘My dear,' Miss Mandelbaum said nervously, glancing at Miss Tighe, who had lately taken up residence in Cullingford, ‘we have only ever asked for the vote for widows and spinsters—never for married women.'

‘And why is that?'

‘If you had given serious thought to the matter, Mrs. Barforth,' said Miss Tighe, ‘you would have found it obvious. At our first public meeting in Manchester, six years ago, a resolution was passed asking for the vote on the same terms as it had been, or would be, granted to men. It is the view of most of us, I believe—certainly it is the view of Miss Lydia Becker and her many supporters, including myself—that this resolution should not be tampered with.'

‘Why, Miss Tighe?'

‘Because, Mrs. Barforth, the vote—the Government itself—is about property, not individual personalities.'

‘I do understand that, Miss Tighe.'

‘Then you will also understand that although some men have holdings large enough to entitle them to two votes, or more, there are others—something approaching half the male population of this country, my dear—who have so little property that they are not entitled to vote at all.'

‘And you think that right?'

‘I have not said so. I am simply stating the facts. The vote concerns property, Mrs. Barforth, and since a married woman's property, on marriage, passes to her husband, what claim can she make—what justification—to the vote? A married woman has her husband to speak for her. To allow her to vote would be to allow the same piece of property to be represented twice.'

‘And does the whole of the Manchester Suffragist Society share your view, Miss Tighe?'

‘No,' she said tartly. ‘One does not expect any view to be universally accepted. There is an element of dissent. There have always been those who have advocated the extreme doctrine of one man one vote for which—however attractive—I cannot believe we are ready. Presumably these same extremists would offer the vote, if they had it, to married women. Our own Dr. Pankhurst and Mr. Bright, I believe, are among them. Ah well, I imagine Mr. Bright must have his own wife to answer to, although I am at a loss to comprehend what Dr. Pankhurst's motives may be in this.'

‘And you, Mr. Colclough?' I asked the new candidate. ‘How do you stand?' But if I had hoped to embarrass him I was disappointed, Mr. Colclough possessing, like Mr. Sheldon, and Mr. Fielding before him, the career politician's ability to produce an opinion to suit every occasion, a quick glance around the room assuring him that he would do better tonight to support Miss Tighe, who knew more people and could do him more harm than I.

‘Mrs. Barforth,' he said with great solemnity, going through the motions of taking me seriously, just in case, by some Act of God or revolution, I should one day be enfranchised. ‘It is a many-sided question of enormous complexity. Perhaps I can do no better than quote the view of our leader, Mr Gladstone, whose regard for women and the sanctity of marriage is such that he fears the vote would weaken the female situation rather than strengthen it. You are not burdened by the necessity of earning a living, Mrs. Barforth, as we men are. You are free to serve in many positions of influence, school boards and the like, where by making your views known you could bring in many votes. And by accepting such posts, which are unsalaried, you would enable the men who now hold them to take up paid appointments, thus easing their financial anxieties and liberating their energies for the benefit of
our
Party. When a woman can do all this, Mrs. Barforth, without losing one shred of her femininity or exposing herself to the slightest embarrassment—by remaining a
woman
—then one wonders why the vote should be at all necessary to her? I know Mr. Gladstone takes this view. While the Queen, you know, is most uncomfortable at the idea of women hazarding themselves in politics. No place for a woman, she declares, and one must admit she is in a position to know. Have I answered your question, Mrs. Barforth?'

‘I believe so, Mr. Colclough.'

And it was Venetia, who had seemed content to drink Miss Mandelbaum's tea in silence, who put an end to it, her low chuckle dispersing my gloom and making me smile.

‘This is really no place for you at all,' she told me. ‘You had best leave the government to Mr. Sheldon, Mr. Colclough, Miss Tighe and myself. Run home, Grace Barforth, to your husband and get on with your knitting!'

My first Christmas as a wife was spent at Listonby in a gathering of the whole family except for Mr. Nicholas Barforth, who remained at Tarn Edge, and his wife, who remained at Galton, although Gervase, Venetia and I spent a day with her. The Duke and Duchess of South Erin came up from London;
Captain
Noel Chard had leave from his regiment to celebrate his promotion; my father and Mrs. Agbrigg came over for the ball on Christmas Eve; while Blanche put herself and her son attractively on display and then sulked an hour or two when her father told her he was taking Aunt Faith abroad in the New Year and would therefore be unable to have the infant Matthew at Elderleigh while Blanche went to London.

Gervase gave me diamond ear-rings, galloped off on Boxing Day morning with the Lawdale and was back before noon, alone, his horse having gone lame, he said, although it looked sound enough to me, and we spent a glorious afternoon of winter sunshine in Listonby Woods, watching the squirrels frenziedly searching for the nuts they had hoarded in such careful hiding places, now forgotten.

I was happy. I believed Gervase was happy too, to the extent his complicated nature allowed. Blanche, I felt, was rapidly arranging matters to her entire satisfaction. And although Venetia burst into a characteristic blend of tears and laughter on Christmas Eve when the toasts were drunk, thinking, I supposed, of Charles Heron sampling the sparse festivities of nearby St. Walburga's School, she flirted most obligingly throughout the holiday with any young man who offered, including Gideon, allowing him to kiss her under the mistletoe in a way not entirely pleasing to his mother, who since her elevation to the peerage had started to wonder, once again, if she might do a little better than a manufacturer's daughter for her handsome younger son.

There was a charity ball at the Assembly Rooms in Cullingford in the New Year, an ambitious affair which I had helped to organize and which Gervase, at the last moment, was unable to attend, having been sent on a little tour of Barforth interests in the home counties which—although disappointed about the ball—I could only feel to be a step in the right direction. And wishing to believe what I wanted most to believe—as we all do—wanting Gervase to improve his commercial capacities and his father to trust him, it did not occur to me that, as the one person likely to resent the Chard connection, he had been deliberately sent out of the way.

But from the day of his departure Gideon was a much more frequent visitor to the house, calling regularly in the evenings to see Mr. Barforth, who instead of taking him into the library would casually invite him to stay to dinner—‘I reckon Grace can manage another one'—and afterwards would contrive, if only for ten minutes, to leave Gideon and Venetia alone.

Mr. Barforth, in fact, had made up his mind with regard to his daughter's future and expected her to prove every bit as amenable—as biddable—as had his son. Yet Venetia herself, who should have been rebellious, furious, contemptuous, remained suspiciously untroubled.

‘Do you mean to refuse him?' I asked her bluntly.

‘No, for he will not ask.'

‘Venetia, he
will
—believe me.'

‘No, he will not, you can believe
me
.'

And I heard her singing to herself as she went tripping around the house, her dreaming face enraptured.

Gideon Chard dined with us on the night of the charity ball, very handsome in the stark black and white of his evening clothes, the jacket fitting without a wrinkle across his wide shoulders, his shirt elaborately tucked and pleated, a heavy gold ring on his hand; a fastidious young man who took far more care of his appearance than either his millionaire uncle or his own elder brother, the baronet. And even then I did not realize what his marriage to Venetia might mean to me, and to Gervase, because I did not believe—and Gervase did not believe—that she would marry him.

She kept us waiting after dinner while she went upstairs to make some adjustment to her dress, leaving me to carry on the kind of stilted conversation with Gideon that people make when they know the carriage is at the door, their cloaks are being held ready in the hall, and the hour is late.

‘I'll go up and fetch her, shall I?'

But then there she was, hovering in the doorway, her gauzy skirts floating around her like the wings of a green butterfly, that air of blissful expectancy about her, of an immense, secret joy she could not quite suppress.

‘Venetia—you're beautiful,' Gideon said, as if he was both surprised and rather pleased about it.

‘Am I really? I'm so glad.'

And as he held out a hand to her, she came with little dancing steps to meet him, her own hand outstretched, and then stopped abruptly, her hand falling to her side, her attitude one of almost comic regret.

‘This is all nonsense, you know, Gideon.'

‘What is nonsense, Venetia?'

‘All this—all this—you know what I mean, for you do not want me at all, and you know quite well that I very badly want somebody else.'

‘Ah,' he said, and, his eyes never leaving her face, he smiled. ‘Shall we leave it—for now—at that?'

But Venetia, having wound herself up to this pitch, could not endure even a moment's silence and, clasping her hands together, began dancing a few more little steps up and down, jerky ones this time, which took her nowhere.

‘Gideon—please believe me. I
do
want someone else.'

‘Venetia, I
do
believe you. But these things happen, we all know that, and we are not talking about wanting, my dear. We are talking about marrying.' And perhaps because it seemed best to him, he was still tolerantly, easily smiling.

‘It is the same thing, Gideon—for me it is the same.'

‘Then there is only one thing to be done. I shall have to see to it that you do want me.'

‘Gideon,' she said, half exasperated, half shocked, unable, as she met his eye, to hold back her laughter. ‘Such an idea—really!'

‘Yes—really! And you will do well enough with me, you know. I am not so terrible.'

‘Indeed you are not, not terrible at all. In fact if you did not remind me so much of my father I would very likely find you fascinating. And if he were not my father, I do believe I would find him fascinating, too. But you do see, Gideon, don't you, that all this is
his
idea, because you are doing so well at the mills? And
your
idea because if you marry me he will probably make you a partner, and when he dies half of everything will belong to you—and because if you don't marry me somebody else will get what you have started to think of as
your
share. I perfectly understand all that, and in your place I could even see the sense to it. But it would not
do
, you know. I would be a terrible wife to you, Gideon, without meaning you any harm, simply because I am not at all the kind of wife you
should
marry. And you are not at all in love with me. I am so glad of that, for if you cared—'

‘I
do
care, Venetia.'

‘Oh,' she said, considerably taken aback. ‘No, you do not. I made sure of that, for otherwise I would not have given you the slightest encouragement …'

But he shook his head, allowing her voice to peter out before he smiled again.

‘Then you have been in error. I do care for you, Venetia. Who would not? You are thoroughly exasperating—everyone says so.'

‘Do they really?'

‘Yes, indeed. And I absolutely agree. But you are just as thoroughly amusing.'

‘How very nice!'

‘I think so. You are very nice altogether, Venetia.'

‘Gideon, I could almost believe you.'

‘You
do
believe me. Shall we go now and dance at Grace's ball?'

She smiled, offering yet another glimpse of that lovely, inner joy.

‘Yes,' she said. ‘I'll dance with you, Gideon.' And reaching herself towards us, she slipped an arm through mine, the other through his, and went out with us into the frosty night.

I slept late the next day, very late, Gervase not being there to disturb me with his tossing and turning, and it did not surprise me when I reached the breakfast parlour to find myself alone. It was a dull, February morning, a low grey sky over the chimney-stacks, damp clinging air, an occasional peevish handful of rain, a day to make up the fire and doze, perhaps, like Blanche, over a book, a cup of chocolate, a day when I could almost agree with Mr. Colclough and Mr. Sheldon that it was pleasant to be spared the burden of earning a living.

And thus idling my time away it was not until luncheon, when I sent up a tray for Venetia, that I learned she was gone.

Yet, gone where? She had staggered to her bed at four o'clock that morning and had told her maid she would probably sleep ‘for ever'. No one had disturbed her. If Miss Venetia wanted breakfast she would ring for it. Her bed appeared to have been slept in, her gauzy dress placed over a chair, awaiting attention, since she had torn the hem. Could she possibly—and I prayed for it to be true—have got herself up and dressed and gone out for a breath of air? No, of course she could not. Or, at least, not once the servants were awake. Far more likely that she had allowed her maid to undress her, had sent the girl away, had waited until Chillingworth had made all secure for what remained of the night, and then, putting on a travelling dress and a warm, dark cloak, had let herself out through the side door Gervase had used for his night-prowlings and had run off somewhere to meet Charles Heron.