Page 78 of The Fortunes of Ashmore Castle

‘You were apologising for leaving me alone – in London, during the Season, when of course there is no-one around and simply nothing to do,’ said Nina.

‘Aye, you’re roasting me now, Mrs Cowling!’ he said, laughing. ‘Are you really all right?’

‘I’m not all alone, you know. I have Kitty, and Lepida Morris, not to mention Lady Manningtree and Lady Rachel. And there’s Richard to keep an eye on me when he’s up. And my aunt.’

‘Aye, that Miss Lepida is a very clever young woman! Though I think Mawes and Mrs Morris have brought her up a bit too clever, because who will marry her?’

‘You married me,’ Nina pointed out. ‘Of course, I’m not as clever as Lepida, but you always gave me to understand you thought I was cleverer than the average girl.’

‘Roasting me again! I’m just a butt of fun to you, aren’t I? How is your aunt, by the way?’

‘Just exactly the same as she always is. She never changes the slightest bit.’

‘Well, give her my respects when you see her. Now, to what I was saying: when the Season’s over, I thought maybe you’d like to go away somewhere – to the Continent, if you like: France, Italy? Think about it, any road. And while you’re in London, why don’t we throw a grand dinner party? I’ll be coming and going, so if you arrange it, I’ll make sure to keep the date free.’

‘How grand?’ she asked.

‘As grand as you like. Go all out. You never do spend enough of my money to please me. I’ve told you again and again.’

‘Yes, you have. You’d like me to be dripping in diamonds like a chandelier.’

He looked at her fondly. ‘You’d suit ’em better than all the old duchesses who wear ’em. Let me buy you something now, this week. Just to show you what I feel about you.’

‘If you really want to please me . . .’ she began beguilingly.

‘You know I do.’

‘Then be here for dinner on Friday.’

‘A party?’

‘No, just close friends, but it would be nice to have you there.’

He glowed at the thought that she wanted his company, and she was pleased to have pleased him.

‘I’ll make sure to be there. Decius must get me out of anything that’s in the diary.’

‘Oh, Decius is invited too,’ she said. ‘And Lepida Morris. It’s to be a very talking dinner.’

Apart from Decius and Lepida, the guests at the Cowlings’ were Kitty and Richard, and Lord and Lady Stavesacre, who had a large estate, Holm Abbey near Watlington, and were keen franchisists. So the talk was naturally about the Women’s Enfranchisement Bill, which had come up for its second reading in the Commons on the 12th of May and had been defeated by a filibuster: talked out of time with long, rambling speeches.

‘It’s no more than we’ve come to expect after the Bills of 1870, 1886, and 1897 were defeated,’ Lord Stavesacre said.

‘But it’s a particularly bitter blow,’ his wife continued, ‘because this was by a length the best Bill that’s been presented. It had the beauty of simplicity – to give the franchise to women on exactly equal terms to men. All the others have had qualifications.’

‘What does that mean?’ Kitty asked.

Lepida explained. ‘Oh, they said that only single women and widows should have the vote, for instance, or only women who owned property, or were leaseholders, or were over a certain age – that sort of thing.’

‘Exactly,’ said Lavinia Stavesacre, ‘and that was the beauty of this Bill. It didn’t create some new-fangled fancy franchise. It simply extended all existing franchises to women, making it the easiest thing in the world to vote for. All it did was abolish the electoral disqualification of sex.’

‘A pretty big “all”, if you don’t mind my saying,’ said Mr Cowling, mildly.

‘You think so? But half of all human beings on earth are female! Fifty-three years ago Herbert Spencer wrote, “Equity knows no difference of sex. It manifestly applies to the whole race, female as well as male.”’

‘If I’m not mistaken, Herbert Spencer believed the human mind was subject to natural law,’ said Mr Cowling. He saw Lord Stavesacre’s eyebrow rise, and said, ‘Aye, I’ve read a bit in my time. And in every species the females and the males are different from each other. They have different functions.’

‘That’s true,’ said Richard.