A Mad, Wicked Folly Read Online Free PDF Page A

sorry for your future husband, my dear. I
can picture him now, living his life so innocently, unknowing of the mischief his future wife will create for him.”
“Ha-ha. Very amusing, Freddy.”
“But the point is, Vick, that Dad will be happy to cut
my allowance again if I should stray. No. Sorry, I cannot
risk it.”
“But you make your own money!”
“A publisher of a start-up tuppenny novelette company
makes very little. Certainly not enough to feed a family
and keep home and hearth together.” Freddy grew quiet.
His face was pinched with strain. Suddenly I understood
what it had cost him to break from our father’s expectations. I took his hand. “It maddens me to admit it,” he said.
“But I need the old man’s money, too. I suppose I’m just as
much of a lapdog as you, Petal, when it comes right down
to it.” He squeezed my hand. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll mention
this art college idea of yours to Mother, but that’s it. The
rest is up to you.”
“Thank you, Freddy!” I kissed his cheek. “I’ll never ask
anything of you again.”
“I highly doubt that, Petal,” Freddy said.
Big Ben rang out three o’clock as the cab reached
Parliament. I was surprised to see a crowd of women in
front of the gates near the House of Commons. London
was a city of men, and women did not loiter. They traveled
through on their way home or to the shops. Women who
stood about were considered of ill reputation. But these
women didn’t seem to be concerned with their reputation,
ill or otherwise.
The cab stopped for traffic, and I leaned toward the
window. What was most unusual was that the women were
of various classes, from upper-class to working. I could tell
by the way they were dressed. A woman handing out leaflets wore an expensive-looking fox stole around her neck;
her wide-brimmed hat was trimmed in feathers. A woman
in lesser fashionable dress, probably middle-class, stood
talking to her. She was tiny, and as thin as a rake. She wore
a plain navy face-cloth suit, called a tailor-made, with a
gray bow tie. There were several working-class women
too, who looked as though they had just left the factory
floor, feet in clogs and shawls around their shoulders. I had
never seen a collection of mismatched women so united.
My mother, and every woman in her social circle, would
have fainted dead away if forced to mingle with such a
mixed group.
The men on the street seemed as curious, gawking at
the assembly as they walked by. I noticed several posters
hanging on the iron railings, bracketing the women. On
one was a stylized drawing of Joan of Arc. She held a trailing green banner with the word
JUSTICE
blazoned on it. Étienne could not have drawn a better
poster.
    Just as I was thinking this, a police constable ripped
it down and tore it in half. A younger constable stepped
forward to deal with the second poster, but he didn’t rip it.
Instead, he removed it carefully from the railings, rolled it
up, and handed it to the tiny woman.
    Who were they?
“Votes for women!” the woman with the fur muff called
out, solving the mystery for me. She turned to thrust a leaflet at a passing man, and I saw that she wore a sash across
her jacket with the letters WSPU.
I knew that WSPU stood for Women’s Social and
Political Union. It was headed by Emmeline Pankhurst and
her daughter Christabel, who was so famous she had her
own waxwork at Madame Tussaud’s and her face on playing cards. All the girls at my finishing school were agog over
Christabel’s beauty and her sense of style. Certainly not
over her political views. Not at Madame Édith’s Finishing
School for Girls.
“Suffragettes!” I said. “In the flesh!”
Freddy leaned across me and snapped the window
shade down.
I flung the shade back up just in time to see the man
snatch the leaflet from the woman’s hand, pitch it to the
ground, and stamp it under his heel. Undaunted, she
shoved another at the next passerby. “Votes for women!”
The traffic snarl cleared