Blind Trust by Susannah Bamford

addresses were.”
    â€œâ€˜When you look at the history of the repression of the human race, the phallus as an instrument of torture and death is mightier than the rack and the sword.’ Oh, I am sorry, I didn’t mean to shock you, I was quoting myself, actually. Did you hear Victoria Woodhull speak? No? A pity. I shall never forget it. At one meeting this awful boor asked if she was a free lover herself. Do you know what she said? ‘If I want sexual intercourse with one or one hundred men I shall have it!’ Oh, she was wicked! Wicked and gifted. I shall miss her. She believed, you know, that the more one discussed the sexual organs freely the less embarrassed one would become. How do you feel about that, Mrs. Statton? Do have a cake.”
    Columbine held the plate out to her with a friendly gesture. Darcy took it mechanically. She knew she could never force it down her dry throat. “What exactly do you mean, Mrs. Nash, when you speak of constricting minds leading to … oh …”
    â€œSo many things! I’m sure you see as much needless suffering as I do. Women, shut up in their houses, unable to use their minds or bodies freely … Why, it’s no wonder they have imaginary ailments, and nerves, and all that other upper-class claptrap.”
    â€œClaptrap?”
    â€œOh, I don’t mean that women don’t suffer genuinely. Of course, they do. But so much of these ‘nervous conditions’ I hear about—why, you take a healthy, vibrant, intelligent man, bind his torso in whalebone and steel, force him to ride back and forth in a carriage all day or receive the same callers again and again for fifteen minutes, never let him pick up a book or a new thought—what do you expect?” Columbine leaned forward. “Now I am going to shock you, Mrs. Statton.”
    Darcy waited, wondering how far Columbine Nash needed to go before she considered herself shocking.
    â€œI work with prostitutes, you know. And they have their own dilemmas, to be sure. But they are free of corsets and their minds are free, and who can say they are worse off than those women from Fifth Avenue you call on?”
    â€œWho, indeed,” Darcy murmured.
    Columbine picked up a cake and nibbled on it; it was her only method of stopping her mouth. She knew she talked too much. And her guest did look a bit overwhelmed. She watched Darcy covertly. She had the air of a woman who had come to discuss a problem. Why else had she defied her husband and her class and sought Columbine out?
    Columbine leaned forward, her eyes intent. She spoke gently now. “Mrs. Statton, I realize we aren’t friends, not yet, but perhaps we can be. I feel that we can be. I would like … I would like to have a friend like you. I do not for a moment depreciate the courage it took for you to knock at my door. You must need fresh ideas very badly. Or perhaps friendship. And I am here to give it.”
    Friendship. Darcy felt herself yearning toward this forthright woman with the loud delightful laugh, who had put her finger on a need she hadn’t known was there. It was as though she’d been walking on a dusty road on a hot, hot day, and all the while a clear, cold spring ran beneath her feet. If she could only dig deep and find it. Darcy raised her eyes to find that warm friendliness had replaced the shrewd impatience in Columbine’s eyes. She felt herself drawn to the woman, no matter how outrageous her talk. Why, she was kind .
    â€œI have so few friends,” Darcy mused, staring down at her teacup. “My cousin Adelle, I suppose, but there are things I cannot speak of to Adelle.”
    â€œYou can speak of anything to me,” Columbine said. She put her hand on Darcy’s arm. “I believe you know that, Mrs. Statton.”
    Darcy met her gaze steadily. “I believe I do, Mrs. Nash.”
    And then the door of the sitting room opened with a crash and banged against a small