The Sleeping Sword by Brenda Jagger Page A

enthusiasm, being frankly irritated by the self-effacing Miss Fielding—daughter of our senior M.P.—whose fluttering devotion was given not really to God but to his servant, our vicar, whose willing slave she had become; while only the example of Miss Rebecca Mandelbaum offered me a little hope, a little entertainment.
    Miss Mandelbaum was unusual for a number of reasons, not least among them her talent as a pianist, which could have taken her to the concert stage had not her parents—for what seemed to them the best of reasons—opposed it. Following the deaths of those parents some years ago, she had taken up residence alone in the no longer fashionable but still very genteel neighbourhood of Blenheim Lane, her independence made possible by her mature years, a substantial inheritance and the understanding of her brother, who as head of the family might well have preferred to keep her at home.
    She was a rounded, stately woman who passed her days talking to friends on such thoughtful topics as art, music and philosophy, the nature of truth and justice. Miss Mandelbaum did not care in the least for the triumphs and heartbreaks of an Assembly Rooms Ball; nor, I suspect, did the inadequate drainage of large areas of Cullingford enter her mind other than rarely. But the respective merits of Botticelli and Andrea del Sarto could arouse her to excitement, a Beethoven sonata could leave her mesmerized, while the National Society for Women’s Suffrage inspired her, quite rightly, with passion.
    â€˜Forgive me, Miss Agbrigg,’ she had murmured to me on my third or fourth visit to her quiet house, ‘I do not care to speak of personal matters, but I wonder if you have considered how very wealthy you might be one day?’
    And when I had assured her that I had, she still seemed compelled to apologize. ‘I mention it merely because I am myself very adequately provided for. And do you know, Miss Agbrigg, it has often seemed strange to me that the man from whom I purchase my groceries, any man, in fact, who can, however meagrely, be called a householder, is entitled to his vote at election time. Whereas I, who own this house and another by the sea and a street or two of rented property in Cullingford, am allowed no vote at all. Is it any wonder that so many laws of our land are unjust to women, or simply take no account of women at all, when no woman has had a hand in their making?’
    â€˜You are a suffragist then, Miss Mandelbaum?’
    â€˜My dear, I believe I am, for I made the acquaintance on a recent visit to Manchester of Miss Lydia Becker, a founder of the Society for Women’s Suffrage. Should I succeed in persuading her to visit me and speak a few words, perhaps you would care to attend?’
    Miss Becker, as it turned out, was unable to oblige but sent instead her lieutenant, a dry and rather angry Miss Tighe, who explained to our select gathering certain matters which seemed to me so obvious and so right that I understood—with the force of a revelation—that I had been born believing them.
    I knew—as who did not—that the Reform Bill of 1832 had given the vote to all middle class gentlemen, a privilege which had hitherto belonged exclusively to the aristocracy and any others who possessed property and connections enough to number themselves among the ‘ruling classes’. The Reform Bill of 1867—considerably overdue—had fallen far short of the universal male suffrage which had been demanded, but had granted ‘household suffrage’, a phrase, Miss Tighe told us, in which a loophole had been spotted, nearly four thousand women in Manchester alone—Miss Tighe among them—who owned houses and income far above the minimum property qualification the bill required, having attempted to place their names on the electoral register.
    Miss Tighe had taken her claim to court, where it had been defended by the dedicated and philanthropic barrister