The carriage pulled up and they alighted and climbed the steps as the front door opened and they were welcomed. As usual they were formally announced. Once Isadora had been excited hearing Reginald spoken of as His Grace the Bishop. It had seemed a title with infinite possibilities, more worthy than a peerage because it was not inherited but rather bestowed by God. Now she stared at the sea of noise and color in front of her as she came into the room on his arm. It seemed no more than an accolade given by men to someone who had fitted most closely the pattern they desired, who had pleased the right people and avoided offending anyone. He was not the finest in a bold and courageous way, to change lives, but merely the least likely to endanger the existing way, the known and comfortable. He was the ultimate conserver of what was already here, good and bad.
They were introduced and she followed a step behind him, acknowledging people with a smile and a polite response. She tried to be interested in them.
“Mr. Aubrey Serracold,” she was told by Lady Warboys. “He is standing for the South Lambeth seat. Mrs. Underhill. Bishop Underhill.”
“How do you do, Mr. Serracold,” Isadora replied dutifully, then suddenly found that after all there was something in him that caught her attention. He responded to her with a smile and his eyes met hers with a secret amusement, as if they were both privy to the same rather absurd joke which honor obliged them to play out in front of this audience. The Bishop passed on to the next person, and she found herself smiling back at Aubrey Serracold. He had a long face and fair hair which flopped forward over one side of his brow. She remembered now that she had heard somewhere he was the second son of a marquis, or some such, and could have used a courtesy title of Lord, but preferred not to. She wondered what his political beliefs were. She hoped he had them, and was not merely looking for a new pastime to fill his boredom.
“Indeed, Mr. Serracold,” she said with interest she did not have to feign. “And which party are you representing?”
“I am not entirely sure that either is willing to take responsibility for me, Mrs. Underhill,” he replied with a slight grimace. “I have been candid enough to express a few of my own opinions, which have not been universally popular.”
In spite of herself she was interested, and it must have shown in her face, because he immediately elaborated in explanation. “For a start I have committed the unpardonable sin of preferring the Eight-Hour Bill in urgency before Home Rule for Ireland. I see no reason why we cannot commit to them both, and by so doing be far more likely to win the support of the greater mass of the people, and a base of power from which to accomplish other much-needed reform, beginning with yielding up the Empire to its natural citizens.”
“I am not certain about the Empire, but the rest sounds eminently reasonable,” she agreed. “Far too much so to become law.”
“You are a cynic,” he said with mock despair.
“My husband is a bishop,” she replied.
“Ah! Of course . . .” He was prevented from saying more by the need to acknowledge being joined by three further people, including Serracold’s wife, whom Isadora had not met, although she had heard her spoken of with both alarm and admiration.
“How do you do, Mrs. Underhill.” Rose returned the introduction with barely feigned interest. Isadora was not involved with politics, nor was she truly fashionable, in spite of the ocean-green gown. She was a woman of conservative grace and that kind of beauty which does not change.
Rose Serracold, on the other hand, was outrageously avant-garde. Her gown was a mixture of burgundy satin and guipure lace which, in combination with her startlingly fair coloring, was all the more dramatic, like blood and snow. Her brilliant aqua-colored eyes seemed to survey everyone in the room with something like hunger, as if looking for a particular person she did not find.
“Mr. Serracold has been telling me of the reforms he desires to effect,” Isadora said conversationally.
Rose flashed her a dazzling smile. “I am sure you must have your own knowledge of such needs,” she responded. “No doubt in your husband’s ministry he becomes painfully aware of the poverty and injustice there is which could be eased with more equitable laws?” She said it as a challenge, daring Isadora to claim ignorance and so brand herself a hypocrite in the Christianity which, through the Bishop, she professed.
Isadora responded without stopping to measure her words.
“Of course. It is not the changes I find trouble in imagining, but how we can effect them. For a law to be any good it must be enforceable, and there must be a punishment we are willing and able to inflict if it is broken, as it assuredly will be, even if only to test us.”
Rose was delighted. “You have actually thought about it!” Her surprise was palpable. “I apologize for slighting your sincerity.” She lowered her voice so it was audible only to those closest to them, and then went on speaking in spite of the sudden hush as others strained to hear what she was going to say. “We must talk together, Mrs. Underhill.” She put out an elegant hand, long-fingered, jeweled with rings, and drew Isadora away from the group in which they had found themselves more or less by chance. “Time is terribly short,” she went on. “We must go far beyond the core of the party if we are to do any real good. Abolishing fees for elementary schooling last year has already had wonderful effects, but it is only a beginning. We must do much more. Education for all is the only lasting answer to poverty.” She drew in her breath and then plunged on. “We must make a way for women to be able to restrict their families. Poverty and exhaustion, both physical and mental, are the unavoidable outcomes of having child after child whom you have not strength to care for nor money to feed and clothe.” She regarded Isadora with candid challenge in her eyes again. “And I am sorry if that is against your religious convictions, but being a bishop’s wife with a residence provided for you is a far cry from being in one or two rooms with no water and little fire and trying to keep a dozen children clean and fed.”
“Would an eight-hour day help or hurt that?” Isadora asked, willing herself not to take offense at things which were, after all, irrelevant to the real issue.
Rose’s arched eyebrows rose. “How could it possibly make it worse? Every laborer, man or woman, should be protected against exploitation!” The anger flared up in her face, pink color across her white skin.
Isadora was intending to ask Rose’s opinion rather than express any of her own, but was prevented in either by their being joined by a friend of Rose who greeted her with affection. She was introduced to Isadora as Mrs. Swann, and in return presented her companion, a woman of perhaps forty, with the confidence of maturity and still sufficient of the bloom of youth to attract the eye of most men. There was a grace in the way she held her dark head, and her deportment was that of someone who is quite certain of herself, yet interested in others.
“Mrs. Octavia Cavendish,” Mrs. Swann said with a touch of pride.
Isadora realized only just before speaking that the newcomer must be a widow to be so addressed. “Are you interested in politics, Mrs. Cavendish?” she asked. Since the evening was to that end it was a natural assumption.
“Only so far as it changes laws, I hope to the benefit of all,” Mrs. Cavendish replied. “It takes great wisdom to see ahead what will be the results of our actions. Sometimes the most nobly inspired paths are disastrous in their unforeseen ends.”
Rose opened her remarkable eyes very wide. “Mrs. Underhill was about to tell us how the eight-hour day could be ill,” she said, staring at Mrs. Cavendish. “I fear perhaps she is a Conservative at heart!”
“Really, Rose,” Mrs. Swann cautioned her with a quick glance of apology towards Isadora.
“No!” Rose said impatiently. “It is time we were less mealymouthed and said what we really mean. Is honesty too much to ask—indeed, to demand? Have we not the duty to pose questions and challenge the answers?”