“It’s revolutionary talk,” Miss Compton said. “We’re not meant to hear it.”

“Why shouldn’t we?” Mrs. Naismith asked. “It sounds positively titillating.”

“Exactly,” Miss Compton replied ominously. “My father says that lectures of this sort are a poison to women. He warns most strenuously against them.”

“Naturally, he does,” Effie said. “That is how gentlemen remain in power, by making us fear the very thing that will set us free.”

Miss Compton drew back with a dubious blink. “Lectures by radical bluestockings?”

“Knowledge,” Effie said. “It’s ignorance that’s the poison, Miss Compton. This…well. I very much hope this will be the cure.”

29

Some ninety minutes later, Effie emerged from Lady Bartlett’s house alongside Miss Compton and Mrs. Naismith. Together, they descended the front steps to the busy street below.

Miss Compton’s fair brow was furrowed deeply. Despite her initial protestations, she had listened intently as Lady Bartlett related the damning testimonials her committee had compiled from ladies who had suffered under the current property laws. Women of every class whose fortunes, both large and small, had been squandered or stolen by the men they had married. The same men whom the law believed were better custodians of a wife’s earnings and inheritances than the wife herself.

And that hadn’t been the worst of it.

After Lady Bartlett had finished her sobering report, she’d introduced Miss Wolstenholme, a prominent teacher from Manchester, who spoke on the evils of the current system of educating girls. She’d laid out in plain terms how girls were purposely kept in ignorance, dissuaded from engaging in politics or public affairs, and discouraged from having strong opinions else they be labeled unfeminine. Like the current laws, it was all predicated on the flawed idea that the more serious aspects of a female’s life—finances, property, even intimate relations—were better left to be managed by men.

“Well,” Effie said frankly, “I found that very enlightening.”

“Oh, but it was!” Mrs. Naismith agreed. Like Miss Compton, she had been riveted by the lecture, seeming to be as fascinated by the topics discussed as she was at being newly acquainted with the daughter of her protector. “Do you think it all true?”

“Of course it’s true,” Miss Compton said. “And monstrous besides.”

Mrs. Naismith nodded. “The injustice of it—men purposefully keeping us in the dark, and then chastising us for not being their intellectual equals? My—” she stopped, catching herself. “That is, a friend of mine, did recently say my concerns about money were unattractive. Unattractive, I tell you! But really…one must think of the years ahead. One isn’t young forever.”

Effie gave Mrs. Naismith a thoughtful look. Had she been pressing Compton about her future? And rather than reassure her, he had criticized her practical concerns as being unbecoming?

The unfeeling devil.