“I don’t, no.”
“Well, my painting was the only one that had not a single bird in it.”
“Oh.”
“Now, Mr. Blackstone’s invitation can’t be an attempt to curry favor with the Greenfields, since my father was the one repeatedly approaching him.”
“Then the question is, what is his motivation?” Catriona muttered.
It was a justified question. She doubted it was Mr. Blackstone’s admiration for her talent since the only example of her work he had seen thus far was The Gourd. . . . But it was such a pretty idea, to be chosen for herself. . . . She wished their usual quartet of friends was complete, so she could have opinions other than just Catriona’s mercilessly rational ones to consider. But Annabelle and her duke had retreated to their castle in Brittany last week, and Lucie’s usual place on the yellow settee was empty, too, as she was en route to Italy. She herself was expected in London tonight, since the term had concluded and the additional week her parents had granted her in Oxford was over.
She nibbled on her pastry with little enthusiasm. “I should like to join both the gallery tour and Mr. Blackstone’s charity, because I shall be dreadfully bored a fortnight from now. I don’t care for summer in London and I already miss you.”
Catriona’s brows rose with surprise. “You’re staying in London?” Catriona would be on her way to a windswept glen in Applecross soon, fleeing London’s sooty summer heat like a regular person.
“My father requires fast access to Frankfurt and Paris because of the Spain crisis,” Hattie explained. “Mama is staying to give Sir Bradleigh and Mina some more time to court in public.”
Repetitive weeks in town stretched before her, muggy and treacherous like a narrow path across a swampland under her mother’s scrutinizing eye. Meanwhile, Mina would enjoy outings with her knight. She couldn’t even make herself useful by helping Lucie with suffrage work, since her parents had no knowledge of her political activism. She’d have to occupy herself in other ways. Drawing sketches of hands and feet. Envisioning provocative ballgowns she’d never be allowed to wear. Accompanying Mother to her respectable charitable activities, which consisted mainly of drinking tea.
“Let’s hope Sir Bradleigh’s proposal is imminent,” she said. “It would at least focus all my mother’s attentions on planning a wedding.”
A shudder ran down Catriona’s back. “Aren’t you worried she will then turn her marriage designs on you? You’re older than Mina, after all.”
“I’m not worried,” said Hattie. “In fact, it’s time someone offered for me, because Mina will shamelessly lord her elevated position over me at every opportunity.” This had been troubling her more than she cared to admit.
“Are you certain this is what you want?” Catriona looked skeptical.
“It’s hardly a secret that I look forward to finding my knight in shining armor.”
“No, but I hadn’t realized you were in a hurry,” Catriona said, “and you had two risky adventures recently, which, if exposed, would have made the marriage mart look quite grim for you.”
Laid out like this, her behavior was indeed contradictory. She shifted on the upholstery, discomfited. “I intended no self-sabotage, not knowingly,” she said. “I even decided on a suitable candidate last week.”
“That’s . . . news?”
“It’s Lord Skeffington.”
Catriona’s brows arched high. “Lord Clotworthy Skeffington?”
“Yes. He’s titled, young, mild-mannered, handsome, and he’s an artist,” she enumerated. “He would understand my need to paint.”
Catriona was shaking her head, slowly, as if dazed. “He would own the rights to your work. He could forbid you to paint. His name is Clotworthy.”
“Annabelle is married,” Hattie said. “She still studies at Oxford.”
“Annabelle agreed to the match after the duke had publicly declared his support for women’s suffrage,” Catriona pointed out. “Do you know Skeffington’s politics?”
“He’s a peer,” Hattie said, avoiding her eyes, “so he’s a Tory.”
Catriona was quiet, in the way her whole body went quiet when she had opinions. Annoyingly, it gave her point more gravity than had she been lecturing out loud. There was no need for words in any case—Hattie could recite their suffrage chapter’s litany on the matter of marriage in her sleep: marrying was risky business. Coverture, an English common-law doctrine, demanded that a wife was subsumed in her husband’s legal persona. On paper, she ceased to exist as a person. Save for a few narrowly defined exceptions, she lost her right to own property, too. As a result, the right to vote, which was tied to property and rent qualifications, would elude a married woman unless the toothless Married Women’s Property Act was properly amended. Amend the Married Women’s Property Act had long been their battle cry, and she was currently contemplating treason.
She finished her éclair and washed it down with tepid tea. Sometimes, there were disadvantages to counting only suffragists and hermity scholars among her closest friends. Sometimes, she missed having a confidante who unreservedly shared her excitement for fabrics and fashion and art and who enjoyed chattering about attractive eligible bachelors. She used to have such friends, but they lived in London and Europe and were married now, and they found her a bit odd.
She glanced at her brooding friend, who sat wrapped in a tartan shawl despite summery temperatures. “Did I ever tell you that one of my first conscious memories is watching a cousin say her wedding vows in St. Paul’s?”
Catriona shook her head. “You didn’t.”
“Now I have forgotten which cousin, but I still remember the gown.” She closed her eyes. “A diamond-sprinkled ethereal cloud of lace and white taffeta silk,” she said. “It was otherworldly: the gown, the choral singing, the sky-high rib vaults of the old cathedral. And there was the victorious elation radiating from my mother and my aunts because the bride ‘had made a grand match.’ I was perhaps six years old, but I recall reveling in the women’s levity. It was as though their muscles had been tensed for years, and now they were finally at ease. This was the true beginning of my cousin’s life, and the time before was merely diligent, hopeful preparation. Oh, don’t look so alarmed—I was a girl, a young child. I know better now; I attend the same suffrage meetings as you, don’t I? I read the same letters from maltreated, unhappy wives; I understand the curse of coverture.”
Catriona raised a soothing hand. “All right.”
“It just occurs to me that my notions about marriage have been nurtured over a dozen years, and undoing such beliefs with factual evidence is impressively ineffective.”