CHAPTER EIGHT
In the late 1890’s, a growing number of women began to consider agriculture as a career. In 1898, the Countess of Warwick opened a horticultural college which eventually enrolled 146 students, a quarter of whom had small holdings of their own. Lady Warwick hoped to establish cooperative settlements of “unmarrying women” who would share a cottage and manage their market farm as a partnership.
“Country Women in Victorian England ” Susan Blake
Luncheon had been quite interesting, Kate thought, as she waited for Edith to return from freshening up. Bradford Marsden’s fiancée was radically different from the other ladies he had brought to Bishop’s Keep. For one thing, she earned her living as a private secretary. For another, she was not only effervescent and strikingly attractive, but obviously bright and energetic and practical, with a strong sense of direction and perhaps (although this was hard to gauge on a first meeting) an equally strong sense of personal ambition. While Bradford ’s other companions had aspired to become the mistress of Marsden Manor, Edith seemed ambitious to achieve something for herself.
“Shall we go into the garden?” Kate asked when Edith had returned. “The horticulture students are working there, and I thought you might like to see what they’re doing.”
“Horticulture students?” Edith asked, falling into step beside Kate. She was tall and dark-haired, with dark eyes and firm dark brows. She wore a becoming walking suit of gray serge with a white blouse, the jacket tailored, the skirt smoothly gored and pleated for easy movement, cut above the ankles, revealing handsome gray boots.
“They are enrolled in my School for the Useful Arts,” Kate said, “which is organized after the model of Lady Warwick’s.” The school had been a dream for a long time, evolving slowly into a plan that seemed to Kate to be achievable and also to hold great promise-which didn’t keep others from mocking it as idealistic and doomed to failure, of course.
They stepped off the terrace and onto the garden path, bordered by June flowers and fragrant with lavender and bergamot. “Who are your students?” Edith asked. “How many are there?”
“Just a dozen now,” Kate said. “We admit only women, who come daily from the neighboring villages. But I’ve purchased some land from Bradford, and as soon as the cottages are repaired, we will begin accepting boarding students.” She paused beside a break in the hedge and pointed toward the kitchen garden, where several women were weeding the young peas. “Mr. Humphries, the head gardener, teaches horticulture, and I’ve just employed a woman who is skilled in dairying and beekeeping. In a few weeks, Mrs. Grieve will come and teach a course in herb-growing. As enrollment warrants, I also plan to add a master to assist in poultry and orchard management. I’m afraid it’s rather an ambitious project,” she added ruefully, “but I’m determined to see it succeed. The goal is to give these women skills that will enable them to earn their own living in rural areas.”
“What an exciting idea!” Edith exclaimed, her eyes sparkling. “Everyone complains that the land is going out of cultivation because there’s no one to farm it, and yet there’s not nearly enough fresh produce in the shops. If your graduates can gain a living by market gardening, there will be no need for them to work in the factories. Oh, Kate, I do applaud you! What a noble effort!”
Kate smiled. “Thank you-although I’m not sure how noble it is. But it breaks my heart to see the land so empty, and so many women wanting paid work. I feel I must do what I can.” She paused and added curiously, “Tell me more about what you do, Edith. You said that you work for Mr. Cecil Rhodes?”
“I’m employed in the London offices of the Rhodesian Mining Consortium,” Edith replied. “Mr. Rhodes is my godfather, and I am his personal secretary. That is, I handle his calendar and all his correspondence. I type and take shorthand, and I translate English into German and French where necessary. I even write letters over my own signature, with Mr. Rhodes’s approval, of course.” She smiled proudly.
“It sounds like a position with some very real authority,” Kate remarked. She herself had come to England to serve as her aunt’s secretary, and knew what a fortunate thing that had been.
“It is,” Edith replied. “And of course, there’s all sorts of intrigue just now, with the shameful way the Boers are treating the Uitlanders, and that ugly business about the franchise.” Her chin had a determined tilt. “I hope the government will send troops and settle things quickly. The honor of the Empire is at stake. We simply must not give in to those barbaric Boers!”
Kate thought that Edith’s views on the subject reflected those of Mr. Rhodes, with whom she and Charles did not at all agree. Since it was not likely she could change Edith’s mind, she changed the subject. “Do you and Bradford plan a long engagement? Where will the wedding be held?”
Edith’s face grew tense and there was a strain in her voice. “We mean to be married soon and simply. We had hoped Lady Marsden would be agreeable to a summer wedding at a small church near my mother’s home at Newmarket. But we haven’t been able to discuss the wedding with her. She dislikes me so intensely that she has not come down to dinner in the two days I’ve been there.”
“Oh, dear,” Kate murmured. She wasn’t surprised. Lady Marsden intended that Bradford should marry a woman of means, whose fortune could be used to repay the family’s mortgages and replenish their empty coffers. Edith was an educated gentlewoman-she had attended Girton College, Kate had learned at lunch. But that didn’t alter the fact that she had to work to live. And a working woman was not the kind of wife that Lady Marsden had imagined for her only son.
Edith frowned. “I am not sorry for myself,” she said decidedly. “As far as I am concerned, Lady Marsden may think as she likes. But Bradford must feel her disapproval keenly. I wish there was something I could do to change her opinion of me.”
Under Edith’s firm tone, Kate could hear the pain and heartache in her voice. She appreciated the girl’s unhappiness, because she herself had had to learn how to live with a similarly painful situation. Thinking that Edith might be helped by hearing about her experience, she briefly related her unhappy relationship with Lady Somersworth.
“I should make my own wedding plans if I were you, Edith,” she added gently, “and let Lady Marsden make whatever peace she can with the situation. You and Bradford must please yourselves, not anyone else.” She might have added that Lady Marsden had already meddled unforgivably in the lives of her daughters, Eleanor and Patsy, and that she constantly interfered in Bradford ’s life. It was not likely that the woman would ever be pleased.
Edith turned, her dark eyes searching Kate’s face, and some of the tension went out of her voice. “Thank you,” she said simply. “You’ve given me courage, Kate.” She squared her shoulders. “I do hope that you and Lord Charles can attend the wedding.”
“It will be at Newmarket, then?” Kate remembered Mrs. Langtry’s invitation. “Of course, we should love to attend. As it happens, I’ll be staying at Kentford myself, for two or three days. If you’re at your mother’s, perhaps we shall see one another.”