After Charlotte had been outfitted in what her ladyship called a “working costume”-a simple, short-skirted blue dress topped with a smock, and a pair of leather brogans-the two of them went out for a tour. A little later, they were walking through the poultry yard, where a group of women was building a new chicken coop, and Lady Sheridan was explaining the purpose of her school and the idea behind it: to help young women acquire skills that they could put to work on the land, to create both productive lives and productive smallholdings.
And now, Charlotte was impressed, in spite of all her Anarchist learnings. Her fellow comrades had dinned it into her that no wealthy landowner cared a fig for those who worked the land, or cared only to keep them oppressed. But while Pierre would probably sneer at Lady Sheridan’s “reformist” notions and argue that her efforts were merely palliative, Charlotte could not but feel that the school was accomplishing something important, and said as much.
“It’s not enough, of course,” Lady Sheridan replied. “There are too many thousands who need help. But if what we’re doing here can keep even one young woman out of the factories and the slums, it will have been worthwhile.” Her smile became rueful. “I know about slums firsthand, you see, because I grew up in New York, in a tenement. I was an orphan, and my aunt and uncle O’Malley took me in and raised me. Uncle was a policeman, and Irish, and there were a great many mouths to feed.” She shook her head. “I sometimes wonder that we all survived. But we did, actually. Survived and thrived.”
Lottie stared, her surprise turning to a complete and utter astonishment. “You… you grew up in a tenement?”
Lady Sheridan’s hazel eyes regarded her thoughtfully, and her mouth softened. She took Charlotte ’s arm and they began to walk toward the orchard, where three women were picking fruit from the heavily-laden trees. “I certainly did. I remember almost every day of it, both the good and the bad. And it wasn’t all bad,” she added after a moment. “Sometimes I think that adversity teaches us to be strong and resourceful. If I had grown up under different circumstances, with more privilege and fewer responsibilities, I might not have the strength and resilience I have now.” Her tone was reflective and matter of fact.
“But how did you-” Charlotte was puzzled. “ New York is so far away and-” She stopped, unable to think of a polite way to frame the question.
Lady Sheridan paused at the edge of the orchard and leaned her elbows on the old stone wall. “How did I get from there to here? With my pen, I suppose you might say. You see, I was already earning my living as a writer when I discovered that my father’s sisters, my Ardleigh aunts-of whom I had no knowledge at all-lived here at Bishop’s Keep. I was invited to come to England and work as a secretary to my Aunt Sabrina Ardleigh, with time from my duties to do my own writing. When she and my aunt Bernice both died, I inherited this place.” [5] She raised her head and gazed at the neat rows of trees and the field beyond, where a group was stacking hay. “Sometimes I find it difficult to credit my good fortune, Miss Conway. Perhaps that’s why I try to do what I can to change things.”
“I see,” Charlotte said, thinking that while her Anarchist friends would doubtless charge Lady Sheridan with the hypocrisy of the wealthy, her heart certainly seemed to be in the right place.
“And you, Miss Conway?” Lady Sheridan turned to face her. “How did you come to be doing what you’re doing now?”
Charlotte clasped her hands, hesitating. She liked Lady Sheridan and wanted to tell her the whole story, but it all seemed so complicated. She settled for a sketchy outline. “It was my mother,” she said finally. “She joined the Fabian Society in the 1880s, but she was more interested in Anarchism than in Socialism. So she left the Fabians and started the Clarion in 1891 and carried it on until five years ago. Then she… fell ill.” She looked away, thinking how difficult it was to describe what had happened to her mother, and to herself, over the past few years. “There was no one else to continue the Clarion, so I took it on. I felt it my… duty, you see. Both to my mother and to the cause.”
Lady Sheridan paused, seeming to think about what she had said. Charlotte was afraid she might question her more closely, but she only said: “And you live at home still, with your mother?”
Charlotte nodded. That part of it, too, was difficult to describe. But Lady Sheridan seemed concerned about something else.
“Does your mother know where you are? Would you like to send her a message, telling her that you’re safe? If you’re concerned that her house is being watched, I’m sure we can arrange-”
“No,” Charlotte said. She might have added, My mother doesn’t care, but it wouldn’t have explained anything. Best just to leave it all unsaid. “It’s all right, really, Lady Sheridan. Mum won’t worry.” She turned to look at the orchard, where a woman was loading baskets of fruit onto a wagon, and thought an Anarchist thought. “You have rather a large crop, don’t you?” she asked archly. “It must bring in quite a lot of money.”
Lady Sheridan was silent for a moment. “Yes,” she said at last. She turned to look steadily at Charlotte. “Each of the workers earns a share of the profits from our venture, based upon her contribution to it. We are organized as a cooperative, you see. In that way, it is possible for a woman to earn her living while she is gaining the skills she needs for her future.”
It was Charlotte ’s turn to fall silent.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Since the advent of mass communications (the radio, television, and the Internet), it is no longer possible for any government to control the flow of information and the power it represents. This is true anarchy.
Albert J. Williams,
“A Brief History of British Anarchism,” 2002
Early that morning, Charles had driven the Panhard to Chelmsford to spend the day with Guglielmo Marconi, whose Wireless Telegraph Company was located in an old silk factory in Hall Street. It wasn’t Charles’s first trip to the wireless telegraphy laboratory. He was much impressed by Marconi’s innovative work, especially his patented system for tuned coupled circuits, which increased signal range and permitted adjacent stations to operate without interference by allowing simultaneous transmissions on different frequencies.
To Charles’s mind, Marconi was a genius, although most scientists thought the man was more than a little mad. Until last December, it was believed that wireless waves could travel only in straight lines from the transmitter, and that signals could be sent and received only as long as the transmitters were within the line of sight. But Charles had watched as Marconi confounded all the scientists and proved that the curvature of the earth was not a barrier to wireless transmission. At his wireless station in Cornwall, Marconi had received a signal-the letter S in Morse code-transmitted from St. John’s, Newfoundland, eighteen hundred stormy miles away, across the Atlantic. Charles had heard it himself, and to him it had seemed almost a miracle. But if what he had seen in the laboratory today was any indication, there were still more miracles to come. As he drove back to Bishop’s Keep, his head was full of exciting possibilities for wireless transmission, using Marconi’s new system. Someday it might even be possible to transmit the human voice over the air waves, just as was now done over the telephone wire.
He was still preoccupied with these ideas as he walked into the library at Bishop’s Keep, to join Kate for tea. He bent to drop a kiss on her auburn hair, thinking as he always did how pleasant it was to come home to a woman who was not only a pleasure to look at, dressed as she was in a simple ivory afternoon gown, but clever. Yes, exceedingly clever. Kate could always be counted on to listen intelligently to his visionary thoughts-although she might accuse him of being a dreamer like H. G. Wells, with his fantastic visions of the future. But they weren’t so fantastic, were they? Not when men like Marconi could turn science on its head, and make it possible for every ship at sea to communicate with stations on the shore. He turned on the electric light beside his favorite chair. The petrol-powered generator he had installed several years ago had given good service, and he had extended the circuitry throughout the first floor of the old house. So far as he knew, Bishop’s Keep was the only estate in the area to enjoy the luxury of electric light, and he thought that it might not be many years before he and Kate would also enjoy the luxury of listening to the human voice over the airwaves.