The Wife of Sir Isaac HarmanWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
General
The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
England -- Fiction; Upper class -- Fiction; Women's rights -- Fiction
Miss Alimony rose with a sigh and a slow unfolding rustle. “I forgot,”
she said. “My little maid is out.”
Lady Harman left alone sat for a time staring at the fire with her eyes
rather wide and her eyebrows raised as though she mutely confided to it
her infinite astonishment. This was the last thing she had expected.
She would have to go to some hotel. Can a woman stay alone at an hotel?
Her heart sank. Inflexible forces seemed to be pointing her back to
home—and Sir Isaac. He would be a very triumphant Sir Isaac, and she’d
not have much heart left in her.... “I _won’t_ go back,” she whispered
to herself. “Whatever happens I _won’t_ go back....”
Then she became aware of the evening newspaper Miss Alimony had been
reading. The headline, “Suffrage Raid on Regent Street,” caught her
eye. A queer little idea came into her head. It grew with tremendous
rapidity. She put out a hand and took up the paper and read.
She had plenty of time to read because her hostess not only got the tea
herself but went during that process to her bedroom and put on one of
those hats that have contributed so much to remove the stigma of
dowdiness from the suffrage cause, as an outward and visible sign that
she was presently ceasing to be at home....
Lady Harman found an odd fact in the report before her. “One of the
most difficult things to buy at the present time in the West End of
London,” it ran, “is a hammer....”
Then a little further: “The magistrate said it was impossible to make
discriminations in this affair. All the defendants must have a month’s
imprisonment....”
When Miss Alimony returned Lady Harman put down the paper almost
guiltily.
Afterwards Miss Alimony recalled that guilty start, and the still more
guilty start that had happened, when presently she went out of the room
again and returned with a lamp, for the winter twilight was upon them.
Afterwards, too, she was to learn what had become of the service end of
her small poker, the little iron club, which she missed almost as soon
as Lady Harman had gone....
Lady Harman had taken that grubby but convenient little instrument and
hidden it in her muff, and she had gone straight out of Miss Alimony’s
flat to the Post Office at the corner of Jago Street, and there, with
one simple effective impact, had smashed a ground-glass window, the
property of His Majesty King George the Fifth. And having done so, she
had called the attention of a youthful policeman, fresh from Yorkshire,
to her offence, and after a slight struggle with his incredulity and a
visit to the window in question, had escorted him to the South
Hampsmith police-station, and had there made him charge her. And on the
way she explained to him with a newfound lucidity why it was that women
should have votes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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