1
IN the two years that elapsed before Joan's seventeenth birthday nothing
occurred in the nature of a change. Looking back over that time she was
surprised to find how little had happened; she had grown accustomed to
monotony, but the past two years seemed to have been more monotonous
than usual. The only outstanding event had been when she and Milly
joined the tennis club. Mrs. Ogden did not encourage her daughters to
take part in the more public local festivities, which were to a great
extent shared with people whom she considered undesirable, but in this
case she had been forced to yield to combined entreaties.
The tennis club meant less after all to Joan than she had anticipated,
though she played regularly for the sake of exercise. The members were
certainly not inspiring, nor was their game challenging to effort. They
were divided into two classes; those who played for the sake of their
livers and those who played for the sake of white flannels and
flirtation. To the former class belonged General Brooke, a boisterous
player, very choleric and invariably sending his balls into neighbouring
gardens. His weight had increased perceptibly since the colonel's
illness; perhaps because there was now no one to cause him nervous
irritation. When he played tennis his paunch shook visibly under his
flannel shirt. The latter class was made up principally of youths and
maidens from adjacent villas. To nearly every member of this younger
generation was supposed to belong some particular stroke which formed an
ever fruitful topic for discussion and admiration. Mr. Thompson, the new
assistant at the circulating library, sprang quickly into fame through
volleying at the net. He was a mean player and had an odious trick of
just tipping the ball over, and apologizing ostentatiously when he had
done it. There was usually a great deal of noise, for not only was there
much applause and many encouraging remarks, but the players never failed
to call each score. Joan played a fairly good game, but contrary to all
expectation she never became really proficient. Milly, on the other
hand, developed a distinct talent for tennis, and she and young Mr.
Thompson, who was considered a star player, struck up a friendship,
which, however, never penetrated beyond the front door of Leaside.
At fifteen Milly was acutely conscious of her femininity. She was in all
respects a very normal girl, adoring personal adornment and distinctly
vain. The contrast between the two sisters was never more marked than at
this period; they made an incongruous couple, the younger in her soft
summer dresses, the elder in the stiff collars and ties which she
affected. In spite of all Mrs. Ogden's entreaties Joan still kept her
hair short. Of course it was considered utterly preposterous, and the
effect in evening dress was a little grotesque, but she seemed
completely to lack personal vanity. At seventeen she suggested a well
set-up stripling who had borrowed his sister's clothes.
The life of the schoolroom continued much as usual. Mrs. Ogden, now two
years older and with an extra two years of the colonel's heart and her
own nervous headaches behind her, had almost given up trying to
interfere with Joan's studies. She went in for her examinations as a
matter of course, and as a matter of course was congratulated when she
did well, but the subject of her career was never mentioned; it appeared
to have been thrust into the background by common consent. Elizabeth
looked older; at times a few new lines showed on her forehead, and the
curious placidity of her mouth was disturbed. Something very like
discontent had gathered about the firmly modelled lips.
But if Joan was given more freedom to study, she was to some extent
expected to pay for that freedom. Seabourne could be quite gay according
to its own standards; there were tennis and croquet parties in the
summer and a never-ending chain of whist drives in the winter, to say
nothing of tea parties all the year round. To these festivities Joan,
now seventeen, was expected to go, and it was not always possible to
evade them, for, as Mrs. Ogden said, it was a little hard that she
should have to go everywhere alone when she had a daughter who was
nearly grown up.
2
The Loos gave a garden party at Moor Park. Poor Joan! She felt horribly
out of place, dressed for the occasion in a muslin frock, her cropped
head, crowned by a Leghorn hat, rising incongruously from the collarless
bodice. Sir Robert thought her a most unattractive young woman, but his
wife still disagreed with him. She had always admired Joan, and now the
fact that there was something distinctly unfeminine about the girl was
an added interest in her hostess's eyes. For Lady Loo, once the best
woman to hounds in a hard riding hunt, had begun to find life too
restful at Moor Park. She had awakened one day filled with the
consciousness of a kind of Indian summer into which she had drifted.
Some stray gleam of youth had shot through her, filling her with a
spurious vitality that would not for the moment be denied. And since the
old physical activity was no longer available, she turned in
self-defence to mental interests, and took up the Feminist Movement with
all the courage, vigour and disregard of consequences that had
characterized her in the hunting-field. It was a nine-days' wonder to
see Lady Loo pushing her bicycle through the High Street of Seabourne,
clad in bloomers and a Norfolk jacket, a boat-shaped hat set jauntily on
her grey head. It is doubtful whether Lady Loo had any definite ideas
regarding what it was that she hoped to attain for her sex; it certainly
cannot have been equality, for in spite of her bloomers, Sir Robert,
poor man, was never allowed to smoke his cigar in the drawing-room to
the day of his death.
Lady Loo's shrewd eyes studied Joan with amusement; she took in at a
glance the short hair and the wide, flat shoulders.
"Will you ever let it grow?" she asked abruptly.
"Never," said Joan. "It's so little trouble as it is."
"Quite right," said her hostess. "Now why on earth shouldn't women be
comfortable! It's high time men realized that they ain't got the sole
prerogative where comfort is concerned." She chuckled. "I suppose," she
remarked reflectively, "that people think it's rather odd for a young
woman of your age to have short hair. I suppose they think it's rather
odd for an old woman like me to bicycle in bloomers; but the odd thing
about it is that they, the women I mean, should think it odd at all. It
must be that all the centuries of oppression have atrophied their brains
a little, poor dears. When they get equal rights with men it'll make all
the difference to their outlook; they'll be able to stretch themselves."
"Do you think so, Lady Loo?" said Mrs. Ogden. "I should never know what
to do with that sort of liberty if I had it, and I'm sure Joan
wouldn't."