She placed cup and saucer in front of Catriona with a soft clink, and Catriona glanced at her friend’s sweet face and thought, If only you knew about the monkey circus inside this head.
“Have you changed your hair?” she asked instead.
Hattie touched her coiffure warily. “No?”
Odd. Something was different. The warm brown eyes, the sprinkle of golden freckles across the nose were the same. A subtle new fullness to Hattie’s cheeks, perhaps?
“We do need your clever head,” said Annabelle. “But first—tell us, how is your book coming along?”
There was genuine interest in Annabelle’s voice, probably because she was a classics scholar who knew the pains of academic writing, and for some reason that made it worse.
“It’s quite unwritten,” Catriona said flatly. “I’d rather we talk about the Property Act.”
“I see.” Annabelle gave her a commiserative smile. “Tell me more later, if you wish.”
Ten months ago, Annabelle had become a mother. She could have been at her estate in Wiltshire this moment, looking beautiful while mothering the cherubic heir to the Duke of Montgomery, and most people would agree that with that alone she was fulfilling her highest, if not only, purpose. Instead, she was at Oxford for the day, supporting revolutionary causes and taking interest in her friends. Catriona couldn’t have adored her more.
“As for the Property Act,” Lucie said, and smoothed back a strand of hair that had slipped from her chignon.
“Right,” Catriona said. “I’m all ears.”
“I’m not prone to optimism, as you know,” Lucie said, “but there is hope. Montgomery won us an important battle when he pushed the bill through the House of Lords, bravo. However, as I told the chapter the other day”—she nodded at the blackboard—“while there’s still no coequality between husband and wife, still no full access to our own property after marriage, the current Property Act gives us more than nothing. I now keep seeing the gentlemen in charge pointing to those crumbs and saying, Behold, we gave you some rights, why must you keep demanding more, you greedy girls? I cornered MP Warton in Westminster last week to talk some reason into him, and you know what he said? To my face, he said: ‘It would behoove you to be patient, and to consider how your demands undermine the harmony of the British family.’ Patient! After two dozen years of lobbying without any success? And what about his poor wife? He doesn’t even try to hide the fact that he thinks his domestic harmony hinges entirely on Mrs. Warton’s legal subjugation.”
Catriona had stopped stirring her tea. “Did you say anything back?”
“Yes, in the words of our formidable Frances Cobbe,” Lucie said smugly. “I asked him whether he was aware that under coverture, personhood of a woman who commits murder is dealt with by the law in the same way as it deals with the property of a woman who commits matrimony—she loses it all.”
Catriona smirked. “Brilliant.”
“Beautiful,” Annabelle agreed.
“I hope he was lost for words, the silly sausage,” said Hattie.
“He was perfectly self-righteous and therefore, he felt unduly harassed,” Lucie said, her cheeks reddening as the scene still seemed to play out again before her mind’s eye.
“The current act does allow working women to keep their wages, though,” Hattie pointed out.
Lucie cut her an arch look. “What of it?”
“I’m just noting that it wasn’t entirely useless.”
“You sound just like him,” Lucie said darkly, “like Warton.”
Hattie’s brows flew up. “No, I don’t?”
“It’s a slippery slope.”
“You sound a little tense, my dear.”
Catriona took a bite out of her lemon cake. A burst of zesty flavor, and then it melted in her mouth. She sighed. The night had been short, but tea and sugar eased her out of her stupor. She had better be alert—an appointment with Elias Khoury was next. She mustn’t say anything outrageous again like she had last evening on the Front Quad, but when he fixated her with his sea-sky eyes, she wavered between being frozen stupid and unleashing verbal havoc. Is it very lonely, being so clever? She cringed. It wasn’t just his eyes, it was his jokes, proper spears to the gut, targeted as if he knew her secret soft spots.
“I’d love to petition my share of MPs,” she said to Lucie. “The truth is, though, I’m trying to write a book and dealing with MPs like Warton will be quite distracting.”
Lucie gave her a lazy smile. “Then it’s a good thing that what I have in mind for you doesn’t involve any traveling or canvassing.”
Fiddlesticks. “Do tell.”
“Allow me to introduce our newest campaign,” Lucie said, and pointed at the blackboard again. “The Matrimonial Causes Act of 1878.”
Catriona ate the last bite of her cake. “That act allows wives to petition for a separation in case of maltreatment, doesn’t it?”
“Correct.”
“What has it to do with our Property Act campaign?”
“It has to do with the safety of women,” Lucie said, a little stern. “I worry that if our Property Act amendment is passed with all our demands, it will enrage quite a few husbands—and their wives might bear the brunt. We ought to remain one step ahead.”
Catriona licked frosting off her bottom lip. “I don’t quite follow yet.”
“Assume you are a wife, and you’re unsafe in your home,” Lucie said. “You can apply for a separation. The problem is, more often than not, Mr. Magistrate will reject your application. Now, if a wife could keep her property thanks to our amendment, she could just keep what is hers and leave anyway, right?”
Catriona nodded.
“Wrong,” said Annabelle. “If a spouse leaves without a legal decree, she can be ordered right back home.”
“Precisely,” said Lucie. “And how does a husband do that? He takes out a Writ for Restitution of Conjugal Rights against her. And if she refuses to comply with that writ?” She stabbed the air with her spoon. “She might go to jail.”
A slow, sinking feeling was weighing down Catriona’s stomach. This was hurtling right at her and evading it would make her feel terribly guilty.
Lucie promptly confirmed her suspicions. “I was hoping you could lead the effort against the writ for restitution.”
Her jaw wouldn’t move, and so she just sat and stared in silence.
“Just think,” Lucie continued, eyes gleaming, “with our new amendment in place and this ghastly writ gone, wives could just make a run for it. They now have the means, and the freedom. Stuff the magistrates.”
“I shall consider it,” Catriona said at last. A faint pulse was ticking in her ears.
Hattie and Annabelle were glancing back and forth between them, clearly sensing her reluctance.
“Excellent.” Lucie, who had the social grace of a derailing locomotive, looked well pleased. “It should be no great trouble. Just drafting a first letter. As soon as possible.”
A soft huff of disbelief came from Annabelle. Letters to men in power required days of complicated legal research and sophisticated rhetorical arcs. The sender, in this case Catriona, would receive foolish replies that would enflame her enough to write rebuttals.