The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman by Stephen McKenna

Author:Stephen McKenna
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cassell and Company
Published: 1922-03-25T05:00:00+00:00

VII

Lady Ann Spenworth Deplores

Proposals by Women

LADY ANN (to a friend of proved discretion): Oh, but I fully believe they do it! There were rumours even before the war. To my mind, the idea that any girl should ask a man to marry her is so repugnant that I can hardly think of it calmly. All so-called “Leap-Year jokes” seem to me to be in execrable taste. . . Since the war, with these millions of superfluous women, I am told that it has become quite common. You have always had the cranks who claimed that a woman had as much right to choose a husband as a husband to choose a wife; and now girls like my niece Phyllida say that, with the general upset of war, a little money frightens a man away and, if you want him to see that a difference of means is not a real obstacle, you have to take the first step. I’m inclined to say: “Rubbish, child, rubbish”—and again “Rubbish”. Since when have young men developed these fantastic scruples? And does any girl think that the only way of securing a man is to propose to him? I should have imagined. . . But I was brought up in a different school. . .

Phyllida, of course, was struggling with her obsession. I do feel Brackenbury incurred a responsibility in not sending her right away. Ever since Colonel Butler disappeared, she has alternately fumed and fretted. Now she is becoming hard and cynical; if she were ten years older, you would call her “soured”. Ridiculous at one-and-twenty, or whatever she is. . . And she became no more normal after giving up hope of him. Oh, yes, I’m thankful to say that I think all that is quite over, though we must expect to see an occasional relapse; hence the discussion. She said that, if she met her Hilary or ever found out where he was, she would throw herself into his arms and ask him to marry her. And sotto voce the customary hateful suggestion that I had taunted him with wanting to marry her for her money and so driven him away in order to clear the ground for my Will. It is always on the tip of my tongue to say that she seems very certain of my boy. But it is the modern fashion for a girl to think she has only to drop the handkerchief. . . Brackenbury patted her hand (if he had slapped her it would have been more to the point), I went on with my work. She wanted the stimulus of a little opposition, and that was just what I refused to give her. Then she began talking in general terms about the difficulty that a girl has in finding a husband nowadays: fewer men than ever, all of them uprooted by the war and uncertain of their future, widows marrying again, the older women remaining young so much longer. I felt

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