she call herself by the holy name offriend?
"Pity me!"
"I do," says Fido, finally meeting Helen's eyes, "I do. I don't condemn you for this affair. But I believe it's poisoning you by degrees." She gets to her feet, takes a long breath. "I won't aid and abet it any longer; I don't even want to hear about it."
"Oh, but—"
"Sh," she says, finger to her lips, looking at Helen with eyes that brim with scalding love.
***
The Reform Firm's been summoned to Langham Place by a mysterious message from Bessie Parkes, "to discuss matters of grave importance to the future of the Journal."
Rereading the note, Fido thinks, how strange: a month ago, she'd have been hard pressed to name anything of more importance to her than the future of the English Woman's Journal. Now she finds all her thoughts are of Helen Codrington. At moments, she catches herself wishing she hadn't run into her on Farringdon Street; that she'd been anywhere else in London on the last day of August, walking along, sufficient unto herself.
"This is a sorry mess," comments Emily Davies, taking her seat at the committee table.
Their secretary's all aquiver. "It has emerged—it seems that the Journal's finances are in much worse shape than they seemed."
"Tell them what the subscribers said," says Bessie Parkes with a tragic empress's nod.
"I spoke in confidence to a dozen or so who've supported us for the past six years but don't mean to renew," says Sarah Lewin in her whispery voice. "In several cases, I was informed that the Journal, in their view, has never quite been able to shake off certain unsavoury associations."
"God knows we've tried," says Jessie Boucherett.
"Indeed," says Isa Craig sorrowfully. "Forcing poor Max to resign the editorship..."
Fido grimaces. She still feels obscurely guilty about the role she played in the purge of Matilda "Max" Hays, their fieriest campaigner, who was publishing demands for women's emancipation when the rest of them were still in short skirts.
"We didn't force her," Bessie Parkes protests.
"Obliged her, then," says Fido. "Induced."
"We had no choice: shadows clung about Max's name," says Bessie Parkes, looking into the distance. "Her reputation for Bloomerism, wild outbursts, that household of women in Rome..."
"But you were friends with her and Miss Cushman, you stayed there yourself," Jessie Boucherett points out.
"Yes, and Max will always be very dear to me," says Bessie Parkes in a shaking voice, "but reputation is such an insidiously lingering phenomenon. Desperate measures were called for."
Such a curious mixture of the soft and the diamond-hard about Bessie Parkes, Fido thinks. She finds herself gripping the bevelled edge of the table with her fingertips. A headache's started up behind her right eye. "I never saw her in bloomers," she bursts out, "only shirts and jackets of a tailored cut."
"Any eccentricity, even in dress, gives succour to our enemies," says Bessie Parkes.
"Besides," cries Fido, "it's so unfair that the Journal still has a reputation for laxity, when its content is of the tamest kind."
"You've put your finger on it," says Emily Davies, very crisp. "I believe this issue of reputation is a red herring; our readers have simply had enough of carrying a lame dog."
Isa Craig is looking distressed. "Now Miss Davies, you mustn't take things personally. Our readership was in decline from its peak of one thousand long before you took over the editorship."
"Oh I'm quite aware of that, and I believe I do a competent job with the resources available to me," says Emily Davies. "But the fact is that the English Woman's Journal has never been known for intellectual or literary excellence."
The women of the Reform Firm aren't meeting each other's eyes.
"Our friends buy it out of duty, and for the most part, I suspect, shelve it unread."
"Not so!"
"Surely—"
"Yes, yes, yes," says Fido, nodding at Emily Davies. "The problem is timidity. If we're too nervous to include any topic which could be considered remotely controversial, we're left with pedestrian exhortations to our readers to use their talents while making sure to fulfill their womanly duties!"
"May I ask," breathes Sarah Lewin, "what sort of topic—"
Jessie Boucherett interrupts her. "I rather agree with Fido. For instance, why have we never pointed out the many injustices to women that linger in the Matrimonial Causes Act?"
Bessie Parkes purses her lips. "Divorce is a dangerous subject. We could seem to be associating ourselves with women of doubtful reputation."
"But what about a blameless wife," asks Isa Craig, "whose husband takes half a dozen mistresses? As the law stands, she can only free herself