“Yes—but they’re still only women. They may lie about it. But with a few exceptions, abnormal women, who are hardly women at all, they’re simply filling a gap in their lives—perhaps trying to find husbands in unusual ways. Everybody must have an object, to be in the least happy. And children is the object the world has fixed for us women. Whether we’re conscious of it or not, we pursue it. And if we’re thwarted in it, we’re—well, we’re not happy.”
The old woman was staring out sadly into space. The cheerfulness had faded from the girl’s face. But presently she shook her head defiantly and broke the silence.
“I refuse to believe it,” she said with energy. “Oh, I don’t deny that I feel just as you describe. And why shouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t we all? Aren’t we brought up that way? Are we ever taught anything else? It’s the way women have been trained from the beginning. But—that doesn’t make it so.”
“No, it doesn’t,” replied her aunt. “And probably it isn’t so. But don’t make the mistake, child, of thinking that the world is run on a basis of what’s so. It isn’t. It’s run on a basis of think-so and believe-so and hope-so.”
Emily stood up beside her aunt and looked out absently through the leaves. “I don’t care what any one says or what every one says,” she said. “I don’t say that I don’t want love and home and all that. I do want it. But I think I want it as a man wants it. I want it as my very own, not as the property of some man which he graciously or grudgingly permits me to share. And I purpose to try to make my own life. If I marry, it will be as a man marries—when I’m pleased and not before. No, don’t look frightened, auntie. I’m not going to do anything shocking. I understand that the game must be played according to the rules, or one is likely to be excluded.”
“Well, you’ve got to make your living—at least for the present,” replied her aunt. “And it doesn’t matter much what your theory is. The question is, what can you do; and if you can do something, how are you to get the chance to do it. I can’t advise you. I’m only a useless old maid—waiting in a corner for death, already forgotten.”
Emily put on an expression of amused disbelief that was more flattering than true, and full of vague but potent consolation. “I don’t think I need advice,” she said, “so much as I need courage. And there you can help me, auntie dear—can, and will.”
“I?” The old woman was pleased and touched. “What can I say or do? I can only tell you what you already know—though I must say I didn’t when I was your age—can only tell you that there’s nothing to be afraid of in all this wide world except false pride.”
She looked thoughtfully at her knitting, then anxiously at the resolute face of her niece. “In our country,” she went on, “it’s been certain from the start, it seems to me, that what you’ve been saying would be the gospel of the women as well as of the men. But it takes women a long time to get over false pride. You are going to be a working-woman. If only you can see that all honest work is honourable! If only you can remember that your life must be made by yourself, that to look timidly at others and dread what they will say about you is cowardly and contemptible! How I wish I had your chance! How I wish I’d had the courage to take my own chance!”