Anima and the Goat

By Hunt Tooley

Journalist Charlotte Drummond is wealthy, educated, rational—the rare independent woman in 1880s London, center of the changing world of the British Empire. When her young cousin Amanda is kidnapped in far-away India, Charlotte uses all her resources to put together a team with special skills to help rescue Amanda. Advanced technology is a must. As is travel across the world. Meanwhile strange forces from far-flung quarters of the globe threaten to overwhelm every effort. Some seem to come from beyond the material world. Some are quite rationally evil. Yet even as Charlotte strains to defeat the forces she can see, her nightmares prefigure the terror of incomprehensible violence--violence, and a loathsome man in a secret cave in the remote mountains of the Hindu Kush. And still more, the tigers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hunt Tooley
• Release date: Jun 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310390517

Hunt Tooley

Hunt Tooley is a coffee snob, an inveterate traveler, a ukulele player, a commentator on international trends, a bibliophile, and a historian. He has written and edited many books and articles in the field of modern History, and he has lectured widely in North America and Europe. The second edition of his book on World War I appeared in January 2016 as The Great War: Western Front and Home Front. He is a blogger, especially on historical and political topics, and his blog on the Paris Peace Conference (http://parispeace1919.blogspot.com/) is a resource for students of history in many countries. He teaches at Austin College, and resides in Sherman, Texas, where he lives with his wife, Karen.Anima and the Goat is his first novel.

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Preface

With any work of historical fiction one wonders necessarily where the history ends and the fiction begins. There is a lot of history in this novel. The imperial world of 1883 was a complex place, as full of optimistic globalism and brutal imperial cruelty as our own world. Perhaps even more. It was also a place where some women, like the protagonist of this novel, were making their way and making their mark in the relatively few careers open to them, in particular writing and journalism. And finally, the world of 1883 was the world that saw the Industrial Revolution at mid-stride. Technologically, it was far, far from the world of a hundred years previous, even as it is far from our own. The technologies that are a part of this work are all documented, were all part of the background noise. All political references, including the Egyptian staffing of its reformed army with retired Confederate officers, are correct. One may read more about any of these subjects easily. I hope that many readers will do so. The characters clearly not well known to history (well known in the sense of Gladstone or the Maharaja of Kashmir) are fictional, though to tell the truth, Charlotte herself is a composite of real journalists, and some of the other characters are truly based on actual individuals who lived during this time. The ideas held by the characters are, insofar as we can know historically, those of the period.

For those who wish to follow Anima and the Goat geographically, I suggest the historical collection of the superb online collection of historical maps by the Perry-Castañeda Library at the University of Texas. Look for

maps of Asia and the Middle East made in the nine-teenth century.

(https://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/)

It is a pleasure to acknowledge those who helped me complete this novel. My creative partners, Karen Tooley and Austin Tooley. Their suggestions and recommendations are embedded in every page. I am extremely grateful to Connie Gullett, who was a knowledgeable and encouraging first reader of the manuscript. My editor, Susan Atkin McGinn, brought to bear an enormous wealth of knowledge, not only about writing, but about history and literature as she edited this book. I cannot thank her enough for her outstanding editing and support. Several others read parts or all of one draft or another. All of these individuals were encouraging, but they were also good, hard taskmasters who took the time to think through all or part of the book. My thanks go finally to Richard Blake, author of the Conspiracies of Rome series and many other novels. He was kind enough to hear a bit about my novel early on and give me some good advice from his vast experience.

Hunt Tooley

Sherman, Texas

I have suggested... the term anima, as indicating something specific, for which the expression soul is too general and too vague. The empirical reality summed up under the concept of the anima forms an extremely dramatic content of the unconscious. It is possible to describe this content in rational, scientific language, but in this way one entirely fails to express its living character. Therefore, in describing the living processes of the psyche, I deliberately and consciously give preference to a dramatic, mythological way of thinking and speaking, because this is not only more expressive but also more exact than an abstract scientific terminology, which is wont to toy with the notion that its theoretic formulations may one fine day be resolved into algebraic equations.

Carl Jung

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PROLOGUE

Avinash walked slowly along, surrounded by a herd of goats that were, in a way, family members. More by instinct than logic, herders know what goats have on their minds. And though a young man, Avinash knew his goats and liked what he knew to be in their minds. They had wanted sweeter grass early in the day—no rain today, even though it was June—and he knew a patch of fat green on a hill a couple of miles from his village. Now that his friends had feasted, they wanted water in a certain familiar place, a cozy stream, close by the village. As did Avinash himself, truth be told. So the herder made a satisfying decision: he thought about the path to the stream. And before he even turned homewards, his goats had already begun to move in that direction. The sun was nudging the horizon, but it was summer in high Kashmir—he had no real fears of the dark. He would have his goats back to the village, and to their water, well before night really set in anyway.

His goats crowded around him comfortably as he stepped over uneven ground, winding easily downhill. Some animals in his herd of forty were dirty white, some were black and dirty white, but all were fundamentally good, decent goats—except of course for Bula, the Foolish One, the huge, brown goat now irritating his two neighbors. That one always made trouble! 

And onward they trudged, the goats, as usual, leading their leader. 

Just before dark, and still a half-mile from his village, the friendly gaggle slowed, tensed, and pressed into Avinash. He quickly glanced beyond his herd. On a path issuing from some boulders at the base of the next hill marched a troop of Kashmiri soldiers, fine-looking Sikh troops, sharp from the folds of their turbans down to the laces on their boots. In front of the soldiers was not only their commander, but a British observer, an officer, as well as two British sergeants along with a dozen uniformed Sowars, Kashmiri cavalrymen, lances high, saddle pistols secure, horses raffishly decked out.

Avinash had long been familiar with the various soldiers of the region: those from the army of the Maharaja of Kashmir, the ragtag units of surrounding potentates—the hill rajas—and the troops of the British Raj, the great ruling empire embodied in their red coats. They were out here all the more because even if the rajas were not up to something, some local warlord was getting up a revolt against the rajas, the Maharaja, or the British.

To be more accurate, Avinash had only seen the British troops in neighboring areas, just across the border to the west, where the Raj ruled directly. Here in western Kashmir, the Sikh dynasty maintained independence and rarely allowed the British free access. But he had certainly seen them when his family attended festivals in the neighboring valleys to the west—and a ceremonial presence of troops, either Sikh or British, was common enough.

Yet this patrol seemed somehow different, certainly not routine. Avinash had sometimes glimpsed patrols when he was at the extreme of his grazing range on the north, but here they were out of place. And then there was their attitude. The troopers seemed strangely attentive, even tense—just like his goats. 

A goatherd is no wise man—no swami or guru, thought Avinash—but a truthful proverb came to his mind: the sparrow must keep a watch or some cat will kill it. At least that is what the elders in his village often said.

Avinash quickly scanned the horizon. He could see no danger, but as any herder knows, that means nothing. The troopers were still moving, about three hundred yards down the gentle slope, and to his left. To his right, about fifty yards, lay a rocky outcropping. He remembered this spot well, had in fact played hide and seek here as a child not so long ago. He had still not stopped moving ahead. He had only slowed with the pressure of his goats. But now he curved gently to the right, calling the names of a few goats to reassure them. As usual, Bula tried to continue on the original course, but the tension of the group brought even the Fool around, his long brown ears dangling low, their black tips keeping time as he viewed the rest of the herd with—Avinash was sure of it—vanity and arrogance. Keeping an eye out toward the troopers to his left, Avinash eased his goats into a fold of the ground between two upright stones, almost a natural pen. The goats hunkered down, and so did their goatherd. 

He peered out and almost immediately saw a sight that would haunt him for the rest of his life. As he sat in the fading light, he heard, or rather felt, a subliminal vibration, a series of ultra-low waves, like the lowest sitar string in the world being plucked by an unearthly hand. The sound took shape before Avinash could make sense of these inputs. Just as he did, he saw the Kashmiri commander, fifteen yards ahead of his troop, stiffen slightly in his saddle and push his right hand to the left, toward his saber. 

Then from a bush some thirty yards ahead of the officer, a huge shape sprang out so fast that it formed only a blur of tan and black. The shape left the ground some fifteen yards in front of the commander’s horse, and flew, or was shot, at the officer. Avinash heard the impact more than he saw it.

The officer’s body flipped over the back of his horse, while a mass of flesh—it was the man’s head—arced a long distance uphill and then hit the ground dully. Then the tiger, for Avinash could see him now, was among the troopers, and his size and power were beyond anything Avinash had ever heard of. All tried to fight, but none succeeded. The subliminal tones had now become a high-pitched series of growls, each one challenging the human ability to experience fear. The tiger made one pass after another, killing with claw and teeth, its mouth slinging a froth of blood with each movement, the working of its enormous jaw muscles clearly visible from the lair of Avinash and the goats. 

The goatherd wanted to be invisible, and his goats clearly felt the same, but he needed to see if there was any hope of saving himself and his herd. His ears told him that the attack was beginning to subside. He now realized that much human shouting had accompanied the inhuman growls and shrieks of the tiger, but the shouting had turned to moaning and sudden screams of unbearable pain, and now most of the human noises had ceased altogether. 

* * * * *

As Avinash raised his eyes slowly above the rim of the fold, he saw with utter horror the gutted bodies of the troopers, or rather only the pieces of them that remained. And even with the darkness beginning to thicken, he could clearly see the blood-soaked tiger turn toward one of the English sergeants, apparently the only living member of the troop now. 

Slowly, very slowly, the tiger approached the moaning man, sank his teeth carefully into his clothing and belt, picked him up, and walked away, disappearing into the direction from which he had attacked. 

Once the enormous beast was out of sight, Avinash leapt from the depression and ran downhill, away from the slaughterhouse scene, as fast as he could go. The goats he left to their own devices. They would be killed, as he would have known if stark terror had not removed him from any senses except the ones that told him to flee for his life.

The goats remained in the depression, occasionally bleating quietly, all the time unknowingly awaiting execution from predators of all kinds—perhaps from the tiger itself. Only Bula stirred. As usual, the Fool was not focused on group solidarity. He picked his way through the huddled flock and left the depression, like Avinash moving away from the coming slaughter, and made his foolish way into the forest and down the mountain. He looked up a time or two as he heard blood-curdling screams behind him, but mostly he kept his head down and eyes to his path as he made his way downhill.

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CHAPTER ONE

Samuel Forbes strode briskly through the paneled hallway, his cane tapping the marble metronomically. He propelled his fine, portly figure with a confidence notable even in the modern, confident world of March 1883. London, in the mind of Samuel Forbes, ruled the world, and if not by might, then by wealth. So why not move forcefully, confidently? 

The light from the windows at the end of the corridor glared just enough to make the gentleman squint unconsciously, giving his substantial cheeks even more substance. His cane tapped as he strode on, accompanying his rhythmic glances to left and right as he looked at the lettered office doors. 

Two-thirds down the corridor, he found the one he sought, drew himself up, and stood briefly surveying it:

The Intelligencer Ltd.

C. Drummond, Publisher and Chief Editor

Bulky in his black woolen suit, waistcoat, stiff white collar, and black bow tie, Samuel Forbes wore the vestments of his profession and his class. Yet his confident—not to say overbearing—manner was not so much tied to class as to self. If empire ever once, in all the great world, came home to inform the society and the psychology of the conquering land, Samuel Forbes was the positive proof, the living evidence. With him, empire was a thing not to be intellectualized, but experienced every minute. The sun never set on the British Empire, as Forbes reminded himself two or three times daily at the very least, and here in this meek office building, the colossus Samuel Forbes bestrode the corridor like a narrow... No, that was not quite right…

Forbes signaled his conquest of the door by pursing his lips. He exhaled dismissively as he pushed the door open with characteristic—not to say imperial—energy.

It was originally not without a certain hesitation that Forbes had decided to come to the Intelligencer. For its proprietor was a... woman. He was unacquainted with her. He knew the family by reputation—and it had a good one. But it seemed every family these days was plagued by these situations. Of course, he understood Mrs. Drummond was no doubt a stout society lady of fifty playing at journalism. The more he had thought about it, the more advantageous this made the situation seem—but he still entered with a certain distaste.

He now surveyed the office room. What he saw was a typical London place of business.

Doors on either side of the far end of this room led to adjacent rooms. The walls were cream-colored above the high chair rail, with a brown texture below. But brown and cream were mostly obscured by reddish mahogany shelves, a row of mahogany filing cabinets, four large windows which must look down onto Sloane Square, and two tables on which were wooden forms containing neat stacks of opened newspapers. There was also a larger table covered with items that looked as if they had been blown together by some monsoon and then had tides wash over them again and again: books, numerous packets of rubber bands (some of them undone and scattered), folded newspapers in various stages of being marked up or clipped, four different brass letter openers (one with a handle shaped like a lion or tiger paw), half a dozen manuscript sheaves (marked up with heavy pencil notations in black, red, blue, and green), and more books, on which tottered several empty china teacups. 

Disorder! thought Forbes. But even as the distasteful thought crossed his mind, he began to discern a pattern. He saw stark contrasts, some of them pleasing. He couldn’t help thinking of intricate planning and intense labor—and somehow, too, the most progressive, up-to-date attitude. This impression was strengthened by the four canvas and rubber tubes, three of which were splayed across the monsoon table, and one of which was on its hook on the wall backing the table. These speaking tubes were of course a usual feature of such up-to-date offices, but he noted that these were equipped with the new electrical call bells. And yet, a certain efficiency! He decided that he approved of the office, at least provisionally. After all, you can’t milk the cows lying in bed, said Mr. Samuel Forbes to himself, as he done some thousands of times before.

This impression of hard work and efficiency strengthened as he turned his attention to the young woman who was leaning over the room’s principle piece of furniture, a large mahogany desk. A filing girl no doubt. She leaned from the wrong side, reading one of the manuscript sheaves, her left hand extended, her fingers on the manuscript. In her right arm, she cradled a wooden filing box containing some loose papers. 

She was slender, somewhere in her mid-twenties, and wore a neat but sensible working dress, without the extreme pleats and bustles one saw so much now. Forbes, a judge of female appearance as of most things in life, observed that her hair was brown with a kind of auburn tint and swept up from her neck to a small bun on top, with a profusion of curls framing her forehead. Her concentration on the manuscript was surprising to Forbes. It was, in a way, impressive. But Samuel Forbes was accustomed to being welcomed and served wherever he went. 

Women working in offices! thought Samuel Forbes, but this stock response was quickly followed by another, more involuntary notion: But even if she is daydreaming and inattentive to her work, she is in any case a most fetching young... filing girl.

Young lady! he said, in a tone intended to call her sharply to her duty. Please tell Mrs. Drummond that I am here to speak to her...

But before the sentence was out, the young woman lifted her slender hand from the manuscript as if to stop him, vaguely holding him at bay, her arm outstretched. One moment, please, she said absently.

Samuel Forbes was shocked. First of all, this was a woman working in a public place. One saw this from time to time—well, truth be told, it was less a novelty than one liked to think. But now this insolence—motioning Mr. Samuel Forbes to wait, and in an anteroom to boot—insolence not to be borne! 

Young lady, he said, gathering himself to full height and spreading himself, something like a fighting rooster bowing out his wings to appear bulkier and more threatening, so that he occupied even more horizontal space than he did already. You will announce me to your editor, a Mrs. Charlotte Drummond, immediately. I have an appointment at two o’clock, and two o’clock it happens to be, even if you are easily distracted from your proper work. You will assist me this instant!

With this, the young woman’s hand fell, her green eyes lingering on the manuscript a half-second longer, and then she straightened up, turning to face him, studying his face with a direct, unblinking look, dangerously close to being a stare. Outrageous! he thought, She does not even pretend to be embarrassed. I must speak to Mrs. Drummond about her poor choice in filing girls. Yet even as the thought crossed his mind, he was also confused by a growing feeling that his legendary snap judgment might not have sized up the office and the situation accurately. 

She looked up at him. Her face was blank. Yes, she said, "perhaps I can be of assistance."

Two things then happened at once. Samuel Forbes began to splutter like a walrus. And a very young man dressed similarly to Forbes rounded into the room from one of the open side doors with two cups of tea in his hands. Keeping his eyes on the teacups, he was just saying, It is nearly two, Miss Drummond, and a Mr. Forbes will be…ah, but I see that you have met already... or, sensing some tension, "—perhaps not. Miss Charlotte Drummond, may I present Mr. Samuel Forbes; Mr. Forbes, Miss Drummond, the owner and publisher of the Intelligencer. He is the gentleman I mentioned earlier, the one with the two o’clock appointment."

The spluttering ceased. The mouth of Forbes stood slightly agape, making any sort of splutter, as it were, impossible. Here was no portly woman of fifty, spending her husband’s fortune as fast as she could on her newspaper hobby. As he put all this together, his bulk deflated a bit, both vertically and horizontally.

For her part, Charlotte Drummond only surveyed him for a brief instant longer, and then the busy owner-publisher-editor of the Intelligencer said in an even, unexcitable tone, quickly and not quite abruptly, Yes, Mr. Forbes, happy to meet you. May I offer you tea? Just a moment, please. She turned to the young man with the tea and said, Mr. Weatherby, please bring another cup for Mr. Forbes. And Mr. Weatherby... please place that new round of advertisements to hire a replacement for Mr. Jevons. She then turned to Forbes. Yes, happy to meet you, Mr. Forbes. We are somewhat out of our routine because our general factotum has left and we are still seeking a replacement. Please step this way into my office room.

* * * * *

Well, I... ah... I want to inform you of a quite important business undertaking that may redound to the benefit of Britain and the whole Empire... I am rather making the rounds to all the... smaller journals, you see. But of course even these tiny affairs can have influence in the right places!

She looked steadily at him again, and once again in a way that was somewhat unnerving, even to Samuel Forbes. Indeed, he was now quite sure that something about this young woman was confusing. Women of her class standing—and from what he had heard of her family, they were quite wealthy and very well connected—women of such breeding and standing simply did not employ the direct, serious gaze with which Miss Drummond now fixed him. 

What I mean to say is that the hill rajas in India’s north now represent not only considerable trade and investment opportunities, but also a kind of cement to glue the whole lot of local regimes to the Empire—the Kashmir Maharaja for example, or those bandit tribes in the Chitral and the Hindu Kush mountains. I say nothing of the Russians, here, but of course the Russian Bear can smell an opportunity before we can. Still, in our favor the small hill rajas have every reason to want to sell their lumber or angora wool to us. We do after all represent possibilities of selling their products on a world scale, throughout the Empire and to tell the truth, to others too. He stopped, looking at Charlotte with eyebrows slightly raised, as if he meant to convey unsaid things.

Charlotte Drummond was silent. He continued, And there are even some minerals and metals involved, of which at present, he laid his forefinger aside his nose and gave a distinctly significant look, the less said, the better, for the moment.

The young woman continued to gaze directly at him. Somewhat awkwardly, he leaned back, jerked his waistcoat smooth, crossed his legs, and smoothed his waistcoat again. To his relief, she finally moved. More than that, she finally spoke.

"Mr. Forbes, your information is very interesting in many ways, but I am at a loss as to how you mean for this information to pertain to me or to the Intelligencer."

He drew himself up, taking on an almost ecclesiastical solemnity. Holding his head and shoulders high, in a sort of declamatory posture, he managed to look both patriotic and rapacious at the same time.

"Well, my dear Miss Drummond, I am delighted that you ask precisely that question. Because you—and the Intelligencer—can have a very great deal to do with all this. The Empire after all enables the spread of trade and our organizational skills, even as it also, quite rightly, can enrich those of us bold enough to carry it forward. I myself am involved in several enterprises which promise to pay tenfold on my investment—and spread our influence for the good to the wretched corners of the world. So for one thing, your paper can spread this good word: the Empire is for all of us—it benefits the whole world!"

He paused for a breath. She continued her watch. He hurried on, though now in tones perhaps more appropriate to the halls of Scotland Yard—confidential, even conspiratorial. 

And in a quite specific vein, you and your newspaper can be of enormous help in a specific... well, a specific situation. Yes, a situation...

That is to say, in several of the valleys on the border of Kashmir and the North-West Frontier… pathetic little fiefdoms really, from Baramulla westwards. The rajas’ palaces a hut, don’t you know—poor scratch shepherds in the valleys ruled by ‘rajas’ squatting on the steep side of the hills….

Well, these little princes are actually sitting on top of one of the most important investment chances in the subcontinent. These hills guard passes, you see. And the high and mighty Sikh Maharaja in Kashmir won’t allow either merchants or peacekeepers to move through these passes. Oh yes indeed, and the old Maharaja is sick and would I like to hurry along his demise! The effrontery of it! We practically set up that regime in the forties!

Charlotte Drummond picked up a pencil and wrote carefully on a notepad on her desk, out of the line of sight of Forbes. The carefully lettered note read Knave or Fool? The young woman was confident in her opinion to find the answer, even as she was confident of many other things.

Forbes had not broken stride. "No doubt you want to ask why... er... someone doesn’t just take these fellows over, run the whole little show on their own. But you see, these tiny little groups run for protection to their neighbor, that Maharaja of Kashmir. And his independent status under Her Majesty, though intolerable, is rather complete. So every time we try to set up some business ties or even consider exploring for a mining operation, the entire thing gets confused and exaggerated by the Maharaja into an international incident. And then the Russians get mentioned, and their insolent ambassador shows up. An appalling situation each time. So the whole bit of real estate sits between British India and the Russians, so to speak, and we can’t touch it. Appalling!"

He paused and now gazed directly at her. 

Charlotte said, "Mr. Forbes, I see a story here, but I sense that you have in mind some specific connection to the Intelligencer. May I ask what that is?"

Well, my dear Miss Drummond, it’s obvious, isn’t it? The paper should publicize this whole shocking situation, the squalor, the weakness of these pitiful hill rajas and mollahs and thieving bands. The high-handed conduct of the Kashmir state. The advantages of a direct British acquisition forthwith—advantages not just to us, but to the oppressed peoples in the whole Northwest Frontier.

Oppressed? Charlotte Drummond asked.

"Well, this is where you come in, don’t you see? If the British public believe that there is oppression—burning of women, putting out the eyes of chicken thieves, that sort of thing, or, even worse—then we have... I mean to say that Britain has carte blanche at least on the domestic front to take over this bit of land, which should well have been taken over fifty or sixty years ago. That only leaves the Russians as a problem, and I believe I can say that I am engaged in some enterprises which should move things along, even on that front. And... he leaned forward, the profits in the enterprise overall would be large—large enough to be attractive even to a person of means, such as yourself."

Charlotte moved at last. 

"Let me see if I have apprehended your remarks. You wish the Intelligencer to promote a plan for the British Empire to expand by invading a number of localities on the border of Kashmir, adding them to our direct holdings in the subcontinent. The benefits and profits would be England’s. And Russia would be foiled in the fight to dominate the region. The Intelligencer, or I myself, would thereby realize considerable profits for persuading the British public to support this plan, even if our reports are mostly imaginary."

Forbes had been nodding in agreement until the last few words made him realize that the calm, objective analysis of Charlotte Drummond was covering a kind of anger, even contempt.

Well, Miss Drummond, I would not quite put it like that...

But that is how you did put it, sir, she said, her stare still steady, but her green eyes now intense, almost unnerving. "You call upon me to deceive the British public into supporting governmental rapacity and private greed. You did realize that our paper is the Intelligencer, did you not, and that the preference of the management runs both to truth and to liberty? Conquest and duplicity in the name of public good are the policies of some other sets of people. Mr. Forbes, I believe you have come to the wrong firm."

Forbes was briefly abashed but not shattered. This was, after all, just a young woman—and in the workplace!—and he could no doubt drive home his point by logic—if she could understand it. Of course you make light of the facts presented, but I believe you misunderstand. Naturally, it is not a matter of conquest—a quite common misconception. The British Empire is, in its essence, a kind of commonwealth by consent, consisting of many nations across the globe. And we all abhor aggression, even when it is forced on us. Unfortunately, here he sighed and shook his head, it is forced on us all too often.

In my view, sir, Charlotte said, one chooses for oneself whether to be aggressive. And as for the nature of the Empire, I am at one with the great John Bright, who, as I am sure you know, called the Empire a gigantic system of outdoor relief for the British aristocracy.

Forbes looked nonplussed, then jumped back in. What I mean to say is this. You were—that is to say, your father was always part of the crew of right-minded liberals who could see that the British way of life follows the pound sterling, and that the way to spread decency and order is to spread the pound sterling and the Empire...

Well, Charlotte interrupted, my father did think that India, if it had to be ruled by someone, was better in British hands than in the French fist—his words. But for him free trade was important because it goes hand-in-hand with liberty.

Forbes spluttered, but she continued. These so-called liberals—Mr. Chamberlain... a liberal indeed!—are forcing our Empire on unwilling peoples and then bringing them enlightenment by the bayonet! My father thought men like Chamberlain were not liberals at all. Just shills for Empire.

My dear Miss Drummond... Forbes spluttered again, his frequent reaction to contradiction, See here... That is to say... I am certain I do not like your direction here...

No, Mr. Forbes, undoubtedly not. But I see the time, sir, and I regret to tell you that I am pressed in having to hurry to some urgent tasks that need my attention.

Forbes protested vaguely; Charlotte stood up abruptly. Surprised, Forbes rose. The young businesswoman pressed a black button on the right of her desk. When a bell rang almost immediately in return, she spoke into a tube which hung on a hook on the side of her desk. Mr. Weatherby, please come to escort Mr. Forbes out.

She bid Forbes good day with brief politeness and walked quickly from the office through a door behind her desk. Weatherby appeared immediately, and escorted the still spluttering Forbes out into the hallway through which he had entered. 

He stood there for moment. Shrunken somewhat, colossus neither broad nor narrow, Samuel Forbes recovered himself enough to stalk out of the building, wondering as he went how the Empire would prevail as long as women were permitted to work in public places.

_______________________________________________

CHAPTER TWO

Charlotte shuffled some papers in the workroom adjoining her office while she listened to the sounds of Forbes being led out. Now that the impromptu confrontation was over and she was alone, she let her anger show, though she tried to do anything else but give herself over to it.

Weatherby really must find someone to help keep the office rooms in order or I’ll go mad... She riffled through papers and threw a stack of them a bit too violently down onto the work table. Maybe I was too gruff with him... No! That grampus whale! What a... Her mind searched for invective, but with an effort she mastered her irritation. A grampus, but not worth getting irritated at! She picked up a folder of notes and tried to focus on them.

It’s not the confrontation I mind, but the idiocy! she said to herself, half aloud. Humph! She sat down abruptly at the work table, and opened a file, closed it, looked at her calendar for the day, anything to regain her composure before reentering her office and encountering Weatherby or some other member of the office staff.

Charlotte Drummond was sure of herself—on occasion sometimes a little too sure, it had frequently occurred to her, usually too late. But were she not sure, how could she hold her own in a world of gentlemen’s agreements, back-room bargains, and... idiots like Forbes!

At last, she stepped from the workroom back into her office and sat behind her desk. She greatly enjoyed running the paper. Her ability to do this, though a woman and though young, was owing to her father’s broad views in bringing up his only child. Forbes’s crude suppositions to the contrary, her father had been a good English liberal who was far ahead of his time when it came to her education. Although Harry Drummond had disagreed with his friend John Stuart Mill on some important issues late in life, Mill’s denunciation of the subjection of women corresponded in many respects to that of her father.

So Harry had made certain that Charlotte received the education she needed and wanted. And her mother had made sure that she had received the benefit of the various female graces that were part of the usual upper-middle-class girl’s education. At least, she had been able to do so until Charlotte was thirteen. The sad day on which Alice Howard Drummond had died of pneumonia was etched in Charlotte’s memory. Charlotte was still mostly a child. But she survived. There was no other alternative. Her governess helped, as did the various women and men her father hired as teachers, as well as her large network of friends and relatives. The Drummonds put a high value on sociability as well as business and political affairs. Charlotte thought on occasion that she chose poorly among these skills in given situations. But in any case, it all added up to excellent training to run the newspaper her father had given to her even before he died.

The sound of male voices interrupted her brief reverie. She realized that she was hearing Weatherby loudly exchanging greetings with her cousin, Alfred Bosco Howard.

Alfie! she called, jumping up from her desk to meet him at her office door. She rushed to look out into the anteroom, and saw a tall, stylish young man of her own age, dressed in the standard black of business, his collar starched and straight, a bowler hat in his hand. She looked fondly at her old playmate and co-conspirator. The two had been partners in childhood capers of the most shocking nature, some of them ending with punishments which included written apologies to local farmers for riding their sheep Red Indian-style.

Alfie, what luck you are here! I just had a visit, visitation rather, from a blustering fool—did I say that? I certainly thought it—named Sam Forbes.

Forbes! exclaimed Alfie. That old... should I say knave or fool, Charlie? But anyway, what in the world did he want here?

Nothing much, she replied as she motioned Alfie into an easy chair and threw herself into another. He merely wanted me to put the complete resources of the paper at the disposal of himself and his evil imperialist masters.

Watch out for Mr. Samuel Forbes, Charlie. His bark is bad, but I’ve heard he can deliver a damned annoying bite.

"Well, how can he bite the Intelligencer, or me for that