I think they returned to England in January, 1919, so that Michael
might get back quickly to his work of mending the maimed, now
transferred to English hospitals; and so that Vivie--always a
practical woman--should prove her mother's will, secure her heritage
and have it in hand as a fund from which to promote all the
happiness she could. I doubt whether she will give much of it to
"causes" rather than cases and to politics in preference to persons.
I think she was awfully disgusted when she was back in the England
of to-day not to find Mrs. Fawcett Prime Ministress and First Lady
of the Treasury, Annie Kenney at the Board of Trade and Christabel
Pankhurst running the Ministry of Health. It was disheartening after
the long struggle for the Woman's Vote and the equality of the sexes
in opportunity to find the same old men-muddlers in charge of all
public affairs and departments of state, and the only woman on the
benches of the House of Commons a millionaire peeress never before
identified with the struggle for the Woman's Cause.
However I think her disenchantment did not diminish the rapture at
finding herself once more in the intimacy of Honoria Armstrong. Sir
Petworth, when he ran over on leave from the Army of Occupation,
thought her enormously improved, though he had the tact not to say
so. He frankly made the _amende honorable_ for his suspicions and
churlishness of the past, and himself--I think--insisted on his
frank and friendly children calling her "Aunt Vivie.
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