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‘Hold these for me, will you?’ Mr Ambrose flexed his fingers. Suddenly, I felt a cold pit opening up in my stomach. No. Oh no. ‘I have work to do.’
He strode towards the front of the podium, shoved the kneeling Professor Anstruther aside none too gently and built himself in front of the crowd. Shouldn’t I have said planted himself? No, he was too hard, too cold for a plant. He built himself like a monument of stone and metal.
I watched, dread welling up inside me, as the crowd whispered excitedly, my friends stopped moving and all eyes went to him. Especially the female ones.
Mr Ambrose took a deep breath and opened his lips to speak.
Memorable Speeches
‘Silence.’
The word wasn’t shouted. It wasn’t even loud. It was simply spoken with such chilling precision, with such power behind it, that all went silent instantly. The crowd, the birds, the other speakers in the distance, even - I could hardly believe it - Patsy closed her mouth and stared up at Mr Rikkard Ambrose. When she took in his six foot six of poor, hard masculinity, she nearly dropped her sign, and for a moment, 'VOTES FOR WOMEN NOW!' was upside down.
Placing his hands on the balustrade, Mr Ambrose leaned forward, towering over the crowd.
‘My lords, ladies, gentlemen.’ He gave a curt nod. ‘I do not pretend to be as well-versed in scientific knowledge as our friend the professor here.’ With a derisive movement of his head, he gestured to his red-faced predecessor on the podium, who was backing away now, the remnants of his speech clutched against his chest. ‘I am no scientist. I am just a simple entrepreneur who has made it his business to own as large a portion of the world as possible.’
Chuckles rose up from the crowd. They thought he was cracking a joke. I knew better.
‘My name,’ he continued, cutting through the chuckles like a sword through silk, ‘is Mister Rikkard Ambrose.’
The chuckles died abruptly. Eyes widened, mouths dropped open. Some people took a step backward. Aghast, I watched as he transformed the crowd. It was obvious he was far better known and his wealth far more legendary than I had imagined. They all knew of him. He had hardly had to say a word, and already he had them in his hands. A mountain of money combined with his magnetic and menacing presence was all that was needed.
‘So far,’ he told his loyal audience when he was sure his words had taken their full effect, ‘I have met with not inconsiderable success in this venture to enlarge my power. And that is what I am going to talk to you about today, my lords, ladies and gentlemen: success and power. Trust me, I am an expert on the subject.’
He let his cold gaze wander across the crowd, at last fixing it on Patsy as if daring her to contradict this. She did not.
‘I would be the last one to deny, my lords, ladies and gentlemen, that if women and men were equal, they would deserve equal rights.’
There were gasps from the crowd. Patsy grinned.
Abruptly, he held up a single finger. ‘However…’
Her grin vanished.
‘However, this is not the case. Women are weaker than men.’
My hands, which had relaxed a little up to this point, formed fists again. They ached to find a target to practise on, and the lean, black-clad man at the front of the podium looked deliciously tempting. His cold, gorgeous face seemed to be downright begging to be punched!
‘Wonderful,’ that slug, Cartwright, murmured beside me. ‘See how he commands the audience? Simply wonderful! Did you know your employer was such an accomplished orator, Mr Linton?’
‘No,’ I managed to get out between my grinding teeth. ‘Usually he’s rather terse. This seems to be… a special occasion.’
‘I see. Well, if I should not get the opportunity, please do give him my thanks for exerting himself for our sake.’
‘I will, Mr Cartwright. And don't worry, I won’t hold back my feelings on the subject.’
‘That’s very kind of you.’
‘You may now justly ask - how do I know this?’ Mr Ambrose called, pointing at the audience. He seemed to be reading the question out of their eyes. ‘How do I know of women’s weakness? Have I scientific evidence?’
He gave a derisive snort and swept his arm around in one large gesture, including all around him.
‘I say to you, lords, ladies and gentlemen, that all I need is the evidence of my own eyes! Do you see any women as prime ministers? As generals of our army? As admirals of our navy? As leading entrepreneurs in our country’s industry? No! Women have not been fighting and working alongside men for hundreds, for thousands of years. Why then, I ask you, should they be granted that equality right now, only because they are seized by a sudden fancy?’
The men in the crowd were muttering their assent. Women were lowering their eyes demurely, as if afraid to meet his cold, implacable gaze. I could hardly believe it! Even Flora and Eve had cast their eyes down. Only Patsy was still staring at him, the expression of hate on her face the second most intense one in all of London.
Guess whose was first?
Yeah. You guessed right.
If my hate had been fire, Mr Ambrose would have been a smouldering pile of ashes by now. Women are weak? So that was what he thought of me? That was why he was trying to get rid of me? After all I had done, all the effort I had put into convincing him that I was loyal, trustworthy and reliable, he still saw me as a weakling, a shadow of the man he could have working for him.
The crowd was getting more excited now. Mr Ambrose raised his voice, and his fist along with it, hard as stone.
‘Women have shown us for hundreds of years that they are weaker than men, that they require protection - protection which we have given them, because they are weak and we are strong! This world is about the survival of the strong. How can we grant political rights, the rights to govern our very own nation, to the weak when our enemies would leap at the chance to exploit any weakness?’
With a swift, cutting gesture, he brought down his fist diagonally, cutting off the mere notion of such foolishness. Even through my rage I had to admit - he was good. Infuriating and chauvinistic and exactly what I despised in every other possible way - but he was good at what he did.
‘I tell you, we cannot afford it! And I tell you that in all my travels around all the colonies of the great British Empire and beyond, I have never encountered a woman who would deserve to be called strong, who would deserve to be called my equal!’