The audience sat motionless and silent, every eye fixed upon her as she put the situation before them. Before she had finished, however, she became aware of some disturbance and shushing going on on the right-hand side of the hall. Glancing over there, she saw Miss Latterly and her inseparable companion, Miss Lamb, in the middle of it.
Angela stopped speaking, in mid-sentence, and waited. She could hear the indignant tone of Miss Latterly’s voice, but not its words.
‘Miss Latterly,’ she said clearly. ‘Am I right in thinking that you do not find yourself personally concerned with the subject of this meeting?’
Miss Latterly stood up, she spoke in a voice trembling with indignation.
‘You most certainly are, Mrs Zellaby. I have never in all my life -‘
‘Then, since this is a matter of the gravest importance to many people here, I hope you will refrain from further interruptions – Or perhaps you would prefer to leave us?’
Miss Latterly stood firm, looking back at Mrs Zellaby.
‘This is -‘ she began, and then changed her mind. ‘Very well, Mrs Zellaby,’ she said. ‘I shall make my protest against the extraordinary aspersions you have made on our community, at another time.’
She turned with dignity, and paused, clearly to allow Miss Lamb to accompany her exit.
But Miss Lamb did not move. Miss Latterly looked down at her, with an impatient frown. Miss Lamb continued to sit fast.
Miss Latterly opened her lips to speak, but something in Miss Lamb’s expression checked her. Miss Lamb ceased to meet her eyes. She looked straight before her, while a tide of colour rose until her whole face was a burning flush.
An odd, small sound escaped from Miss Latterly. She put out a hand, and grasped a chair to steady herself. She stared down at her friend without speaking. In a few seconds she grew haggard, and looked ten years older. Her hand dropped from the chair back. With a great effort she pulled herself together. She lifted her head decisively, looking round with eyes that seemed to see nothing. Then, straight-backed, but a little uncertain in her steps, she made her way up the aisle to the back of the hall, alone.
Angela waited. She expected a buzz of comment, but there was none. The audience looked shocked and bewildered. Every face turned back to her, in expectation. In the silence she picked up where she had stopped, trying to reduce by matter-of-factness the emotional tension which Miss Latterly had increased. With an effort she continued factually to the end of her preliminary statement, and then broke off.
The expected buzz of comment rose quickly enough this time. Angela took a drink from her glass of water, and rolled her bunched handkerchief between her damp palms while she watched the audience carefully.
She could see Miss Lamb leaning forward with a handkerchief pressed to her eyes while kindly Mrs Brant beside her tried to comfort her. Nor was Miss Lamb by any means the only one finding relief in tears. Over those bent heads the sound of voices, incredulous, high-pitched with consternation and indignation, grew. Here and there, one or two were behaving a little hysterically, but there was nothing like the outburst she had feared. She wondered to what extent an inkling awareness had blunted the shock.
With a feeling of relief and rising confidence she went on observing them for several minutes. When she decided that the first impact had had long enough to register, she rapped the table. The murmurs died away, there were a few sniffs, and then rows of expectant faces turned towards her once more. Angela took a deep breath, and started in again.
‘Nobody,’ she said, ‘nobody but a child, or a child-minded person, expects life to be fair. It is not, and this is going to be harder on some of us than on others. Nevertheless, fair or unfair, whether we like it or not, we are all of us, married and single alike, in the same boat. There is no ground for, and consequently no place for, disparagement of some of us by others. All of us have been placed outside the conventions, and if any married woman here is tempted to consider herself more virtuous than her unmarried neighbour, she might do well to consider how, if she were challenged, she could prove that the child she now carries is her husband’s child.
‘This is a thing that has happened to all of us. We must make it bind us together for the good of all. There is no blame upon any of us, so there must be no differentiation between us, except -‘ She paused, and then repeated: ‘Except that those who have not the love of a husband to help them will have more need of our sympathy and care.’
She continued to elaborate that for a while until she hoped it had made its mark. Then she turned to another aspect.
‘This,’ she told them forcefully, ‘is our affair – there could not well be any matter more personal to each of us. I am sure, and I think you will agree with me, that it should remain so. It is for us to handle, ourselves; without outside interference.
‘You must all know how the cheap papers seize upon anything to do with birth, particularly anything unusual. They make a peepshow of it, as if the people concerned were freaks in a fairground. The parents’ lives, their homes, their children, are no longer their own.
‘We have all read of one instance of a multiple birth where the papers took it up, then the medical profession backed by the government, with the result that the parents were virtually deprived of their own children quite soon after they were born.
‘Well I, for one, do not intend to lose my child that way, and I expect and hope that all of you will feel the same. Therefore, unless we want to have, first, a great deal of unpleasantness – for I warn you that if this should become generally known it will be argued in every club and pub, with a great many nasty insinuations – unless then, we want to be exposed to that, and then to the very real probability that our babies will be taken away from us on one excuse or another by doctors and scientists, we must, every one of us, resolve not to mention, or even hint outside the village, at the present state of affairs. It is in our power to see that it remains Midwich’s affair, to be managed, not as some newspaper, or Ministry, decides, but as the people of Midwich themselves wish it decided.
‘If people in Trayne, or elsewhere, are inquisitive, or strangers come here asking questions, we must, for our babies’ sakes, and our own, tell them nothing. But we must not simply be silent and secretive, as if we were concealing something. We must make it seem that there is nothing unusual in Midwich at all. If we all cooperate, and our men are made to understand that they must cooperate too, no interest will be aroused, and people will leave us alone – as they should do. It is not their business, it is ours. There is no one, no one at all who has a better right, or a higher duty, to protect our children from exploitation than we who are to be their mothers.’
She surveyed them steadily, almost individually once more, as she had at the start. Then she concluded:
‘I shall now ask the Vicar and Dr Willers to come back. If you will excuse me for a few minutes I will join them here later. I know there must be a great many questions you are wanting to ask.’
She slipped off into the little room at the side.
‘Excellent, Mrs Zellaby. Really excellent,’ said Mr Leebody.
Dr Willers took her hand, and pressed it.
‘I think you’ve done it, my dear,’ he told her, as he followed the vicar on to the platform.
Zellaby guided her to a chair. She sat down, and leant back with her eyes closed. Her face was pale, and she looked exhausted.
‘I think you’d better come home,’ he told her.
She shook her head.
‘No, I’ll be all right in a few minutes. I must go back.’
‘They can manage. You’ve done your part, and very well, too.’
She shook her head again.
‘I know what those women must be feeling. This is absolutely crucial, Gordon. We’ve got to let them ask questions and talk – talk as long as they like. Then they’ll have got over the first shock by the time they go. They’ve got to get used to the idea. A feeling of mutual support is what they need. I know – I want it, too.’
She put a hand to her head, and pushed back her hair.
‘You know, it isn’t true, Gordon, what I said just now.’