Read Gently with the Ladies (Inspector George Gently 13) for Free Online

test for you, Superintendent: Albertine actually comes from Illiers.’
    Gently shook his head. ‘I’d have to look that up . . .’
    ‘Then I’ll save you the trouble. Illiers is Combray.’
    Now her smile was triumphant, but it quickly faded again.
    ‘And all that’s past,’ she said dully. ‘As though it had never been . . . so suddenly. And what should be Wagner splitting the skies is just Cole Porter in the next room.’
    ‘Yet you’re wearing no mourning.’
    She pointed to her dress. ‘Not mourning as you’d understand it. But this is the colour she’d expect, the colour of death and love. Her colour: she was the Green Lady. That was the myth she made real.’
    ‘The myth . . . ?’
    Mrs Bannister nodded. ‘Of the woman untouchable by man. The perfect species, the type of the race, from which the male is a biological splinter. You are aware I suppose, being so well read, that that is the current scientific view?’
    Gently hunched. ‘Biology isn’t my subject.’
    ‘Then you may accept the fact from me. The male is a departure from the norm, a specialized carrier of the seed. Probably as a reaction to his situation, which is one of biological inferiority, he has developed an aggressive and self-glorifying ego which in turn has given rise to an unstable society. The biological direction is plain and evident. It is towards a diminished status of the male.’
    ‘You mean matriarchy?’
    ‘More than that. The role of the male is biologically narrow. He carries the seed and transmits it. That is his solitary function.’
    ‘Perhaps, but you’ll hardly do without it . . .’
    ‘You have heard of artificial insemination?’
    ‘Yes, but there are psychological factors—’
    ‘Not for me. Not for Clytemnestra.’
    She rested her chin on her clasped hands and stared large-eyed from between her brackets. She was sitting on the settee with her legs tucked under her and had a curious pixie-like appearance. Though she was tall she was perfectly made. She had a firm, unconscious femininity.
    ‘Of course, you’ll have talked to Siggy about us, and no doubt he gave us some pretty names. You’d rather expect that, wouldn’t you? The poor creature was living out of his century. But you’ve come to me now – correct me if I’m wrong – to hear the other side of the picture, and I’m perfectly willing to give it to you. You seem a man of intelligence.’
    ‘Thank you. There were other questions—’
    ‘Oh, let’s put our cards on the table! I’m an invert, and so was she, and we were neither proud nor ashamed of it. Quite simply, we are the New Women.’
    ‘New . . . ?’
    ‘Speaking biologically. We are the vanward of the trend towards a more successful racial pattern. In this the males will decline, probably in numbers as well as status, and with them will decline the factor of social instability. This is a perfectly logical trend, following the law of natural selection. By means of diminished heterosexuality, the race proceeds to greater stability. And in that sense you must term women like us the New Women.’
    ‘And male inverts the New Men?’
    ‘Why not? They are part of the same pattern. They are diminishing heterosexuality, and so assisting the trend.’
    ‘So that, eventually, in a society which is predominantly female, heterosexuality will be an inversion, and present inversion the norm?’
    She shook her head. ‘Don’t you see that then there can be no inversion – that heterosexuality will become simply the transmission of seed? On the one hand you will have love, a physico-spiritual expression, and on the other insemination. There is nothing left to call inversion.’
    ‘Is there anything left to call love?’
    ‘Now you’re beginning to slip a century.’
    Gently’s shoulders twitched. ‘What’s a century,’ he asked, ‘to the law of natural selection? Did Mrs Fazakerly hold this theory?’
    ‘Yes. If you can think of no better term.’
    ‘And it involved her in whips