by Olivia Waite
“At least she’s doing something with it for the common good.” Agatha’s throat was dry and aching from yearning; she had to take a long swallow of tea before she could speak. “And it isn’t like they’re asking you to do field chores, Flood. It’s a procession. A spectacle.”
“Papa always said people went to London to make a spectacle of themselves,” Flood said with a small laugh. “I guess he was right.”
“You look absolutely splendid.”
Flood’s head whipped up, a blush rising in her cheeks.
Agatha’s fingers curled tight around the china teacup. She kept her tone brisk, pointed. “And spectacle can be an advantage: I should have no trouble spotting the Melliton ladies when you arrive at Brandenburg House today.”
Penelope’s blush bloomed further, so lovely that Agatha had to drop her eyes and struggle to keep her breathing even.
Lady Summerville had settled upon a meeting spot and arranged for a number of open carriages, to transport the women of Melliton in style along the roads to the Queen’s residence. They would all be wearing unrelieved white, with no ornament other than the green rosettes. Already Agatha’s fingers itched to draw such a scene, and she had to admit Mrs. Koskinen’s idea had been rather a good one. It was going to be impossible to miss their group, no matter how large the crowds.
Flood gulped down a hasty breakfast and took her leave. Agatha checked on Sydney and Eliza—who were adamant that everything had gone just fine yesterday evening, no problems at all, no surprises, no matter how many times Agatha asked them about it in new, more cunning ways.
The young folk were demonstrating competence. She was secretly, suspiciously proud, and trusted it not at all. Today would be another test for them.
Agatha left them her list of instructions and set out east to see the Queen.
Brandenburg House sat like a temple at the top of a small hill fronting the river. Its pale stone facade rose lordly over the teeming, colorful mass of humanity gathered in the cleared space around it.
Agatha had expected the crowds, and the noise, but she had not expected things to feel so . . . festive. Yes, there were banners being waved and political slogans being chanted—but there were also food stalls and peddlers and ballad sellers wandering the throng, making a fairly solid profit, from what Agatha could see at a glance. A clutch of boats on the river were bringing an address from the assembled watermen of London: their boats were decked out with ribbons and garlands and all manner of bunting, and surrounded by smaller rowboats and skiffs holding lords and ladies and society folk who’d come out this fine afternoon for a bit of excitement. Beaver hats alternated with summer bonnets and liberty caps; imported silks brushed up against printed calico and homespun.
There were so many women. More than at any election or procession or celebration Agatha had seen. White rosettes and handkerchiefs fluttered everywhere.
Agatha pulled out her sketchbook and made a few hasty impressions of the event for later refinement into proper etchings. Such a crowd meant it would be an hour at least for the Melliton coaches to make the journey by road. She sketched a few scenes to pass the time. One of the watermen disembarked and made his way through the crowd with an escort, holding a document in front of him. Agatha followed in their wake, until they reached the doors of the house and turned.
The man with the address read it out in a carrying voice, then offered it to a soberly dressed gentleman at the door, who made a courteous reply on behalf of the Queen. Vows of mutual support were made in staunch, patriotic terms.
It had all clearly been arranged in advance, but like a play well acted, it was stirring not in spite of, but because it was all so deliberate. It was as formal as a funeral—or a wedding.
She was high enough on the hill by now that she was able to catch the first appearance of the Melliton procession as they rounded the bend in the road. The coaches trundled through the crowd, white-clad occupants waving, proud and lovely as a bevy of swans in flight. The coaches wound slowly up the hill as the masses of people parted, and the Melliton women stepped out and spread out before the Queen’s residence like a wreath of lilies.
Agatha peered at them, trying to distinguish Flood’s figure in that sea of white, when a woman in a Caroline-green cloak took a position at the head of the group. She whirled the cloak off her shoulders—and the extra-bright glow of her gown showed off precisely how much dust the other women’s white frocks had picked up on their journey.
This, of course, had to be Lady Summerville.
She handed the cloak to a companion, received in return a piece of paper, folio size, and began to read: “We, the ladies of Melliton and surrounding environs, approach your Majesty with that reverential feeling due from the Subject to the Sovereign . . .”
Agatha pulled out her sketchbook and began doodling, as the flattering Address went on and on.
Lady Summerville was on the thin side, with skin like cool marble and deep gold hair. Her dress was perfectly neat and perfectly tailored—silk, Agatha judged from the drape, not the muslin or linen the other Melliton women wore. The viscountess looked as though she’d just stepped out from the frame of one of the fashion plates the Menagerie so often printed.
“The principles and doctrines now advanced by your accusers,” Lady Summerville was proclaiming, “do not apply to your case alone, but, if made part of the law of this land, may hereafter be applied as a precedent by every careless and dissipated husband to rid himself of his wife, however good and innocent she may be . . .”
Agatha grimaced. So that was why Lady Summerville was so determined. In defending Caroline, she defended her own marriage rights as the wife of a peer. Particularly one who, according to Penelope, would be divorced in a trice if her husband had been able to afford it.
Not terribly altruistic of her, of course—but Agatha had to wonder: Was self-interest the worst motivation, if it resulted in improvement for everyone? Perhaps Sydney’s favorite philosophers were right. Perhaps revolution was really only a matter of getting enough people’s individual motivations to flow in the same direction, at the same time.
She finally spotted Penelope, standing tall in the sunlight, her hair shining like an angel’s halo. The effect was entrancing and Agatha’s pencil moved almost of its own volition, recreating the earnest lines of Penelope Flood’s face, her lofty gaze, the generous lines of her figure as she stood there in support of her Queen. She looked sweet and honest and loveable, the very picture of virtue.
As she finished her sketch, Agatha gazed down the hill, in awe of the sheer number of people who had ventured here. It was busier than Vauxhall had been last night. The moralists might spend their time railing against the licentiousness of rope dancers and mollies and all the folk of any sex who offered pleasure for payment—but tyrants and politicians like Lord Sidmouth knew the truth: this daytime crowd in front of Brandenburg House was much, much more dangerous.
Here were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people, most of whom weren’t permitted to vote in elections, but who had come to demonstrate to their government and their monarch that they would not be overlooked or ignored. They proved that they mattered by showing up in droves.
For the first time since Waterloo, Agatha felt her soul billow with national pride. Maybe the crowd had the right of it. Maybe something could change this time, without the need for bloodshed.
Surely the powerful would have to listen, when so many voices were crying out.
It had been so long since she’d had a hopeful thought about politics that she stood rooted to the spot for quite a few minutes, turning it over in her mind.
Lady Summerville finished her speech to applause and a few shouted attempts at wit, which fortunately were too far away for Agatha to hear clearly. Certainly Lady Summerville’s address was a more florid speech than the one the watermen had given. The sober gentleman at the door accepted it all the same, and offered a response in much the same vein.
And that appeared to be that. The l
adies in white began to mix with the crowd, and Agatha strode forward to find Penelope Flood. She was talking animatedly to a small brunette woman with a sallow complexion and a thoughtful air. Agatha paused, not wanting to interrupt.
“Are you with the Times?”
Agatha was rather taken aback to find herself being addressed by Lady Summerville, who was eyeing her sketchbook with suspicion. “I’m with Griffin’s, your ladyship.”
The lady’s lips pursed. “As in Griffin’s Menagerie? I would not have expected this gathering to appear in a magazine whose audience consists entirely of society ladies.”
“There appear to be quite a few such ladies here, your ladyship,” Agatha said, with a wry little bow of her head.
Lady Summerville reached out for the sketchbook; Agatha pulled it back instinctively. The viscountess bristled. “I insist you show me any drawings you have made of me,” she said. “There are far too many scurrilous scribblers muddying the waters these days with cartoons and caricatures. Making your betters look ridiculous by exaggeration—you haven’t the right to do that to decent people.”
“Have you ever objected to anything you’ve read in the Menagerie, your ladyship?”
Lady Summerville scoffed. “I am not in the habit of reading such frivolity—I have more important concerns with which to fill my time.”
“Your ladyship?” Penelope Flood stepped in with a smile. “May I present Mrs. Agatha Griffin, who owns the print-works on the outskirts of Melliton?”
“Charmed, I’m sure,” the viscountess said, sounding anything but. She did not hold out a hand.
Penelope coughed slightly. “Mrs. Koskinen and I were thinking everyone might like to have something to eat before we begin heading back.” She indicated the curly-haired woman and her husband, who was staring around narrow-eyed at the London crowd, as though he expected some urchin to steal the very lint from his pockets as soon as he dared to blink.
“If you think it’s necessary,” Lady Summerville said, and waved a hand. “I’m sure I can trust you both to handle such mundane matters, now that the real work is done.”
“Thank you, your ladyship,” said Penelope, in a tone much more polite than the one Agatha would have used in her place.
Mr. and Mrs. Koskinen between them herded everyone toward the pie sellers, and Agatha fell into step beside her friend. “Congratulations on the procession,” Agatha said, and showed Flood the sketch she’d made of her. “I was thinking of putting it out as a print to mark today’s events—without your name attached, of course. Unless you object to your likeness being sold?”
“Not when it’s so flattering. And so significant historically, of course.” Griffin snorted. Flood laughed and curtsied as sweetly as any debutante. “My dear Griffin, may I trespass on your hospitality for one more night? We’ve been invited to a dinner this evening by Mrs. Hannah Buckhurst, of the London Female Reform Society. I expect it will run very late indeed.” She leaned forward, a light smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “You should come, and bring Sydney and Eliza as well—Mrs. Buckhurst gave me four tickets.”
One more night lying still and stiff beside Penelope Flood might be the very end of Agatha. On the other hand, Flood being disappointed—or sleeping elsewhere—was its own kind of torture.
And if forced to choose between two evils, Agatha knew she would always choose whichever evil let her enjoy the company of her friend. “I am entirely at your disposal,” she replied.
“Good,” Flood said, and looked around with eyes alight. “Now where did that pie seller get to? I am absolutely famished.”
Agatha steeled herself for one more day of blissful torture, and let Flood buy her a pie.
Chapter Thirteen
They stopped by Griffin’s to collect Eliza and Sydney for the dinner—Sydney’s face blazed up like a Guy Fawkes bonfire when Penelope handed him his ticket. “We’re going to the Crown and Anchor?”
“Are we?” Penelope blinked down at the slip of paper in her hand, and yes, there it was, in inescapable block lettering. THE CROWN AND ANCHOR, ARUNDEL STREET. “So it seems.”
Griffin snorted. “Do you think Lady Summerville will deign to show up to an establishment of such infamous character?”
“I doubt it,” Penelope replied, still staring at the printing. “The viscount would never countenance his wife visiting a tavern.”
“Oh.” Griffin’s mouth flattened in dislike. “Oh. It’s no fun mocking her for his meanness.”
Penelope sighed. “I doubt she’d come even with his permission—she always was as staunch a Tory as you’d ever see.”
“A Tory at the Crown and Anchor,” Sydney said wonderingly. “Can you imagine?”
Eliza snickered. “It’d be like walking downstairs one morning and seeing the King in the kitchen.”
“Or a goose at Gunter’s,” Sydney replied.
“A wet hen in Westminster Abbey.”
“A hyena in Hyde Park.”
“Enough!” Griffin said. “Hurry and dress, or we’ll be late.”
The young folk scampered upstairs to change out of their ink-stained work clothes; their elders more sedately followed suit.
The Crown and Anchor was the most notorious of London’s radical public houses. Penelope had formed a vision of what to expect from the place: low ceilings and smoky corners, spilled ale wetting the straw on the floor, furniture that looked like it had been used as a barricade during a war—and not by the winning side.
Instead, the four of them were set down in front of a sober-faced building that took up the bulk of a city block on Arundel Street, squaring off against St. Clement’s Church and hard by the Inns of Court with all their studious, thirsty barristers. After showing their tickets, Penelope and her guests walked into a foyer flanked by elegant columns, ascended a broad stone staircase, and found themselves in the Great Assembly Room.
Penelope gasped.
There were marble fireplaces. There were arched windows, stretching at least two stories high, and a musician’s gallery supported by another row of columns. The ceiling was a lofty dome of carved and decorated panels, and from the center of the dome hung an enormous glittering chandelier. You could have fit a thousand bodies in the space and still had enough room for everyone to dodge safely out of the way should that chandelier come crashing down.
It was absolutely spectacular, and it made Penelope’s heart quail in her breast.
The one thing she’d gotten right was the volume. The high ceiling gathered conversations and sent them back tripled to all the barristers, merchants, musicians, manufacturers, weavers, newspapermen, lace makers, caricaturists, physicians, scientists, poets, painters, booksellers, and tradesmen under its elegant curve.
Long tables had been set for the dinner, and people were already claiming the seats nearest the raised dais where the night’s speakers chatted. Penelope spotted Mrs. Buckhurst and the other women of the Female Reform Society, wearing white silk sashes and green rosettes. There was wealth here—not the wealth of the landed and titled aristocracy, but the wealth of a new, ambitious, indefatigable class who never let a good opportunity pass them by.
Sydney was ecstatic, but trying manfully to suppress it. He waved to a friend, offered Eliza his arm, and vanished into the throng.
Penelope twisted her hands in her skirts and wished she could slip through the parquet floor and get away. She’d come thinking she would have a drink and an argument, as she was used to of an evening. But this grandeur was the opposite of the Four Swallows in every respect. It was a temple of Radicalism and Reform, and it wanted only the most devoted acolytes to sip from the font of its wisdom.
Griffin’s hand touched her elbow. “Are you alright?”
“I think I preferred Walcott’s,” Penelope muttered.
Griffin’s mouth quirked. “So do I.” She smoothed a hand over the skirts of her navy gown—dark as an ink blot against all the marble and cream and color of the decor.
The fidget said she
was uncomfortable, too. Penelope felt a stab of indignation that Griffin should feel unwelcome anywhere. Bravery she hadn’t been able to summon on her own behalf rose up to release her from paralysis.
She slipped her arm into the crook of Griffin’s elbow. “Come—let’s find a place before the whole dinner’s devoured.”
They found seats beside Mrs. Koskinen and a young woman with dark red hair—and just in time, as Mrs. Buckhurst rose and called for attention not five minutes after Penelope finished piling her plate with roast meat and slightly singed vegetables. Her guess about the night’s rhetoric had been spot-on, at least: there were speeches made about rights, and toasts to the usual political figures, and even a few rousing songs that had Griffin wrinkling her nose even as Penelope lustily joined in.
Later, once the subscriptions were solicited and the final toasts made to Liberty and Reform, Mrs. Koskinen introduced the young woman as her cousin Miss Crewe. “Have you been to many dinners like this one?” Penelope inquired, leaning forward to be heard above the crowd.
“Not as many as I intend to.” Miss Crewe’s mouth was an absolute rosebud, even when pursed in wry amusement. She’d spent the speeches listening intently while methodically cleaning her plate, and even now was mopping up the sauces with a bit of bread. “But I was raised on reform, hearing arguments around the family table. My mother founded the Carrisford Weavers’ Library and Reform Society last spring.” The petals of her lips curved bittersweetly. “She would have been glad to see the crowds at Brandenburg today.”
Ah, Penelope remembered. Mrs. Koskinen’s cousin, killed at Peterloo. “Are you continuing her work with the Society, Miss Crewe?”
Miss Crewe paused with her fingers on her bit of bread. “That depends, Mrs. Flood: Are you a government spy?”
Penelope choked on her beer.
Miss Crewe nibbled daintily on her morsel of bread. Quite as though she accused people of being police informers all the time.
