Chapter Eleven #2
“Well,” said Grace. “What else is going on in town?”
Grace wanted to hear more about the goings on back in London, but as Penny told a long story about a bit of gossip pertaining to one of their mutual friends, Grace found her energy waning. Penny paused as if she anticipated a laugh, but Grace said, “I’m sorry. I’m exhausted.”
“Go to sleep. We can resume our talk tomorrow.”
A solid night’s sleep did Grace a lot of good, although she woke up the next morning with her stomach still unsettled.
Indeed, it proved a bit of a challenge to keep the Hastings girls occupied.
They took a walk around the estate. They admired Owen’s sheep and horses.
They ran into one of the Williams brothers—Alex or Artie, Grace still had trouble telling them all apart—who indulged the ladies with some jokes about sheep.
The day after that—once Grace sent word to warn Morfudd—they went to Caernarfon Castle.
Grace did everything she could to keep her guests entertained, and she did have a good time.
She’d always liked Elizabeth and Helena, though they were not as close as Grace was to Penny.
And it was nice to be around other women, to indulge in gossip, to hear about what she was missing in London.
Truly, it was gratifying that she wasn’t truly missing anything except for the exact things she’d been looking to escape.
But after a full week of playing hostess, Grace felt as though she’d been drained. Penny and Morfudd both noticed, and Morfudd agreed to take the Hastings to town that day to give them a taste of Welsh culture. Penny stayed behind to keep Grace company.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Penny said. “You’ve seemed not yourself the last day or two.”
“I’m fine, truly. I might be coming down with something, though. I’m sure it’s nothing serious. But you’re right, I have not felt quite myself the last few days.”
“What is wrong, precisely?”
“Mostly I’m just tired, which I attribute to having to entertain. And…I’m nervous, I suppose. Unsettled. I’ve never hosted on my own before and I want to make sure all of you are having a good time, so I’ve been putting some extra pressure on myself, perhaps more than necessary.”
“As long as you aren’t seriously ill,” said Penny warily.
“I do not believe I am. A bit overwhelmed, is really all it is. A good night’s sleep and I’ll be fine.”
“All right. We shall be out of your hair soon enough.”
“Please stay as long as you like. I will try to be less fussy about everything.”
Penny smiled. “I love you like a sister.” She gave Grace a quick hug. “I would do anything for you. If you need us to leave, we will.”
“No, no. Stay. I like having you here. I think Lady Lenora just unsettles me.”
“She is quite intimidating.”
Grace giggled at that.
“And perhaps next time I come visit,” Penny said, “I will leave the Hastings behind.”
“Oh, I would never presume to—”
“Grace. It is just the two of us here.”
“All right. The Hastings are…a lot to manage,” Grace conceded.
Penny laughed. “I do adore you, my friend. I am glad we made this journey.”
“I am, as well. Truly, come visit anytime you like. The one thing I regret is that I am so far now from my friends.” Although, to be honest, Grace had mostly only missed Penny.
She didn’t have many other close friends.
Grace intuited that the Hastingses mostly tagged along with Penny so that Penny would not have to make the five-day journey alone.
“Maybe Baron Beckwith has some use of a country home near the Welsh border.”
Grace laughed. “If only.”
It was odd to reflect on that, though. Grace had spent so much time alone when she was in London, and now here, in Wales, it felt decidedly different.
She dropped in on Gwen sometimes just to have tea together.
She had regular dinners with Morfudd. She’d been teaching Catrin Davies how to do some basics with clay.
And now she had a house full of guests. She was more social now than she’d ever been before, despite being so far from London.
And she liked it. But it was different than the life she’d known back in London.
“I’m having fun,” Grace assured Penny. “But I will sleep for three days after you all leave.”
Penny laughed. “And it will be much deserved.”
*
All year, there had been a series of rebellions in which textile workers, worried about being replaced by machines, had destroyed the machines.
They called themselves Luddites, after the legendary figure of Ned Ludd, someone Owen didn’t think had actually existed but who had allegedly broken a loom in protest or something. Owen could never remember the details.
The problem, of course, was that the machines could weave fabric much faster than humans could, so textile manufacturers—some of whom Owen had worked with—did in fact want to replace their workers with machines. Owen understood that. Why wouldn’t you want to make fabric faster and cheaper?
He felt bad for the workers who were losing their jobs, too. But he didn’t think destroying expensive machines was the answer.
The other problem Owen was having now was that Parliament was still in session deciding what to do about the rebellions, and all Owen wanted to do was go home to his wife.
It was a very odd position to be in, especially since Grace was several days’ journey away, and he hadn’t expected to miss her so much. But every time she sent him a letter, he felt like he could hear her voice again.
They’d talked about this. It was what they wanted. Owen couldn’t let himself get distracted.
“It’s quaint that you think you can compromise,” said a voice standing near where Owen sat in the sitting room outside Lords.
Owen looked up. Lord Edgerton and the Earl of Canbury stood over him. Canbury nervously worried a piece of paper in his hand.
Owen tried to remember which bit of legislation Edgerton had most favored.
He tended to side with the Prince Regent, so he was likely discussing the roads.
Owen’s secretary had been circulating a proposal to fix the existing roads rather than create new ones, and this was likely the thing Edgerton was most likely upset about.
“You’ll have to be more specific,” Owen said. “I’m currently working on several important pieces of legislation.”
“You think you can fill in a few holes in London’s major thoroughfares and call it an accomplishment?”
It was the roads, then. “It’s cruel to remove people from their homes just because Prinny wants a more direct route to the very expensive waste of money he calls a house.”
Canbury seemed to fret at this. He’d always been a bootlicker, constantly seeking favor from the Crown.
Owen felt bad for his opinion of Canbury, especially now that the man’s daughter was married to Hugh.
Then again, he supposed having one’s daughter find a good marriage was not enough to change one’s temperament.
Canbury was powerful because he had the ear of the Prince Regent, but he had a lot of enemies, too.
Owen had never taken him too seriously. But Edgerton usually had more sense.
Owen couldn’t comprehend why he was being so blunt now.
“Your bill is dead,” Edgerton said. “We’re approving the new road in exchange for the Crown foregoing asking us for more money for his home in Bath.”
“Do we not have more pressing matters than whether Prinny gets his road?” asked Owen. He held up the sheaf of paper he’d been reading. “These are letters from several textile manufacturers imploring me to do something about the protests.”
“What are we to do about angry men?” asked Edgerton.
“Seems like a job for Commons,” said Canbury.
Owen stood, not enjoying having other men stand over him. “I do not understand why you bother to attend if you think you have no role in the government.”
“Of course we have a role,” said Canbury.
“But Edgerton would just as soon we hand over all of our funds to the Prince Regent so that he can spend them as he pleases.”
“Not as he pleases. I made a more viable compromise than fixing the roads. What do you intend to do?”
“It would have cost less money to hire some street cleaners. Now a hundred people will need to find new homes, for no clear reason, and we have to build a new road from scratch. All so one man has a more direct route from one grand palace to another.”
“You are far too compassionate, Caernarfon. And besides, don’t you own several grand estates? You are hardly in a position to judge.”
“Perhaps not, but I am also not arguing that we should tear down houses, where people live in order to build a road over them! This new road is intended to help one man. Why can’t we do something that helps more than the man who is spending our treasury’s money on nonsense.”
“He defeated Napoleon,” said Canbury.
“No, he didn’t. Did Prinny put on a uniform and march into France? He did not. Wellington won at Waterloo. Prinny wears costumes and pretends he’s a soldier.”
Canbury bristled. Edgerton just smiled.
Owen sighed and folded the letters he’d been reading.
He slipped them into the leather portfolio he’d been carrying them in.
“I intend to vote against the new road,” Owen said.
“And I intend to do something about the Luddite rebellion. But if you’d like to sniff Prinny’s shoes in your spare time, far be it from me to stop you. ”
Owen didn’t wait for a reply and instead left the room. But as he left, he realized he’d be stuck in London sorting all this out for the foreseeable future.
With his friends at the club that night, he said, “How did I become the member of Parliament most interested in the rights of regular people? I’m a bloody earl.”
“Something in your blood gets riled up when the English government begins to assert its authority,” said Fletcher.
“Joke’s on the Crown,” Owen replied. “I own the castle their ancestor built to threaten the Welsh.”