Chapter 25 #4
“Clarinda, you ought to sit or that child is going to fall right out of you,” Davinia said.
“Warrefield, your new wife too good for taking the waters with the rest of us?” She glared at the earl, who glowered back.
“Now, which of my grand-nieces is Mr. Pitt pestering? Both of them? Come here, you pretty thing,” she said to Marsibel, who curtsied and blushed.
“I approve of Mr. Bales for you. Pinochle would never have done, as I told you, Althea.”
Lady Pomeroy clenched her jaw. Her elder sister Apollonia had outshone her in everything, including their aunt’s affections, and now her daughter was marrying higher than Althea had ever hoped for Marsibel. It must be galling, Henrietta thought.
“Medora!” Davinia addressed the Duchess of Highcastle. “You’re in straits, darling. We need to have a good long coze, you and Charlotte and I.”
The duchess nodded, looking near tears.
“Miss Wardley,” Pitt began.
“You may address me as the Dowager Duchess of Cumberland if you’re going to read me a lecture too.” Davinia leaned on Charley’s arm as he led her to where the monarchs presided.
“You dare! In this chamber,” the King roared, sitting up.
“It was a marriage, whether you recognize it or not, George,” Davinia said tartly.
She gave the sovereigns a curtsy as majestic as it was correct, then plumped herself down in a chair that a guard scrambled to put beside the Queen.
There she sat as if she were accustomed to the honor, which, as a former favorite lady-in-waiting, she was.
“Now, then. Langford!” Davinia barked, and the marquess snapped to attention, his eyes wide with alarm. “What did you dangle before Jasper to get Hetty for your hey-go-mad son?”
“Twenty thousand pounds on her, and ten for each of their children,” the marquess confessed.
Davinia hooted with laughter, her stout frame vibrating from the feathers in her remarkable headdress to the flounces at the hem of her elaborate overskirt.
“Hoy, Jasper, you are a shrewd negotiator! Told George it was time you got some honors, though I suggested a barony. Knew you were worthy of our name.”
“Thank you, Aunt Davinia,” Sir Jasper said.
“And you.” Her eyes scanned Darien. “We’ll see some better behavior from you in future?”
Darien swept her a deep bow. “I understand where you learned your managing ways,” he murmured to Henrietta.
She smiled at him. “Aunt Davinia raised me, along with Miss Gregoire. I owe my good fortune to my father, but I owe everything I am to the example these women set for me.”
And now, Aunt Davinia had bestirred herself from Bath on Henrietta’s behalf. Or perhaps she had come instead to protect the Wardley name. Like Thomas Hardy at her debate, her aunt’s powerful personality would dominate the room, and Henrietta would be pushed into the scenery once again.
Davinia held out a hand to Sir Pelton, who bowed over it. “Pell, I don’t know what you’re about here, but let’s tie it up, shall we? I want to see the gardens that my dear Charlotte is planning.” She patted her old friend on the knee.
The Queen’s eyes lit with enthusiasm. “Yes, indeed! We’re almost done here, aren’t we, milord?”
The King stared at Davinia as if she were a beautiful and poisonous snake. Davinia eyed the prime minister as one would a weevil in the kitchen flour. “Tell me, sir, what madness is your Pittsy about now?”
The chamber echoed with an appalled silence around that forbidden word “mad.”
Pitt drew himself up. He had not become the youngest prime minister in the history of Great Britain for lack of wisdom or merit. “Miss Wardley-Hines,” he said doggedly, “it seems to me that you and Miss Wollstonecraft are calling for outright revolution. Is this true?”
Henrietta straightened her back as every eye in the room skewered her. “Yes,” she said.
A gasp ran around the chamber. Several people stepped back as if officers would descend on Henrietta at once and whisk her away. Aunt Davinia folded her hands on her cane with a small, curious smile.
Henrietta caught the expression, and a thrill of surprise ran through her. Aunt Davinia had not come to preempt her interview but to insist that she was given a fair hearing.
The knowledge gave her the courage to speak into the affronted silence.
“Miss Wollstonecraft insists that if women are inferior, it is expectation and lack of education that have made them so. But these are defects that can and ought to be remedied. If you continue from the passage you last quoted, Mr. Pitt, I believe you will find she says this: ‘It is time to effect a revolution in female manners—time to restore them to their lost dignity, make them part of the human species, and by laboring to reform themselves, reform the world.’”
Pitt fumbled with the pages, frowning. The long silence that ensued was broken by the whack of Aunt Davinia’s cane on the floor.
“Well! My Hetty, the reformer. No wonder Pitt threw you in the watch house for speaking your mind. He’d understand women better did he ever go near one.” She turned to the King. “What, may I ask, is treasonous about treating half of the population as if they possess a mind and a soul?”
Pitt ground his teeth. “This debate and those like it, sir, represent a real threat to your authority and the order upon which this kingdom stands. We understand that Miss Wardley-Hines was responsible for the near riot in the London Tavern, at which were made several seditious remarks.”
“You must realize, Mr. Pitt, that there were many in attendance that evening who are not regular members of the Minerva Society,” Lady Bessington said.
“I’m afraid we cannot claim responsibility for their views.
I can assure you, Your Majesty, that the Minerva Society only admits loyal subjects. Davinia, wouldn’t you agree?”
“The topic concerned what remedy is available when those in power fail in their duty,” Pitt sputtered. “The remedy which Miss Wollstonecraft suggests is to remove tyrants from power.”
“If Miss Wollstonecraft requires examination,” Henrietta said, “then I beg you will call upon her to account for her works. My remedy, which bears repeating, is improved education for women that fits them for employment and pursuits beyond adornment of their persons, and a law which regards them as subjects able to govern themselves and their own property. Women are rational beings, sir. They must be taught proper conduct, their minds formed to dignity and reason and then held accountable for its exercise. That, Your Majesties, is the revolution I desire. To make women not the dependents but the equals, partners, and worthy companions of men.”
She dug her nails into her palms to quell their trembling.
There, she had said it, if not to, then before Darien.
What she expected from a marriage. What she needed him to understand, and agree to, before she could accept his hand.
If it were sedition to ask to be treated as his equal in intelligence, capability, and sense—and to demand a voice in the decisions that would govern her future—then she was guilty beyond a doubt.
“Pittsy?” The King, never one for subtleties, glared at his minister. “Don’t see what any of this has to do with us.”
Lady Bessington dropped a stately curtsy. “If you require no further information regarding the Minerva Society, sir, I beg that his lordship and I be excused. We are planning a ball for this evening to which Your Majesties are, of course, invited.”
Bess and Aunt Davinia had neatly turned the tables, giving the Prime Minister no purchase. He watched Henrietta shrewdly, but when the King sighed and rolled his eyes toward the ceiling, Pitt gave a small, stiff bow. “If His Majesty is satisfied on this matter, then so am I. For the moment.”
Queen Charlotte laid a hand on her husband’s arm as his protuberant gaze ranged around the room. “Shall we see to our tea, milord?”
The audience, taking this as dismissal, filed out backward. Mr. Equiano bowed over Henrietta’s hand.
“I would be honored, Miss Wardley-Hines, to assist when you present the Minerva Society’s petition for full abolition to Parliament,” he said.
“Oh!” Henrietta stared at him, astounded. “Oh, indeed, yes!”
“While I would never dream of concerning myself with matters of state,” Aunt Davinia said loudly, “one might think Mr. Pitt ought to convene a committee to investigate means for improving the lot of women. My niece makes many excellent points. No more than what I’ve been saying for years, of course. ”
“A committee to consider the rights of women.” The King rubbed his nose. “See to it, Pittsy.” He eyed Henrietta. “Put this one and Lady Bess in charge.”
Henrietta sank into a deep curtsy. “Your Majesty. I would be most honored to accept such a commission.”
King George snorted. “Don’t imagine it will go anywhere, but we must keep the ladies content.”
Queen Charlotte rose and gave her husband a fond smile, holding out her arm so her companion might appear to be escorting her while she helped him to his feet. “As ever, milord, you are the wisest and most generous of men.”
The monarchs departed, and Henrietta stood in the cleared space, looking about her. She felt exhilarated and deflated at the same time. “I am not to be transported? Pilloried? Fined?”
Aunt Davinia rose and shook out her massive skirts. “Pitt can’t arrest everyone who speaks their mind. He’d have half the kingdom in prison.” She chucked Henrietta beneath her chin, a tender gesture she recalled from her youth. “You did well speaking your mind, Hetty. It’s time someone did.”
Henrietta’s eyes filled with tears of relief. “I’m afraid I’ve brought a shadow on the name. I’m not certain Aunt Althea will ever forgive me.”
“Althea worries about the wrong things,” Davinia replied. She turned to Darien. “Lord Daring, greater than life, and far more dashing than the broadsheets depict. Yes, we’ve seen them, even in Bath.” She held out her hand for him to take.
Darien sketched a bow, still stiff from his injury. “I hope you will believe Henrietta has had a steadying influence on me.”
Davinia gave a scratchy laugh. “I hope you were listening. If you’re to join the family, boy, it’s not Jasper’s approval you’ll be needing. It’s mine.”