Chapter 4
Four
“Both Richard and Maria Edgeworth, of course, have written well of the science behind reforming the education of children,” said Mr Wilberforce.
“We long sought to get medical men involved in our chimney sweep work—the diseases and ill-health caused by exposure to all that soot are well recognised. But as I’ve learned from my abolitionist fight, nothing can be done without a change in public sentiment. ”
Sitting on the sofa in her aunt’s sitting room, Madelaine nodded. Beside her, her aunt nodded rapidly too.
“I’ve been writing to several promising doctors,” Madelaine said.
“Science and factual evidence will be of great help in supporting our cause, especially when we’re accused of nothing but overly sentimental softness.
But you’re right that it’s public sentiment we need to shift—we do need to play to people’s emotions but without being accused of being overly emotional ourselves.
Mr Hunt…” She looked at the younger gentleman seated to Mr Wilberforce’s left.
“Your article in The Examiner last year on the brutality of army floggings—”
“Nearly landed me in gaol,” he said, with a crooked smile. “And both my brother and I will be there again soon enough if Brougham can’t perform his usual magic.”
“How can they prosecute for mere opinions!” cried her aunt. “And for opinions that are the most just! The kindest! The most decent!”
Mr Hunt wrinkled his nose, laughing slightly. “Oh, my opinion on the Regent was just, all right, though I can’t pretend it was kind. But opinions that aren’t his own are just what that fat prince can’t stand.”
On Mr Hunt’s other side, the priest shifted unhappily in his seat.
A slender, brown-haired man of around five-and-twenty, Reverend Robert Moore presided over the church her aunt attended and had recently been recruited to their cause.
Being of both a pure and puritanical bent, he was, however, distinctly unhappy with the radicals and reformers that made up the bulk of their supporters.
Still. It was good to have clergymen among their number. Every argument was stronger if you could claim God was on your side.
Madelaine smiled at him, and Reverend Moore gave her a small, tight smile back.
“You are still publishing, though?” she asked Mr Hunt.
“Oh yes! Until they pry my pen from my hands.”
“And…would you write of this, do you think, the way you exposed the senseless barbarity of army floggings? Can I persuade you to help us persuade others?”
“I’m sure you could persuade me to do a great many things, Mrs Ardingly. But I know my brother John will want some substance to the article, and I agree. We need some bones to build around. Get us a few of these scientific, medical men to quote from, and I’m sure we can work something up.”
“Of course,” she said with a grateful smile—and the dismal knowledge she hadn’t yet received a reply to any of her letters.
Her eyes slipped to the dusty ormolu clock on the mantlepiece. “Almost noon. I’m afraid your ten minutes are up, Mr Wilberforce. But we’re so incredibly grateful you spared them to us.”
“Of course, of course,” said the grey-haired man, standing up.
“It’s a worthy cause, though I fear an intractable one.
” He went to the sideboard and picked up his hat and cane.
“I’ll do what I can, though. There are a few MPs I know who might be sympathetic.
I do still suggest you consider tightening your focus—banning the use of some one thing in particular, whips at public schools, for example, will be a far easier bill to write up and try to pass. ”
Madelaine nodded, standing too as Mr Wilberforce moved towards the door. Mr Hunt was also getting ready to go, though the reverend remained, tapping a finger on his lips in thoughtful abstraction and somehow managing to look insectoidal. It was the long thin fingers, perhaps.
Going to open the door for the gentlemen, Madelaine stepped back in surprise when it opened from the other side before she reached it.
The footman, Godfrey, and his yellowed wig appeared in the gap, bowing low in deference to their assembled company.
And, perhaps due to that same company, he announced in even more portentous tones than usual, “The Viscount Cotereigh for Lady Pemberthy, Mrs Ardingly.”
If Madelaine had been surprised at his arrival the first time, she was almost more astonished by this second visit.
In her mind, the viscount had departed in haste, dropped her pamphlet in the nearest puddle, and gone home to cleanse himself in a steaming hot bath until no trace of their interview remained.
And yet, here he was. Subjecting himself to the squalor of her aunt’s shambolic house and her own ridiculous opinions once again. Perhaps he’d remembered another argument to make against her. Perhaps he wished to explain the frailty of the female brain.
The yellowed wig tottered away, and Lord Cotereigh stepped through the door, very tall, his black coat so smart and sleek and gleaming it somehow looked brighter than all the jumbled colours in the room.
He paused, taking in the assembled company with no discernible expression other than polite interest. Under his arm was a large, cloth-bound book. Perhaps it contained detailed diagrams of how best to beat small children to death.
“Lord Cotereigh.” Madelaine didn’t offer him her hand this time. She’d learnt her lesson. She dropped a small curtsy. “How do you do?”
“Very well, madam.” Did his eyes flicker to her mouth? Searching for that ink? He wouldn’t find it. She’d scrubbed herself almost raw to get rid of it, as demented as Lady Macbeth and laughing brittlely, though surely it was no fair comparison. She wasn’t about to drive a man to madness.
“But if I am interrupting…?” he asked politely.
“Not at all,” she reassured him, equally polite. “Perhaps you know some of these gentlemen.” She turned to them with a smile. “Mr Wilberforce, Mr Hunt, Reverend Moore, may I introduce the Viscount Cotereigh?”
Apparently and unsurprisingly, they did not know each other. Mr Wilberforce shook Lord Cotereigh’s hand. The others bowed, the reverend getting hastily to his feet.
It gave her no small sense of satisfaction for Lord Cotereigh to learn that she and her aunt weren’t entirely friendless. Even if he’d never met them, she felt sure he’d heard of Mr Wilberforce, perhaps even Mr Hunt too.
Lord Cotereigh advanced into the room as the other gentlemen left it, Reverend Moore deciding to make himself one of the departees.
She felt an uncharitable pang of relief.
The reverend meant well, but having learnt she was a parson’s daughter, seemed to suppose she delighted in talking of little but scripture and obscure theological points.
And while it was always refreshing to talk to a man who felt her capable of intelligent conversation, she had to admit the topic was rather dry.
Still. It was probably preferable to whatever Lord Cotereigh had come here to say.
“Please, my lord,” said her aunt, beaming.
“Do take a seat! I was ever so sorry to miss you when you called the other day. This tea is cold,” she continued before he could respond, pressing her hand to the pot.
“Madelaine, call for some more, will you? And biscuits too. Sandwiches. Can I press you to take a sandwich or two, Lord Cotereigh? My cook cuts them so very neatly.”
“Thank you. I am not hungry.”
Did he eat? She went to the bell pull and tugged softly on the embroidered sash, finding it hard to imagine. He might get crumbs on his trousers, heaven forbid! Might get crumbs around his mouth. Sticky lips, sticky fingers—
She released the bell pull abruptly, accidentally setting it jangling again, then went to sit down on the sofa by her aunt.
Lord Cotereigh had taken the seat opposite, just as before.
The large book was on his lap, his right hand atop it, strong fingers with clean, neatly trimmed nails splayed over the reddish brown cover.
There were words picked out in gold, but she couldn’t read them from this angle.
“But this is a delight to have you visit again!” her aunt was saying.
“I could scarcely believe it when Madelaine said you’d been to call, and for me to miss the honour too!
But here you are, so very kindly repeating it.
I knew, when Madelaine told me she’d given you one of her pamphlets, that you couldn’t help but be persuaded to our cause as soon as you’d read it. She writes so very well, doesn’t she?”
Madelaine found herself staring hard at the wall opposite. Unfortunately it happened to be the part where a section of wallpaper had started peeling from the top. Her aunt had been planning to get it fixed for three years.
“Yes, very well,” agreed Lord Cotereigh, blandly polite. But her aunt clapped her hands in delight, Madelaine determining, with great concentration, that she absolutely would find someone to fix the wallpaper this week. Perhaps she could do it herself?
“I knew it! She is such a great asset. My champion, my guiding light! I’d be lost without my Madelaine. And so she has persuaded you, my lord? You are won to our cause? Oh, it would be capital indeed; you don’t need to tell me how you are revered among all the greatest families in town.”
How did one make wallpaper paste? Madelaine thought furiously. The housekeeper might know.
“You are too kind,” said Lord Cotereigh, and only someone looking for it would have noticed the sarcasm. Madelaine felt it like a cold knife.
So why are you here? Forgetting all about wallpaper, she flashed into indignation on behalf of her aunt, as always happened whenever anyone laughed at her. Madelaine adored her—she was too kind. Too kind for this world. Too kind for the scathing, selfish contempt of men like Lord Cotereigh.
He seemed to sense her disquiet, his glance going to her face, an eyebrow condescending to raise itself a minuscule amount at her expression. Quickly she schooled it, smoothing her dress over her lap with a swipe of her hands and looking up, now with a smile.
“It is indeed a great pleasure to see you again, Lord Cotereigh,” she said. “To whatever do we owe the honour?”
It seemed he could hear hidden sarcasm just as well as she. That raised eyebrow lingered, faintly amused.
“I have come to offer my assistance, Mrs Ardingly. Lady Pemberthy.”
“Oh!” her aunt gasped, clasping her hands together in joy. “I knew we must soon meet with success! Thank you, thank you, Lord Cotereigh!”
“I suggest you hear the proposed form my help will take before giving me your gratitude, Lady Pemberthy.” He said it dryly, but, to Madelaine’s surprise, not unkindly. That faint humour still underlay his tone. “It may not be a form of help you wish to accept.”
“Oh, I’m sure any assistance—”
“Let us hear Lord Cotereigh speak, Aunt.”
“Oh, yes, yes! Of course. Forgive me, my lord. Pray, do continue.”
He inclined his head, shifting his hand absently across the cover of the book on his lap before he began. His palm made a faint rasping over the stiff cloth cover.
“I am indeed here to help your cause, but for my own selfish reasons.” He looked up from the book with a smile at their surprised expressions. “I made a wager, you see, that it would be possible for my influence to raise your cause to one of popularity, even fashion. And I don’t intend to lose.”
Heat scalded Madelaine’s cheeks. “We are in the manner of a joke then, to you and your friends?”
“A joke? More a lost cause. My friends think they have given me an impossible task. I myself believe nothing is impossible, if I set my mind to it.”
Her aunt was staring at him, mouth slightly open in confusion. “A…a wager?”
“Yes, Lord Cotereigh,” said Madelaine coldly. “Pray do tell us exactly how we feature in your wager.”
Neither her aunt’s shock or her own anger seemed to perturb him. “The stakes are thus,” he said calmly. “I will get for your committee board ten men of power and influence, and I will make your fundraising ball a success, attended by no fewer than a dozen of society’s most respected families.”
“And if you fail?” she asked.
“I owe each of my friends two thousand pounds. But worse, I fail, Mrs Ardingly. And that is insupportable.”
“To you, I’m sure.”
He merely smiled at her, as though pleased she understood him.
“Two…two thousand pounds,” her aunt repeated. “Each of your friends…”
“Only six of them, never fear.”
“Twelve thousand!”
“The money, you realise, is not the issue.”
“Only your pride?” said Madelaine.
He smiled at her again. “Pride. Status. Yes. Things of real value.”
“Real value,” she muttered. Not children, not preventing cruelty and pain, but only his pride. That was what motivated him.
“As I said, Mrs Ardingly.” He clearly read her thoughts. “I am here for selfish reasons.”
Her aunt spoke in broken, flustered sentences, asking him if he was sure, wasn’t he afraid, wasn’t gambling terribly dangerous?
He answered easily, carelessly. When the maid entered with the tea tray, her aunt seemed relieved to occupy herself with something she understood.
Tea and sandwiches. They were very sensible, very good things.
She offered them profusely. Lord Cotereigh declined.
For her part, Madelaine was studying the wallpaper again, but deep in thought this time.
Anger, resentment, humiliation, and even disappointment she pushed aside, however much they bobbed around and bumped against her, like flotsam on the tide.
She waded deeper, seeking a clearer view; she went to where the water ran cool and strong and the great blue-white sky was empty of everything but eternity…
Help was help. Ten people on the committee were ten people on the committee. A well-attended ball was a well-attended ball.
What did it matter his reasons? What did it matter that the man himself was awful and cold and insufferable?
She could suffer him. For the sake of those children, to end their suffering, she would suffer much.
Her focus returned to the room, to Lord Cotereigh. She looked at him, dimly aware that he’d been studying her in his own inscrutable way.
“Very well,” she said. “We accept your help.”
“Excellent.” He smiled, satisfied, amused, but not warm. Taking the book from his knee, he set it on the low table between them. “And I suggest we start with this.”