The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows - Olivia Waite Page 0,58

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