“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.
Perhaps she did.
Penelope got her breath back, and managed half a smile. “If I were,” she said, “I surely would deny it.”
“Of course,” Miss Crewe agreed. “But the manner of your denial would be telling.” Her lips quirked, and her eyes sparkled. “In fact, it was.”
“And just what did it tell you?” Penelope inquired.
