She held her tongue, though her throat burned with words unuttered.
As soon as the day’s work was done, Sydney vanished for the evening, and was still not home when Agatha fell into a fitful, irritated sleep.
On the new vote, the bill again squeaked through—but so narrowly that Lord Liverpool grudgingly retracted it before it could be sent to the House of Commons. Everyone knew—and if they didn’t, the papers soon told them—that this was because such a narrow margin meant the bill had no chance of passing the Commons, where the radicals had stirred up every friend and supporter to the Queen’s cause.
It was over. The Queen would keep her husband and her throne.
The country triumphed as though a war had been won. More so, even—the grand celebrations after Waterloo were now entirely eclipsed. Bells rang out from church steeples and Dissenting chapels throughout London. People flooded the streets, singing and crying, “The Queen, the Queen!” and hurling bricks through the windows of the papers who’d printed articles and letters against her. At the Crown and Anchor, radicals drunk on more than the tavern’s best ale loudly and indiscriminately toasted the Queen, the King, the army, the navy, Thomas Paine, George Washington, and every revolution. Fireworks and firearms and even cannons went off at such frequent intervals that the rich pulled their curtains shut and trembled in fear of the guillotine, imagining every cart and carriage rolling past was a tumbril coming to bear them to their doom. Insulting effigies of the Italian witnesses and the lordly prosecution were burned on street corners, and guillotine flags with ominous slogans waved from pubs and taverns across the city.
Penelope’s next letter showed that Melliton had rejoiced just as loudly as London.
Everyone from town trooped down to the rectory again to demand the vicar ring the church bells in the Queen’s honor. Mr. Koskinen ran up the steeple and pulled bell ropes until dawn broke. I don’t think anyone for ten miles round got any sleep that night, but everyone was as merry as midsummer, anyway.
Lady Summerville held a tea at Abington Hall, to celebrate having banished the specter of aristocratic divorce. Fine ladies congratulating one another on all their hard work. I slipped out into the garden maze and found all the satyrs and Napoleon gone—only Josephine remained, sad and solitary.
Please go visit the nymph and the dryad for me, won’t you? I need to know at least those two are still safe.
More statues sold? Agatha dashed off a quick inquiry to a few of the art brokers she knew from theMenagerie. Perhaps Napoleon was somewhere she could take Flood for a visit. Maybe somewhere with moonlight and a fountain and a concealing veil of leaves...
She was interrupted by a knock at the door; she put down her pen and craned her head to see Sydney standing there, a pamphlet in his hand and sheer misery in his face. “What’s happened?” she asked.
In answer, he merely handed over the paper, which hadA Letter from the King to his Peopleemblazoned across the top. “It’s lies,” he said. “Self-serving, unjust lies. And it’s selling out on every corner in the city.”
“Oh,” said Agatha on a sigh. So the backlash had begun. There would be as many pieces against the Queen now as there had been before.
Sydney all but collapsed on the bench at the foot of Agatha’s bed. “I really thought they were all listening,” he said. “The Lords, the people—everyone. I thought we were getting through. Damn it all, I thought something was going tohappen.” He slapped an emphatic palm down on the padded bench top.
Agatha set the pamphlet aside and patted her son’s shoulder. “It rarely does,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
He blinked. “You knew? How did you know?”
Agatha pressed her lips together. “I’ve seen it before, of course. Happens all the time in this business. The upward sweep and the crash afterward. Sometimes it’s bigger, sometimes smaller. You’ll get used to it eventually.”
Sydney’s horror was gradually giving way to a dawning recognition. “All the time?”
“All the time. Though—this was rather a large one. It’s not always quite so excessive. And it’s particularly hard when you care deeply about the matter the storm is centered on.” She smiled softly. “Which you do.”
Sydney was staring as though he were bobbing in unruly seas, and Agatha held the only lifeline. “How do you bear it?”
She could only shrug. “Strong drink?”
Sydney let out a broken laugh.
His mother clasped her hands against her knees. “You focus on the things that are important. The people you know. The work you do. You take the anger that burns inside you and put it to use, so your heart doesn’t devour only itself.”
Sydney sucked in a sharp breath. “Has anyone ever told you you ought to write poetry?”
“Careful, my darling son.” Agatha laughed. “I will cut you right out of the will, see if I don’t.”
“Do you think...” Sydney paused, looking grumpy, and for a dizzying moment Agatha felt as though she were looking into a mirror. Sometimes she forgot he was as much her son as Thomas’s.
Sydney’s voice was soft, but steady. “Do you think if we’d kept going as the Wasp, things might have been different?”
Agatha bit back the urge to tell him not to be foolish. That was the fear talking, and fear had almost ruined things between herself and her son. “I’m not sure,” she admitted, and saw Sydney’s eyes widen in surprise.
Her cheeks went hot, but she pressed on. “When your father was still with us, Griffin’s was much more focused on the arts and sciences. TheMenageriewas everything. He was part of the political conversations—but distantly, as a listener more than a speaker or a publisher. The political jobs you’ve brought in to offset the stamp taxes have been financially sound choices, it’s true—but I don’t have a good sense yet of how to balance the risks and the rewards in the political sphere. Until I do, I am likely to want to avoid the larger risks, if I can.” She plucked at the nothing on her skirt. “Even if it means doing something rather cowardly.”
Sydney rose and walked over and bent down, his lips brushing her cheek. “I’m sorry I was so angry,” he said. “If it helps, Eliza’s been raking me over the coals for a week now, for sulking when you were just being protective.” He rolled his eyes, giving Agatha a precious moment to dash the water from her own, unseen. “Don’t tell her I told you that. She’ll never let me forget it.”
