Where Love Restores (Where There is Love Book 4) Page 19

  His attention returned to the floor where it seemed that the hopes of the antislavery leaders were to be dashed. The House voted to postpone further consideration of the measure, simply directing the chairman to report progress.

  A short time later, Granville’s more personal desires also ran into an obstacle when he invited the Somerset ladies to attend a concert with him.

  “I am sorry, Gran, but we are already engaged to make up another party.” Georgiana’s sweet smile was his only reward.

  “And are you engaged for a drive in the park tomorrow morning?”

  “I sadly fear, sir—” Georgiana did her best to look crestfallen, but her eyes twinkled. “—that my sister is indeed engaged. Would you be too cast down if I alone were to accept your kind offer?”

  “I should contrive to make do with so sadly diminished a company.” He bowed over her hand. But the smile left his face as he saw the carriage of Mr. Agar-Ellis waiting for her beyond the gardens of the Palace of Westminster. He knew whose party Georgiana would be attending that night.

  The next morning, however, it was Granville’s turn. Georgiana sat beside him in his carriage, wearing her blue satin bonnet with clusters of white silk mignonette, ribbon bow knots, and floating streamers as Granville’s chestnut pair stepped smartly over the golden sand of Rotten Row. The trees overhead showed just an etching of the green leaves they would soon unfurl, and the sunshine sparkled on the blue waters of the Serpentine beyond.

  Their progress was slow and conversation difficult because the Row was jammed with elegant carriages at that hour, and they met many acquaintances, all requiring an exchange of greetings. It seemed that every carriage contained at least one passenger who was a friend or connection of either family, and it would not do to cut anyone.

  For a time, however, Granville found it pleasure enough simply being in his beloved’s company and chatting briefly. “And are you truly recovered, Georgie?”

  “In absolutely fine feather, quite the top-of-the-trees, I assure you.”

  “I cannot tell you how I condemned myself for allowing you to expose yourself to such danger.”

  “Fustian! How could you possibly be to blame because I was such a cawker as to cram my horse at a jump—as you told me at the time.”

  He wished to say more, but a carriage driven by Worcester’s friend Lord Lauderdale pulled alongside. Georgiana exchanged a few words with the driver. “Is your brother in town?” Lauderdale inquired.

  “I believe he arrives tomorrow.”

  “Fine. Tell him I expect to have some good news for him.”

  Georgiana sighed. “I do hope so; my poor brother has broken his heart quite long enough over this matter.”

  Lauderdale’s carriage pulled ahead, and Georgiana explained to Granville her brother’s dilemma regarding his desire to marry his beloved Emily and that Lauderdale had undertaken to lay Worcester’s case before her family.

  At the end of the Row, Granville turned into the less fashionable and less crowded carriage drive which would take them to the top of the park. He lowered his hands to allow his horses to walk at a more leisurely pace.

  Georgiana leaned back against the cushions of the phaeton. “And what of your affairs, Granville? You are scandalously uncommunicative. After the lovely letters I put myself forth to write to you, all I receive are a few scribbled notes. You are fortunate, sir, that I am of such a sweet and forgiving nature that I continue even to speak to you.”

  He opened his mouth to protest, but his companion, much flown with her flummery, continued, “But then if you prefer your musty Latin and maths to communicating with me, I shall endeavor to bear up under it.”

  “Now that is doing it too brown,” he protested.

  Then she turned suddenly serious. “Oh, Gran, I have heard that you are making remarkable progress at your studies, and Mr. Simeon wrote Mama a most charming letter about your advancement. May I hope that it is not presumptuous in me to think that my Christmas wish for you may be coming true?”

  “There was a considerable time when I doubted it, but I’m beginning to think… Georgiana…” Thoughts of George Agar-Ellis came to him, and fear made him pause. Now that he was free before God—now that he could speak—what if he were too late?

  Georgiana turned to him with a look of solemn intensity in her clear blue eyes that required him to swallow very hard. But before he could continue, the sound of a rapidly approaching carriage took their attention. Granville inclined his head stiffly and muttered under his breath when he saw that the other driver was no other than Agar-Ellis himself.

  After the prescribed exchange of pleasantries, Granville wished the driver to move on, but George seemed fully determined to divulge all of the news that had brought him out at such a puffed pace. “Have you seen The Times this morning? I always peruse it with my morning coffee—my man has strictest orders that it is to be brought to me the moment it arrives. It doesn’t do to go about uninformed, you know.”

  “Then pray hasten to inform us, sir, that we may be redeemed from our ignorant state.” Georgiana spoke with a perfectly straight face.

  “The king has finally taken a hand in the bumblebroth over the elevation of that religious enthusiast… Oh, I say, Ryder, I beg your pardon. He’s some connection of yours, isn’t he? Afraid I wasn’t thinking.”

  “That’s quite all right. I’m most interested to hear the latest word of my uncle.”

  “Yes, well—” Mr. Agar-Ellis quickly regained any composure he might have lost or feigned losing. “It seems His Majesty has consented, although with quite understandable reluctance—forgive me, Ryder.”

  “Speak your mind. Take no notice of me.” Granville waved the matter away, fervently wishing the speaker in Jericho.

  “By your leave, I will then. Mr. Walpole knew him as a young man, and you know his insight was always remarkably reliable. He found Henry Ryder shockingly without parts or knowledge. He declared him to be with no characteristics but a sonorous delivery and an assiduity of back-stairs influence.”

  Agar-Ellis turned sharply to Granville as if the thought had just struck him. “I say, Ryder, you don’t suppose you might drop a hint, being family and all. This religious enthusiasm really doesn’t do. What does a bishop want with being religious? And a friend of that dowdy Hannah More—perhaps he could urge her to temper her pen.”

  “You do me too much honor,” Granville said tightly. “I am not in a position of so great an influence with my uncle, nor would I presume to remark on his choice of friends any more than he would on mine, although, unlike myself, he possesses the right to do so without gross impropriety.”

  “Yes, yes, I quite take your point. Indelicate of me to suggest it. I just thought though—well, one’s family connection can be a bit of an embarrassment.”

  “I have never found it so. It has always been my concern that my family not be embarrassed by me.”

  “I daresay. Quite so.” Mr. Agar-Ellis took his leave with a tip of his curly beaver to Lady Georgiana.

  “Oh, well done, Granville! I never knew you to be such an admirable fencer. You had him at point non plus.” Georgiana giggled. Then she continued, “But the king has really consented to Bishop Ryder’s elevation to a more prominent dioceses! That’s famous! Everyone will be so happy.”

  “This was the first I’d heard of it—shockingly ill-informed, you know. Shall we go see if my father’s newspapers have arrived?”

  Granville and Georgiana found the family in the breakfast room at Harrowby House. The Countess Susan was presiding over the table with her open, natural love of conversation. “Oh, I am so happy for it. If the church doesn’t appoint more men of true religion, in a very few years it will truly be in danger. People will grow tired of paying so dearly for so bad an article.” As she addressed her husband, she tucked a stray brown curl back into a very fetching lace cap adorned with ribbons.

  “Quite right. It’s about time King George took the matter in hand. Ridiculous to make such
a mull of what should have been handled in a routine manner. Can’t abide such dillydallying. Ah, Granville, here it is: ‘King Confirms Ryder.’” The earl held out The Times to his son who was helping Georgiana with her chair.

  “Thank you, Father. We were just told of this in the park.”

  “Read it out, Gran. What did His Majesty say?” Georgiana turned to the footman at her elbow. “Just some toast and an egg, please.”

  Granville seated himself next to Georgiana, opened the paper, and read: “‘The King consents, though reluctantly, to the offer being made to the Bishop of Gloucester for his translation to Lichfield and Coventry. The Bishop of Gloucester is no doubt a pious and good man, and the King is acquainted with many acts of his life which bespeak it.’”

  “And I should like to ask His Highness to his face,” the countess interrupted, “why his consent was reluctant if he is so well acquainted with my brother-in-law’s worth?”

  “True, but it is settled satisfactorily,” Granville said. “We must congratulate my uncle.”

  “Yes, indeed. I shall send out cards today to a rout in his honor. A week from Wednesday, don’t you think, dear, so that it might be done before Holy Week? This Friday we are to have that cabinet dinner.”

  “Whatever you think best,” Lord Harrowby consented.

  “Well, it certainly couldn’t be any sooner. You know how volatile Jean-Luc is. I wouldn’t dream of suggesting a change in kitchen plans until after the cabinet dinner.”

  “Why do you put up with such a tyrant?” the earl snapped. “To have one’s social schedule dictated by the cook is the outside of enough.”

  “Hush, sir. You mustn’t let Jean-Luc hear you refer to him as a cook—he is a chef.”

  “Hmph, and a pretty price I pay for his fancy title.”

  “Yes, dear, but you must admit he does produce the most elegant food. And when one entertains the prime minister and the entire cabinet—”

  “Yes, quite. By the by, a most singular event occurred yesterday. I was riding in the park when a man came up to me and asked, ‘Are you one of the ministers?’ I replied that I was. ‘Are you Lord Castlereagh?’ he asked. When I denied the honor, he held out a sealed paper and asked, ‘Can you give this letter to him? It conveys information of a dreadful conspiracy.’”

  “Oh, my dear, what did you do?” The countess held her hand to her throat.

  “I took the letter and proceeded on to Carlton House, but thought so little of it that no one bothered opening it until Lord Castlereagh arrived from St. James Square.”

  “What was in the letter?”

  “Oh, some confused bumblebroth agitated by malcontents, I daresay. Shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

  “But, as you say, a most singular event. Did you recognize the man who gave you the letter?” the countess persisted.

  “I have a notion I might have. Think it was that fellow who brings the milk around—or someone who looks very like him.”

  But Granville had another topic he wished to discuss. “What is to become of the Amelioration Bill, Father? Can something be done to bring the parties together?”

  The earl pressed a finger against his temple and moved it in a circular motion. “I’m sure I can’t. I’m the worst person in the world to conciliate and do the civil—especially on a matter of such clear-cut right and wrong. Wilberforce has every right to feel sadly betrayed by his old friend Canning. Yet I hope the bill may pass unamended in a few days’ time.” The earl pushed his chair away from the table and stood so rapidly that the footman was unable to draw the chair for him.

  “My laudanum drops,” he ordered the servant.

  “Is it very severe, dear?” His wife held a glass of water out to the earl.

  “My head aches so as to make me unable to see my paper or guide my pen. Would to God they were over or I out!” He placed the drops on his tongue and then drank the water. “At least this dose Wilberforce recommended gives some relief.”

  “Are you going to Westminster now?” the countess asked. “I wonder if you might take a note to Sandon for me?”

  “Send a servant with it—I haven’t time.” Harrowby left the room.

  The countess smiled pensively. “My poor dear. What he says about his pacificatory powers is quite true, but he has the highest reputation, and his opinion is of immense value. If only he had not taken that fall. He was of much more amiable temper before that.”

  “Fall?” Granville and Georgiana asked together.

  “Yes, my dears. You were both in leading strings then, and he doesn’t like to have it talked of, so I daresay you may not know the story.”

  The blank looks on their faces gave her their answer.

  “He had just become foreign secretary under Pitt, and we rejoiced at the good he should be able to accomplish. But then he was helping old Lord Eccles down the stairway at the Foreign Office—such dreadfully slick marble there. Lord Eccles lost his footing. Your father succeeded in righting him, but tumbled on his head himself.

  “I thought we might lose him. He had to leave office for almost a year. But the prayers of faithful friends and a stay in Bath restored him.”

  Granville shook his head slowly. “I never knew.”

  “No. I don’t suppose you did. It is a melancholy story, is it not? I’m sure that’s why I never recounted it—He doesn’t like to have his infirmity made much of, and he always works so hard. But many nights he returns from Westminster half dead with headache and terribly irritable.

  “I suppose I should have mentioned it sooner to help you understand his snappish ways. When he is curt with the younger children, I often recall how it was when you were little. But I hope you know your father has always loved you dearly and has been very proud of you. If he has been overly harsh, it is only his extreme concern for your welfare and his anxiety for your success.”

  “Yes, Mother. I have only recently come to realize… I do know he cares.”

  “Your father’s greatest fault is that he cares too much—and then expresses his concern sharply. But his heart is all goodness.

  “And now I must go see Jean-Luc about the fish for the cabinet dinner.” She raised her hand in signal for the footman to hold her chair. “Your father is quite right, you know. Jean-Luc is frightfully overpaid, but what am I to do? I cannot have it said that the Countess of Harrowby keeps a poor table. How would it look if the cabinet refused my invitation to dine because they knew the beef would be over-done?”

  Granville stood till his mother left the room, then resumed his seat. He sat quietly, considering his mother’s story. It certainly made it easier to understand his father. As he pondered, a wider, disconcerting realization dawned on him—He must forgive the earl, just as his Heavenly Father had freely forgiven him. But that resolve left him with the uncomfortable conclusion that he could therefore no longer blame his parent for the lack of understanding between them.

  Putting that aside for the moment, he turned to Georgiana. “Will you be attending Lady York’s ball on Friday?”

  “Yes. I have ordered a new gown since we are to go early to dine. I am relying on Worcester to escort us as Papa is suffering from the family enemy.”

  “Oh, has he the gout again?”

  “Yes, and he simply must be recovered before we remove to Troy House. We always do so much tramping about there in the beautiful Welsh countryside.” She recited her week’s agenda of at-homes, concerts, and dinners, as well as attending meetings of two compassionate societies with her mother. Granville could see that such a schedule would leave little time for him, and he would not be satisfied with a few moments squeezed between appointments. What he wanted to discuss with Georgiana would require her undivided attention. He must wait.

  “Then I look forward with great pleasure to seeing you at Lady York’s. It is the night of the cabinet dinner, so I shall remove myself from Harrowby House with alacrity.” Their breakfast over, he escorted her around the Square to the duke’s house.

  On Thursda
y Granville again took a seat in the House gallery to hear the third reading of the Amelioration Bill. However, the man who had labored the hardest to bring it about was absent. True to the fears of many of his friends, Wilberforce had overtaxed his strength and suffered a physical collapse. Now that Canning’s attempts to delay the measure had failed, the secretary rose to move the third reading of Wilberforce’s bill, carrying out the wishes of his party. “My honorable friend, the member for Bramber, Mr. Wilberforce, is prevented from attending this august body due to an indisposition he has suffered. He asked me to state, however, how much he regretted that he could not be present on this occasion to express his joy at what he considers a major step toward the accomplishment of the great object for which he so long has labored. His presence shall be sadly missed today.”

  The chamber rang with hearty cries of, “Hear, hear!” In the mood of conciliation now on both sides of the House, a member rose and, rightly forecasting the outcome, congratulated the House and the friends of abolition on the success of the measure so long opposed. “Looking back at the difficulties with which its friends have had to contend, I would not have thought it possible that these could have been overcome in such a comparatively short space. It is also a source of great satisfaction to me to perceive that by the treaty about to be finally concluded between the two British nations, on both sides of the Atlantic, we shall shortly enter into arrangements that will shame mankind out of this horrid traffic. It is—”

  “I beg to remind my learned and honorable friend that the other chamber is waiting to have this bill sent up to them.”

  The speaker yielded to Secretary Canning’s stern reminder. “Thank you, Mr. Secretary. In that case I will not delay the House any longer.” He sat down.

  The bill was read a third time, and to a resounding acclamation of “Aye!” the measure was passed.