Page 43
Mrs. Talbot attempted not to smile.
Judith picked up the list and moved through the items again, calculating automatically. She could reduce certain unnecessary expenditures. Lord Cranford did not require a different wine with every course, whatever he might believe. Having flowers ordered from Newcastle for the drawing room was absurd while the gardens supplied greenery enough, and nobody needed imported oranges in March.
She could make something work, but the thought irritated her too.
Why should charity depend upon cutting oranges from a gentleman’s breakfast whilst landowners and manufacturers discussed entire communities as regrettable entries against profit?
There had to be something more than the pen. She had passed on information because information was what she possessed. She could write. She could observe. She could ensure certain truths reached men willing to publish them.
When it came to politics, women were forced into cunning because open influence was denied them. A gentleman might rise in a public meeting and speak himself hoarse on reform, yet a woman who possessed precisely the same opinions must exercise them through a drawing room, a husband, a brother, or a letter sent quietly through another person.
Judith would gladly have protested openly if such a course accomplished anything beyond destroying her reputation and possibly placing her behind prison bars.
She could do no good there. No, if she wished to accomplish something more useful, she must persuade someone who already possessed influence to exert it.
Her uncle was not without influence. Sir Lionel had friends throughout Northumberland and Durham. He knew magistrates, landowners, Members of Parliament, and several gentlemen who seemed to spend their entire lives travelling between London and Edinburgh, complaining about both. He was generous by nature, politically moderate by habit, and deeply uncomfortable whenever a discussion in company required him to take a firm position.
Judith handed the list back to Mrs. Talbot. “Have the supplies sent to the Bells today, and prepare the remainder but do not distribute it yet.”
“Yes, miss.”
She turned towards the door.
Cook looked up. “Are you going to Sir Lionel?”
“I am.”
“Godspeed.”
Judith stopped and looked back. “Is my uncle truly so alarming?”
“No, miss, but you are when he says no.”
Judith pressed her lips together. The comment was unfairly accurate.
She found Sir Lionel in the library, where he was sleeping beneath a newspaper.
The library was Judith’s favourite room in the house and one of the few previous generations had never successfully ruined. Walnut shelves climbed from floor to moulded ceiling and bowed beneath generations of books, while two tall windows faced the western lawn and a faded carpet softened the dark boards. Deep leather chairs clustered before a veined black-marble fireplace; a library ladder ran upon a brass rail along the highest shelves, and the faint mingled scents of beeswax, old paper, and woodsmoke persisted even in summer.
She stood before him for several moments but nothing happened.
“Uncle.”
A snore was the only response.
“Uncle Lionel,” she said sharply.
He woke with a start and nearly sent the newspaper sliding to the floor. “I was reading.”
“Of course.”
“I closed my eyes to consider the argument. Some arguments require reflection.”
Judith sat in the chair opposite him.
Sir Lionel lowered the newspaper and looked suspicious. “You have the expression you wore before convincing me to dismiss Hargreaves.”
“He was stealing from you.”
