Built over the side corridor from which she’d entered, the gallery was fully walled rather than railed. From a corner of the main room, a set of spiral stairs led up to an archway; stepping through, Francesca looked down the narrow room lined with floor-to-ceiling bookcases. All filled. Halfway down the room, a floor-to-ceiling partition, also covered in shelves, jutted across the room, dividing it roughly in half, leaving only a door-sized gap on one side.
The earl of Chillingworth possessed too many books. Ignoring the crick in her neck, Francesca circled the room, searching for an extralarge tome in red leather. The first room had no window; the only light came slanting through from the long windows in the other half of the gallery. She had to squint to check the titles of the few large red books she found.
None of them was the Bible.
Finishing with the first room, she stepped through the doorway into the other half of the gallery. Momentarily dazzled by the sunshine streaming in, she halted, blinking.
The silhouetted shape she’d thought some odd form of library ladder resolved into her husband sitting in a large wing chair with his long legs stretched out before him.
She gave a start, quelled it. “I’m sorry-I didn’t know you were here.” She heard the defensive note in her voice. She turned. “Pray excuse me. I’ll leave you.”
“No.”
She took an instant to consider his tone-absolute command laced with an underlying hesitancy-then she swung back to face him.
His expression was impassive. “You weren’t in England at the time of the Peterloo Riot, were you?”
“The riot in Manchester?” He nodded; she shook her head. “We heard about it sometime after-most mentioned it as a regrettable occurrence.”
“Indeed.” Half-rising, he tugged a chair close to his; with the paper he held in his hand, he waved her to it. “Sit down and read this, and tell me what you think of it.”
She hesitated, then crossed the small room. Sinking onto the chair, she accepted the paper, some sort of formal declaration. “What is this?”
“Read it.” He sat back. “You’re the nearest thing to an unbiased observer, one who only knows the facts without the emotions that, at the time and subsequently, have colored discussions in England.”
She glanced at him, then dutifully read. By the time she reached the document’s end, she was frowning. “This seems-well, illogical. I can’t see how they can claim such things, or make such assertions.”
“Precisely.” He took back the paper. “This is supposed to be an argument against repealing the Corn Laws.”
Francesca hesitated, then quietly asked, “Are you for, or against?”
He shot her a dark look. “For, of course. The damned bill should never have been enacted. A lot of us argued against it at the time, but it went through. Now we have to get it repealed before the country crumbles.”
“You’re a major landowner-aren’t the Corn Laws to your advantage?”
“If the only measure used is immediate financial gain, then yes. However, the overall effect on large estates, such as mine, or Devil’s, or a whole host of others, is negative, because of the social costs.”
“So your principal argument for repealing the bill is a financial one?”
“For the Lords, the financial arguments must be strong, but to my mind, the other arguments are stronger. Having legal title to their estates didn’t save the French aristocracy. Those who won’t see that, who refuse to see that times have changed and that the populace in general has rights, too, are denying a self-evident truth.”
“Is this what you’ve been researching-how to repeal the Corn Laws?”
“That and a number of related issues. Reformation of the voting franchise is the key, but we’re years away from getting anything passed.”
“What’s this idea about voting? Tell me.”
“Well-”
He explained, and she questioned. A spirited discussion arose over the extent of the franchise necessary to satisfy the inherent demand from the presently unenfranchised.
Gyles was surprised to see the sun slanting low, surprised to realize they’d been talking for hours. Although her experience was foreign, she, too, had seen the need for wider suffrage, for establishing a broader common goal.
“Waterloo was the end of it-the point where everything became clear. We’ve been distracted with the French for over two decades and not paying enough attention at home. Now there’s no war to bind us together, to keep people and government acting as one, the social fabric’s starting to unravel.”
“And so things must change.” Francesca nodded. She’d risen and started pacing sometime before.
“Times change.” Gyles watched her parade before him. “And the survivors will always be those who adapt.”