Henrietta put back her shoulders, feeling air leave the room. She saw his strategy. Pitt meant to align her with the Jacobins and revolutionaries and declare her a traitor, like Thomas Paine. Charley had warned her the King’s temper was fragile, and possibly his mental stability. The strain on the Queen was terrible. If she angered the monarchs, she could suffer worse than jail.
But neither could she lie. “I agree with many of Miss Wollestonecraft’s ideals. That is true.”
Pitt produced a slim volume Henrietta recognized. “Let us see what Miss Wollstonecraft has to say.” He opened to a marked page. “‘The rich are idle, vain, and helpless.’” He glanced at the Highcastles, who huffed in indignation. “‘A man of rank and fortune has nothing to do but pursue some extravagant freak.’” The Earl of Warrefield shifted on his feet.
“And this: ‘He who will pass life away in bounding from one pleasure to another must not complain if he acquires neither wisdom nor respectability of character.’” Pitt lowered the book. “So far, Miss Wollstonecraft seems to be remarking on Miss Wardley-Hines’s betrothed.”
Several titters met this remark, but Darien kept his face impassive. Letting her fight her own battle but ready to leap to her aid. Henrietta’s heart swelled.
“It is Miss Wollstonecraft’s comments on women that concern me, sir,” Henrietta said.
“Ah, yes. Let us consider these lines: ‘They are made to be loved, and must not aim at respect.’ Or this? ‘She was created to be the toy of man, his rattle, and it must jingle in his ears whenever he chooses to be amused.’ Indeed. ‘Genteel women are slaves to their bodies, and glory in their subjection.’” He raised a brow. “Slaves, Miss Wardley-Hines?”
Mr. Equiano stood, quiet and attentive, near Lady Bess. Henrietta swallowed.
“I would not presume that my experiences as a woman share anything with the horrors endured by those subjected to the detestable institution of slavery,” she said. Equiano gave her a slight nod of acknowledgement. She turned to face not Pitt but the monarchs on their thrones.
Charlotte’s face was carefully bland. The Queen was uniquely situated to understand her points, Henrietta realized. Her African blood was general knowledge, passed to her through descent from the Portuguese royal house. And as she was the highest woman in the realm, her life was the most regimented, the most examined, the most proscribed.
“When a woman is born, even into fortunate circumstances like mine,” Henrietta said, “her education is at the discretion of her parents. If she has an enlightened parent, as I did, she is educated well.” Queen Charlotte gave a stiff tilt of her head; shewas known for having granted a high-quality education to the princesses.
“Likewise, a girl is subject to the marriage her parents choose for her,” Henrietta went on.
The Queen did not respond to this. Her marriage to a man she had never met, through a contract signed by her brother and a ceremony that took place within six hours of her landing on English soil, was already popular legend.
Henrietta looked at Clarinda. “And when she is married, to a man selected for the good of the family, she is transported to a strange place, where she must serve and please someone who may be unfamiliar to her. Her possessions, her income, her very person belong to him. The law grants him authority over her affairs and her children and allows him the greatest intimacies with her body. She becomes his property, to direct and dispose of as he wishes.”
She swallowed the tight knot in her throat. This was not the time to think of marital intimacies with Darien. If she couldn’t convince the monarchs her goals were not treasonous, she’d become the property of the Crown and be disposed of in far worse ways than marriage.
“These are the laws of God and nature,” Pitt pointed out, “as well as those passed by our Parliament, upheld by the King’s justices.”
“But these laws are not protecting those most in need.” Henrietta curled her hands into fists. This was worse than having dozens of strangers come peer at her at her debate. Her voice echoed in the ornate chamber, every word falling harsh and clear.
“My point, sir, is that a woman is subject to her protector and his whims, denied any ability to earn her own wage, govern her children, or govern herself except by his authority. But whena woman is left with no guardian, or one who inadequately provides for or injures her, what recourse does she have?”
“To foment rebellion?” Pitt said silkily. “Miss Wollstonecraft rails much against tyranny, does she not? ‘It is the pestiferous purple which renders the progress of civilization a curse’—I am afraid I cannot agree with her there. And here: ‘men who are slaves to their mistress tyrannize over their sisters, wives, and daughters.’ You share her claims of tyranny, Miss Wardley-Hines?”
“My claim is what Miss Wollstonecraft says next,” Henrietta said. “‘Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience.’”
Pitt returned to the book. “‘But as blind obedience is ever sought for by power, tyrants and sensualists are in the right when they endeavor to keep women in the dark,’” he quoted back. “‘The sensualist, indeed, is the most dangerous of tyrants, and women have been duped by their lovers, as princes by their ministers, whilst dreaming that they reigned over them.’ There are several accusations here, Miss Wardley-Hines, and none speak well of the present company.”
Darien stood unflinching as Pitt’s gaze speared him. His reputation as a sensualist held him open, as always, to ridicule. The minister would indict her on a minor point and miss the larger if she let him. And if it were thought treasonous for women to complain of ill treatment, their claims dismissed as mere rebellion, how much more suffering would follow? Henrietta’s temper rose.
“The tyranny of which she speaks is that exercised by women who are taught only habits of self-beautification and indolence,” she said, “and thus attempt to rule men through their passions, rather than engaging with them as equals in reason, intelligence, and morality, as they ought.” She avoided looking at the Highcastles. Celeste was ample illustration of this point.
“Are you quite sure that is her argument? For Miss Wollstonecraft asks here ‘Where shall we find men who will stand forth to assert the rights of man?’” Henrietta winced. That indeed smacked of Thomas Paine. “And here, she insists that slavery to ‘tyrannic kings and venal ministers’ should be abolished, ‘as their deadly grasp stops the progress of the human mind.’ My, but that does seem a call for the overturn of the natural order.”
“‘If they really be capable of acting like rational creatures, let them not be treated like slaves, but given the chance to attain strength of mind, perseverance, and fortitude.’”Henrietta fought to keep her voice steady. “‘The order of society would not be inverted, for woman would then only have the rank that reason assigned her, and arts could not be practiced to bring the balance even, much less turn it.’ Liberating the mind of woman, Mr. Pitt, would likewise free men from women’s cunning, which is exercised only to overcome their disadvantages.”
Pitt’s brows lifted. “Emancipation, then—but from what, exactly?”
“From—” Henrietta bit her lip. She could not find words that would not brand her a traitor for certain. She groped about, at a loss, while every eye in the room burned into her, waiting. She felt the tide of helplessness rising to pull her under. Pull down her, the Wardley name, and every hope of her future with it.
“Well, I never,” cracked a voice from the door. “Charley, your sister is a legal scholar now, debating at the bar? I always said she was my favorite.”
“Miss Davinia Wardley,” the herald offered belatedly as a stately matron processed into the room, her ebony walking stick rapping on the wooden floor.
Henrietta’s jaw dropped. “Aunt Davinia! What are you doing here?”
