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St. Clair, George remembered, had been devastated by his first real defeat. A young man of means, with both wealth and privilege carved out by his forefathers and given to him as his birthright, St. Clair, who had helplessly watched Lord Sidmouth’s actions from the sidelines for several years, was convinced that he had been gifted with the money, the talent, and the courage to right the wrongs done the displaced farmers, turned-off soldiers, and exploited mill workers.
From the time they had been children together in Kent, George had known that Christian would always be a man with a mission, a man imbued with his father’s courage and his mother’s soft, caring heart. All Christian lacked was the power to convince his fellow peers of the folly of keeping their collective government heel on the peasantry’s collective neck. Taking his fight against exploitative mill owners, repressive Corn Laws, and other inequities to Parliament after Wellington’s soldiers returned to England to be met with high prices and no source of employment had been just the sort of thing the hotheaded St. Clair had deemed “reasonable.”
But, after his speech, the younger Christian had immediately been branded persona non grata in a society that did not appreciate having a mirror held up to its shortcomings. As he had told George when the two old friends had gotten woefully drunk that same night to commemorate Christian’s political debacle, he now knew that his would be a lone voice in the wilderness if he continued to be a firebrand for his unpopular causes.
But what could Christian do? He could, of course, give away his vast fortune to those less fortunate and earn himself the mantle of martyr, but he could do that only once, and the problem would not be solved.
As Christian had seen it, there was nothing else for it than that he should change his strategy. He had retired to Kent for a space to lick his wounds and anonymously set up charities George agreed to administer for him.
He had then departed alone for the glittering court of postwar France, stopping first in Calais to visit with a bitter but still brilliant Beau Brummell, trading di
Once in Paris, that centuries-old hotbed of intrigue, Christian learned how even a young, brash, somewhat abrasive lad from the country could use the arts and cultured airs of the sophisticated gentleman to succeed where determination and belligerent indignation had failed.
The Baron Christian St. Clair who had finally returned to London was barely recognizable as being the same angry young fellow who had been in Society’s orbit for scarcely a se
To those he now enchanted, the baron was an elegant fop whose presence at any party was to be considered a social coup, a deep-in-the-pockets dandy with delicious notions as to fashion, an amusing di
In short, George thought now with a wry smile, within the space of the first few weeks of his triumphant return to the city of his great embarrassment, Christian had wrought a veritable miracle, replacing the departed Beau Brummell as the most dazzling light in the glittering world of a ton eager to discover and then worship at the shrine of another dashing figure of ma
Never giving up his private charitable contributions on behalf of the mill workers and other poor souls, Christian had begun to implement his influence with Society through wit and humor and his immense social consequence, tweaking them into awareness of the terrible problems that plagued England without them ever knowing he was doing it.
And the method of his enlightenment bordered on pure genius.
Letters to the London newspapers, eloquent, beautifully written letters, told of the terrible injustices of Sidmouth’s government, informing, educating, but without preaching. Each missive arrived at the newspaper offices accompanied by a single peacock feather, causing the interested but not very original publishers to dub their unknown contributor the Peacock.
While enjoying the social round, St. Clair made it a point to comment favorably on the concerned soul who was pe
Every week another communication was published. Each related a sad tale of a despondent mother forced to sell her young son to a chimney sweep, or spoke of an old woman found starved to death in an alleyway, or profiled a father of ten incarcerated for debt and denied habeas corpus because he could not afford £25 for a lawyer.
The Peacock’s story of the plight of a crippled soldier—a man once seen fighting by the side of the Iron Duke at Salamanca—who had been caught stealing the piddling amount of five shillings’ worth of bacon, then sentenced to death because he was “undermining the whole structure of a free society and was not fit to live,” had been rumored to have reduced the Queen herself to tears.
One other particular column had caused quite a stir throughout Mayfair, with a rich and pampered Society lining up on either side of the issue as to whether or not a hapless youth should be hanged for chipping the balustrade of Westminster Bridge!
These letters, that gave the poor names and made them real, alive, and no longer faceless multitudes, had proven to be an inspiration. Soon the ton had been agog with delicious titillation, all the lords and their ladies certain that this mysterious, eloquent Peacock was one of them, but not knowing his true identity.
But, over time, it hadn’t been enough for Christian to make his peers aware of the problems. He needed the laws changed, and he lived for the day Lord Sidmouth and his hidebound Tory cronies were removed from power. Christian was impatient for change, too impatient to content himself with working entirely behind the scenes.
And that, George remembered now half joyfully, half worriedly, was when the Peacock’s further adventures had been conceived. Christian understood the ton now, had correctly deduced how their minds worked. He saw how they adored being amused, knew they universally despised ambitious mill owners and other tradesmen who believed their newfound wealth had earned them a higher rung on the social ladder, and cleverly surmised how they would rally behind a romantic figure who dashed about righting wrongs and causing Lord Sidmouth and all authority fits.
The first mill owner had bowed to the Peacock’s demands within a week—not twenty-four hours after his vacant country house had mysteriously burned to the ground. The victory was heady, delicious, and soon to be repeated, even enlarged to missions designed to rescue individuals from Lord Sidmouth’s zealous laws—with all of it reported to the populace every week in the Peacock’s entertaining letters.
George had seen this week’s letter before Christian had sent it on to the newspapers, and his comic depiction of the boorish, bombastic Herbert Symington was sure to send Society into convulsions of mirth at that ignorant, greedy man’s expense.
And so it was that Christian, who had carefully set himself up as the last possible person who could be the daring Peacock, was now free to listen to the growing discontent for Lord Sidmouth’s laws within Society, help the peasantry, feel as if he were living out his convictions, and have a jolly good time while he was about it.
Which, George had decided some weeks ago, was precisely the problem.