Chapter twenty eight: Cardiff Hesitations and Decisions
Cardiff, Monday the 9th October
"I should never have accepted" said Darcy while looking at the clock. He was an early riser, always had been but here they had to wake him so tired was he.
"You've done your duty, love" answered Elizabeth who, like him, was dressing up.
Yesterday they had decided that they would carry their new burden together. She was only the consort with no official duty but thanks to that ambiguity she would be able to mold her role as it pleased them. And it pleased them to be together in their new life.
To support each other whenever possible and to give a new meaning to Royalty.
She wanted to affirm that even if she was only his consort she existed and she wanted to be part of the reign.
She came from behind and embraced him while lying her head on his back.
"As usual!"
"I don't know if I won't be a sham…"
"What an awful word. You are Fitzwilliam Darcy. The last honorable gentleman of the entirety of the British Islands…"
"That's perhaps too much…" smiled he.
"No, it isn't! I believe it, Jane believes it and her husband affirms it whenever he speaks about you… That should be enough to convince even you!"
He turned and took her in his arms.
"I feel inadequate for the role…"
"You are much better suited than both last Georges" countered she! "You are an honest man who thrives to better the fate of the people God gave him responsibility over! There are so few Kings who are worth to enter that exclusive Club."
He sighed.
"But a King must also be ruthless and sometimes make decisions which will bring doom on his people…"
She looked him in the eyes.
"For being ruthless, I agree. There are decisions you'll have to make which you won't like. I'm sure it was the same in Pemberley. Just on a smaller scale!"
"The scale is the problem! I was responsible for a few hundred people and now it is several thousand…"
Lizzie nodded.
"Sure, but it is only a matter of scale."
She took his hands and kissed them.
"What's for you the most important thing a man or a woman should have?"
He answered immediately.
"Good health…"
She smiled and gave his a hug.
"You remember when you told me about Pemberley's doctor?"
He nodded.
"You made a decision to use your funds to hire a doctor and to pay him to look after not only your family but also after all your tenants and, if I listened correctly to what's said in town, to all who needed him."
She looked him in the eyes.
"That could be a decision to make for all of Wales. Use the funds the taxes will earn you to provide your people with a real medical care program. Hire midwives and nurses; build hospitals where the people will be taken care of without having to pay for it… Give all a chance to protect their health or to get it back if injured or ill and you'll have done more for your people than any former King."
Darcy chuckled and looked at her with love in his eyes.
"There is so much I'd like to do…"
"Since the funds won't be limitless you'll have to make choices, dear. Two choices in fact!"
She waited to let him think about the direction she wanted him to take.
"And which choices will I have to make?"
"You know them very well dear; you did it every day when you managed Pemberley and your other estates."
He thought about it and finally nodded.
"Indeed, first I have to choose what I'll do with the funds available and second, since there were plans I'd had to postpone, I'd had to decide how to get the funds I lacked to do everything…"
She nodded and smiled proudly at him.
"And do you think it will be different here?"
"There are things the Kingdom did I hadn't to do…"
"And you knew very well what the Kingdom provided and what not, didn't you?"
Once more he nodded.
"So you know what you had to provide and you know what the kingdom had to provide and so you know everything you need to know about being a King."
She laughed.
"In fact you know the job of a King even better than most, because you were at the last level that had to manage the people directly."
She took his hand and pulled him to the window.
They looked together out of the glass panel into the streets of Cardiff. They were teaming with people who were working and strolling.
"Look at the people, Fitzwilliam and ask yourself the only important question: what do you want to provide them with?"
He looked at her.
"Is it a question?"
"If it helps you to get back your confidence, yes!"
He closed his eyes and counted on his fingers.
"Health is the most important, because if they are ill they won't be able to work and to feed their families."
She nodded and smiled at him because she knew that the deaths of his parents had been the most earth shattering moments in his life. And his obsession about doctors and medicines could very well be explained because of them.
"What comes next?" insisted she.
"Work" came the answer. "They need to feed their families and to do that without becoming outlaws, they need to find a job." He frowned. "But then a lot of people in England had jobs but were nevertheless unable to feed their families…" He shook his head.
"No the first thing I have to do is to make sure that even the lowest wage is enough to feed a man and his family. And since uncle Gardiner and the Company are just doing that I won't risk seeing the employers going to England to invest their money there…"
He frowned again.
"They could go to Scotland or Ireland…"
"They could, but Scotland has much less arguments to pull investors in; but I agree they could go elsewhere with their money! So you'll have to find solutions to insure that it's not better for them to go than to stay…"
He frowned at her unusual sentence.
"Why not say make sure it's better for them to stay?"
Lizzie sighed.
"Because you'll have to tax them to pay for all the things you believe the people need. So they'll have the temptation to look elsewhere to find a place where the taxes are less important…"
"I still don't grasp the difference…" said Fitzwilliam.
"If they are here, it's for a reason, do we agree?"
"Of course…"
"So" continued Lizzie, "what you have to do is to make sure that the reasons they are here always bring enough benefits to push them to postpone their decision to leave."
His frown didn't disappear.
"There are benefits and benefits, Fitzwilliam. Wouldn't they stay even if your tax load is heavier than anywhere else if they found other benefits in Wales that they couldn't find elsewhere? Like the best health care or the best schools or the best roads…"
Fitzwilliam shrugged.
"I wouldn't leave but there are some who consider only their profits who would move…"
It was Lizzie's turn to shrug.
"Do you really want those to stay at all prices? Let them go, they are leaches, let them leach somewhere else!"
He frowned and then smiled at his wife.
"Aren't we vindictive today?"
"Not at all, Fitzwilliam, I'm just a little bothered by my love's mood."
She kissed him and he was quite eager to follow the road of mutual satisfaction but she refused to change the subject.
"Don't forget that we can always ask Uncle Gardiner to come and invest here too… If the leaches are gone he'll get even better opportunities to establish these new rules of conduct he is setting up in England. Not to speak about the tax reform Uncle is launching with Lebrun's help…"
She looked her husband in the eyes.
"You've all the tools to build a realm where justice and prosperity for all can be established. Your doubts are your only limits!"
A cough interrupted their talk.
They both turned and Abercranby bowed in their direction.
"I'm sorry, your Majesty but I do believe I eavesdropped on the end your conversation and I must admit that I concur totally with your wife. You must stop to believe yourself unworthy. You know everything you need to know, you must just adapt your knowledge to the scale of a Country. Where you invested hundreds of pounds, you'll have to invest several thousand to get the same results, that's all. But the decisions are probably the same you made since you began to manage Pemberley."
Fitzwilliam shook his head.
"I never needed an army or a fleet…"
Abercranby nodded while smiling.
"That's true but everything will not be weighting on your shoulders. You haven't been appointed as an absolute Monarch, remember? We will have a constitution your Majesty and we are very sorry we didn't send you a copy before we asked you to come, but as it was we just stopped negotiating its content to crown you. Basically from what is written for now you won't have to decide for everything."
Lizzie frowned at the man who, without a doubt would be the Welsh Prime Minister in the very near future.
"Who's discussing the terms of our future Constitution?"
Abercranby acknowledged the question with a frown of his own.
"The Constitutional Council is made of most of the people who were at Pemberley to negotiate with your brother, Madam. We added a few lawyers and, to be sure, the Bishop of Cardiff…"
"And there's probably, as usual when men discuss the future of the realm, no woman included!"
Abercranby made an apologetic gesture.
"I must confess that there are not many women interested in those matters…"
Lizzie's sarcastic smile was the first answer he got.
"Since I'm quite sure you didn't really ask women with enough knowledge to have an opinion it is quite natural that you found none. Which will stop right now…"
Abercranby lifted both eyebrows more in amazement than in shock.
"And you mean?"
"I mean that you just got a woman aboard, Mr. Abercranby. And to be even more precise, I do believe that the women quota in your little club of deciders has just drastically increased…"
She looked him in the eyes and he knew she wouldn't flinch.
"Or is the composition of your little coterie determined by some binding rule?"
Abercranby could only confess that it wasn't.
"It's a novelty, Madam. We had to improvise on the spot…"
"Well" said Fitzwilliam entering the fray. "It is time we stop improvising! Since it seems that I'm the only part of the Welsh power structure who's already set up and able to function I'll help you to give that Club of yours a steady and rightful place in Welsh's institutions."
"You must be kidding?"
Lady Catherine de Bourgh was rarely flabbergasted but this time she was even more than amazed, she was, almost, speechless.
"No, I'm not…" answered Lizzie. "I don't see a better suited woman to do that particular job." She turned toward Anne and smiled. "Your daughter not included…"
"You're not joking then?" insisted Lady de Bourgh.
"There is nothing to joke in that matter" stated Lizzie. "You probably ignore that we –Fitzwilliam and I, I mean–presented three conditions to the delegates in order to accept the Throne of Wales. First we insisted on a Constitution with a Bill of Rights where the three power, executive, legislative and justice would be strictly separated. Second we asked specifically that slavery, serfdom and debt-indenture would be excluded and condemned as crimes on all lands depending of the Welsh Crown and finally we asked for a strict equality between men and women in matters politics, family and inheritance."
Lady de Bourgh opened wide eyes.
"And they accepted?"
"And they accepted!"
Lizzie smiled at her opposite.
"I'm quite sure they imagined that they could wriggle out of their promises once Fitzwilliam crowned and settled." She laughed outright. "And I'm even more sure that they will fight till death in order to reduce the rights of women." Her smile became very shark like. "But since I'm ready to give them the best fight possible to get just everything I wanted when I proposed my conditions, it's not really a problem with me… The best arguments will win, that's all! I won't perhaps get everything but even a part will be so much more than everywhere else!"
Lady de Bourgh nodded and for the first time in her life Anne saw her mother sport a satisfied smile.
"I'm in, Elizabeth. I'll show them what a refined and determined woman can bring to a debate."
Lizzie looked at Anne.
"What about you cousin? I know through Jane that Geoffrey considers you to be one of the finest and sharpest minds in England. Won't you enroll in that little club of ours?"
Anne bowed her head in acknowledgement of Lizzie's compliment.
"No" answered she. "I won't!" She stopped Lizzie's remarks with a firm hand gesture.
"Not because I wouldn't fit in but because it would be an error to get me in with both of you. It would give our opponents a political argument against you. Nepotism is a very ugly way to enter the political arena. I know men do it constantly but if you do it they will strike at you because of it."
She smiled her most mischievous smile.
"I'll act as my mother's secretary if it pleases you. So I'll be there to advice but not to vote… And you should speak to Fitzwilliam to insist that he should be the ex-officio member of the Committee but that you speak for him while he goes about his royal occupations. You'll vote but in his name not yours. We don't want them to be able to point at us and accusing us of trying to trust the decision making. If necessary you'll leave it to him to cast the final vote! It will be much more effective this way."
Lizzie nodded her agreement.
"You are right, it's better that way. I'll speak to Fitzwilliam."
She looked at her cousin.
"You wouldn't have a few daring counsels to present to the King in order to improve the composition of that Constitutional Committee?"
Anne smiled and nodded shyly.
"It could be that I have, truth be said, a few ideas with which we could give said committee a few interesting new members."
Fitzwilliam looked at his perhaps future Prime Minister and nodded his agreement when he asked to speak.
He was about to present a summary of what the late Constitutional Committee had worked on.
The new one, with all the old members, plus a few –surprising–additions would held its inaugural reunion on next Wednesday morning.
"The works of the Committee, till now was rather bound on determining the King's Attributions. As a matter of fact the general consensus was that there should only be two domains which will be of your Majesty's sole competence: diplomacy and justice. The King would be our chief negotiator and our chief Justice. You'll appoint ambassadors and judges and you'll be the head of the Crown court of appeal."
He looked at Elizabeth.
"For the rest you'd have the power to propose bills to the parliament but the power to put them in effect or not will be the Parliament's… And you won't have the power to propose finance bills, which will be the sole competence of the Cabinet."
"What about the tax system?" asked Anne.
Abercranby shrugged.
"We didn't think about it. The tax system as it is seemed us sufficient enough…"
"Well" said Fitzwilliam, "on that point we disagree. It is clear that the present English tax system is based on the flawed premises that some incomes cannot be taxed. I believe that all income should be taxed in the same manner. Whoever benefits of an income should be taxed by the same margin. Some believe that the taxing should grow with the income but I think that would be unjust. I, as an estate manager and now a ruler, I am interested in earning more income. Knowing that a greater part of said income's growth would have been taken away by the Crown would have pushed me either into disloyalty or laziness. I want neither because I want justice and involvement."
He frowned at Abercranby.
"I want the people to know that if being rich isn't a sin, trying to benefit of the Crown's generosity without partaking to the Crown's income is like cheating the Crown, which should be considered a crime and be dealt with accordingly. So I ask that every income be it of common people, gentry or Church is taxed in the same manner. Everybody is protected by the army or the police, everybody is able to use the roads and bridges built by the State and everybody benefits of the efforts of the state to maintain peace, so it is normal that everybody pays its part of the States Income. It would be moronic to let privileges who could destroy the cohesion of the new Welsh Nation survive."
Abercranby made a face.
"They won't like it…"
"If they vote against, they will have to give me and the people their reasons and if their reasons are only greed and egotism they won't be able to convince us at all. And while not convinced I'll go on asking for a change…" He smiled at Elizabeth. "And I'm renowned to get what I want even against the worst odds…"
He saw in Lizzie's look that he would pay for that sentence in private but it did get the message to Abercranby.
"I see what I can do to convince them, your Majesty" sighed Abercranby.
"I have every confidence in you, my Lord" smiled Fitzwilliam. "Let's not forget that we are stating an example here in Wales. It would be a pity for the Parliament to lose its opportunity. Be sure I won't lose mine!"
