Chapter fifty: Rosscolban Preparations, Cardiff Headbutts
Ireland and Wales, Sunday the 21st October
"You could have asked her father before taking her on this trip." grumbled Ma. "So you could be married this afternoon and we could move on to serious business."
"Marriage is serious business" protested Charles who was by the second regretting having taken the foolish decision to know his Irish family. Because never would he have thought that his family came with a she-dragon of the de Bourgh caliber at its head.
"Not any more for you" cut his grandmother. "You want her, she wants you and you are both mature enough to have thought about what it means to be married. So no reason to wait more… I'm not getting younger and I want to be there when my d'Arcy nephew comes into the world!"
"She wants to marry with her family present and so do I." grumbled Charles who was quite sure that his opinion was of no interest to his grandmother.
"Well we'll have to get you en route soon… Where did you say they were?"
"Probably still in Paris" said Charles. "But we can't be sure they could already be on their way back to London or to Cardiff… I'd have to send an inquiry."
"Do it" said Ma. "We are in a hurry."
"No, we are not" hissed Charles while facing the closing door.
"Stop harassing him" said Kitty while rummaging through the family chronicles. They were in Latin so she was able to grasp a few sentences every now and then.
"I'm not harassing him" grumbled Ma. "I'm scolding him for his less than efficient way to handle his love life."
"Jane is the most beautiful woman on earth."
"Well than he should have grabbed her while she was available! And stop crying over himself when he messed it up!"
"He's not."
"You're too biased to have a sound judgment in this matter. He's perhaps a genius in money making but he sure is an even greater genius in hurting himself." She shook her head. "Men… Will they ever grow up?"
"I prefer them that way, Geoffrey d'Arcy is the only one I know who acts like a real grown-up. And I prefer Charles manifold. I wouldn't be able to manage Geoffrey." She made a face. "He can be frightening."
Ma looked at her and tilted her head sideward.
"You think your sister is able to manage him?"
Kitty didn't hesitate.
"Of course she does."
"Well than it is as it should be!" answered Ma with a smile. "God put her in his path just to get him under control! We wouldn't want too powerful loose cannons running around, now would we?"
Kitty giggled.
"No we wouldn't" agreed she. "So what is next on our agenda?"
"I need to meet those granddaughters of mine" said Ma. "As it seems they need a mother figure to coach them rightly. And so does probably the rest of the family."
"You'll have to compete with aunt de Bourgh to get that role" warned Kitty. "And she's not a kind person."
"Neither am I, girl. Don't get yourself wrong, I'm the nastiest piece of mischief you'll ever encounter and if I'm not nasty with you it's because I like you. Wouldn't I be liking you you'll spend your days crying."
"I'm not the crying sort."
"That's why I like you! This family needs strong-willed and feisty women. Guess we just got us a bunch!"
She stood and went to the door.
"Get yourself ready, lass, we're moving!"
"Who's moving?" asked Kitty. "And where to?"
"We're going to London and it will be the three of us. For now… The rest will follow as soon as we know what to do with them!"
"What rest?" asked Kitty while standing up and closing the books.
"The whole rest" shouted Ma from the other room. "Seems the Biornas just ended with their Irish chapter!"
"What do you mean she comes with us?"
Kitty couldn't stifle a laugh.
"As in 'coming with us'! There is no other way to describe what's going to happen. She'll climb into our carriage and stay with us until we arrive in London!"
"Out of the question" said Charles. "I came here to see the members of my lost family, that's all. I have no intention to take them with us."
"I wouldn't want to crush your confidence" added Kitty with a smile, "but I'm quite sure you haven't a say in this matter. She wants to come and as I see it she'll get what she wants."
Charles shook his head and clenched his fists.
"I shouldn't have come" grumbled he. "First thing I do when in London I'll throw out my brother in law. Without him I'd never have looked at this side of the Irish sea! And I would be better off!"
Kitty joined him and was soon in his arms.
"Come on" whispered she. "It doesn't really matter. I even like her. She's such a greater than life figure. I'm rather anxious to witness her first encounter with Jane or Lizzie. And imagine the show when she and Catherine de Bourgh clash together for the first time."
Charles couldn't help but shook his head.
"What scares me shitless is the perspective of those two finding a common ground and going on in unison."
Even Kitty's smile didn't resist to that vision of the future.
Of course she was sitting right in front of him in his carriage and doing as if it would be hers.
"Don't sulk in such a manner, boy. I said I'll come you had no chance not to have me aboard. And thanks to me we'll save a lot of time."
"I was in no hurry" said Charles. "And I had a few appointments in Dublin. We have investments to discuss with the new government."
"Send an underling, he'll be in time for the decision making when he arrives two months from hence. Ireland won't have a government for quite a long time, you'd just waste your time. No, you need to get me to London where we can make the real decisions for the family."
"I came to greet you" protested Charles. "It was never my intention to move the whole Clan from our Irish home land."
"It's not our home land. Our home land is congealed under innumerous inches of ice somewhere in Sweden. We left it without regret a thousand years ago and now we are leaving Ireland. With no more regrets I'd add."
"You can't just leave."
"You'll send an underling to manage the lands and the houses and you'll invest the money in one of your factories to make us all rich."
Charles was at the brink of an outburst when Kitty grabbed his hand.
He looked at her and he saw her smile. It calmed him and he smiled back.
"How many people are we speaking of, Ma?" asked Kitty when she was sure that her Fiancée was again ready to have a normal conversation.
"If we get everybody, which I doubt, we could be two thousand. We will probably have to abandon half of them around Rosscolban, since I fear there are some whose Irish blood will root them in place. Only the real Vikinger will have the guts to move for another trip abroad."
Charles forced himself to stay calm.
"So we speak about a thousand people..."
"More or less one hundred" agreed Ma. "The county is becoming overcrowded and we have had more and more problems to feed everybody through the last winters. With a thousand mouths out of the lands of the Clan it will be for the best."
"We still have to find a place where to settle this bunch of people." protested Charles who was not very convinced of his grandmother's scheme.
"There are plenty of places to choose from" answered Ma. "We have the whole of French America or we have all the lands still under English rule. We could choose to join those of us who are already in Australia. You said yourself that there are a lot of opportunities in these new lands."
"I said there were opportunities to invest," corrected Charles. "We never envisioned a mass migration."
"You never asked." countered Ma. "And wouldn't it be better to make said investments in a country where members of the family are in place to survey and support?"
"Indeed it would but such a migration would be a major endeavor. We would need to transport not only the people but the livestock, the tools and the seedlings… It would need huge sums."
"You would refuse to finance us?"
And the tone was very set on not accepting a 'yes' answer…
But Charles was discovering that he had somewhere deep within a backbone much firmer than he would have believed.
"If it seems like a loss of money and energy, I'll just do that: refuse to even consider it!"
He and his grandmother locked eyes and there was a very long strenuous silence in the carriage.
It was Ma who accepted defeat.
"Well," said she, "then we'll just have to make sure that it is neither, won't we?"
"Do we agree, my Lady?" asked the chairman with a tired voice.
"Of course we agree" answered Lady de Bourgh. "It was my position five hours ago, remember?"
The chairman sighed lengthily.
"Of course we remember, my Lady! Five hours ago you were the only one who was against Mr. Farrel's proposition."
"Which was as idiotic five hours ago than now, so I'm quite glad that you finally recognized that I was right! Can we finally go on to next topic on the agenda?"
The chairman shot her an amazed glance.
"I believe we'll let the night pass before we go on to the next topic, my Lady. It's two in the morning and we are all rather tired."
Lady de Bourgh looked around her and puffed!
"Come on, are we old women to quit so early? The night is young and we are just beginning with the interesting stuff. I'm sure we could get those five points done in no time as we wanted yesterday afternoon."
"The session is closed" announced the chairman with a loud bang. "We'll go on this afternoon!"
Within three minutes everybody was out of the theater but lady de Bourgh and the chairman.
He came to help her exit the hall.
"You're as tired as I am, my Lady, you would never had last an hour more."
"Had you tried me, you'd seen that I have treasures of energy in reserve. But, you are right, I'm tired and I'll never let them see it, my Lord. Grinding their confidence is half winning the fight."
He accompanied her to her apartments.
"Would you be kind enough to answer a last question?"
She snickered at him.
"You want to know why I fought that idiotic proposition with such energy?"
He nodded.
"Apart from it being a very idiotic and improper proposition?"
He nodded once more.
"Simply because I didn't want to let anyone in the Assembly believe that I wouldn't fight to the bitter end if I want something. The next point on the agenda is, in my opinion, the most important point of the whole session."
"The place of women in Wales Politics."
Lady de Bourgh shook her head.
"It's the place of women in Wales. If I fight this battle as it must be fought I will get for us females equal rights in all levels of the society. Not only politics! That has already been agreed to in that acceptation letter of yours! I want more for us, much more."
The Chairman couldn't help but show its perplexity.
"But Farrel's proposition was only about sewers."
"Yes and he should never had brought his proposition before this assembly. He would probably had gotten a few years tranquility had he tried and bribed dubious public servants. But trying very foolishly to prevent the building of sewers in Welsh towns just because he owns most of the garbage collecting squads in the whole land was a very idiotic move on his part. He was trying to use his presence in the Assembly to foster his own interest against the interest of the community. Such a thing cannot be accepted if we are to look like having the public interest in mind."
She looked at the chairman and her smile became feral.
"I know quite well that he bribed everybody –but me- to get his little point through the Assembly. And even if I would have thrown him out of my window if he would have proposed a bribe I was rather angry to have been left on the side. So I had to make him pay."
The chairman looked at her, doubts in his eyes, and she finally relented.
"Of course I also did it to send a message."
"That you ever won't roll over!"
"Exactly, Mr. Chairman. Today I have shown that even on a rather minor point I'll be fighting to the very end without ever lowering my guard. Tomorrow when we attack those important points I shall already have delivered my most important message: what I want; I want and if it takes me years to get it, I'm game."
He smiled and brushed her hand with his lips.
"I'm impatient to see the battle, my Lady."
Catherine de Bourgh bowed her head to acknowledge the compliment.
"It will be bloody and merciless, you can count on me."
"I count on you, my Lady. I count on you."
"My Lady" said her companion when she entered her apartment. "You are late."
"Late and tired" admitted Lady de Bourgh, "but I'm more alive than ever before. I'm..."
"Ah, here you are" shouted Morrisson, the doctor her daughter had charged of looking after her. "And, once more, you didn't listen to my prescriptions."
"The session wasn't finished and we hard working members of the Gentry have responsibilities."
"You hard working members of the Gentry will soon have a hole in the ground where we the leaches of the people will bury your old and worn out carcass."
"Morrisson, I never felt better in my whole life! I'm alive and butting heads with more idiots than I thought could exist on one planet."
The doctor forced her to lie down and began his examination.
"The fact that you enjoy what you are doing is a good thing but it won't give you extra stamina. You're still an old woman whose life is coming to its end. There are young people who work less than you do. It's not reasonable!"
Lady de Bourgh snorted.
"What has reason to do with what I'm doing? I'm writing the future of Great Britain, here and you urge me to rest. My grave will be my resting place."
"If you die before having been able to put your reforms into place they'll never be implemented and you'd have died for nothing!" He looked her in the eyes. "I don't care seeing you up till three in the morning but I care about you getting enough sleep and fresh air!" He finished his exams and smiled at her.
"Well it seems that those rumors about bad seeds are right. You're in excellent health even if I don't like your heart beat's shadow sound. I want you in bed immediately and tomorrow morning even before eating I want you to walk an hour in the gardens. We need to give your blood enough oxygen to feed that energy of yours!" He looked her in the eyes. "If necessary I'll force you to go!"
"You're welcome to try" snickered lady de Bourgh. "Nothing better than a good fight to begin a day!"
