The Bad Luck Bride (The Brides of St. Ives #1)(11)
Bellingham, who had spent several years in India, was seen as someone who might very well be sympathetic to the plight of the starving. Henderson refused to believe that when confronted with the facts of the tragedy, anyone could deny him.
Lord Bellingham’s London home was located in Berkeley Square in Mayfair, whose gardens featured a nymph and whose homes held some of the more influential men in London. Henderson knew enough to make an appointment with the gentleman, and was frankly surprised that Bellingham had accommodated him so quickly, given it was a certainty that the peer would not know who he was. It boded well, he thought, and with a decided bounce in his step, he walked toward the home, an ornate building with intricate carvings above an oversized entrance. The sun shone fully on the mansion’s fa?ade, and Henderson chose to see this as another positive sign.
Henderson was ushered into the home by an ancient butler, so stooped over he didn’t get a good look at the man’s face. He waved away the man’s request to take his hat and coat, for he knew he would not have the patience to wait for his items should things go badly. Shuffling slowly down a long hall, the butler bade Henderson to follow with a wave of his bony hand, finally stopping outside a heavily carved door.
“Mr. Henderson Southwell, my lord,” he intoned with a surprisingly strong voice.
“Yes, I am expecting him, Johnson.”
Henderson hadn’t seen Bellingham in years, but he looked much the same. Perhaps his jowls hung a bit more loosely and the bags beneath his eyes were a bit more pronounced. As Bellingham looked him over, Henderson had the ridiculous urge to suppress a shudder, for his dark, expressionless eyes reminded him of the dead-eyed stare of a marsh crocodile he’d seen once in India. It was somehow predatory, that look, as if Bellingham was sizing up an opponent and finding him unworthy of his attention. Bellingham did not stand when Henderson entered, nor did he hold out his hand in greeting, and Henderson’s earlier optimism took a decided turn.
“Thank you for meeting with me, sir,” Henderson said, laying his coat and hat on one of two chairs positioned in front of Bellingham’s large and meticulously organized desk. He felt rather like a boy confronting a school master and was unsure whether he should sit or remain standing. Choosing the former, Henderson sat on the edge of the room’s other chair. After exchanging awkward niceties about the Hubbards, their single mutual acquaintance, Henderson got to the point. “I understand you lived in India for several years.”
“Yes. Foul place,” Bellingham said.
Ah. This did not bode well at all. “Yes, I’ve just come from India myself. Are you aware of the famine, sir?”
The older man’s eyes narrowed to the point Henderson wondered if he could see at all. “You’re not one of those fools looking for relief, are you?”
Henderson could feel his cheeks heat—with anger. He smiled tightly. “As a matter of fact, I am. And I believe if you had been in India these past two years, you would feel very much the way I do.”
Bellingham folded his hands on his desk with exaggerated care. “I would not.” His words were succinct and brooked no misinterpretation. “Are you familiar with Charles Darwin?”
It was all Henderson could do to keep his temper in check. He had heard this argument before—the aristocrats, including Lord Lytton himself, invoked the name of Charles Darwin as an excuse not to save starving people. Survival of the fittest. A way of culling the weak from the herd. What these men seemed not to understand was that they were talking about people, people with children, people who had lost everything, including their humanity, in a desperate attempt to survive.
“I am very much familiar with his teachings, but I hardly think they pertain to men. Or children.”
Bellingham let out a low, mean laugh. “Are you going to tell me that it is up to the British Empire to make certain every human being on this planet who is starving is fed? There are droughts all over the world. Shall we send our funds and our citizens to feed them? If we were to do this, sir, it would spell the end of the empire.”
Henderson could feel his heart beating thickly, his face heating, his fists clenching, so he forced himself to relax, to try to talk sense into this man even though he knew it was likely a lost cause. But faced with such ignorance, he could not stop himself. “I am not suggesting we feed all the world’s hungry and poor, but I am suggesting that we take care of a people that the British Empire helped to starve.”
Bellingham’s face tightened. “How dare you.”
“How dare I? How dare England allow millions of people starve to death when there are mountains of grain being guarded and then shipped to our shores so that we may have our bread at breakfast?”
“You tread very close to treason, Southwell. I would watch what you say.”
Henderson swallowed, willed himself to calm. “If you had seen what I have. People begging the soldiers guarding the grain for just one pot of rice. Mothers selling themselves so they can buy food for their children. They die within feet of a mountain of rice that they themselves might have helped to grow.” He could feel his throat tighten and was horrified at the emotion he’d allowed into his voice.
“People too lazy to grow their own food,” Bellingham said, with a dismissive wave of his hand.
“No, sir. These people worked in fields, grew the crops, which was then put on trains and rails we constructed to ship here. Before we came and built the rails, villages kept their grain, sold it to the people for a price they could afford. But now they ship all the grain here for profit and what food is available is priced so high, very few can buy it.”