The Shadow of Great Britain

Chapter 1709: Chapter 65: The Queen’s Guide

Arthur still remembered the evening following the Robert Cali memorial ceremony.

That night, Kensington Palace was lit two hours longer than usual.

The servants initially thought it was because the Princess was again pestering Lady Leisen to read Scott’s ”Ivanhoe,” but they soon realized something was amiss.

Because the kitchen was heating up a two-person portion of oxtail soup, rather than the Princess’s usual bedtime honey milk.

The reaction to the Princess’s first public speech was almost immediate.

The Duchess of Kent was, after all, one of the women in the Royal Family most skilled at controlling her emotions.

She neither praised Arthur nor thanked him, she merely had him stay for a bowl of oxtail soup.

But in Kensington Palace, this wasn’t politeness, rather it was a signal that you needed to stay for a serious discussion.

The palace servants did not know what exactly the Duchess, Miss Flora Hastings, her lady-in-waiting, Sir John Conroy, her private secretary, and Sir Arthur Hastings discussed in the study that night.

”Victoria and Duchess of Kent,” painted by William Beecher in 1822, currently housed at Kensington Palace, London.

”Sir John Conroy, First Baronet,” painted by Henry William Pickersgill in 1837, currently housed at the London National Portrait Gallery.

”Miss Flora Hastings Portrait,” currently housed at Dick Academy, Scotland.

”Sir Arthur Hastings Portrait,” painted by William Turner in 1832, currently housed at the Royal Greater London Police Department.

But everyone noticed that early the next morning, there were several more suspicious-looking men near Kensington Palace, or rather, officers from Scotland Yard.

What was intriguing was that although these ”plainclothes patrolmen” didn’t wear uniforms, they each wore identical black wool hats, with brims pulled low, almost like some unwritten rule.

More surprisingly, it seemed that all the plainclothes patrol teams near Kensington Palace were reporting directly to Sir Arthur Hastings.

After being away from Scotland Yard for two years, this admirable leader of London’s literary and scientific community was finally savoring the taste of commanding the police force once more.

For Arthur, after a busy month, there was simply no more fitting a reward.

Especially considering that this plainclothes police team even included the progressive young Ledley King, ”exiled” to this place.

The wall decorations in Rose Hall were of a pale pink and gold-threaded satin on an alternating pattern; the ceiling embossed with circles of vine wreaths; and the gentle morning light spilling through stained glass windows onto the small assembly of copper wire and tuning plugs on the desk, casting a faint halo over them.

What was on the table was neither tea sets nor embroidery, but a set of modified Hastings resistors, and in front of it was a small teaching blackboard Arthur personally picked up from Old Fagin’s Maritime Store.

”Electricity is not some magic power that casually appears in storms.” Arthur lightly tapped the resistor, the needle at the end of the coil quivering slightly: ”It is a kind of...”

Arthur paused briefly, shifting his gaze from the apparatus to Victoria’s face, as if selecting language more suitable for a young girl without formal education in Natural Philosophy to understand: ”Hmm... a very well-behaved force.”

”Like the Government?” Victoria blurted out, but realized it seemed untimely as soon as she spoke, quickly adding: ”I’m not being sarcastic, it’s just... it suddenly occurred to me, you previously said that the Government operates on balance.”

From a grammar teacher’s perspective, Arthur had nothing to complain about Victoria’s response.

Although the Crown Prince had only taken two months of his rhetoric classes, this wry writing style was already beginning to take on a Hastings character.

Victoria tilted her head, looking at the resistor wrapped in screws and intertwined with copper wire, with an expression of partial understanding, her pen sketching a few barely recognizable ”induction coil” curves in her notebook.

She didn’t speak, merely bit the end of her quill thoughtfully, but soon stopped due to Lady Leisen’s disapproving frown.

Biting the pen tip, after all, was one of the little habits the Duchess of Kent detested most.

Although today the Duchess of Kent was out on business and not eavesdropping on the lesson, Lady Leisen was certainly keeping a close watch on her.

”So...” she hesitantly began: ”Does Mr. Faraday... do this every day? Wrap a piece of iron with wire, then make it move?”

”This is just the basics.” Arthur nodded, his tone gentle, like describing some daily triviality: ”Mr. Faraday’s work every day is far more complex than this.”

Victoria froze for a moment, a uniquely girlish pure astonishment flickering across her expression: ”Then he must make a lot of money, right?”

This innocent and direct question amused Arthur. Clearly, with her mother not present, Victoria was much more lively today.

He put down the paddle in his hand, gently closing the small teaching blackboard.

”If we follow your logic, Your Highness.” Arthur replied: ”Then the richest in the world ought to be Newton and Pascal.”

”Aren’t they...?”

”Certainly not.” Arthur paused, as if considering whether this fact might overly shock a girl who had never paid for her own handkerchief, but ultimately decided it wasn’t a bad idea to let her understand a bit more about the lives of ordinary citizens: ”Mr. Faraday, though currently the director of the laboratory at the Royal Society, earns roughly a little over a hundred pounds a year due to budget constraints.”