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Chapter 14


The books from the Grantville Library were such a joy. She had composed a letter to Lady Mailey thanking her effusively for the trouble that the scholar had gone to, and would gladly pay a messenger to get it to her, wherever she was. Every single volume that she had set aside for Margaret contained wonders without number. Even more wonderful was that they discussed innovations of the past, according to the Americans. More than a hundred years had gone by for the people of Grantville since power looms were introduced. The new machines had been made to eat up thread and spit out cloth at a rate no one had yet dreamed of. If it was possible to bring even one type of machine to Barlaston, her father could rebuild their fortunes in a matter of a few years. But which one? The carding machines that removed debris and straightened out the fibers? The powered spinning machines that transformed the wool into thread or yarn? The looms themselves? But did any plans for these devices exist within the library of Grantville? From what Rita and the other up-timers had told her, their collection of printed knowledge was extensive, but not complete. Large gaps existed in topics that were of no direct use to the inhabitants. Their bread and butter was earned from mining and refining of ore.

At Margaret’s question, Rita had been fairly certain that no one owned a loom of any kind, most especially not a powered loom. She believed that Magda Stone, the dyemaker’s wife, had a spinning wheel, a relic from Tom Stone’s first wife, but it was an old-fashioned one, from a commune, whatever that was. In other words, of a kind that would look familiar to Margaret. That didn’t help.

She made countless notes on what she had read, so many that she had run out of the ream of paper she had brought with her, and had to ask to buy from the storeroom in the palace. Father wouldn’t cavil at the cost; he had taken it into account that she would have expenses that neither of them would have foreseen. All of the notes would benefit Sir Timothy and the Churnet House weavers in the end, though the extra outlay stung now. Even more, she resented her impulsiveness in buying that square of brocade. Her mother would love it, certainly, but it cut into her purse’s contents.

Not that she had much in the way of other outlay. Their meals were brought to them, or she and Hettie were welcome to help themselves in the employee cafeteria. A young woman in a white apron came by to clean their rooms and replace their bedding every few days. Margaret was astonished by that. Often enough, when she had reason to travel from home farther away than one day, she would sleep on a bed at an inn that had been vacated only that morning by another party, and would be occupied by yet another body the night she left, without a change of linens. The young woman also took soiled clothing and brought it back cleaned and pressed, never expecting payment. Margaret was grateful, if embarrassed, but any money she brought home again would go back into the coffers, meager as it was.

If she didn’t succeed in doing business with the USE, the de Beauchamps would almost certainly have to sell off the southernmost estate to the gentleman who owned the three properties that flanked it. Half of the tenants there were already working part of their time on the other manor’s fields. In their hearts, they probably felt that they would be part of that demesne before the next lambing season. Losing them would be a wrench, since the families had worked for the de Beauchamps through as much as three centuries.

Hettie interrupted her studies, holding out a handsome folded white card with Margaret’s name on top.

“Another party, mistress,” Hettie said. “Ten of the clock tonight, if you please.”

Margaret read it in surprise. “I’ve not been to so many events in one season, ever! Prime Minister Stearns must be exhausted, having to entertain day in and day out.”

“I’d rather you had had notice of this busy a calendar,” Hettie said, her face set in a disapproving mask. “Your good chemise is clean, but the overgown is the same one that you’ve been wearing. I can freshen it, but what will people say, seeing the same dress over and over?”

Margaret shook her head. “I doubt truly that anyone will notice. Or mind. That doesn’t seem to be the way people here think.”

Her assumption proved correct. By now, she had made the acquaintance of numerous people. The ones she recognized made room for her in their various groups. Not one of them so much as glanced at her dress, only her face. A gentleman at a round table near the refreshments vacated a chair, indicating with a wave that she should sit with him and his party. Margaret nodded her thanks, but kept moving.

She was enjoying Magdeburg, but being so far from home and in a place so different was beginning to take a toll. It had been three weeks now, seeing new things and being busy every day. Once Margaret had her meeting with Mike Stearns, she had no good excuse to stay any longer and impose upon Rita’s boundless hospitality. One day soon, Margaret hoped that times would be different in England, and the Americans would be welcome to enjoy hospitality at her family’s manor. In the meanwhile, she wanted to absorb all the impressions that she could, to take home and share with her mother, Lady Pierce, and in letters to Lady Ann. Her letters were already so long that she had taken to cross-writing on every page to make sure she left out no details. Hettie gave her a look that asked for permission, and Margaret tilted her head to show that she understood. Her maidservant wanted to stand with the other employees and share gossip. She would have her own stories to tell when they returned to Barlaston. Margaret only wished that she could be a fly on the wall to listen to Hettie’s tales, and see the reactions from the rest of the household staff.

She had already met so many people that her head spun. Margaret nodded to a few with whom she had conversed, and accepted a glass of punch from a large man in all black with hair to match. He gave her an odd look, and she wondered whether he was expecting a tip. That would have been odd, since no one who worked in the palace ever did seem to have his or her palm out for a coin. What a change from England!

With her cup in hand, she drifted into a circle of people dressed in what she would have considered working class clothing. The men and women gave her a cursory glance, but carried on with their conversation. A very small part of her was outraged that they didn’t notice her rank, and a much larger part was gleeful that they did not. She had been thinking deeply about Mike Stearns’ explanation of equality.

Such seemed also to be the subject of the conversation of her current company. She found herself listening with her slowly improving Amideutsch to a powerfully built woman with blonde braids wound around her head and an impressive figure that would have fought against the constraints of any corset. Margaret felt like a scarecrow beside her.

“Innovation,” the woman declared, to the nods of the others, then dropped back into a rapid spate of German that Margaret couldn’t follow.

True to her training in society matters, Margaret nodded and smiled. But that word stayed with her. She was all for innovation, though she didn’t know how or what to innovate upon.

Rita was also present at the gathering, so she excused herself from the group and made her way to the tall woman’s side.

“There you are!” Rita exclaimed, putting an arm around her shoulders. “I bet you feel like I’ve abandoned you.”

“Not at all,” Margaret said. “You’ve left me in very good company.” When Rita glanced over her head toward the blonde woman with a look of surprise, Margaret laughed. “No, although she is a very interesting person. The ones I speak of are between stiff covers. What marvels are still to come in the future! I only wish that I could see them come to pass in my time.”

Rita laughed. “The books! It’s funny, though, because most of the people from our time have forgotten everything that provides the things we took for granted, like cloth and paper and canned food, let alone television and computers. They have—had—no idea what struggles our ancestors, your descendants, had to go through to come up with the inventions. It’s all become invisible to the ordinary person. I know that cloth came down in price a ton after the machines in your books came in. We all learned about Eli Whitney and the cotton gin in school, but after that it’s a blur. You’ve probably forgotten more about the clothes on my back than I’ll ever learn.”

“With that in mind,” Margaret began, “I’ve made an appointment to see His Excellency on the business matter entrusted to me by my father.”

Rita nodded. “We thought that might be coming. How bad is it?”

Rita did understand. How obvious had it been when Margaret had accepted Rita’s invitation to visit that a financial matter was troubling her? She felt tears of shame starting in her eyes. She looked around at the knots of people conversing. A few of them were close enough to hear her, although they appeared to be engaged in their own affairs. She looked around. Some of the people near them tried not to look as though they were eavesdropping, but clearly were. Gossip was a way of life here, as it was everywhere else.

“Forgive my boldness, but I would prefer not to speak of these matters in public.”

Rita looked apologetic. “You’re not bold at all. I’m being tactless. Let me check in with Mike. All right? Are you going to be all right?”

“Yes, thank you for your kindness.”

Once again, Margaret felt overwhelmed by the care that the Americans were showing her. The connection had grown beyond the assistance that she had given them in London. They acted as if they were the dearest friends she and her family had in the world. She blinked hard to drive back the emotion that bubbled up inside her.

Hettie had started over from her post near the wall with a small handkerchief already out of her reticule. Margaret accepted it and retreated to a space behind a pillar to dab at the corners of her eyes. The room was getting very hot from the number of people present, and she felt out of her depth.

The few people that she recognized from previous evenings smiled and bowed to her as they passed. They did not stop to remark upon her red eyes and nose. She was grateful for their forbearance. Margaret took a deep breath and composed herself. How many stories she would have to relate to her family and Lady Pierce! With careful omissions, of course.

“Mistress, look!” Hettie whispered, with an urgent note in her voice. “There, behind the punch table.”

Margaret turned, ever so casually, as if she was prepared to rejoin the group, and allowed a glimpse toward Hettie’s concern.

Two young women in the loose bodices that seemed to be the style of the Germanies beamed at party-goers who came to ask for cups of punch or refreshments. It couldn’t be those that worried her maidservant. No…! She turned her head back again as if looking for someone. Then, she spotted them.

They were clad in black, as they had been in Frau Engelmann’s tavern, and she couldn’t mistake the man with dark, wavy hair and the long nose. Beside him, his shorter, fairer companion met her eyes just for a moment, then turned away with apparent disinterest. Margaret felt her heart pound.

“They cannot possibly be the same men from Hamburg, can they?” she asked.

“I’d have said, without a doubt,” Hettie replied, after another peep around the pillar. “Them or their twins.”

“Did they follow us here? What are the odds that they would end up in this place at the same time?”

Hettie set her jaw. “Why would they be following us? What cause would they have? It’s a coincidence, mistress. It has to be. You saw that great beast of a train. And it has traveled up and back to Hamburg several times since we came. Many people come and go from Magdeburg, so it seems. They had business here, same as your good self.”

Hettie clearly wasn’t satisfied with her own words. Neither was Margaret. She’d have to make careful enquiries as to the identity of the men, if she could.

* * *

The next day, a young man in neat breeches and a vest over a spotless white cambric shirt came to call upon her just as she and Hettie returned from morning services at the nearby church.

“Fräulein, I mean, Mistress de Beauchamp?” he inquired, in very good English, although flavored with the German accent. “If you will, His Excellency the Prime Minister will see you in the half of the hour. I will you escort. Along with you the samples of the fabric of your origin you bring, bitte?”

“Yes, thank you.” Margaret couldn’t help but feel fire rise in her cheeks. Rita and Mike both knew she had come to bargain. They had, after all, talked about such a possibility while the Americans were still held prisoner in London. She was determined not to mention the debt until she had to. Business only. All business. “I will be ready when you return.”

He smiled and bowed again.

Margaret threw open the lid of the heavy trunk that held her personal goods. She and Hettie removed all of her clothing that was not already in the standing cupboard, as well as the gifts for her family that she had obtained in the last few days. At the bottom lay three rectangular muslin-wrapped parcels that were heavy for their size. Margaret set them on the table with the stacks of borrowed books.

“I feel like a spy,” she said. “Smuggling covert woolens under false pretenses.”

“Now, now, mistress,” Hettie said, comfortingly. “All they can say is no.”

Margaret summoned up all the steel she had and concentrated it in her backbone. She gathered up the parcels, and pictured Sir Timothy’s hopeful face as he had sent her off in the goods wagon.

“Well, Father, wish me luck.”

* * *

The office of the Prime Minister of the United States of Europe seemed austere and forbidding with its plain walls and clean-swept floor. Upright metal boxes of gray, brown, or black with many drawers were lined up along one wall. Margaret could only contrast his office with the ornately decorated small den in which the Earl of Cork had met her. Prime Minister Stearns sat in a large leather chair that rather resembled a throne. His sister perched on the edge of a mighty carved desk, her denim skirts swirling around her ankles.

They weren’t alone. A gentleman with curly gray hair and twinkling blue eyes behind gold-rimmed spectacles stood at Prime Minister Stearns’ side. And another man of the same age, very trim and upright, with barbered, silvering hair and wearing a perfectly tailored uniform that immediately drew Margaret’s attention and admiration, stood at a distance from the two of them. She had glimpsed both at the evening gatherings.

“Thank you for agreeing to see me, Your Excellency,” Margaret said, curtseying.

“The pleasure’s all mine,” Mike Stearns said. “Let me introduce you to Admiral Simpson, head of the USE navy.” The man in uniform gave her a curt nod. Stearns aimed a thumb at the man in spectacles. “And this is Herr Mullen, head of procurement for my government. So, what can we do for you?”

Margaret held her head high. “I have come to discuss a matter of importance to my father. While I was in London, Lady Rita made a suggestion which was impossible for me to accept at the time, but…” She hesitated, and Rita made a gesture for her to continue. Margaret swallowed her pride. She had come too far to back away. “…I bring some of the finest cloth that our weavers have produced, with the aim of offering the services of Churnet House to help clothe your new armed forces. I promise you that the goods will suit any use to which you choose to put them, and we are eager to make changes according to your needs. My family has been making quality wool fabric for over three hundred years.”

Mike gave her a warm smile that disarmed her. “Yes, Rita mentioned it. You impressed her and our other friends.”

“I’ve nothing to do with it, sir. It’s our goods that I hope will impress you,” Margaret said, a trifle embarrassed.

“Don’t discount personal connections,” Mike said. “You may have the best merchandise in the world, but sometimes it’s who you know that will get it looked at.”

Herr Mullen came forward to take the bundles of cloth from Hettie. He brought them to the Prime Minister’s desk and undid the twill ties holding them closed. Once freed, the bolts of wool slithered over the desk with an inviting hiss. Margaret was very proud of the weave of each, and the evenness of the deep indigo blue in which they had been dyed. Each bolt represented a different weight. The first was a heavyweight wool, the second a flannel, and the third, a very lightweight woolen, was twilled.

Herr Mullen drew from his waistcoat pocket a small eyeglass and peered closely at a swath of one piece after another. Admiral Simpson stepped close and fixed a keen eye, not on the fabric, but on Herr Mullen’s face.

Sehr gut,” Mullen said. He spoke in clipped Amideutsch that Margaret had trouble following, although he kept shooting her friendly glances to try and include her in the conversation.

Admiral Simpson asked a question. Mullen held up a length of cloth and offered him the small eyeglass. Simpson waved it away with impatience and barked out a question. Mullen replied in phrases that made the others nod their heads.

At last, Prime Minister Stearns turned to Margaret. “I apologize for holding a conversation in a language you’re not familiar with, but it put the rest of us on the same page. Rita has been telling me how good your family’s materials are, and Herr Mullen agrees. He says it takes approximately five to six yards of cloth to make a uniform, not including lining. Does that sound right to you?”

“Yes, that is what we would use for a suit of clothes for a gentleman,” Margaret said. “We are not tailors, but that is often what drapers order from us. I believe it would be much the same for a uniform like the ones I saw the crew wearing on the Metahelios.”

Admiral Simpson cleared his throat. His precise voice fitted his appearance.

“We expect over time to grow the force to several thousand men, Miss de Beauchamp. How much can Churnet House supply, and how soon?”

Margaret produced a paper that her father had written out, containing the output that the de Beauchamp weavers were able to make over the course of a year, and handed it to the admiral. He looked it over and frowned.

“What do you think?” Stearns asked him.

“Perhaps fifteen percent of our requirements, probably less,” Simpson said. He glanced up at Margaret. “Are you looking to gear up in the future?”

“Yes, sir,” Margaret said. “I’ve been reading books lent to me by Lady Mailey on the marvelous machines of the future. If the USE has plans with which we may construct any of them, I am sure my father will want to make use of them to become more competitive. I realize that we are at a disadvantage, being two overland journeys and a sea voyage away from you. Farther and a little costlier than the weavers in the Netherlands. Still we wish to make progress.” It hurt her pride to admit it, but business was business, and she would have to deal with the obduracy of the weavers later. An order for thousands of yards would no doubt smooth out many bumps in the argument to come. “We would be pleased to weave to your order, for what portion of your needs that we can furnish.”

Herr Mullen looked over the document from Sir Timothy, and spoke to the Prime Minister. Stearns turned to Margaret.

“We’ll need to discuss this, Miss de Beauchamp. Thanks for bringing this to us.”

Rita shot her a glance that had a clear question. Margaret shook her head but withdrew. The page escorted them back to their quarters.



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