Chapter 168: Expansion of Intelligence Channels

Chapter 167 The Expansion of Intelligence Channels

Marylebone district of London, Codrington House, was brightly lit tonight.

After enjoying the physical experiments that Arthur had brought to the house, the gentlemen and ladies had returned to the main drawing room, which had been dressed as a ballroom.

The ballroom had been set up in strict adherence to the usual operations within the social circle, with open doors, withdrawn cashmere carpets, polished mahogany floors, and as many crystal lamps as possible used as decoration and illumination on the ceiling.

And below the windows were displayed three long birch tables filled with a variety of food and cutlery, with a tempting-looking assortment of food surrounded by a colorful array of brightly colored flowers.

Standing at the tables, guests could enjoy not only the tantalizing aroma of the food, but also the rich fragrance of the flowers.

To the east of the ballroom was a makeshift stage with a rose-colored curtain as a backdrop, filled with a variety of musical instruments, which, needless to say, Mrs. Codrington had prepared for the upcoming orchestra.

Having completed his scientific demonstration, Arthur was at last given some respite.

Mrs. Codrington was obviously very pleased with his first demonstration of the day, although she was only clueless as to how important the theory of charged atoms really was.

But in Mrs. Codrington’s opinion, a result that could excite Mrs. Mary Somerville, the first scientific lady of the Blue Stocking Society, to the point of incoherence, must be quite something.

For this reason, Mrs. Codrington, the busy mistress of the house, even made a special effort to take time out of her spare time to join her husband in expressing her gratitude to Arthur.

After all, it was a great honor that the first publication of such an important scientific achievement was not actually at the Royal Society, but at Codrington House.

If this matter spreads out, it will surely be passed on as a beautiful story, which will surely be of great benefit to improve the poor social climate after General Codrington’s ‘Ottoman Folding’.

Mrs. Codrington could just imagine the hot topic of discussion in the London social circle when the ladies met in their boudoirs for a while – the Codringtons, the science enthusiasts, the family always at the forefront of the times, and the best friends of the up-and-coming electromagnetic scientist, Mr. Arthur Hastings.

For Mrs. Codrington, who is dedicated to helping her husband clear his name, nothing could be better!

Although taking over as Commander of the Portsmouth Naval Base would be a good pensioner’s errand, Mrs. Codrington would have preferred that her husband be transferred directly to his post at Naval Headquarters in London.

Because just like what Kirkland and Admiral Smith had said earlier, it was only after Gambier, a naval commander with mediocre combat ability, was transferred back to the Navy Headquarters to sit in the office that he was put on the fast track to rank promotion, and it only took ten years for him to be promoted from Rear-Admiral to Admiral, and even this year, he was made a Royal Navy Marshal.

In Mrs. Codrington’s opinion, her husband, Admiral Edward Codrington, was more distinguished than Field Marshal Gambier in every way, except for the lack of hair on his head; he fought beautifully, was beautiful, and dabbled in science, literature, and the arts.

If Admiral Codrington could be transferred to the Admiralty, not only would he have a better chance of being promoted to Admiral, but he would also be able to exert a more direct influence on the Admiralty, and bring up his two precious sons, William Codrington and Henry Codrington, who were also serving in the Royal Navy.

Since the youngest son drowned at sea, Mrs. Codrington is focused on wanting her husband to get the remaining two sons back to shore, and to do this, Mrs. Codrington felt that with the straight temperament of the General Codrington is certainly not a chance.

It was for this reason that she had taken such pains and spared no expense in making such a dinner party.

Her Ladyship understood very well that something had to be done by her, and that the scientists and the ladies who mingled in the upper social circles were in a sense better able to gain the attention of the members of the Cabinet.

Thinking of this, Mrs. Codrington’s heart can not help but rise an impulse to want to sponsor Arthur, although she can not engage in scientific research, but if you can share the name of the sponsor to a little bit of fame seems to be quite good.

But she had no time to consider the matter in detail for the moment, for she was flattered by the unexpected arrival of Mrs. Cowper, the man of the hour in London.

Mrs. Cowper, as the sister of Viscount Melbourne, who had once been Secretary of State for Ireland, and the wife of the fifth Earl of Cowper, heir to the Cowper family, the founding fathers of the Whig party, naturally possessed an inestimable influence over the political circles of Great Britain.

Of course, this influence is not entirely due to family reasons, but more like a strange ability engraved in the family heritage.

Because Mrs. Cowper’s mother, the first generation of Melbourne Viscountess Elizabeth Lamb that year was the London social circle turning hands for the clouds and hands over the rain of the stormy figure.

The reason why her mother had such power was also simple: her mother had a long and semi-publicized relationship with the late King George IV, who had just died after a long illness.

In a sense, her mother, Elizabeth Lamb, was also one of the reasons for the messy divorce between George IV and Queen Caroline.

Neither Mrs. Cowper nor her mother were provincial, but what’s even more remarkable is that even her sister-in-law, the 2nd Viscountess Melbourne, Duchess Caroline Ponsonby, actually had this tendency and more.

Only unlike her sister-in-law and mother-in-law, who tilted primarily toward politics, Baroness Caroline Ponsonby had only one main battlefield: the literary world.

Or to be more specific, as a longtime fiction writer, there is only one person that Baroness Ponsonby likes, and that is Lord Byron, the leader of the liberal literati in Great Britain.

However, with a powerful mother-in-law as incredibly perceptive as Elizabeth Lamb, Baroness Ponsonby’s little maneuvers certainly don’t escape her mother-in-law’s notice.

Two strong women put together usually don’t end well, and this one is certainly no exception.

Ponsonby’s mother-in-law and her mother-in-law are at loggerheads because of her unwillingness to abandon her son, who has a congenital mental handicap, and then because of the daily quarrels that gradually wear down their relationship, and when she makes the decision to tell Byron that she wants to run away with him to Greece, Byron, who is just trying to have some fun, decisively rejects her request.

Because in the British upper class, have a lover is very normal, but you play really, that thing can be a big deal.

Byron, who was frightened by her, finally realized that he had touched a woman he should not have touched, so he began to take the initiative to alienate Ponsonby.

But this instead caused the Ponsonby baroness of extreme dissatisfaction, she repeatedly found Byron confrontation.

Her affair with Byron also gradually spread, for which her mother-in-law Elizabeth even publicly called her a ‘madwoman who can’t get things right’.

And the Duchess of Ponsonby’s reaction to Byron’s growing coldness is blunt.

In order to force Byron to return to her, the Duchess of Ponsonby used her pen to compile her affair with Lord Byron into a novel titled ‘Glenarvan’ for publication.

It stands to reason that Glenarvan was an instant hit throughout Great Britain, with three additional copies being printed within just a few weeks of its publication. Even so, Granarvan remained out of stock in London’s libraries and bookstores for a long time.

For this reason, another great English poet Shelley’s sister-in-law, the eager reader Mrs. Claire Clairemont, had to send a letter to his lover, the prototype of the novel’s protagonist Lord Byron, asking him if he could get a copy of Granarvan directly from the hands of the Duchess of Ponsonby.

To which the exasperated Lord Byron replied with one sentence – the damned novel.

Filled with anger, Byron quickly launched a retaliation against Baroness Ponsonby, he sent a letter to Ponsonby on one side to reconcile, however, when Ponsonby rushed over there in a hurry, only to find that Byron is with another woman. Enraged Ponsonby burned all the Byron portraits in her collection, and took more extreme measures, she directly Byron and her sister Augusta incest news to the public.

Now, Byron’s reputation in England is considered completely burned.

Because incest and private life chaos in Britain is not a magnitude of things, the former is more serious than the crime of blasphemy, and the latter at most can only be considered a loss of private morality, and even for Byron this kind of person, can be passed into a kind of affair.

But the incest hat once deducted, Byron could only leave England to Greece, and personally put into the Greek war of independence which he donated money and goods to support, and finally died in a foreign country for the independence of Greece.

Byron’s death shocked Europe, the Greek government was the first to announce that it would hold a state funeral for Lord Byron, the Greek nation mourned for three days.

The Ponsonby Duchess, who thought she would have a sense of revenge, was not only not happy, but also suffered from a high fever for several days.

When Byron’s coffin arrived in London from Greece, people only saw a crazy woman rushed to the street, lying on Byron’s coffin and cried out.

In this story, the hero and heroine, Byron and the Duchess of Ponsonby, both paid for their behavior, and both suffered greatly as a result.

But anyway, the saga is quite a tale of ups and downs and excitement.

But after finishing the story, I always felt that something was wrong, and it seemed that I had overlooked some important character.

That’s right, it’s the male number two in this fiasco – the husband of the Duchess of Ponsonby, the second Viscount of Melbourne, William Lamb.

Throughout the entire incident, the Viscount of Melbourne maintained an above-average composure from start to finish.

Not only that, he even stood up for his wife at one point, hoping to maintain the reputation of the Melbourne family.

He held out for several years, until he couldn’t hold out any longer, and then he divorced the Duchess of Ponsonby under the pressure of public opinion and the threat of his mother, ending his marriage of twenty years.

His attitude makes London to the nobleman parliamentarians, down to the common people, have been talking about whether he is not interested in women, otherwise why even tolerate his wife to this extent, as a decent nobleman, why Viscount Melbourne held out for twenty years before divorcing it?

Of course, the reason why Viscount Melbourne did this can not be guessed by anyone, but the only thing that can be understood is that Viscount Melbourne, this person is very lazy, for all things do not compete.

His state of this kind of desirelessness is not only reflected in the handling of his wife’s extramarital affair, but also in the usual parliamentary meetings.

In that battlefield where the Duke of Wellington, Sir Peel and other politicians are rattling their swords and sparks are flying, Melbourne, who has the heavy responsibility of charging for the Whigs, usually chooses to find a cozy corner to nestle up and snore like hell.

And he doesn’t just do this in Parliament, he does it in pastor’s sermons, peer debates and even dinner parties.

And Viscount Melbourne’s this behavior in Parliament naturally won high praise, whether it is the Whig or Tory MPs, all praised Viscount Melbourne can really be said to be the most educated MP in the whole of Great Britain, because no one has ever heard him swearing in Parliament.

Perhaps it is also because of his attitude, so even when the Tory party is in power, not because of party reasons to exclude him from the cabinet, which is also Viscount Melbourne can serve as the Minister of Irish Affairs important reason.

Having said so much, it has to fall back to Viscount Melbourne’s sister, Mrs. Cowper.

The reason why Mrs. Codrington attached so much importance to Mrs. Cowper’s arrival was that such a belles-lettres writer as the Duchess of Ponsonby had been one of the members of the Blue Stocking Society.

So to avoid the embarrassment of an encounter with her sister-in-law, Mrs. Cowper usually politely declined invitations to parties from members of the Blue Stocking Society.

However, the fact that she was actually willing to visit the Blue Stocking Society party today was simply giving Mrs. Codrington face.

Of course, perhaps there was also the fact that her sister-in-law, the Duchess of Ponsonby, had died two years ago.

Perhaps that was why Mrs. Cowper had begun to think about spreading her influence among the Blue Stocking Society.

Arthur hid in a small corner of the lounge, pinching a piece of onion ring as he listened to Elder colorfully regale him with these tales of high society gossip.

After listening, he couldn’t help but open his mouth at Elder, “Elder, maybe you can consider becoming a novelist. If you compile these things you know into a booklet, it’s guaranteed to be a big seller in London.”

Elder quickly waved his hand at his words, “You can’t be joking! Don’t you remember what happened to Duchess Ponsonby when she wrote Glenarvan? Back then, just because Mrs. Jersey was not satisfied with her image in the novel, so she directly and angrily expelled Duchess Ponsonby from the Ormac Club, and many banquets did not dare to invite Duchess Ponsonby to visit because of this. I still want to hang out in London, can you stop giving me such bad ideas all the time.”

Arthur just laughed when he heard this, he picked up the handkerchief on the table and wiped the oil splatters on his hands.

“If you’re worried that these things will have a bad influence if they’re published, then wouldn’t it be better not to publish them?”

Elder frowned, “How am I going to make money if I don’t publish it?”

Arthur smiled and took out a kraft paper bag from the bag he was carrying and handed it over to Elder, “When you go back, write up everything you know and put it in this as a manuscript, and every one of your stories will be handled as archival material. It will not appear to anyone except those who should see it.

And, I assure you, the payment you receive for each such piece of material you write will not be cheap. It may not be as good as the revenue that comes from publishing a novel, but it beats the security and stability.”

Elder glanced at the vellum bag, which was simply printed with a few words – Provisional Measurement and Survey Statistics for the London Region.

He raised an eyebrow and whistled, “I say, so this is the sort of thing you survey? Why don’t you just tell me straight up, how much money did you actually prepare?”

Arthur held his red wine glass and shook it gently, the aroma of red wine was overwhelming.

“How much money I can prepare all depends on how much useful information you can provide me with. Elder, you have to know that only the departments that are useful to the top can gain a more important position.

With status comes funding, and with funding, I can share more with you.

So, what information do you think would help me increase my importance?”

(End of chapter)