Southampton Row

CHAPTER

TWO

Pitt found the house uniquely lonely without Charlotte and the children. He missed the warmth, the sound of laughter, excite-ment, even the occasional quarreling. There was no clatter of Gracie’s heels on the floor, or her wry comments, only the two cats, Archie and Angus, curled up asleep in the patches of sun that came through the kitchen windows.

But when he remembered the hatred in Voisey’s eyes, relief washed over him with an intensity that caught his breath that they were out of London, far away where neither Voisey nor any of the Inner Circle would find them. A small cottage in a country hamlet on the edge of Dartmoor was as safe as anywhere possible. That knowledge left him free to do all he could to stop Voisey from winning the seat and beginning the climb to a power which would corrupt the conscience of the land.

Although as he sat at the kitchen table over breakfast of toast he had definitely scorched, homemade marmalade and a large pot of tea, he was daunted by a task so nebulous, so uncertain. There was no mystery to solve, no explanation to unravel, and too little specific to seek. His only weapon was knowledge. The seat Voisey was contesting had been Liberal for years. Whose vote did he hope to sway? He was standing for the Tories, the only alternative to the Liberals with any chance of forming a government, even though the majority opinion was that this time Mr. Gladstone would win, even if his administration did not last long.

He took another piece of toast from the rack where he had set it, and spread it with butter. He spooned out a very good helping of marmalade. He liked the pungent taste of it, sharp enough to feel as if it filled his head.

Did Voisey intend somehow to win the middle ground and so enlarge his share of the vote? Or to disenchant the poorer men and drive them towards socialism, and so split the left-wing support? Had he some weapon, as yet undisclosed, with which to damage Aubrey Serracold and so cripple his campaign? He could not openly do all three. But then with the Inner Circle behind him, he did not need to be open. No one outside the very top of its power, perhaps no one but Voisey himself, knew the names or positions of all its members, or even how many there were.

He finished the toast, drank the last of the tea, and left the dishes where they were. Mrs. Brody would wash up when she came, and no doubt feed Archie and Angus again. It was eight o’clock in the morning, and time he began to acquire more knowledge of Voisey’s platform, the issues he was making the core of his appeal, who his open supporters were, and where he was going to speak. Pitt already knew from Jack the bare outline of these things regarding Serracold, but it was not enough.

It was late June and the city was hot, dusty and crammed with traffic of every sort—trade, business and pleasure. Street peddlers cried their wares on almost every pavement corner, open carriages held ladies who were out to see the sights, keeping the sun from their faces with an array of parasols in pretty colors like enormous overblown flowers. There were heavy wagons carrying bales of goods, vegetable and milk carts, omnibuses and the usual hordes of hansom cabs. Even the footpaths were crowded, and Pitt had to weave his way in and out. The noise was an assault on the ears and the mind, chatter, street cries of vendors of a hundred different articles for sale, the rattle of wheels on cobbles, the jingle of harness, shouts of frustrated drivers, the sharp clip of horses’ hooves.

He would prefer Voisey to be as little aware of him as possible, although after their meeting in the House of Commons it could no longer be secret that Pitt was watching the campaign. He regretted that, but it could not be undone, and perhaps it was inevitable; it just would have been better delayed, even a short while. Voisey might have been sufficiently absorbed in his political battles and the exhilaration of the campaign not to have noticed one more person’s interest in him.

By five o’clock Pitt knew the names of those backing Voisey’s candidacy, both publicly and privately, at least those of record. He also knew that the issues Voisey had espoused were the traditional mainstream Tory values of trade and Empire. It was obvious how these would appeal to the property owners, the manufacturers and shipping barons, but now the vote had extended to the ordinary man who possessed nothing more than his house or rented rooms worth above ten pounds a year, and surely they were natural supporters of trades unions, and so of the Liberal Party?

The fact that it seemed an impossible seat for Voisey to win worried Pitt far more than had he seen some opening, some weakness that could be exploited. It meant that the attack was coming from an angle he had no idea how to protect, and he did not even know where the vulnerability lay.

He made his way south of the river towards the docks and factories in the shadow of the London Bridge Railway Terminal, with the intention of joining the crowd of workers at the first of Voisey’s public speeches. He was intensely curious to see both how Voisey behaved and what kind of reception he would receive.

He stopped at one of the public houses and had a pork pie and a glass of cider, keeping his ear to the conversations at the tables around him. There was a good deal of laughter, but underneath it an unmistakably bitter note as well. He heard only one reference to the Irish, or the vexed question of Home Rule, and even that was treated half jokingly. But the matter of hours to the working day aroused hot feelings, and some considerable support for the Socialists, even though hardly anyone seemed to know the names of any of them. Certainly Pitt did not hear Sidney Webb or William Morris mentioned, nor the eloquent and vociferous playwright Shaw.

By seven o’clock he was standing in the open outside one of the factory gates, the gray, flat sides of the buildings soaring up into the smoke-filled air above him. The clang of machinery beat a steady rhythm in the distance, and the smell of coke fumes and acids caught his throat. Around him were five or six score men in uniform browns and grays, color worn out of the fabric, patched and repatched, frayed at the cuffs, worn at the elbows and knees. Many of them had cloth caps on, even though the evening was mild and, far more unusually, there was no chill blowing up from the river. The cap was habit, almost a part of identity.

Pitt passed unnoticed among them, his natural scruffiness a perfect disguise. He listened to their laughter, their rowdy, often cruel jokes, and heard the note of despair underneath. And the longer he listened the less could he imagine how Voisey, with his money, his privilege, his polished manner, and now his title as well, could win over a single one of them, let alone the bulk. Voisey stood for everything that oppressed them and which they perceived, correctly or not, to be exploiting their labor and stealing their rewards. It frightened him because he knew far better than to believe Voisey was a dreamer, trusting to any kind of luck.

The crowd was just beginning to get restive and speak of leaving, when a hansom, not a carriage, came to a stop about twenty yards away and Pitt saw the tall figure of Voisey get out and walk towards them. It gave Pitt an odd shiver of apprehension, as if even in all this crowd Voisey could see him and the hatred could burn across the air and find him.

“Come after all, ‘ave yer?” a voice called out, for a moment breaking the spell.

“Of course I have come!” Voisey called back, turning to face them, his head high, his expression half amused, Pitt invisible, one anonymous face among the hundred or so men. “You have votes, don’t you?”

Half a dozen men laughed.

“At least ’e in’t pretending as ’e gives a damn about us!” someone said a few yards to Pitt’s left. “I’d rather ’ave a bastard wot’s ’onest than one wot ain’t.”

Voisey walked over to the wagon which had been left as a makeshift platform, and with an easy movement climbed up into it.

There was a rustle of attention, but it was hostile, waiting for the opportunity to criticize, challenge and abuse. Voisey seemed to be alone, but Pitt noticed the two or three policemen standing well back, and half a dozen or more newly arrived men, all watching the crowd, burly men in quiet, drab clothing, but with a fluidity of movement and a restlessness quite unlike the weariness of the factory workers.

“You’ve come to look at me,” Voisey began, “because you are curious to see what I am going to say, and if I can come up with anything at all to justify your voting for me, and not for the Liberal candidate, Mr. Serracold, whose party has represented you as far back as you can remember. And perhaps you expect a little entertainment at my expense.”

There was a rumble of laughter and one or two catcalls.

“Well, what do you want from government?” Voisey asked, and before he could answer himself he was shouted down.

“Less taxes!” someone yelled, to accompanying jeers.

“Shorter hours! A decent working week, no longer than yours!”

More laughter, but sharp-edged, angry.

“Decent pay! ’Ouses wot don’t leak. Drains!”

“Good! So do I,” Voisey agreed, his voice carrying well in spite of the fact he did not seem to be raising it. “I would also like a job for every man who wants to work, and every woman, too. I’d like peace, good foreign trade, less crime, more certain justice, responsible police without corruption, cheap food, bread for everyone, clothes and boots for everyone. I’d like good weather as well, but . . .”

The rest of his words were lost in a roar of laughter.

“But you wouldn’t believe me if I told you I could do that!” he finished.

“Don’t believe yer anyway!” a voice shouted back, to more jeers and calls of agreement.

Voisey smiled, but the angle of his body was stiff. “But you’re going to listen to me, because that’s what you’ve come for! You’re curious what I’m going to say, and you’re fair.”

This time there were no catcalls. Pitt could feel the difference in the air, as if a storm had passed by without breaking.

“Do most of you work in these factories?” Voisey waved his arm. “And these docks?”

There was a murmur of assent.

“Making goods to ship all over the world?” he went on.

Again the assent, and a slight impatience. They did not understand the reason why he asked. Pitt did, as if he had already heard the words.

“Clothes made from Egyptian cotton?” Voisey asked, his voice lifting, his eyes searching their faces, the language of their bodies, the boredom or the quickening of understanding. “Brocades from Persia and the old Silk Road east to China and India?” he continued. “Linen from Ireland? Timber from Africa, rubber from Burma . . . I could go on and on. But you probably know the list as well as I do. They are the products of the Empire. That’s why we are the biggest trading nation in the world, why Britain rules the seas, a quarter of the earth speaks our language, and soldiers of the Queen guard the peace over land and sea in every quarter of the globe.”

This time the rising noise had a different note to it, pride and anger and curiosity. Several men stood a little straighter, shoulders square. Pitt shifted quickly out of Voisey’s line of sight.

Voisey shouted above them. “It isn’t just glory—it’s a roof over your heads and food on your table.”

“’Ow about a shorter working day?” a tall man with ginger hair called out.

“If we lose the Empire, who are you going to work for?” Voisey challenged him. “Who are you going to buy from, sell to?”

“Nobody’s going ter lose the Empire!” the ginger-haired man replied with scorn. “Even them Socialists in’t that daft!”

“Mr. Gladstone’s going to lose it,” Voisey replied. “A piece at a time! First Ireland, then maybe Scotland and Wales. Who knows what after that—India, perhaps? No more hemp and jute, no more mahogany and rubber from Burma. Then Africa, Egypt, a piece at a time. If he can lose Ireland on his own doorstep, why not everywhere?”

There was a sudden silence, then a loud laugh, but there was no humor in it, instead there was a sharp undercurrent of doubt, perhaps even fear.

Pitt glanced around at the men closest to him. Every one of them was facing Voisey.

“We have to have trade,” Voisey went on, but now he had no need to shout. He pitched his voice to the back of the crowd, and it was sufficient. “We need the rule of law, and we need mastery of the seas. In order to share our wealth more fairly, we must first assure that we have it!”

There was a murmur that sounded like agreement.

“Do what you do well, no one on earth better!” Voisey’s tone held a ring of praise, even triumph. “And choose freely to represent you men who know how to make and keep the laws at home, and deal honorably and profitably with the other nations of the earth to preserve and add to what you have. Don’t elect old men who think they speak for God, but in truth only speak for the past, men who carry out their own wishes and don’t listen to yours.”

Now there was another roar from the crowd, but in many quarters it actually sounded like a cheer to Pitt’s ears.

Voisey did not keep them much longer. He knew they were tired and hungry and tomorrow morning would come all too soon. He had enough sense to stop while they were still interested, and more than that, while there was still time to get a good dinner and a couple of hours at the public house to take a few pints of ale and talk it all over.

He told them a swift joke, and another, and left them laughing as he walked back to his hansom and rode away.

Pitt was stiff from standing still, and cold inside with bitter admiration for the way Voisey had turned a crowd from hostile strangers into men who would remember his name, remember that he had not betrayed them or made false promises, that he had not assumed they would like him, and that he had made them laugh. They would not forget what he had said about losing the Empire that provided their work. It might make their employers rich, but the truth was that if their employers were poor, then they were even poorer. It might or might not be unjust, but many men there were realist enough to know that it was the way things were.

Pitt waited until Voisey had been out of sight for several minutes, then he walked across the dusty cobbles into the shade of the factory walls and along a narrow alley back towards the main road. Voisey had shown at least some of his tactics, but he had revealed no vulnerability at all. Aubrey Serracold was going to have to be more than charming and honest to equal him.

It was early yet to go home, especially to an empty house. He had a good book to read, but the silence would disturb him. Even the thought of it held a loneliness. There must be something else he could do which might be useful, perhaps more he could learn from Jack Radley? Maybe Emily could tell him something about Serracold’s wife? She was acutely observant and a realist in the ploys of power far more than Charlotte. She might have seen a weakness in Voisey, where a man, with his mind more on political policies and less on the person, might have missed it.

He leaned forward and redirected the driver of his hansom.

But when he arrived the butler told him with profound apologies that Mr. and Mrs. Radley were out at a dinner party and could not reasonably be expected home before one in the morning at the earliest.

Pitt thanked him and declined the offer to wait, as the butler had known he would. He returned to the cab, and told the driver to take him instead to Cornwallis’s flat in Piccadilly.

A manservant answered the door and without question conducted him through to Cornwallis’s small sitting room. It was furnished in the elegant but spare style of a captain’s cabin at sea, full of books, polished brass and dark, gleaming wood. Above the mantel shelf there was a painting of a square-rigged brigantine running before a gale.

“Mr. Pitt, sir,” the manservant announced.

Cornwallis dropped his book and rose to his feet in surprise and some alarm. “Pitt? What is it? What’s happened? Why are you not on Dartmoor?”

Pitt did not answer.

Cornwallis glanced at the manservant, then back at Pitt. “Have you eaten?” he asked.

Pitt was startled to realize that he had had nothing since the pie in the tavern near the factory. “No . . . not for a while.” He sank down in the chair opposite Cornwallis’s. “Bread and cheese would be fine . . . or cake if you have it.” He missed Gracie’s baking already, and the tins at home were empty. She had made nothing, expecting them all to be away.

“Bring Mr. Pitt bread and cheese,” Cornwallis directed. “And cider, and a slice of cake.” He looked back at Pitt. “Or would you prefer tea?”

“Cider is excellent,” Pitt replied, easing himself into the softness of the chair.

The manservant departed, closing the door behind him.

“Well?” Cornwallis demanded, resuming his own seat and the frown returning to his face. He was not handsome but there was a strength and a symmetry in his features which pleased one the longer one looked at him. When he moved it was with the grace and balance of his long years at sea, when he had had only the quarterdeck in which to pace.

“Something has arisen in connection with one of the parliamentary seats which Narraway wishes me to . . . to watch.” He saw the flash of anger in Cornwallis’s face, and knew it was because he saw injustice in Narraway’s not honoring Bow Street’s commitment to Pitt’s leave. It added to the outrage of the entire dismissal of Pitt’s reposting to suit the vengeance of the Inner Circle. All the old presumptions and certainties were gone, for both of them.

But Cornwallis did not probe. He was accustomed to the solitary life of a captain at sea who must listen to his officers but share only practicalities with them, not explain himself or indulge in emotions. He must always remain apart, maintain as much as possible of the fiction that he was never afraid, never lonely, never in doubt. It was the discipline of a lifetime and he could not now breach it. It had become part of his personality and he was no longer aware of it as a separate decision.

The manservant returned with the bread, cheese, cider and cake, for which Pitt thanked him. “You are welcome, sir.” He bowed and withdrew.

“What do you know of Charles Voisey?” Pitt asked as he spread the crusty bread with butter and cut off a heavy slice of pale, rich Caerphilly cheese and felt it crumble beneath the knife. He bit into it hungrily. It was sharp and creamy in his mouth.

Cornwallis’s lips tightened, but he did not ask why Pitt wanted to know. “Only what is public information,” he replied. “Harrow and Oxford, then called to the bar. Was a brilliant lawyer who made a good deal of money, but of more value in the long run, a great many friends in the places that count, and I don’t doubt a few enemies as well. Elevated to the bench, and then very quickly to the Court of Appeal. He knows how to take chances and appear courageous, and yet never slip badly enough to fall.”

Pitt had heard all this before, but it still concentrated his mind to have it put so succinctly.

“He is a man of intense pride,” Cornwallis continued. “But in day-to-day life he has the skill to conceal it, or at least make it appear as something less offensive.”

“Less vulnerable,” Pitt said instantly.

Cornwallis did not miss the meaning. “You are looking for a weakness?”

Pitt remembered with an effort that Cornwallis knew nothing of the Whitechapel affair, except Adinett’s trial in the beginning and Voisey’s knighthood at the end. He did not even know that Voisey was the head of the Inner Circle, and for his own safety it was better that he never learn it. Pitt owed him at least that much in loyalty for the past, and he would have wished it in friendship now.

“I’m looking for knowledge, and that includes both strengths and weaknesses,” he replied. “He is standing for Parliament as a Tory, in a strong Liberal seat. The question of Home Rule has already arisen!”

Cornwallis’s eyebrows rose. “And that means Narraway?”

Pitt did not answer.

Cornwallis accepted his silence.

“What do you want to know about Voisey?” he asked. “What kind of weakness?”

“Who does he care for?” Pitt said softly. “Who is he afraid of? What moves him to laughter, awe, pain, any emotion? What does he want, apart from power?”

Cornwallis smiled, his eyes steady on Pitt’s, unblinking. “It sounds as if you are deploying for battle,” he said with a very slight lift of question.

“I am searching to see if I have any weapons,” Pitt replied without looking away. “Have I?”

“I doubt it,” Cornwallis answered. “If he cares for anything apart from power, I’ve not heard of it, not enough that the loss of it would hurt him.” He was watching Pitt’s face, trying to read in it what he needed. “He likes to live well, but not ostentatiously. He enjoys being admired, which he is, but he’s not willing to curry favor to get it. I daresay he doesn’t need to. He takes pleasure in his home, good food, good wine, the theater, music, company, but he’d sacrifice any of them if he had to, to reach the office he wants. At least that’s what I’ve heard. Do you want me to ask more?”

“No! No . . . not yet.”

Cornwallis nodded.

“Anyone he fears?” Pitt asked without hope.

“None that I know,” Cornwallis said dryly. “Has he cause? Is that what Narraway is afraid of . . . an attempt on his life?”

Again, Pitt could not answer. The silence was worrying him, even though he knew Cornwallis understood.

“Anyone he cares about?” Pitt asked doggedly. He could not afford to give up.

Cornwallis thought for a moment or two. “Possibly,” he said at last. “Although how deeply I don’t know. But I think there are ways in which he needs her—as his hostess, if nothing else. But I think he does care for her, as much as a man of his nature can.”

“Her? Who is she?” Pitt demanded, hope quickening in him at last.

Cornwallis dismissed the matter with a tiny, rueful smile. “His sister is a widow of great charm and formidable social skills. She appears, at least on the surface, to possess a gentleness and moral sensitivity he has never shown, in spite of his recent knighthood, of which you know more than I.” It was not a question. He would never intrude where he knew he had no rights, and a refusal would hurt. He frowned very slightly; it was just a shadow between the brows. “But I have met her only twice, and I am no judge of women.” Now there was a slight self-consciousness in him. “Someone more skilled might tell you quite differently. Certainly she is one of his greatest political assets among those in the party with the power and the will to support him. With the voters he has little to rely on but his own oratory.” He sounded discouraged, as if he feared that would be sufficient.

Pitt feared it even more so. He had seen Voisey face the crowd. It was a blow to discover that he had a social ally of such ability. Pitt had been hoping that perhaps being unmarried would be Voisey’s one weakness.

“Thank you,” he said aloud.

Cornwallis smiled bleakly. “Have some more cider?”

Emily Radley enjoyed a good dinner party, most especially when there was an edge of danger and excitement in the air, struggles of power, of words, ambition hidden behind a mask of humor or of charm, public duty or a passion for reform. Parliament had not been dissolved, but it would be any day, and they all knew it; then the battle would be in the open. It would be swift and sharp, a matter of a week or so. There was no time to hesitate, reconsider a blow, or moderate a defense. It was all in hot blood.

She prepared as for a campaign of war. She was a beautiful woman, and she was very well aware of it. But now that she was in her thirties and had two children, it required a little more care than it used to in order to be her best. She set aside the youthful pastels she had once favored for her delicate coloring and selected from the latest fashions from Paris something bolder, more sophisticated. The basic skirt and bodice were midnight-blue silk, but with an overdress of light blue-gray slashed diagonally to swathe up over the bosom and be caught at the left shoulder, and again at the waist, with another deep slash and ties falling from her hip. It had the usual high rouched shoulders, and of course she wore kid gloves to the elbows. She chose diamonds rather than pearls.

The result was really very good. She felt ready to take on any woman who might be in the room, even her current closest friend, the dashing and superbly stylish Rose Serracold. She liked Rose enormously, and had since the day they met, and she sincerely hoped that Rose’s husband, Aubrey, would gain his seat in Parliament, but she had no intention of being outshone by anyone. Jack’s seat was pretty safe. He had served with distinction and made several valuable friends in power who would no doubt stand by him now, but nothing should be taken for granted. Political power was a highly fickle mistress and must be courted on every possible occasion.

Their carriage drew up outside the Trenchard’s magnificent house on Park Lane, and she and Jack alighted. They were welcomed by the footman at the door and crossed the hall and were announced. She entered the withdrawing room on his arm with her head high and an air of confidence. They were greeted by Colonel and Mrs. Trenchard at exactly quarter to nine, fifteen minutes after the hour stated on the invitation that in turn had been received five weeks earlier. It was precisely the correct moment to arrive; they had judged it to perfection. To be on time would be vulgarly eager, whereas it was rude to be late. And since dinner was announced approximately twenty minutes after the first guest arrived, long after that one might easily find oneself shown in when everyone else was already going into the dining room.

Etiquette, which was of immovable rigidity, dictated who should go in with whom, and in what order, or the whole procedure would be thrown into chaos. To be noticed for beauty was always admirable; for wit was usually so, although there were risks attached. To make a spectacle of oneself would be disastrous.

No drinks were served in the brief time before the butler announced dinner. It was customary merely to sit and exchange a few pleasantries with whomever one might know until the procession to the dining room commenced.

The host would lead the way, with the senior ranking lady on his arm, followed by the remainder of the guests, in order of the ladies’ rank, followed at the last by the hostess on the arm of the senior male guest.

Emily had time only to speak for a moment with Rose Serracold, easy to see with her ash-blond hair and sharp, straight profile even before she turned her pale aquamarine eyes to regard the latest arrivals. Her face lit with pleasure and she moved swiftly to Emily’s side, twitching her flesh-pink taffeta dress. The gown plunged to the waist at the front, over claret-red embroidered brocade, which was echoed in mid-hip panels and an underskirt. It made her slender hips look richly curved and her waist a mere handspan. Only a woman of supreme confidence could have looked so dazzling in such a gown.

“Emily, how delightful to see you!” she said with enthusiasm. Her glance swept up and down Emily’s dress in immediate appreciation, but with a flash of amusement she deliberately avoided saying anything about it. “What a pleasure you could come!”

Emily smiled back. “As if you had not known I should!” She raised her eyebrows. They both knew Rose would have been familiar with the guest list or she would not have accepted.

“Well, I did have just the slightest idea,” Rose admitted. She leaned a little closer. “It feels a trifle like the ball the night before Waterloo, doesn’t it?”

“Not an occasion I recall,” Emily murmured in mock spite.

Rose made a very slight face at her. “Tomorrow we ride into battle!” she responded with exaggerated patience.

“My dear, we have been at war for months,” Emily replied as Jack was drawn into a group of men close by. “If not years!” she added.

“Don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes,” Rose warned. “Or in Lady Garson’s case, the yellow. That woman drinks enough to drown a horse.”

“You should have seen her mother!” Emily shrugged delicately. “She could have drowned a giraffe.”

Rose threw back her head and laughed, a rich, infectious sound that caused half a dozen of the men to look at her with pleasure, and their wives to stare with disapproval, before deliberately turning away.

The dining room was blazing with light from the chandeliers and reflected from a thousand facets of crystal on the table and the sheen of silver on snow-white linen. Roses spilled out of silver bowls and long vines of honeysuckle trailed down the center of the cloth, sending up a rich perfume.

At each place setting there was a menu card—written in French, naturally. The guest’s name was on the front to indicate where each person should sit. The footmen began to serve soup, according to each guest’s preference, the choice being oxtail or bisque. Emily was placed between a Liberal elder statesman on her left and a generous banker on her right. She declined the soup, knowing there were a further eight courses to come, but the banker took the oxtail and began to eat immediately, it being correct to do so.

Emily glanced across the table at Jack, but he was busy conversing with a Liberal member who would also be defending his seat against a vigorous attack. She caught the odd word, indicating that they were concerned with the factions among the Irish members, which would almost certainly make the difference if the main parties were close in number. The ability to form a government might depend upon winning the support of either the Parnellites or anti-Parnellites.

Emily was tired of the issues of Home Rule simply because they had been argued over for as long as she could remember, and seemed no closer to a solution than when she had first had them explained to her in the schoolroom. She bent her attention to charming the rather grand elder statesman to her left, who had also declined a first course.

The second course was a choice of salmon or smelts.

She chose salmon, and for a little while refrained from conversation.

She declined the entrees, not wishing for curried eggs or sweetbreads with mushrooms, and listened to what she could catch of the discussion across the table.

“I think we should take him very seriously,” Aubrey Serracold was saying, bending forward a little. The light caught his fair head, his long face filled with seriousness, all laughter gone, even his usual self-deprecating charm for once invisible.

“For heaven’s sake!” the senior statesman protested, his cheeks pink. “The man left school at ten years old and went down the mines! Even other miners have more sense than to imagine he can do anything for them in Parliament, except make a fool of himself. He lost in his native Scotland; he hasn’t a chance here in London.”

“Of course not,” said a bluff-faced man opposite who turned around indignantly, reaching for his wine and holding it for a moment before drinking. “We are the natural party for the workingman, not some newfangled creation of wild-eyed fanatics with picks and shovels in their hands!”

“That is just the kind of blindness that will lose us the future!” Aubrey returned with utmost seriousness. “Keir Hardie should not be dismissed lightly. A lot of men will see his courage and determination, and know how he has bettered his situation. They will think that if he can achieve so much for himself he can do the same for them.”

“Take them out of the mines and put them in Parliament?” a woman in poppy-red said incredulously.

“Oh dear!” Rose twisted her glass in her fingers. “Then what on earth shall we burn on our fires? I doubt the present incumbents would be the slightest practical use.”

There was a burst of laughter, but it was high-pitched, and too loud.

Jack smiled. “Very funny as a dinner table joke—not so amusing if the miners listen to him and vote for more like him, who are full of passion to reform but haven’t any idea of the cost of it—I mean the real cost, in trade and dependent livelihoods.”

“They won’t listen to him!” a white-whiskered man said with a gesture to courtesy, but his voice was dismissive of the seriousness Jack invested in the subject. “Most men have more sense.” He saw Jack’s expression of doubt. “For heaven’s sake, Radley, only half the men in the land vote! How many miners own their own houses or pay more than ten pounds a year in rent?”

“So by definition”—Aubrey Serracold turned to face him, his eyes wide—“those who can vote are those who prosper under the system as it is now? That rather invalidates the argument, doesn’t it?”

There was a quick exchange of glances across the table. This remark was unexpected, and to judge from several of them, also unwelcome.

“What are you saying, Serracold?” the white-whiskered man asked carefully. “If a thing works, change it?”

“No,” Aubrey replied equally carefully. “If it works for one section of the people, it is not that section who should have the right to decide whether to keep it or not, because we all have the tendency to see things from our own view and to preserve what is in our own interest.”

The footman removed the used plates and, almost unnoticed, served iced asparagus.

“You have a very poor opinion of your fellows in government,” a red-haired man said a trifle sourly. “I’m surprised you want to join us!”

Aubrey smiled with extraordinary charm, looking down for a moment before turning to the speaker. “Not at all. I think we are wise and just enough to use power only as it is honestly given, but I have no such confidence in our opponents.” He was met with a shout of laughter, but Emily saw that it did not entirely dispel the anxiety—in Jack, at least. She knew him well enough to see and understand the tension in his hands as he held his knife and fork and with dexterity cut the tips off the asparagus spears. He did not speak again for several minutes.

The conversation turned to other aspects of politics. The used dishes were taken and replaced with game—quail, grouse or partridge. Emily still did not accept any. Young ladies were always advised not to, as it might make their breath strong. She had always wondered why it was acceptable for men to. She had once asked her father, and received a look of blank amazement. The inequity of it had never occurred to him.

She declined still, not considering herself old enough to be disqualified from it mattering. She hoped she never would be.

After game there were sweets. The menu offered ice pudding, confiture of nectarines, iced meringues or strawberry jelly, which she accepted. She ate the jelly with her fork, as required by etiquette, an art necessitating a certain degree of concentration.

After the cheese there was a choice of ices, Neapolitan cream or raspberry water, and lastly pineapples, from the glass house presumably, strawberries, apricots or melons. She glanced with amusement at the varieties of skill displayed on the requirement to peel and eat each of these with a knife and fork. More than one person had cause to regret their choice, especially of apricots.

The conversation resumed. It was her job to be charming, to flatter with attention, to amuse, or more often to appear amused. It was the greatest compliment to a man to find him interesting, and she knew few who could resist it. It was amazing how much of himself a man would reveal if one simply allowed him to talk.

Beneath the plans, the assurances and the bravado, Emily heard a deep unease, and it was borne in on her with increasing certainty that those men who had been in government before and knew its subtleties and pitfalls did not wish to lose this election, but neither did they wholeheartedly desire to win. It was a curious situation, and because she did not understand it, therefore it troubled her. She listened for some time until she perceived that each, for his own passion and ambition, wished to win his own particular battle, but not the war. To the victor went spoils they were uncertain how to handle.

The laughter around her was brittle and the voices charged with emotion. The lights glittered on jewels and wineglasses and the unused silver. The rich odors of food lingered amid the heavy perfume of the honeysuckle.

“It required long experience, a colossal courage, any amount of cool self-possession and a great skill to attack and dispose of it without harm to yourself or your neighbor, he told me,” Rose was saying intensely, her eyes glistening.

“Then, my dear lady, you should leave such dangerous quarry to a hunter of courage and strength, a quick eye and a brave heart,” the man next to her replied decisively. “I suggest you content yourself with following the pheasant shoot, or some other such sport.”

“My dear Colonel Bertrand,” Rose answered with shining innocence, “those are the etiquette instructions for eating an orange!”

The colonel blushed scarlet amid the uncontrollable burst of laughter.

“I do apologize!” Rose said as soon as she could be heard. “I fear I did not make myself plain. Life is full of dangers of so many kinds, one steps aside from one pitfall only to plunge into another.”

No one argued with her. There was more than one other present who had felt the colonel’s condescension, and no one rushed to his defense. Lady Warden giggled on and off for the rest of the evening.

When the meal was at last finished the ladies withdrew so the gentlemen might enjoy their port and, Emily knew perfectly well, have the serious political discussion of tactics, money and trading favor for favor which was the purpose of the evening.

To begin with she found herself sitting with half a dozen other wives of men who either were Members of Parliament already or hoped to become so, or who had money and profound interests in the election outcome.

“I wish they would take the new Socialists more seriously,” Lady Molloy said as soon as they were seated.

“You mean Mr. Morris and the Webbs?” Mrs. Lancaster asked with wide eyes and a smile verging on laughter. “Honestly, my dear, have you ever seen Mr. Webb? They say he is undersized, undernourished and underendowed!”

There was a slight titter around the group, as much nervous as amused.

“But she isn’t,” someone else put in quickly. “She comes from a very good family.”

“And writes children’s fairy tales about hedgehogs and rabbits!” Mrs. Lancaster finished for her.

“How appropriate! If you ask me, the whole Socialist idea belongs with Peter Rabbit and Mrs. Tiggiwinkle,” Lady Warden said with a giggle.

“No, it doesn’t!” Rose contradicted, her deep feeling unconcealed. “The fact that a person’s appearance may be a trifle quaint should not blind us to the worth of that person’s ideas, or more importantly, to appreciate the danger those ideas may present to our real power. We should draw such people in to ally with us, not ignore them.”

“They aren’t going to ally with us, my dear,” Mrs. Lancaster pointed out reasonably. “Their ideas are impractically extreme. They want an actual Labor Party.”

The discussion moved to specific reforms and the speed at which they might be achieved, or even should be attempted. Emily joined in, but it was Rose Serracold who made the most outrageous suggestions and provoked the most laughter. No one, especially Emily, was entirely certain how much Rose meant beneath the wit and the keen observation of emotion and foible.

“You think I’m joking, don’t you?” Rose said when the group divided and she and Emily were able to speak alone.

“No, I don’t,” Emily replied, keeping her back to those nearest them. Suddenly she was quite certain of it. “But I think you’ll be very well advised to let other people think so. We are at precisely that stage in our understanding of the Fabians where we will think they are funny but have begun to have the first suspicion that in the end the joke may be more against us than with us.”

Rose leaned forward, her fair face intense, all lightness gone from it. “That is precisely why we must listen to them, Emily, and adopt at least the best of their ideas . . . in fact, most of them. Reform will come, and we must be in the forefront of it. The franchise must include all adults, poor as well as rich, and in time women as well.” Her eyebrows arched. “Don’t look so horrified! It must. As the Empire must go—but that is another issue. And no matter what Mr. Gladstone says, we must make it law that the working day is no more than eight hours across all manner of trades, and no employer can force a man to do more.”

“Or woman?” Emily asked curiously.

“Of course!” Rose’s answer was immediate, a reflex to an unnecessary question.

Emily affected innocence. “And if you call for your lady’s maid to fetch you a cup of tea at half past eight, will you accept the answer that she has worked eight hours and is off duty—and you should get it yourself?”

“Touché.” Rose bent her head in acknowledgment, a flush of mortification on her cheeks. “Perhaps we only mean factory work, at least to begin with.” Then she lifted her eyes quickly. “But it doesn’t alter the fact that we have to go forward if we are to survive, let alone if we are to obtain any kind of social justice.”

“We all want social justice,” Emily answered wryly. “It’s just that everyone has a different idea as to what it is . . . and how to achieve it . . . and when.”

“Tomorrow!” Rose shrugged her shoulders. “As far as the Tories are concerned, any time, as long as it isn’t today!”

They were joined again briefly by Lady Molloy, speaking largely to Rose, and obviously still turning over in her mind what had been said previously.

“I had better be careful, hadn’t I?” Rose said ruefully when Lady Molloy had gone. “The poor soul is quite flummoxed.”

“Don’t underestimate her,” Emily warned. “She may have little imagination, but she is very astute when it comes to practical judgment.”

“How tedious.” Rose sighed elaborately. “That is one of the greatest disadvantages of running for public office, one has to please the public. Not that I don’t desire to, of course! But making oneself understood is the greatest challenge, don’t you think?”

Emily smiled in spite of herself. “I know exactly what you mean, although I admit I don’t even attempt it most of the time. If people don’t understand you, they may think you are speaking nonsense, but if you do it with enough confidence they will give you the benefit of the doubt, which doesn’t always happen when they do understand. The art is not so much in being intelligent as in being kind. I really do mean that, Rose, believe me!”

Rose looked for a moment as if she were going to make some witty response, then the lightness drained out of her. “Do you believe in life after death, Emily?” she asked.

Emily was so startled she spoke only to give herself time to think. “I beg your pardon?”

“Do you believe in life after death?” Rose repeated earnestly. “I mean real life, not some sort of general holy existence as part of God, or whatever.”

“I suppose I do. Not to would be too awful. Why?”

Rose gave an elegant shrug, her face noncommittal again, as if she had retreated from the edge of some greater honesty. “I just thought I’d shock you out of your political practicality for a moment.” But her voice held no laughter, nor did her eyes.

“Do you believe in it?” Emily asked, smiling a little to make the question seem more casual than it was.

Rose hesitated, obviously uncertain now how she was going to answer. Emily could see the emotion in the angle of her body—her dramatic gown with its rich wine and flesh colors, and the tension in her arms where her thin hands gripped the edge of the chair.

“Do you think there isn’t?” Emily said quietly.

“No, I don’t!” Rose’s voice was steady with total conviction. “I am quite sure there is!” Then just as suddenly she relaxed. Emily was certain it had cost her a very deliberate effort. Rose looked at her, then away again. “Have you ever been to a séance?”

“Not a real one, only pretend ones at parties.” Emily watched her. “Why? Have you?”

Rose did not answer directly. “What’s real?” she said with a tiny edge to her voice. “Daniel Dunglass Home was supposed to be brilliant. Nobody ever caught him out, and many tried to!” Then she swiveled to look directly at Emily, a challenge in her eyes, as if now she were on firmer ground and there was no hurt waiting under the surface were she to misstep.

“Did you ever see him?” Emily asked, avoiding the direct issue, which she was quite certain was not Dunglass Home, although she was not sure what it was.

“No. But they say he could levitate himself several inches off the floor, or elongate himself, especially his hands.” She was watching Emily’s response, although she made light of it.

“That must have been remarkable to see,” Emily replied, unsure why anyone would wish to do such a thing. “But I thought the purpose of a séance was to get in touch with the spirits of those you knew who had gone on before.”

“It is! That was just a manifestation of his powers,” Rose explained.

“Or the spirit’s power,” Emily elaborated. “Although I doubt any of my ancestors had tricks like that up their sleeves . . . unless you want to go back to the witch trials in Puritan times!”

Rose smiled, but it went no further than her lips. Her body was still stiff, her neck and shoulders rigid, and suddenly Emily was convinced that the whole subject mattered intensely to her. The trivial manner was to shield her vulnerability, and more than the pain of being laughed at, something deeper, perhaps having a belief snatched from her and broken.

Emily answered with total seriousness she did not have to feign. “I really don’t know how the spirits from the past could contact us if they wanted to tell us something important. I cannot say that it wouldn’t come with all kinds of strange sights, or sounds, for that matter. I would judge it on the content of the message, not on how it was delivered.” Now she was not sure whether to go on with what she had intended to say, or if it were intrusive.

Rose broke the suspense of the moment. “Without the effects, how would I know it was real, not just the medium telling me what she thought I wanted to hear?” She made a casual little gesture of dismissal. “It isn’t what you would consider entertainment without all the sighs and groans, and the apparitions, the bumps and glowing ectoplasm and so on!” She laughed, a brittle sound. “Don’t look so serious, my dear. It’s hardly church, is it! It’s only ghosts rattling their chains. What is life if we can’t be frightened now and then . . . at least of things like that, which don’t matter at all? Takes one’s mind off what is really awful.” She swept one hand into the air, diamonds glittering on her fingers. “Have you heard what Labouchere is going to do with Buckingham Palace, if he ever has his way?”

“No . . .” Emily took a moment to adjust from the profoundly emotional to the utterly absurd.

“Turn it into a refuge for fallen women!” Rose said in a ringing voice. “Isn’t that the best joke you’ve heard in years?”

Emily was incredulous. “Has he actually said so?”

Rose giggled. “I don’t know . . . but if he hasn’t yet, he soon will! When the old Queen dies, I don’t doubt the Prince of Wales will do that anyway!”

“For heaven’s sake, Rose!” Emily urged, glancing around them to see who might have overheard. “Keep a still tongue in your head! Some people wouldn’t know sarcasm if it got up and bit them!”

Rose tried to look taken aback, but her pale, brilliant eyes were shining and she was too close to hilarity to carry it off. “Who’s being sarcastic, darling? I mean it! If they haven’t fallen yet, he’d be just the man to help them!”

“I know, but for heaven’s sake don’t say so!” Emily hissed back at her, and then they both burst into laughter just as they were joined by Mrs. Lancaster and two others who were aching to know what they might have missed.

The ride home in the carriage from Park Lane was entirely another matter. It was after one in the morning but the street lamps lit the summer night, making the way clear, and the air was warm and still.

Emily could see only the side of Jack’s face closest to the carriage lamp, but it was sufficient to show a seriousness he had hidden all evening.

“What is it?” she asked quietly as they turned out of Park Lane and moved west. “What happened in the dining room after we left?”

“A lot of discussion and planning,” he replied, turning to look at her, perhaps not realizing it cast his face into shadow. “I . . . I rather wish Aubrey hadn’t spoken so much. I like him enormously, and I think he’ll be an honest representative of the people, and perhaps more importantly, an honest man in the House . . .”

“But?” she challenged. “What? He’ll get in, won’t he? It’s been a Liberal seat for as long as anyone can remember!” She wanted every Liberal to win who could, so as to put the party back in power, but just at this moment she was thinking of Rose, and how crushed she would be if Aubrey failed. It would be humiliating to lose a safe seat, a personal rejection, not a difference of ideas.

“As much as anything is certain, yes,” he agreed. “And we’ll form a government, even if the majority isn’t as large as we’d like.”

“Then what’s wrong? And don’t tell me ‘nothing’!” she insisted.

Jack bit his lip. “I wish he would keep some of his more radical ideas to himself. He’s . . . he’s closer to socialism than I realized.” He spoke slowly, considering his words. “He admires Sidney Webb, for heaven’s sake! We can’t take reform at that pace! The people won’t have it and the Tories will crucify us! Whether we should have an empire or not isn’t the point. We do have, and you can’t cut it loose as if it didn’t exist and expect to have the trade, the work, the status in the world, the treaties, or anything else we do, without the reason and the purpose behind it. Ideals are wonderful, but without an understanding of reality, they can ruin us all. It’s like fire, a great servant, yet totally destructive when it’s master.”

“Did you tell Aubrey that?” she asked.

“I didn’t have the chance, but I will.”

She said nothing for a few moments, riding in silence, thinking over Rose’s sudden, strange questions about séances and the tension within her. She was uncertain whether to worry Jack with it or not, but it hung heavily with her, an unease she could not dismiss.

The carriage turned a corner sharply into a quieter street where the lamps were farther apart, shining up with ghostly gleam into the branches above.

“Rose was talking about spiritualists,” she said abruptly. “I think you should suggest that Aubrey tell her to be discreet about that, too. It could be misinterpreted by enemies, and once the election is called in earnest there’ll be plenty of those. I . . . I think perhaps Aubrey isn’t used to being attacked. He’s such a charming man almost everyone likes him.”

He was startled. He jerked around in the carriage seat to face her.

“Spiritualists? You mean mediums like Maude Lamont?” There was an edge of anxiety in his voice sharp enough that she did not need to see his expression to know what it would be.

“She didn’t mention Maude Lamont, although everybody’s talking about her. Actually, she talked about Daniel Dunglass Home, but I suppose it’s much the same. She spoke of levitation and ectoplasm and things.”

“I never know whether Rose is joking or not . . . was she?” It was not a question but a demand.

“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “But I don’t think so. I had the feeling that under the surface she cared very much about something.”

He shifted uncomfortably, only half because of the carriage’s rattling over uneven cobbles. “I’ll have to speak to Aubrey about that, too. What is a social game when you are a private person becomes the rope for journalists to hang you with when you stand for Parliament. I can see the cartoons now!” He winced so acutely that she saw the movement in his cheek in the pool of light as they passed under a street lamp and back into darkness again. “Ask Mrs. Serracold who’s going to win the election! Damn it, better than that . . . who’s going to win the Derby!” he said in a mimicking voice. “Let’s ask Napoleon’s ghost what the Czar of Russia’s going to do next. He can’t ever have forgiven him for Moscow and 1812.”

“Even if he knew, he wouldn’t be likely to tell us,” she pointed out. “He is even less likely to have forgiven us for Waterloo.”

“If we couldn’t ask anyone with whom we’ve ever had a war, that would rule out just about everybody on earth, except the Portuguese and the Norwegians,” he retorted. “Their knowledge about our future might be rather limited; they probably don’t give a farthing.” He took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “Emily, do you think she’s really seeing a medium, other than just for fun at a house party?”

“Yes . . .” Emily spoke with a chill conviction. “Yes . . . I’m afraid I do.”

The following morning brought news of a different and disturbing kind. Pitt was looking through the newspapers over breakfast of poached kippers and bread and butter—one of the few things he was quite good at cooking—when he came across the letter to the editor. It was the first one on the page, and given particular prominence.

Dear Sir,

I write in some distress, and as a lifelong supporter of the Liberal Party and all that it has achieved for the people of this nation, and thus indirectly of the world. I have admired and endorsed the reforms it has initiated and passed into law.

However, I live in the constituency of South Lambeth, and have listened with growing alarm to the opinions of Mr. Aubrey Serracold, the Liberal candidate for that seat. He does not represent the old Liberal values of sane and enlightened reform, but rather a hysterical socialism which would sweep away all the great achievements of the past in a frenzy of ill-thought-out changes, possibly well-meaning, but inevitably benefiting the few, for a short while, at the expense of the many, and to the eventual destruction of our economy.

I urge all others who normally support the Liberal Party to pay the closest attention to what Mr. Serracold has to say, and consider, albeit with regret, whether they can indeed support him, and if they do, what path of ruin they may be setting us upon.

Social reform is the ideal of every honest man, but it must be done with wisdom and knowledge, and at the pace at which we can absorb it into the fabric of our society. If it is done hastily, to answer the emotional self-indulgence of a man who has no experience and, it would seem, little practical sense, then it will be to the cost and the misery of the vast majority of our people, who deserve better of us.

I write with the greatest sadness,

Roland Kingsley, Major General, retired

Pitt let his tea go cold, staring at the printed sheet in front of him. This was the first open blow against Serracold, and it was hard and deep. It would damage him.

Was this the Inner Circle mobilizing, the beginning of the real battle?