Southampton Row

CHAPTER

SIX

When Emily opened the newspaper the day after the discovery of the murder in Southampton Row, her immediate interest was in the political reports. An excellent picture of Mr. Gladstone caught her eye, but for the time being she was more concerned with the London constituencies. There was less than a week to go before voting would begin. She felt a sharp tingle of excitement, more than for the previous election because now she had tasted the possibilities of office and her ambition for Jack was correspondingly higher. He had proved his ability and, perhaps more importantly, his loyalty. This time he might be rewarded with a position of greater importance, and so more power to do good.

He had made an excellent speech yesterday. The crowd had been appreciative. She scanned the pages looking for a report of it. Instead she saw Aubrey Serracold’s name, and below it an article which began quite well. Until she was halfway through it she did not read between the lines the sarcasm, the veiled suggestion of the foolishness of his ideas, and that though well-intentioned, they were formed in ignorance, a rich man playing at politics, indescribably condescending in his ambition to change others to his own idea of what was good for them.

Emily was furious. She dropped the paper and stared across the breakfast table at Jack. “Have you seen this?” she demanded, jabbing her finger at it.

“No.” He held out his hand and she picked up the fallen sheets and passed them to him. She watched as he read it, the frown deepening between his brows.

“Will it hurt him?” she asked when he looked up. “I am sure it will hurt his feelings, but I mean his chances of being elected,” she added quickly.

A flicker of amusement lit his eyes for a moment, and then gentleness. “You want him to win, don’t you? For Rose’s sake . . .”

She had not realized she was so transparent. It was uncharacteristic of her. She was usually good at revealing only what she wished, totally unlike Charlotte, who could be read by almost anyone. Yet it was not always satisfying to feel so alone. “Yes, I do,” she agreed. “I thought it was more or less a certainty. It’s been a Liberal seat for decades. Why should it be different now?”

“It’s only one article, Emily. If you say anything at all, there’s bound to be someone who disagrees with you.”

“You disagree with him,” she said very seriously. “Jack, can’t you defend him anyway? They’re making him sound far more extreme than he is. They would listen to you.” She saw him hesitate, the shadow in his face. “What is it?” she demanded. “Have you lost confidence in him? Or is it Rose? Of course she’s eccentric, she’s always been that way. What on earth does it matter? Do our politicians have to be gray to be any good?”

There was laughter in his face for a moment, and then it was gone. “Not gray, but toned down a little. Don’t take anything for granted, Emily. Don’t take it as certain that I’ll win. There are too many issues at stake that could change the way people vote. Gladstone’s always on about Home Rule, but I think it’s the working day that’s going to decide it.”

“But the Tories wouldn’t grant that!” she protested. “They’re even less likely to than we are! Tell them so!”

“I have. But what they say about not granting Home Rule makes sense, at least to the workingman here in London, where our docks and warehouses serve the world.” His face tightened. “I’ve heard what Voisey is saying, and people are listening to him. He’s very popular just now. The Queen knighted him for courage and loyalty to the Crown. Nobody knows exactly what he did, but apparently it saved the throne from a very serious threat. He’s half won the audience even before he speaks.”

“I thought the Queen wasn’t very popular,” she said dubiously, remembering some of the ugly remarks she had heard, both in society and among more ordinary people. Victoria had been too long absent from public life, still mourning Albert although he had been thirty years dead. She spent her time in her beloved Osbourne, on the Isle of Wight, or at Balmoral, in the Scottish Highlands. People hardly ever saw her. There were no state occasions, no pomp, no excitement or color, no sense of unity that only she could have provided.

“We still don’t want her taken from us,” Jack pointed out. “We are just as perverse in general as we are individually.” He folded his paper and set it on the table, rising to his feet. “But of course I’ll support Serracold.” He leaned forward and gave her a quick kiss on the brow. “I don’t know when I’ll be back. Probably for dinner.”

She watched him to the door, then poured herself another cup of tea and opened the newspaper again. It was then that she saw the report of Maude Lamont’s death, and the fact that the police had no doubt that it was murder. The Bow Street station was mentioned, and apparently Inspector Tellman was in charge. He had made no statement, but speculation was rife. The journalists had invented what they did not know. Who were her clients? Who had been there that night? Who had she claimed to call up from the past and what had they revealed that had ended in murder? Whose secrets were so hideous they would kill to hide them? The whisper of scandal, violence and assault was irresistible.

She read it a second time, but there was no need. She could remember every word, and all the ugly implications. And she could remember very clearly Rose Serracold’s saying that she had consulted Maude Lamont. Somehow ragged ends were coming loose in what had seemed to be a simple way ahead. Anxiety gnawed at the back of her mind over Rose, a sense of vulnerability in her, a fear that threatened to escalate and endanger her and Aubrey, and possibly even Jack. It was time Emily did something.

She went straight upstairs to the nursery to spend the morning with her small daughter, Evangeline, who as always was full of questions about everything. Her favorite word was why.

“Where’s Edward?” Evangeline sat on the floor, her face puckered into a frown. “Why isn’t he here?”

“He’s gone for a holiday with Daniel and Jemima,” Emily answered, offering Evie her favorite doll.

“Why?”

“Because we promised it to him.”

“Why?” There was no challenge in her wide eyes.

“He and Daniel are special friends.” Thinking on it now, Emily was concerned that Thomas had been prevented from going with them and at almost the same time his reinstatement to Bow Street had been unaccountably withdrawn. Charlotte had suddenly and without explanation been reluctant to take Edward, whereas before she had been more than willing. She had said something halfhearted about Thomas not being there, and hinted at there being possible unpleasantness, but she had not been specific.

“I’m special friends,” Evie said, turning the phrase over in her mind.

“Of course you are, darling. You are my special friend,” Emily assured her. “Shall we draw a picture? I’ll do this part and you can do the house, over there.”

Evie began enthusiastically, grasping the crayon in her left hand. Emily thought of changing it to the right, and decided not to.

She was concerned over Charlotte. It was going to be very difficult for her to adapt to having Pitt no longer in a senior police position. It was not exactly a job to be proud of, but it was moderately respectable. Now he did something she could barely mention, and his cases could not be discussed. Of course the money was another matter altogether, and not as good!

The thing that affected Emily the most was the inability to share in any of it herself. She had in the past helped Charlotte when she was involved in Pitt’s cases, the more colorful and dramatic of them, where people of the higher social strata were implicated. She and Charlotte had access to the withdrawing rooms of society that Pitt would never have. They had almost solved some of the more bizarre and dreadful murders themselves. Lately that had happened less and less, and Emily was beginning to realize how she missed not only Charlotte’s company, and the challenge and excitement of it, but the intrusion into her life of the passions of triumph and despair, danger, judgment, guilt and innocence which had forced her to think more deeply than the comfortable issues of politics which seemed always to do with masses and not individuals, theories and laws rather than the lives of men and women of flesh, dreams, real ability for joy or pain.

If she were to help Charlotte and Thomas again it would be a hard reminder of the urgencies of life and the realities. It would force her to test her beliefs in a way merely thinking never could. She was afraid of it, and for that very reason she also was impelled towards it. Charlotte was away somewhere in Dartmoor. Emily did not have the exact address; Thomas had been very vague. But she would go and see Rose Serracold herself and learn a great deal more about the death of this spirit medium she had been involved with—Maude Lamont.

She dressed in an outdoor costume in the latest fashion from Paris. It was shell pink with broad diagonal stripes of lavender across the skirt, and a white ruff high at the throat. The soft colors were unusual, and remarkably flattering to her.

She made all her duty calls to wives of men with whom it was important to maintain a steady, close connection. She talked about the weather, the trivial news, exchanging compliments and meaningless chatter all afternoon, knowing that the message beneath the words was what mattered.

Then she was free to pursue the questions that had been at the back of her mind since breakfast. She finally gave her coachman instructions to go to the Serracolds’ home. Received by the footman, she was shown into the sun-filled conservatory, heavy with the smell of wet earth and leaves and falling water. She found Rose sitting alone staring at the lily pool. She too was dressed as if for calling, in dramatic olive green and white lace, which with her flaxen hair and extraordinarily slender body made her look as if she were some exotic water flower herself.

But as Emily came closer and Rose looked up, Emily saw the tension in Rose stretching the silk of her gown until it hung without her usual extravagant elegance.

“Emily, I’m so pleased to see you!” she said with relief spreading across her face. “I would not have let anyone else in, I swear it!” Her expression crumpled into one of bewilderment. “Maude Lamont has been killed! I suppose you know that; it was in the newspapers. It happened two days ago . . . I was there! At least I was in the house that evening. Emily, I’ve had the police here this afternoon. I don’t know how to tell Aubrey. What am I going to say?”

This was a time for practicality, not gentleness. If she were to learn anything of value, she could not afford to allow Rose to dominate the conversation. She went straight to the first subject which really mattered. “Did Aubrey not know you were seeing a spiritualist?”

Rose shook her head fractionally, the light gleaming on the polished sheen of her hair.

“Why didn’t you tell him?”

“Because he wouldn’t have liked it!” Rose said immediately. “He doesn’t believe.”

Emily thought about it for a moment. There was a lie in it, a concealment. She was not sure what it was, but she was quite certain it had to do with Rose’s reason for going.

“He would find it a little embarrassing,” Rose explained unnecessarily, looking down at the floor, but with a very slight smile on her lips.

“But you went anyway,” Emily pointed out. “Even now, just before the election. Which means you had a reason for going that was so strong it outweighed Aubrey’s wishes, and any damage it might do him, or he would think it might. Are you really so sure of his winning?” She tried to sound sympathetic and to keep out of her voice the impatience she felt at such naive arrogance.

Rose’s eyebrows lifted suddenly. She was about to answer, then the words died on her lips. “I thought I was,” she said instead. Then her voice became urgent. “Do . . . do you think this could make any difference? I didn’t kill her! Please heaven—I needed her alive!”

Emily knew she was intruding, but there was no time for delicacy. “Why did you need her, Rose? What could she possibly give you that matters so much right now?”

“She was my contact with the other side, of course!” Rose said impatiently. “Now I have to find someone else and start all over again! There isn’t time . . .” She bit back the words, knowing she had already said too much.

“Time before what?” Emily pressed. “The election? Is it something to do with the election?” Questions as to why Thomas was still here in London crowded into her mind.

Rose’s expression was closed. “Before Aubrey wins his seat and takes up a place in Parliament,” she answered. “And I have much less privacy.”

She was still lying, or at least telling a half-truth, but Emily could not prove it. Why? Was it a political secret or a personal one? How could she find out? “The man who was here from the police, what did you tell him?” she urged.

“About the other two clients who were there that evening, of course.” Rose stood up and walked over to the bowl of peonies and delphiniums on the wrought-iron table. She poked absentmindedly at the stems, rearranging them to no advantage. “The man from Bow Street seemed to think one of them had done it.” She gave a shiver and tried to disguise it with a shrug. “He was not as I would expect a policeman to be,” she continued. “He was very quiet and polite, but he made me uncomfortable. I would like to think he wouldn’t come again, but I expect he will. Unless, of course, they find very quickly who it was. It must be the man who didn’t believe, I should think. It wouldn’t be the soldier who wished to speak to his son. He cares just as much as I do.”

Emily was confused. She had no idea what Rose was talking about, but this was not the time to admit it. “And if he found something he didn’t like?” she said softly. “What then?”

Rose stopped with a delphinium in her hand, still lifted in the air, her face pinched, eyes miserable. “Then he would be crushed,” she answered, her voice husky. “He would go away in despair . . . and . . . and try to heal himself, I suppose. I don’t know how. What does one do when . . . when you hear the unbearable?”

“Some people would retaliate,” Emily answered, watching Rose’s stiff back, the silk twisted as she stood half turned. “If nothing else, at least to make sure no one else heard the unendurable thing.” Her imagination raced, in spite of the pity she felt for Rose’s very obvious distress. Who were the men? What reason could they have had for killing the medium? What secret had Rose stumbled into?

“That’s what the policeman suggested,” Rose said after a second.

Emily knew that Tellman had been promoted now that Pitt was gone from Bow Street.

“Tellman?” she asked.

“No . . . Pitt, his name was.”

Emily breathed out slowly. Now a great deal of it made ugly and frightening sense. There was no doubt anymore that the murder of the spiritualist was a political matter, or Pitt would not have been called. Special Branch could surely not have foreseen it? Could they? Charlotte had told her little of what his new duties were, but Emily knew enough of current affairs to be well aware that Special Branch dealt only with violence, anarchy, threats to the government and the throne, and the ensuing danger to the peace of the nation.

Rose still had her back to Emily. She had seen nothing. Now Emily was torn between one loyalty and another. She had asked Jack to support Aubrey Serracold, and he had been reluctant, even though he would not admit it. Now she understood that he was right. She had taken it for granted that Jack would win his seat again, with all the opportunities and the benefits that it afforded. Maybe she had been hasty in that. There were forces she had not appreciated, or Pitt would not be bothering with one unfortunate crime of passion or fraud in Southampton Row.

One obvious thought crossed her mind. If Rose had unwittingly told this woman of some incident in her past, some indiscretion, a stupid act that would now look ugly, then the possibilities for political blackmail were only too clear. And such a woman could incite motive for murder so easily.

She stared at Rose now, at the wry, eccentric elegance of her, the passion in her face so easy to read behind the thin veneer of sophistication. She pretended she had everything, but there was some wound there, raw and easy to see, even if its nature was not.

“Why did you go to Maude Lamont?” Emily said bluntly. “You’re going to have to tell Pitt one day. He’ll go on looking until he finds out, and in the process uncover all sorts of other things you might very much rather were kept discreet.”

Rose’s eyebrows arched. “Really? You sound as if you know him. He hasn’t been investigating you, has he?” It was said mockingly, a joke to divert the attention, and with an edge of challenge in it sharp enough to make Emily respond—at least that was what was intended.

“It would be a waste of his time, and hardly necessary,” Emily said with a smile. “He’s my brother-in-law. He already knows everything about me that he wishes to.” It was momentary amusement to watch the shock in Rose’s face, the hesitation as she struggled to decide whether Emily was making fun of her or not, and then a surge of anger when she realized it was true.

“That dashed policeman is some kind of a relative of yours?” she said with disgust. “I think in the circumstances you might have mentioned it!” She made a quick little gesture of dismissal. “Although I suppose if I were related to a policeman, I wouldn’t tell anyone, either! Not that I would be!” It was said as an insult, and meant as such.

Emily felt the anger rise up inside her, hot and harsh. She rose to her feet with a retort already formed just as the door opened and Aubrey Serracold came in. His long, fair face had its usual air of wry good humor and the slight twist to his mouth as if he would smile were he certain quite when and to whom it was appropriate. His pale hair fell a little forward, lopsidedly, over his brow. As always, he was immaculately dressed, today in a black jacket and faintly striped trousers, his cravat perfectly tied. His valet probably regarded it as an art form. The chill was glaringly apparent in the positions and the stiffness of both women, the distance between them and the way they were half turned. But good manners directed that he affect not to have noticed.

“Emily, how nice to see you,” he said with such natural pleasure it was possible to believe for a moment that he was oblivious of the atmosphere. He came towards her, touching Rose on the arm in a gesture of affection as he passed her. “You are standing,” he observed to Emily. “I hope that means you have just arrived, not that you are just leaving? I am feeling a trifle bruised around the edges, like an overripe dessert peach that too many people have picked up and then decided against.” He smiled ruefully. “I had no idea how terribly tedious it would be arguing with people who are really not listening to a word you say, and have long since decided what you mean, and that it is nonsense. Have you had tea?”

He looked around for signs of a tray or any other evidence of recent refreshment. “Perhaps it’s too late. I think I’ll have a whiskey.” He reached for the bell cord to fetch the butler. A flash in his eye betrayed that he knew he was talking too much to cover the silence, but he went on anyway. “Jack did warn me that most people have already made up their minds what they believe, which will be either the same as their fathers before them—and grandfathers, too—or in a few instances the direct opposite, and that argument of any sort is so much wind in the trees. I admit I thought he was being cynical.” He shrugged. “Give him my apologies, Emily. He is a man of infinite sagacity.”

Emily forced herself to smile back at him. She disagreed with Aubrey over a score of things, mostly political, but she could not help herself from liking him, and none of this was his fault. His company was sharp, immediate and very seldom unkind. “Just experience,” she answered him. “He says people vote with their hearts, not their heads.”

“Actually, he meant their bellies.” Laughter lit Aubrey’s eyes and then vanished. “How can we ever improve the world if we think no further than tomorrow’s dinner?” He glanced at Rose, but she remained grimly silent, still half turned away from Emily as if refusing to acknowledge her presence anymore.

“Well, if we don’t have tomorrow’s dinner we won’t survive into this wonderful future,” Emily pointed out. “Nor our children,” she added more soberly.

“Indeed,” Aubrey said quietly. Suddenly all levity vanished. They were talking about things for which they all cared intensely. Only Rose stood still rigid, her inner fear not swept away.

“More justice would bring more food, Emily,” Aubrey said with passionate gravity. “But men hunger for vision as well as bread. People need to believe in themselves, that what they do is better than simply toil in return for enough to survive, and barely that for many.”

In her heart Emily wanted to agree with him, but her brain told her he was dreaming too far ahead. It was bright, even beautiful. It was also impractical.

She glanced at Rose and saw the softness in her eyes, the tenderness in her mouth and how very pale she was. Emily could smell lilies and steam rising from the watered earth and feel the heat of the sunlight on the stone floor, but she could sense fear as if it overrode all else. Knowing how fiercely Rose shared Aubrey’s beliefs, perhaps was even ahead of them, Emily wondered what did Rose need to know so much that she would now seek another spirit medium, even after what had happened to Maude Lamont?

And what had happened to Maude Lamont? Had she tried political blackmail one time too many, one secret too dangerous? Or was it a domestic tragedy, a lover betrayed, a jealousy over some man’s attention stolen or misdirected? Had she promised to relay a command from the next world, perhaps about money, and then reneged on it? There were a hundred possibilities. It did not have to have anything to do with Rose—except that Thomas was there not from Bow Street but from Special Branch!

Could the unknown man have been some politician, a lover, or wished to be? Perhaps he had conceived a passion for her which she had rejected, and in his humiliation he had turned on her and killed her?

Surely, Pitt would have thought of that, wouldn’t he?

She looked across at Aubrey now. His expression seemed at a glance to be earnest, but the ghost of humor always hovered in his eyes, as if he could see some enormous comic joke and knew himself a bit player, no more or less important than anyone else, no matter how intensely he might feel. Perhaps that was the greatest reason she liked him.

Rose was still half turned away. She had been listening to Aubrey, but the rigidity of her shoulders made it clear she had not forgotten her quarrel with Emily; she hid it because she would not explain it to him.

Emily gave her light, warm, social smile and said how nice it was to see them both. She wished Aubrey success and reaffirmed her support for him, and Jack’s also, even though she was less certain of it, and then took her leave. Rose went as far as the hall with her. She was polite, her voice cheerful, her eyes cold.

On the ride home, sitting in her carriage as it fought its way through the crush of hansoms, coaches, landaus and a dozen other kinds of vehicles, Emily wondered what she should tell Pitt, or if she should speak to him at all. Rose expected her to, and that in itself made her angry, as if she had deceived already, at least in intent. It was untrue, and unfair.

And yet she did instinctively think to tell Pitt all that might be of use to him, all that would explain what had happened, as much for Rose’s own sake as anyone else’s!

No it wasn’t. It was for truth, and for Jack. As she sat and puzzled over the medium’s death it was Jack’s face that was in her mind all the time, his presence with her as if he were at her shoulder, barely out of sight. She liked Aubrey, she wanted him to win, not only for the good he could do, but intensely, for himself. But it was the fear that he would drag Jack down which drove her to pursue the truth.

She had never seriously considered before that Jack might lose. She had thought only of the opportunities ahead, the privileges and the pleasures. Now she realized with a chill as the carriage lurched forward again, and the shouting of irate drivers cut the warm air, that if he lost there would be a bitter change to get used to, just as harsh as that which Charlotte faced now. Invitations would be different, parties immeasurably more tedious. How would she go back to the idleness of society after the thrill in the blood of politics, the heady dream of power? And sharp and very real, how could she hide her own humiliation that she no longer had anything worthwhile to do?

The resolve that Jack must win tightened in her. She was perfectly aware of her own motives, and it made no difference what-ever. Reason did not touch emotion any more than sunlight touches the deep-sea currents. She must do all that was within her ability to help.

She needed someone else to talk to. Charlotte was in Dartmoor; she did not even know precisely where. Her mother, Caroline, was on tour with her second husband, Joshua, an actor presently playing the lead in one of Mr. Wilde’s plays in Liverpool.

But even had they been at home, her first choice for confidante would have been Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould, a great-aunt of her first husband who had remained one of her dearest friends. Therefore she now leaned forward and commanded her coachman to take her to Vespasia’s house, even though she had never written or left a card, which was a complete break of etiquette. But then Vespasia had never allowed rules to prevent her from doing what she believed to be right, and would almost certainly forgive Emily for doing the same.

Emily was fortunate in that Vespasia was in and had half an hour since said good-bye to her last visitor.

“My dear Emily, what a pleasure to see you,” Vespasia said without rising from her seat by the window of the sitting room. It was all pale colors and full of sunlight. “The more especially at this extraordinary hour,” she added, “since it must be something of great interest or urgency which brings you. Do sit down and tell me what it is.” She waved impassively at the chair opposite her own, and then regarded Emily’s costume with a critical eye. She was stiff-backed, silver-haired, and still had the marvelous eyes and bones which had made her the greatest beauty of her generation. She had never followed fashion, she had always led it. “Very becoming,” she gave her approval. “You have been calling upon someone you wish to impress . . . a woman who takes her clothes very seriously, I imagine.”

Emily smiled with a sharp sense of pleasure, and relief at being in the company of someone she liked without shadow or equivocation. “Yes,” she agreed. “Rose Serracold. Do you know of her?” Vespasia would not be socially acquainted with Rose, since there were the best part of two generations, a gulf of social status, and a considerable degree of wealth, even though Aubrey was more than comfortable, between them. Emily had no idea whether Vespasia would approve of Rose’s political opinions. Vespasia could be very extreme herself on occasions, and had fought like a tigress for the reforms in which she believed. But she was also a realist, and fiercely practical. She could very easily see the Socialist ideals as ill-based in the realities of human nature.

“And what in Mrs. Serracold’s visit brought you here, rather than home to change for dinner?” Vespasia asked. “Is she related to Aubrey Serracold, who is standing for Lambeth South, and according to the newspapers has expressed some rather foolish ideals?”

“Yes, she is his wife.”

“Emily, I am not a dentist to be extracting information from you, like teeth!”

“I’m sorry,” Emily said contritely. “It all seems so absurd now I come to put it into words.”

“Many things do,” Vespasia observed. “That does not mean they are not real. Is it to do with Thomas?” There was a sharp note of concern in her voice, and her eyes were shadowed.

“Yes . . . and no,” Emily said quietly. Suddenly it was not ridiculous at all. If Vespasia were afraid, too, then the cause of it was real. “Thomas and Charlotte were going on holiday to Dartmoor, but Thomas’s leave was canceled—”

“By whom?” Vespasia interrupted.

Emily swallowed. With a jolt of pain and embarrassment she realized Thomas had not told Vespasia of his dismissal from Bow Street the second time. But she would have to know. Silence was only delaying what was inevitable. “By Special Branch,” she said huskily, her voice choked with anger, and now fear as well. She saw the surprise, and then the hardening in Vespasia’s face. “He was dismissed from Bow Street again,” she went on. “Charlotte told me when she came to pick up Edward to take him with her to Dartmoor. Pitt had been sent back to Special Branch, and his leave rescinded.”

Vespasia nodded so fractionally it was barely visible. “Charles Voisey is standing for Parliament. He is head of the Inner Circle.” She did not bother to explain any further. She must have seen in Emily’s face that she understood the enormity of it.

“Oh God!” Emily said involuntarily. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, my dear, I am perfectly sure.”

“And . . . Thomas knows it!”

“Yes. That will be why Victor Narraway has canceled his leave and no doubt ordered him to do all he can to block Voisey’s path, although I doubt he will be able to. Only once has anyone ever beaten Voisey before.”

“Who was that?” Hope flowed up inside Emily, making her heart pound in her chest.

Vespasia smiled. “A friend of mine named Mario Corena, but it cost him his life. And he had a little assistance from Thomas and myself. Mario is beyond Voisey’s reach, but Voisey will not have forgiven Thomas, and perhaps not me, either. I think it would be wise, my dear, if you did not write to Charlotte while she is away.”

“Is the danger really so . . .” Emily found her mouth dry, her lips stiff.

“Not as long as he does not know where she is.”

“But she cannot stay in Dartmoor forever!”

“Of course not,” Vespasia agreed. “But by the time she returns the election will be over, and perhaps we will have found a way to tie Voisey’s hands.”

“He won’t win, will he? It’s a safe Liberal seat,” Emily protested. “Why is he fighting for that, and not for a Tory seat? It doesn’t make sense.”

“You are wrong,” Vespasia said very quietly. “It is simply sense that we have not yet understood. Everything Voisey does makes sense. I don’t know how he will defeat the Liberal candidate, but I believe he will.”

Emily was cold in spite of the sun pouring through the windows into the quiet room. “The Liberal candidate is a friend of mine. I came because of his wife. She was one of the last clients of Maude Lamont, the spirit medium who was murdered in Southampton Row. She was there that night. Thomas is investigating it, and I think I may know something.”

“Then you must tell him.” There was no hesitation in Vespasia’s voice, no doubt at all.

“But Rose is my friend, and I learned those things only because she trusted me. If I betray a friend, what have I left?”

This time Vespasia did not answer straightaway.

Emily waited.

“If you have to choose between friends,” Vespasia said at last, “and both Rose and Thomas are such, then you must choose neither, but follow your own conscience. You cannot place one set of obligations or loyalties before another with regard to people, their closeness to you, the depth of their hurt, their innocence or their vulnerability, or the degree of their trust in you. You must do what your own conscience dictates to be right. Serve your own truth.”

She had not said so, but Emily had no doubt in her mind that Vespasia meant that she should tell Thomas all she knew.

“Yes,” she said aloud. “Perhaps I knew that, it was just hard to acknowledge it, because then I have to do it.”

“Do you believe Rose may have killed this woman?”

“I don’t know. I suppose I do.”

They sat without speaking for several minutes, then finally discussed other things: Jack’s campaign, Mr. Gladstone and Lord Salisbury, the extraordinary phenomenon of Keir Hardie and the possibility that one day he might actually succeed in reaching Parliament. Then Emily thanked Vespasia again, kissed her lightly on the cheek, and bade her good-bye.

She reached home and went upstairs to change into a suitable gown for dinner, even though she was not going out. She was in her own sitting room when Jack came in. His face was tired and there was a pale film of dust around the bottoms of his trousers, as if he had walked outside on the pavements for some distance.

She stood up to greet him with unaccustomed haste, as if he brought news, although she did not expect anything but the trivia of the campaign, much of which she could gain from the daily papers, had she considered it of sufficient importance.

“How is it progressing?” she asked him, searching his eyes, which were wide and gray with the remarkable lashes she had always admired. She saw in them pleasure at the sight of her, a warmth she had long known and held so dear it still startled her. But too close beneath it for safety she saw anxiety, deeper than before. She said quickly, “What’s happened?”

He was reluctant to answer. The words did not come readily to him, and usually they did so easily; that in itself chilled her.

“Aubrey?” she whispered, thinking of Vespasia’s warning. “He might lose, mightn’t he? Are you going to care very much?”

He smiled, but it was deliberate, a gesture to reassure her. “I like him,” he said honestly, sitting down in the chair opposite her, relaxing with his legs out. “And I think with a little more practicality he’d be a fine member. Anyway, we need a few dreamers.” He gave a slight shrug. “It would balance out the journeymen who want office only for what it can profit them.”

She knew he was hiding the real hurt it would be if Aubrey failed. It was Jack who had encouraged him in the beginning, even opened up much of the pathway for his nomination, and supported him after it. He had made it seem casual, as he did so many things, still keeping that instinctive manner of a man who took things lightly, who dabbled more than he worked, to whom nothing mattered so much as comfort, popularity, good food and good wine, and graciousness around him. He had always appreciated beauty and to flirt was as natural to him as drawing breath. The finality of marriage to a woman who would never turn the other way, or refuse to see what was uncomfortable to her, was the hardest decision he had ever made, and at times he also knew it was the best.

Emily had been careful never to tell him that she was very adept at seeing only what was prudent. She had done it with her first husband, George Ashworth, and when she had thought he had betrayed her, not simply physically but with love of the heart, it had wounded her more deeply than all her sophistication had led her to expect. She had no intention of allowing Jack to think he could do the same. She knew the strength in him and the hunger for a purpose as consuming as that which drove Pitt. It was the fear he would not match up to it which made him appear to treat it so lightly. She realized now with a startling pain that she would do anything in her power to protect him from failure.

“Rose was at the house of the spirit medium the night she was murdered,” she said guardedly. “Thomas went to question her. She’s terrified, Jack!”

His face darkened. This time he could not hide the tension tightening inside him. He straightened up in the chair, the ease gone. “Thomas! Why Thomas? He’s not in Bow Street anymore.”

It was not the response she had expected, but now that she heard it, it was the one she feared. The rest, the questions, the criticism for lack of thought, for selfishness, would come later.

“Emily?” His voice was harsher, afraid she knew something she was not telling him, and for once she did not.

“I don’t know!” she said, meeting his eyes squarely. “Charlotte won’t tell me. I have to suppose it’s political, otherwise Thomas wouldn’t be there.”

Jack put his hands up over his face, then ran his fingers through his hair, blinking slowly.

Emily waited, her throat tight. Rose was hiding something. Could it hurt Aubrey, and through Aubrey—Jack? She stared at him, afraid to prompt.

He looked paler, even more tired. It was as if the bloom of youth had gone from him and suddenly she saw how he might look in ten, even twenty, years’ time.

He stood up, turning away from her, and took a step or two towards the window. “Davenport advised me today to distance myself a little from Aubrey, for my own good,” he said very quietly.

She could hear the silence as if it were tangible. The evening light outside was golden on the trees. “And what did you say?” she asked. She would hate either answer. If he had refused then his name would continue to be linked with Aubrey Serracold, and of course Rose. If Aubrey remained as extreme as he seemed at the moment, if he said more and more what was idealistic but naive, then his opponent would capitalize on it and make him appear an extremist who would at best be useless, at worst a danger. And Jack would be tarred with the same brush, dragged down by association, ideas and principles he could never be charged with so he could refute them, but by which he would be judged just the same, and just as fatally.

And if Rose were in any way involved in the medium’s death, then that would damage them all also, never mind what the truth of it was. People would remember only that she was part of it.

Yet if Jack had agreed to Davenport’s suggestion and already stepped aside, to save himself, leaving Aubrey to fight alone, what would she think of that? There was a price at which safety cost too much; and loyalty was part of it. Maybe that was even true politically? If you abandoned your friends so easily, on whom could you count when you needed them yourself? And one day you would!

She looked at his broad shoulders, his perfectly tailored coat, the back of his head so familiar she knew every curl of his hair, the way it grew in the nape of his neck, and she realized how little she was certain of what he thought. What would he do to save his seat, if the temptation arose? For a blinding moment she envied Charlotte because she had seen Pitt face so many decisions that drove him to the end of his self-knowledge, his compassion and judgment. She knew already what lay beyond the tested, because it was the pattern of his nature. Jack was charming and funny, gentle with her, and as far as she knew, loyal. He certainly had an honesty she admired, and resolution in a cause. But beyond that—when faced with real loss, what then?

“What did you say to him?” she repeated.

“I told him I can’t abandon anyone without a reason,” he replied with an edge to his voice. “I think there may be one, but by the time I know it, it will be too late.” He looked back at her. “Why in God’s name did she go to a medium now? She isn’t a fool! She must know what interpretation people will put in it.” He groaned. “I can imagine the cartoons! And knowing Aubrey, he might well tell her privately that she’s irresponsible and he’s furious with her, but he’ll not do it in public, even by implication. No matter what it costs him he’ll be seen to defend her.” He turned back to her. “For that matter, why did she go to a medium at all? I can understand a public entertainment—hundreds of people go—but a private séance?”

“I don’t know! I asked her, and she lost her temper with me.” She dropped her voice. “Whatever it is, it’s not entertainment, Jack. It’s not lighthearted. I think she’s trying to find out something and it terrifies her.”

His eyes widened. “From a spirit medium? Has she taken leave of her senses?”

“Possibly.”

He stood still. “You mean that?”

“I don’t know what I mean,” she said impatiently. “We’ve only a few days to go before they begin voting. Every day’s newspaper matters. There’s no time to correct mistakes and win people over again.”

“I know.” He moved back towards her, putting an arm around her lightly, but she could feel an anger inside him, wound up and aching to burst out, but with no direction in which to strike.

After a few more minutes he excused himself and went upstairs to change, then returned within half an hour and dinner was served. They sat at opposite sides of the table rather than at the ends. The light glittered on the cutlery and glass, and beyond the long windows the fading sun still glinted gold on the windows of the houses opposite.

The footman removed the plates and brought the next course.

“Will you hate it if I lose?” Jack said suddenly.

She stopped with her fork in the air. She swallowed hard, as if there were an obstruction in her throat. “Do you think you might? Is that what Davenport says will happen if you won’t abandon Aubrey?”

“I don’t know,” he said frankly. “I’m not sure if I’m prepared to pay the price in friendship that power costs. I resent being placed where I have to choose. I resent the hypocrisy of it, the cutting and trimming until you’ve paid so much you hang on to your prize because you’ve given up everything else in order to get it. Where is the point at which you say ‘I won’t do it—I’ll let it all go rather than pay this one thing more?’ ” He looked at her as if he expected an answer.

“When you have to say something you don’t believe,” she offered.

He gave a sharp laugh, bitter-edged. “And am I going to be honest enough with myself to know when that is? Am I going to look at what I don’t want to see?”

She said nothing.

“What about silence?” he went on, his voice rising, his plate forgotten. “What about compromised abstention? Judicious blindness? Passing by on the other side? Or perhaps Pilate washing his hands would be the right image?”

“Aubrey Serracold is not Christ,” Emily pointed out.

“My own honor is the point,” he said sharply. “What do I have to become to win office? And then what to keep it? If it weren’t Aubrey, would it be someone else, or something?” He looked at her challengingly, as if he wanted an answer from her.

“And what if Rose did kill this woman?” she asked. “And if Thomas finds out?”

He said nothing. He looked so wretched for an instant she wished she had not spoken, but the question beat at her mind, echoing all the other things it brought with it. How much should she tell Thomas, and when? Should she make more effort to find out herself? Above all, how could she protect Jack? What was the greatest danger, loyalty to a damaged cause and the risk to his own seat? Or disloyalty and an office perhaps bought at the cost of part of himself? Did he owe it to anyone to go down with him?

Suddenly she was overwhelmingly angry that Charlotte was in some country cottage in Dartmoor with nothing to do but domestic chores, simple, physical things, no decisions to make, and where Emily could not ask her opinion and share all this with her.

But had Aubrey any idea of what was really going on? She saw his face sharp and clear in her mind with its quizzical innocence, the feeling she had that he was so open to pain.

It was not her job to protect him! It was Rose’s, and why was she not doing it instead of going on some wild pursuit of voices from the dead? What could she possibly need to know that mattered a damn now?

“Warn him!” she said aloud.

Jack was startled. “About Rose? Doesn’t he know?”

“I don’t know! No . . . how can I tell? Who ever knows what really happens between two people? I meant warn him about the political realities. Tell him you can’t support him if he goes too far with his socialism.”

His face tightened. “I tried to. I don’t think he believed me. He hears what he wants to—“ He was interrupted by the butler coming in discreetly. “What is it, Morton?” Jack asked with a frown.

Morton was standing very straight, his face grave. “Mr. Gladstone would like to see you, sir. He is at the gentlemen’s club in Pall Mall. I have taken the liberty of sending Albert for the carriage. I hope I did the right thing.” That was not really a question. Morton was an ardent admirer of the Grand Old Man, and the thought of not obeying such a summons instantly was inconceivable to him.

Emily saw Jack stiffen, the muscles in his neck pull taut and the silent intake of breath. Was this the warning about Aubrey from the Liberal Party leader . . . already? Or worse—was it an offer of higher office of real power after the election if Gladstone won? Suddenly she knew that was what she was really afraid of. She felt sick to realize it. Gladstone might be going to offer Jack the chance to achieve what so far he had only cherished in his mind as a dream. But at what price?

Even if that was not what Gladstone wanted at all, she had still feared that Jack could be tempted, misled. Why did she not trust him to see the snare before it closed? Was it his skill she doubted? Or his strength to see the prize in his grasp and turn away from it? Would he rationalize, justify? Wasn’t that what politics was all about—the art of the possible?

She had once been the ultimate pragmatist herself. Why was this any different? How had she changed from the brittle, ambitious young woman she used to be? Even as she asked, she knew that the answer had to do with the tragedies, the weakness and the victims of the spirit she had seen in some of the cases Thomas had worked on, and on which she and Charlotte had helped. She had seen ambition bent to evil, the blindness of a vision confuse the ends and the means. It was not as easy as it had once looked. Even those who meant only to do good could so easily be beguiled.

Jack kissed her gently and went to the door, wishing her good-night. He knew he could not say when he would be back. She nodded, agreeing not to wait up for him, knowing that she would. What point was there in trying to sleep while she did not know what Gladstone wanted . . . and how Jack had answered him?

She heard his footsteps cross the hall and the front door open and close.

The footman asked her if she wished to be served the rest of the meal. He had to repeat it before she declined.

“Apologize to Cook for me,” she said. “I cannot eat until I know what news there is.” She wanted to be civil but not explain herself. She had long ago learned a little courtesy could be returned tenfold.

She decided to wait in the withdrawing room. She had brought a copy of Nada the Lily, the very latest book by H. Rider Haggard. It was lying on the table where she had left it nearly a week ago. Perhaps if she read it, it would absorb her attention and the time would pass less painfully.

In snatches it did. For half an hour she would be caught in the passions and the pain of life in Zulu Africa, then her own fear resurfaced and she rose to her feet and paced up and down, her mind darting from one thing to another, nothing resolved. What was the funny, brave Rose Serracold so determined to know that she pursued the services of a spiritualist, even to destruction? She was obviously afraid. Was it for herself, or Aubrey, or someone else? Why could it not wait until after the election? Was she so sure Aubrey would win that she believed she could not find it after that? Or would it then be too late?

It was easier to think of that than to worry about Jack, and why Gladstone had sent for him.

She sat down and opened the book again, and read the same page twice, and still knew nothing of the sense of it.

She must have looked at the clock two dozen times before at last she heard the front door close and Jack’s familiar footsteps cross the hall. She picked up her book, so that he should see her lay it aside as he came into the room. She smiled up at him.

“Would you like Morton to fetch you something?” she asked, half stretching her hand towards the bell. “How was the meeting?”

He hesitated for a moment, then he smiled. “Thank you for waiting up.”

She blinked, feeling the color warm in her cheeks.

His smile widened; it was the same charm, the slight annoyance mixed with laughter, that she had loved in him in the beginning, even when she had thought him trivial, no more than entertaining.

“I’m not waiting up for you!” she retorted, trying not to let her lips answer the smile, and knowing it was in her eyes. “I’m waiting to hear what Mr. Gladstone had to say. I have a lively interest in politics.”

“Then I suppose I had better tell you,” he conceded with a sweep of generosity, waving his hand in the air. He turned on his heel and strode back to the door. Then suddenly his body altered, not exactly bending, but lowering one shoulder a trifle forward as if he were, very reluctantly, leaning on a stick. He peered towards her, blinking a little. “The Grand Old Man was very civil to me,” he said conversationally. “‘Mr. Radley, isn’t it?’ Although he knew perfectly well it was. He had sent for me. Who else would dare come?” He blinked again and put his hand to his ear, as if listening carefully for her reply, making the effort to catch every word. “‘I shall be happy to assist you, Mr. Radley, in any way that I can. Your good efforts have not gone unnoticed.’ ” In spite of himself there was a touch of pride in his voice, a lift that cut across the mimicry of age.

“Go on!” Emily said impatiently. “What did you say?”

“I thanked him, of course!”

“But did you accept? Don’t you dare say you didn’t!”

A shadow crossed his eyes and then was gone again. “Of course I accepted! Even if he doesn’t actually help me at all, it would be discourteous, and very foolish, not to allow him to believe he has.”

“Jack! What will he do?” The surprise was sharp inside her. “You won’t let . . .”

He cut across her, aping Gladstone again. He straightened his already immaculate shirtfront and narrow bow tie, then fixing an imaginary pince-nez on his nose he stared at her unblinkingly. He held his right hand up, in a fist almost closed, but as if arthritis prevented him from tightening the swollen joints. “‘We must win!’ “ he said fervently. “‘In all my sixty years in public office, there has never been more to fight for.’ ” He coughed, cleared his throat and continued, even more magnificently. “‘Let us go forward in the good work we have to hand, and let us put our trust not in squires and peers . . .’ ” He stopped. “You are supposed to cheer!” he told Emily sharply. “How can I continue if you don’t play your part properly? You are a public meeting. Behave like one!”

“I thought it was only you there,” she said quickly, disappointment leaping inside her although she tried to hide it from him. Why had she hoped so much? It was startling how sharply it mattered after all.

“I was!” he agreed, adjusting the imaginary eyeglasses again and peering at her. “Everyone Mr. Gladstone addresses is a public meeting. You are simply a meeting of one.”

“Jack!” she said with a slight giggle.

“’And not in titles or acres,’ ” he added, pulling his shoulders back, then wincing as if the stiffness of joints had caught him again. “‘I will go further, and say not in men, as such, but in Almighty God, who is the God of justice, and who has ordained the principles of right, of equity and of freedom to be the guides and the masters of our lives.’ ” He frowned, drawing his brows together. “‘Which means, of course, that His first priority is Home Rule for Ireland, and if we don’t grant it immediately we shall all be stricken with the seven deadly plagues of Toryism—or maybe it’s Socialism?’ ”

She started to laugh in spite of herself, the anxiety slipping away like a discarded overcoat now that she was in the warmth. “He didn’t say that!”

He grinned at her. “Well, not exactly. But he has said it in the past. What he actually said was that we must win the election because if we don’t get Home Rule for Ireland into law then the bloodshed and the loss will follow us down the ages. Everything else we want: a fair working week in all jobs, to prevent at all costs Lord Salisbury’s proposed plans for a closer alliance with the court of Rome . . .”

“The court of Rome?” she said in confusion.

“The Pope!” he explained. “Mr. Gladstone is a staunch supporter of the Kirk, for all that they are rapidly failing more and more to return the favor.”

She was startled. She had always visualized Gladstone as the epitome of religious rectitude. He was known for his evangelism, and in his younger years for attempting to reform women of the streets, and his wife had given food and assistance to many. “I thought . . .” she began, and then tailed off. The reasons were not important. “He is going to win, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” he said gently, his body returning into its natural grace. “People laugh at him sometimes, and his political enemies harp on his age . . .”

“How old is he?”

“Eighty-three. But he still has the passion and the energy to go around the country campaigning, and he’s the best speaker in front of a crowd that we’ve ever had. I listened to him a couple of days ago. They cheered him to the echo. There were people who brought their tiny children carried on their shoulders, just so they could tell them one day that they actually saw Gladstone.” Almost unconsciously he put his hand up to his eye. “And there are those who hate him as well. A woman in Chester threw a piece of gingerbread at him. I’m glad she’s not my cook! It was so hard it actually injured him. It was his better eye, too. But it hasn’t slowed him. He’s still planning to go up to Scotland and campaign for his own seat . . . and help everyone else he can.” There was admiration in his voice, half reluctant. “But he won’t give in on the working week! Home Rule before everything.”

“Is there any chance of it?”

He gave a little grunt. “None.”

“You didn’t argue with him, did you, Jack?”

He glanced away from her. “No. But it will cost us dearly. This is an election every man wants to win, and neither party. The burdens are too great, and issues we can’t succeed in.”

She was momentarily puzzled. “You mean they’d rather be in opposition?”

He shrugged. “The Parliament won’t last long. It’s all to play for next time. And that could be very soon . . . even within the year.”

She caught an edge in his voice, something he was not saying.

He turned away and looked towards the fireplace, staring at the painting over the mantel as if seeing through it. “Someone invited me to join the Inner Circle this evening.”

She froze. Like settling ice she remembered what Vespasia had said, and the clashes Pitt had had with the invisible force of secrecy, the power that had no accountability because no one knew who it was. It was they who had cost Pitt his job in Bow Street and sent him almost fugitive into the alleys of Whitechapel. That he had emerged with a desperately hard-won victory, bought with the price of blood, had earned their unrelenting enmity.

“You can’t!” she said aloud, her voice harsh with fear.

“I know,” he answered, keeping his back to her. The lamplight shone on the black cloth of his jacket, stretching the weave with the tension in his shoulders. Why did he not face her? Why did he not dismiss it with the same anger she felt? For a moment she was not even sure if she had said no again, but she did not move, and the silence in the room was unbroken.

“Jack?” It was almost a whisper.

“Of course.” He turned slowly, making himself smile. “It all comes at a high price, doesn’t it? The power to do anything useful, make any real changes, the friendship of those you care about, and integrity to yourself. Without the right influence you can play at the edges of politics all your life and not realize until the end, and maybe not even then, that you haven’t actually changed a thing, because the real power has eluded you. It was always in the hands of someone else . . .”

“Someone anonymous,” she said very quietly. “Someone who is not what or who you think they are, whose reasons you don’t know or understand, who may be the reality behind faces you think are innocent, you think are your friends.” She stood up. “You can’t make bargains with the devil!”

“I’m not sure you can make political bargains with anyone,” he said ruefully, putting one hand on her shoulder and running it lightly down her arm so she could feel it through the silk of her gown. “I think politics is about judgment as to what is possible and what isn’t, and having the skill to see as far as you can where each road leads.”

“Well, the Inner Circle road leads to giving up your right to act for yourself,” she answered.

“Power in government is not about acting for yourself.” He kissed her softly and she stiffened for a moment, then pulled away and stared at him. “It’s about achieving some real good in making things better for the people who trust you, who elected you,” he went on. “That is what honor is—keeping your promises, acting for those who have not the power to do so themselves . . . not for posturing, feeling comfortable or indulging your own conscience.”

She looked down, uncertain what to say. She did not know how to put her feelings into words, even to herself, an argument that would make clear the path between helplessness on one hand, and compromise on the other. No one gained anything without a price. How high a price was acceptable? How high was necessary?

“Emily?” he said, a lift of alarm in his voice. It was very slight, but the laughter was false now, a mask. “I refused!”

“I know,” she answered, shivering, uncertain he would refuse next time, when the persuasion was stronger, the arguments more passionate, more tilted, the prize greater. And she was ashamed that she was afraid. Had it been Pitt she would not have been. But then Pitt had tasted their power himself, and felt the wounds.