Southampton Row (17 page)

“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.