Southampton Row (5 page)

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.