Southampton Row

by Anne Perry

  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 o
beying 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 evange
lism, 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.”