“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.