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.”