Anne Perry: Southampton Row

“Mr. Gladstone’s going to lose it,” Voisey replied. “A piece at a time! First Ireland, then maybe Scotland and Wales. Who knows what after that-India, perhaps? No more hemp and jute, no more mahogany and rubber from Burma. Then Africa, Egypt, a piece at a time. If he can lose Ireland on his own doorstep, why not everywhere?”

There was a sudden silence, then a loud laugh, but there was no humor in it, instead there was a sharp undercurrent of doubt, perhaps even fear.

Pitt glanced around at the men closest to him. Every one of them was facing Voisey.

“We have to have trade,” Voisey went on, but now he had no need to shout. He pitched his voice to the back of the crowd, and it was sufficient. “We need the rule of law, and we need mastery of the seas. In order to share our wealth more fairly, we must first assure that we have it!”

There was a murmur that sounded like agreement.

“Do what you do well, no one on earth better!” Voisey’s tone held a ring of praise, even triumph. “And choose freely to represent you men who know how to make and keep the laws at home, and deal honorably and profitably with the other nations of the earth to preserve and add to what you have. Don’t elect old men who think they speak for God, but in truth only speak for the past, men who carry out their own wishes and don’t listen to yours.”

Now there was another roar from the crowd, but in many quarters it actually sounded like a cheer to Pitt’s ears.

Voisey did not keep them much longer. He knew they were tired and hungry and tomorrow morning would come all too soon. He had enough sense to stop while they were still interested, and more than that, while there was still time to get a good dinner and a couple of hours at the public house to take a few pints of ale and talk it all over.

He told them a swift joke, and another, and left them laughing as he walked back to his hansom and rode away.

Pitt was stiff from standing still, and cold inside with bitter admiration for the way Voisey had turned a crowd from hostile strangers into men who would remember his name, remember that he had not betrayed them or made false promises, that he had not assumed they would like him, and that he had made them laugh. They would not forget what he had said about losing the Empire that provided their work. It might make their employers rich, but the truth was that if their employers were poor, then they were even poorer. It might or might not be unjust, but many men there were realist enough to know that it was the way things were.

Pitt waited until Voisey had been out of sight for several minutes, then he walked across the dusty cobbles into the shade of the factory walls and along a narrow alley back towards the main road. Voisey had shown at least some of his tactics, but he had revealed no vulnerability at all. Aubrey Serracold was going to have to be more than charming and honest to equal him.

It was early yet to go home, especially to an empty house. He had a good book to read, but the silence would disturb him. Even the thought of it held a loneliness. There must be something else he could do which might be useful, perhaps more he could learn from Jack Radley? Maybe Emily could tell him something about Serracold’s wife? She was acutely observant and a realist in the ploys of power far more than Charlotte. She might have seen a weakness in Voisey, where a man, with his mind more on political policies and less on the person, might have missed it.

He leaned forward and redirected the driver of his hansom.

But when he arrived the butler told him with profound apologies that Mr. and Mrs. Radley were out at a dinner party and could not reasonably be expected home before one in the morning at the earliest.

Pitt thanked him and declined the offer to wait, as the butler had known he would. He returned to the cab, and told the driver to take him instead to Cornwallis’s flat in Piccadilly.

A manservant answered the door and without question conducted him through to Cornwallis’s small sitting room. It was furnished in the elegant but spare style of a captain’s cabin at sea, full of books, polished brass and dark, gleaming wood. Above the mantel shelf there was a painting of a square-rigged brigantine running before a gale.

“Mr. Pitt, sir,” the manservant announced.

Cornwallis dropped his book and rose to his feet in surprise and some alarm. “Pitt? What is it? What’s happened? Why are you not on Dartmoor?”

Pitt did not answer.

Cornwallis glanced at the manservant, then back at Pitt. “Have you eaten?” he asked.

Pitt was startled to realize that he had had nothing since the pie in the tavern near the factory. “No. . not for a while.” He sank down in the chair opposite Cornwallis’s. “Bread and cheese would be fine. . or cake if you have it.” He missed Gracie’s baking already, and the tins at home were empty. She had made nothing, expecting them all to be away.

“Bring Mr. Pitt bread and cheese,” Cornwallis directed. “And cider, and a slice of cake.” He looked back at Pitt. “Or would you prefer tea?”

“Cider is excellent,” Pitt replied, easing himself into the softness of the chair.

The manservant departed, closing the door behind him.

“Well?” Cornwallis demanded, resuming his own seat and the frown returning to his face. He was not handsome but there was a strength and a symmetry in his features which pleased one the longer one looked at him. When he moved it was with the grace and balance of his long years at sea, when he had had only the quarterdeck in which to pace.

“Something has arisen in connection with one of the parliamentary seats which Narraway wishes me to. . to watch.” He saw the flash of anger in Cornwallis’s face, and knew it was because he saw injustice in Narraway’s not honoring Bow Street’s commitment to Pitt’s leave. It added to the outrage of the entire dismissal of Pitt’s reposting to suit the vengeance of the Inner Circle. All the old presumptions and certainties were gone, for both of them.

But Cornwallis did not probe. He was accustomed to the solitary life of a captain at sea who must listen to his officers but share only practicalities with them, not explain himself or indulge in emotions. He must always remain apart, maintain as much as possible of the fiction that he was never afraid, never lonely, never in doubt. It was the discipline of a lifetime and he could not now breach it. It had become part of his personality and he was no longer aware of it as a separate decision.

The manservant returned with the bread, cheese, cider and cake, for which Pitt thanked him. “You are welcome, sir.” He bowed and withdrew.

“What do you know of Charles Voisey?” Pitt asked as he spread the crusty bread with butter and cut off a heavy slice of pale, rich Caerphilly cheese and felt it crumble beneath the knife. He bit into it hungrily. It was sharp and creamy in his mouth.

Cornwallis’s lips tightened, but he did not ask why Pitt wanted to know. “Only what is public information,” he replied. “Harrow and Oxford, then called to the bar. Was a brilliant lawyer who made a good deal of money, but of more value in the long run, a great many friends in the places that count, and I don’t doubt a few enemies as well. Elevated to the bench, and then very quickly to the Court of Appeal. He knows how to take chances and appear courageous, and yet never slip badly enough to fall.”

Pitt had heard all this before, but it still concentrated his mind to have it put so succinctly.

“He is a man of intense pride,” Cornwallis continued. “But in day-to-day life he has the skill to conceal it, or at least make it appear as something less offensive.”

“Less vulnerable,” Pitt said instantly.

Cornwallis did not miss the meaning. “You are looking for a weakness?”