With that, Rosebery finished his pacing up and down. He bowed slightly to Lady Lucy as if he were a European rather than an Englishman and resumed his position seated opposite her.
‘I shall think of what you said, Lord Rosebery, of course I shall. I shall think of it very seriously.’ Lady Lucy was grave in her reply. ‘You have, for most of the time, used male arguments against me. Only at the end did you find a tone that might appeal to a wife and mother. You see, Lord Rosebery, you can see, you can almost touch, all those treaties and pacts, great long documents drawn up by one country’s lawyers and criticized by another’s. These are real to you in a way they are not to me. I see two-year-old twins without a father, fated never to see Francis again. I see myself – when he was nearly dead in that house in Manchester Square I saw this all the time – at his funeral, holding the hands of Thomas and Olivia, both of them crying till you would think their hearts must break, knowing that when the coffin slides into the earth that is the last they will ever see of their father in this world. Forgive me, Lord Rosebery, I rather wish you hadn’t come. I’m really upset now.’
With Lady Lucy on the verge of tears, Lord Rosebery took his leave very quietly. As he walked back to the Foreign Office he wondered what lever, if any, would make Lady Lucy change her mind.
Lady Lucy seriously wondered about setting off on the long march up the family drawing room that was so popular with the males. But she stood instead, leaning against the fireplace and wishing Francis was home. She wondered about what Lord Rosebery had said. Was she really taking away Francis’s manhood? Was she denying him the chance to show his courage? Did men have to do that all the time? Surely he had displayed enough courage to last many a lifetime. Was she trying to undermine him, to deny him the chance to show the world what he could do? No, she was only trying to keep him alive. Surely any wife would want that for her husband?
Had Lady Lucy gone to the tall window and looked out into the street she would have seen a cab draw up with two people inside. One seemed to be a very tall man who opened the door for his companion from the inside as if he did not want to be seen, the other a striking lady in her late thirties dressed entirely in black, right down to the fashionable black gloves she folded away as she advanced to the Powerscourt front door.
‘Mrs Martin to see you, Lady Powerscourt.’ Rhys the butler announced their guest with his usual cough.
Lady Lucy held out her hand. ‘How do you do, Mrs Martin,’ she said formally, ‘I don’t think we have met before.’
‘No, we have not.’ Mrs Martin sounded rather nervous as if her mission, whatever it was, seemed more formidable in reality than it had appeared before.
‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’ Lady Lucy was growing suspicious about her visitor, so correct in her mourning clothes. ‘Perhaps you’d like to sit down.’
‘Thank you,’ said Mrs Martin, taking up her position in Powerscourt’s favourite armchair by the side of the fireplace. ‘I think I had better explain myself, Lady Powerscourt. You must forgive me for coming in like this. I think you know of my husband, my late husband. Roderick Martin was the man found dead on the Nevskii Prospekt in St Petersburg. That is the death the Foreign Office wished your husband to investigate.’
Lady Lucy turned pale. Her suspicions had been right. Death had come all the way from Russia’s capital to her drawing room in Markham Square. But what did this spectre in black want of her?
‘I am so sorry,’ Lady Lucy managed to say. ‘It must be terrible for you.’
‘What I find particularly upsetting, Lady Powerscourt, is that I know so little of the circumstances. I know my husband went to Russia to carry out some sort of work for the Foreign Office. I cannot find out what that work was. They simply refuse to tell me. I do not know why Roderick died. I do not think the Foreign Office know that either. I cannot get them to recover the body and return it to us for a proper English burial. He could have been dumped out to sea for all I know. We have no children, Lady Powerscourt, but Roderick’s parents are still alive. They find the not knowing even more difficult than I do. They are on the verge of tears or breaking down almost every minute of the day. Roderick’s father said that his heart would break if he could not bury his only son.’
Mrs Martin paused. Still Lady Lucy did not know what was coming.
‘I’m not quite sure how I can help,’ said Lady Lucy, suspecting that almost anything she said to this newly bereaved woman would be wrong.
‘I’m surprised you can’t see it, Lady Powerscourt,’ Mrs Martin replied, staring coldly at her hostess. ‘I told you, it’s the not knowing that’s the most difficult thing. Even after the drink and the sleeping draughts, that’s what keeps his old parents awake every night. It eats you up, like some parasite that chews out your insides. You see, Lady Powerscourt, the Foreign Office told us they were going to send a special man to find out the truth about what happened to Roderick. They said he was the best man in the country for this sort of work. We all felt better for a day or two after that. We thought we were going to find out the truth. Maybe this miracle worker could even come back with the body as well and my husband could be laid to rest in his graveyard. But it didn’t happen. The special man isn’t going. He’s not going to find out what really happened. You know as well as I do who that special man is and you know as well as I do who the special woman is who’s stopping him. One of those Foreign Office people told me that if it was up to your husband, he’d take the commission and go to St Petersburg tomorrow. You’re the one who’s stopping him. You’re the one bringing misery to all that’s left of my family. You’re the one who’s torturing those two old people who’ll never see their only son again.’
‘You don’t understand, Mrs Martin.’ Lady Lucy was close to tears. ‘Francis, my husband, has nearly been killed so often in these investigations. It happens almost every time. Last time he was at death’s door with the twins only a few weeks old. Imagine their growing up without a father.’
‘I’m terribly sorry, Lady Powerscourt,’ Mrs Martin spoke very slowly now, ‘but it’s you who don’t understand. You think you have rights that nobody else has, rights to hold on to your husband because he was nearly killed once or twice. Think what would happen if everybody behaved as selfishly as you. Wellington’s army and his commanders would never have driven the French out of Spain or won their great victory at Waterloo if their wives hadn’t let them go. We would now be living in some French department with a French prefect enforcing French laws in the French language from a French town hall with a French tricolour flying from the top and statues of Napoleon in every town square. What would happen to the Royal Navy if the wives refused to let their men go back to sea, whining about the fact that they might get killed in some naval engagement? There can’t be one set of rules for you and another set of rules for everybody else. We owe certain duties to society as society owes certain duties to us. But the duties have to be the same for everybody. Your rules are entirely selfish. They would lead to a feeble rather than a Great Britain. They would lead to a nation where every man could opt for cowardice rather than courage. We wouldn’t have an empire. I doubt we would have our liberty. I think you pretend your rules show the mark of courage when they show the opposite. You’re turning your husband into a coward, or that’s what everybody will think.’
Mrs Martin began to cry slowly. ‘I’m sorry,’ she blurted out between her tears, ‘I shouldn’t have said that very last bit. I think I’d better go now.’
A watcher in Markham Square would have seen Mrs Martin climb back into the carriage she had come in at the other end of the Square. A very tall, very slim gentleman opened the door for her. He waited for her to speak. Sir Jeremiah Reddaway was most curious to learn if his latest emissary to the Powerscourt household had been more successful than the last.