CHAPTER
NINE
“I don’t believe it!” Jack Radley exploded, holding the newspaper up at the breakfast table, his face pale, his hands shaking.
“What is it?” Emily demanded, her first thoughts flying to the murder of Maude Lamont, now just a week ago. Had Thomas found something damning that incriminated Rose? Only now did she realize how much she had been dreading it. Guilt overwhelmed her. “What have you seen?” Her voice was sharp with fear.
“Aubrey!” Jack said, laying the paper down so he could see her. “He’s written to the editor. I suppose it’s in rebuttal of what General Kingsley said about him, but it’s very ill thought.”
“Ill thought? You mean carelessly written? That’s not like Aubrey.” She could recall his beautiful voice, not just a matter of diction but his choice of words also. “What does he say?”
Jack drew in a deep breath and bit his lip, reluctant to answer, as if reading it aloud would give it a greater reality.
“Is it so very bad?” she asked with a chill of anxiety biting deep into her. “Will it matter?”
“I think it might.”
“Well, either read it to me or pass it!” she directed. “For heaven’s sake, don’t tell me it’s bad and then keep it!”
He looked down at the page and began, his voice low and almost expressionless.
“‘I have in this newspaper recently been accused by Major General Roland Kingsley of being an idealist with little grasp upon reality, a man who would discard the glories of our nation’s past, and with it the men who fought and died to protect us and extend the rule of law and liberty to other lands. Normally I would be content to allow time to prove him mistaken. I would trust my friends to know me better, and strangers to be honest in their judgment.
“‘However, I am standing for the seat of South Lambeth in the present parliamentary election, and the date of that does not permit me the luxury of time.
“’Our past has many glorious events I cannot and would not change. But the future is ours to mold as we will. Let us by all means write great poetry about military disasters like the Charge of the Light Brigade at Sebastopol, where brave men died uselessly at the command of incompetent generals. Let us pity the survivors of such desperate actions when they hobble past us in the streets, blind or maimed, or lie in hospital beds. Let us lay flowers on their graves!
“‘But let us also act to see that their sons and grandsons do not fall the same way. This we have not only the power but the obligation to change.’ ”
“That’s not ill thought!” Emily argued. “As far as I can see, it is true, a perfectly fair and honorable assessment.”
“I’m not finished yet,” Jack said grimly.
“Well, what else does he say?”
He looked down at the page again. “‘We need an army to fight in time of war, should we be threatened by a foreign nation. We do not need adventurers who are tarred with the brush of Imperialism, and believe that as Englishmen we have the right to attack and conquer any other land we choose to, either because we believe profoundly that our way of life is superior to theirs and they would benefit from our laws and our institutions imposed upon their own, by force of arms, or because they have land, minerals, or any other natural resources that we may exploit.’ ”
“Oh, Jack!” Emily was appalled.
“There’s more of the same,” he said bitterly. “He doesn’t exactly accuse Kingsley of being a self-interested glory seeker at the expense of the ordinary man, but the implication is clear enough.”
“Why?” she said with a sinking feeling deepening in her. “I thought he had more . . . more sense of reality. Even if that were all true, it won’t win any friends he needs! Those who agree will be on his side anyway, and those who don’t will hate him for it!” She put her hands up to her face. “How could he be so naive?”
“Because Kingsley must have rattled him,” Jack replied. “I think Aubrey’s always hated opportunism, the idea that the strongest have the right to take what they want, and he sees Imperialism that way.”
“That’s a little narrow, isn’t it?” she asked, not really as a question. She did not defer to Jack, or anyone else, in her beliefs. Actual knowledge was another thing, but this was emotion and the understanding of people. “I am coming to think more and more that political fighting is only a good understanding of human nature and the sense to keep your mouth closed when speaking would not help. Tell no lies in which you will be caught, and never ever lose your temper or promise something you may be seen not to have given.”
He smiled, but there was no pleasure in it at all. “I wish you had told Aubrey that a couple of days ago.”
“Do you think it will really make a difference?” She was clinging on to hope. “That is the Times, isn’t it? Yes. How many of the voters in Lambeth South will read it, do you suppose?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll wager you anything you like that Charles Voisey will!” he responded.
She thought for a moment of making the wager and asking for a new parasol if she won, then realized how futile it was. Of course Voisey would see it—and use it.
“Aubrey talks about the military as if the generals were fools,” Jack went on with a note of despair in his voice. “Heaven knows we’ve had enough of them who were, but planning the tactics of battle is harder than you think. You can have clever enemies, inadequate arms, supply lines cut, a change in the weather! Or just plain bad luck. When Napoleon got a new marshal he didn’t ask if he was clever, he asked if he was lucky!”
“What did Wellington ask?” she returned.
“I don’t know,” he admitted, rising to his feet. “But he wouldn’t have had Aubrey. This is not dishonesty or even bad politics at heart, but it is the most appalling tactic against a man like Charles Voisey!”
Emily went with Jack to listen to Voisey speak to a large crowd in the early afternoon. It was in Kennington, and the park was full of people walking in the hot sun, eating ice creams and peppermint sticks and toffee apples, drinking lemonade, and eager for a little heckling and entertainment. To begin with, nobody cared greatly what Voisey had come to say. It was a good way to spend an hour or so, and far more interesting than the halfhearted game of cricket a score of boys were playing at the farther end. If he wanted their attention he would have to say something to amuse them, and if he did not know that now, he would soon learn.
Of course, only some of the listeners had the right to vote, but everyone’s future was affected, so they crowded around the empty bandstand Voisey climbed onto with supreme confidence and began to talk to them.
Emily stood in the sun with her hat shading her face, looking first at the crowd, then at Voisey, then sideways at Jack. She was not really listening to the words. She knew it was about patriotism and pride. It was very subtle, but he was praising them in a very general sense, making them feel part of the accomplishment of Empire, although he never gave it that name. She watched as they stood a little straighter, unconsciously smiling, shoulders squared and chins a trifle higher. He was making them feel as if they belonged, they were part of the victory, among the elite.
She looked at Jack and saw the corners of his mouth pinch. His face was tight with dislike, but there was admiration in him also, no matter how reluctant; he could not hold it back.
Voisey went on. He never mentioned Serracold’s name. Serracold might not have existed. Voisey did not put the choice before them: vote for me or for the other candidate, vote Tory or Liberal; he just spoke to them as if the decision had already been made. They were of one mind because they were of one race, one people, one shared destiny.
Of course that would not persuade everyone. She saw stubbornness in the set of many faces, disagreement, anger, indifference. But then he did not need all of them, only enough to make a majority, along with those who were natural Tory voters anyway.