Long Spoon Lane - Anne Perry [10]
Narraway wanted to apologize again, but to do so would only require Landsborough to wave it away. Instead he used the moment to ask the painful question he was obliged to. It was still just possible that Magnus had been some kind of hostage, although he did not believe that. Welling had said he was their leader, and for all his naïveté, his passionate, ignorant, and one-sided philosophy, Narraway felt that Welling was speaking what he perceived to be the truth.
“What were Mr. Landsborough’s political ideals, my lord?” he asked. “As far as you know.”
“What? Oh?” Landsborough thought for a moment, when he answered there was a softer tone to his voice, on the edge of self-mockery, and tears. “I am afraid he followed some of my own liberal ideas, and took them rather too far. If you are trying a little delicately to ask me if I knew he had espoused more violent means of persuasion, I did not. But perhaps I should have expected it. Had I been wiser, I might have done something to prevent it, although precisely what escapes me.”
Narraway was wrenched with an unexpected pity. Had Landsborough railed against fate or society, or even Special Branch, it might have been easier. He could have defended himself. He knew all the reasons and the arguments for what he did, the necessity of it. Most of them he actually believed, and he had never allowed himself to care whether others did or not. He could not afford to. But the silent, uncomplaining woundedness of the man opposite him struck where he had no armor prepared.
“We cannot force other men to adopt our convictions,” he said quietly. “Nor should we. It is always the young who rebel. Without them there would be little change.”
“Thank you,” Landsborough whispered. Then he coughed several times and took a few moments to master himself again. “Magnus felt passionately about individual liberty, and he said he believed it to be under far more threat than I did,” he continued. “But then I have seen tides of opinion ebb and flow more than he has. The young are so impatient.” He climbed stiffly to his feet, using the armrests of the chair to propel himself upright. He seemed a decade older than when he had sat down less than ten minutes earlier.
There was no answer for Narraway to make. He followed him out of the door, retrieved their hats from the steward, and went to the front steps where there seemed always to be a hansom waiting. He gave the driver the address of the morgue where the body had been taken, and they rode in silence. It was not that Narraway was ignoring Landsborough, or even did not know what to say; rather he wished to allow him to grieve without the necessity of having to disturb himself to find the words to be courteous.
And yet at some point Narraway would have to ask him more about his son: questions of associates, of money, names, places that might lead to other anarchists that he could not afford to let pass, however painful.
The morgue had the smell of wet stone, carbolic, and the indefinable odor of death familiar to Narraway but perhaps alien to Landsborough. Most people died at home, and a sick room, whatever the illness, never had this cloying, over-scrubbed dampness to it. This building was not designed for the living.
The attendant met them with a professional mask of solemnity. He knew how to conduct himself in the presence of overwhelming pain without intruding upon it. He took them along the corridor to the room where the body was lying on a table. It was covered by a sheet, even the head.
Narraway remembered how damaged the face was, and strode over ahead of Landsborough, interposing his body between him and the table. He pulled up the side of the sheet exposing the dead man’s hand. The signet ring had been replaced and would be sufficient for Lord Landsborough to identify the body.
“Is he really so badly disfigured?” Landsborough said with faint surprise.
“Yes.” Narraway diverted his gaze to