Southampton Row - Anne Perry [11]
He took another piece of toast from the rack where he had set it, and spread it with butter. He spooned out a very good helping of marmalade. He liked the pungent taste of it, sharp enough to feel as if it filled his head.
Did Voisey intend somehow to win the middle ground and so enlarge his share of the vote? Or to disenchant the poorer men and drive them towards socialism, and so split the left-wing support? Had he some weapon, as yet undisclosed, with which to damage Aubrey Serracold and so cripple his campaign? He could not openly do all three. But then with the Inner Circle behind him, he did not need to be open. No one outside the very top of its power, perhaps no one but Voisey himself, knew the names or positions of all its members, or even how many there were.
He finished the toast, drank the last of the tea, and left the dishes where they were. Mrs. Brody would wash up when she came, and no doubt feed Archie and Angus again. It was eight o’clock in the morning, and time he began to acquire more knowledge of Voisey’s platform, the issues he was making the core of his appeal, who his open supporters were, and where he was going to speak. Pitt already knew from Jack the bare outline of these things regarding Serracold, but it was not enough.
It was late June and the city was hot, dusty and crammed with traffic of every sort—trade, business and pleasure. Street peddlers cried their wares on almost every pavement corner, open carriages held ladies who were out to see the sights, keeping the sun from their faces with an array of parasols in pretty colors like enormous overblown flowers. There were heavy wagons carrying bales of goods, vegetable and milk carts, omnibuses and the usual hordes of hansom cabs. Even the footpaths were crowded, and Pitt had to weave his way in and out. The noise was an assault on the ears and the mind, chatter, street cries of vendors of a hundred different articles for sale, the rattle of wheels on cobbles, the jingle of harness, shouts of frustrated drivers, the sharp clip of horses’ hooves.
He would prefer Voisey to be as little aware of him as possible, although after their meeting in the House of Commons it could no longer be secret that Pitt was watching the campaign. He regretted that, but it could not be undone, and perhaps it was inevitable; it just would have been better delayed, even a short while. Voisey might have been sufficiently absorbed in his political battles and the exhilaration of the campaign not to have noticed one more person’s interest in him.
By five o’clock Pitt knew the names of those backing Voisey’s candidacy, both publicly and privately, at least those of record. He also knew that the issues Voisey had espoused were the traditional mainstream Tory values of trade and Empire. It was obvious how these would appeal to the property owners, the manufacturers and shipping barons, but now the vote had extended to the ordinary man who possessed nothing more than his house or rented rooms worth above ten pounds a year, and surely they were natural supporters of trades unions, and so of the Liberal Party?
The fact that it seemed an impossible seat for Voisey to win worried Pitt far more than had he seen some opening, some weakness that could be exploited. It meant that the attack was coming from an angle he had no idea how to protect, and he did not even know where the vulnerability lay.
He made his way south of the river towards the docks and factories in the shadow of the London Bridge Railway Terminal, with the intention of joining the crowd of workers at the first of Voisey’s public speeches. He was intensely curious to see both how Voisey behaved and what kind of reception he would receive.
He stopped at one of the public houses and had a pork pie and a glass of cider, keeping his ear to the conversations at the tables around him. There was a good deal of laughter, but underneath it an unmistakably bitter note as well. He heard only one reference to the Irish, or the vexed question of Home Rule, and even that was treated