Southampton Row - Anne Perry [93]
“Mr. Aubrey Serracold,” she was told by Lady Warboys. “He is standing for the South Lambeth seat. Mrs. Underhill. Bishop Underhill.”
“How do you do, Mr. Serracold,” Isadora replied dutifully, then suddenly found that after all there was something in him that caught her attention. He responded to her with a smile and his eyes met hers with a secret amusement, as if they were both privy to the same rather absurd joke which honor obliged them to play out in front of this audience. The Bishop passed on to the next person, and she found herself smiling back at Aubrey Serracold. He had a long face and fair hair which flopped forward over one side of his brow. She remembered now that she had heard somewhere he was the second son of a marquis, or some such, and could have used a courtesy title of Lord, but preferred not to. She wondered what his political beliefs were. She hoped he had them, and was not merely looking for a new pastime to fill his boredom.
“Indeed, Mr. Serracold,” she said with interest she did not have to feign. “And which party are you representing?”
“I am not entirely sure that either is willing to take responsibility for me, Mrs. Underhill,” he replied with a slight grimace. “I have been candid enough to express a few of my own opinions, which have not been universally popular.”
In spite of herself she was interested, and it must have shown in her face, because he immediately elaborated in explanation. “For a start I have committed the unpardonable sin of preferring the Eight-Hour Bill in urgency before Home Rule for Ireland. I see no reason why we cannot commit to them both, and by so doing be far more likely to win the support of the greater mass of the people, and a base of power from which to accomplish other much-needed reform, beginning with yielding up the Empire to its natural citizens.”
“I am not certain about the Empire, but the rest sounds eminently reasonable,” she agreed. “Far too much so to become law.”
“You are a cynic,” he said with mock despair.
“My husband is a bishop,” she replied.
“Ah! Of course . . .” He was prevented from saying more by the need to acknowledge being joined by three further people, including Serracold’s wife, whom Isadora had not met, although she had heard her spoken of with both alarm and admiration.
“How do you do, Mrs. Underhill.” Rose returned the introduction with barely feigned interest. Isadora was not involved with politics, nor was she truly fashionable, in spite of the ocean-green gown. She was a woman of conservative grace and that kind of beauty which does not change.
Rose Serracold, on the other hand, was outrageously avant-garde. Her gown was a mixture of burgundy satin and guipure lace which, in combination with her startlingly fair coloring, was all the more dramatic, like blood and snow. Her brilliant aqua-colored eyes seemed to survey everyone in the room with something like hunger, as if looking for a particular person she did not find.
“Mr. Serracold has been telling me of the reforms he desires to effect,” Isadora said conversationally.
Rose flashed her a dazzling smile. “I am sure you must have your own knowledge of such needs,” she responded. “No doubt in your husband’s ministry he becomes painfully aware of the poverty and injustice there is which could be eased with more equitable laws?” She said it as a challenge, daring Isadora to claim ignorance and so brand herself a hypocrite in the Christianity which, through the Bishop, she professed.
Isadora responded without stopping to measure her words.
“Of course. It is not the changes I find trouble in imagining, but how we can effect them. For a law to be any good it must be enforceable, and there must be a punishment we are willing and able to inflict if it is broken, as it assuredly will be, even if only to test us.”
Rose was delighted. “You have actually thought about it!” Her surprise was palpable. “I apologize for slighting your sincerity.” She lowered her voice so it was audible only to those closest to them, and then