can come up with anything at all to justify your voting for me, and not for the Liberal candidate, Mr. Serracold, whose party has represented you as far back as you can remember. And perhaps you expect a little entertainment at my expense.”
There was a rumble of laughter and one or two catcalls.
“Well, what do you want from government?” Voisey asked, and before he could answer himself he was shouted down.
“Less taxes!” someone yelled, to accompanying jeers.
“Shorter hours! A decent working week, no longer than yours!”
More laughter, but sharp-edged, angry.
“Decent pay! ’Ouses wot don’t leak. Drains!”
“Good! So do I,” Voisey agreed, his voice carrying well in spite of the fact he did not seem to be raising it. “I would also like a job for every man who wants to work, and every woman, too. I’d like peace, good foreign trade, less crime, more certain justice, responsible police without corruption, cheap food, bread for everyone, clothes and boots for everyone. I’d like good weather as well, but. .”
The rest of his words were lost in a roar of laughter.
“But you wouldn’t believe me if I told you I could do that!” he finished.
“Don’t believe yer anyway!” a voice shouted back, to more jeers and calls of agreement.
Voisey smiled, but the angle of his body was stiff. “But you’re going to listen to me, because that’s what you’ve come for! You’re curious what I’m going to say, and you’re fair.”
This time there were no catcalls. Pitt could feel the difference in the air, as if a storm had passed by without breaking.
“Do most of you work in these factories?” Voisey waved his arm. “And these docks?”
There was a murmur of assent.
“Making goods to ship all over the world?” he went on.
Again the assent, and a slight impatience. They did not understand the reason why he asked. Pitt did, as if he had already heard the words.
“Clothes made from Egyptian cotton?” Voisey asked, his voice lifting, his eyes searching their faces, the language of their bodies, the boredom or the quickening of understanding. “Brocades from Persia and the old Silk Road east to China and India?” he continued. “Linen from Ireland? Timber from Africa, rubber from Burma. . I could go on and on. But you probably know the list as well as I do. They are the products of the Empire. That’s why we are the biggest trading nation in the world, why Britain rules the seas, a quarter of the earth speaks our language, and soldiers of the Queen guard the peace over land and sea in every quarter of the globe.”
This time the rising noise had a different note to it, pride and anger and curiosity. Several men stood a little straighter, shoulders square. Pitt shifted quickly out of Voisey’s line of sight.
Voisey shouted above them. “It isn’t just glory-it’s a roof over your heads and food on your table.”
“’Ow about a shorter working day?” a tall man with ginger hair called out.
“If we lose the Empire, who are you going to work for?” Voisey challenged him. “Who are you going to buy from, sell to?”
“Nobody’s going ter lose the Empire!” the ginger-haired man replied with scorn. “Even them Socialists in’t that daft!”
“Mr. Gladstone’s going to lose it,” Voisey replied. “A piece at a time! First Ireland, then maybe Scotland and Wales. Who knows what after that-India, perhaps? No more hemp and jute, no more mahogany and rubber from Burma. Then Africa, Egypt, a piece at a time. If he can lose Ireland on his own doorstep, why not everywhere?”
There was a sudden silence, then a loud laugh, but there was no humor in it, instead there was a sharp undercurrent of doubt, perhaps even fear.
Pitt glanced around at the men closest to him. Every one of them was facing Voisey.
“We have to have trade,” Voisey went on, but now he had no need to shout. He pitched his voice to the back of the crowd, and it was sufficient. “We need the rule of law, and we need mastery of the seas. In order to share our wealth more fairly, we must first assure that we have it!”
There was a murmur that sounded like agreement.
“Do what you do well, no one on earth better!” Voisey’s tone held a ring of praise, even triumph. “And choose freely to represent you men who know how to make and keep the laws at home, and deal honorably and profitably with the other nations of the earth to preserve and add to what you have. Don’t elect old men who think they speak for God, but in truth only speak for the past, men who carry out their own wishes and don’t listen to yours.”
Now there was another roar from the crowd, but in many quarters it actually sounded like a cheer to Pitt’s ears.
Voisey did not keep them much longer. He knew they were tired and hungry and tomorrow morning would come all too soon. He had enough sense to stop while they were still interested, and more than that, while there was still time to get a good dinner and a couple of hours at the public house to take a few pints of ale and talk it all over.
He told them a swift joke, and another, and left them laughing as he walked back to his hansom and rode away.
Pitt was stiff from standing still, and cold inside with bitter admiration for the way Voisey had turned a crowd from hostile strangers into men who would remember his name, remember that he had not betrayed them or made false promises, that he had not assumed they would like him, and that he had made them laugh. They would not forget what he had said about losing the Empire that provided their work. It might make their employers rich, but the truth was that if their employers were poor, then they were even poorer. It might or might not be unjust, but many men there were realist enough to know that it was the way things were.
Pitt waited until Voisey had been out of sight for several minutes, then he walked across the dusty cobbles into the shade of the factory walls and along a narrow alley back towards the main road. Voisey had shown at least some of his tactics, but he had revealed no vulnerability at all. Aubrey Serracold was going to have to be more than charming and honest to equal him.
It was early yet to go home, especially to an empty house. He had a good book to read, but the silence would disturb him. Even the thought of it held a loneliness. There must be something else he could do which might be useful, perhaps more he could learn from Jack Radley? Maybe Emily could tell him something about Serracold’s wife? She was acutely observant and a realist in the ploys of power far more than Charlotte. She might have seen a weakness in Voisey, where a man, with his mind more on political policies and less on the person, might have missed it.
He leaned forward and redirected the driver of his hansom.
But when he arrived the butler told him with profound apologies that Mr. and Mrs. Radley were out at a dinner party and could not reasonably be expected home before one in the morning at the earliest.
Pitt thanked him and declined the offer to wait, as the butler had known he would. He returned to the cab, and told the driver to take him instead to Cornwallis’s flat in Piccadilly.
A manservant answered the door and without question conducted him through to Cornwallis’s small sitting room. It was furnished in the elegant but spare style of a captain’s cabin at sea, full of books, polished brass and dark, gleaming wood. Above the mantel shelf there was a painting of a square-rigged brigantine running before a gale.
“Mr. Pitt, sir,” the manservant announced.
Cornwallis dropped his book and rose to his feet in surprise and some alarm. “Pitt? What is it? What’s happened? Why are you not on Dartmoor?”
Pitt did not answer.
Cornwallis glanced at the manservant, then back at Pitt. “Have you eaten?” he asked.
Pitt was startled to realize that he had had nothing since the pie in the tavern near the factory. “No. . not for a while.” He sank down in the chair opposite Cornwallis’s. “Bread and cheese would be fine. . or cake if you have it.” He missed Gracie’s baking already, and the tins at home were empty. She had made nothing, expecting them all to be away.
“Bring Mr. Pitt bread and cheese,” Cornwallis directed. “And cider, and a slice of cake.” He looked back at Pitt. “Or would you prefer tea?”
