Chapter 5

Alice Griffith nodded at the two policemen on duty outside the Corn Exchange and was thankful to find a cab rank. It was only 4.35 but already nearly dark, and the harsh wind that blew from the Firth of Forth made her grateful for her bonnet and muff.

‘Waverley Market, please, as quickly as you can. I must reach there before Mr Gladstone.’

If the cabbie, perched high at the back of the hansom, was impressed, he showed no sign. He raised a chilblained finger to his tam-o’-shanter, flicked his whip at the horse and they were off.

Inside, Alice laid aside her muff and fumbled in her bag for her compact. She did her best to inspect the face that peered back at her from the small mirror. She still retained a little of her South African tan and frowned at the thought. It was not seemly to resemble a milkmaid, and she dabbed a little face powder on to her cheekbones. Damn this wind! It made her face glow like a golden apple.

The cabbie had turned off the main thoroughfare and was picking his way through the drably lit side streets which gave him a short cut to Waverley Market. The alleys were narrow and the soot-blackened walls glistened with recent rain. The ride was jerky, for the cobblestones were strewn with litter: sodden rags, broken red bricks bleeding their fragments into rusty puddles, a shattered cartwheel, old newspapers. Away from Princes Street and its Georgian squares, Edinburgh had no right to call itself the Paris of the North.

Alice held a lace handkerchief to her nose and then pulled out her silver watch and squinted at its face. Good. She was about ten minutes ahead of Gladstone, who, after his marathon ninety-minute address at the Corn Exchange, would still be listening to a vote of thanks before he too set off for the Market. Her mind raced through what she could remember of the economic tour d’horizon just presented by the Great Man.¹

Once again Alice marvelled at the remarkable performance she had witnessed that afternoon. In front of an audience of five thousand people, Gladstone had spoken for an hour and a half, seemingly without notes, and had hardly hesitated in his destruction of the Tory government’s fiscal policy.

The cab entered a wider street, better lit, and Alice scrabbled for her notebook. Gladstone had reeled off a sequence of statistics with a precision that had made Alice once turn round to see if some giant prompt sheet had been hidden at the end of the hall. She held her notes to the window. She had only been able to get down the main figures to mark the thrust of the old man’s argument: Disraeli had increased expenditure on the armed forces from . . . she waited until they clopped past a street light . . . £25,903,000 in his first year to £27,286,000 in his third. Another lamp: a deficit on India of £2,183,000 increased to six million. Yes, but what was this sum of £493,000? Why had she recorded that?

Alice sighed and leaned back. She was simply not good enough at straight reportage and she must improve her note-taking. Part of the problem was that she was enthralled as much by the man as by what he said. She had found her mind wandering as he spoke, and although she had noted - or tried to note - his key statistics, she had also looked at his boots and wondered why they turned up at the toes, and speculated on why this defender of the poor so loved dukes, and how a politician who had presented more national budgets than any man alive could deliver these bewilderingly new figures without reference to notes.

She was by now well used to the power and eloquence of William Ewart Gladstone - his ability to construct balanced, orotund sentences worthy of Gibbon and deliver them with the passion of Browning. The address that afternoon had been the eighth of his Midlothian campaign and she had listened to and reported on them all. This marathon series of speeches - a similar number were scheduled for the following week - had been undertaken to launch his Liberal candidacy for the Midlothian seat in the general election, which the voters of Britain expected to be called in the spring of 1880. More importantly, the campaign was also marking his move from the parliamentary back benches, to which his resignation of the Liberal leadership in 1874 had consigned him, back on to the world’s political stage.

The force, the sweep and the content of this review of world affairs had now begun to attract the attention of the international press. About twenty reporters had gathered to hear Gladstone’s first speech, earlier in the week. Today, in the Corn Exchange, sixty correspondents had clustered awkwardly round the press table, seeking room to rest their elbows as they scribbled away. This was why Alice had scurried away before the meeting had closed. She was anxious to ensure her place in the Waverley Market.

The cab sashayed to a halt and Alice put away her notebook and descended in the gloom. If the Corn Exchange, with its air of late-Victorian hard-nosed mercantilism, had exuded middle-class prosperity, the Waverley Market was undoubted working class. Huge and forbidding, it reeked of vegetables. Fragments of sprouts, cabbages and leeks had been ground into the pavement to form a dirty mosaic.

‘Sorry, miss.’ The large constable, glistening in his cape, held up his arm. ‘The place is full.’ Teeth flashed under his moustache. ‘And no place for a lady, I can tell yer.’

‘Full!’ Alice hauled out her watch. ‘But it’s only ten to five. How many are inside?’

‘We reckon about twenty thousand. They’ve come from all over Scotland.’ He laughed again. ‘There can’t be that many voters in Midlothian, that’s for sure. Och, the mon’s a great attraction.’

Alice showed her press pass, and after the customary show of first disbelief and then amazement that a woman was representing one of the great newspapers, she was ushered inside.

It was a booming barn of a place, its iron arches and vaulted roof reminding her of the great railway stations that newly marked each British provincial city. It was true: the Market was packed, with men standing shoulder to shoulder, separated only by barriers erected - as at football matches - to prevent crowd surges which could lead to some being trampled underfoot. As Alice was led down a narrow aisle she looked above and behind her. The gallery, which swept round three sides of the Market to form a second storey, was packed with women. Something about them made Alice look again. There was hardly a bonnet to be seen, only rows and rows of head shawls, with an occasional bare head, hair swept behind into a tight knot. The men who turned to look at her as she made her way down the aisle were also dressed roughly: dirty scarves tucked into collarless shirts, jackets of the cheapest broadcloth, hard, seamed faces under old caps. At the Corn Exchange, the platform had been graced by one marquess, two earls, at least five peers and one duchess. The audience had glistened with top hats and elaborate bonnets. Here, however, it was very different. Somehow the working class of south-eastern Scotland had left their factories, fields and fishing boats to make a pilgrimage to this vegetable market to hear their champion, ‘the people’s William’, share with them his philosophy of government. It was enough to stir Alice’s radical heart, and she lowered her head to hide an unexpected tear as she was shown to the roped-off enclosure, in front of the platform, which housed the press’s long table, stretching almost the width of the hall.

Most of the seats at the table were already taken, but Alice determinedly thrust her way to a chair that remained free. She took out her notebook and looked about her again. Unlike the Corn Exchange, Waverley Market was sparsely decorated: merely a few banners and mottoes at the rear and sides of the hall. Above the speaker’s table, however, hung a rather bizarre replica of an earl’s coronet, from the points of which flared brilliant jets of gas. Alice was contemplating the reason for such aristocratic bravura in so plebeian a setting when she felt a sharp nudge on her shoulder.

‘Excuse me, miss, just make way and let ’im lie doon a wee while an’ he wull be a’ right. There’s nae room else, yer ken.’

The policeman who had spoken was carrying, with a colleague, the limp form of someone from the audience, who hung, white-faced and perspiring, from their arms.

‘Of course. Of course.’ Alice stood up and moved aside. ‘Can I help?’

‘Nae. We’ll just lay ’im doon here, wi’ the rest.’

Then Alice saw, at the side of the press table, a row of men propped against the wall; some half conscious, others mop-ping their foreheads and blowing out their cheeks in seeming exhaustion.

‘They’ve been handing them down over the heads of the crowd for the last hour.’ The voice came from behind her, from the man sitting next to her on her right.

‘Oh, how awful! I suppose it’s because it’s so hot in here.’

‘That and the fact that they’re so tightly packed. And half of them look as though they haven’t had a square meal for days.’

The speaker was a young man, not much older than Alice, although he possessed the faintly cynical world-weariness of the experienced journalist. His hair was fair and worn long, so that it merged with the full moustache and trimmed beard - grown, thought Alice, almost certainly to make him look older. His frock coat was severe and correct, but his waistcoat was of a lush cream and his tie red and full-knotted. He looked at Alice now with a half-smile, his blue eyes showing a frank interest.

He stood and made a little bow. ‘Campbell. John Campbell. Central News.’

‘Oh, the news agency.’ She extended her hand. ‘Alice Griffith. Morning Post.’

‘Yes, I know.’ He shook her hand in a manly, collegiate fashion. Alice liked that.

‘How did you know? I don’t think we’ve met before.’

Campbell laughed and showed crooked white teeth behind the beard. ‘Oh, come now, Miss Griffith. There can’t be more than three or four ladies working on news coverage in Fleet Street. And few of them have covered a foreign war. I heard you were here and I am pleased to meet you. I read your reports from Zululand with pleasure and admiration.’

To her annoyance, Alice felt herself blushing. Compliments about her appearance and femininity she could always take without embarrassment. Her sexuality was strong and she was not averse to flirting - with the right man. But tributes to her work from fellow professionals were rare. As a woman in a male-dominated profession, she was more used to being met with distrust and disapproval from colleagues she encountered on assignment.

‘You are very kind,’ she said, a little coldly. ‘Were you at the Corn Exchange?’

‘No. I am here to do a full verbatim report. As you know, the Great Man doesn’t give out texts - he doesn’t even seem to use notes - so papers such as yours use people like me to do their bread-and-butter stuff. The old varmint speaks for so long that one man can’t cover two speeches in one day and get it on the telegraph in time.’ He suddenly frowned. ‘You’re not doing full verbatim, are you?’

Alice laughed. ‘Good gracious, no. I can’t do a word of shorthand - although,’ she added hurriedly, ‘I do admire people who do. No. I am here to do what I think is called “a colour piece”.’

‘Really?’ Campbell regarded her again with that air of direct interest which Alice found faintly disturbing. The blue gaze seemed to take in every feature of her face and body without leaving her eyes. ‘What does that mean?’

Alice laughed a little too loudly. ‘Oh, it’s the latest idea of our editor. He wants me to report, analyse the main thrust of the speeches and give background colour too. Rather as a correspondent would from abroad - particularly from a campaign, say.’

‘Hmmn.’ Campbell tilted his head to one side slightly, while holding her eyes. ‘I don’t seem to remember reading any of those in the Morning Post.’

Alice felt herself flushing again. ‘No. As a matter of fact, my stuff seems to be appearing in the leaders, if it appears at all. The colour and the analysis is kept, but the newspaper’s editorial policy is overlaid, so that opinions are inserted which, frankly, I don’t completely share.’ She felt she had gone too far. Why was she revealing to this young stranger feelings of which she was only just becoming aware?

He nodded his head. ‘Ah, I see. So you are not exactly sympathetic with the strong Tory views of the Post?’ His half-smile had returned.

Alice paused for a moment. ‘Mr Campbell, I have always felt that one’s political views should remain one’s personal property, until, that is, one is prepared to share them.’ She smiled sweetly, rather pleased that she had regained her composure. ‘Don’t you agree?’

‘No, not entirely. But it is of no consequence. For my own part . . .’

But his words were drowned by a great cheer which rose from the hall as side curtains on the platform were pulled apart and the speaker’s party filed on to the stage. The cheering reached a climax as Mr Gladstone appeared, nodding gravely in thanks to the audience as he strode to his chair. Alice’s eye took in again the familiar figure: the wisps of hair and the side whiskers, contrasting strangely in their whiteness with the black eyebrows; the long stern face, with deep seams running from the nostrils to the jaw; the upstanding white collar cutting into the flesh of the neck; the severe black tie, inelegantly knotted; the rough tweedy jacket, waistcoat and trousers; and those dreadful boots. The figure of Liberal Britain; the awkward, long-winded, cussedly moral and very rich opponent of expansionist empire.

Appropriately before such an audience, it was a local blacksmith, William Fairbairn, who proposed that the Earl of Rosebery should take the chair, and this was met with acclaim. His Lordship wasted no time in introducing the star speaker, and then the old man was on his feet and on his way again.

There was no doubt, Alice felt, that even Gladstone, accustomed as he was in this campaign to addressing large audiences of the faithful, was impressed by the size of the gathering in the Market. His great beaked nose turned as, in silence, he surveyed the ranks before and above him. ‘This great ocean of human life’, he called it. And Alice hastened to scribble down the phrase, determined now to capture the orator’s bons mots as well as those endless damned statistics.

This time, however, Gladstone eschewed economics, matching both the content and the language of his address to the sentimental, rough-hewn nature of the audience before him. His theme was the rights of overseas people to govern themselves and his form was an attack on Disraeli’s policies of intervention in the affairs of the ‘struggling provinces and principalities of the East’.

As Alice scribbled to keep up, her cheeks flushed as the opinions that had been taking shape in her mind for the last eighteen months were put into words by the old man. She looked sideways at Campbell, who was effortlessly capturing the address in his strange cryptography, having time even to sideline the most newsworthy points. Alice sighed and gave up her attempt to record, sitting back to listen. Looking into Gladstone’s black eyes only a few feet away, it seemed that he was addressing her alone.

‘I think of the events which have deluged many a hill and many a plain with blood,’ he said to her, ‘and think with shame of the part which your country has had in those grievous operations. In South Africa - that a nation whom we term savages have, in the defence of their own land, offered their naked bodies to the terribly improved artillery and armies of modern European science and been mown down by hundreds and thousands and who have committed no offence but that of having the duties of patriotism.’

Alice closed her eyes to prevent tears. She heard again the boom of the guns at Ulundi and saw the corner of the British square open to release the cavalry. She recalled the heat of Zululand and the whoops of the Lancers as they lowered their lances and charged after the defeated Zulus.

‘Turning to Afghanistan, I fear that there has been a sadder night than there has been in the land of the Zulus.’ Gladstone was unrelenting. ‘Many of the facts belonging to that war have not been brought under the general notice of the British public. I think that is a great calamity.

‘You have seen that, from time to time, attacks have been made upon British forces and that in consequences of these, villages have been burned. Have you ever thought of the meaning of those words?’ For the first time for weeks, Alice thought of Simon. Was he in those hills? Was he burning villages?

‘These hill tribes have committed no real offence against us. If they have resisted, would you never have done the same? Their villages were burned. The meaning of these words is that women and children were driven forth to perish in the snows of winter. Does that not appeal to your hearts and make a special claim on your instincts? To think that the name of England for no political necessity except for a war, as frivolous as ever was waged in the history of man, should be associated with consequences such as these!’

Alice realised that tears were streaming down her cheeks, but she forbore to draw attention to herself by fumbling for her handkerchief. Gladstone thundered on, declaiming - to roars of approval - that the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan, among the winter snows, was as inviolable in the eyes of Almighty God as that of the audience themselves.

Alice became suddenly conscious of a pressure on her thigh. Under the table, a large white handkerchief was being offered to her. Campbell, however, did not look at her. His head down in concentration, he continued with his right hand to record the Liberal leader’s every word.

‘Thank you,’ Alice mouthed, and took the handkerchief surreptitiously, blowing her nose gently to cover the wiping of her tears. She picked up her pencil again and returned, chastened, to her note-taking.

At last Gladstone finished, to the inevitable standing ovation. Campbell threw down his pen and drew out his watch. ‘Not too bad,’ he said. ‘Only forty-five minutes - probably no more than two columns. Mind you, I’m told he reeled off twenty columns in all last week.’

Alice smiled, glad that no reference was being made to her weakness. ‘Yes. He went on for an hour and a quarter this afternoon.’ Shyly, she handed back the handkerchief. ‘Thank you. I am most grateful.’

For the first time Campbell looked a little embarrassed. ‘No. Keep it. You must have a cold. It’s the weather up here . . . this wretched wind.’

‘Yes.’

A vote of thanks was being proposed by a worthy at the end of the line on the platform. The pressmen were all scurrying away. Campbell closed his notebook.

‘Did you, did you . . . er . . . get it all down?’ whispered Alice.

‘Yes. But now I must transcribe and get it on the telegraph before the Press Association and Reuters.’

‘I do think you are clever to be able to do that.’ Alice regretted the words as soon as they were spoken. Although meant sincerely, they sounded gushingly schoolgirlish.

Campbell looked embarrassed again. ‘No, no. It’s not difficult once you’ve mastered the business of it.’ He regarded her with his half-smile ‘It’s not really reporting, you know. It’s not writing. A clerk could do it.’

‘Oh no.’ Alice was glad to sound professional again. ‘It is reporting. It certainly wasn’t beneath Dickens.’

‘True. Perhaps I shall progress to making my fortune by writing novels.’ He gathered up his papers. ‘You must excuse me, Miss Griffith. I must file my copy.’ The vote of thanks was drawing to an end. Campbell leaned towards Alice. ‘Where are you staying?’

‘Very close. The Waverley.’

‘Ah.’ A grin split his whiskers. ‘So am I. Would you . . . would you care to have supper with me when I have filed my copy? We both must eat.’

Alice felt uncomfortable again for a moment. ‘That is very kind. But I must decline. I, too, have to put my story on the telegraph.’ She smiled. ‘And I have to cover both speeches, you see, and, alas, I don’t write quickly. A snatched sandwich is all I can expect.’

He regarded her expressionlessly. ‘Quite so. Well, if you need any help . . .’ he adjusted quickly, ‘I mean with your notes, not your story, of course, I am in room seventeen. Don’t hesitate to call on me.’ He smiled again to remove any misunderstanding. ‘I know how difficult it is to decipher notes. And even if you’re not doing a verbatim, you will need references. Au revoir.’

He rose and, head bowed in deference to the formalities still being observed on the speaker’s platform, shuffled out of the hall. Alice gathered her things more leisurely and followed him. She gave a half-apologetic look behind her to the platform and found Gladstone watching her with - was she imagining it? - a small smile playing on his hard mouth.

 

Back in her room in the solid Waverley, Alice summoned a maid to light the fire, arranged her copy paper on the table and gazed out of the window, which gave her a much-prized view of Edinburgh Castle. She had just two hours to compose a thousand words - and she hated writing to a tight deadline. Luckily the post office, with its telegraph service (what a boon to newspapers!) was almost next door. Pen in mouth, she mused.

Campbell was much luckier. It was true that once you had mastered shorthand, reporting politicians verbatim was comparatively easy. The main news pages of all of the London dailies tomorrow - Times, Telegraph, Morning Post, Daily News, Standard, Morning Advertiser - would lead with: ‘Mr Gladstone said . . .’ and run without cross-headings or interruption for four or five columns, giving every word the great man had uttered - and marking every pause for applause and cries of ‘yes, yes’ and ‘hear, hear’.

Alice sighed. Her problem lay not only in meeting her deadline. She was slow to get her first words on paper, but once she had her introduction and basic theme, she found her copy flowed. No, Campbell had been shrewd enough to outline her main difficulty: how, in writing an analytical piece, could she express her approval of Gladstone’s opinions without obviously clashing with the pro-Tory policy of the Morning Post? In comparison, reporting from Zululand had been easy. There, she had gathered facts and they were sacred. Although some of her more direct criticism of Lord Chelmsford and his staff had been softened back in London, the fact that Isandlwana had been a tragic disaster was self-evident, and she had been allowed to show why. But it was one thing to criticise the direction of an obviously unsuccessful British army in the field and quite another to attack government policies which her employers espoused. She sucked hard on the pen and began to write.

 

After ten minutes she had covered three pages, writing uncharacteristically clearly so that the telegraph clerk would have no trouble transmitting the copy. She sat back and read her introduction with approval: ‘Twenty-five thousand people - perhaps ten times the number eligible to vote in the Midlothian constituency - heard Mr Gladstone in Edinburgh yesterday continue his wide-ranging and devastating’ (she frowned and then, reluctantly, deleted those last two words) ‘attack on the record of Lord Beaconsfield’s government. His targets, in two major speeches in the Corn Exchange and Waverley Market, were, respectively, the Government’s fiscal and foreign policies, and there was no doubt that Mr Gladstone’s audiences in both places felt that his shafts had hit their targets with unerring’ (she crossed that out and substituted ‘devastating’) ‘accuracy.’

Alice nodded slowly. Good. Facts, not opinion. No one could argue with that. She read on and then threw down her pen in disgust. Damn! Once again she had forgotten to write in cablese. The telegraph service had been nationalised and brought under the Post Office only nine years before, and the resultant lower charges had virtually revolutionised news-gathering costs and enabled daily newspapers to carry large reports the day after the news had broken. But thousand-word dispatches were still expensive to transmit and all reporters were trained to condense their copy into simple, money-saving codes. This was a discipline which Alice had learned the hard way but still often overlooked when deadline pressure was heavy. It would never do to look unprofessional, and she pulled fresh copy paper to her and began writing again, as quickly as clarity allowed:

 

25,000 people - prps ten times t number eligible to vote in t Midlothian constitcy - heard M Gladstone in Ednbrgh ysty continue hs wide-ranging attack on t rcrd o Ld Becnsfld’s govt. His targets, in two major spchs in t Corn Exchange and Waverley Market, wre, respectively, t Govt’s fiscal and foreign policies, and th ws no doubt tt Mr Gldstne’s audiences in bth places felt tt his shafts hd hit thr targets wi devastatg accuracy.

 

Good. That must have saved at least tuppence. Brow furrowed, she continued to write, her pen now fairly racing over the paper. After an hour, she had covered about fifteen pages, and she allowed herself time quickly to read through what she had written. It wasn’t perfect, but she felt that she had captured the passion of the man without letting her approval of the arguments intrude.

Alice looked out of her window at the yellow gaslights in the streets below. Why did Gladstone wear rough tweed trousers and waistcoat with a worsted tailcoat? Was he dressing down for his audience? Better the smooth cream of Campbell’s double-breasted vest. Such white teeth, too, and so charming a smile . . . Alice shook her head in annoyance, rang for tea and settled down again.

She was finished well within the hour. The teapot was still warm as she gathered the pages together, put on her coat and hat and half walked, half ran through the door, down the corridor and stairs into the cold air outside. The telegraph office was only three minutes’ walk away and she was fifteen minutes within her deadline as she handed her copy to the clerk, paid for the transmission and pocketed her receipt.

‘Well done.’ Campbell rose from the bench beside the door. ‘I thought you said you didn’t write quickly. I have only just filed my own copy.’

‘Oh, I er . . .’ Alice felt uncharacteristically flustered. She tucked a strand of hair back beneath her hat. ‘Thank you. You have been very quick yourself. Goodness,’ her brows rose as she made the calculation, ‘you must have written at least twice as much as me.’

The white smile came again, reminding Alice disconcertingly of Simon Fonthill. ‘Nothing to it. As I told you, it’s formulaic, really.’ He gestured to the door with his curly-brimmed bowler. ‘Look, we have both finished work now. Do let’s have supper together. I am hungry and I am sure you are too.’

Alice regarded him quizzically. He had been sitting with his back to the wall of the telegraph office as she had entered and spoken to the clerk. If he had only just filed his own story he would still have been at the desk. Obviously, he had been waiting for her. She felt a slight anticipatory tingle. ‘Oh, very well,’ she said. ‘But I insist on paying my share.’

‘We can argue about that later.’ He ushered her through the door. The wind hit them sharply, forcing them to turn up coat collars and bow their heads. He gripped her arm and turned his body to shelter her. ‘Would you mind if we did not eat at the hotel? There are so many of the agency fellows there and, anyway, the food’s not very good. I know of a splendid restaurant literally round the corner where we can get oysters. What do you say?’

His face was now frowning in supplication and the wind had turned his cheeks a bright red. Alice thought how young he looked. She decided to succumb to the tingle. ‘Why not?’

 

The restaurant was quite full, but a table was found for them and, without consulting her, Campbell ordered a bottle of’75 Chablis while they studied the menu. For all his youthfulness, Alice noted, he carried an easy air of authority and worldliness. This was no louche boy from the provinces.

They gave their orders and Alice found herself chatting to the young man with no awkwardness. He had a habit, she noted, of asking questions directly. There was no gentle skirmishing, no deployment of small talk. He wanted to know how she had got her job, so he asked her. It was not what she was accustomed to, this directness. But she made no objection. After all, it was what they both did for a living, asking questions.

She related how she had begun by writing to the letters page of the Morning Post, and then contributing articles on matters of the day, usually foreign policy. Gradually she had become a regular contributor, signing her covering letters to the editor ‘A. Griffith’, although, of course, she had received no by-line in the newspaper. Occasionally she was allowed to sign her articles ‘From a Special Correspondent’.

Campbell’s eyebrows rose. ‘So they never knew you were a woman?’

‘No.’ Alice grinned.

‘When did they find out?’

‘When I applied for a job as a foreign correspondent to cover the North West Frontier of India and the Afghan War.’

‘Good lord.’ Campbell slowly put down his glass. ‘I must say, you have got nerve . . . but that’s always been obvious.’

Alice decided to take this as a compliment. ‘Thank you.’ ‘But you didn’t get sent to the Frontier. You ended up in Zululand.’

‘Quite. Cornford, the editor, liked my articles and had agreed to see me, not knowing, of course, that I was a woman.’ Alice pushed away a stray lock of hair, and a gleam of satisfaction came into her eye at the memory. ‘I had him at a disadvantage, of course, because he had written praising my pieces and he was curious to meet me - although there was never any offer of a position on the paper.’

‘So?’

‘So, eventually, after a lot of arguing, I did a deal with him.’

Campbell’s eyebrows rose again. ‘A deal? A deal? One doesn’t do a deal with editors.’

‘Oh yes one does - if one is determined. He would not hear of me going to an “active” area like the Frontier, but I managed to persuade him that, through my links with the 24th Regiment - my father was a brigadier and both battalions had been posted to South Africa - I could be useful to him there.’

Alice smiled at the memory. ‘There seemed little threat of war there so Mr Cornford eventually agreed to my offer to pay my own way if he would refund the expenditure if I made the grade.’

‘And then came the war?’

Alice nodded. ‘Yes, rather out of the blue. More to the point, then came Isandlwana. I reported on that . . .’ she paused, and then smiled, half apologetically, ‘adequately. The cost of my fare was refunded and I was taken on the staff and stayed to cover the rest of the war.’

Campbell nodded. ‘Yes, and you did well. I remember. Very descriptive stuff. I admired it.’

‘Thank you.’

For a moment, their knuckles touched as they gripped the stems of their wine glasses. Campbell’s fingers relaxed, extended, and lay along the back of Alice’s hand. She let her hand remain there for a second or two before raising the glass to her lips. The young man held her gaze and smiled, as if in recognition of the gesture. Alice felt again that inward surge of excitement. She sat back and cleared her throat.

‘So there you are. My life story; or, at least, my professional life story.’

Campbell still held her gaze, his head now slightly on one side, quizzically. Then, slowly, he raised his glass. ‘I toast you. Beautiful but talented. Compassionate but determined.’

Alice snorted. ‘Nonsense. Anyway, I’m not the first woman to do this sort of thing. Frances Whitfield covered the siege of Paris for The Times-you know that she floated her dispatches out by balloon? How marvellous!’

Campbell leaned back in his chair. ‘That may be so, but it’s still rough trade, this. Do you remember what John Stuart Mill said about it?’

‘No.’

The young man frowned in recall. ‘Now, let me get this right. Mill wrote: “More affectation and hypocrisy are necessary for the trade of literature and especially the newspapers than for brothel keepers.” ’

‘Hmnn.’ Alice drained her glass and then accepted the remainder of the Chablis. Campbell, again without conferring, ordered another bottle. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘he may have been right fifty years ago, or whenever he said it, but things have improved considerably since then. Do you know,’ she leaned across the table in emphasis, ‘I do believe that we journalists are right in the middle of a sort of revolution in literacy. I read somewhere last week that, in Birmingham alone, about ten thousand people a day are visiting these new reading rooms to take in the dailies.’

The blue eyes crinkled. ‘I’m sorry,’ said Campbell, ‘but I can’t somehow see myself as a warrior in an educational crusade.’

Alice bridled. ‘Very well. Laugh at me if you must, but I am sure I will be proved right.’ She paused for a moment, frowning at the young, half-smiling face before her. It was a damned attractive face, for all its self-possessed, gentle air of superiority. She knew well enough now that all men when close exuded some distinctive odour, faint or strong; often tobacco, tooth powder, perhaps, or - most provocatively of all - an intangible, earthy smell that came from she knew not where. What would John Campbell smell and taste of?

Her reverie was interrupted by Campbell throwing up his hands in mock surrender. ‘All right, all right. I give in. We are in a noble profession and I personally will welcome all women to it. Why,’ he reached across to the new bottle and filled their glasses, ‘if Miss George Eliot, or whatever her real name is, wishes to report on Mr Gladstone’s campaign up here, I shall go so far as to sharpen her pencil with my own penknife.’

 

And so they went on, talking animatedly in great good humour, jousting happily, with a growing sexual attraction adding piquancy to the encounter. Campbell seemed reluctant to talk about himself, although Alice was able to elicit that he was a Highland Scot, his lack of accent explained by an education in the south of England. He said little at all, in fact, continuing instead to ply Alice with questions, as if he was determined to strip her of her mystery. Nevertheless, when at last the bill arrived, Alice realised that she had not enjoyed an evening so much since she had left South Africa, months before.

‘Please tell me the total, so that I may share it,’ she said, extracting her purse from her bag. ‘I insist. We are colleagues.’

Campbell took a breath as though to argue, then smiled. ‘We are indeed. Very well.’ He examined the bill. ‘With the tip, I believe that a sovereign and a half will cover it all.’

Alice fumbled in her purse and became aware for the first time that they were attracting the attention of other diners. But Campbell seemed unfazed, and meticulously counted out change for the coins she gave him. Outside the restaurant he took her arm again and she willingly allowed herself to be steered back to the hotel.

‘Are you covering the whole campaign?’ he asked, as they climbed the hotel steps.

‘Yes. And you also?’

He stopped her at the doors. ‘No, I’m afraid not.’

‘Oh.’ Surprised, she allowed her disappointment momentarily to show in her face. ‘Do you go back to London? I am sorry.’

‘Yes, tomorrow.’ He drew her a little into the shelter of the impressive doorway, without, however, pushing through the large doors that led into the hotel - as though he wanted to share an intimacy with her which was not for others. ‘This was my last assignment for Central News. I am joining the Standard, and I am to leave as soon as possible for India to report the Afghan business. You see,’ and the attractive smile came back, ‘I am becoming a true reporter at last.’

A mixture of emotions surged into Alice’s mind. The first was of acute disappointment - a disappointment coloured by a kind of sexual frustration that momentarily embarrassed her. Then came a strong feeling of jealousy. She swallowed. ‘I am so glad for you. My warmest congratulations. You are lucky. It is what I would most heartily wish to do myself.’

‘I know,’ he said. He did not smile, but held her arm for a moment before pushing open the doors.

They climbed the stairs in silence to the door to Alice’s room. She inserted the key in the lock and turned to him. ‘Goodbye. I shall think of you in Afghanistan.’

He put a hand on each of her shoulders, pulled her to him and kissed her hard on the mouth. ‘Goodbye, Alice Griffith. I shall think of you too.’ Then he spun on his heel and was gone. Alice stood looking after him for a moment with an overwhelming feeling of sadness and disappointment. Then she shrugged, turned and entered her room.

 

Early the next morning she was woken by a maid, who brought with her a telegram in its small brown envelope. ‘It arrived about two a.m., miss. But the hall porter thought it could wait until morning.’

‘Thank you.’ Alice propped herself on her elbow and opened the envelope. It was from Cornford, her editor, and it ran:

 

CONGRATS ON BEST CVERAGE YET OF GLDSTNE STOP BELIEVE YOU WASTED ON POLITCAL REPORTG STOP AFGHAN WAR BROKEN OUT AGN STOP TAKE FIRST TRN LONDON AND PREPARE LEAVE FOR BOMBAY SOONEST END