Belgrave Square - Anne Perry [166]
“So did I,” his friend agreed. “That’s what made it stick in my mind.”
“Sure it was Fitzherbert?”
“ ’Course I’m sure. Take me for a fool, Albert?”
“Whatever for? Not because that girl Morden jilted him, surely? Don’t care what he did, you don’t blackball a fellow for that sort of thing. Good God, if they started doing that, there’d be precious few of us left, what.”
“No, of course not. Something else. Don’t know what exactly. Word went out. That’s all I know. But I’ll tell you this: White’s follows—and then all the other clubs worth belonging to.”
“You think so? But what’s he done?”
“Doesn’t really matter, poor fellow. Don’t need to know, people just follow suit. Too bad. Liked him. Nice chap, always agreeable, and generous.”
“Can’t be that Hilliard girl, can it?”
“Don’t be an ass. Who the devil cares if a fellow sees a lady of dubious reputation? Long as you don’t insult your wife, or expect decent people to treat her like one of the family …”
“Oh really? Does the Prince of Wales know that?”
“What? Oh—Mrs. Langtry? Well what the Marlborough House set do isn’t really the pattern for all of us. Can’t get away with it just because they do. Anyway, all he did, as I hear, was flirt with the girl a bit. No harm in that. No—no, it’s something else. No idea what.”
Jack did not know that it was Anstiss, but he feared it. He remembered the anger in his eyes, the sudden hard line of his mouth. It had changed from being an amiable, intelligent face into one that held a ruthlessness that was final.
He heard other remarks, saw the change in people’s expressions when Fitz’s name was mentioned.
“It is a curious comment on one’s acquaintances,” he said to Emily and Charlotte one afternoon as they were sitting in Charlotte’s garden in the sun. They had called briefly to tell her of their change in plans. He smiled with an uncharacteristic twist of cynicism. “I think I can almost divide them into two classes: those I admire and those I don’t, according to their reactions. It is a very sour thing to discover how many people are prepared to condemn a man without knowing even what it is he is supposed to have done, let alone whether he is guilty of it or not.”
“You shouldn’t be surprised, my dear,” Emily said with a sad little grimace. “Society is all about influence and fashion. Someone with influence has blackballed Fitz, and suddenly he is no longer fashionable. Everyone, or almost everyone, is a follower, trying desperately to climb a little higher. And since no one knows where they are going, it is imperative one follows the right people.”
Charlotte shot her a glance to see if she were as bitter as her words, but saw the flicker of amusement in her eyes, and was reassured that it was a tolerant understanding and not a matter of self-pity, or worse, of hatred.
“What are you going to do?” Charlotte asked, looking at Jack.
“Tell Lord Anstiss that I will seek selection, but that I will not enter the society to which he has invited me,” Jack answered with sudden deep seriousness. And looking at him more closely Charlotte saw the gravity in him, and a flicker of fear. She knew then that he believed it was Anstiss at the back of Fitz’s disfavor. They were all aware of his real power, not the money, the philanthropy, the open counsel, patronage and hospitality, but the influence that made or broke people according to his wish. He was a Mend one could not do without, he was also an enemy one could not afford.
“He will not like it,” Charlotte said quietly, but inside she was immensely relieved. No hope of failure Anstiss could threaten was anything like the horror that the Inner Circle visited on its members, the twisting of conscience, the tearing of loyalties, the secrecy and uncertainty, not knowing who to trust, and thus in the end the distrust of everyone, and the final utter loneliness.
“I know,” Jack agreed. “And I don’t know whether it is the same secret society that Thomas mentioned, but just in case, I should prefer