Death at Dawn - Caro Peacock [90]
‘How, then?’
‘These days, the banner would be raised by gossip and hints and whispers. They’ll have their dinner party and ball. Mr Brighton is affable, the likeness unmistakeable. Gossip gets back to London, around the salons, the newspapers pick it up … So it all starts.’
‘I can’t imagine how anybody who’d met him could possibly want him for king.’
‘If the British public tolerated the Prince Regent, they’ll stand for anything. Our standards are not high.’
‘Even so …’
‘And remember, most of the people shouting for him will never set eyes on him. A few nicely placed stories, a flattering engraving or two in the newspapers, and he’s England’s hope and the people’s friend.’
‘He’s not the people’s friend,’ I said. ‘None of them is.’
‘Of course not. But this country’s not as safe as some people like to think. There are hungry and desperate people out there, prepared to clutch at anything.’
‘But why should anybody just take their word that he’s Princess Charlotte’s son?’
‘A good question. Do you suppose that’s what this whole occasion is about – that they intend to produce something that might be regarded as proof?’
‘But how can they, if it’s not true?’
‘Believable by people who want to believe.’
‘Then what should we do?’ I said.
‘Tell somebody in authority?’
‘Do you know anybody in authority?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘If I were to go straight up to London and bang on the door of the Home Secretary, would he believe me? Besides …’
I waited.
‘Besides what?’
‘There is the question of what Blackstone is doing,’ he said.
There was a change in his voice, more guarded. It struck me too that he’d said very little during the part of my story where I’d told him about Mr Blackstone.
‘You know him well?’ I said.
‘Quite well, yes.’
I took my hand away from his.
‘Is Blackstone another nom de guerre?’
‘I believe not. We’ve always known him as Alexander Blackstone.’
‘“We”?’
‘Your father and the rest of us.’ He hesitated, then, ‘Liberty, that ring of your father’s – did you understand anything by it?’
‘Only that it was a favourite of his. He often wore it.’
‘He was a freemason, Liberty, that’s what it signifies. So am I, and so is Blackstone. I should not be telling you this, but I think you are owed it.’
‘But where’s the harm in that? Weren’t Haydn and Mozart masons?’
‘Yes, and you’re right, there’s no harm in it at all. Mostly we’re no more than companionable people with a liking for intelligent company who wish to do good rather than harm. That, I’m sure, is how your father saw it. But some people will tell you otherwise.’
‘That you wish to do harm?’
‘That we are revolutionaries. They may not be entirely wrong. Some of the leaders of the Revolution in France and the War of Independence in America were masons. We believe in equality among men and have no exaggerated respect for kings or princes.’
‘A man’s a man for a’ that.’
‘Who taught you that?’
‘My father, of course. I am not in the least shocked that you and my father should believe in equality, but I’m at a loss to see what it has to do with Mr Blackstone and Mr Brighton.’
‘Because Alexander Blackstone is a revolutionary. As a young man he was put in prison for writing a pamphlet supporting the French Revolution. He came from a good family and had a considerable income, but he’s given all his life and fortune to the cause, and I believe now there’s precious little of either left. What did you make of him?’
‘He’s like a black rock with ice on it.’
‘You didn’t know him in his prime. Neither did I, come to that, but people who did tell me he could have marched ten thousand men on Whitehall by the power of his oratory alone. He was a dangerous man, Libby.’
‘I think he still is.’
‘Perhaps. But he’s a sick man now, and the younger generation don’t listen to him like their fathers did. He’s never wavered in his belief that there’ll be no end to poverty or injustice here until England has a revolution and we become a republic