Death in the Devil's Acre - Anne Perry [29]
“Unfortunates!” Brandy’s eyes were narrow with scorn. He ripped Balantyne’s thought apart exactly as if he had read it from his mind. “Don’t make it sound as if we had some kind of pity for them, Papa. We don’t even want to know about them! We’ve just said they are not suitable conversation for our table. We prefer to pretend they don’t exist, or that they are all doing it quite happily and sinfully, because they want to—”
“Don’t talk rubbish, Brandy!” Christina snapped. “You know nothing about it. And Mama is perfectly correct. It is most disagreeable, and I think you are ill-mannered to force it upon us. We have already made it as plain as we can that we don’t care to learn of such coarse subjects! Jemima.” She stared across the table. “I’m sure you don’t wish to hear about prostitutes over your dinner, do you?”
Balantyne leaned forward, wanting to defend Jemima. She was peculiarly vulnerable. She was in love with Brandy—and she had married wildly above herself.
But Jemima smiled back at Christina, her gray eyes clear and level. “I should find it extremely uncomfortable at any time,” she answered. “But then, when I can regard other women’s distress, either physical or moral, without feeling uncomfortable about it, then I am in need of a very sharp reminder of my responsibilities as a human being.”
There was a moment’s silence.
Brandy’s face broke into a dazzling smile and his hand moved for a moment as if he would reach across the table and touch her.
“How very pious,” Christina said with delicate contempt. “You sound as if you were still in the schoolroom. You really must learn not to be so unimaginative, my dear. It’s such a bore! And, above everything else in the world, Society hates a bore!”
The color drained out of Brandy’s face. “But it usually forgives a hypocrite, darling.” He turned on his sister. “So you will remain a success, as long as you are careful not to become too obvious—which you are doing at the moment. A clumsy hypocrite is worse than a bore—it is insulting!”
“You know nothing about Society.” Christina’s voice was brittle, her face hot. “I was trying to be helpful. After all, Jemima is my sister-in-law. No one wishes to sound like a governess, even if one thinks like one! Good heavens, Brandy—we have all had more than enough of the schoolroom!”
“Of course we have.” Augusta came to life again at last. “No one wishes to be instructed about social ills, Brandy. Take a seat in Parliament if you are interested in such things. Christina is right. But it is not poor Jemima who is a bore—she is merely being loyal to you, as a wife should be. It is you who are being extremely tedious. Now please either entertain us with something pleasant or else hold your tongue and allow someone else to do so.”
She turned to Alan Ross, ignoring Balantyne at the end of the table. He was still unhappy, and sought the words to convey his sense that the subject could not so easily be dismissed. Its comfort or discomfort was irrelevant; it was its truth that mattered.
“Alan,” Augusta said with a slight smile. “Christina tells me you have been to see the exhibition at the Royal Academy? Do tell us what was interesting? Did Sir John Millais show a picture this season?”
There was no alternative but to answer. Ross gave in gracefully, offering her a light and delicately humorous description of the paintings at the Academy.
Balantyne thought again how much he liked the man.
After the dessert had been cleared away, Augusta rose and the ladies excused themselves to the withdrawing room, leaving the gentlemen free to smoke, if they chose, and to drink the port that the footman Stride brought in in a Waterford crystal decanter, with a silver neck and an exquisite fluted stopper. He left it on the table and retired discreetly.
Without knowing why he said it—the subject had been a ghost on the edge of his