Traitors Gate - Anne Perry [49]
“Of course,” she agreed. “I imagine you know a great many of the people here?”
“Oh no, hardly any. I have little time to mix in Society as I used to. There are too many important things to be done.” He looked poised to depart and set about them immediately.
“You interest me greatly, Mr. March,” she said, meeting his eyes.
He was horrified. It was the last thing he had intended. She always made him uncomfortable. The conversation so seldom went as he had wished.
“Well, my dear lady, I assure you … I …” He stopped.
“How modest of you, Mr. March.” She smiled winningly.
He blushed. It was not modesty but an urgent desire to escape.
“But I have thought a great deal about what you said only yesterday concerning organizing together to do good,” she said eagerly. “I am sure in many ways you are right. When we cooperate, we can achieve so much more. Knowledge is power, is it not? How can we be effective if we do not know where the greatest need lies? We might even end up doing more harm, don’t you think?”
“Yes, I imagine that is true,” he said reluctantly. “I am so glad you have realized that hasty judgment is very often mistaken. I assure you, the organization to which I belong is most worthy. Most worthy.”
“And modest,” she added with a perfectly straight face. “It must have been so distressing for you that Sir Arthur Desmond was saying such disagreeable things about it, before the poor man died.”
Eustace looked pale, and acutely uncomfortable.
“Er … most,” he agreed. “Poor man. Senile, of course. Very sad.” He shook his head. “Brandy,” he added, pushing out his lower lip. “Everything in moderation, I always say. A healthy mind in a healthy body. Makes for both virtue and happiness.” He took a deep breath. “Of course I don’t hold with laudanum and the like at all. Fresh air, cold baths, brisk exercise and an easy conscience. No reason why a man shouldn’t sleep every night of his life. Never think of powders and potions.” He lifted his chin a little and smiled again.
A menacing Richard III walked crabwise past them, and two young women laughed happily. He shook a fist and they entered into the spirit of it by pretending to be frightened.
“An easy conscience requires a life of extraordinary virtue, frequent and profound repentance, or absolute insensitivity,” Charlotte said with a slight edge to her voice, and only turning to look at Eustace at the last moment.
He blushed very pink, and said nothing.
“Unfortunately I did not know Sir Arthur,” she went on. “But I have heard he was one of the kindest and most honorable of men. Perhaps he had pain, and that was what caused him to be wakeful? Or anxieties? If one is responsible for others, it can cause a great deal of worry.”
“Yes—yes, of course,” Eustace said unhappily. She knew memory was awakening in him, with all its discomforts. If he slept well every night, she felt he had no right to.
“Did you know him?” she pressed.
“Uh—Desmond? Oh … well … yes, I met him a few times. Not to say I knew him, you understand?” He did not look at her.
She wondered if he and Sir Arthur could conceivably have been in the same ring of the Inner Circle, but she had no idea even how many people were in a ring. She thought she recalled from something Pitt had said that it was no more than half a dozen or so, but she was unclear. For it to be effective, the groups would surely have to be larger than that in some way? Perhaps each ring had a leader, and they knew the others, and so on.
“You mean socially?” she asked with as much naïveté as she could manage. She found it was not very much. “At hunt balls and so on? Or to do with his work?”
Eustace looked somewhere over his left shoulder, his cheeks pink. “His work?” he said with alarm. “I … I am not sure what you mean. Certainly not.”
It was sufficient. He had taken her to be referring to the Inner Circle. Had it been a social acquaintance he would have admitted it without embarrassment,