Charlotte’s mind that in some way this woman resented her intrusion. She wondered what the conversation had really been. She looked more closely at Mrs. Walters, and saw the fine lines of irritation in her face, as if her habitual expression was one of anticipating anger. There was a mixture of eagerness and tension in her now, and she seemed acutely aware of Lord Anstiss. Her eyes flickered to him as if she was uncertain whether to speak or not.
Charlotte smiled at her sweetly, and indeed she felt a certain sympathy.
“I was thinking of type rather than quality. Perhaps I expressed myself poorly. I apologize. Have you seen anything of great interest recently, Mrs. Walters?”
“Oh-” Mrs. Walters shrugged. “I saw
“No,” Charlotte admitted readily. “I have been rather preoccupied with other things. Was it excellent?”
“Oh yes. Do you not think so, Lord Anstiss?” She turned to him with a bright glance.
“Indeed.” Anstiss gave a lengthy, informed and sensitive opinion of the work and of the particular performance he had seen, his face full of power and animation, his choice of words individual and obviously colored by his own intense feeling. No one interrupted him, and Charlotte listened with interest. It made her wish dearly that such events were within possibility for her. But it was never going to be more than a dream, and this was a game, a few days out of Emily’s life. Charlotte should enjoy them for what they were, and do her best to acquit herself honorably.
“How well you describe it, my lord,” she said with a smile. “You make me feel not only as if I had been there, but in the most excellent company.”
A quick pleasure lit his face. “Thank you, Mrs. Pitt. What a charming compliment. You have made my evening doubly enjoyable in retrospect.” The phrase was conventionally polite, and yet she felt had he not meant it he would have said nothing.
Mrs. Walters’s face darkened. “I am sure we all find you most interesting to listen to,” she said a trifle peevishly. “You must have seen something of note, Mrs. Pitt. You surely have not spent all your time pursuing your brother-in-law’s career? I thought he was but very lately come to political interest.”
Next to Mrs. Walters, Lord Byam disengaged himself from his group and turned towards them.
“His interest is long-standing,” Charlotte contradicted. “It is his decision to stand for Parliament which is recent.”
“A nice distinction,” Anstiss observed with relish. “Don’t you think so, Byam?”
Byam smiled, a warm, natural gesture. “I take your point, Mrs. Pitt. Still, it is a pity if it has required so much of your time you have had no opportunity to refresh yourself with theater or music.”
“Oh I have, my lord.” Charlotte did not wish to appear too earnest or single-minded. She racked her memory for any acceptable affair she had attended, and stretched the truth by a few years. “I did a short while ago see a delightful performance of a light opera by Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan. Not quite Verdi, I confess, but a charming evening.”
Mrs. Walters raised her eyebrows, but said nothing.
“I agree,” Eleanor Byam said quickly. “We cannot be indulging in great tragedy all the time. I saw
“Indeed,” he agreed, but he looked not at her but at Anstiss. “Did you not find the whole plot and the humor of it delicious-knowing your opinion of the aesthetic set?”
Anstiss stared somewhere over their heads, his eyes bright with inner humor, as if he took some point deeper than the mere words. “Mr. Oscar Wilde should be flattered,” he replied lightly. “His wit and his ideas have been immortalized and will be sung and whistled by half London, and done so without their knowing why.”
“Particularly the song about the silver churn,” Byam said quietly, smiling and looking at no one in particular. He hummed a few bars. “Magnetism is a most curious quality. Why do some have it, and some not?”
“Are you talking of metals or people?” Anstiss asked.
“Oh either,” Byam answered. “The mystery is equal-to me.”
“Rather an effete young man, I heard,” Mrs. Walters said with a quiver in her voice. “Do you approve of him, Lord Anstiss?”
“I admire his turn of phrase, Mrs. Walters,” Anstiss replied carefully. “I am not sure I would take it further than that.” His tone was very slightly condescending. “I was referring to his characterization in Bunthorne. Mr. Gilbert was making satire of the aesthetic movement, of which Mr. Wilde is the leading light.”
“I know that,” she said crossly, and blushed.
Anstiss flashed a look at Byam, then they both looked away again, but the understanding had been there, and in Byam’s face a spark of sympathy.
“Of course,” Anstiss said soothingly. “I said it only to explain my own feelings. I am not personally acquainted with Mr. Wilde, or with any of his admirers, for that matter. I have read a little of his poetry, that is all.”
“I prefer the classical theater.” Mrs. Walters now chose to take a completely different line. “Don’t you, Lady Byam? I saw Sir Henry Irving in
With a quick smile at Anstiss and a glance at Eleanor Byam, Charlotte excused herself, making a remark about her duty to other guests, and retreated, leaving the field to Mrs. Walters.
Charlotte spent the next half hour exchanging polite inconsequentialities with almost everyone she had not yet spoken with, passing by the table several times to make sure it was still in good order, watching the band to ascertain they were indeed sober, about which she had some doubts, and snatching an opportunity to report to Jack on the general success of the evening.
By midnight she was again walking with Great-Aunt Vespasia in a pleasant and companionable silence. They had reached the balcony beyond the main ballroom and came upon Lord and Lady Byam standing beneath the Chinese lanterns, the soft light casting a warmth over them and making Eleanor, with her dark hair, look faintly exotic.
Greetings were formal and very polite, then conversation passed quickly through the trivial to common interests, which of course were centered on the political scene. Not unnaturally the matter of future elections arose. Neither Jack nor Herbert Fitzherbert were mentioned, but a great deal of subtle reflections were made and more than once Charlotte caught Eleanor’s eye and they smiled at each other.
“Of course the matter is very complex,” Byam said quite seriously, but without the pomposity that Charlotte found most trying in some people who held high office. “One can seldom make a financial decision that affects only one group of people or one interest. I think some of our would-be reformers do not appreciate that. Money represents wealth, it is not wealth itself.”
“I don’t understand you,” Eleanor said with admirable candor. “I thought money was perhaps the most obvious form of wealth.”
“Money is merely paper, my dear,” Byam explained with a small smile. “Or at best gold, a comparatively useless commodity. You cannot eat it, or clothe yourself in it, nor will it serve any other of life’s requirements. It is pleasing to the eye, and it does not corrupt with time, as do lesser metals; but it is less useful than steel, and immeasurably less useful than coal, timber, cotton, grain, wool or meat.”
“I do not take your point.” Eleanor was not yet satisfied.
At that moment they were joined by a young man with hooded, brilliant eyes, a strong nose and the most remarkably beautiful, curling, deep auburn hair, which was ill cut at present, and far too long. He plunged in to answer the question without hesitation, and without waiting to be introduced.
“Money is a convenience by which civilized man has agreed to make bartering immeasurably easier, but it is a mechanism.” He held up long, sensitive hands. “And if our agreement fails because one party possesses all the goods that are worth bartering, then the means itself is useless. A loaf of bread is always a loaf of bread. It will feed a man for so many days. But a piece of paper is worth whatever we agree it is worth, no more, no less. When the agreement fails, we have financial anarchy.” He looked from one to another of them. “That is what happens when we lend money to people at exorbitant rates, and pay them too little for their goods or their labor, so they can never earn sufficient to repay us. The fact that we begin with the advantage enables us to set the prices we will pay, and keep the debtor always in our power.”
“You sound passionate about it, Mr…” Vespasia said with interest; indeed her hesitation because she was unaware of his name did not carry the criticism of his manners that Charlotte would have expected.
