arrived.
“Oh, good gracious. Thank you, Effie,” Vespasia said, acknowledging her. “I had not realized it was so late. Please ask her to come in.” She turned back to Eustace. “Charlotte will accompany me while we take our cards to the Duchess of Marlborough.”
“Charlotte will?” Eustace was dumbfounded. “To the Duchess of Marlborough? Really, this is preposterous, Mama-in-law! She is utterly unsuitable. Heaven knows what she might say or do. Surely you’re not serious.”
“I am perfectly serious. Thomas has been promoted since you last saw him. He is now a superintendent.”
“I don’t care if he is commissioner of Scotland Yard!” Eustace said. “You still cannot have Charlotte call upon the Duchess of Marlborough!”
“We are not going to call upon her,” Vespasia said patiently. “We are simply going to leave our cards, which, as you know as well as I do, is customary after attending a function. It is the accepted way of expressing our appreciation.”
“‘Our appreciation’! Charlotte was there?” He was still completely nonplussed.
“She was.”
The door opened and Charlotte was shown in. As soon as she saw Eustace March her face registered a conflicting mixture of emotions-surprise, anger, self-consciousness-all overridden by curiosity.
Eustace’s feelings were much plainer. There was nothing in his face but a pure and simple embarrassment. He rose to his feet, his cheeks flaming.
“What a pleasure to see you again, Mrs. Pitt, how are you?”
“Good afternoon, Mr. March.” She swallowed hard and came forward.
Vespasia could guess what manner of event she was remembering, most probably the ridiculous episode under the bed. No doubt, from the scarlet in Eustace’s cheeks, so was he.
“I am in excellent health, thank you,” she added. “I am sure that you are also.” That may have been a memory of his ever open windows in Cardington Crescent, even on cloudy mornings when the wind blew the breakfast room to almost intolerable temperatures, and everyone except Eustace was shivering over the porridge.
“Always, Mrs. Pitt,” Eustace said briskly. “I am blessed in that manner.”
“Eustace has been telling me about an excellent society he has been privileged to join,” Vespasia said, indicating a chair for Charlotte.
“Ah-yes,” Eustace agreed. “Dedicated to works of charity, and to influencing society for good.”
“Congratulations,” Charlotte said wholeheartedly. “You must feel a great sense of achievement. It is certainly sorely needed.”
“Oh indeed.” He resumed his own seat, sounding far more relaxed. He was back to discussing a subject which obviously pleased him enormously. “Indeed, Mrs. Pitt. It is most gratifying to feel that one can join with other men of like mind and dedication to the same purposes, and together we can be a real force in the land.”
“What is the name of this society?” Charlotte asked innocently.
“Ah, you must not ask further, my dear lady.” He shook his head a fraction, smiling as he did so. “Our aims and purposes are public and open to everyone, but our society itself is anonymous.”
“You mean secret?” Charlotte asked boldly.
“Ah well.” He looked taken aback. “I would not have chosen that word; it has a ring about it which gives quite the wrong idea, but it is anonymous. After all, is that not the way Our Lord commanded us we should do good?” His smile returned. “‘Let not your left hand know what your right hand doeth’?”
“Do you think a secret society was what He had in mind?” Charlotte asked with absolute seriousness, staring at him as she awaited his answer.
Eustace stared back at her as if he had been stung. His brain knew she was tactless, but he had almost forgotten the manner and the reality of it. It was ill-mannered to embarrass anyone, and she consistently embarrassed him; he thought, deliberately. No woman could be quite as unintelligent as she sometimes appeared.
“Perhaps ‘discreet’ would be a better word,” he said finally. “I see nothing questionable in men helping each other to meet the needs of the less fortunate. In fact it seems like excellent sense. The Lord never extolled inefficiency, Mrs. Pitt.”
Charlotte smiled suddenly and disarmingly. “I am sure you are right, Mr. March. And to claim public admiration for every act of charity is to rob it of any virtue at all. It is possibly even a fine thing that you yourselves will know only a few other members, simply those of your own ring. Then it is doubly discreet, is it not?”
“Ring?” All color had gone from his face now, leaving it oddly pale under the sun and windburn of his complexion, assiduously earned in good outdoor exercise.
“Is that not an appropriate term?” Charlotte asked, wide-eyed.
“I-well …”
“Never mind.” Charlotte waved it away. She had no need to press it; the answer was obvious. Eustace had joined the Inner Circle, in innocence, even naivete, as had so many before him-Micah Drummond and Sir Arthur Desmond, to name only two. Micah Drummond had broken from it and survived, at least so far. Arthur Desmond had not been so fortunate.
She turned to look at Vespasia.
Vespasia was very grave. She held out her hand to him.
“I hope you will be a powerful influence for good, Eustace,” she said without pretense. “Thank you for coming to tell us your news. Would you care to stay to luncheon? Charlotte and I will not be long.”
“Thank you, Mama-in-law, but I have other calls to make,” he declined rapidly, rising to his feet and bowing very slightly, then similarly to Charlotte. “Charming to meet with you again, Mrs. Pitt. Good day to you both.” And without waiting for anything further he left the room.
Charlotte looked at Vespasia and neither of them spoke.
3
The inquest on Arthur Desmond was held in London since that was where he had died. Sitting in the gallery of the court, Pitt was grimly sure that it was also so that members of the Inner Circle could keep a greater command of the proceedings. Had it been in Brackley, where he and his family had been known and revered for three centuries, the personal regard in which he was held might have overridden even their power.
As it was he sat beside Matthew, who this morning looked almost haggard, and together they waited while the formal opening of the inquest took place amid a hush of anticipation. The room was full. People bumped and jostled each other making their way through the narrow doorway and under the beamed arch into the main area. The buzz of noise died away as people took their seats, facing the single bench at the front, the table to one side where an official in a black gown took notes, his pen at the ready, and the other side, where there was a stand for witnesses.
Pitt felt a strange sense of unreality. He was too filled with emotion to allow his mind to function with the clarity it usually had on such occasions. He had lost count of the number of inquests he had attended before this.
He looked towards the front. He could see at least fifteen or twenty men of sober bearing, dressed in full or half mourning, sitting shoulder to shoulder ready to give testimony as they were called. Most of them had the solid, confident look of wealth and assured position. He assumed they were either professional experts of some sort or else the members of the club who had been present on the afternoon of Sir Arthur’s death. A nervous man, a few years younger, dressed less expensively, was probably one of the club stewards who had served the brandy.
The coroner was ill-suited by appearance for his task. Anyone more robust and full of the vigor of life would be hard to imagine. He was large with red-gold hair and a highly florid complexion, features broad and full of enthusiasm.
“Well now,” he said heartily, as soon as the preliminaries were completed. “Wretched business. Very sorry. Let us get it over with as soon as we may, with diligence and dispatch. Diligence and dispatch, best way to deal
