Traitors Gate

She was surprised how profoundly that thought hurt, like a gouging wound inside.

Susannah was watching her, her wide eyes full of uncertainty, and the beginnings of just as deep a pain. There was a spirit between them of perfect understanding. For an instant Nobby knew that Susannah also was facing a disillusion so bitter the fear of it filled her mind with darkness. Then as quickly it was gone again, and a new thought took its place. Surely Susannah could not also be in love with Peter Kreisler? Could she?

Also? What on earth was she saying to herself? She was attracted … that was all. She barely knew the man … memories in common, a dream that had found them both in youth, enough to take them separately upon the same great adventure into a dark continent in which they had found a light and a brilliance, a land to love, and had come home with its fever and magic forever within them. And now they both feared for it.

One afternoon on the river when understanding had been too complete to need words, only a few hours out of a lifetime-enough to call enchantment, not love. Love was less ephemeral, less full of magic.

“Miss Gunne?”

She jerked herself back to the garden and Susannah.

“Yes?”

“Do you think Mr. Rhodes is just using us? That he will build his own empire in Central Africa, turn Zambezia into Cecil Rhodes land, and then cock a snook at us all? He would have the wealth to do it. No one can imagine the gold and the diamonds there, quite apart from the land, the ivory, timber and whatever else there is. It is teeming with beasts, so they say, creatures of every kind imaginable.”

“I don’t know.” Nobby shivered involuntarily, as if the garden had suddenly become cold. “But it is certainly not impossible.” There was no other answer she could give. Susannah did not deserve a lie, nor would she be likely to believe one.

“You say that very carefully.” The ghost of a smile crossed Susannah’s face.

“It is a very large thought, and one too dangerous to treat with less than care. But if you look back even a little way through history, many of our greatest conquests, and most successful, have been largely at the hands of one man,” Nobby answered. “Clive in India is perhaps the best example.”

“Yes, of course you are right.” Susannah turned and looked up the long lawn towards the house. “And I have been here the better part of an hour. Thank you for being so … generous.” But she did not say that she felt better or clearer in her mind, and Nobby was sure that it was not so.

She walked back towards the French doors to the house with her, not because she was expecting further callers, thank goodness-she was in no mood for them-but out of a sense of friendship, even a futile desire to protect someone she believed desperately vulnerable.

To those making the very most of the London Season, a night at the theater or the opera was positively a rest after the hectic round of riding in the park before breakfast, shopping, writing letters, seeing one’s dressmaker or milliner in the morning, luncheon parties, making and receiving calls in the afternoon, or visiting dog shows, exhibitions or galleries, garden parties, afternoon teas, dinners, conversaziones, soirees or balls. To be able to sit in one place without having to make conversation, even to drift off into a gentle doze if so inclined, while at the same time be seen to be present, was a luxury not to be overlooked. Without it one might have collapsed from the sheer strain of it all.

However, since Vespasia had long since given up such a frantic pattern of behavior, she visited the theater purely for the pleasure of seeing whatever drama was presented. This particular May the offerings included Lillie Langtry in a new play titled Esther Sandraz. She had no desire to see Mrs. Langtry in anything. Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Gondoliers was naturally at the Savoy. She was not in the mood for it She would have seen Henry Irving in a work called The Bells, or Pinero’s farce The Cabinet Minister. Her opinion of cabinet ministers inclined her towards that. It looked more promising than the season of French plays, in French, currently at Her Majesty’s, except that Sarah Bernhardt was doing Joan of Arc. That was tempting.

The operas were Carmen, Lohengrin or Faust. She had a love for Italian opera and was not fond of Wagner’s, for all its current and surprising popularity. No one had expected it to be so. Had Simon Boccanegra been playing, or Nabucco, she would have gone even if she had to stand.

As it was she settled for She Stoops to Conquer, and found a remarkable number of her acquaintances had made the same decision. Although it was in many ways restful, the theater was still a place for which one dressed formally, at least for the three months of the Season, from May to July. At other times it was permissible to be rather more casual.

Theater outings were frequently organized in groups. Society seldom cared to do things in ones or twos. Dozens, or even scores, suited them better.

On this occasion Vespasia had invited Charlotte for pleasure, and Eustace as a matter of duty. He had been present when she made the decision to attend, and had shown so obvious an interest it would have been pointed not to include him, and for all the intense irritation he awoke in her from time to time, he was still part of her family.

She had invited Thomas also, of course, but he had been unable to come because of the pressure of work. He would not be able to leave Bow Street sufficiently early, and to enter one’s box when the play was in progress was not acceptable.

Thus it was that, long before the curtain went up, she, Charlotte and Eustace were seated in her box indulging in the highly entertaining pastime of watching the other members of the audience arrive.

“Ah!” Eustace leaned forward slightly, indicating a gray-haired man of distinguished appearance entering a box to their left. “Sir Henry Rattray. A quite excellent man. A paragon of courtesy and honor.”

“A paragon?” Vespasia said with slight surprise.

“Indeed.” Eustace settled back and turned towards her, smiling with intense satisfaction. In fact he looked so well pleased with himself his chest had expanded and his face seemed to glow. “He embodies those knightly virtues of courage before the foe, clemency in victory, honesty, chastity, gentleness with the fair sex, protection of the weak, which are at the foundation of all we hold dear. That is what a knight was in times past, and an English gentleman is now-the best of them, of course!” There was absolute certainty in his voice. He was making a statement.

“You must know him very well to be so adamant,” Charlotte said with wonder.

“Well you certainly know much of him that I do not,” Vespasia said ambiguously.

Eustace held up one finger. “Ah, my dear Mama-in-law, that is precisely the point. I do indeed know much of him that is not known to the public. He does his greatest good by stealth, as a trae Christian gentleman should.”

Charlotte opened her mouth to make some remark about stealing, and bit it off just in time. She looked at Eustace’s serene face and felt a chill of fear. He was so supremely confident, so certain he understood exactly what he was dealing with, who they were and that they believed the same misty, idealistic picture he did. He even thought in Arthurian language. Perhaps they held their meetings at round tables-with an empty seat for the “siege perilous” in case some wandering Galahad should arrive for the ultimate quest. The cleverness of it was frightening.

“A very perfect knight,” Charlotte said aloud.

“Indeed!” Eustace agreed with enthusiasm. “My dear lady, you have it exactly!”

“That was said of Lancelot,” Charlotte pointed out.

“Of course.” Eustace nodded, smiling. “Arthur’s closest friend, his right hand and ally.”

“And the man who betrayed him,” Charlotte added.

“What?” Eustace swung to face her, dismay in every feature.

“With Guinevere,” Charlotte explained. “Had you forgotten that? In every way it was the beginning of the end.”

Eustace obviously had forgotten it. The color spread up his cheeks, both with embarrassment at the indelicacy of the subject and confusion at having been caught in such an inappropriate analogy.

To her surprise Charlotte felt sorry for him, but she could not say anything which would be interpreted as praise for the Inner Circle, which was what the whole conversation was about. Eustace was so naive, sometimes she felt as if he were a child, an innocent.