Yes, whispered a tiny voice inside, but you are the Lodge Master of the Master’s Circle here. You were the one who organized it and runs it. Doesn’t that make you responsible?
As if it wasn’t perfectly obvious that it must have been someone in Harton’s own circles who was responsible. Who else would have had the knowledge and the motivation?
Today he had the results of his investigation on his desk, from the private agent he had employed to delve into the Hartons and their school and small importation business. He should have been pleased to discover that both Hartons had a sterling reputation, but somehow this only irritated him. He knew this irritation was irrational, and that irritated him even more, as he turned the closely-written pages over and read them with care.
Drat them both.
I will forget about this, he vowed. It is a dead issue. Neither of them will trouble me again.
He decided to take refuge from unwelcome thoughts by immersing himself in the round of summer entertainments organized by Lady Cordelia, arranged to introduce him gradually into political circles. Tennis-parties, afternoon teas, dinners—all were designed to make him visible, but not intrusive. Lady Cordelia took a Thames-side summer home for the purpose; something where a wide, spacious lawn suitable for croquet and picnicking al fresco, and the proximity to London were the most important features. Ministers who lived in London had no difficulty in getting to these entertainments, and yet the contrast between the bucolic suburb and the hot, noisy city could not have been greater. In such pleasant surroundings, in an atmosphere in which Lady Cordelia laughingly forbade all talk of politics, it was possible to make a good impression without ever actually saying anything.
Though truth be told, he was finding his acquaintance with these lions of Parliament a bit disappointing. If he had followed his inclinations, they were not the folk he would have been spending these pleasant summer hours with. None of them had much in the way of interests outside of politics. All were devoted, more or less, to the arts of manipulation. They were façades, like stage scenery, implying a substance and solidity that was in reality nothing more than paint on canvas. They did not read; they did not think much past the needs of themselves and their select circle. When they attended plays or concerts, it was not to pay attention to the performance, but to be seen attending the performance. Their wives were pleasant nonentities, chosen for their ability to adorn a dinner table and play gracious hostess—and for the ability to smile and meekly accept whatever their lord and master decreed. Outwardly respectable, the pillars of society, they stood four-square for Moral Behavior, Propriety, Virtue, and Values, and there wasn’t one of them that did not have a mistress tucked away in Mayfair, shared the attentions of a London courtesan, had at least one maidservant who did a bit more for her master than dust, or visited a discreet brothel on a regular basis. And that was merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
That they were venial was not what bothered him so much; it was the hypocrisy. All men had their failings, and he was no more a bastion of personal rectitude than the next fellow, that he should go casting stones. The problem was that these men set themselves up as the models of rectitude while secretly and deliberately choosing the opposite path.
He knew these things—and other personal failings—because Lady Cordelia kept him informed of them. Not that he was supposed to do anything with the information, no, nothing like that. He was supposed to hold it close against the day when a subtle hint would convey a tacit warning that cooperation was better than opposition. And that bothered him, too. It felt somehow wrong.
It was a chess game on a grand scale, hunting for weaknesses, not exploiting them yet, but having the knowledge ready if it needed to be used. He liked chess. He wished he could take the same pleasure in this game. Certainly, the major pieces on the board were as bloodless as the white-and-black marble pieces of his favorite set.
The trouble was, it was always the pawns that were sacrificed, and the pawns were anything but bloodless. Wives, children, associates—people who would probably suffer more than the major players if everything went badly. You thought about these things, the innocent bystanders, when you were the Chief Huntsman of a Master’s Circle. You had to. In Magic, things were different; when you did something knowingly wrong, when you hurt people who did not deserve hurt, it came back on you later. The scales were evened a great deal faster for a Mage than for an ordinary man, who might wait until the day he was called before the Almighty to answer for what he had done.
He consulted his calendar to discover that this evening’s excursion would be a concert on the lawn of Lady Cordelia’s summer residence beneath the stars—taking the cue from the much-less-genteel church fêtes and outdoor entertainments of London, and making it acceptable for the set to which she and David belonged. As usual, the word “concert” was something of a misnomer. Yes, there would be music—tonight it would be a string quartet on the terrace—but the number of people actually listening to the music would be low. Most would be there to be seen—to display new frocks and jewels, to be seen speaking to the “right” people, to make one’s presence known or reinforce one’s standing in this particular group. Miss too many of these social outings without an adequate excuse and people began to talk, to question if you had been invited at all, and if not, why not—
As he was assisted into his evening dress by his valet for another one of these dreary mock-festive occasions, he found his mind drifting back to summer parties when he had still been in school, when he had spent one week after another making the rounds of week-long visits to estates in the country and had not considered those simpler pleasures beneath his dignity. Then he and the others had gone to the church fêtes, and bought useless embroidered cushions and tatted antimacassars and eaten ices and listened to village musicians and actually enjoyed themselves…
And with a curse, he flung himself into his carriage for another evening of pretense and empty smiles.
But, he reminded himself, this was the life of an adult. It was more than time to put away childish notions, to settle into the serious business of life. Life was not church fêtes and ices. Life was doing things one did not want to do with the goal of getting things, great things, accomplished.
Besides, Lady Cordelia had assured him that eventually he would come to take some sardonic amusement in these occasions, as he watched the façades strut about pretending to be substance.
But in the back of his mind he couldn’t help feeing this was all very inferior to honest laughter and the taste of a lemon ice beneath the stars of a country night.
***
With the excitement of the play over, a languor settled over the children for the next couple of days or so. There was, alas, no further sign of Robin Goodfellow either, though Nan looked in vain for him everywhere she went. It was Mem’sab who roused them all out of it by proposing a contest.
“We have gone over a great deal of the history of this house,” she said over breakfast, three days after the play. “But there is a great deal more here that can be discovered. I want each of you to find out all you can about the history of some particular place or object in this house, and link that to the greater history of England. The one with the story that is best will be allowed to come with me to select a school pony at the Horse Fair.”
Now, since the mere existence of a “school pony” had been the subject of much rumor for two days—originating with Tommy who had sworn he had overheard a conversation between two grooms suggesting that some unknown benefactor was going to field the money for such a thing—the news caused a sensation. Every single girl knew exactly what she wanted—a gentle, fat white pony with a soft nose and big eyes, who would willingly be hitched to a cart for rides all over the estate. And every single boy knew what he wanted—a lively black pony with white socks and a blaze, and an eye full of mischief, who would willingly run at breakneck speed beneath his rider, and take fences even a tall hunter would balk at. Never mind that no more than two of the girls knew how to drive, and of the three boys who had been taught how to ride, none of them had been on a member of the living equine species in more than a year. The lines were drawn, the camps set up, and a grim rivalry ensued.