Julian Fellowes's Belgravia Episode 6

Episode Six

James Trenchard was sitting at a particularly fine Empire desk with ormolu mounts in his office in the Gray's Inn Road. On the first floor, above a firm of solicitors and at the top of a sweeping staircase, it was a large paneled room with some serious pictures and impressive furniture. Without ever saying it, James had a sort of vision of himself as a gentlemanbusinessman. Most of his contemporaries would have thought of this phrase as an oxymoron, but that was his view and he liked his surroundings to reflect it. There were drawings of Cubitt Town on display, carefully arranged to advantage on a round table in a corner of the room, and a beautiful portrait of Sophia hung above the fireplace. Painted during their stay in Brussels, it captured his daughter at her most beguiling; youthful and confident, staring straight at the onlooker, she was wearing a cream dress with her hair arranged in the style of that time. It was a good likeness, very good really, and a vivid reminder of the girl he knew. Probably for this reason, Anne refused to hang it in Eaton Square as it made her too sad, but James liked to look on his darling lost daughter; he liked to remember her in moments of rather uncharacteristic quiet solitude.

Today, however, he found himself contemplating the letter on his desk. It had been delivered when his secretary was with him, but he wanted to read it in private. Now, he turned it over and over in his plump hands, scrutinizing the florid script and the thick cream paper. He did not need to open it to know who sent it, as he had received an identical letter to tell him he was on the application list for the Athenaeum. This would be the answer, from Edward Magrath, the secretary of the club. He held his breath—he so desperately wanted to be accepted, he scarcely dared to read it. He knew the Athenaeum was not most people's idea of a fashionable club. The food was notoriously bad, and in Society it was seen as a London stopping place for an assortment of clerics and academics. But it was still a place for gentlemen to meet, no one could deny it; with the difference that, under their slightly revolutionary rules the club also admitted men of eminence in science, literature, or the arts. They even had members in public service, without significant birth or educational requirements.