A Death in the Small Hours

SHAME, MY FATHER’S SHOP.

It was tracked to a sailor in Kilkenny, who said he had been asked to post it by a man in Paris — but there the tracks ran cold. Lenox, for his part, never looked back on the case with much fondness or satisfaction, because the two men who bore perhaps the most responsibility for its crimes were somewhere out upon the face of the earth, settled and, if not contented, at any rate still free. While Weston and Oates were both cold in the churchyard of St. Stephen’s.

If it bothered him overmuch, however, he consoled himself with two thoughts: first, that Chalmers was alive and well, still at the stables of Everley, and freshly married to, of all people born to womanhood, irony of ironies, Mrs. Wells; and second, that his Uncle Freddie might yet live to a ripe old age.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Is your uncle quite well?” Dallington asked Lenox, still smoking his small cigar on that autumn day in Hampden Lane.

“Yes — in fact, he shall be here Monday, if you would like to dine with us.”

“Oh, happily. Perhaps he will have more news from Archer.”

After another fifteen minutes Dallington took his leave, eyeing the flowers as he went.

Almost immediately there was a knock at the door — another Parliamentary visitor for Lenox, who greeted him with a very convincing false cheer that, even as he acted it out, sent a chill down his spine.

At last I have truly become a politician, he realized. Yet he wanted desperately to change the laws of his country, and if this was the way to do it, so it should go, he thought. He took the man into his study, gave him a glass of sherry, and straight away began to cajole and bargain him around to supporting the new poor laws he had proposed.

That Saturday and Sunday passed as the days before them had, in great avalanches of parliamentary chatter. Graham for his part slept not more than three or four hours a night, while Lenox was constantly between his desk at home and his offices in Whitehall, rarely eating more than a piece of cheese between two breads.

“People speak ill of the Earl of Sandwich but I am grateful to him,” he said to his brother when they passed each other in Bellamy’s one day.

Therefore he had nearly forgotten that Frederick was arriving on that Monday. Fortunately it was a bank holiday, and the Commons wouldn’t sit until the next evening. There were still meetings to attend, but by five o’clock he was home.

Jane was in her small rose-colored drawing room, writing at her desk, as Sophia slept in the bassinet next to her; the last lines of yellow light crossed the floor at a diagonal. When they had been simply friends it had been this room Lenox found the most comforting and homey of all the ones he knew, and still it offered him some evanescent pleasure — a woman’s touch in the small framed mezzotints, in the particular draw of the lace curtains, in the ornate cedar coffee table.

“What news?” asked Lenox. He kept his voice soft.

She sat down by him, having kissed him on the cheek. “Sad news, I’m afraid.”

“Oh?”

“It’s Toto. I’ve just had a letter from her, down at her father’s.”

Lenox’s heart fell. “Have they been arguing?”

“She has Georgianna with her, too. It must be terrible for Thomas — he so dotes on them both.”

“But what quarrel can she possibly have with him?”

“Her letter is unclear on that point — only says that she cannot tolerate London at the moment, cannot tolerate the country either, and feels heartily sick of it all.”

“I hope there is nothing of a permanent rift.”

Jane raised her eyebrows. “It is difficult to say. I wonder whether I should go down to see her.”

“Are you not planning the ball?”

“I would miss it, of course, for Toto.”

“Shall I speak to Thomas?”

“No, don’t. Or let him speak to you, if he likes.”

Lenox shook his head. “I cannot imagine he will.”

“As long as he has not taken advantage of the solitude to — anyhow, you know as well as I do.”

“He didn’t have his laboratory, his experiments, his marine studies, back in those drinking days. Not to so great an extent. Work is a great distraction.”

She leaned her head against his shoulder. “Shall I call tea for you?”

“Thank you, no. We dine early tonight, do we not?”

“At seven, if Freddie really does come.”

Lenox gestured toward the desk. “You were returning Toto’s letter?”

“Oh, no, that is already sent. I was only — but can I tell you tomorrow?”

“Of course,” he said.

She smiled up at him. “I think you will like the surprise.”

They sat in companionable silence for some moments then, watching the listless light lose its color and then begin to disappear altogether. Through the window he could see smoke rising from the chimneys in Grosvenor Square. How nice it was to be inside and warm, on such a day; how fortunate. “Has Sophia had a productive day?”

“Miss Taylor read to her this morning, and she dined on a very great — a prodigious piece of meringue.”

Lenox frowned. “Can that be healthy?”

“Children need eggs and milk, as far as I can gather.”

“So much sugar, though?”

Jane laughed, pulling a strand of glossy dark hair behind her ear. “She is not so roly-poly as some children.”

“No, she is perfect, of course. I suppose I should not wake her?”

“You may as well, or she won’t sleep tonight. I shall ask Miss Taylor to change her into something fetching, too, for Freddie — her little yellow dress, perhaps.”

The squire of Everley arrived punctually at a quarter to six that evening. As he always did in London he looked more harried than easy. He offered up some parcels to the footman, and took off his coat. “Cabman shouted at me,” he said.

“Did he?” asked Lady Jane. “How rude!”

“I did fall asleep in his cab, I suppose, and we were blocking a line of traffic, from what I saw as I was … as I was hustled out. Still.”

“Was your journey down happy?” asked Lady Jane, guiding him toward the drawing room and setting him in an armchair.

“Endurable, thank you.”

“And Plumbley? Plumbley is well?”

Here they launched into a conversation about Musgrave — the town was taking it with shocking smugness, and also relief that the ordeal was finished.

There were other guests to arrive soon: Edmund and his wife; Dallington; and one or two of Frederick’s acquaintances from schooldays. Jane thought that before they did and the tone of the evening grew more formal Sophia might be brought down.

She was, by Miss Taylor, who wore a fetching blue dress. “That reminds me,” said Frederick. “Charles, if one of your men could fetch my parcels? I brought you, Miss Taylor, some cuttings of the flowers we spoke about in Somerset.”

“How kind of you!” she said.

There was a knock at the door as he was presenting her with this parcel — it was Dallington, who came in, saw her, and rather seemed to blush. He was able to put a good countenance on his embarrassment. Lenox wondered whether there was anything at all to Jane’s speculations. Perhaps, he thought.