It was a long dinner, with a great deal of laughter and storytelling. When it was finally over, and the men were putting on their cloaks in the hallway, Frederick started to don his as well. They had offered him a room here, on Hampden Lane, when he planned his visit, but he was an old bachelor and admitted freely that his club would best tolerate his idiosyncrasies.
“Did you not want to speak to me?” Lenox asked him. “Your letter—”
Frederick smiled at him. “Not just now. Perhaps in the morning you would have breakfast with me, at the Carlton? I will know my mind better then — best not to speak on serious subjects after a day of travel, a rich dinner, and a few glasses of wine.”
“I should be very glad to breakfast with you. Eight, shall we say?”
“Capital.” Frederick smiled, and Lenox recognized some ghost of his mother’s smile therein, a fine lineament. “Charles,” he said, the din of the other guests’ conversation still covering their voices, “you will not be too down in the mouth, when I pass Everley on?”
“Not in the slightest,” said Lenox stoutly, at last, in this very moment, having determined himself not to be.
“I’m glad to hear it. Until the morning, then.”
“Until the morning.”
CHAPTER FIFTY
Lenox had grown accustomed to rising with the daylight this past week, with so much to do, and having taken the previous evening off he was at his desk at six the next morning, reading the minutes of meetings he had skipped, answering his correspondence, and poring over lists of the members of the House who attended sessions infrequently, in the hopes of finding a name or two that might be rehabilitated and brought into the fold. Every so often he rubbed his eyes or took a sip of coffee. Otherwise there was no break in the work.
At half-seven he went upstairs to change from his comfortable morning coat, with its tattered hems at the wrist and the heel, into a smarter suit of clothes, appropriate for dining at Frederick’s club. He felt tired in his bones as he mounted the stairs, but brightened when he saw Jane was upstairs, dressed for a morning round of calls.
“Have you seen Miss Taylor?” she said.
“I have not.”
“She wished to speak to us.”
“It will have to wait, unless it is about Sophia’s health, in which case—”
“No, no, it is nothing of the kind. I shall tell her it must be later, though she was rather pressing in her request.”
Upon saying this, Jane looked at him meaningfully: Dallington. Lenox frowned. “I hope she won’t want to leave us. Just when we are all so used to each other’s ways.”
“In all likelihood it’s some trifle. She’s a methodical young woman.”
“Let us hope so. In the meanwhile help me with this watch-chain, would you dear? I must be on my way to see my cousin.”
The Carlton Club was a sleek and stuffy place — mahogany, red velvet, quiet voices. Quite foreign territory for Lenox, since it was occupied primarily by conservative politicians. In the dining room he waited for Frederick at a table, covered with a white cloth, laid out with silver and a slender crystal vase that held a rose. As he studied the flower two men from the opposite benches passed him with a cordial salutation. “Coming to our side, is it, Lenox?”
He laughed. “At any rate to your club.”
Frederick, when he came down, looked fresh, not as dulled and battered as he had the night before. In fact Lenox would have told him he looked younger, if it didn’t sound fanciful.
He skipped the last step up to see Lenox. “Charles! There you are! Here, I shall sit, don’t stand — but look.” He put the folded newspaper that had been tucked under his arm onto the table. “I find in the
Lenox frowned. “What have they reported?”
“Is it not true that you are to be a Junior Lord of the Treasury?”
“Ah, so they’ve got hold of that, have they? Yes, Hilary asked me on Wednesday. I must give him my decision tomorrow. It will be yes, I think. It must be yes.”
“A thousand pounds a year, Charles! And then, the Treasury — you will be able to find Wells.”
Lenox laughed. “No, no, it’s nothing like that. There are plenty of men better equipped to handle the treasury than I am. It’s more in the line of a … you might call me a whip. It will be a great deal of work, I fear.”
“You look almost wistful, but it is a high achievement, Charles! Your father would have been proud. Your mother, too.”
“I thank you. As to it’s being a high achievement — they sent round a few sheets of paper with all the trivial details of the post, and there they hastened to remind me that even in this exalted new position, I must enter a room after the eldest sons of viscounts. They included a list, who else was it? The youngest sons of earls—”
“The eldest of baronets, the youngest of viscounts—”
“And the commissioner of Bankruptcy may positively lord his situation over me! While I am a very inferior creature, not even in the same field of play as the Master of Horse.”
Both were smiling now. “Still, I propose a toast. Hail that man and ask for champagne.”
Lenox did it. His smile came from pleasure in Frederick’s company, not from the promotion — of course it was happy news, but like all happy news it carried with it an implication of forsaken choices. Nevertheless Lenox accepted his cousin’s congratulations with good grace.
The waiter came back with the champagne. “Shall I open it?”
Lenox was about to nod, but Frederick said, “After we’ve eaten, Sam, thank you. If we might have eggs, fried bread, a few sausages, and a good deal of coffee — Charles, is there anything else you would like?”
“Thank you, no.”
A silence crept into the moment after the waiter had gone, and then began to expand until it became rather embarrassed. Both men were conscious that they had now to address whatever it was that the elder of the two had wished to speak about, and Lenox, for his part, disliked to push the issue. After fifteen or twenty seconds they both undertook to speak at the same time.
“No, you must begin,” said Lenox.
“I do have one or two things I should like to discuss with you.”
He steeled himself. There would be legal matters over Everley’s ownership, advice to ask about the old- planted forests — might they be protected from cutting for some term of years — and perhaps even a confidential word or two about Wendell, that Lenox should bear him some special kindness.
There was still a pang in his heart as he contemplated these questions, but it was muffled now. He had made up his mind to let go of Everley.
As it happened, however, his expectations of the conversation were incorrect. What Frederick actually had to say astonished him.
“At my age there is no refined way of saying this, Charles.” He coughed and looked down at the table, adjusted his fork and knife. “I am to be married.”
At this very crucial moment, when Lenox was agog with interest at what his cousin said, a white-haired gentleman came to their table. “Mr. Lenox,” he said. “I agreed whole-heartedly with your speech.”
Both of the men rose. “Baron Rothschild. I know of all you did in the famine in Ireland, so your support is not unexpected — but I am very glad indeed to hear of it.”
“Much good may it do you — I think I shall very probably be turned out of my seat at the next election.” He laughed, croakily.
This was Lionel Rothschild, scion of the great banking family. He had had one of the most interesting careers in the history of English politics; many years before he had won a seat in the Commons, but, because he was Jewish and therefore would not make the Anglican oath of office, had been barred from taking it. In protest he had
