Farriers' Lane

It was silent outside, and raining in the dark; the hall clock had struck eight, when he suddenly realized how long he had been there, and that it was past time he left. He had outstayed a social call. Now it had become difficult to return to politeness and excuse himself. The outside world intruded again.

He rose to his feet.

“I have kept you too long, because for a while I forgot my manners and simply enjoyed myself. Please forgive me.”

She rose also, gracefully, but the shadows of reality returned to her face.

“There is nothing to forgive,” she replied. It was the obvious thing to say, yet he felt she really meant it. For all the stilted words there was an ease of understanding between them. It was on the edge of his tongue to ask if he might call again, then he changed his mind. If she refused, and she might feel she should, then he had closed the door to himself. Better simply to come.

“Thank you for receiving me,” he said with a smile. “Good night.”

“Good night, Micah.”

He hesitated only a moment, then picked up his hat and his stick and went out into the main hallway and back to the wet, lamplit street, the loneliness within him warmed and illuminated, and yet also sharper.

4

THERE WAS NOTHING Pitt could do on Sunday. There were no places of business open, and he was quite certain that none of the private persons he wished to speak to would be available and agreeable even to receiving him, let alone giving him the time and attention he would need in order to gain the information, or even the impressions, he desired.

So he had a thoroughly enjoyable day at home with Charlotte, Jemima and Daniel. It was the loveliest of autumn weather, utterly windless with hazy sunshine and a soft golden light, a sense of height in the sky that made it possible to forget all London around them and imagine that beyond the wall there were trees and harvest fields.

Pitt had little time to spend in his garden, but what there was was rare and precious, and he loved it fiercely. From the moment he laid down his knife and fork from breakfast, he went out and started to dig, dressed in old trousers and with his sleeves rolled up. He lifted the dark earth and turned it with intense satisfaction, breaking the clumps, parting the tangled roots of perennials now over, and dividing them into new plants for the spring. The Michaelmas daisies were blooming in blue-and-purple towers and the asters and chrysanthemums raised shaggy heads of cerise and lilac, gold, red, white and pink. The last roses were spare and precious. It was the final cutting of the grass, and the air was filled with the smell of it, and of earth mold, and sun on damp leaves.

Seven-year-old Jemima was dressed in last year’s pinafore and was half squatting on the ground beside him, her face smeared with mud, deep in happy concentration, her fingers busy with untangling roots and getting out the weeds. A couple of yards away, Daniel, two years younger, was kneeling down listening to Charlotte trying to explain to him which leaves were chickweed and which flowers.

Pitt turned and looked over Jemima’s head and caught Charlotte’s eye. She smiled at him, hair across her brows, a smear of earth on her cheek, and he felt more totally happy than he could ever recall. There were some moments so precious the ache to hold on to them was a physical thing. He had to force himself to have faith that others as good would come, and the letting go must be easy, or they would be crushed in the very act of clinging.

By five o’clock the sun was slanting low; there were already deep shadows under the walls, and the dark earth was smooth and full of freshly planted clumps. They were all tired, filthy, and extraordinarily satisfied with everything.

Daniel fell asleep over tea, and Jemima’s head sank lower and lower as Pitt read her a bedtime story afterwards. By half past six the house was quiet, the fire lit with Pitt dozing beside it, his feet propped up on the fender, and Charlotte was absentmindedly sewing buttons on a shirt. Monday morning seemed like another world.

    But duty returned sharply enough with daylight, and nine o’clock found Pitt alighting from a hansom cab in Markham Square, Chelsea, with the intention of seeking the other witness Stafford had spoken to the day he had died, and whom Pitt had not yet met, Devlin O’Neil.

He had obtained the address from Stafford’s chambers, and now paid the cabby and climbed the steps to the front door of a very substantial terraced house with wide porticoes and a brass doorknob in the shape of a griffon’s head, and a fanlight above of stained glass. The house seemed to be at least three windows wide on either side of the door, and was four stories high. If Devlin O’Neil owned this establishment then he was indeed doing very well, and had no reason to have quarreled with his friend Kingsley Blaine over a few guineas’ wager.

The door was opened by a smart maid in a dark dress and very crisp lace-trimmed cap and apron. She was cheerful and full of confidence.

“Yes sir?”

“Good morning. My name is Thomas Pitt.” He handed her his card. “I apologize if I call inconveniently early, but I would very much like to see Mr. O’Neil before he leaves on the business of the day. The matter is connected with the death of an acquaintance of his, and is somewhat urgent.”

“Oh dear! I’m sure as I don’t know who’s dead. You’d better come in, and I’ll tell Mr. O’Neil as you’re here.” She opened the door wide for him, put the card on the silver card tray, and conducted him to the morning room. It was somber, fireless, but immaculately clean, and decorated in a highly conservative and traditional style. The furniture was large, mostly carved oak, and covered with every conceivable kind of picture and ornament, trophies of every visit, relative and family event for at least four decades. The chair backs were protected by embroidered antimacassars edged with very worn crochetwork. The high ceiling was coffered in deep squares, giving the room a classical appearance belied by the ornate brass light brackets. There were no flowers on the side table, but a stuffed weasel under a glass dome. It was a very common sort of domestic decoration, but looking into its bright, artificial eyes, Pitt found it both repulsive and sad. He had grown up on a large country estate, where his father had been gamekeeper, and he could so easily visualize the creature in the wild, savagely alive. This motionless and rather dusty relic of its being was horribly offensive.

The door opened while he was still looking at the weasel, and he turned around to see the maid’s polite face.

“If you would like to come this way, sir, Mr. O’Neil will see you.”