Charles Finch - A Stranger in Mayfair

“Indeed. Good-bye, then. I’ll be by to check on your health tomorrow, if I may.”

“Thank you,” said Ludo, and looked genuinely grateful.

On the walk home, Lenox wondered if he himself felt as secure. It had been a jarring, horrifying moment, and the sight of that silver blade had raised every animal instinct in him to flee.

The house on Hampden Lane was empty, and seemed twice as empty because it was twice as large now. Lenox sat in his study, reading Cranford again, struggling to focus after the evening’s intensity. Gradually the story absorbed him, however, and he relaxed.

When Household Words had published Cranford he would have been…what, twenty-three or twenty-four? He hadn’t read it as it was serialized, and in a way he was glad. He often envied people who hadn’t read his favorite books. They had such happiness before them.

The front door opened, and he went out into the hallway prepared to see Jane. In fact it was Graham, home late from Parliament.

He looked sheepish. “I scarcely like to take the liberty of using the front door, sir, but I hoped to visit you in your study.”

Lenox waved a dismissive hand. “You should use it as if it were your own.”

“No, sir, I continue to live in the same quarters, and I will continue to use the servants’ door.”

The detective frowned. “That hadn’t occurred to me. These secretaries have their own rooms, don’t they? What do you have-two rooms to yourself?” It was a fact that no matter how close Graham and Lenox had been as butler and master, there was some final estrangement; it would have been deeply embarrassing for Lenox to see Graham’s rooms.

“Yes, sir.”

“You should have your own rooms, I fear, in some building down Whitehall.”

“Oh, no, sir-”

“For that matter, we still need to settle your wages. What do these bold young secretaries make?”

Rather miserably, Graham said, “Rather less than an experienced butler, sir. Many of these gentleman are highborn, with private fortunes.”

The briefest look of fleeting pain crossed Graham’s face, and Lenox knew in an instant that he had failed to recognize his friend’s position; Graham was a former servant, forced to deal on equal terms with those he might have served in other circumstances. Had someone mentioned something?

Lenox couldn’t say any of this, or even inquire after Graham’s happiness in his new position, so he said, “Damn ’em all, you’re twice as useful. We’ll put you on an extra ten pounds a year. And,” he went on awkwardly, “you must come to our next party.”

“I couldn’t, sir-”

“You must. It will be wonderful. Did I tell you how delighted McConnell was about your rise in the world?” Lenox laughed. “He said you’d be Prime Minister one day, which really I wouldn’t put past you. Has anything gone on today?”

Grateful to fall back on work, Graham said, “Oh, a great-”

Lenox interrupted him. “But I’ve forgotten!”

“Sir?”

“Cholera!”

“I-”

“You look puzzled. I don’t have cholera, you needn’t worry about that. But the blue book on the subject, my God!”

Lenox spent the next five minutes telling Graham about the failings of the current sewage system, then recounted the conversation with Hilary.

“That was profoundly inadvisable, sir.”

“Why?”

“I’ve studied the other clerks and secretaries, and in general it seems the safest policy is to gather several backbenchers before approaching a frontbencher.”

“James Hilary and I are friends. I sponsored him for the SPQR club, as you know.”

“That’s precisely the problem, sir. He would have been confused as to whether you were approaching him as a friend or colleague. To cloud the issue in that way risks making you seem unserious.”

“What do you think I should do?”

“Percy Field is the person I’ve been watching most closely, sir, the Prime Minister’s secretary. If there’s an issue he supports, he links several Members who might be interested in it and schedules them an appointment. It gives him tremendous power, and it helps the Prime Minister to no end by giving him a sense of the feeling within the party.”

“You want to speak to other MPs, then?”

“No, sir! I mean that you must behave as he does, using Mr. Hilary or Mr. Brick as your Prime Minister. You must convoke a group who agree with you on the subject and approach someone with greater power as a forceful unit.”

Smiling, Lenox said, “You’re far wiser than I am. Let’s do it your way.”

The front door opened, and Lenox stood. Since he had returned from Ludo’s he had felt an indefinable tug of uncertainty, even unhappiness, and now he remembered why: Lady Jane. They had seen so little of each other over the past few days, and what conversation they’d had had been disconcerting.

Graham stood up, nodded to Lenox, and left. Lady Jane spoke a word to the butler-former butler-in the hallway and then breezed into the room, pink from the chill, smiling, and lovely.

They said hello to each other. Lady Jane was still smiling but seemed slightly detached. He knew that when she was out of countenance she covered it up by talking, and that was what she did now, very gaily.

“The baby is wonderful, not a sound out of the poor dear. Toto makes much more noise, grumbling and disagreeable but I think secretly she’s happier than she can quite grasp. It is hard to have a boy’s name, though, isn’t it? I hope they’ll call her Gracie by the time she has little playfellows, or I fear she’ll be teased for it. The Longwalls have just had a child, a boy, and Toto thinks he might make a suitable husband. Can you imagine? And you’ll never guess what he’s called.”

“George?

She laughed and took off her long gloves, finger by finger. He recalled fleetingly how intimate he had once found that gesture. There wasn’t precisely fear in his heart, but a kind of melancholy ambiguity, an insecurity.

“Not George, no. Charles! Charles Longwall. I thought it quite funny to imagine you having an infant namesake out there in London somewhere.”

This brought them awkwardly close to the subject of their conversation earlier that day, and Lenox said hastily, “Longwall-a very English name.”

It didn’t mean much of anything, but she took the cue from him. “I always thought the same thing about Reggie Blackfield.”

“And do you remember Henry Bathurst, who was foreign secretary?”

Finally shorn of her gloves, hat, and earrings, which she dropped into a silver tumbler on Lenox’s desk, she came and whispered his cheek with a kiss. “I’m going to ring for some food.” She picked up a glass bell and gave it a brisk shake. “Have you had a long day?”

“Now that you mention it-”

Kirk came in. “You rang?”

“I’d like some supper, if Ellie is still awake,” said Lady Jane. “Whatever there is.”

“Bring up a bottle of wine as well,” added Lenox.

“Yes, sir.”

When he had gone, she said, “What were you saying?”

“I did have rather a long day. I was attacked.” He laughed to defray the concern that immediately showed on her face. “I’m quite well, I promise. Starling didn’t have such a happy run of it, however.”

“What happened?”

“He was stabbed in the leg.”

Lenox told the story. She made all the right noises, but he couldn’t help but notice that she wasn’t sitting beside him on the sofa, as she usually did, but across from him on a chair; couldn’t help but notice that after she had made sure he was unharmed her eyes flew more than once to the door, as if she were more interested in her food than in his story. Was he imagining her indifference?