Evan Hunter - Lizzie

The oysters were not in season, and so Geoffrey suggested she might like to try either the thick turtle soup, or the mulligatawny, both of which he’d sampled here and found excellent, unless she preferred the consomme with Italian paste — though surely she was traveling on to Italy, was she not? They both had the turtle soup, followed by the whitebait — which Geoffrey said was a British delicacy and not to be missed — and then Geoffrey ordered the calf’s head and piquant sauce while she settled for the less exotic half roast spring chicken and ham, although he highly recommended the haricot oxtail.

“The wine isn’t all that bad, is it?” he said, though she’d made no comment at all upon it, and in fact had not once brought her glass to her lips. “One must be terribly wary choosing wines in any London restaurant nowadays. Those tempted to drink bad wine generally pay the penalty in money and malaise. I truly feel that restaurateurs who label their bottles Château-this or Château-that should be penalized under the Adulteration Act. Surely the adulteration of wine is no less a fraud than the adulteration of beer, wouldn’t you agree? Now then, assuming we can finish off our meal with a really well-made cup of coffee, something not so easily procured in London, what would you like to see this afternoon?

“I must tell you, of course, that sightseeing in London falls into two categories: places that everyone wishes to see, but that few can see; and places that everyone can see, but that few have any wish to see. I should love taking you to see the interiors of the Queen’s palaces, for example, but unfortunately I would first have to reckon with the Lord Chamberlain’s Department, and I fear a mere idle curiosity would never suffice to gain his official permission, which in any case is rarely granted. On the other hand, Miss Borden, were we...”

“If I’m to call you Geoff... ”

“May I then? Thank you so much, Lizzie. Were we to make polite application by letter, we might be granted permission to view the various spendid private art collections — the Duke of Westminster’s in Grosvenor Street, the Duke of Wellington’s at Apsley House, and so on. How long do you expect you’ll be here?”

“We’ll be leaving for Paris on the third.”

“Scarcely time enough to get those titled gentlemen off their arses — you’ll pardon me, Allie tells me you’re easily shocked.” Before she could protest, he said, “Dismissing the first category as unobtainable, then, and sliding past those places in the second category — the ones everyone can see, and which you and your friends will undoubtedly feel duty bound to see — may I suggest some alternatives for this afternoon and the several days ahead?”

“Yes, please do,” Lizzie said.

“Well, then, do you like orchids?” he asked, and Lizzie suddenly remembered Alison’s complimentary allusion. “Because if you do, the Chamberlain collection in Kew Gardens is possibly one of the very best on the face of the earth. I’ve seen it more than once, and it probably contains more rarities than any other amateur can boast of. If you favor roses, the finest collection in all England is at Waltham Cross, not a half-hour’s journey by rail from the Liverpool Street terminus. Or have you had enough of rail travel? Unfortunately, you’ve already missed the Rose Society’s yearly exhibition at the Crystal Palace; it shut down almost two weeks ago. The same can be said of the Evening Floral Fête in Regent’s Park. A pity you weren’t here just a trifle earlier, Lizzie. I thought perhaps, for starters this afternoon, we might...”

He took her first to John Wesley’s restored chapel in the City Road — something mentioned in none of her guidebooks, and certainly a place she might otherwise have missed — explaining that the chapel had only recently been reopened for public worship and asking what her religious persuasion might be, if indeed she was religious at all. She told him she was a member of the Central Congregational Church in Fall River, and that her religion, as such, was evangelical Protestant.

“And yours?” she asked.

“My sister and I both, I fear, are complete heathens, though our mother tried to raise us as proper Lutherans, against the Church of England wishes of my dear, departed pater.”

“Am I to understand you do not go to church?” Lizzie asked.

“Only when I’m caught in a sudden downpour,” Geoffrey said, “of which there are many in London. In that respect, one might say I’m an avid churchgoer.”

“Then why have you taken me here?” she asked.

“Because I do so love this small house,” he said. “Not for its historic significance, certainly not. After all, 1777 — when Wesley laid the chapel’s foundation stone — might be considered thoroughly modern, in terms of our lengthy, illustrious, and thoroughly blood-stained history,” and here she detected a note of irony in his voice, so similar to Alison’s. “But for its serenity. To wander these rooms, to see the man’s study and conference chairs, his clock, his clothes and furniture — and in his tiny prayer room, the small table-desk and kneeler — these fill me with a sense of peace. Perhaps I am religious after all, Lizzie, though I shouldn’t let my sister hear that.”

In the spacious graveyard outside, as they stood by the tomb of the great founder of the Methodist church, Geoffrey — with a tone as mocking as his sister’s — asked a caretaker, in what was an overly exaggerated awesome whisper, “Is this ground consecrated then?”

“Aye, sir, indeed it is,” the caretaker replied.

“By what bishop?” Geoffrey asked at once.

“By none, sir,” the caretaker replied. “Solely by depositing in it the body of that man of God, John Wesley.”

In the hansom cab on the way to Westminster Hall where Geoffrey planned to show her St. Stephen’s Crypt (which Alison had mentioned in passing yesterday) and the Jerusalem Chamber and Chapter House attached to the Abbey, he said, “The growth of our grubby little city continues to amaze me. Had you been here last year at this time, there’d have been twelve thousand fewer houses — do statistics interest you, Lizzie?”

“Well... yes. In moderation.”

“I shall be moderate then, however contrary that may be to my nature. Be advised, then, that we shall be supplying somewhere near eight hundred thousand homes with running water this year — a commonplace in America, I’m sure, but quite remarkable for us.”

Lizzie thought of her own house on Second Street in Fall River, where the toilet facilities were in the cellar, and where — although there was a well in the backyard, and a pump in the barn — the only running water was obtained either from a tap in the sink room off the kitchen pantry, or from the faucet over the washtub in the laundry room downstairs.

“It shall grow to be monstrous, I’m certain,” Geoffrey said, “like Mary Shelley’s awesome creation. At which time we shall all flee to the Riviera, as my wise sister is presently doing, and spend our entire year there with all those bloody unmannerly French. Gone will be the day when one can get about London without truly knowing the city; all you need do now, of course, is ask any cabman to take you where you want to go, and he’ll find the tiniest little lane in the shabbiest little neighborhood.” As if to fortify his point, he threw open the little trapdoor on the roof of the hansom, and called to the driver outside, “Isn’t that so, cabbie?”

“Isn’t what so, sir?” the cabman said, bending over from his erect perch on the platform behind them.

“That I might give you an address on the most obscure little street in all London, and you’d find it for me?”