A Stranger in Mayfair
( Charles Lenox Mysteries - 4 )
Charles Finch
A Stranger in Mayfair
Charles Finch
Prologue
“Clara, who is that gentleman? He looks familiar.”
The question startled Clara Woodward, a slender, light-haired girl, out of her deep reverie. They had been sitting silently for ten minutes, and she had used most of the time to ponder the limitless wonders of her friend Harold Webb: his gentle good looks, his kind smile, his intelligent eyes, the dashing cut of his clothes.
It was hopeless. He was in London, and here she was in the entrance hall of a hotel in Paris. While to another girl this might have seemed wonderful (it was quite a grand, ancient hotel, the Crillon, situated handsomely on the Place de la Concorde, and the hall itself was opulent, gilded and hung with old tapestries), to Clara it seemed a tragedy. With an inward sigh she turned her attention to her Aunt Bess.
“Which one do you mean?”
“There, the rather tall and thin one, with the brown hair.”
Clara turned her gaze across the hotel’s lobby. “And the short beard? That’s Charles Lenox, I believe.” In fact she knew it perfectly well. Two or three people had pointed him out to her, and she had once met him at a party in Belgravia. “I know he just recently married Lady-”
“Lady Jane Grey, yes, yes, I remember him now. They do let anybody into this hotel! It’s shocking, most shocking.”
“What’s wrong with him, Aunt?”
“From everything I hear he’s a fearfully low sort-consorts with common criminals. I know he calls himself a detective-Of all things!”
“I think she’s very beautiful. I saw her in the restaurant.”
“Lady Jane Grey?” Doubt clouded the older woman’s brow. “I always heard she was of good stock, of course. Your late uncle once rode to hounds with her father, the Earl of Houghton, about ten years ago I think-yes, in 1854 or ’5, I feel quite sure. I never heard a single good thing of Charles Lenox, though, you may be certain of that. For one thing, his closest friend is Thomas McConnell.”
Clara looked blank. “Is that so bad?”
“My dear! He married far above himself, and he drinks like a fish. What do you say to a man who has a drunk for a near friend?”
“There was ever so much fuss when Mr. Lenox stopped that man at the Mint from stealing all that money-do you remember? The murdered journalists?”
“He probably murdered them himself,” said Bess in a complacent tone. Whether it wanted to or not, she was determined to watch the world slide into iniquity.
The amateur detective-for such he was, and would own it much more proudly than someone like Bess, who thought it a betrayal of his birth, would prefer-paced across the marble floor of the hall. It was otherwise empty, too early in the afternoon for people to be at their tea. Clara thought gloomily of all the hotel’s other residents, out buying lovely dresses and drinking lovely wine and seeing lovely gardens.
In truth, she knew far more of London and its society than her aunt ever could, and now she pulled out her trump card. She rather liked the look of Lenox, and adored the style and beauty of his new wife. “Wasn’t he just elected to Parliament, Aunt?” she said sweetly.
Bess dismissed this with a scowl. “Oh, anyone is in Parliament these days, Clara, it’s a disgrace. No, what matters is that for all his adult life he has been a detective. It’s the lowest thing I ever heard, I swear.”
Clara was only half listening, however, because her own mention of Parliament had recalled Harold to her again. Parliament was his ambition, and whatever he wanted she did, too, passionately.
It was hopeless, she repeated to herself. Utterly hopeless.
And for the silliest reason! It wasn’t because he didn’t reciprocate her affection. He did, which made her heart flutter to contemplate. Unfortunately, he hadn’t any money, and though it didn’t matter a whit to her, her parents, who controlled her own marriage portion, had forbidden the match. Thus she was in Paris, out of London, her home city, and with her tedious, countrified aunt, who lived primarily in Kent and spent only a month of the year in town. “It will be nice for her and nice for you,” her parents had said. They weren’t cruel people-but oh, how cruelly they were behaving!
“I remember now,” said her aunt. “George Barnard was the Master of the Mint, and he was trying to steal from it. But surely it was Scotland Yard who solved that mystery, wasn’t it? Yes, I remember very definitely that it was Scotland Yard.”
“But everyone in London knows that it was really Charlie Lenox,” said Clara. “He never takes the credit. And he goes to the best places, I promise you.”
“What the world’s coming to!” said Bess, rolling her eyes heavenward. “Of course it’s only because he’s taking advantage of poor Lady Jane-charmed her, I’m sure, with his slick ways, and now she’s burdened with him for good. Oh, dear, the thought of it!” Bess fanned herself fretfully.
“They’re lifelong friends, I believe. They lived in houses side by side for years before he proposed. I think it’s wonderfully romantic.”
“Clara Woodward, you’re determined to vex me, aren’t you? Why won’t girls listen to sense these days. A detective, no matter what society he sees or how many Parliaments he’s in, is the least savory, vilest, most evil-minded-”
But here she broke off, because the unsavory, vile, evil-minded man himself was walking toward them from across the hall.
It was a wide room, dotted with tables and sofas, with gold leaf everywhere and vast trees dimming the noise-or at any rate Bess prayed they dimmed the noise. The man’s face was friendly enough. Perhaps he hadn’t heard her.
“How do you do? I’m afraid that I must presume on very slight acquaintance to reintroduce myself to your niece. I’m Charles Lenox.”
“How do you do, Mr. Lenox. My name is Bess Telford. You’ve met my niece?”
“Once, yes, but only very briefly, as I recall, and I’m ashamed to say I don’t remember her name. Your name, ma’am?” he said, turning to Clara.
“This is Clara Woodward,” said Bess, simpering a little. The Earls of Houghton, after all. And now she seemed to recall something about an older brother, too. Was it Edward Lenox? Edmund Lenox? A leading man in Parliament.
“As I say, I must apologize for presuming upon our very brief first meeting, but I was wondering whether either of you had seen my wife here. I was five minutes late to meet her, and now it’s been fifteen minutes. The clerks didn’t spy her, but I thought you might have.”
“Oh! How worrisome! I haven’t seen her, I’m sorry to say, and in this city what might happen to an honest Englishwoman is anybody’s-”
“I haven’t seen her either,” said Clara to save her aunt’s solecism. For her efforts she earned a reproving look from her relation. “Did you see the Robinsons before you left London?”
This was their mutual acquaintance. “I did, yes, they-”
Determined not to be superseded by her niece, however, Bess said, “Remind me, Mr. Lenox, about the affair at the Mint-wasn’t it you who sent that wicked man Barnard away to prison, and saved all of our money?”
Lenox turned red, and Clara felt she could have sunk into the ground. “Ah-I remember-I recall the incident to which I believe you’re referring, ma’am, but it was not I, it was Scotland Yard, that apprehended the criminal.”
“And that September Society-”
Thankfully for Lenox, at that moment Lady Jane Grey burst into the lobby, trailed by a small French girl in a dressmaker’s uniform, some sort of apprentice, carrying a parcel under her arm.
“Charles!” cried out Lady Jane. “There you are! Whatever punctual
ity I ever could claim has been stolen from me by this city. I’m so sorry. But do introduce me, please, to your friends.”
She was a lovely woman, though not immediately striking. She was plainly dressed, in a simple blue gown with a gray ribbon at the waist, and her dark curls looked natural, not affected. What Clara noticed, however, was the tremendous poise and wisdom of her eyes-and the faint lattice of wrinkles around them. She must have been thirty-five or thirty-six. Lenox himself was forty or just past.
After all the proper introductions had been effected and Bess had regaled the company at length with the story of that day hunting with Lady Jane’s father in 1854 or 1855, Lenox invited the pair to dine with them the next night. When this plan was agreed he and his wife left, looking, Clara thought with a feeling of melancholy, as pink-faced and happy and thrilled as all newlyweds should.
She listened to her aunt expatiate on Lady Jane’s virtues, and then heard her conclude, “And really he doesn’t seem all that bad-for a detective, I mean. For a detective.”
Chapter One
For an Englishman it was a strange time to be in France. During much of the century a strong enmity had existed between the countries’ two governments, first because of Napoleon’s rather uncouth attempt to conquer Europe, then because of the lingering hostility born of that time. Now, though, the emperor’s nephew ruled France and had shown himself more liberal than his uncle-he had freed the press and the government from many of their previous restrictions-and an uneasy peace had sprung up across the Channel.
Even during the worst of times, just after Waterloo, for instance, there had been civility among open-minded French and Englishmen, and now a man like Lenox, who loved so much about France-its coffee, its food, its wine, its architecture, its countryside, its literature-could visit the place with open admiration. There were republican rumblings in the capitol, however, and many Frenchmen, whose grandfathers had survived the revolution, felt fearful of what the next years might bring. Both Lenox and Lady Jane were happy that they had come when they did. Who knew what changes another shift in regime might bring? Who knew whether they would ever be able to visit again? And since that was the case, they had done all they could. Lady Jane had ordered dresses by the dozen (the seamstresses here being so infinitely preferable to English dressmakers-even at the height of the war fashion had been smuggled from one country to the other), while Lenox had spent his days closeted with a dozen different politicians, all of them sympathetic.
For he was in fact the newly minted Member of Parliament for Stirrington-had been elected not six months since. In that time he had barely entered the great chamber, however. He and Lady Jane had married in the Whitsun Recess, and now, in the Summer Recess, they were on their honeymoon. Paris was their final destination. They had spent three weeks traveling through the beautiful lake towns of the Alps, then another two in the French countryside.
In truth, as wonderful as it had been, both longed to be home. They missed London, missed their friends, and missed the little street off Grosvenor Square, Hampden Lane, where they had lived in side-by-side townhouses for the better part of two decades. When they returned the two houses would be one: Over the past months an architect had supervised the demolition of the walls between them and seamlessly joined the buildings’ rooms to create one large house. It gave Lenox a good deal of private pleasure to contemplate this physical symbol of their union. For long years Jane had been his closest friend, and he could scarcely believe that he was lucky enough now to be married to her. Their births were close enough (hers slightly higher), and they had grown up together, but within London society she was one of the brightest stars, and while he was welcome everywhere and had a great variety of friends, he was viewed as idiosyncratic because of his career. Perhaps his marriage and his admission to Parliament would change that. He hated to admit it, but he wouldn’t mind. It had been hard to go it alone for so long in the face of everyone’s polite disapproval of his vocation.
That evening they were in their sitting room at the Crillon. She was at a small carved desk, writing her correspondence, and he was sitting in an armchair, reading. A cool summer breeze blew in through the window.
As if she were reading his mind, she looked up and said, “To think-in three days we’ll be home!”
“I can’t wait,” he said quietly and ardently.
“I’ve had a letter from Toto. She’s simply enormous, she says, and she and Thomas seem to be quite content together-what does she say? Here it is: Thomas and I sit together in the evenings. I knit and he reads, except when we both stop and talk about baby names and what room to give the child and, oh, everything. That sounds like Toto, doesn’t it? She writes just the way she speaks.”
Bess Telford’s facts had been mingled with rumors-Thomas McConnell was a doctor and occasionally did drink too much. A talented surgeon from a family of minor nobility in Scotland, he had come to London to practice in Harley Street and shortly thereafter, almost to his surprise, married one of the most admired young women in the city. Lady Victoria Phillips was born with beauty and immense fortune, and in personality she was entirely winning-effervescent, affectionate, gossiping, and slightly silly-but she was also young. While their marriage had been happy for three years, after that it had become first an acrimonious and then a terrible one, full of fights and cold silences. For a period of two years the couple barely spoke, and Toto spent much of her time at her parents’ house in the country. It was during this time that Thomas had begun to drink. Shamed by his wife’s family into selling his practice for a song to a Phillips cousin (it wasn’t considered fitting that the husband of Toto Phillips should be a professional man) his subsequent aimlessness had been cruel to his spirit. It was only within the last year or two that Toto and Thomas’s relationship had healed, and her pregnancy-which was why, eight months in, she could describe herself as enormous-was just the final bond they needed to restore them to happiness.
The trouble between them had been terrible to Lenox and Lady Jane. Thomas was Charles’s medical assistant when a case demanded it, and besides that a close friend, and as for Jane, Toto was a cousin of hers, and more like a niece than any of Jane’s actual nieces. The couple’s renewed closeness was a massive relief. Toto’s series of letters had been more and more happy with each one, as the birth of her baby came closer and closer.
“Where will she go for the birth?” asked Lenox.
“I believe they intend to stay in London.”
“I would have thought they might go to her father’s house.”
“In a way I’m glad they won’t. It’s always been too easy for Toto to flee to her family. Perhaps it’s a sign that she’s growing up.”
Lenox stood. “Shall we go to dinner soon?” he asked.
“I’d rather just stay in, if you don’t mind?”
He smiled. “Of course.”
The next morning was August 25, the day in France of the Feast of St. Louis. By more than a century’s tradition it was also the day the famous Salon opened at the Louvre palace, and the greatest artists of France and indeed the world displayed their year’s work. Lenox and Lady Jane went early, heard Napoleon III speak, and spent a long day looking around. People surrounded a painting by Manet and another by Whistler, and while Lenox admired these profoundly he soon found himself steering away from the crowds and toward the back rooms. Here he found in one dim corner a series of three extremely blurred, thick-painted canvases of sunrise, even less distinct than Manet’s. They seemed to be little more than evocations of figure and light. He stared at them for half an hour and, after consulting his new wife, bought one, the littlest one, which was blue and orange.
That evening they dined with Bess and Clara, and the next day they took a trip to the country and toured a small town with one of the politicians Lenox had met, who represented the district the town belonged to.
Then, just like that, it was all over. They had to wake very early the next morning to finish the packing their servants had be
gun and send their luggage off. By nine o’clock they were in a carriage on the way to Calais, and by noon they were aboard their ferry.
It was summer, but for some reason the Channel was extremely foggy, and as they stood on deck a wet, gray wind swirled around them.
“It seems like a dream, doesn’t it?” said Lady Jane. “I feel as if we left yesterday. But think of all those beautiful Swiss villages, Charles! Think of that hundred-foot waterfall!”
“We ate in that restaurant on the mountainside.”
“And our guide when we went up there!”
“It was a wonderful trip,” he said, leaning on the rail, “but I’m glad we’re going home. I’m ready to be married in London now.”
She laughed her clear, low laugh and said, “I am, too.”
He hadn’t been quite joking. He stole a glance at Jane, and his heart filled with happiness. For years he had thought himself a happy man-indeed had been happy and fortunate in his friendships, his work, his interests, his family-but now he understood that in that entire time something vital had been missing. It was she. This was a new kind of happiness. It wasn’t only the mawkish love of penny fiction, though that was there. It was also a feeling of deep security in the universe, which derived from the knowledge of an equal soul and spirit going through life together with you. From time to time he thought his heart would break, it made him so glad, and felt so precarious, so new, so unsure.
A mild, wispy rain started to fall when they were nearly across the water. Jane went inside, but Lenox said he thought he might stay out and look.
And he was lucky to have done so. At certain times in our lives we all feel grateful for one outworn idea or another, and now was one of those times for Lenox: As the fog cleared he saw much closer and bigger than he had expected the vast, pristine white face of the cliffs of Dover come into view. It made him feel he was home. Just like Jane did.
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