“Fortunately, because the target of your attempted murder was no less a personage than Her Majesty, the Queen, we have other options, rooted in deeper, less usual law. Therefore the crown elects to mulct, from you, the house of your ancestors, Raburn Lodge, along with all of its associated lands, which will henceforth be the property of the Queen, to dispose of as she pleases. In consideration of her safety you will also be imprisoned for a term of no less than ten years—no matter how comfortable such an interment may prove. That is my ruling. Consider it final.”
The judge—face impassive, as if he were unaware of the sensation his speech had caused in the courtroom, the rising voices—smacked his gavel and stood to walk away.
Polly’s hand found Dallington’s forearm, and she gripped it tight, shocked; Lenox kept his eyes fixed on Archibald Godwin, whose face had gone white as a ghost. There was a moment of strange silence, and then Henrietta Godwin, weeping and screaming, threw herself toward her brother. The bailiff of the court separated them as gently as he could and led Archie Godwin away, and Henrietta chased through the doors after them, stricken with grief.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
That October, Lenox, sitting upon one of the back benches in Parliament one evening, raised his hand and caught the Speaker’s eye. It was the first time this autumn that he had risen to speak—once a daily occurrence—and the Speaker looked surprised. Nevertheless he called on Lenox.
“The Honourable Member for Stirrington.”
“Thank you, Mr. Speaker,” said Lenox. Not long before, Disraeli had finished speaking, and Lenox looked down and across the green benches at him. “I rise to thank the Prime Minister, Mr. Speaker. He has expatiated for us at some length upon the dimensions of the proposed Factory Act, and has my full agreement upon its virtues. No ten-year-old child should work upon a factory floor. No woman should risk dismissal because she will not work an eighteen-hour day. These are facts that seem self-evident to me, and I am sorry that there are those within my party who would disagree.”
From the front benches, Gladstone looked up. Edmund was at his side, and near them ranged most of the shadow cabinet.
“In two months’ time I will leave this chamber,” said Lenox. There was an audible reaction to this. Lenox, hands behind his back, waited patiently for the voices that rose to quiet again. “I am pleased that before my departure I will be able to vote for one of the Prime Minister’s bills, for the second time this year. I would encourage every Member seated in this chamber to do the same.”
There were calls of “Hear him!” from the other side. Lenox’s neighbors seemed disinclined to take the advice; they wanted stronger measures, but Aristotle had it right, that politics was the art of the possible.
“The Prime Minister does not have an easy job. He must please his friends, his family, the members of his party. Everyone has a quiet word for his ear. When he speaks, he speaks for England, at least so long as he is in office. His actions are England’s actions. I am sincere when I offer him my congratulations for this act he wishes to pass.”
There was an expectant silence in the room, a stray cough. Lenox paused, and then went on. “My own party’s leader, Mr. Gladstone, has been unimpeachably kind and honest with me, and as I leave I offer him my thanks—but I do not want to omit my thanks for Mr. Disraeli, either, though he has been my opposition. He sees, as I do, that he speaks for England. That is how we know that he does not gossip, would never deceive, would never slander a good name, whether it belong to a vagrant, or Queen Victoria herself, or any random person in this body—my secretary, for instance, anyone at all.” Here Lenox paused again and stared directly at Disraeli. There were titters in the House, as men explained the reference to each other in whispers. “Like all Prime Ministers his speech is his character, and his chief glory. He would never therefore utter a word that was to the detriment of his post’s integrity. He has my thanks. As I leave I only ask that all of you, after my departure, seek to rise as high as the standard of honesty and decency that Mr. Disraeli has set—or, if you conceive it possible, even higher.”
This time there were a few outright laughs; Lenox tried to keep the smile off of his face.
He went on for some time longer then, discussing his impressions of Parliament, his fond memories of the place, his particular friends James Hilary and Lord Cabot, his brother, his father. It was his final speech; in all he spoke for twelve minutes. When he was finished, the men all around him crowded in to shake his hand. He saw Edmund smile up from the front bench. Disraeli, his usually imperturbable face darkened, took the caesura in the proceedings to depart the chamber, his stride angry.
After declining many offers of a drink—he had two months still, after all, to lounge around the Members’ Bar—Lenox fetched his valise from his office and then went toward the building’s exit, deciding that he would walk home along the river.
“Wait!” called a voice as he left the building.
He turned and saw his brother, hurriedly putting on a cloak. “Edmund, there you are!”
“Will you not stay for the rest of the evening?”
“Jane is having a supper of some kind. Your wife is coming, as I recall.”
Edmund, who had reached his younger brother now, smiled wanly. “That’s right, I remember. Well, at any rate I can walk you back as far as Hampden Lane.” He clapped a hand to Charles’s shoulder and chuckled. “Had to stick it to Disraeli, did you? Between the two of us I thought it very funny.”
“I don’t think it will give him a second’s pause.”
“There you’re wrong. Any man can stand to be disliked—no man can stand to be a joke.”
It was a lovely evening, a last warmth of summer in the air. In the late evening pink they could see the dizzyingly high riggings of the ships, casting a shifting black lattice against the sky. Amazing to think that forty thousand ships came through London along the Thames every year, five or six thousand docked there at any given moment—bound for India, Africa, the Americas, everywhere—and the river so slender that in places a child could throw a rock across to the other side. Really, it was remarkable. Lenox said as much to his older brother.
“That reminds me—we’ve had a letter from Teddy, in Gibraltar. McEwan sends his regards and says there are no chicken eggs on the whole rock, only duck eggs, but he has managed to bake biscuits with ’em nevertheless, and they turned out, let me remember his phrasing … they turned out charming.”
Lenox laughed. “Vital news to be transmitted halfway across the civilized world.”
“That’s why I like Teddy’s letters, they never say anything at all interesting. It makes him seem much closer to home than if they were full of emotion. Still, Molly shall be glad to have him back in December, I can tell you that.”
When they reached Grosvenor Square, Lenox suggested that his older brother get in a hansom back to Parliament, but Edmund thought he just had time to come into the house—which he did, kissing Sophia on her cheeks and Lady Jane on hers, though Jane, with supper to be served in less than a hour, received the favor with less enjoyment; certainly with less giggling.
Edmund stood over Sophia’s bassinet for an added moment or two, making foolish faces, and then looked at his watch. “I suppose I had better go. You’re still coming to the country this weekend, aren’t you?”
“Of course.”
“You must ride the new chestnut mare we picked out—a beautiful creature.”
Lenox smiled. “Why don’t we go up in the morning?”
Edmund laughed. “Yes, rub it in that I have to return to the House.” He put his cloak on again and lifted a hand. “Tell Molly I’ll see her later this evening.”
“I will.”
Supper that evening was of course far quieter than the one Lady Jane had thrown that spring—and more to Lenox’s taste. (What a luxury to have his evenings back! Never to have to read another blue book!) The guests were the McConnells, Dallington, Polly Buchanan, Molly, the Duke and Duchess of Marchmain, an
d one or two others of Jane’s particular friends, along with their husbands. They sat twelve, and stayed at the table, laughing and talking, for an hour after they should have left for home. Polly and Toto found each other’s company deeply absorbing, and for his part, McConnell was full of stories of the hospital, one of which was perhaps too lifelike for the preferences of the Duchess, who, though a sporting soul, had to fan herself.
“The patient was quite all right,” said McConnell, laughing.
“Then he can say more than I can,” said the Duchess.
Dallington smiled. “I would have thought they made tougher hides than that out in the country, Mother, where you were raised. It’s the Londoners, like Father and me, who are soft, isn’t it? Polly, what do you think?”
There was nothing in the question, but for whatever reason, perhaps because he was including her in a conversation with his parents, it warmed Polly’s cheeks a brighter pink, and she smiled at Dallington, momentarily lost, for the first time since Lenox had met her, for words. She composed herself and offered some clever answer, to which nobody paid attention—because the love between her and John Dallington was so obvious, so true, whether they had even said it to each other or not yet, that it was hard to look away from.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
The next morning, slightly worn from late evening cigars and brandy, Lenox padded downstairs in his dressing gown and slippers, took a cup of coffee from the pot on the sideboard, and went to his study.
Graham was there, reading the Times. “Good morning, sir,” he said.
“Any news this morning?” asked Lenox, looking through the letters on his desk.
“Little of consequence. The vote upon the Factory Act has been scheduled for nine days hence, pending debate. Both of the big trials will have their verdicts sent in this morning, Osgood and Mitchell—guilty in both cases, the papers think, and Mitchell will likely hang. Queen Victoria is back in Buckingham Palace after her trip to Germany. And you are retiring from Parliament.”
Lenox looked up, surprised. “Has that made the papers?”
“First page of the Times, sir, though just below the fold.”
Lenox smiled. “I will have to live with the indignity.”
Only three people—before yesterday—had known of Lenox’s plan to leave Parliament: Jane, Edmund, and Graham. Now that the news was out the congratulations and regrets began to come in, handfuls of telegrams every few minutes that morning. There were also visitors, many of them curious to hear who would be the next Junior Lord of the Treasury, many others curious to hear who would take his seat in Stirringon. Lenox said that he imagined his old opponent, the brewer Roodle, would stand on the Conservative platform. The Liberals didn’t have a candidate yet.
Just after lunch a note came by hand from Dallington. Two notes under one cover, more precisely—one marked for Jane, which would be his thanks for the evening before, and one for Lenox.
A scrap of paper fell from Lenox’s own letter when he opened it. He stooped to pick it up.
Lenox, Dallington, Strickland
Investigators
It had been printed very handsomely upon heavy card stock, its black letters still almost wet-looking, the curlicues of the font crisp and decisive. Lenox stared at it for a moment and then turned his attention to the note, which was written upon Dallington’s writing paper.
October 11, 1875
Half Moon Street
Dear Lenox,
I had a thousand of these printed this morning, so really I think you are honor-bound to join in. Polly has agreed already. She says her name should be first, but I pointed out that you have been a Member of Parliament, and while God-fearing souls such as ourselves may hold that position in low esteem, there are heathens out in the metropolis who feel differently.
Please respond by next post, or in a few days, or come round, or send a pigeon. Until then I will be sleeping off last night, which was a pleasure.
John Dallington
PS: I only had the one printed, so we can adjust it to put my name first, if you insist.
Lenox held the card in his fingers, flexed it, and smiled. During the summer, when they were in London, he had done a fair bit of armchair consulting, for Dallington, for Jenkins, even for Polly Buchanan, who was very sharp but also inexperienced.
And for a fourth person, whose name he could envision joining theirs upon the card: LeMaire. He and the Frenchman had developed a friendship, based in large part on their fascination with the history and patterns of crime.
An agency. That would rout Audley, at any rate.
Of course, he had plans for the immediate months following his departure from the Commons. He slipped the card into his pocket. There was a great deal to do; he was scheduled to visit Leck the weekend after he stepped down, and the weekend following that they were due in Somerset, to visit his uncle Freddie and show off Sophia’s new skills. (She could speak a few halting words, and understand even more—a positive Pericles, Lenox insisted in his letters to Plumbley.) It had also been a while since he had set foot outside of London. He would like to see the mountains of Italy again, and taste their strange, rather wonderful food. He wondered if the idea would appeal to Jane.
At teatime later that afternoon he was at the Commons, reading the evening newspapers as they came in. They all mentioned his speech, though only the Evening Star picked up on its oblique references to Disraeli’s underhandedness. Several of them lauded his service, as the papers that morning had. Gratifying, of course. They also speculated about his replacement.
It was a line from the Telegraph that struck him: “Though the district has not yet favored Mr. Robert Roodle with the seat he has now sought three times, Mr. Lenox’s retirement, and the lack of an obvious local candidate on the other side of the ticket, make his chances appear for the moment more favorable.”
It gave Lenox an audacious idea. That evening when he arrived at home (the debate in the Commons had been quiet—rather enjoyable, now that their kind was numbered for him) he said to Jane, after giving her a kiss hello, “Do you want to travel to Stirrington with me tomorrow?”
“Not in the slightest. Why?”
“My dear!”
She laughed. “I do have appointments. But I’ll go if you like. Why?”
When she heard his idea, she was immediately more willing, and so the next morning the two began the four-hour journey to Durham. When they arrived Lenox shook hands with the stationmaster (who had gotten so drunk the previous election day that he had forgotten to vote) and then with a succession of other locals, who stopped to ask if it was true, as the papers were reporting, that he was standing down. He felt rather guilty. England’s system was so strange—that a man could represent a populace with which he had no association, or even, sometimes, affinity. Fortunately Lenox had grown truly fond of Stirrington’s people; in most decisions he made he had tried to remember them, though sometimes the exigencies of London and her people, the great capital, predominated in his thoughts.
They took a brougham to the Queen’s Arms, several streets away—a distinguished-looking public house, whitewashed and crossed with black beams, an old Tudor structure at the corner of two streets. Above the door was a bell that rang as they entered. A young woman was behind the bar, which was quiet at this time of day, two or three soft-voiced old men nursing their pints in amiable companionship.
“Nettie?” said Lenox.
“Mr. Lenox! How are you? We wondered whether we might hear from you.”
Lenox went and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “You look lovely. It’s not a month until your marriage, I believe?”
“Yes, three weeks. I’m awfully excited.”
Nettie was the niece and ward of Edward Crook—the savvy, circumspect, overweight owner of the Queen’s Arms, and Lenox’s political agent in Stirrington. After she poured them each a glass of lemon squash she went upstairs to fetch Crook.
The publican was genuinely pleased to see them, in his reticent way, and, b
ecause it was nearing lunchtime, asked Nettie to run to the kitchens and order them all some food. He said he had read the speech in the papers and been surprised by it, but he seemed accustomed to the news already.
“Do you have a candidate yet?” Lenox asked.
Crook snorted. “What, in the last five hours? We don’t. Old Stoke’s grandson, the only logical candidate, wants no part of it—he’s playing baccarat on the continent. It will be hard to beat Roodle.”
“I have the man for you. He’s a natural talent, Crook, really you have to see it to believe it.”
“Who’s that?”
“My secretary. Graham.”
Crook laughed. “Your butler? That is your proposal?”
“He’s not been my butler for many years now.”
Lenox saw the skepticism in Crook’s face.
“Have you informed him of your plan?”
“Not yet. You do not reckon him a worthy candidate?”
“Upon the contrary, he is one of the sharpest political minds I have known, and was your best surrogate here during your elections, but he was once your butler, Mr. Lenox.”
“I cannot allow that it matters. He’ll have the money. I’ll stake him. I’ve brought Jane up to speak to the women of Stirrington—you recall what a bond they had—and I’ll stay and campaign for a month, longer if I’d be useful. And Crook, you wouldn’t believe how he could excel in Parliament. More than ever I could. Why, Disraeli—”
Here Lenox launched into the story of the spring, telling it very vividly. When he was part of the way through, Nettie came out of the kitchen, struggling under several plates of steaming food.
An Old Betrayal: A Charles Lenox Mystery (Charles Lenox Mysteries) Page 26