A Stranger in Mayfair

Chapter Thirty-Five

Kirk might not have known all of Lenox’s idiosyncrasies, but there were few like him in London for a party. When at eight o’clock that evening Lenox went into the rose-colored drawing room (now quite large after the joining-up of the houses, though Jane had done well to create several small sitting areas within it), he saw three long tables piled close with food and drink. On one was the hot food, a nod toward incipient autumn: roast fowl with watercress, jugged hare, steak and oyster sauce. On the next was cold food, appropriate for the summer that was now passing out of existence: cold salmon, dressed crab, and a great bowl of salad. Finally, on the third table were drinks. There was champagne, of course, and a drink made of champagne and cold sherbet, which many of the women liked if the room became overhot. There was wine in plentiful quantities besides, and for the gentlemen spirits. At the center of the table was the party’s true heart, an enormous silver punch bowl filled to the brim with orange (or peach?) colored naval punch.

Footmen stood behind each table, ready to serve. What was considered charming about Jane’s Tuesdays-and even by some inappropriate-was their informality. All around the room were card tables and sideboards where people could set their plates, but beyond that there was no central dining table. It was rather like being with family for breakfast on the morning after a great party; everyone with a bit of something on a plate, milling through the room and chatting. Tonight there would be thirty people or so, half of them who might be deemed friends, the other half who would more properly be called personages.

“You’re home, sir,” said a voice behind Lenox, who was asking for a glass of punch.

“Ah-Graham. I just got back.”

He had just rushed home from Parliament and changed. The immemorial practice of the House was to convene in mid afternoon and go late into the night; on the face of it an impractical schedule, until one remembered that there was a great deal of work done in the morning and early afternoon to prepare for the later assembly. In fact the morning work was perhaps more important, and now that they were just finished debating the Queen’s Speech the House would be only lightly populated for the rest of the evening.

“I wanted to remind you before I retire, sir, to pay special attention to Percy Field, the Prime Minister’s personal secretary.”

“Surely you’ll be coming?” said Lenox. “You’re invited, you know.”

Suddenly there was a pained look on Graham’s face, and Lenox realized that to be a guest where just weeks before he had been a butler would be too awkward, too abrupt-even too painful. “I fear not, sir. At any rate, your attention, or perhaps Lady Lenox’s, would be far more significant than mine.”

There was a ring at the bell, and Graham bowed very slightly, a habit of his former profession that still hadn’t left him, and withdrew.

“Who the hell wants to be first?” muttered Lenox to nobody in particular, setting down his punch to greet whoever it was. He heard Lady Jane’s quick footsteps on the stairs and smiled, imagining her sentiments-similar to his own-on early arrivals to a party.

Presently Kirk came down the hallway with someone who was in fact a welcome guest: Edmund.

“Oh, hurrah,” said Lady Jane. “I worried it was someone I would have to speak to. I’ll be down again shortly.”

“I call that a greeting!” Edmund laughed, and as she went out he said, “Well-if I’m not somebody one must speak to, I’ll sit in the corner and have my punch alone.”

“Thank goodness you’ve come-I don’t want to talk to the Archbishop of Winchester. How are Molly and the boys?”

“Molly sends me letters from the country-from the house-that I don’t mind telling you make me weep with frustration to be in this city all the time. I haven’t been on a horse in two weeks, Charles. Two weeks!”

They had both grown up in Lenox House, Edmund’s seat now, as the baronet, and Charles spent most of his holidays there. “Any word on the Ruxton farm? Is the son taking it over?”

“No, he’s selling out to open a chemist’s shop in town. It’s a relief-both of them, father and son, have been devilish. Rest in peace,” Edmund added obscurely.

The farms on the land were a source of income for Edmund-Charles had been left money outright, through their mother-and he had to deal frequently with discontented tenants. “What will you do with the land?”

“Southey, on the next parcel of land over, wants to expand. I’ll give him a fair rent to take the Ruxton land-about ten acres, I think-because he doesn’t need the house on them. A hellish little house, you remember.”

“Oh, yes. Mother used to go sit and teach the Ruxton children how to read, though she never got any thanks for it.”

Edmund snorted. “Well, hopefully the son can read well enough, or his new shop will poison half the people we know.”

“What about the boys?”

A glow came into Edmund’s face. “Teddy is owed a lashing for having candy at church, but I shan’t give it to him. Church is boring enough as a child without candy-oh, the door!”

Soon the party was crowded with incoming guests, Lady Jane greeting them, Kirk taking whole double armfuls of shawls and coats here and there, the punch bowl quickly shallowing down. There were small groups forming around the archbishop and around an extremely amusing man named Griggs, a clubman and a wastrel who nonetheless was held to be the most enjoyable conversationalist in London. Edmund and Lenox, deep in their own conversation, broke off when two very important Members came in from the House, looking extremely gratified to redeem their first invitations; this was always an exclusive event, not generally overpolitical in its composition.

Percy Field came in, Lenox noticed, tall, thin, and austere, and soon experienced the same gratification. For a while, fifteen seconds or so, he stood uncomfortably in the doorway. Just as Lenox was going to greet him, however, the Duchess of Marchmain beat him to it. In truth she was more of a cohost than Charles was at these events.

“Can I find you a drink?” she said to Field, as he was stammering out an introduction.

He was both pleased and nonplussed by this sudden intimacy with nobility (“Why-Duchess-no-I couldn’t-ah-yes-punch would be lovely”) and his stern visage, with its rather pompous chin, flushed with the excitement of met expectations. Lenox smiled.

Edmund came over, mouth full. “This is quite nice, actually. Have you tried the crab?”

“Not yet. Generally I wait until the party’s over to eat-there’s so much food left Jane has it for days.”

“By the way, that case-Ludo Starling. Is it true the butler did it?”

“Keep it quiet, but I don’t think so.” Lenox lowered his voice to a whisper. “In fact there’s some suspicion that it was Ludo’s son Paul, though I’m not convinced of that either.”

Edmund’s eyes grew wide. “His son! Never!”

Charles nodded. “We’ll see-at any rate it wasn’t the butler. Be grateful you only have to fret about candy in church.”

Edmund shook his head. “I don’t envy the boy anyway, having Starling for a father-he loves cards and drinking, and no chance of much attention when you compete with those.”

Lenox froze. Something had slotted into place in his brain, but he couldn’t quite see what it was.

“Charles?”

“Just a minute-I need-excuse me.” With a look of deep distraction Lenox left his brother, then left the sitting room altogether, with its gay hum of conversation, and ran into his silent study.

There was rain tapping on the windows, and for ten minutes Lenox stood in front of them, gazing at the wet, shining stones of Hampden Lane and thinking.

Edmund’s comment about Ludo Starling’s faults as a father had raised some possibility in his mind.

Suddenly he remembered what Mrs. Clarke had said that morning.

He needed someone. A real father would have protected him. That’s what he needed-he should have had a real father. Ludovic-Mr. Starling-he could have been that, when I entrusted my poor Freddie with him.

Just as that thought jumped into his brain, another one followed on its heels: the ring. The Starling ring, with LS and FC engraved inside of it.

A real father would have protected him.

Ludo Starling was Frederick Clarke’s father.