An Old Betrayal

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, and 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.