An Old Betrayal

CHAPTER SIX

Graham knew, of course.

“The Chepstow and Ely is a partnership that manufactures health tonics and scented soaps. They are based in the Ely River valley, sir, in Wales.”

“Scented soaps. We are confronted with the classic criminal mastermind, then,” said Lenox.

“Sir?”

“Only a joke. Do they do well, Chepstow and Ely?”

“Very well, sir. There are only one or two larger such manufacturers.”

They were in Lenox’s office in Parliament. It was a substantial, airy room with a view of the Thames. As the two men contemplated the Chepstow and Ely, the pen of young Frabbs was audible, scratching in the anteroom. “If he is listed as a director, I take it he has no express participation in the day-to-day operations of the place?”

“Oh, none, sir. Given Mr. Godwin’s youth I would suppose that he is no more than a city name, appended to their rolls to drum up interest in shares. Did you look up his father, sir?”

“Dead.”

“Some familial or personal connection, I would speculate. It is not uncommon for young men who possess position without wealth to exchange a quantity of the former for the promise of the latter.”

“How delicately you put it, Graham. In essence you mean that Godwin provides the lineage and some drunken Chepstow or Ely son is permitted to lose money to him at cards?”

“Chepstow is a town in Wales, sir.”

“I was being humorous.”

Graham smiled wryly. “Ah — no doubt, sir.”

“What do I have between now and lunch?”

“You are meeting with Lord Cabot, sir.”

“Push him till tomorrow if you could.”

“Of course, sir.”

“You think there will be a vote tonight?”

“At any rate I shouldn’t miss the session, in case there is.”

Lenox sighed. “Thank you, Graham.”

“Sir.”

Lenox did three hours of hard work then, focused intently on drafting a memorandum about the mining bill that was to come before the House the next week. There were also visitors every fifteen or twenty minutes. Once he had made such pilgrimages himself, to the upstairs offices, but as he had grown more senior he found that it was the junior members who called upon him. They wanted any variety of thing; some came to him with ideas, others with requests. Often enough they only wanted to see Graham. In league with the other front-bench secretaries, he controlled the schedule of important meetings, and all of them brokered their masters’ votes like experienced men of the turf.

Just after one o’clock Lenox took his hat and cloak and went down to his carriage, which was waiting in the lane outside, alongside a dozen similar ones; nearby was the beautiful pale rise of Westminster Abbey, a whiter shade of stone than the golden Parliament buildings, its intricate details somehow reminiscent of the folds and multiplicities of the world, indeed of God. Lenox stopped and looked for a moment, then got into the carriage and tapped its side. He intended to have his luncheon at home, because he needed some of the papers from his desk. Of course, he might have sent Frabbs or one of the other clerks to fetch them, but it would give him a chance also to look in on Jane and Sophia.

When he arrived home Lady Jane was busy in the long dining room, which she had decided to decorate anew; as far as he could recall she had been engaged in this activity roughly since the dawn of time, when men first stirred forth upon the plain. It had been the subject of one of their many stylistic disagreements upon joining households, though he always immediately ceded to her taste. (“Sideboard jammed stiff with dishes,” she had said, teasing him, “and the same red flocked wallpaper the gentleman who sold you the house assured you was fashionable twenty years ago.”) She had changed the curtains out for lighter ones, the dark carpet for a pale blue one, and the smoky mahogany cabinets for plain shelves of fresh rosewood. Lenox had to admit it made the room seem cheerier. At the moment workmen were painting the walls a plain Regency white.

“Hello, my dear,” said Lenox, as she came halfway down the front hall to meet him. “How has your morning been?”

They kissed and sat down upon a small blue sofa in an alcove near the door.

She was in a cross mood. “Oh, it was wonderful, except for the six gallons of tea. Really, I call it absurd. If you so much as look in upon someone to wish her good day you are forced, by convention, to sit to a cup of tea, no matter how urgent your business elsewhere is — six teas an hour — the Chinamen may take it back, for all I care. No Englishman ever died of drinking water.”

Lenox smiled. “In point of fact, that is false. We are nearly certain that cholera is waterborne. Tell me, though, did you see Toto?”

“No. I thought it best to leave her alone for the morning. I’ll stop in this afternoon.”

“What did Duch think of it all?”

“How did you know I went to her?”

“There was never a greater tea giver. Besides, you see her nearly every day. Does she know Dallington is sick?”

The Duchess of Marchmain was Dallington’s mother. “Yes, and she’s worried sick over it herself. I can’t think how she found out, for I know that he wouldn’t have told her himself.”

“Mrs. Lucas, I don’t doubt,” said Lenox.

“As for Toto, Duch predicts it will pass. I told her that it seemed more serious than usual to me.”

They chatted on for a few moments, a husband and wife fluent with each other’s minor concerns and minor errands, and then Lenox pressed her hand and said he had better do a bit of work. She said she would go make sure that there was something for him to eat.

“I’ll be in my study,” he said, kissing her on the cheek before heading up the hallway toward the front of the house. His study was the closest room to the front door. Before he entered, he paused and called out, “Will you have a cup of tea with me before I begin work?” He leaned back to see her reaction.

For an instant her face darkened, and she seemed about to curse him — but then she smiled, realizing that it was a joke, and rolled her eyes.

A few minutes later, as he was shuffling through the papers on his desk, Jane knocked on the door and came in without waiting for a response. “Your lunch will be up soon.”

“Thank you,” he said.

She hesitated in the doorway. “I’ve just had a letter from Sylvia Humphrey. Word has spread all over London about Thomas and Polly Buchanan, it would appear. She writes to warn me on Toto’s behalf.”

Lenox looked up, eyes wide, the papers in his hands momentarily forgotten. “No, has it really?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“I had thought of trying to see him this afternoon, if for no other reason than to push him around to Dallington’s for a look-in.”

“Is John that poorly?”

“He’ll live. What are they saying about McConnell?”

“Oh, you can imagine. Leave it, for now.” She came farther into the room, near his desk. “Speaking of Dallington — how was your meeting at Charing Cross?”

Lenox told her about it, attending again to his papers as he did. She made sympathetic noises at the right moments. In due course a footman arrived with Lenox’s food — he often took meals at his desk — and Jane kept him company as he ate, stealing a green pea with her fingers now and again.

“Is Sophia asleep?” he asked when he had finished eating.

Lady Jane glanced at the clock on the mantel. “She ought to be awake. It is nearly two, after all. Shall I fetch her down?”

Lenox looked up at the clock. “I ought to leave soon, but if she’s awake I could visit her in the nursery.”

Sophia was awake, in fact, and entertaining herself as the house’s cook, Ellie, sat in the corner knitting. The child turned, face open with expectation, when they came through the door, and then beamed and clapped her fat hands together with surprised delight at the sight of both of her parents in her nursery. She toddled toward them happily, cooing half phrases, a small bundle of person in a pink dress with a white pinafore and navy woolen stockings.

Lenox lifted her high up into the air, kissed her, and then set her down again. She patted her cheek where his bristles had scratched her. “Where is Miss Emanuel?” Lenox asked Ellie, who was long-enough tenured in Hampden Lane — and cross-grained enough — that she had remained seated after they arrived, though she did pay them the deference of lowering her knitting needles to her lap.

“She is downstairs fetching the little miss a snack, sir.”

“You can’t say fairer than that,” said Lenox.

Lady Jane, who was more at home in the room than her husband, began to tidy, as he stood rather awkwardly near the doorway. Few men could love their child more than he did; yet he saw less of her than he would have wished, because it was not quite right that he should moon around her nursery. It irritated him, to contemplate this stubborn adherence to propriety, and as Sophia crowded his legs, examining his bootlaces, he decided he ought to come upstairs more.

After a few moments Miss Emanuel appeared, greeting them sunnily. This was Sophia’s new nurse, a sweet, fair-complexioned young woman with straight black hair, a product of the very fine free Jewish schools in the eastern part of the city. She knelt down to give Sophia a point of toast with marmalade, which Sophia immediately dropped to the floor, sticky-side down, and then, face serious, biting her lip with concentration, set about attempting to pick up.

“No, dear,” said Lady Jane gently, stopping her with a hand.

Lenox picked the toast up from the floor and wiped the spot with a cloth that was close to hand. “I observe that our daughter is rather clumsy, Miss Emanuel,” he said with a smile. “Jane, perhaps we oughtn’t to apprentice her to the seamstress quite yet, as we had planned.”

Ellie clucked disapprovingly from the corner. “To think of making such a joke, the poor darling.”

“At any rate we might wait until her fourth birthday, I suppose.”

Jane laughed. “Four? Shall she remain indolent as long as that?”

“I had planned to take her outside now,” said Miss Emanuel. “Unless you would prefer we stay here in the nursery a while longer?”

Lenox looked at his pocket watch. He should by rights leave for his office again now; Graham would be expecting him. Instead he said, “I think I can find time to take her for a walk,” and then, to assuage his guilt — or his lack of guilt, for which in fact he felt guilty — he said he would go downstairs and find ten minutes of work to do in his study, until Miss Emanuel had readied the child to leave.