The September Society

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I t was late in the afternoon, perhaps four o’clock, and Lenox was in the Bodleian Library’s Upper Reading Room, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his tired eyes with his knuckles. He had been there for two hours and received very little recompense for his assiduousness, but had hopes that the next hour would bring greater success.

The Bodleian above anything else made Oxford what it was to the university’s alumni. If there were diverse college allegiances, club allegiances, and sporting allegiances that fractured Oxford, what unified the undergraduates was the Bod, lying in all of its beauty at the center of life in the city. There was something incommunicably grand about it, something difficult to understand unless you had spent your evenings there or walked past it on the way to celebrate the boat race, a magic that came from ignoring it a thousand times a day and then noticing its overwhelming beauty when you came out of a tiny alley and it caught you unexpectedly. A library-it didn’t sound like much, but it was what made Oxford itself. The greatest library in the world.

At the heart of it was the Old Schools Quad, a hushed cobblestone square. Its high carved walls gave it the feeling of a tower. Along the walls were the low, dark doors where the original schools had been, each bearing a Latin description of what was taught inside-philosophy became Schola Moralis Philosophiae, music became Schola Musicae -in high black and gold lettering above the doorways. Painted on the doors in blue was Oxford’s motto, Dominus Illuminatio Mea, the Lord is my light. Walking past students in their black gowns and white ties that afternoon, treading the quiet stone steps worn away by time and traffic, the beautiful, intricately worked stone walls reaching up on high toward a statue of James the First, the famous dreaming spires reaching heavenward-confronted with all of it, Lenox had been lost for words, lost even for thoughts.

He looked up at the graceful stained glass window of Duke Humfrey’s Library, which housed the most extensive collection of rare books in the world; he looked in through the broad doors of the Divinity School, the oldest surviving university building in the world, its famously intricate Gothic vaulted stone ceiling serenely accepting the worship of a few scattered sightseers; he looked through the narrow walkway that led out to Oxford’s most famous building, the circular library called the Radcliffe Camera; and as his eyes traveled over these familiar sights his main feeling was that he had come home. These buildings, the Clarendon, Sheldonian, Bodleian, these were the first home that belonged solely to him, to his adult self. Now, in the twilight of early fall, he felt almost breathless in the face of all the memories they held, all the promise spent, all the students like him who had turned out one way or another, whatever their first dreams had been when they arrived.

The appearance of the librarian jerked him out of his reverie.

“Doing all right, Mr. Lenox?”

“Quite well, thanks, Mr. Folsom. What are those?” he asked, nodding toward the papers in the other man’s hands.

“Ah-a few more we found on the September Society.”

“I’m awfully obliged.”

“Oh, and here’s a note that came up for you from one of the pages at Jesus College.”

The note, to Lenox’s surprise, was from a woman named Rosie Little, asking him to come visit her the next morning at Jesus-the place, he noted, where Payson had been to the dance on Saturday evening. He wrote back to her saying that he would come, and then turned to the papers.

Lenox had ascertained a few bare facts about this Society that kept popping up, but only a very few, and the work was slow going. He was trawling through old newspapers that the library had cross-referenced and through the books of club and society histories, as well as the histories of eastern military action by the British Empire. In this hodgepodge of sources he had found nine references to the September Society, three of them entirely incidental, five ancillary, and one that was more intriguing. The three incidental mentions all came in the middle of long lists of organizations, groups with a representative at a conference, for example, or groups that had all donated to a single cause.

Of the five ancillary mentions, two were interesting to Lenox. The first reported that select members of the September Society had been received by Queen Victoria. It was in a copy of the Times about ten years old. The second was about the same event, but was slightly more specific and had appeared about a week later in the Spectator. Its chief usefulness to Lenox was that it gave the number of members of the Society (roughly thirty, awfully small) and a more detailed account of the club’s formation by a group of officers who had served together in eastern India and all received high military decorations.

This added information to the most interesting of the sources, a book called A History of the Pall Mall, about ten years old, which had an appendix entitled “Club and Society Profiles.” The entry on the September Society was instructive. Opposite the War Office in Carlton Gardens is a building occupied by the Biblius Club (ref. p. 502) on the lower floor and the September Society in the upper two. The Sept. Society was founded in 1848 by Maj. Sir Theophilus Butler and Maj. Peter Wilson, and is open to veterans of the military action in India who served between 1847 and 1849, attained the rank of captain or higher, and have received approval from the admissions committee. The Society’s mission statement reads: “For the promotion of the values and memory of the heroes of Punjab and their families.” The floors contain a dining room, a library emphasizing military history, upper and lower lounges, billiards room, and card room. Two servants are in full-time employ, and the Society shares a kitchen and cook with the Biblius. The Society is closed to the public without exception. It has limited reciprocal privileges with the 40s Club in Devon, a club with a similar membership but open to all officers who served in the East during the 1840s. Prospective members may apply to Capt. John Lysander, 116 Green Park Terrace, W1.

This gave Lenox three names to research and a building to focus on. He also knew that someone in his web of friends would belong to the Biblius, an elite and prideful sort of club which accepted members regardless of background who had exceptionally fine collections of incunabula. Lady Jane would know it. Her family had a famous library of early books.

Swallowing the thought of his old friend, Lenox picked up the papers that Mr. Folsom had just brought. On top of the pile was an unpublished collection called Seals, Crests, and Coats of Arms of Some British Organizations, Being an Attempt to Classify Their Genealogies and Histories. It was by somebody named H. Probisher Protherham whom Lenox thanked his lucky stars he didn’t know. A man who could write a treatise on crests was a man capable of anything, was Lenox’s feeling. Give him open rein at a dinner party and there was no level of tediousness he might not achieve.

He languidly flipped to the S section of the papers and perked up a bit when he saw that the seal of the September Society had been included. It was a rather ornate thing. Below it H. Probisher Protherham had written: The September Society. Design: Butler. Approved 1849. Argent, a wildcat over ermine chevron, passant Sable. Motto: Nil Conscire Sibi. “Of Clear Conscience.”

Lenox sat back in his chair, thinking. Could it be? He read it over again and then copied the entire entry down in his notebook, also marking down the shelf number and the book’s title and author. He glanced through the index to make sure there was only one reference to the September Society and then read the description over one more time for good measure.

So, he thought. Another cat.