The September Society

CHAPTER TWO

he sun rose mild the next morning, a rich, burnished gold that flooded the back of Parliament and the stone houses along the Thames, a light with pink at its edges. The air was cool, but warming. Along the windswept boulevards that ran by the river, lonely men on anonymous errands hurried past. On the currents, watermen poled their skiffs down each bank, collecting rubbish or ferrying supplies out to small ships. A single long barge, covered with coal, proceeded regally down the center of the river, demanding a wide berth. And under the shadow of Big Ben, on the river’s western edge, Lenox gave a great final stroke of his oars, ran aground on the gravelly bank, and bent over his knees, panting.

Two or three mornings a week-providing he didn’t have a case-he brought his single scull out to the river by Hammersmith and had a long pull back to his neighborhood, Mayfair, which stood behind Parliament. The person who liked this least was the driver of his carriage, who had to fit the scull to the roof and then wait for Lenox’s slow return to fetch it again. But to Lenox himself it was a singular pleasure. He loved to row in the morning, his body warming itself with the world.

It was an old habit. At his school, Harrow, one of the beaks from his house, Druries (where Lord Byron had been, not to mention Lord Palmerston, who had died only a year before), had noticed Lenox’s height and asked him to come row for the house team. After that he had rowed at Oxford, in the Balliol college eight (he had never been big enough to row for the Blues) and upon graduation had made himself a present of a single scull. It was battered and old-fashioned now, but he still loved it. The exercise kept him trim, and simply to be on the river was a great privilege.

Lenox took a last gulp of air and stepped out of the vessel. His driver was waiting with a cup of cold tea and a cloak-and when he had placed the latter on Lenox’s shoulders, hoisted the scull over his head and moved slowly toward the carriage. Lenox sipped the tea gratefully, thirsty, and called out, “I’ll walk home,” to the driver. Then he climbed the stairs from the riverbank to the street, every muscle in his legs crying out for mercy, and with an exhausted happiness filling his body started on the short trot home.

It was a little past seven in the morning, and Lady Jane was coming to have breakfast at eight. When he reached home, Lenox hurriedly bathed and dressed, checked to see what Ellie, the cook, was preparing, and with a quarter of an hour till his friend’s arrival sat down to look over the morning post. There wasn’t much in it, beyond a letter about Hadrian’s Rome from one of his Italian correspondents, who wrote half in English and half in Latin, and who disagreed vociferously with Lenox about the social breadth of slavery. Lenox read the letter with some amusement and then tucked it into the book he had bought the day before to remind himself to respond to it. There was also the card of a man named John Best, whom Lenox had never heard of.

“John Best?” he said to Graham.

“A young man, sir. He was here late yesterday evening.”

“Don’t know him.”

Soon there was a tap at the door, and Lenox knew that Lady Jane had come. His heart fluttered a little, and he had that hollow, happy feeling of unspoken love. Checking his tie, he stood and made his way toward the hall, where Graham would be taking her things.

“Hullo!” he cried out cheerfully upon seeing her.

She turned from Graham, with whom she had been speaking. “Oh, Charles, hello! I’m delighted to see you.”

“Likewise, of course. Have you been well?”

She was taking off her gloves, then removing her scarf, then handing over her jacket. “Yes, quite well. But I haven’t seen you in ages, Charles.”

“It’s true,” he said. “I’m forced to blame you.”

Indeed, it was true. Though their usual routine brought them together every day, or near it, in the past few weeks she had been less available to him than at any time he could remember in the last fifteen years, and just when he most yearned for her presence. He hadn’t yet broached the most mysterious point of all: that he had seen her carriage emerge from the low, poor tenements of the Seven Dials one afternoon the week before.

“Come, it’s only been a few days.”

“Yes, but neighbors who are friends ought to see each other every day.”

She laughed. “You feel firmly about that?”

He frowned, pleasantly. “I do.”

“Then I shall make more of an effort.” She met him halfway down the hall and gave him a light kiss on the cheek. “I apologize, Charles.”

Lady Jane Grey had been a young widow, her husband, the heroic and much loved Lord Deere, having died in battle only a few months after their marriage. She was from one of the oldest families in Sussex-older, in fact, than Lenox’s-and the two of them had grown up neighbors, belonging to the two leading families of their tucked-away cove of countryside. She was a pretty and lovable but perhaps not a beautiful woman, with wide, intelligent, peaceful eyes and a smiling mouth that ran pink and red depending on the weather. She rarely dressed inside the fashion, yet always managed to look fashionable, and while there were those in London society who condemned her curling, unostentatious hair as dull, there were others who thought it her best asset. Lenox, of course, stood with this latter group.

In any case, her greatest charm wasn’t in her looks. It was in her character. Her mind was wide-ranging but never pretentious, and a loving sense of humor always lay beneath her speech. She sat at the apex of society in London, and in Sussex when she visited her brother, the Earl of Houghton, at home, but she wore the power that came with her friendships and connections lightly. Rarely was she mercurial in her affections. She had happy friendships awaiting her wherever she went.

Yet people whispered that a kind of sadness trailed her cheerful figure: solitary for so many years, childless, and a widow, after all. Lenox knew that loneliness played no significant role in her life, but he also wondered whether it sometimes came to her in brief, uncertain moments. Still, he never stepped an inch over their friendship’s wide borderlines to discover whether his speculation might be correct. When he thought he detected sadness in her mien, he only aimed to be a better friend to her.

That was Lady Jane Grey; Charles Lenox’s best friend, and the woman he loved better than anyone else in the world.

They walked arm in arm to the dining room-the room next to Lenox’s study, straight down the front hall-where food and coffee were laid out at the far end of a long mahogany table with intricately carved legs and high-backed chairs all around it.

“Well, how have you been?” she asked as Lenox held her chair. “Solved anything recently? Seen much of Edmund?”

“I had lunch with him yesterday, actually. He’s quite well. There’s some upset with the Ordnance’s finance at the moment, but he’s working to clear it.” Lenox sat across from her. “No cases, though. I wish one would come along.”

“I could rob a bank, if you like.”

“Would you? Thanks.”

She laughed. “But perhaps it’s nice to have a break, don’t you think? Plan out a trip somewhere”-Lenox was a great armchair explorer, though his elaborate plans were often sidetracked by real life-“and figure out what they ate breakfast off of in ancient Rome? Rest your mind, until your next case arrives?”

“You’re right, of course. I ought not to complain.”

“What did they eat off of, back then?”

“Plates, I should have said.”

“Charles,” she said in a tone of mock exasperation.

He laughed. “I’ll find out. Promise.”

“I’ll hold you to that promise.” She took another corner of toast from the tray that lay between them and set it by her egg. “Do you know who I saw last night?”

“Who?”

“You won’t like it.”

“Ah,” said Lenox grimly. “Barnard, then?”

“Yes.”

George Barnard was the director of the National Mint, a former Member of Parliament, one of the richest men in London, and-Lenox was certain-one of the worst thieves in England’s history. For the past several months he had been slowly untangling the web of protection Barnard had built around himself, dismantling the high fortifications of rank and reputation that obscured the truth. He had discovered a seam in the Hammer Gang-Barnard’s henchmen-that he might exploit, and had traced back north a possible instance of the director’s treachery. But it was long, slow work, and because he had to do it secretly took twice the time with half the results it would have if Barnard had been a common and well-known criminal.

“Was he in good form?” Lenox asked, grumpily pushing a fried mushroom around with his fork. Thinking about Barnard had even managed to dispel his quiet happiness at being alone with Lady Jane.

“Oh, yes, talking about some silver urn he had acquired for his collection.”

Lenox snorted. “Collection.”

“Don’t make that noise,” said Lady Jane, though tolerantly. “Have you found anything else out about him?”

“I’m waiting for Skaggs to return from Sheffield. I expect he’ll have news.”

“Remind me who Skaggs is?”

“The private investigator I use from time to time. He finds the pub an easier fit than I do. Useful chap. More coffee, Jane?”

“Yes, please,” she said, and Lenox beckoned a maid to fetch it. In addition to her absence, here was another thing: She seemed-as she had in previous weeks-slightly preoccupied, careworn, and fretful over some secret anxiety. He did his best to cheer her, and wondered how he could discover what that anxiety was.

Their talk turned to the parties that were to occur that week, touched on politics, veered off toward a painter Jane had discovered, and then moved on to a mutual acquaintance of theirs, one Mr. Webb, who had been discovered cheating at the racetrack.

In all their long conversation, however, Lenox never said the only words he had hoped to before her arrival.