A Stranger in Mayfair (23 page)

“Have you any advice? What mistakes did you make upon your arrival?”

He let out a barking, humorless laugh. “Mistakes? In that day it wasn’t within a young Member’s purview to make mistakes. He voted with his party unfailingly, never agitated on behalf of a particular issue, and waited to mature into his position.”

Lenox felt like a chided schoolboy. “I see.”

“Still, you’ll do well if you’re at all like your brother,” he said. “By the way, Mr. Lenox, is that punch I see? I would quite like a glass of punch—yes, I think I’ll have one. No, no need to fetch it for me. Please, stay here and speak to your guests.”

Lenox watched him for the rest of the night, occasionally returning to him to say another courteous word or two, and by the end of the evening the old man’s demeanor had softened. Still, he smiled only once: when Toto came in, accepting congratulations from everyone and chattering as rapidly as an auctioneer. For all his seriousness Disraeli was known as a man who loved a pretty young lady.

Many hours later, when the last guests had gone and the tables in the sitting room were empty, with only a low pond of punch left at the bottom of the bowl, Lenox, Edmund, and Dallington were sitting in Lenox’s library, smoking cigars.

Edmund and Lenox talked of the chancellor first, and the very great honor of his visit, and then all three spoke appreciatively of Lady Jane’s turn at the piano.

“I wonder what Ludo Starling is doing at the moment,” said Dallington at a lapse in their talk. “I’d pay a shilling or two to read his mind, the devilish sod.”

“Why?” asked Edmund. “It was the son, wasn’t it?” Seeing his brother’s smile, he said, “Am I behind the times? I always am in these things.”

“Yes—or a bit, anyway. We think that the footman, Freddie Clarke, may have been Ludo Starling’s natural child.”

Edmund blew out a low whistle, shocked. “Who told you?”

“Nobody,” said Charles and recapitulated the series of small facts that had led him to the idea.

Dallington chimed in when he was done. “Something else. Do you remember how he hovered around the hallway when we looked at Clarke’s room? Guilty, I thought at the time—as if he couldn’t come in, for whatever reason.”

“Then, too, his reaction to the ring was singularly strange,” said Lenox.

“How?” asked Edmund.

“He didn’t recognize it at first. If he had, I would have believed more readily that Freddie Clarke stole it, although the act of his engraving his own initials on it would still have been a mystery to me. I think perhaps Ludo gave it to Clarke’s mother many years ago.”

“Just the sort of foolish gesture Ludo Starling would make to a maid,” added Edmund.

“It may even have been that they were in love. At any rate, I don’t think he had seen it for some time.”

“Freddie Clarke was proud of it,” said Dallington thoughtfully. “It was polished, well engraved, kept in a safe spot.”

“The one memento he had of his father,” said Edmund.

They talked it over for a while longer, but soon enough their cigars had burned down to stubs, and both Edmund and Dallington left, taking a taxi together away from Hampden Lane. After he had seen them off, Lenox went upstairs to have the real postmortem for the party, with Jane.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The next morning was a break from it all, politics and murders and secret sons. It was George McConnell’s christening.

A few days before, the cards had been sent out: small white ones with the child’s full name engraved in the center in gray, and in the lower left-hand corner, per custom, the birth date. On the reverse was the name and address of a church—St. Martin’s—and a date and time.

“A bit early, isn’t it?” asked Lenox when Lady Jane told him about the note. “As I recall the christening is usually a month or so after the birth. It’s scarcely been a week.”

“She wants visitors,” was all Lady Jane said in reply, with a slight, affectionate eye roll. Except for the very closest friends and family, a new mother couldn’t receive social calls until after her baby’s christening. “You know Toto has never thought much about convention, either.”

“Have you decided what you think we should do for the child? As godparents? We’ll have to give her something now if it’s already the christening.”

“She’ll have enough money—I don’t think we need to make an investment on her behalf.” This was a common enough present. “I would like to give her something special, though, besides the silver porringer I already gave Toto.”

“What sort of thing would you call special, my dear? The horn of a unicorn? The headdress of a Red Indian?”

She laughed. “Nothing that exotic, now—though for my birthday I may permit you to give me a phoenix’s feather. What would you say to a little pony for her?”

“A pony? Shouldn’t it outgrow her?”

“We would give her a newborn foal when she turned four, say—then it might be broken in time for her to ride at six or so.”

“I call it a handsome idea.”

So the present was decided, and on the appointed day, at the appointed time, they arrived at the church prepared to fill their more serious role as godparents.

It was one of the small alabaster white churches of the eighteenth century, with a single high spire and a brick parish house next door. Between them was a small circular garden, ringed with a path of white gravel. The whole picture was almost rural, and its simplicity seemed fitting to this simple occasion, with the whiteness of the church, too, recalling the child’s purity.

“Do you remember all of your lines?” asked Lenox as they walked up the steps of the church. They were fifteen minutes earlier than the invitation said, because they had to speak briefly with the clergyman.

“Lines!” said Lady Jane, turning to him with alarm. “What have I missed?” He laughed. “Ah—I see you’re teasing me. Well, it’s not very gentleman-like of you, is all I can say.”

A few stray parishioners were in the pews of the church, but otherwise it was empty. It had a remarkably open, airy feel, with high clear windows—no stained glass—flooding light inward. Along the transept stood long tables of ferns and Easter lilies—from a hothouse of course, for it was September—and at the crossing, where the four sides of the church met, was a large, round baptismal font, made of silver and with crosses worked into it.

The clergyman was a bishop—Toto’s father had asked him to be present as a personal favor—and when Lenox saw him he remembered the man spoke with a terrible lisp.

“Mr. Lenoxth!” he called as they approached. “Thith ith truly a joyouth day!”

“Indeed it is, my lord,” said Lenox and bowed his head. “Are Thomas and Toto here?”

The bishop nodded. “You know your roleth?”

“I think we do,” said Lady Jane. “Will you tell us once more?”

They heard their roles, and soon the church started to fill up. Lenox stood to the right of the font, Lady Jane to the left, and though they nodded to anyone who caught their eye neither moved, save once: when the grandparents arrived, and came into the first pews. Toto’s mother was a formidable, large old woman, but her father was something else, tiny, with pure white hair and a jolly face; it was clear that his daughter’s shine came from him. McConnell’s parents were stout Scots, both red from long hours outdoors, the father very dignified and the mother positively monumental, with a whole fox for a stole. Both wore the McConnell plaid, gray, green, and white, he in the form of a kilt, she in her hat.

There was a loud din of conversation until suddenly the bishop, now in his vestments, appeared at the font between Lenox and Lady Jane. Lenox found himself suddenly nervous, in the new quiet, and with the sun directly on him rather warm. It felt like a solemn moment, to be sure, but more than that he realized now for the first time that to be a godfather meant more than a present now and then—that it was of importance to God, and in God’s eyes.

Without speaking, the bishop gestured for the child to be brought forth. Toto, looking radiant, held her, with McConnell behind her. They took their places beside the bishop (with Lenox and Lady Jane now on the outside of them), who began to speak.

“Almighty God, who by our baptithm into the death and rethurrection thy Thon Jethuth Chritht dotht turn uth from the old life of thin: Grant that we, being reborn to a new life in him, may live in righteouthneth and holineth all our dayth; through the thame Thy Thon Jethuth Chritht our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Thpirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.”

As he spoke he ladled water over the child’s head with his hand and anointed her with oil. To Lenox’s pride, he found, she didn’t cry. She looked wonderful, too, not at all red anymore. Her dress, a long, flowing white sort of gown, perhaps three times longer than her whole body, was one Toto had worked on throughout her pregnancy, the object of great anxiety and effort and time; there was also a satin bonnet, white of course, and a profoundly embroidered—indeed, beautiful—ruff at the neck.

“Who ith the thponthor of thith child?” cried out the bishop.

Here was their moment. Lenox and Lady Jane stepped forward and silently bowed.

“Very good. And what ith her name?”

“Grace Georgianna McConnell,” said McConnell loudly, then handed the bishop a slip of paper with the name clearly spelled out, as had been customary since a powerful couple had long ago found themselves at home after a baptism with a wrongly named child.

Then (also as was customary) Toto placed George in Lady Jane’s arms, where she stayed while the ceremony finished with a short speech from the bishop.

Lenox’s eyes flitted over to Jane quite often, and once as he looked he saw that she was in a state of high emotion. Tears swelled in her eyes and began to fall, singly and doubly down her cheeks and onto her brown dress. Lenox handed her a handkerchief, and she pressed it to her mouth without taking her gaze away from the child tucked safely in the crook of her right arm. Toto saw it and started to cry, too. McConnell caught Lenox’s glance and smiled.

The moment the bishop said the final words of his blessing, soft conversations started all over the church, soon rising to quite normal speaking-voice levels and finally into something of a racket. Lady Jane returned the baby to her mother, and the three members of the new family vanished into their private room.

“That was lovely,” said Lenox to Lady Jane after she had hugged Toto good-bye and he had shaken McConnell’s hand.

She slid her arm through his and leaned her head against his shoulder, her face still wet. “It was beautiful,” she said in a barely audible voice. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.”

“I thought Toto would start giving the blessing herself, she looked so excited.”

Jane hiccupped with laughter. “It’s true. She was quite calm at first, but I saw her get caught up. How lucky she is, Charles!” As she said these last words the laughter left her face and she looked up at him, bereft.

He looked back at her, his eyes slightly narrowed, trying to read her expression. Instead of saying anything he squeezed her hand and hoped it would be reassuring enough.

Just then someone with so little tact that he couldn’t see he was interrupting a private moment, a gentleman named Timothy Macgrath, approached Lenox and said, “Jolly good show, wasn’t it!” and they were all thrown into the general conversation that rattled on as people began to file into the street.

Meeting on the steps of the church, Lenox and Dallington consulted quickly.

“Will you go visit Fowler before the party?” asked Lenox.

“Of course. I never saw him, did I?”

“Ask him about Clarke’s father, who he was and why he’s gone. Maybe that will tell us something.”

“Shall I ask him about Frederick being Ludo’s son?”

“I don’t think so. Not yet. Use your judgment—if you feel he’s willing to commiserate with you, then share all the information you like.”

They were only a couple of short blocks away from the butcher’s, Schott and Son. Lenox couldn’t resist checking in to see if he was there; he told Lady Jane, who was deep in conversation with the Duchess of Marchmain and didn’t have much present need of him, that he felt like a stroll.

It was still warm, and as he walked he loosened his tie. Some thought about children, elusive and dim, went through his mind more than once, but it was unclear even to himself what he wanted—for himself, for Lady Jane, for their life together.

He was so lost in thought that he overshot the butcher’s by a block and had to turn back.

Someone was in. The white tile of the shop’s interior gleamed brightly, and behind a row of beef sides that hung from the beams someone moved. Lenox couldn’t see a face, but then realized what he
could
see was perhaps even more interesting.

It was a green butcher’s apron.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Lenox wavered. He didn’t want to miss his chance to speak with Schott, but he didn’t want to stand in a tight space with a man who had thirty knives nearby, and knew how to use them.

Impulsively he crossed the street and opened the door.

As soon as the smell hit him he knew it had been a mistake. From twenty feet he could admire a butcher’s shop, its sanitary white, its reddish pink slabs of beef cut so tidily. Close up, though, it nauseated him. If it was browned in a red wine sauce there was nothing he preferred to a steak, but seeing it before it had reached that stage was less pleasant.

The man in the green butcher’s apron had been in the back, but at the sound of the bell attached to the door he popped up to the front. To Lenox’s disappointment, it wasn’t the gentleman from the boxing club.

“Mr. Schott?” he said.

“Yes? What can I get you?” The butcher was a short, tough lump of a man, bald and round-headed, with a belt of fat and arms that looked powerful from the heavy work of lifting and chopping. He looked at Lenox without suspicion. The detective put his age at about forty.

“I was wondering why you’d been closed the past few days.”

“I suppose a man can keep his own hours in his own shop, can’t he?”