In his mild way, never given over to much show, Lenox was a God-fearing Christian. Nonetheless he felt compelled to say, “I think they want better food, milk without chalk in it, and not to go to the factory at the age of five, that sort of thing.”
“Well; I suppose,” said Trott, doubtfully. “I wouldn’t put that about too much in your speech. This is England, after all, we’re not a raft of Hindoos.”
“What do you think I should say, then?”
“It starts with Jesus,” replied Trott, more firmly now. “Stick to Jesus, and country sports, and you’ll get through it very well.”
“Thank you ever so much, Mr. Trott.”
Trott went; and in his place came the worst of the lot, Lord Brakesfield. This white-haired, tenebrously attired fellow, born to a butcher in Ealing, had succeeded in making himself one of the richest men in London by exporting soap of startlingly poor quality to all of the country’s counties. The most recent New Years’ Honours had seen him receive a lordship for services to Her Majesty’s Government, and he had immediately released a soap called Brakesfield to capitalize on the notoriety of his newly bestowed name.
“Mr. Lenox, I have found in business that honesty is the best course.”
“No doubt.”
“Here is my proposal, then. I will pay you a hundred pounds if you mention Brakesfield soap in the first three paragraphs of your speech.”
Lenox almost laughed out loud. “But I don’t want a hundred pounds,” he said.
“Nonsense. Everyone wants a hundred pounds.”
“Not I.”
“You don’t?” the lord asked incredulously.
“No.”
Lenox’s guest considered this turn of affairs. “Perhaps I might raise my offer to a hundred and fifty pounds.”
“I don’t want a hundred and fifty pounds, either.”
“Hm. Your way, then, make it a hundred if you simply mention my name—don’t have to say anything about soap—but it has to be in the first two paragraphs.” The lord sat back, well-satisfied with this gambit. “Can’t say fairer than that, get the Brakesfield name out there. People know about the soap already, after all, but a mention in the opening address to the House of Commons would give it such a touch of dignity.”
“I’m afraid I won’t be able to accept your offer,” said Lenox.
After Brakesfield left—also with a handkerchief full of scones, for he had never turned down the opportunity for something free in his life—there was still another knock at the door. Lenox sighed, and felt that if the days leading to the speech would all be this way, they could have it back.
This knock, however, brought a more welcome guest: his older brother, Edmund.
“Thank God it’s you,” said Charles.
Edmund chuckled. “Have you been receiving guests?”
“You wouldn’t believe it if I told you. And a dozen more have left their cards for me down in Whitehall, Graham says, all to talk about the blasted speech. It will be the death of me.”
Edmund and Charles looked rather alike, though the older brother—the ninth baronet in his line, and the heir to Lenox House, where both had grown up—was haler; his cheeks were red and he always looked fresh from the country, which was indeed where he generally would have preferred to be. Despite that preference he had risen to be very powerful in the Commons.
“Is it you I have to thank for this opportunity?” asked the younger brother. “I’m grateful, of course.”
“You must stop believing me to have a hand in your success, Charles. You’re a rising man.”
“Then it wasn’t you.”
“No. I say, you couldn’t get Kirk to fetch me in some tea, could you?”
“Oh, instantly.”
They sat companionably while they waited for their refreshment, talking as brothers will about any number of things, each seemingly unconnected to the last from the outside, their line of connection clear to the two speakers. Bessie the cow had given birth; the Marquess of Broadhurst was ill; there was to be a party for Toto McConnell the next Wednesday; and so forth.
When they had their tea the conversation returned to Lenox’s speech. “What do you want to say?” asked Edmund.
“I’d like to talk about the poor. So far I haven’t had a moment to think, however. Only a series of visitors.”
“It will be worse when you go down to the House. Everyone will be in your ear.”
“What I need is somewhere quiet.”
Edmund shrugged. “That’s done easily enough. Go to Lenox House.”
“I couldn’t leave now, with the speech in three weeks.”
“On the contrary, through the years many people I’ve known have left London to write the opening speech. People will consider you statesmanlike, I imagine, if you disappear to have a deep think through things. It implies an appropriate seriousness. Really, honestly.”
“I wonder …” said Lenox. With a quick tug of excitement he remembered the letter from his uncle Frederick. “Perhaps you’re right, after all,” he said.
CHAPTER FIVE
Before supper Lenox and Edmund had a visit with Sophia. Her affectionate uncle dangled his pocket watch over her crib and she happily batted at it, smiling and laughing.
“I wish I had had a daughter,” said Edmund, rather wistfully.
“How are the boys?”
“Oh, they’re in excellent form. Teddy is still aboard the Lucy with Captain Carrow, as you know, and happy as can be. Have I shown you his letters? Remind me to, when you next come to see me and Molly for supper. The ship has acquired a pet monkey, apparently. He sleeps with them in the midshipman’s cabin. But a little daughter, to dote over … I should have liked it above all things.”
“At any rate you may dote over Sophia, provided it doesn’t interfere with my schedule of doting.”
Edmund laughed. “A generous and fair proposal.”
As he was walking his brother downstairs, Charles said, “Uncle Freddie has invited me down to Everley, in fact.”
“Has he? It would be an ideal retreat, I should say. The most excitement I ever saw in those parts was the three-legged race at the summer fête. Then again you were always fonder of it there than I was.”
They were at the door, Edmund putting on his cloak and his hat. “I liked the country, it’s true.”
“And you were Freddie’s favorite.”
“Perhaps.”
Edmund smiled and tipped his hat. “Congratulations, Charles. Really, I’m excited to hear what you’ll say. It will be brilliant, I know as much as that.”
“Good-bye, then. I’ll write to tell you what I’m doing.”
“Tell Jane I’m sorry I’ve missed her.”
Even as Edmund walked away from the house, someone was approaching it from the other direction. It was J. G. Reese, the member for Dover, who was perpetually convinced that the French were at that very moment bracing themselves to cross the channel and climb his constituency’s white cliffs.
“Ah! Lenox! Capital, I was just coming to see you. Want a word about France. I hear dire things about their gunnery, really you won’t believe it when I tell you. Beastly frogs, their budget for pigiron alone would make you shiver.”
“I’ve no doubt at all.”
“At a bare minimum we need to double the budget at the Woolwich arsenal, for starters, and shift more men to Dover—hate to think of the poor cliffs—but here, I’ll come in, thank you, yes. You haven’t got a scone handy, have you? I’m positively famished.”
A trip to the country, thought Lenox, as he invited Reese into his study. It was just the thing.
To convince Lady Jane of it would be a different matter. When his final visitor had vacated the study that evening—George Swan, who wanted to outlaw Catholics from sitting down in Hyde Park—Lenox waited for her to arrive home, wondering how he could convince her to come along for a week in the country.
When she arrived it was with a bustle of boxes and parcels. “Oh, there you are!”
she said to her husband, who was waiting in the hall. “How is Sophia?”
“She’s asleep. Can I help you?”
“Would you? I bought ever so much at the food hall at Harrod’s—I couldn’t stop. There are some marvelous ostrich eggs I want to give to your brother, he is fond of them, and then once I got to the chocolate counter I couldn’t resist—but listen to me. How is your speech coming along?”
He had told her the night before of his news, and now he told her about his day, about Bottlesworth, Brakesfield, and the rest of them. “The prospect of setting foot in the Commons is terrifying.”
“Won’t they stop bothering you after a day or so?” she asked.
“Edmund imagines not.”
She furrowed her brow and sat down. “Well, we must think of something to thwart them, these hordes.”
“I quite agree. Would you suggest tipping hot oil over them?” She removed her gloves, and looking at her thin, lovely fingers he felt a wave of love for her. “How are you feeling, incidentally?”
She looked up at him and smiled. “You’re sweet, Charles, but really I haven’t felt badly for a month or more, now.”
“You look pale.”
“Well, it was a long day.” He sat next to her and she leaned into his shoulder. “Perhaps I do feel a bit off, if I think of it. It’s only that I think I should be able to do what I did before, you see, and when I can’t …”
It had been a difficult birth for her, and she had been ill, though not gravely, for six weeks afterward. Still she looked too thin to Charles. “I wish you would rest,” he said.
She looked up at him, her eyes slightly saddened. “It’s London, I suppose. The invitations keep rattling through the door, noon and night, and now we must plan a party for your speech—of course we must, don’t shake your head—and, oh, I don’t know … I wish it could just be the three of us for a little while, don’t you?”
“You were cheerful when you came through the door, my dear. I feel guilty.”
“When I think of it I suppose I don’t feel my best. I try not to think of it.”
“Would you like to go to the country?”
He thought he saw hope dart across her face and then vanish. “But you couldn’t, of course, you must be here.”
“On the contrary, Edmund was advising me we ought to go away before the speech. Thinks it’s more statesmanlike,” he said with a tiny smile.
She laughed. “Are you to be a statesman, now? As long as you don’t get a big head. Oh, but Charles, could you really leave? It sounds heavenly, the country, having walks, skipping breakfast, nobody to see …”
“My uncle Frederick offered.”
So it was that in due course the Lenox family decided they would depart London for Somerset.
Lenox wrote to Everley immediately to tell them the family was coming, and to expect them as early as the next evening. Kirk, who had been Jane’s butler for many years, a fat, severely dignified specimen, was thrown into a panic of packing and sorting out, as was Sophia’s nurse, Miss Taylor. For his part Graham was shocked that Lenox would leave town at such a juncture. In the end he conceded Edmund’s superior political judgment, but he still refused to look happy about any of it, and kept muttering about the meetings they would have to cancel.
It didn’t matter to Charles and Jane, who both expressed, over supper, a feeling of relief, of a burden being lifted.
“In a way,” said Lenox, “we’ve never been alone with Sophia. I’ve had to work so much, and you were ill.”
“You shall still have to work.”
“Can’t you picture us walking her in the garden, though? And it’s still really splendid weather, if we hurry down.”
Jane laughed. “I don’t think a day will make much of a difference in that regard.”
“Come now, I feel happy. That’s all I mean to say.”
She smiled, indulgent. “So do I, Charles. We can bring the dogs, and not think about London things for a while.”
He felt delighted that he had enticed his wife to go to the country. It was only an hour or two after he had congratulated himself on this victory, sitting in his study, that he remembered the conversation over again, and began to wonder whether perhaps it had been the other way around. Had she seen some sign of him wanting to leave town, and let him think he was persuading her to do it? Hadn’t she been energetic and happy upon arriving home, and wasn’t she busy that very evening, planning a party to follow his speech? It would be consistent with her character, for her to let him think he was tricking her: with her subtlety of mind, her insight into his own clumsily gallantry, her empathy.
One could never quite know the truth of such a dance, even in a marriage as close as theirs. Whatever it was it left him feeling loved.
From all of which it may be inferred that Kirk’s momentary unhappiness, and Graham’s, and Miss Taylor’s, were not in the end of much importance. Anyhow, the sudden change of plans was very exciting for the housemaids, who were to be left behind and hadn’t had a holiday for ages besides. They decided they would go to the seaside.
CHAPTER SIX
Sophia passed her first train ride in the kind of stoic silence that Lenox had found all too uncommon among children on public transportation, sleeping most of the while to Somerset. Sharing a compartment were the three of them and Miss Taylor, each with a small valise; Kirk and Jane’s lady’s maid were traveling behind in a private coach with the great majority of the family’s things and the two Lenox dogs, Bear and Rabbit, who loved going out of London above anything. Lenox passed the trip by peering in at Sophia in her bassinet every few minutes, and otherwise gazing through the window at the countryside, imagining with pleasure all the importunate guests who were arriving to find his house and office uninhabited.
“It’s surprising to me that she has her own personality, so young,” he whispered to Lady Jane. Miss Taylor was reading the Illustrated London News.
“What do you mean?”
“I had always thought of babies as being a pretty uniform lot, but Sophia seems different. Certain things make her happy, certain things make her unhappy—she’s almost a small human.”
“I should hope so,” said Jane and returned to her novel.
In Bath they switched platforms and got onto a tiny single-car train, largely empty, which traveled in no great haste across the western part of Somerset. Through the windows one could see vast unspoiled meadows and orchards—the local cider was famously strong and delicious—and at each small station, the platform often no longer than fifteen or twenty feet, a stationmaster popped his head through the window to make sure nobody had to come off. Then he went to the end of the train and collected an armful of mail from the engineer.
After ten or twelve of these stops Plumbley was close; Lenox knew because he remembered a certain pub by the side of the tracks, and his heart swelled up with happiness at the prospect of returning to a place he had so loved. He felt a fondness all out of proportion for the dusty farmer who had gotten on two stops before, and was now reading the local newspaper in the corner of the car. How different from London it was here!
“We’ve arrived!” he said, well before the train began to slow, and leaned his head through an open window, breathing in the rush of country air.
At the station there was a cart to meet them, driven by a young man Lenox didn’t recognize, but who was expecting them.
“To Everley?” he said.
“Yes, if you please. Our things are following behind.”
They went a mile or so along a small cart-path, with ancient stone walls on either side, before they saw the black gates of Everley. Leaning against them, smoking his pipe, was Uncle Frederick.
More properly he should have been denominated Cousin Frederick, for he was the beloved first cousin of Lenox’s late mother, but family tradition had claimed him as an uncle and so he remained. He was a small, friendly-looking, gray-haired man, just nearing sixty now, utterly unassuming—retiring, in fact—with a sm
all belly pushing out at his tweed waistcoat and the healthy air of a country squire. In his lapel was a bright blue ribbon, given to him many years before by the Somerset Garden Society, in honor of his contributions to horticulture. That ribbon about measured the height of his ambitions.
He put up a hopeful hand when he saw them turn the bend. “There you are!” he called out to Charles.
“Hello!” Lenox cried back.
“Come along in, come along in! Hello, Jane! Hello, Sophia, wherever you are in that bundle of blankets! And you, you must be Miss Taylor, Charles said you were going to visit! Very pleased indeed to meet you, madam!”
He hopped nimbly up onto the cart with them, and they drove down the long avenue, past lime trees on either side, which led to the house.
“I couldn’t be happier to have you,” said the older man. He wasn’t smiling—he didn’t smile too often—but there was plain and simple affection in his face. “For starters you must play in the cricket match next weekend, Charles, and then you haven’t seen my garden—and in truth, you’re coming for the best of the season.”
This Frederick was the reigning squire of Plumbley, just as his forefathers had been since such a thing called a squire had first come to be in England and begun passing down the family name from father to son, from uncle to nephew, and occasionally from cousin to cousin. There was no unbroken line of male succession, yet each Ponsonby who abided at the great house, as the family called it, had viewed it in much the same light: There had been no profligate along the way who tore down the land’s timber to pay gambling debts or sold off the estate’s outlying acres for pony-money. Thus the estate—though it was legally unbound and therefore each new heir might have sold it on his first day of taking up the patrimony—had remained intact for many hundreds of years. Only tremendous good luck had held it all together. Or a peculiar, settled sort of inherited trait in all the Ponsonbys. As a group they were similar, all quiet, all bookish, all in love with home. The portraits that lined the front hall showed a long sequence of gentle gentlemen.
Frederick was no different. He was without aspiration to any greatness of personal achievement, was excessively modest, yet was a merry and genial soul, who took great pleasure in company and in other humans. The combination made people love him. Other than a stretch of time at school and then another at Cambridge he had spent all of his years at Everley. He left the estate twice annually and no more, once to visit for a week a small, warmthless, but colorful hovel in Ireland, where he shot birds with three very old friends, and once, for twenty-four hours every April, to the Chelsea Flower Show in London. The exertion of this latter sojourn, it was widely accepted among the people of Plumbley, nearly killed him, and his valiance in nevertheless going inspired in them a broad affection. (In this regard it didn’t hurt that he loved the village, shopped with its shopkeepers, gave generously at church, and sent a silver rattle along to every Plumbley child who was born.) Generally he kept to his books, his gardens, his pipe, and his meals.
A Death in the Small Hours Page 3
