Home by Nightfall (27 page)

At home, he found his wife writing letters in the quiet, light-filled front drawing room. Toto had retired; she always rested after her midday meal.

“Tell me about the party, then,” he said, as she sealed an envelope.

He was in an armchair next to the delicate walnut desk where she was sitting, and she smiled. “I wish you had been there—it was very fun. Though I'm afraid the sherbet was not all I could have wished. Toto agreed, she called it lackluster.”

“Shakespeare invented that word, you know.”

Lady Jane nodded. “He was pretty bright. Anyhow, it wasn't very cheerful to serve lackluster sherbet to three royals—but on the other hand the soup was the most delicious soup I ever had, and everyone did get along famously. And then, of course, sherbet is not very important when you consider the children of the hospital. So I say, forget about the sherbet, life is too short.”

Lenox laughed, and asked another question about the party, and soon they were rattling along in conversation, trading names, their acquaintances—and more importantly their opinions of their acquaintances—so familiar to them that the conversation would barely have been comprehensible to an outsider. After a few minutes they turned to Sophia, and whether her nose was a little runny, whether she had outgrown a certain wooden toy, all the minor subjects that make having a child together so fascinating. Having already loved each other, Charles and Jane, he had nevertheless found, to his surprise, that by becoming parents, they had reached a different level of affinity he hadn't expected, a whole unexplored variety of friendship and attachment.

After some time had passed, Jane said that she thought she had better prepare herself for the ball now. A woman would be coming from the village shortly to sew her and Toto into their dresses, and there was her hair to be done, too.

“The seamstress was Molly's particular friend, I believe,” said Lady Jane. “Edmund recommended her very strongly.”

“How does he seem to you?”

She hesitated. “I think, very close to giving up,” she said. “He is still friendly and lovely. But I don't … I don't know. I wonder when James and Teddy will return.”

“So do I. Soon, I think.”

“That will be very hard.” She was silent for a moment and then said, “I wish there were something else we could do for him.”

“At least we're here,” said Lenox.

“And yet I wonder if he wouldn't be better off in London,” Jane replied. “For its being less associated with Molly in his mind.”

“Do you think so?”

She sighed, then smiled sadly. “I just don't know.”

The next few hours were very busy for Toto and Jane, and very idle for Lenox and Edmund, who went out and looked at the horses—Daisy was back, and Lenox had hopes of riding her in the morning—and then, at six o'clock or so, quickly changed into their dinner jackets. So dressed, they spent a profitable fifteen minutes entertaining Sophia and George (Lenox saw some fleeting joy in Edmund's face when he made his niece laugh) and then went downstairs to have a glass of hot wine and wait to leave.

“Go on, Charles, do tell me,” said Edmund. “Haven't we been in it from the start?”

Lenox realized he had a point. “All right, then,” he said.

He told Edmund what he thought—and his brother, brow darkening, listened attentively and then asked a few pointed questions. When these were answered he shook his head. “A black business.”

“Yes, I think so.”

“We ought to go soon. I'll just check that the dog is in the carriage.”

Lenox nodded. “Good.”

 

CHAPTER FORTY

The house in which Lady Jane had grown up was very grand and beautiful. It was situated on a rising hillside, giving views of its crenellations from a long way off, as well as the Capability Brown gardens that descended the hillside in front of it.

“Wellington turned down the first house they offered him after the war because it was on a hill,” Edmund observed as they came within sight of it. “He thought it would be bad for his horses.”

“Wellington was a fool,” she said. “What kind of sledding could he have had for his children without a hill?”

“He also said in public that he wasn't the least in love with his first wife,” Toto put in. “I remember reading that. ‘I married her because they asked me to do it.' Can you imagine saying such a thing! I'm against him forever, just for that.”

“He did win the Battle of Waterloo,” Lenox pointed out.

“That was
ages
ago,” replied Toto.

“Still, it was pretty well managed.”

“Well, perhaps,” she conceded.

As they approached Houghton Manor, ablaze with light and ringing with faint music, they continued to talk. In the back of Lenox's mind, however, the case was always present. He suspected the same was true of Edmund. Sandy was riding up on the box with the driver, barking at every bird and beast they passed.

It was those drawings, in chalk and then blood, that had finally settled it for him, he thought.

They were a bit early, as suited the house's daughter, and Jane led them from the carriage into the sumptuous front hallway. It was lined with servants; she helloed them, smiling, and they nodded or curtsied their greetings to her.

“Where is my brother?” she asked.

The earl was in his library, they learned, and they found him sitting there and sipping a brandy, poring over the newspaper.

“Hello, Houghton, you layabout,” said Jane affectionately, embracing him and then leaning back with a hand on his cheek to look at him more closely. “I do hope you've been well. I missed you.”

“Is that a dog?”

“Yes, it is. Are you a natural historian now too? We need somewhere to put him during the party.”

The earl, who had stood up, considered this for a moment. He had a look of happiness on his face, a younger brother from whose clever older sister attention has not always been automatic. “The kitchen is boiling hot,” he said. “We can put him there. But I say, welcome home, Jane. I want to show you the ripping new wallpaper we have in your room now. I chose it myself—very carefully, too, very carefully, and wouldn't let the paperhanger go till it was smooth.”

“I hope it's not ripping already, then,” she said.

He laughed. “No, I meant—”

“I know, I know,” she said, putting her arm through his and leaning her head against his shoulder. “Let's put this dog in the kitchen—he's a very important dog—and then I want to look.”

Half an hour later the ball began, very slowly and then very quickly. First there were one or two people who arrived, removing their fur stoles and coats, calling cheerful country hellos to Houghton, then moving to the ballroom and making it somehow feel emptier and larger by their presence, the half a dozen of them—and then suddenly there were fifty people there, and then a hundred, and then almost an infinite number, in that way parties grow. The line of carriages outside became very long, and their drivers stood in small groups near them, smoking and talking. Lenox saw faces he hadn't seen in years: Matthew Quill, who had lost an incredible fortune at the track and then made it back in shipping; Samantha and Serena Boyer, two witty, aged sisters who had known his mother well; Ellis Fermor, a drunk and a cad, but the most beautiful hand with a cricket bat. New faces, too, pretty young girls, handsome young men. The atmosphere was electric with hope; weeks of anticipation before this evening now culminated in sheer happiness that it had come, and with it the magic of being drawn out of one's routine, the sudden magic of other people. The older men and women lined up near the punch, and the younger ones were already dancing. Through the black windows, rain fell softly on the ground.

Edmund had an official role to play at functions like this—and an official smile, too—but he broke into something like real warmth when Atherton arrived.

“Hullo, Houghton,” said Atherton, clapping their host on the shoulder. “How are you off for soap?”

When Adelaide Snow and her cousin Helena arrived, Lenox was sure to be on hand, and he was glad he had thought of it. They both looked tentative, and perhaps just slightly overdressed, but after a moment's conversation their uneasiness melted, and soon Adelaide especially, young, pink-cheeked, and with shining eyes, looked very pleased to be there. Lenox accompanied them into the ballroom and then lost track of them; both were in demand as dance partners.

At a little before eight o'clock he took a glass of champagne from a tray and went into the cloakroom by the front door alone, where he sipped it and watched the drive. Soon he saw what he had expected—Clavering's arrival, in a humble dogcart, with the reedy Bunce near him. Clavering was dressed in his uniform, and had lantern, whistle, and truncheon dangling heavily from his belt.

Lenox greeted them with a smile and ushered them into the small sitting room near the front door that Houghton kept for guests he did not know—a chamber prettily decorated, with oak chairs and a bronze bulldog over the fireplace, but without a single personal memento in it—where he left them with a bottle of wine. A few moments later he returned with the dog, Sandy, and put his lead in Clavering's hand, promising he would come back again soon.

His mind and body were taut as a cello string—from the blended excitements of the champagne, very little food, the warmth of the house, and above all the knowledge that they were close, very close. He felt a tremendous lucidity of thought; there was no doubt of his hypothesis, none at all, he felt.

Back in the enormous ballroom the noise had reached a crescendo. It was nearly impossible to hear the band, in fact, and the dancing had attained a kind of loose, improvisational quality, only faintly connected to the music, perhaps just to its most essential rhythms. Atherton was dancing with Toto, and Edmund with Jane—the formal step, turn, and return of Jane Austen's days, fashionable then, still just clinging to life out in the country. You would never see it in London now.

When the dance was done, Lenox asked Edmund if he wanted to come away for a bit, and his brother, comprehending, said of course, immediately. Together they found Adelaide Snow and her cousin Helena and asked them, cheerfully, if they might be willing to spare a moment of their time.

As they walked through the hallway toward the small sitting room where Clavering, Bunce, and Sandy were waiting, Lenox felt something about this deception—guilt, perhaps, or self-regret, especially with Adelaide Snow talking brightly just at his side about how great the fun of the evening had been so far.

They came to Houghton's little sitting room, and there were four people in it now, arrayed along two dark blue couches: Clavering and Bunce on one, and on the other, faces irritable, as if they quite rightly wondered why they had been compelled to be here, two sisters, Elizabeth Watson and Claire Adams.

Clavering and Bunce rose as Edmund, Charles, and Adelaide and Helena Snow entered. Claire Adams and Elizabeth Watson remained seated—and their faces remained impassive. Lenox glanced at Helena and Adelaide. Their faces, too, were blank. There was perhaps a red color in Adelaide's cheeks.

He drew the door closed behind him softly, waited a beat to see if anybody would say anything, and then, reluctantly, asked Clavering, “In the closet?”

The constable nodded. “Yes.”

Adelaide, looking flummoxed, said, “Why have you brought us here, may I ask?”

Lenox went to the closet in the back corner of the room. There was a happy whine behind it, and a scratch of paws on the other side of the door—and when he opened it, Sandy, the springer spaniel, burst out of it.

The dog bolted directly for Helena Snow, Adelaide's quiet older cousin. He was hysterical with happiness—yelping, jumping for her with his front paws up, trying desperately to kiss her hands and her face. And despite what she must have known her position to be, she smiled, half-smiled, and murmured, “Good boy. Good boy.”

“Miss Snow,” said Lenox, “or Mrs. Watson—Miss Adams—would you like to come clean with us now?”

Elizabeth Watson shook her head, a look of total stupidity on her face. “About what?” she said.

“Yes, about what?” asked Adelaide Snow.

“I'm curious, too,” said Edmund.

Lenox inclined his head toward Helena. “This is the person who attacked the mayor of Markethouse, I fear,” he said.

“My cousin?” asked Adelaide, her demeanor stubborn but, to Lenox at least, transparent.

“Not your cousin, no. Your father was an orphan, was he not? My brother told me so, anyhow. If that's true you shouldn't have made her a Snow, when you invented her—you should have made her one of your mother's relations.”

Clavering, his small round eyes squinched up in confusion, said, “Who is she, then?”

Lenox inclined his head toward the young woman, whom the dog was still happily circling and pawing. “Unless I am mistaken, this young person is Mr. Calloway's daughter, Liza.”

 

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

There was a moment's pause, and then the young woman burst out, “Well! I am! What of it!”

“Liza, no!” cried Claire Adams.

The young woman tried to hold herself steady, but after a moment she began to weep and fell back into the sofa behind her, hiding her face in the arm. Adelaide—her own face full of sympathy and grief, as if they really were cousins—sat down, too, and put her arm around Liza Calloway's shoulder.

Adelaide glanced up at Lenox with a look of reproach in her eyes, and he felt it fully. He had needed some proof. The dog's reaction had given it to him. Nevertheless, it was cruel to send any person into such collapse.

“At such a lovely ball, too, shame,” murmured Elizabeth Watson, as if privy to his thoughts.

It was absurd on its face, if Liza Calloway was guilty of violent assault upon the mayor, and yet there was a kind of county justice in it, too. The feeling of the room—even Clavering and Bunce, even his brother—was against him, not wrongly.