I asked O’Brian earlier if he remembered Ireland. “Only being hungry,” he said. I told him that was no good and he smiled. “I remember being hungry here, too,” he answered, perfectly at ease with the reply. Of course, there are such stories within a stone’s throw of King’s Cross, but the hedonism in Newport sets a strange backdrop to this one. Today I learned that there is a pair of mating giraffes at Windward Cry, which is the Compton cottage. At Mrs. Astor’s house (as I suppose, thanks to you, I shall see for myself on Saturday, if this business is not resolved by then) there is not just hot and cold running water, apparently, but a third tap—salt water.
I wish I could convey with more than these paltry lines, Jane, how much I miss you and the girls.
Lenox paused and looked up. It was late, after midnight, a moonless evening. The air was cool and heavy at once, alien to Lenox in a way that was not unpleasant, or uninteresting. According to Mrs. Berry, who spoke with the irrefutable certainty of one who had passed her life among mariners, there was a heavy storm on the way. Lenox wouldn’t have known; his steward on the ship had carefully packed away McConnell’s barometer, with the air of a man handling something whose owner was annoyingly oblivious to its fineness, and it still sat in his trunk.
He was outside on his balcony, writing home by candlelight. He had spent most of the evening writing out copious notes for himself about the Allingham case. He was satisfied that he had enough information to solve it, though tomorrow would bring the real challenge: speaking to Lawrence Vanderbilt about his flask. The murder weapon.
Pen still hovering above the paper, he once again gazed at the cottages. Cove Court closest by. Why did the opulence here bother him? Why shouldn’t a fur trader from a tenement in New York have as much wealth at his disposal as the Duke of Westminster, if either were to have such an outrageous allotment of the world’s material goods?
Perhaps because here he saw with new eyes. If there was one good quality that Lenox would have admitted to possessing in a greater preponderance than most people he knew, even his brother, it was a sense of fairness. He was in no fashion above the common sins of life—deception, vanity, jealousy. But somewhere deep in his soul he had always hated the idea of unfairness. Perhaps it was starting life as a second son. Perhaps not. As to whether it was the cause or an effect of his career, he had no idea, but knew that this bitter indignation had driven him as hard as his own ambition or curiosity, on certain seemingly hopeless cases, to discover the truth.
I still cannot quite fathom Clara, with her curious eyes, and if I do not regret coming to America, I do regret the loss of these weeks with her (our miracle child!) and keenly feel the anticipation of returning to you all, and seeing once again the careful way Sophia holds her. On my last night in London
Again he paused, and he realized he was losing his stream of thought. He would have to finish the letter in the morning. He folded it carefully and tucked it into his inner jacket pocket just as a misting rain started to fall.
He curled the blanket over his shoulders a little more tightly but didn’t make any effort to move. (He was an Englishman, after all—what was rain!) In the distance, the sparkling lights of the cottages entertaining that evening reflected a long ways out over the water, shifting in its black glossy surface.
He was picturing that last visit to the nursery before he had left England. Sophia, dressed for bed, had sprinted up to her father when he came to the door. She was six now, boundless in energy, her hair looped in braids so that it would stay kempt while she slept. For his part, he liked when it fell loose and wavy, matching her laughing ways and easy confidence. But Lady Jane scorned the style—said Julia Cameron wasn’t welcome to make pictures in her drawing room.
“How is your sister?” Lenox had asked Sophia after embracing her, as she found a comfortable position into which she could curl herself next to him on the settee.
“Will you read me the story of the wolf?” she’d said.
“Miss Huntington can do that,” Lady Jane had said.
This was the governess, a sweet, fair young woman of good family, with a soft way about her, deeply unworldly. Jane had been with her on the other side of the room, looking into Clara’s crib. There was much left to do before they departed for Plymouth in the morning.
“But wolves aren’t real,” Sophia had whispered to her father, eyes large and serious.
“Wolves are real, but the stories about them aren’t,” he replied.
“What do you mean?”
“There are wolves, but they can’t talk, and they wouldn’t hurt you. They would be afraid of you.”
“Of me?” she said.
He stroked her hair. “Of you,” he said.
She contemplated this, nestled next to him. He allowed her the silence, as he always tried to do. Having children had recalled to his mind something forgotten—the weight words held, how a stray sentence from a father or mother could occasionally stay with a child forever, like wax taking an impression. It called for great care.
“What about Clara?” she said. “Would they be scared of her?”
He considered this. “No, I suppose not. But there are no wolves in London,” he said, “and as for the country—she is never alone there. Anyhow, she’ll be bigger soon.”
Sophia thought this over. “I could stay with her.”
Lenox looked across the room. Clara looked in no danger of being neglected. Indeed, her governess and mother were presently engaged in an intense conversation about whether she was fat enough.
He had never expected a second child. Sophia had been gift enough—all of heaven in one small human, everything in which he ever needed to believe, he felt. The rightful possessor of every good part of himself. He almost hesitated to concentrate too closely on Clara, by contrast, as if the bounty was so great that he might jeopardize it by claiming possession.
Wolves of all kinds, lurking about.
“She would certainly be safe with you.”
“Did Uncle Edmund ever see a wolf?” Sophia had asked.
“Uncle Edmund!” Lenox had said incredulously. “Your father is worth ten of Uncle Edmund at seeing wolves—I saw them by the dozen while Uncle Edmund was sneaking jam roly-poly from the kitchen.”
“Did he really?” said Sophia, diverted by the thought of such wickedness.
“He did, too. But I suppose he probably sets eyes on a wolf once in a while.” Edmund was, to Sophia, everything to do with the country and its mysterious ways. “If you’re curious, we can certainly see a fox when we visit this summer. Maybe a wolf, if Mr. Morton knows where they are.”
That was his brother’s gamekeeper. She turned her head slightly—not sacrificing her comfortable position. “You haven’t either seen a wolf,” she said.
“Don’t be rude to your father,” Lady Jane had said without turning.
Sophia looked up at Lenox. She had crinkly blue-green eyes, and cheeks with just a trace of baby fat left in them. “I didn’t mean to be, Father.”
“I know, darling,” he said. “But you must remember your manners.”
“And never speak at table.”
He smiled. Her subterfuge was not subtle. It was her great wish to sit at supper with her parents, but she was not allowed. In various ways (like this one) she had tried to manufacture permission for herself, thus far without success.
“When the time comes, no. That’s right. Shall we go look at your sister?”
“No.”
“Why not? I haven’t seen her today.”
“I saw her all day.”
“Not during your lessons,” said Charles.
“Oh, fine.”
She squirmed off his lap and ran to Lady Jane. Lenox followed. He peered into the crib—farthest back of the four people doing so—and his soul gave its usual little leap at the warm little personage he saw, the thin skin of her sleeping eyelids. The curl of her hands. Her dark, wispy hair. She looked so different than Sophia had as a baby. That had surprised him most.
“May I hold her before we go?” he said.
“Perhaps for a moment,” said Lady Jane. “Miss Huntington, what do you think?”
“Of course,” said the nursemaid.
He took the baby in her soft eiderdown quilt. She shifted a bit, then settled into his arms. It was a strange, stirring feeling to look into the face of an infant; it erased the world. Any emotion other than love seemed an absurdity.
Recalling this, on his little balcony in Newport, he suddenly made a private vow: that when he traveled again, if he was ever allowed the chance, it would be with all three of them, Lady Jane, Sophia, and Clara. Never mind that it would slow him down.
He tried to hold them in his mind as he went inside, brushed the slight dampness from himself, and changed for bed. But the human mind wasn’t built for so prolonged a meditation; and as he fell gratefully into bed and drifted toward sleep, some detail about the dance card, something strange, kept playing over in his mind, never quite within his reach, but close, close.