As the weeks before Christmas passed, a debate was occurring at a level of mild heatedness between engineering experts, and argued much more ferociously by the nonexperts who waged their war in the letters section of the newspapers.
It was this: London was certain to have some underground means of transportation built within these next ten years. But should it be a system of underground trains, or should the proposed tunnels be filled with water and have barges running between stations?
“It makes me think this country is mad,” said Josiah Hollis.
He and Lenox were walking up Three Colt Lane together. They were to take luncheon together at a teahouse Lenox knew near Canning Town. Hollis had moved into lodgings not far away, near his friends the Thompsons as well as a significant number of other Quakers. They were among his most supportive allies here in England, it seemed. The Quakers had always been among the staunchest abolitionists. It had been a Quaker dwarf who convinced Benjamin Franklin to turn anti-slavery—making him, along with John Jay, the most famous of what America called her Founding Fathers to protest the institution.
“The argument for the barges is that they would cost less, I believe,” said Lenox.
“Until the water begins to break down the soil, and thousands of bodies buried during the Middle Ages begin to float up.”
“Goodness, you’ve a morbid imagination, Mr. Hollis.”
“So would you, had you lived my life.”
This was their second meeting since the capture of Winfield Bell. The bandage was gone from Hollis’s head. Hair had grown—patchy but healthy—over the scar. There had been no further attempted assaults upon him, though he had given two public lectures and participated in half a dozen salons at which he was the primary speaker. A poor substitute without Mr. Gilman’s corresponding efforts, he said, but he was nonetheless glad the weeks had not been wasted.
“And yet I fear it’s a far cry from what you envisioned when you set out from Washington,” Lenox said a bit later, as they walked.
Hollis nodded, then was silent for the length of a block. “It bothers me not to have an explanation of their motivations.”
Lenox shrugged. “They are a group of bad men, and at least two of them, probably more, were outraged by Gilman’s presumption in coming here. His visibility gave them time to plan. It seems uncomplicated to me—tragic, but uncomplicated.”
“Yes,” said Hollis.
“You must not underestimate the tremendous popularity of Miss Stowe’s novel, either,” Lenox said.
“Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
“Yes.” This was something he and Graham had discussed. “It has been the bestselling novel in every shop month upon month. The ground for an anti-slavery movement is strong here. Anyone strongly pro-slavery must be alarmed.”
“Yes,” said Hollis thoughtfully, “I have had that sense.”
“You seem as if you had a caveat to add.”
“Only that I am not sure England’s influence is so great as my friend Gilman hoped. He was an optimist; I am a pessimist. I fear bloodshed will precede any resolution to the question of slavery.”
“You would know better than I.”
Hollis glanced over at Lenox. “The owners of the plantations in America have too much to lose.”
“Yet you carry on trying.”
“I carry on trying,” Hollis affirmed, nodding once, cane still behind his back. He stopped. “I believe this is the address you mentioned?”
Later in that week, Lenox happened to be playing cards at the Oxford and Cambridge Club when Wilt Sheridan came in. He was the MP whose father had owned those hundreds of slaves in Jamaica, the one with whom Gilman had been scheduled to meet.
Lenox wasn’t sure why—there could be no point in bringing up anything with Sheridan that didn’t have to do with horses—but out of some irresistible impulse, he said, “Sheridan, I wanted to mention. I dined with a former slave on Tuesday. An American.”
“Did you! Gilman’s slave, you mean?”
“Not Gilman’s slave, but—yes, Gilman’s friend. I thought I would let you know that you are well out of that business. I know you said they seemed happy to you when you visited Jamaica as a child, but the tales he told me were so horrible that—well, I know you are a broad-minded sort. It’s up to us, I suppose. Our generation.”
“This was in your capacity as detective?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Lenox.
“I see.” Sheridan smoothed the sides of his mustache upward, grimacing his cheekbones to make it easier. “They shall settle it in America one way or another, I suppose. I don’t think our generation will have much of a say in that. At any rate I want no part in the problem.”
He lifted his glass in salutation, clearly unmoved by Lenox’s little speech, and returned to his friends. Lenox didn’t regret the attempt. Let anyone who pleased call him a detective, and see if he cared.
The next days went quickly, until as he always did he went to Lenox House on the twentieth of December.
He and Lady Jane traveled together to Sussex, both wrapped in heavy rugs. She had seen Deere and his regiment off two days before. The particular object of her ire at the moment was Captain Catlett.
“Fallen ill, my foot.” Her carriage moved over the rattling ground just south of London, on the way to Sussex. In four hours it would drop her at her father’s house, and then Lenox would be just half an hour from his brother, his mother, his family. “He has a mistress in Carnaby Street—everyone knows it.”
“Does he! Do they!”
“Yes, including the Queen, probably. And for this my husband must travel to India. The military is intolerable. Thank goodness for you Kitty Ashbrook isn’t in the army.”
“Do you wish you had gone?” Lenox asked.
“That’s the worst of it, you know. I don’t. I wish I were with him, but no, I am happy to be in England for Christmas. Is that not disgraceful!”
“Not at all.”
She looked out through the window. “I feel a horrible sort of wretchedness when I think of him opening the presents I packed so carefully—alone in his little cabin at sea on Christmas Day.”
“He will toast you quite a lot to his friends.”
“There’s that consolation.”
“And we shall toast him.”
“Yes,” she said.
“I might even win at chess, if I stick to playing my nephews.”
Christmas was very dear to the heart of Markethouse, the small town that had lain under the protective gaze of Lenox House for some six centuries. During the next week, Charles spent a great proportion of his time out and about, the town green’s lampposts festooned with wreaths, Edmund on the church steps handing out a Christmas goose to every family that wouldn’t have had one otherwise, frost dotted in white paint on the window of the local pub. It was a bright, cheery week. Molly’s sister and her family were staying at Lenox House, too, and so as a group they were some dozen in all, loud, a nightmare for the servants no doubt, usually a child crying in one corner of the house and two laughing in another and a fourth investigating the pigs (they would all insist upon sneaking away to visit the pigs at any conceivable opportunity).
In the happy occupation of the previous several days he had nearly put Kitty out of his mind. On Boxing Day, however, Lenox received a letter from her.
25 December 1855
My dear Charles Lenox,
I believe I promised to write you in Sussex when last we met. Here I discharge my obligation. Strictly speaking I needn’t add anything, I suppose, but of common manners, I will say that my mother and I are happily situated in Hampshire with my cousin Martha and her family. I am the much-adored aunt here, and I confess that it is nice for once to be an elder, rather than a youth, in the eyes of the world. Only temporarily, of course. As Augustine said—make me good, Lord, just not yet.
Do write and let me know how you are; and I shall be disappointed if you are not with us at Eaton Square on the day the year turns. 1856! I had just gotten used to writing 1855 on my letters. Hadn’t you? Every year one says it, but then every year it’s true.
As I am, in friendship to you,
Kitty
Inside, unmentioned in the letter, was something that made Lenox’s heart skip: a lock of dark hair. He studied it in his hand, and then before he knew what he was doing pressed it to his lips, before quickly returning it and the letter to the envelope and tucking them in the front left pocket of his jacket, just over his heart.