Then he saw with a great lift of his heart that she stood on the docks, staring distractedly in exactly the wrong direction, her hair different than when he had left her, her stomach much larger, their two dogs, Bear and Rabbit, sitting and staring along with her in exactly the wrong direction. With her was his brother.
“Jane!” he called out when they were near. “Edmund!”
“Father!” said Teddy.
Jane whirled and saw them and a great smile appeared on her face. “Charles, Charles!” she said.
“Don’t shift yourself, please,” he said. “Stay there—your health.”
“Bother it!”
He stepped onto the dock and Jane gave him a tight, quick hug, with so many people looking on. “Oh dear, I’ll become emotional. Here now, show me your teeth—ah, so the scurvy didn’t claim you—excellent, good. Oh, you dear man,” she said, and embraced him again.
Meanwhile Edmund and Teddy were meeting, speaking to each other with smiles on their faces.
“How are you?” said Charles, and took her hands in his. “Happy and healthy?”
“Happy, and very healthy indeed. How wonderful to have you back, though! I’ve planned a supper for this evening—Dallington, of course, McConnell, your brother, Molly, Graham will come, Lord Cabot—how happy we are to have you back!”
“How happy I am to be home!”
He turned and looked back out toward the Lucy. As it always did when one traveled, the world felt bigger. But then, in due course, it would shrink back down to its normal size—or perhaps, if he were lucky, seem slightly bigger than it had been before.
“Tell me, did you capsize many times?” Lady Jane asked. “Were they kind to you? What was that sultan fellow like? Tell me everything, all at one time, please.”
Lenox laughed. “Well, there’s a great deal to tell…”
The reunion between father and son was no less happy. As he was reassuring himself that his son had retained all of his limbs on his first sea voyage, Edmund Lenox caught a glimpse of Charles out of the corner of his eye, and it made him glad somewhere deep within to have his brother back on English soil.
“Sophia,” he heard Charles whisper to Jane, and she smiled and embraced him. Edmund remembered hearing it very specifically, the whisper, but he did not learn the meaning and import of that stray word until several months later: Only after Charles and Jane had their child, a baby girl.
Also by Charles Finch
A Beautiful Blue Death
The September Society
The Fleet Street Murders
A Stranger in Mayfair
CHARLES FINCH is a graduate of Yale and Oxford. His debut in the series, A Beautiful Blue Death, was nominated for an Agatha Award and named one of Library Journal’s Best Books of 2007, and The Fleet Street Murders was a 2010 Nero Award finalist. He lives in Oxford, England.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A BURIAL AT SEA. Copyright © 2011 by Charles Finch. All rights reserved.