Lady Jane, Lenox, and Sophia had been here two days. That afternoon, after the punch debate was finally settled, they had gone into town and walked around the market — a notable one, because people saved their fattest gooses and gleamingest trinkets for this time of year, an especially cheerful day — and only thirty or forty people had congratulated him on moving back to the country, which he considered progress.
On the way home he took Jane and Sophia to the turnoff where he and Edmund had waited every morning for the mail coach — known as the mails — to pass, usually just after nine o’clock, driven by Fat Sam, a jovial figure in a crimson traveling shawl. Lenox could vividly remember the cart’s four strong dray horses, so familiar that when one was replaced he had spotted it half a mile down the road.
“What a thrilling boyhood you had,” said Lady Jane. “How did you stand the excitement?”
“It was exciting, too, I’ll have you know,” said Lenox. “For one thing it meant news from London. It was painted on white pasteboards they hung alongside the coach. I can still remember when they announced that King William died. I was ten, I think, or thereabouts. It was Edmund and I who broke the news to the chaps at the Bell and Horns. Everyone gathered in the square. I remember all the men removed their hats, and the women were crying.”
“Funny, I remember my father coming into the nursery to tell us the King had died,” said Lady Jane. “And he never came to the nursery.”
Lenox had followed after Fat Sam that day — his usual smile nowhere to be seen — and seen him accept a “pint of wet,” the dark local ale, from Lenox’s father’s butler, then hand across the mail and the London newspapers, which had been full of Victoria’s somber reaction to the death of her uncle: grief, respect, reluctant readiness to take the throne.
“It’s true, then?” one of the men at the Bell and Horns had asked.
Fat Sam had nodded. “Which we a’had the news at the Swan just afore we left. Erased the boards and wrote um again meself.”
The Swan had been, to the Lenox brothers, a place of legend — the Swan with Two Necks, the famous coaching inn of Lad Lane, where the mails departed from before dawn each day. In Lenox’s mind, back then, London had been little more than a street containing the Swan, Buckingham Palace, a few street urchins (these had always been held out to him as an example of his great good fortune, and therefore the especial awfulness of his disobedience), and perhaps a large stone bridge, London Bridge. Though of course, that had been replaced, just a year or two before — after six hundred years as the city’s symbol of itself.
Long-ago days! Now he had lived in London for twenty-five years himself, and probably passed the Swan a hundred times, going to and from the scene of a crime or a witness’s house. As they walked away from the turnoff, he looked down at Sophia, splashing in the puddles (after weeks of snow, it was unseasonably warm now) and wondered what her memories of childhood would be like. That was an unexpected joy of fatherhood: It was living a second time, in a way.
It was just after four when they returned to Lenox House from the market. It was draped with pine garlands and wreaths, festooned with red ribbons, had candles in every window — a credible imitation of Molly’s old decorations, whose exact placement James and Edmund had spent many hours squabbling over in the last few days.
Lenox thought that his brother did seem better. Except — there were still moments when he didn’t think anyone was looking, and Charles caught a glimpse of his face and saw that it was desolate, haggard, old. If he could just make it through the winter, Lenox thought, he would be all right. It was a shame Teddy wasn’t back, but at least James had made it home in time for Christmas.
In the front hallway they stamped their boots, and Edmund, who was just around the corner in the long drawing room, a newspaper under his arm, came out to say hello. “Edmund, do you remember where we were when King William died?”
“I’m sure I have an alibi.”
Lenox smiled. “No, I mean — do you remember Fat Sam breaking the news to Milton, and taking a pint? He never took a pint, either.”
“Vaguely. I remember Fat Sam proposing to Mrs. Appleby.”
“What!” said Lady Jane.
“She declined. I don’t think he was much bothered, though, because he was married within a month. Wanted any old wife, I suppose. He’d just turned forty.”
“I would have guessed he was six thousand years old,” said Lenox. “Is he still alive?”
“Oh, yes. His son drives the mails now. In fact, I was going to go down and pick Atherton up from it in half an hour.”
“Atherton takes the mails?” said Lady Jane, who was removing her final wrapper. “I thought he was so prosperous.”
“He is, too,” said Edmund. “The train makes him ill. It’s very bad luck, because it takes three times as long and sometimes you have no choice but to sit outside. Still.”
“I’ll ride down with you,” said Lenox. “I want to meet Fat Sam’s son. We could have a chat with him.”
“Well, I would moderate your expectations of his conversation. I’ve never gotten him to say more than ‘good morning’ to me, and if I ask after his father he looks as if I might be trying to dun the old fellow for a debt.”
Charles and Edmund left the house just when it was in a whirl of preparation, the servants crossing every room ten times a minute, polishing, cooking, carting. They rode down to the turnoff in the carriage. It was less than a mile, but Edmund thought Atherton might be tired, especially as he was coming directly to the party. They drove themselves, trading off the reins, and when they arrived they tied the horses to a hitching post and stepped down, and Edmund lit his pipe, Charles his small cigar, and they stood and waited.
Lenox asked about Stevens, Clavering, Hadley, Adelaide Snow. He had already heard the former mayor’s name several times at the market — always in a tone that made him sound like the murderer, not the murdered, and in every instance it was accompanied by a broad wink that implied that the speaker knew Calloway had done it, but that he couldn’t possibly be blamed, either. Indeed, Lenox had asked several people if Calloway was at the market, but he hadn’t been — not for a month. On the other hand, he had seen Clavering and Bunce, who were giving a stern word of reprimand to Elizabeth Watson’s younger son for playing with a rasp, a small rolling ball on a stick that sounded exactly like the sound of tearing cloth. The boy had nodded very contritely, and then Lenox had watched him rasp Bunce about fifteen minutes later. So Markethouse was much the same.
According to Lenox, Calloway’s low profile — among men who knew — was reckoned a good thing, saving the village the embarrassment of arresting him.
“Do you think he’s with his daughter?” said Lenox.
Edmund shrugged. “I hope he is.”
As for Adelaide Snow, she had taken charge of the local library now; her father had just put in a new well; Hadley had offered Edmund life insurance more and more aggressively each time he had seen him; the Adams sisters nodded to him very civilly when he saw them, though, he admitted, without smiling, exactly.
“There’s the coach,” Lenox said.
“Thank goodness it’s on time. It’s getting colder.”
It trotted up, and Lenox called out his hello to the driver, who ignored him completely. Atherton stepped down heavily, but smiling, a small leather bag in hand. “Edmund, you’re a prince to meet me. And Charles! Pleasant surprise — I don’t know how you stand London, either. I couldn’t wait to be gone.”
Atherton’s tone was pleasant and his words customarily lighthearted, but there was something peculiar in his face.
It took a moment, but then Lenox saw why.