A Stranger in Mayfair - Charles Finch [16]
Chapter Seven
The next morning Lenox woke feeling for the first time as if he were truly back in London. It put him in a happy mood, and he traipsed downstairs softly whistling. A little while later he sipped his morning coffee, standing with his cup by the second-floor windows and gazing out over the gray, blustery day, wearing his familiar old blue slippers and crimson dressing gown. For a fleeting moment his absence from home felt almost like a dream. Had it really been he who walked across Austrian heaths and Paris boulevards? Had it really been he who got married in that chapel three months ago? The displacement from his old life was jarring—and wonderful. He thought with a smile of Jane, still sleeping upstairs.
He was up earlier than she because it was an important day for him. In six days exactly he would attend his maiden session at the House of Commons, taking a seat for the first time along the green baize benches of that hallowed chamber. Today he had to move into his new offices, which were tucked into an obscure upper hallway of Parliament. He felt like a boy going to his new school.
It had always been his dream to sit in the Commons, though it was still, for all its modernizations, an exceedingly idiosyncratic institution. For one thing, different seats varied wildly in how they were won; most were fair and democratic, but some were almost insanely corrupt. Since the reforms of 1832 there was no longer any place as bad as Old Sarum (the town that had infamously elected two Members despite the notable handicap of having only eleven voters) or Dunwich (whose own two Members remained in the House for many years even after the town had literally fallen into the sea), but there were plenty of rotten and pocket boroughs that could be dispensed without so much as a single vote being cast. Ludo Starling held one of these, in fact.
Another strange thing about Parliament was that, though being an MP was one of the most prestigious and important jobs in the empire, it was entirely unpaid. Only men with cabinet assignments received any stipend, and as a result there was fierce competition for the undersecretaryships of obscure departments in government (Welsh affairs, municipal corporations). Lenox was fortunate, like many of the people who would be his colleagues now, in having private means, but there were also valuable and good gentlemen who were forced to quit Parliament when they couldn’t pay for their own lodgings or food. Generally these men were found decent sinecures by the friends they had made, but what charm did supervising a distant Scottish county have compared to being in the House of Commons?
It was the scullery maid who had brought Lenox his coffee in the parlor, but now Graham entered.
“Good morning, sir,” he said.
“Good morning. I say, you’re dressed for a day in London. Why have you got your city togs on?”
“With your permission, I intend to go to your new office in Parliament shortly, sir.”
For an instant Lenox was puzzled, and then with delight he cried out, “Graham! You’ll do the job!”
“Yes, sir, with the provision that you understand my grave doubts ab—”
“Never mind that, never mind that! This is terrific news. Yes, head over there. Or would you rather wait for me?”
“I think it would be advisable were I to precede you there, sir, and begin cleaning and preparing the office.”
“Cleaning? Leave that to someone else. I need you to take over my appointment book, for one thing. It’s been driving me mad. You’ll need to register with the guards. I believe you can go in through the Members’ Entrance, or if not then you can get in through that garden to the west of the buildings. This is wonderful news, Graham.”
“Shall we call it a probationary assignment, sir, pending our joint approval?”
“Call it whatever you like. Have you told Kirk?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Excellent.” Then Lenox’s brow furrowed. “Mind you, he’s not what I call an ideal butler.