A Stranger in Mayfair - Charles Finch [6]
“You know as much about politics as I do, or very nearly,” murmured Lenox, more to himself than his companion.
“Sir?”
“May I shock you, Graham?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I want you to come work for me.”
The butler very nearly laughed. “Sir?”
Lenox sighed, stood up, and began pacing the study. “I’ve been troubled during all my time on the Continent about the business of a secretary. I interviewed eight candidates, all young men just up from Cambridge or Oxford, all of them of excellent family and eager to be personal secretary to a gentleman in Parliament. The trouble was that I felt that each one of them was sizing me up to decide when he could have my seat. They were all too ambitious, Graham. Or perhaps that’s not it—perhaps it’s simply that I didn’t know them, and I didn’t want to risk getting to know them as they worked for me.”
“You cannot be suggesting, sir—”
“You read more than half the men sitting in Parliament, Graham. More importantly, I trust you.” Lenox walked up to the study’s row of high windows, his slippers softly padding the thick rug. He stared into the bright, summery street for a few moments. “I want you to come be my secretary.”
Graham stood up too now, quite clearly agitated. “If I may speak freely, sir—”
“Yes?”
“It is an utterly impossible request. As gratified as I am at your consideration, Mr. Lenox, I am in no way suited to such a role—a role that belongs to someone—someone from the great universities, someone with far more education than I possess, and…if I may speak frankly, sir, someone of your own class.”
“I’m not trying to change the world. I simply want someone I can trust.”
Graham swallowed. “As a solution to a simple staffing problem, sir, I must say I find it exceedingly inelegant.”
Lenox waved an irritated hand. “No, no. I want both you and Kirk to be happy, of course, but it’s more than that. For one thing, you’ve been overqualified by your natural merits for years. More to the point—more selfishly—I’m new at this. I need help.”
At last Graham was silent. Finally, he said, “I’m honored, sir.”
“Will you do it?”
“I cannot say, sir. May I have time to consider the proposal?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Would I still live here?”
“If you liked, yes. You shall always have lodging while I draw breath, as you well know.”
“And if I say no, sir? What will become of me then?”
Grumpily, Lenox said, “Well, we’d keep both of you, of course—and we’d hire five more butlers, just to make sure we had one in every room.”
Now Graham did laugh. “Thank you, sir.”
“Before you get above your old station, would you mind helping me with this painting?”
It was the one from the Salon, the blurry one. The two men pried its crate open, took its wrappings off, and then walked it down to the dining hall. There they hung it, tilting it imperceptibly back and forth until it was just level.
“May I ask who painted it?” Graham asked.
“A chap named Monet,” said Lenox. “Rhymes with bonnet, I think. I never heard of him myself. Funny, the picture looked better over in Paris.”
“Such is often the case with these flashy Continental objects, sir,” said Graham with evident disapproval.
As they got the picture hung just right, there was a knock at the door. Through the troubling weeks that followed, Lenox sometimes wished he and Graham had ignored that knock and the ominous events it portended.
Chapter Three
The gentleman’s name was Ludovic Starling. Lenox had known him for a decade. Nevertheless it was a surprise to find him at the door, for there was little acquaintance between the two men.
Ludo was through and through a son of Wiltshire, with a family that had sat obstinately on the same plot of land there since the Restoration, when one of Ludo’s progenitors had remained covertly loyal to the King. This man, Cheshire Starling, a blacksmith, had received six hundred prime acres in thanks for printing twelve copies of a single handbill that denounced (with dazzlingly poor syntax) Oliver Cromwell and his people. With a grant of three hundred pounds Cheshire had erected a tidy