Yard handle the case?”
“Well—halfheartedly. If we could just speak—”
“I’m afraid not.”
“But if—”
“No!” said Fowler loudly and turned into his office, shutting the door hard behind him.
Lenox felt himself turning red with embarrassment. He stood there for a moment, utterly nonplussed.
Eventually he turned and walked down the empty hall out into daylight again, hailed a hansom cab, and directed it to McConnell’s house.
Jane was fetched for him by a happily tipsy young servant girl.
“How is Toto?” he asked his wife.
“She’s doing wonderfully well, tired but resilient.”
“And happy?”
“Oh, marvelously happy.”
He smiled. “Do you know, it was wonderful to witness McConnell’s joy. I thought I had never seen a man so happy.” He shifted from one foot to the other. “I wonder, Jane, would you think of having a child one day?”
There was a pause. “I don’t know,” she said at last.
“It might be nice.”
“Aren’t we rather too old?”
He smiled softly. “Not you.”
She returned his affectionate look and grazed his hand with her fingertips. “It’s a conversation for another day, perhaps.”
Hastily—feeling slightly vulnerable, in fact slightly hurt—he said, “Oh, of course, of course. I’m only caught up in the happiness of the moment.”
“I understand.”
“Now—let’s take a look at this child, George. I assume she’s with a nurse somewhere hereabouts?”
“I’m afraid you can’t see her. Toto still has her. She won’t let the nurse take her away—‘just a few minutes longer,’ she keeps saying. You can’t imagine how she beams at the poor little child.”
“Too bad,” said Lenox. “I’ve wasted a trip.”
Chapter Sixteen
Strangely, the Palace of Westminster, that remarkable and ancient-looking panorama of soft yellow stone situated on the banks of the Thames (and better known as Parliament), was now just, in its fully finished form, about four years old.
This was so strange because it already seemed somehow eternal, and of course some parts of it were older. There was the Jewel Tower, a three-story building that stood over a moat, which Edward the Third had built to house his treasures in 1365. And to be fair, construction of the Houses had begun some thirty years before, so parts of the new buildings were at least that old. Still, for most of Lenox’s life it had been a work in progress. Only now did it stand on its own, unencumbered by builders or provisional outbuildings, so glorious it might have been there a thousand years.
The reason for the construction of the new Parliament was simple enough. A fire.
Until the middle of the 1820s, sheriffs collecting taxes for the crown had used an archaic method of recordkeeping, the tally stick. Beginning in medieval England, when of course vellum was far scarcer than paper now, the most efficient way to record the payment of taxes had been to make a series of different-sized notches in long sticks. For payment of a thousand pounds, the sheriff cut a notch as wide as his palm in the tally stick, while the payment of a single shilling would be marked with a single nick. The thumb was a hundred pounds, while the payment of one pound was marked, obscurely, with the width of a “swollen piece of barleycorn.”
It was a system that in the eighteenth century was already antiquated, and by William the Fourth’s reign embarrassingly so. Thus it was in 1826 that the Exchequer—that branch of government that manages the empire’s funds—decided to change it. This left one problem, however: two massive cartloads of old tally sticks of which to dispose. The Clerk of Works (unfortunate soul) took it upon himself to burn them in two stoves in the basement that reached below the House of Lords. The next afternoon (October 16, 1834) visitors to the Lords complained of how hot the floor felt. Soon there was smoke.
Then came the fatal mistake. A caretaker of the place, Mrs. Wright,
“Well—halfheartedly. If we could just speak—”
“I’m afraid not.”
“But if—”
“No!” said Fowler loudly and turned into his office, shutting the door hard behind him.
Lenox felt himself turning red with embarrassment. He stood there for a moment, utterly nonplussed.
Eventually he turned and walked down the empty hall out into daylight again, hailed a hansom cab, and directed it to McConnell’s house.
Jane was fetched for him by a happily tipsy young servant girl.
“How is Toto?” he asked his wife.
“She’s doing wonderfully well, tired but resilient.”
“And happy?”
“Oh, marvelously happy.”
He smiled. “Do you know, it was wonderful to witness McConnell’s joy. I thought I had never seen a man so happy.” He shifted from one foot to the other. “I wonder, Jane, would you think of having a child one day?”
There was a pause. “I don’t know,” she said at last.
“It might be nice.”
“Aren’t we rather too old?”
He smiled softly. “Not you.”
She returned his affectionate look and grazed his hand with her fingertips. “It’s a conversation for another day, perhaps.”
Hastily—feeling slightly vulnerable, in fact slightly hurt—he said, “Oh, of course, of course. I’m only caught up in the happiness of the moment.”
“I understand.”
“Now—let’s take a look at this child, George. I assume she’s with a nurse somewhere hereabouts?”
“I’m afraid you can’t see her. Toto still has her. She won’t let the nurse take her away—‘just a few minutes longer,’ she keeps saying. You can’t imagine how she beams at the poor little child.”
“Too bad,” said Lenox. “I’ve wasted a trip.”
Chapter Sixteen
Strangely, the Palace of Westminster, that remarkable and ancient-looking panorama of soft yellow stone situated on the banks of the Thames (and better known as Parliament), was now just, in its fully finished form, about four years old.
This was so strange because it already seemed somehow eternal, and of course some parts of it were older. There was the Jewel Tower, a three-story building that stood over a moat, which Edward the Third had built to house his treasures in 1365. And to be fair, construction of the Houses had begun some thirty years before, so parts of the new buildings were at least that old. Still, for most of Lenox’s life it had been a work in progress. Only now did it stand on its own, unencumbered by builders or provisional outbuildings, so glorious it might have been there a thousand years.
The reason for the construction of the new Parliament was simple enough. A fire.
Until the middle of the 1820s, sheriffs collecting taxes for the crown had used an archaic method of recordkeeping, the tally stick. Beginning in medieval England, when of course vellum was far scarcer than paper now, the most efficient way to record the payment of taxes had been to make a series of different-sized notches in long sticks. For payment of a thousand pounds, the sheriff cut a notch as wide as his palm in the tally stick, while the payment of a single shilling would be marked with a single nick. The thumb was a hundred pounds, while the payment of one pound was marked, obscurely, with the width of a “swollen piece of barleycorn.”
It was a system that in the eighteenth century was already antiquated, and by William the Fourth’s reign embarrassingly so. Thus it was in 1826 that the Exchequer—that branch of government that manages the empire’s funds—decided to change it. This left one problem, however: two massive cartloads of old tally sticks of which to dispose. The Clerk of Works (unfortunate soul) took it upon himself to burn them in two stoves in the basement that reached below the House of Lords. The next afternoon (October 16, 1834) visitors to the Lords complained of how hot the floor felt. Soon there was smoke.
Then came the fatal mistake. A caretaker of the place, Mrs. Wright,
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