Black Silk by Judith Ivory Page A

his London house, he had bags of gunpowder, niter, copper sulfide, magnesium, barium nitrate, sulfur, and more. He knew how to build green stars and skyrockets and tourbillions; there was hardly a known fire display he couldn’t make, and he could extemporize new ones offhand. He always laughed when he talked about this. “One of my many useful accomplishments.” The general uselessness of this knowledge, however, didn’t stop him from enjoying it—particularly when other people became enthusiastic and wanted to see more, as they had at Rosalyn’s today.
    At the top of the staircase, John handed him his mail.
    “Thank you. Is there hot water?”
    “I lit the coal half an hour ago.”
    “Good fellow.”
    His man already had hold of the top of Graham’s coat, lifting it off his shoulders. Graham shrugged out of the arms as he walked, alternating his hold on the mail. He undid his own neckcloth and top shirt buttons, discarding behind him his tie and shirt collar. His manservant followed along, gathering items in his arms.
    Graham handed back an empty envelope. His mail consisted of a bill for twenty-five teapots, two quid each, silverplate, a bill from the plumber who’d converted his dressing room to a bath, and a letter from Claire, Graham’s daughter.
    Graham had two children, Charles and Claire. Both lived in boarding schools abroad. He tore open Claire’s letter and began to decode her tiny, elaborate handwriting. The letter’s contents were not particularly newsworthy. She needed “a small advance on next month’s allowance.”
    “When you go down for fresh towels,” he told his manservant, “tell Sheffield to come up.” Sheffield was Graham’s secretary.
    “Sheffield, sir,” the man replied, “has been conscripted into tallying accounts and writing receipts. There has been a bit of a crush on today.”
    By a “crush” the man meant a larger than usual crowd roaming the grounds and downstairs interior of the house.
    Graham had a slightly unusual living arrangement. On a Sunday at this time of year, his house and back gardens were always swarming with people. This was due to an interplay of economics and family history.
    All the earls of Netham had been wealthy, but not monumentally so, yet Graham lived in a house fit for a king. His London property took up a square English block. This was a lot of land to own in the best part of the city; the only person who owned more was his neighbor, the queen. He could see Buckingham Palace from his northwest windows. His house was older than the palace and almost as ornate. Graham lived in only the upper rear portion, however. The house was much more than any one family, let alone one person, could ever inhabit. It was also too large to afford and too valuable to give up.
    Historically, much of the building and grounds had been closed until Graham’s great-grandfather had opened up the back gardens to “friends.” This had been a magnanimous, and probably exhibitionistic, gesture. Tea had been served three afternoons a week to whoever wished to come and admire. This had become somewhat popular. Then the next earl, Graham’s grandfather, had opened up the front portion of the house itself, and it had gone from being merely popular to being public. He had instituted a brass dish for donations to help defray costs. Eventually guides and caterers had been allowed to come in. By contract, they answered questions and served tea five days a week for a percentage of the profits. By the end of the last century, the house had been given over to the phenomenon of domestic tourism.
    Graham’s own father had added his bit when he so famously shot his wife, then himself. People flocked. For a shilling in the dish, most of London and its visitors had walked through Graham’s house at one time or another. It had acquired a strong sense of public ownership. Graham simply had never had the strength, or money for that matter, to turn this around. He had learned to live