The next morning Sandy Smith picked Lenox up at the Queen’s Arms after breakfast, and they went again to see Mrs. Reeve. This time she was in.
McConnell had left by the early train, assuring Lenox that it would be a marvelous distraction to work and promising to give Lenox’s best to Toto and Lady Jane. (Especially Jane, wished Lenox in his silent heart.) Meanwhile Graham had asked Lenox what help he might be in the campaign, and Lenox asked him to take over the various forms of propaganda that candidates had usually found necessary in parliamentary campaigns: the printing of further handbills and flyers, the circulation of Lenox’s name by a new patron who stood everyone in the pub a pint, the quick word to servants and livery about the by-election. Lenox could think of nobody better suited to the job. He and Graham had for many years now been more friends than master and man, and he knew now that Graham had a particular talent for sliding into unfamiliar situations and earning quick friends and allies. He could speak deferentially to a (perceived) superior and confidentially to a (perceived) equal, and his good looks meant young women were often willing to listen to him.
“Plenty of beer,” said Lenox. “Hilary tells me that’s crucial in these matters.”
“Shall I state baldly that I represent you, sir?”
“I think probably. Your discretion shall dictate what you do, of course. Here are a few notes.”
As Smith, in his usual snug gray waistcoat and with his favorite gold watch bulging on one side, led Lenox to Mrs. Reeve’s, he advised the candidate what to say.
“Flattery is poison to her,” he said. “Equally, however, she’s always watching out for what might be an insult or condescension. Her back will be up because you’re from London. It works to your benefit, though, that you’ve gained some fame even here for that case.”
“The September Society business?”
“Yes, exactly. Mrs. Reeve rather collects celebrities, if you see what I mean.”
“I do, unfortunately. Who has she collected so far?”
Sandy Smith frowned, thinking. “Well, there was a lad who fell into a well and lived. An actor named Crummles who comes through sometimes and does a decent show. There are more, though I can’t think of them.”
“I’m honored to be in such company,” Lenox said with mock formality.
Smith laughed. “You’ll find her a strange woman, no doubt. Still, she’s sharp enough in her way, I can promise you.”
They arrived at her well-maintained house, which was white with two tidy gables, and the maid let them in, then guided them down a front hall and into a sitting room that seemed purposely designed as a kind of permanent salon for guests. There were small clusters of chairs and couches spread throughout the room, each centered around a sizable tea table; all of these bore tea rings and hot water stains, bespeaking long hours of intimate conversation. On the walls were a few portraits in black and white of what might be deemed “Olde Stirrington,” sentimentalized pictures of rural lanes and young couples in bygone churchyards. The largest of these pictures was of a blacksmith shop from some impossibly halcyon time, with a brawny man at the hammer and tongs and awed small children watching him, as a row of ducks passed in the foreground. All of it made Mrs. Reeve’s vision of the world very clear.
As for the woman herself: She sat on the largest of the sofas, perhaps because it was the only one that fit her, wearing a regal maroon gown the size of a ship’s sail and reading Dickens’s latest novel, Our Mutual Friend.
“How do you like it?” asked Lenox before they had been introduced.
“Have you read it, Mr. Lenox?” she asked in a low-pitched voice, one with more charm and power in it than he had expected.
“I have indeed.”
“It’s very black, I think-but funny, too.”
“They say he’s sick.”
“Mr. Dickens? I hope he lives forever, as long he can always write.”
Lenox laughed. “I’m Charles Lenox,” he said. “Although you already know that.”
“Alice Reeve. Sally, fetch some tea, will you?”
“I’m awfully pleased to meet you, Mrs. Reeve.”
“And I’m glad you came to see me. I suppose you must view me rather as a local monument-yes, I see you, Sandy Smith, please sit down-a monument, along the lines of a church or a museum, to be respectfully and duly visited?”
“On the contrary, I’ve heard the best conversation in town is to be found in this room.”
“In town, yes.” She arched her eyebrows appraisingly. “Not quite London, though.”
“I grew up in the country, in fact.”
“Oh, yes-but in some vast house.”
“Well-big enough.”
“We’re sharper in these small towns than you might expect.”
“After meeting your fellow townsmen, I’ve little doubt of your sharpness here in Stirrington.”
“We don’t appreciate interlopers or arrivistes, either. Still, I bear no love for Robert Roodle.”
“No?”
“My nephew worked at the brewery before it left. A young lad with a family. He looked for six months before he found work again-and at a mill, terrible work at a lower wage.”
“I’m sorry to hear it.”
“Well, we need jobs, no doubt of that. The men here may care about this beer tax, but the women know better.”
“I’m relieved to hear you say that-I thought beer might be the local god from the way some people talk,” said Lenox.
At this Sandy Smith looked terrified, but after a moment of silence Mrs. Reeve gave her first real laugh, warm and long. Lenox liked her, in fact. A strange woman. She had gained some of the outward symbols of the gentry by virtue of her small fortune and intellect but retained the sense of a workingman’s wife, he saw. She corrected her maid when she brought out the largest teapot.
“Wasteful, Sally,” she said as she poured. “Well, and what can I do for you, Mr. Lenox?”
“Ma’am?”
“Sandy?”
“We would appreciate your support.”
Lenox hastened to say, “Although before we can ask for that, I thought I’d meet you.”
“Well-let us see,” she said, but in a benevolent enough way. “Would you call again tomorrow evening? There’s a group of women who meet then, who I’m sure would like to meet you.”
“Of course I should be honored.”
Just then there was a knock at the door, and Sally ushered in a woman who said she “absolutely must talk privately with you, my dear Alice,” and after brief introductions Lenox and Sandy Smith left their teacups mostly full and made their way outside.
“That was painless,” said Lenox.
“I thought it went very well indeed. Lucky you’d read that book. I forgot to mention that she’s a great reader.”
“What do you think will be the effect of our visit?”
“Cigar? No? I think probably you have her support. She’s one of ours, by tradition. Only I think she wanted to be courted a bit, and old Stoke never had to set foot in Stirrington to win his seat. The Stoke name means a lot here.”
That was the second time Lenox had heard words to that effect. “Are there any Stokes remaining?”
Smith looked pained. “Stoke’s daughter married a local landowner-very respectable chap, no title, but a family that stretches straight back to the Domesday Book. Quite religious, she is, and rarely comes to town except on Christmas.”
“So I’ve just missed her.”
“Indeed-both for that and for Stoke’s funeral. As for Stoke’s son-that’s a sadder tale, I’m afraid. There were bright hopes for him at Cambridge, but after he went down from university he fell in with a gambling crowd in London and lost great sums of money. Eventually his father paid the debts-and was severely the worse for it, if local rumor means anything-and banished his son to India to make his fortune. There he contracted yellow fever, and nobody’s quite sure if he’s dead or alive. This town always loved Anthony Stoke, however. Such a merry lad, he was.”
By now they were coming to Main Street. “Where are we going?” Lenox asked.
“I’m going to drop you off now. You’ve your speech at the library this afternoon-nothing until then. This evening will be important, however. You’re meeting with a group of businessmen, those who would favor Roodle in the normal course of things but want to see what sort of man you are.”
“What time shall I see you?”
“I’ll be at the library.”
“You’re not coming with me?”
“Oh, no-Crook will. His niece, Nettie, volunteers there. Very loyal to the library.”