An Unlikely Suitor

by Nicola Cornick

  Lavender laughed despite herself. ‘It is not a matter for funning, you know, Frances!’ she said wryly. ‘I am not at all sure that your mama should let you associate with me, for I am in the most horrible disgrace!’

  ‘Stuff!’ Frances said staunchly. ‘Mama is not such a high stickler to cut up rough about such silly rumours! She was more concerned to be trapped under the same roof as your cousin!’

  Lavender smothered a giggle. There was something about Frances that was very reviving to her spirits. The younger girl was irrepressibly cheerful, and now her curious gaze was taking in Lavender’s bedroom and she was nodding appreciatively.

  ‘Oh, what a charming room! You are so fortunate, Lavender! And the view! I declare it is as fine as any in Northamptonshire!’ She spun round and settled at the foot of the bed where Caroline had sat the night before, leaning her arms against the wooden rest. Lavender sat down opposite.

  ‘So tell me what has been happening,’ Frances wheedled. ‘I hear it involves that delightful Mr Hammond! Do you think you might marry him, Lavender? Oh, lucky you—’

  ‘Frances!’ Lavender said, trying to sound strict but failing utterly. She smiled. ‘I tell you, this is no matter for amusement—’

  ‘I know! I am a hoyden!’ Frances leant her chin on her hand. ‘But truly I thought him such a very charming gentleman!’ She shivered pleasurably. ‘It seems to me that most gentlemen are all surface and no substance, but with Mr Hammond it is deeper than that! In fact I would have quite a tendre for him myself, and no doubt would bore you rigid with the repetition of his name were it not that I am still hopelessly in love with Mr Oliver!’

  ‘Have you seen Mr Oliver since the night of the ball?’ Lavender enquired.

  Frances’s face fell. ‘No indeed, for Mama has been odiously strict, you know! He did call, but she would not allow me to see him so I was not able to tell him that we would be in London from next week and he should contrive to meet me there—’

  ‘Oh, Frances!’

  ‘Well…’ Miss Covingham looked defensive ‘…I must see him again, Lavender, positively I must! In fact I am hoping that as he is such a good friend of your Mr Hammond, he might be in this very neighbourhood! Who knows! But—’ she frowned ‘—I know you are trying to distract me! Now tell me the whole story!’

  Lavender told her, not the whole story, but most of it, and Frances nodded and prompted and made sympathetic noises. At the end of it she said with a sigh, ‘I can see that you feel you must refuse him, Lavender dearest, but now you are prey to these wretched gossips! You should face them out, you know!’ Her eyes brightened. ‘Oh, the very thing! The Percevals sent a card with us, you know, inviting us all to dinner—’

  ‘Oh no!’ Lavender knew she looked horrified. Ever since the gossip had broken, she had been possessed of a cowardly fear to step outside the house. She had certainly no intention of going into Abbot Quincey, or even going out into company. Yet if she was going to stay at Hewly until she came into her fortune she would have to go outside at some point. She could hardly skulk about the house for another two years.

  ‘Well—’ Frances put her head on one side ‘—perhaps we could start with a walk! I have no intention of allowing any friend of mine to become a recluse!’

  She picked up the botany book, which Lavender had been keeping on her bedside table. ‘Is this the book you mentioned just now, Lavender? The keepsake from Mr Hammond?’ She bent her head over it, chestnut curls brushing the pages. ‘It is so romantic of him…’

  ‘The book has a mysterious history, if not a romantic one,’ Lavender commented, smiling, ‘and one that may involve Riding Park!’ She told Frances briefly of their visit from Sir Thomas Kenton and of Julia’s reminisces about Eliza.

  ‘Of course, it is all very tenuous,’ she said at the end. ‘Though Mr Hammond had the book from his mother, I have no idea how she came by it! For it was certainly Sir Thomas’s book originally—’ She broke off, shaking her head.

  ‘Perhaps Mr Hammond has inherited other things from his mother!’ Frances interposed, eyes huge with excitement. ‘Maybe he has a whole chest of her effects locked away—books, clothes, a lock of her hair…’

  ‘How Gothic!’ Lavender tried not to laugh. Frances looked offended.

  ‘Pray do not make fun of me, I am trying to solve the mystery!’

  ‘I do not wish to discourage you,’ Lavender said, ‘but it is unlikely that Eliza Hammond would have been able to read a book of botany written in Latin!’

  Frances looked cross. ‘She might have borrowed it—’

  ‘You mean stolen it—from her employer’s library?’

  ‘I mean borrowed…or had it given to her by someone!’ Frances wriggled with excitement. ‘Yes, I have it! The book was given to her by her lover!’

  Lavender frowned. ‘Then that would have been Sir Thomas Kenton, and that is foolish—’

  ‘Why so? Was Sir Thomas above a dalliance with a maid?’

  ‘Frances—’

  ‘I wonder if Mama and Papa have any connections with the Kentons,’ Frances swept on. ‘Perhaps they will remember Eliza Hammond. If she had been in service at Riding Park it would have been just after they were married, I suppose. Lord, what a sad tale. The poor girl, pregnant and abandoned by her lover, then dying so soon after giving birth!’ The ready tears stood out in her eyes. ‘And poor Mr Hammond, forever deprived of the knowledge of his father’s identity!’

  ‘I daresay that sometimes it is better not to know.’ Lavender got up and moved over to the window. A dark cloud was edging across the sun.

  ‘Oh but surely…A foundling is never sure of his place in the world…’ Frances, with all the wealth and position of the Covingham family behind her, could only pity someone with no such certain place.

  ‘Then one must carve a place for oneself, I suppose.’ Lavender watched as the sky darkened and the rain started to fall. That was what Barney had been trying to do, she knew, with his studies and his ambitions to be a pharmacist. It was admirable and she knew that many a lesser man would have crumbled sooner, accepted his place on Hammond’s charity and not sought more. She sighed. Her money would have enabled Barney to achieve his ambitions so much more quickly, allowing him to achieve his profession and support a wife. If only he would have taken that chance! They could have moved away—away from Abbot Quincey with its gossiping tongues that would never let them forget the forced and foolish match. She knew they could have been happy.

  She sighed again. ‘This is just idle speculation, and confusing at that! It gets us nowhere—’

  ‘Then we must ask Mr Hammond!’ Frances jumped up. ‘Let us go at once! I shall fetch my bonnet—’

  ‘It is raining,’ Lavender said, watching with some relief as the drops tumbled from the dark sky. ‘Perhaps later. Frances—’ she put out a hand to the younger girl ‘—pray do not tell anyone of this! I do not like to gossip about Mr Hammond and we have only been imagining—’

  Frances looked offended. ‘Tell anyone? Why, Lavender, as though I would! You know I am the soul of discretion! I swear I shall not say a word!’

  Chapter Nine

  ‘Mama,’ Frances said later that evening, sitting beside her mother on the sofa in the drawing-room, ‘do you remember a housemaid by the name of Eliza Hammond? She would have been at Riding Park…oh, some six and twenty years ago!’

  Lavender, who had been sitting across from her, discussing painting with Lord Freddie, looked up sharply. She should have known that Frances’s ideas of discretion and her own were vastly different. Frances returned her suspicious look with one of bland innocence.

  ‘Eliza Hammond?’ Lady Anne said vaguely. ‘I do not believe so, my love, but then I have so tiresomely poor a memory! And maids do come and go, you know…Why do you ask?’

  Lavender started to speak at random, but Frances ploughed on doggedly. ‘It is just that it seems she was our Mr Hammond’s mother and was once in service with you. Oh, Mama—’ she fixed Lady Anne wit
h a pleading glance ‘—it is particularly important that you remember—’

  Lady Anne frowned, pushing her pince nez further up her nose. ‘Hmm. Twenty-six years, you say? I would have been a new bride then!’ She smiled fondly. ‘Wait…There was a girl—dark, very ladylike, quiet-spoken…Would that have been Matilda?’

  ‘Eliza!’ Frances corrected. ‘Really, Mama!’

  ‘Yes—’ Lady Anne ignored her ‘—I recall her now, because she was so genteel that the Duchess—your grandmother, Frances—used to comment that people would think her better bred than her employers! And she probably was, for the Covinghams were all rogues a few generations back, and—’

  ‘Yes, Mama,’ Frances pleaded, ‘but Eliza Hammond?’

  ‘She left to get married shortly after I went to Riding Park,’ Lady Anne said placidly. ‘Is that what you wished to know, my love?’

  Lavender and Frances exchanged a look. ‘Left to get married, ma’am?’ Lavender queried. ‘Are you certain that she was not—’ She broke off, blushing.

  ‘What Lavender means, Mama,’ Frances said impatiently, ‘is that we thought Eliza Hammond had been turned off because she was enceinte! Are you certain this is the same girl?’

  Their discussion was now drawing attention. Lavender saw Julia, who had been discussing mutual friends with Caroline, tilt her head in their direction, scenting gossip like a fox scenting prey. Lady Anne leaned forward to address her husband.

  ‘Freddie, do you recall—’

  ‘Eliza Hammond?’ Lord Freddie nodded. ‘Not that I am in the way of remembering such things, but I do remember her! Because of the scandal, my dear! Do you not recollect?’

  This time Lavender saw Julia smile with satisfied malice. She felt increasingly desperate. It seemed quite improper to be discussing Barney Hammond’s mother with such freedom in public. The poor woman could scarce defend her reputation and Barney himself would no doubt have been furious and mortified to think her the centre of such attention. Lavender was about to beg a change of subject when something Lord Freddie was saying caught her attention.

  ‘…Left the Park to marry John Kenton,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Of course, we all thought him a fool, for his family were as poor as sparrows and his father most particularly insisted on him marrying a fortune, and what should the poor fool do but fall in love with a maid! Still, there was no arguing with him and the last I heard of it he was travelling home to get his father’s blessing on the proposed match!’

  There was a silence followed by chatter as everyone talked at once.

  ‘Of course! I remember the whole now!’ Lady Anne said triumphantly.

  ‘Married the maid? How piquant!’ This was Julia, looking torn between excitement and disappointment that Eliza Hammond appeared to have been respectably married after all.

  ‘John Kenton? But surely that must be Sir Thomas’s son…’ Lavender was saying hesitantly to Caroline, whilst Frances said jubilantly, ‘Then that is how she came by the book!’

  Lewis raised his voice sharply to demand quiet. Everyone looked at him expectantly.

  ‘My apologies,’ Lewis said easily, smiling at their startled faces, ‘if my appeal sounds more at home on a quarterdeck than in a drawing-room! I feel, however, that this may be rather important! Lord Freddie, can you tell us a little about John Kenton himself?’

  Lord Freddie looked mildly surprised. ‘Why, of course, old chap! Kenton was a bookish fellow who was forever off on mad trips about the world. Lord, it must be a matter of twenty-five years since he died! Disappeared in the South Americas somewhere, I heard, and his servants swore he was eaten!’ He shook his head. ‘Pity! He was a good fellow!’

  ‘But what became of his wife?’ Caroline asked. ‘If he had married Eliza Hammond, where was she whilst he was abroad? And if John was the son of our Sir Thomas Kenton, why does Sir Thomas know nothing of his grandson?’

  Lavender’s shoulders slumped. ‘Perhaps is just a coincidence and there is no family connection, Caro?’

  ‘Perhaps so.’ Caroline looked round the assembled group. ‘Before we speculate further can I pour more tea for anyone? I find it helps the mental processes marvellously!’

  ‘Sir Thomas mentioned that his sons had both died,’ Lewis put in, when all the cups had been replenished. ‘Perhaps one of them was John Kenton—’

  ‘He was!’ Lavender said suddenly. ‘Do you not remember, Lewis? Sir Thomas said that he had lent the botanical volume to his son John—’

  ‘Could be another family, all the same,’ Lewis opined. ‘John is a common enough name.’

  ‘Was he a friend of yours, Lord Frederick?’ Lavender asked carefully.

  Lord Freddie nodded. ‘One of my closest friends at Oxford, Miss Brabant! He was a bookish fellow, much cleverer than I! He always had an interest in odd fauna and flora, particularly the flora! That was why he was forever travelling, to collect specimens. On one trip he discovered that the bark of a particular tree was most efficacious against pain. Poor fellow!’ He laughed. ‘He was so excited and we were all so uninterested! And his parents!’ Lord Freddie’s laughter faded away. ‘His father threatened to cut him off without a penny if he did not stay at home and act the gentleman, and his mother worried herself into her grave over him, for she knew he would come to a bad end!’

  ‘Where was his home, Papa?’ Frances asked, sitting forward and fixing him with a look. ‘That would surely help us tell whether the family is the same one—’

  ‘Kenton? Why just down the road, I believe!’ Lord Freddie scratched his head. ‘Is not the village of that name some ten miles distant? I know the Kentons held the Manor there since the Domesday, but whether they are still there…As I say, John was the younger son, and his mother died when I still knew him. What became of his father and brother, I cannot say.’

  Lavender’s heart was beating very fast. ‘Oh surely—this must be the same family! There are too many coincidences otherwise! But I do not understand…’ She frowned. How had Eliza Hammond, who had apparently left Riding Park to marry, ended up pregnant and alone, throwing herself on her brother’s mercy?

  ‘Why all the interest, my love?’ Lord Freddie was asking his daughter. ‘I had not thought of John Kenton for nigh on twenty years!’

  Frances indicated Lavender’s botany book.

  ‘It is just that Miss Brabant has been given this book,’ Frances said, gesturing towards it, ‘and wondered to whom it had originally belonged. It has the Kenton coat of arms at the front, you see, and was originally in the possession of Mr Hammond. Apparently he had inherited it from his mother.’

  ‘Botany, eh?’ Lord Freddie was flicking through the pages. ‘Yes, this would be John’s book, all right and tight. Just his sort of thing! And you say it was given to Mr Hammond by his mother?’ He looked at Lavender. ‘That is very suggestive, is it not, Miss Brabant?’

  Lavender’s throat was suddenly dry. It was indeed suggestive that Eliza had married John Kenton and had had the book of botany from him, handing it on to her own child, Sir Thomas’s grandson.

  ‘But I do not understand!’ she burst out. ‘If Miss Hammond and Mr Kenton were married then why was she obliged to return to her brother’s house for the birth of her child? And why did she never tell anyone of the wedding—’

  She broke off in confusion at the looks of sympathy on the faces of the others, all except for Julia who looked maliciously speculative. Caroline put her teacup down gently. ‘I think we must consider, dearest Lavender, the possibility that the wedding did not take place. Lord Freddie has indicated that Sir Thomas wanted his son to marry a fortune. How if John Kenton had failed to gain his father’s permission to the match and regretted his plan to marry Eliza—’

  ‘And abandoned her, pregnant and penniless!’ Julia finished, clapping her hands. ‘Oh yes, I like that idea!’

  Everyone looked at her with unconcealed dislike.

  ‘It does seem the most likely solution,’ Frances said despondently. ‘Poor Eliza! And poor Mr H
ammond! It is not fair!’

  Caroline fixed Lavender with a kindly look. ‘I do feel that it would be best to speak to Mr Hammond about this, Lavender! Possibly Sir Thomas might hold the answer, but I do not feel that you should approach him behind Mr Hammond’s back!’ She took a sip of tea. ‘When Sir Thomas first laid claim to the book I thought it most odd, and now we appear to have filled in the whole background to the tale without the slightest notion of whether or not we are in the right of it! Ten to one there is another explanation that Mr Hammond will furnish if only he is asked!’

  ‘There is a picture of John Kenton at Riding Park,’ Lord Freddie said suddenly. ‘In the gallery, by the one of you as a girl, my love…’ He smiled at Lady Anne. ‘It is only small, but a good likeness—’

  ‘Of course!’ Lavender exclaimed. ‘I was looking at it on the night of the ball! A dark gentleman with striking features—’

  ‘Did he look like Mr Hammond?’ Frances asked eagerly.

  Lavender shook her head, smiling. ‘I cannot really be sure. Nanny Pryor, my old nurse, says that Mr Hammond’s looks come from his mother’s side of the family…’

  Frances looked cast down.

  ‘All the more reason,’ Caroline said briskly, ‘to speak to Mr Hammond about the book as soon as you can, Lavender. I am sure this mystery can be solved without any further speculation on our part!’

  The conversation became general once more, but Lavender sat quietly drinking her tea and did not join in. The prospect of seeing Barney again was daunting enough, without trying to explain to him how she came to be expressing such a curious interest in his family history. Judging by his pride on previous occasions, she was sure it was not an interest that he would welcome. It would be much easier to approach Sir Thomas Kenton and ask him to provide the information on John’s history, but she knew Caroline was right. Barney had to be made aware of the situation first and Lavender’s heart sank at the thought of it.