An Unlikely Suitor

by Nicola Cornick

  ‘But indeed your poor luck was our good fortune, sir,’ Lavender said quickly, ‘and it also explains our intrusion here, for we have something very particular to ask of you!’

  Sir Thomas looked intrigued. ‘Then have a seat and acquaint me with it, my dear!’ he said comfortably. ‘But first I shall send for tea!’

  He rang the bell for the maid and asked for afternoon tea and strawberries, whilst Lavender and Frances looked about them with ill-concealed curiosity. The library was a long, rectangular room with huge, high bookshelves and piles of volumes stacked up on the floor. There were windows at either end, but it was a dark room, made darker by heavy old furniture and gloomy hangings.

  Sir Thomas returned his book to the top of one pile and fussed around, making sure that his unexpected guests were comfortable on the gold and gilt sofas.

  ‘I so seldom have guests,’ he murmured. ‘It is about time that the house heard some voices and laughter again.’

  ‘Oh, Lavender, look!’

  Lavender had caught sight of the picture at the same time as Frances spoke. It was hanging to the right of the fireplace, a portrait of a man in the dress of the mid-eighteenth century. He was very dark, with hair so brown it was almost black, and deep brown eyes.

  ‘Why,’ Frances sounded quite amazed, ‘it is the image of Mr Hammond!’

  Sir Thomas looked to see what had attracted their attention.

  ‘The portrait of Sir Barnabas Kenton? He was my father…’

  ‘Sir Barnabas!’ Frances said excitedly. ‘Lavender, tell Sir Thomas the story at once!’

  Sir Thomas turned his gentle blue gaze on her. ‘Dear me, Miss Brabant, you both seem most perplexed by some matter. How may I help? Oh, but wait—tea first, tales later!’

  The maid had returned with the tea, served in delicate china cups, and a huge bowl of strawberries and cream. Frances helped herself eagerly, but Lavender found that apprehension had blunted her appetite. She pressed her hands together to prevent their trembling.

  ‘Now,’ Sir Thomas said to Lavender, once they were all settled. ‘What is this tale you have to tell, my dear? I am quite agog!’

  ‘Well.’ Lavender took a sustaining draught of tea. ‘I wanted to ask about your son, Sir Thomas. Your younger son, I believe—Mr John Kenton? Was he ever married?’ She saw Sir Thomas’s look of blank puzzlement and hurried on. ‘Forgive me, the question must seem most impertinent, and indeed it would be, but—’

  Frances lost patience with Lavender’s circumspection at this point. ‘What Miss Brabant is trying to tell you, Sir Thomas, is that she—we—believe that your son John was married to a Miss Eliza Hammond of Abbot Quincey! We wondered if you could help us—confirm whether or not the story is true?’

  Sir Thomas had turned quite pale, so pale that Lavender put down her cup quickly and went across to his side. She felt a pang of concern, for the baronet was old and frail and Frances had sprung the news rather suddenly.

  ‘Sir Thomas? Are you quite well, sir?’

  ‘Good heavens, good heavens….’ Sir Thomas was murmuring. ‘I tried to find her, but there was no trace…And you say that she was in Abbot Quincey all the time? But how could that be, and Knottingley not know?’

  Lavender put a hand on his. She was shaking with a mixture of hope and fear. ‘Then is it true, sir? For there is something else you should know. Eliza had a son—’

  There came the sound of a bell jangling throughout the house. Lavender and Frances exchanged a look, but Sir Thomas did not appear to even notice. He looked old and confused, and Lavender was suddenly afraid that their news had been too much for him.

  ‘A son?’ He spoke in a whisper. ‘A son of John’s? But how—’

  The door opened. A butler, who looked as ancient and dusty as his master, stood in the doorway.

  ‘I beg your pardon, Sir Thomas, but you have some visitors.’ He sounded vaguely surprised at such an unusual circumstance. ‘Lord Frederick Covingham, Lady Anne Covingham, Mr and Mrs Lewis Brabant.’

  Frances’s face was the picture of guilt. She put down the bowl of strawberries and stood up hastily. Lewis and Caroline were greeting Sir Thomas warmly, and Lord Freddie was shaking the baronet by the hand and explaining that he had once been a friend of John’s. Lavender was glad to see that Sir Thomas was less frail than he looked, for he greeted the new arrivals with some animation and hastily ordered more tea. She was less pleased that the new arrivals had appeared before she and Frances had got to the root of the mystery, for now it seemed they might be summarily marched home, strawberries notwithstanding.

  ‘Really, Lavender, this mad start is very unlike you!’ Caroline complained once they were all settled again and the tea served. Her glance slid to Frances and she tried not to smile. ‘We knew at once where you must have gone, for with Frances’s insistence that you visit Kenton today, there could be no doubt! What has come over the pair of you? This escapade does credit to neither of you!’

  Lavender, reflecting that Caroline must have been an authoritative governess, tried to apologise.

  ‘I am sorry if we gave you cause for concern, Caro, but we both wished to find out about the history of John and Eliza—’

  ‘The two of you are obsessed with this business,’ Caroline commented. She smiled at Sir Thomas. ‘I do hope, Sir Thomas, that the girls have not troubled you—’

  Lavender grimaced at Frances. She felt about twelve and still in the schoolroom.

  ‘Not at all, dear ma’am,’ Sir Thomas was smiling gently. ‘We had, however, reached a critical point in our discussions, for Miss Brabant had just asked me if my son John had ever been married, and suggested that he had a son!’

  ‘Lavender,’ Caroline said in a failing voice, ‘I cannot believe you had so little delicacy—’

  ‘I am sorry, but we cannot regard all that now, Caro!’ Lavender leant forward urgently. ‘Sir Thomas was about to tell us what he knew…’

  Sir Thomas sighed. ‘Yes, I knew of John’s marriage, for he came to tell me when he had already been wed a twelvemonth. It would have been twenty-six, twenty-seven years ago, for John has been dead these four and twenty years past. Anyway, I was not well pleased, for the Kentons have never been rich and I had hoped he would make an advantageous match.’

  ‘Did you meet John’s bride, Sir Thomas?’ Frances asked eagerly. She seemed to have recovered her spirits and had picked up her bowl of strawberries again.

  Sir Thomas smiled at her. ‘No, my dear, I did not. I did not even know her name! I quarrelled with John when he told me of the marriage. To my shame, I admit I threatened to cut him off without a penny! Mere bravado on my part, for I would never have borne such a grudge. Yet I was well served for my anger and pride, for John stormed out of the house and I never saw him again! I later heard that he had gone abroad and died in the Americas, and I wondered what had happened to his bride. I had Knottingley, my man of business, institute a search in Oxford, where John had lodgings, and they said that a lady had left there some months before, but no one knew her direction. She appeared to have no relatives or friends to support her, and the landlady had worried that she was sickly—’ He broke off, shaking his head. ‘At any rate, we could find no trace of her. I wondered if she would come to us here at Kenton, but she never did so. Often I wondered what had become of her, alone in the world and with John dead. I hoped that she had had family to go to.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘I do not understand,’ Frances said plaintively. ‘If Eliza Hammond had been married for a twelvemonth, why did she not tell her family?’

  There was another silence.

  ‘I think perhaps I understand,’ Lavender said hesitantly. ‘Mr Kenton had married beneath him in choosing a bride who was a maid in your house, Lord Frederick. Neither he nor his wife told their family. I believe they married secretly in Northampton, then moved to Mr Kenton’s lodgings in Oxford. It was only when Mrs Kenton discovered that she was expecting a child that her husband decided to approach h
is family, knowing full well that he had been intended to make an advantageous match.’

  Sir Thomas nodded. ‘I doubt John could have supported two on his allowance, certainly.’ His face fell. ‘I fear his worst fears were realised—he came to Kenton and was repudiated. After which he must have hatched a plan to travel abroad and make his fortune.’

  ‘I suppose that Eliza would not have been able to travel with him since she was enceinte,’ Caroline said thoughtfully, ‘but when she was near her time and sickly to boot, she decided to go home to the only place she could, which was Abbot Quincey. I dare say she would not have had the courage to come here—forgive me, Sir Thomas—but she had grown up a mere seven miles away, and so…’ Caroline shrugged.

  ‘Then Mr Hammond is your grandson, Sir Thomas,’ Frances said after a moment. ‘How delightful! He is the most charming young man, and so like your portrait there—’ She nodded to Sir Barnabas beside the fireplace.

  ‘Well,’ Lewis said, after a pause, ‘I suppose that someone should acquaint Mr Hammond of his situation, for surely he is in ignorance of all this—’

  ‘Not precisely…’ Lavender shifted uncomfortably in her chair. ‘I tried to broach the matter with Mr Hammond yesterday, but he…I am not sure that he…’ She looked around at all the puzzled faces. ‘Oh dear. In short, I am not at all sure that he will be pleased by our interference—’

  The door opened to admit the same po-faced butler as before. He cleared his throat. ‘Sir Thomas, you have two further visitors. Mr James Oliver and Mr Barnabas Hammond.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Lavender said.

  It was later, and the Brabants’ carriage was rolling homeward in the dusk, carrying Caroline, Lewis and Lavender. The Covinghams’ travelling coach was behind and Lavender could well imagine the scenes inside as Lady Anne and Lord Freddie ticked off their recalcitrant daughter. Lewis and Caroline’s reproofs had been more measured, but then they probably thought that Lavender had suffered enough. She thought so too.

  The look on Barney Hammond’s face when he had found them all sitting there in Sir Thomas’s library would stay with Lavender for a long time. He had looked directly at her only once, when he had first come in, and there had been such a flash of fury deep in his eyes that Lavender had looked away. Of course she had known that he did not want her to pry any further into his history, but she had thought…hoped…that once he had discovered that his parents had been married and he had a grandfather still living, he would come to her in gratitude. It had not happened and now Lavender was feeling slightly indignant, for surely Barney must see that he would still be just the adopted son of the draper if it were not for her.

  Barney had clearly been ill at ease at Kenton and had explained to Sir Thomas that he had only called because he had gone to Hewly and had been told that the whole family and visitors were at Kenton on some urgent errand. Knowing that Miss Brabant had mentioned something of Kenton in connection with his ancestry—here his gaze had touched Lavender’s face again, very briefly—he had come there himself to try to resolve the mystery.

  At that point, Lavender had been sure that the whole matter was about to be resolved and Barney’s love and gratitude pour down on her head. Unfortunately, the Brabants, Covinghams and James Oliver had collectively remembered their manners and decided to withdraw and leave Barney and his grandfather to discuss matters in private. It was all highly unsatisfactory.

  Lavender sighed as she watched the darkening country flow past. It seemed she could not do right for doing wrong. She was in trouble with Lewis and Caroline for disappearing without a word and embarrassing them by involving Frances Covingham, and she was in trouble with Barney for delving into his past and digging up a secret for which he did not seem particularly grateful. As far as she was concerned she would devote herself to her botany in future and leave everyone else to their own devices.

  ‘At the least you could have taken me with you!’ Julia’s voice was a petulant wail. ‘The whole county is talking of Sir Thomas Kenton’s long-lost grandson, and I could have been there when it happened! Of all the shabby tricks—to leave me behind!’

  Lavender stoically ignored her cousin. She was sitting by the window in the library, trying to catch the last of the daylight. Unusually, she was sewing an embroidered shirt for Caroline’s baby—a sort of peace-offering for causing her brother and sister-in-law so many problems recently. Lavender looked at the shirt and sighed—she knew she had no talent for needlework and the collar was distinctly lop-sided.

  ‘To think that Mr Hammond is Sir Thomas’s heir,’ Julia was saying now, utterly unstoppable once she had started. ‘Heir to Kenton Hall—’

  ‘And to the baronetcy!’ Caroline put in slyly.

  Julia’s face worked like a pan of boiling milk. ‘Well, upon my word, fate can be so very unfair! An estate and a title for the adopted son of a draper!’ She turned on Lavender. ‘I’ll wager you will be reconsidering your refusal of his suit now, cousin! Lud, to be Lady Kenton and mistress of the Hall!’

  Lavender folded the tiny shirt neatly away. She did not wish to stay and be the butt of Julia’s bad temper, for she knew she would snap at her.

  ‘He still has no money,’ she said sharply. ‘I thought that that was one of your prerequisites, Julia?’

  Julia shrugged. ‘Well, he may not be Hammond’s heir since he is his nephew rather than his son, but the man is as rich as a nabob and might well do the pretty by him. Besides, with your fortune, Lavender, and Mr Hammond’s prospects—’

  ‘It would suddenly become a good bargain?’ Lavender snapped. ‘I thank you, cousin, but some of us look for more in a match than that! I am scarce likely to forget that a week ago everyone was telling me that it would be the most unequal marriage imaginable!’

  Caroline sighed and Julia opened her big blue eyes very wide. ‘Well, a week ago that would have been true! Lud, cousin, I do not see your point!’

  Lavender slammed out of the library. She could not believe that she was the only one to see the hypocrisy of the situation. Suddenly all those who had put the match down as beneath her were praising it to the skies. It made her furious. Worse was the fact that Barney had not called at Hewly, either to thank her for her help or to repeat those offers he had made to her so recently. So the matter of a wedding was an academic one now anyway, since he had not proposed.

  Lavender was in such a thoroughly bad mood by the time that she went out for a walk, that not even the beautiful evening could soothe her. The moon was rising above the forest and a breeze was rustling the autumn leaves. There was the scent of grass and smoke and the river rippled in the moonlight, secret and silver. Lavender paused to watch it eddy and flow and tried to find some peace in her heart.

  She sat for a long time on a large flat stone on the bank, listening to the rustle of mice in the grass and the plop of fish in the river, and when she heard a step on the path behind her she did not need to turn her head to know who was there.

  ‘Mr Hammond! How is it that you are forever skulking in the woods, sir!’

  ‘I am sorry,’ Barney’s voice came out of the semi-darkness, not sounding particularly apologetic. ‘In point of fact, I was not skulking but coming to Hewly to see you, Miss Brabant!’

  ‘At this time of night?’ Lavender knew she sounded sulky but she could not help herself. She had waited for days for him to call and now that he was finally there she had a perverse desire to be horrid to him.

  ‘May I sit down?’ Barney did not wait for her permission but settled himself on the rock beside her. ‘I wanted to speak to you—’

  ‘Did you?’ Lavender snapped. ‘I have grown tired of the waiting, sir!’

  ‘Perhaps you thought I should come to thank you ere now?’ Barney asked. He sounded amused. His arm brushed hers and Lavender moved pointedly away. She could feel his warmth, feel herself relaxing and leaning towards him. His presence undermined her defences.

  ‘A show of gratitude would have been appreciated—’

 
‘Ah, but you see I was very angry with you!’ Barney still sounded amused. ‘I had asked you most particularly not to interfere in my case and then I find that not only have you discussed me with your family and friends, but you have also taken it upon yourself to go to Kenton and to see Sir Thomas! First you ignore my express wishes and then I find I am beholden to you yet again—’

  Lavender felt the indignant colour rush into her face then rush away again. This was not at all what she had expected. To be reprimanded when surely he owed her the biggest debt of gratitude imaginable! ‘Well, upon my word! And I was expecting your thanks rather than your reproaches! You and your foolish pride! Are you not pleased to have found your grandfather and an estate and title into the bargain?’

  It was not at all what was important to her, but she was so cross with him that she wanted to hit back. And having seen some evidence of his temper before, she knew that it was possible to provoke him. It did not seem to work this time, however, for Barney laughed.

  ‘Oh, I am most happy to meet my grandfather, for I like him prodigiously and I think—hope—that he likes me too! As for the rest, well, I have had plenty of people tell me over the past week that I should be grateful for my prospects, but I did not expect you to be one of them, Miss Brabant! I seem to recall that you swore you loved me even when I had nothing to offer you! It is strange to see you value worldly possessions so highly now!’

  Lavender jumped up, stung. She did not want to be reminded of declarations of love when she felt so out of charity with him. ‘Oh, I do not care two pins for your fortune, but I think you should acknowledge that it is as a result of my persistence that you are in this situation! If I had heeded your strictures and left well alone you would never have known of your parentage or your inheritance! And under the circumstances it seems to me ungrateful that you cannot give me that credit!’

  Barney had also stood up now and was moving towards her with a deliberation that made Lavender suddenly nervous. She took a hasty step back, stumbled and would have fallen in the river had Barney not caught her arm.