by Darcy Burke
Eating his breakfast and managing to miss his mouth with his fork more often than not because he couldn’t stop gazing at Lady Louisa, demurely nibbling on a buttered scone, Thomas was startled when the butler announced that he had a visitor.
“Who is it?” Thomas asked, discarding his napkin and rising, almost relieved for an excuse to stop making a fool of himself. He’d already smeared jam over his chin twice.
“The local solicitor, Mr Bledsloe,” Allsopp intoned formally.
“He can have no business with you, Thomas dear,” the countess said. “My husband conducted all his legal matters through our London solicitors, of course. Send him away, Allsopp.”
“No, I’ll see him, Aunt Clarice. He is a neighbour, after all.”
Lady Havers blinked at him, apparently quite bemused. “I do not know how things are done in America, Thomas, but here neighbours are other members of the gentry, not solicitors.”
The scorn in her voice made Thomas blink. Gently, he said “In America, neighbours are the folks who live close by and who we see regularly, ma’am. No matter what their station in life.” Turning away, he said “Lead the way, Allsopp. To… uh…” He hadn’t the faintest idea where one received visitors of any rank at all.
“The study, my lord.” Allsopp actually cracked a little smile. “This way, if you please.”
“I actually think I can find the study,” Thomas said cheerfully to Allsopp as they left the small dining room where he’d leaned the family customarily ate breakfast. “It’s down that corridor and just past the really short suit of armour, right?”
“Correct, my lord.” Allsopp didn’t smile again, but Thomas was sure the butler was beginning to unbend. He’d get a chuckle from the man yet.
“And Mr Bledsloe, what can you tell me about him?”
“He is very well-respected in the local area, my lord.” Allsopp paused before saying “Far be it from me to contradict the Countess, but Mr Bledsloe and the Earl met often. The Earl was also the local magistrate, you see. And the Bledsloe house is just past the end of the southern avenue approaching the Hall.”
“Then he is a neighbour,” Thomas said triumphantly. “Very good, Allsopp. Would it be appropriate to have coffee sent in?”
“Certainly, my lord. I shall have it brought in shortly.”
“Thank you.” Thomas smiled as Allsopp looked faintly startled; the servants were definitely not used to being thanked, but Thomas had no intention of changing his habits of courtesy now that he happened to have a title tacked onto his name. Opening the study door, he entered the room with a ready smile.
“Mr Bledsloe! I am delighted to meet you, sir.”
The solicitor was a stout man in early middle age, his hair thinning. He jumped to his feet as Thomas entered, his expression quite shocked at Thomas’ friendly greeting. Bowing, he stuttered “Uh, very good of you, my lord, very good indeed. I’m honoured that you’d see me.”
“Nonsense, we’re neighbours, and please call me Havers,” Thomas said affably. He was trying for a charm offensive; if he could catch the man by surprise at the beginning of their acquaintance, perhaps he could convince him that all the bowing and scraping really wasn’t necessary.
“Uh, yes, my l-Havers,” Bledsloe said, his eyes wide and a little shocked. “Honoured.” He accepted Thomas’s offered hand and shook.
“Good, that’s settled. Do sit down.” Instead of rounding the huge desk and sitting imposingly behind it, Thomas caught up another chair and sat down near Bledsloe. “It’s very good of you to call. I’m delighted to start meeting my new neighbours.”
“Neighbours? Why, yes… I suppose we are.”
“Allsopp tells me that you live at the end of the southern avenue, which must surely make you one of our closest neighbours, since the northern approach is three times as long, I’m told.”
“Not quite at the end, my l-Havers. A little further along the road towards Colesbourne. In fact, I believe you may have spoken to a young lady in my garden the day you arrived, asking directions?”
“The girl in the grey bonnet! A relative of yours?” Thomas nodded, remembering the girl and her smile, the friendly way she had spoken to him.
“A friend of my wife, actually; she is staying with us for a while, since the loss of her parents. They both passed in the same tragic manner as your uncle and cousin. For which losses, please allow me to extend my condolences.”
“Thank you,” Thomas said with a nod. “That must have been difficult, for a young girl to lose her parents both at the same time. I suffered the same loss, but I was not old enough to remember their passing; my grandfather raised me.”
“That would be Lord Matthew?”
“That’s right. He raised me on tales of Haverford,” Thomas smiled, looking around. “I’m afraid the images my imagination produced did not do it justice, though.”
“Indeed.” Mr Bledsloe paused, and then said “Did Lord Matthew ever speak of his sister?”
“Lady Eleanor? Frequently! I think he missed her most of all when he emigrated. They wrote letters until her death, I believe, but that was before I was born. In fact, perhaps you can tell me—I know she married, but did she have children? I have not yet had the chance to ask my aunt about other living relatives I may have, indeed I am just getting used to having any!”
“Quite understandable, my lord. And yes, Lady Eleanor did have a daughter. In fact, if I may?” Bledsloe gestured to a bookshelf behind the desk, and Thomas nodded, watching curiously as the man stood and pulled down a large, old-looking book richly bound in gold-embossed leather.
“This is the Havers family bible. The fourth Earl, that was the previous Earl’s father, of course, and your grandfather’s older brother, kept it updated until his death not quite twenty years ago.”
Thomas nodded in understanding as Bledsloe laid the book on the desk and carefully opened it to the back pages, showing a family tree written out in several different hands.
“Ah, this will be useful when I am trying to keep straight who is who in the portraits in the Long Gallery,” Thomas murmured thoughtfully, leaning forward to look.
“Here, you see,” Bledsloe pointed. “The fourth Earl and his siblings, Matthew and Eleanor.”
A line led down from Matthew to Ellis (b. 1767, m. 1789, d.1792). Written beneath his name was Julia Henry, (d.1792) and another line led down from there to Thomas (b. 1790).
“You can, of course, write 6th Earl Havers in beside your name now,” Bledsloe said.
“Perhaps another day.” Everything in Thomas rebelled against that, right now. Maybe he’d leave it to a descendant who didn’t feel like a complete impostor. He looked across the family tree and realised that he would also have to write in the dates of death for Michael and Oliver.
No, he wasn’t not ready to deal with that right now either. He moved his finger back to Eleanor’s name, and down from there.
“She had two daughters… oh, one died young, how sad.” Five years old, Miss Sarah Ripley had been. Looking at the dates, he realised that must have been the same year Gramps had left for America. Had little Sarah died before or after his departure? What a terrible year that must have been for Eleanor.
“Yes, but Miss Laura survived to adulthood. She married a Bristol merchant, and they had a daughter, Susan. On a visit to her relatives here in Haverford, Miss Susan fell in love with the local curate and they married. Following the wedding, the fourth Earl bestowed the living on Mr Bentley, so that his relative Susan should be sure of a comfortable life.”
Thomas listened with interest as Bledsloe told him about the family he had never known. Following the line written in a spidery hand in the back of the old bible, he came to Ellen (b. 1798). The same year as Louisa on the other branch of the family tree, he noted.
“Did the fifth Earl keep the family tree updated?” he asked.
“He wrote in your grandfather’s date of death, so I assume so. So far as I know, there were no other records that required notin
g during his stewardship of the title.”
“So Ellen is still alive?”
“Ellen is the young lady I told you about, Havers. Susan Bentley was her mother.”
Thomas fairly gaped at him, eyes flying back to the family tree. In all the myriad branches, so far as he could see, there were only three Havers descendants living; himself, Louisa, and Ellen. “Why is she staying with your wife, then, and not here with her family?” he demanded indignantly.
Bledsloe hesitated, and then said delicately “While the fourth earl considered Lady Eleanor’s descendants to be family and bestowed the living on Mr Bentley to ensure that Miss Susan should be taken care of, the fifth earl did not.”
Thomas sat back and looked at the other man. “You’re saying that the previous earl—hang it, I’m just going to call him my uncle—did not acknowledge Susan and Ellen Bentley as relations?”
“May I speak frankly?”
“Please do, because I have the feeling that I’m missing something here. From what I see here, we hardly have any family.” Thomas waved his hand over the book. “Why would my uncle not acknowledge the perfectly respectable wife of a clergyman and her daughter?”
“Because your uncle was a penny-pinching man who never did a thing unless he thought it benefited him.” Bledsloe looked half-defiant, half-afraid as he said the words.
A knock on the door interrupted them, a maid bringing in a tray with a steaming pot of coffee. Thomas poured a cup for Bledsloe and one for himself, grateful for the interruption since it gave him time to gather his thoughts.
“What provision was made for Ellen when her parents died?” Thomas asked.
“She inherited savings of some one hundred and seventy pounds,” Bledsloe said. “Though her grandfather was quite a successful merchant in Bristol, he married again after his first wife died and had two sons, who inherited his wealth. The living was awarded to another man; signing those papers was one of your uncle’s last acts, as it happens.” Bledsloe looked down, bit his lip. “Ellen intends to seek a position as a governess, or companion. We asked her to stay on with us at least until your arrival; she has been helping my wife with the children. While we cannot afford to pay her a proper wage, she eats with the family and Demelza treats her like a sister.”
Like an unpaid governess, you mean, Thomas thought a little unkindly, but he suspected that Bledsloe’s guilt over the matter was the reason why the solicitor had approached him now.
“It seems entirely unfair that my cousin should be forced to make a living for herself in this way,” he said aloud. “She is twenty, by the date here?”
“Indeed.”
“Should she like to marry? If there is a suitor in the wings for her, I would happily provide a dowry?”
“The only suitor who has ever asked for her is the new parson,” Bledsloe said. “He seemed to think that she should be grateful for an opportunity to stay in her old home, though it meant she would also have to be his unpaid housekeeper and warm his bed. Since he is some five and fifty years old, however, I advised Ellen against it. She did seriously consider it, though. She does not wish to be a burden upon anyone.”
“I am already thinking that I do not like the new parson,” Thomas said after a moment of stunned silence. “What is his name?”
“Mr Brownlee. He has already found another wife, a daughter of one of your tenant farmers who was quite happy to accept his offer.”
Shaking his head, Thomas considered his options. The easiest thing to do would be to settle some money on Ellen, but then what? Where would she live? She would need to find a companion of her own, to lend her countenance. Would she even want that, or accept the money?
“I believe that I should like to meet Ellen,” he said finally, after taking a long sip of his coffee. “We spoke only briefly when she gave me directions to the Hall, but she seemed quite charming. She is my cousin no less than Lady Louisa, and I should like to know her.”
“Very good, Havers.” Bled sloe gave him an approving nod. “When would be convenient for you?”
“No time like the present, Gramps always used to say. May I walk back with you?”
Chapter 4
It was a very pleasant walk along the avenue between the larch trees. Thomas found himself whistling again, enjoying the weather.
“Is it always this pleasant here in September?” he asked.
“Not always, this is a very fine late summer,” Bledsloe said. “October rains will start soon enough, and the nights start drawing in. How is the climate in New York, Havers? I have heard that the winters can be very bitter.”
“Indeed, with heavy snowfall at times,” Thomas agreed. “Summers are unbearably hot, too; I was not sorry to leave in May, before the weather became too hot. I understand the English climate to be milder all around.”
They talked about the weather, about the harvests, and about the work Bledsloe had done with the previous earl as they walked. Bledsloe said that another local landowner, Sir Thomas Kingsley, had been appointed magistrate after the earl’s demise, for which Thomas was grateful; he would have quite enough on his plate without needing to worry about enforcing the law in the area as well!
At last they came to the end of the half-mile-long avenue and Bledsloe turned towards the house Thomas had passed the other day. He remembered thinking it looked quite a nice property, on an acre or so of grounds with a large kitchen garden to one side, where he had spied Ellen picking fruit. Bledsloe pushed open the wooden gate and they walked up to the front door.
“Demelza will likely carry on a little bit,” Bledsloe said in an undertone. “Don’t mind her nonsense. She likes to fuss, that’s all.”
Seeing the smile on the man’s face, Thomas thought that he seemed very fond of his wife despite any fussing. At least Ellen was in a home where she need not fear importuning by the master of the house, a very real fear if she should indeed go into service as a governess or companion.
“Demelza? I have brought a visitor to meet you, my dear,” Bledsloe said, leading Thomas into a parlour where a pretty woman of about thirty years sat with two children, both listening intently as their mother read to them. “Boys, stand up and give your best bows, now. This is the Earl of Havers. My lord, my wife and my two sons, Jacob and Jason.”
The boys were twins, he saw, of about seven years or so, quite identical in their blue-eyed, fair-haired, freckled little faces, quite open-mouthed with awe at the sight of a real live earl there in their parlour.
Demelza Bledsloe gave a little shriek and dropped her book. “John! Oh, my lord!” she curtsied a little frantically. “I never… oh my goodness!”
“Please, do not be put out, Mrs Bledsloe,” Thomas turned on the charm offensive again, stepping forward to lift her hand and kiss it. “I do beg your pardon for my dropping in on you unannounced, but when your husband was good enough to pay a call upon me I decided that I simply could not wait to return it—and to meet my relative, who I understand is your very dear friend.”
“Yes, where is Ellen, my dear?”
“Oh, she is in the morning-room,” Demelza fluttered a little, settled down as Thomas gave her a calm smile. “She found a notice in yesterday’s newspaper with a position she thought might suit, said that she wished to write an application letter—I did tell her to wait until after John had spoken with you, my lord, but she was so certain you would not be interested in even meeting such a distant relative…”
“On the contrary, ma’am, I am most interested in meeting Miss Bentley. So far as I know, I only have two living blood relatives, Miss Bentley and Lady Louisa. I am not of a mind to snub one of them for any reason.” He tried to look reassuring.
“That is very good to hear; I knew it must be so! I heard that Americans have quite a different way of thinking than we English, well, to the aristocracy at least. Please, my lord, do not let me keep you; the boys have not yet finished their geography lesson. Perhaps we shall all come and have tea together in the morning-room shortly?”
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Thomas allowed that sounded very pleasant, smiled at the twins whose faces had turned immediately downcast at the mention of the temporarily abandoned lesson. Emboldened by his smile, one of them—he had no idea which—blurted “Have you ever seen a Red Indian, m’lord?”
“Perhaps if your mother tells me that you have paid close attention for the remainder of your lesson, I will tell you when we take tea,” Thomas bent down to whisper, was rewarded with a pair of beaming smiles.
Cute little devils, he thought, taking a polite leave of Mrs Bledsloe and following her husband from the room. He’d not thought seriously yet about taking a wife and setting up a nursery—he was only twenty-eight!—but he supposed that he must now view it as his duty to do so, and as soon as possible. The earldom needed an heir.
The next door along the small hallway stood open, into a room of similar size to the parlour, an oval table to seat eight or so in the centre of it. Ellen sat at the table, papers spread out before her and a quill pen held in her hand.
“Ellen?” Bledsloe said. She looked up, her eyes widening at the sight of Thomas entering the room behind him.
“Oh!” Startled, she set down her pen, rose to her feet and made a graceful curtsy.
“The Earl of Havers, pray allow me to present Miss Ellen Bentley,” Bledsloe said formally, and then with a smile, “your cousin.”
“It is quite a distant connection, my lord,” Ellen rushed to say.
“I know exactly how distant, Miss Bentley; your great-grandmother was my grandfather’s dear sister. He told me many stories of Lady Eleanor, and I am delighted to meet her descendant.” Thomas bowed, giving Ellen a reassuring smile. She looked troubled, her brow furrowed.
“I’ll just step to the kitchen and ask Betsy to see about that tea,” Bledsloe said, “let you two get acquainted.” Leaving the room, he left the door standing wide open and Ellen and Thomas staring at each other in silence.