A Country Gentleman Read online

  He could not see how they could refuse. What was more, he could see the very real pleasure on the countess’s face at the prospect of entertaining Lavinia. He had never doubted his mother’s love, but he had always known that she would have liked to have had a daughter. When his father and his brother had been alive, it must have seemed to the countess at times that the house was full of men’s talk. To have Lavinia’s company would make a welcome change for her, and give her some company when he was out overseeing his estate.

  With an effort, he suppressed a sigh, regretting the disruption to his peaceful existence. Nevertheless, he could not help saying, ‘There had better be some improvement in her behaviour this time. She very nearly drove me to drink, I can tell you.’

  ‘And me,’ his mother agreed ruefully. ‘But what else can we do? The poor child has no one else. Besides, she is several years older. She will have outgrown the follies of youth, surely. In any case, I do not see that we can honourably do anything other than have her here.’

  ‘Yes, I know that,’ her son replied. ‘I can quite see that we have no alternative. There is just one stipulation: Miss Isobel Macclesfield is not to be allowed within one hundred miles of this place.’

  ‘I quite agree,’ said his mother, barely repressing a shudder.

  Chapter Two

  The entire Stancross household had been cast into complete confusion by the stroke suffered by Lavinia’s aunt. This was not really surprising. Neither Uncle Seth nor Aunt Betty was a decisive person to begin with. A situation such as this tended to bring out the worst in them. It had been Lavinia who had ordered that Mrs Stancross should be carried up to bed, and who had insisted that nothing should be spooned down her throat until the doctor had been. Even the summoning of the doctor had been a challenge to Lavinia’s ingenuity, for neither her uncle nor her aunt had suffered a day’s illness for years. Before a doctor could be consulted, therefore, it was necessary to find the names of some to whom she might apply.

  After the nature of Aunt Betty’s complaint had been determined, it had been Lavinia who had suggested that Uncle Seth should take his wife away to Lyme Regis in order to recuperate. The doctor had agreed wholeheartedly with this suggestion.

  ‘Lyme will set her up for sure,’ her uncle had said, his eyes unhappy and hunted as they had darted first this way and then that. ‘I have known the sea air do wonders.’

  ‘I am sure she will benefit from it,’ Lavinia had agreed. Impossible to say that she could not see how even Lyme could effect healing for Mrs Stancross’s pitifully lifeless limbs, stumbling speech, and crooked face.

  ‘She will, she will,’ Mr Stancross had replied, clearly grasping at straws. ‘She will be back on her feet in no time, you’ll see.’

  It had only remained for him to write to Lord and Lady Thurlby, begging their kindness on Lavinia’s behalf. He had done so, and soon afterwards, the expected reassurance had come that she would be welcome at Thurlby Hall.

  She grimaced. She was doubtful as to whether they actually meant it as she had behaved very badly; but that had been years ago, and she had grown up a good deal since then. What was more, she would not have Isobel Macclesfield to egg her on this time. She blushed when she recalled some of the activities that they had got up to during that memorable visit. She could only hope that the earl and his mother had forgotten most of them.

  Perhaps it was not surprising that with all his anxieties directed towards his wife, her uncle failed to confirm the travel arrangements for his niece. Lavinia saw Mr and Mrs Stancross off to Lyme, and then waited patiently for her own hired conveyance. It never came. An enquiry sent by one of the few servants left behind revealed that no carriage had been hired.

  ‘Then I shall go on the mail,’ Lavinia told the caretaker, who had been left behind to lock up the house. This confident pronouncement met with a set-back when she realized that she only had a few shillings to her name. She was by no means penniless, but, as she was still under twenty-one, she was dependent upon her uncle drawing money on her behalf. She had been due for some when Aunt had had her stroke, and then, of course, everything else had been forgotten. After he had left, she had gone to his desk in search for funds, and had found a letter that he had begun writing to his bank on her behalf. He had neither completed nor signed it.

  ‘I’ve not got much, miss, but you’re welcome to it,’ the caretaker said, when she had explained her situation.

  ‘That is very good of you,’ she said with real gratitude. ‘I will go to my uncle’s banker first. Perhaps he might let me have something on the strength of this letter.’ Lavinia knew where her uncle’s banker conducted his business. Without very much hope, she put the unfinished letter into her reticule and went to visit him in his chambers. She came away feeling that she had not been taken even remotely seriously. There was only one thing for it; she would have to go on the stage.

  Lavinia had never travelled on the stage, but she knew that it was much cheaper than travelling by the mail. She made her way to the Bull and Mouth, therefore, in order to make enquiries. But when she got there, she found that she did not even have enough to pay for a seat on the stage. She did toy with asking for a loan from some of her acquaintance in London, but thanks to the quiet way in which her aunt and uncle had always lived, she knew very few people in Town, and those that she did know had left the city for the country. She did not want to ask for help from people she barely knew.

  It was while she was deep in thought, contemplating this awkward predicament, that she became aware that someone was hailing her, and, looking round, she saw her schoolfriend, Isobel Macclesfield, on the arm of a very rakish-looking man, perhaps as much as twice her age. Lavinia had never been introduced to him, but she had had him pointed out to her, and knew that he was Lord Riseholm, often referred to as ‘his rakeship’.

  Vernon James Murray Hawkfield, third Earl of Riseholm was tall, lean and handsome. His jet-black hair was straight, and usually tied at the back of his neck in a queue. There were lines riven between his nose and his mouth, and around the corners of his charcoal-grey eyes, which often held a world-weary, cynical expression, as if he had seen everything that the season could ever offer and found it wanting.

  He had been married, but his wife had died some ten years before, and he had shown no inclination to repeat the experiment, choosing instead to enjoy more temporary arrangements with actresses and the like. Clearly, ladies in society found him charming.

  Lavinia was glad of the distraction from her troubles, and she allowed Isobel to present her to Lord Riseholm, who, after one or two remarks uttered in a caressing manner which Lavinia did not care for at all, took his leave.

  ‘Is he not heavenly?’ murmured Isobel, tucking her hand into Lavinia’s arm. ‘But he’ll be my ruination, I fear.’

  Had Lavinia been asked to ascribe some kind of supernatural quality to Lord Riseholm, heavenly was not the one that she would have chosen, but she did not say so, simply murmuring something non-committal as she glanced around. She could not see the slightest vestige of a chaperon. ‘I thought you would have left Town by now,’ Lavinia remarked.

  ‘No,’ Isobel replied in an airy tone. After the girls had left school, they had not met frequently, although they had kept up a desultory correspondence, and were always pleased to see one another. ‘I am living with Mrs Wilbraham while my father is in Portugal. She is fixed in Town, and there is nowhere else for me to go, I’m pleased to say. After all, Town has its attractions.’ She glanced briefly in the direction in which Riseholm had gone. ‘And what of you?’

  Lavinia explained about Mrs Stancross’s stroke, and how the anxious couple had left London without making any provision for her. ‘I have an invitation to go to Thurlby Hall to stay with my godmother, but no means of getting there,’ she explained. She paused briefly. ‘I don’t suppose you…?’

  ‘Oh yes, yes, of course,’ Isobel responded hastily, and with a slight air of abstraction. ‘You must come to Mrs Wilbraham’s with me, an
d I will sort everything out. Indeed, my sweet life, you might even prove to be my salvation.’

  She began to look about her for a hackney and Lavinia, glad of a reprieve from thinking about her own concerns, lent her aid. They were in St Martin’s-le-Grand in the shadow of St Paul’s, only a stone’s throw from Newgate gaol. It was hardly the place for a fashionable young lady to promenade.

  ‘Come on,’ said Isobel, a hackney having most fortuitously become available when a young clergyman had stepped down from it and shown himself delighted to help two young ladies to get in. ‘You don’t want to linger in this part of Town, do you?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Lavinia answered when they were both seated inside the hackney. ‘Why exactly were you here, come to think of it? I have the excuse of enquiring about the stage, but what of you? What were you doing, Izzy?’

  Isobel’s eyes met hers briefly before glancing away. ‘Oh, this and that,’ she answered carelessly. ‘Nothing to interest you. But fancy your having to deal with that lady falling ill, you poor thing. Was she ill before? Did you get to see anything much of the season, or were you shut inside all the while?’

  ‘I did get to one or two events,’ Lavinia answered, rightly concluding that Isobel would not tell her what she had been up to in this part of Town. ‘I was at Vauxhall a few weeks ago – on the night of the masquerade ball.’

  ‘Oh really?’ replied Isobel. ‘I was there too; with a party, you know.’

  Lavinia did not answer. She had enjoyed her visit to Vauxhall, escorted by Mr and Mrs Stancross on one of the last outings that they had had together before Mrs Stancross had been taken ill. Her aunt and uncle were very kind, but their party had been a sedate one, and she had looked about her with a certain amount of envy, wishing that she was with a livelier group.

  She had caught sight of a young woman whose appearance had seemed familiar, and she now suspected that it might have been Isobel. The young lady had been in company with a gentleman who had boldly slid his arm around her waist, and had appeared to receive no rebuke for his effrontery. Lavinia was now almost certain that the gentleman to whom she had just been introduced and the man who had been with the young woman at the masquerade were one and the same.

  ‘Have you known Lord Riseholm for long?’ Lavinia asked, then wanted to snatch the question back because she feared that it almost betrayed that she had noticed Isobel and the earl at Vauxhall, if indeed it had been they.

  ‘Lord yes,’ Isobel answered with a laugh. ‘I don’t take him seriously, of course. No woman does; or should.’

  ‘No, I’ve heard that,’ Lavinia answered. Every woman in London knew that his rakeship was a man to be avoided if one’s reputation was to be kept intact. Clearly, Isobel had been playing fast and loose with her reputation. Did Mrs Wilbraham know?

  The street to which the hackney took them was a fashionable one not far from Hyde Park. Lavinia noticed how hastily Isobel climbed down and paid the driver, glancing surreptitiously about her as she did so. Evidently, she did not want it to be known that she had returned in such a vehicle. Lavinia’s suspicion was confirmed when, instead of entering the house that was nearest to them, Isobel tucked her hand into Lavinia’s arm. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘It’s such a lovely day that I thought we could have a little stroll before going in.’

  Lavinia glanced up at the leaden coloured sky. There had not been a hint of sunshine all morning. ‘Don’t try to pull the wool over my eyes, Izzy,’ she said. ‘Does anyone know you went out in a hackney today?’

  ‘I didn’t go out in a hackney,’ Isobel replied defensively, ‘I came home in one.’

  ‘Then how did you get as far as St Martin’s-le-Grand?’ Lavinia asked reasonably. ‘Don’t tell me you walked because I won’t believe you.’

  ‘I don’t care what you believe,’ answered Isobel with a flash of temper.

  ‘Well in that case, you won’t worry whether I “prove to be your salvation” or not, will you?’

  ‘And you won’t worry about not having enough money to get to Thurlby.’

  They stood glaring at one another on the pavement, until Isobel caught hold of her friend’s arm. ‘Oh, come on, Lavvy. All right, I took the opportunity of having a little flirtation with Riseholm, but no one need know about it. There’s no harm done.’

  Lavinia allowed herself to be pulled along, but in truth, she was starting to feel an uneasiness that was all too familiar. She very well remembered more than one occasion when she had been pressed into service in order to cover Isobel’s tracks in the past.

  At the age of fourteen, Lavinia had been sent to a select school in Bath where Isobel, a wealthy heiress and already flirtatious at the age of fifteen, reigned over an admiring court. Lavinia’s arrival had occasioned very little remark. She was a pretty girl, fair-haired and with a neat figure, but no prettier than any other girl there. Her fortune was too small to attract attention, but not so small as to make her that most despised of females, a poor relation. She was good enough at her lessons to keep pace with the others, but not so clever that she made them feel stupid. She had no fixed home to miss, but she regretted leaving her parents, and was beginning to feel lonely.

  It happened one day, when the girls were enjoying some leisure time, that a chance remark made by Lavinia had revealed to Isobel that her parents were in the diplomatic service. As Isobel’s own father was abroad for the same reason, her mother having died some years before, and as no other girls at the school were in that position, a connection was established and Isobel had allowed Lavinia to become part of her court.

  After this, loneliness had been at an end, as Lavinia was invited to take part in all kinds of expeditions which included shopping, visits to friends, and even, when the girls were judged to be old enough, the occasional card party.

  This had been Lavinia’s downfall. Invited to the house of a friend of Isobel’s, with the approval of Miss Hackett, the headmistress, she had never had any intention of playing cards. But everyone else was doing so and, when she kept refusing, she had begun to feel that she was in some way being a spoilsport, and preventing other people’s fun.

  At last, she had accepted and had sat down at one of the tables. She had soon found that those present were very ready to instruct her in the game. She had learned quickly, agreed that they could now play ‘seriously’, and had been delighted to find herself a winner. Encouraged by this piece of good fortune, she had played and won again. A change in luck had not deterred her, for by then she had been caught up in the excitement of the game.

  Strangely enough, it had been Isobel who had brought her to her senses. ‘How are you getting on?’ she had asked, her own game over.

  As Lavinia had glanced up at her friend, she had seen the avid expressions of those around her, looking at the cards as if their lives depended upon how they turned. She had finished her game, and had been horror struck to realize that she owed over one hundred pounds. How could she ever find such a sum? She had got up from the table, knowing that she must pay her debts, but unable to imagine how it might be done.

  Then she had heard Isobel speak. ‘It’s all right,’ she had said. ‘Had you forgotten, Lavinia, that you entrusted your purse to me for safe keeping? Here it is.’

  Later, after paying her debt with the money that Isobel had given her, Lavinia had attempted to stammer her thanks, but Isobel had dismissed the matter with a wave of her hand. ‘Look, I’ve told you not to worry,’ she had said reassuringly. ‘It really doesn’t matter. I’d only just won some of that myself. You can pay me back in other ways. I’m sure I shall want all kinds of favours doing.’

  She had spoken with a twinkle in her eye, but Lavinia had soon found that the other girl had spoken no less than the truth.

  On more than one occasion, Isobel had wanted to go out alone at night to meet a young man, a thing that was, needless to say, strictly against the rules of the school. Lavinia had been given the task of covering her tracks by pretending that her friend was in bed with a seve
re headache. She had been obliged to sneak downstairs much later at a given signal to let her back into school.

  Then there had been the time when Miss Hackett had escorted the older young ladies to the theatre to see a production of Shakespeare. The enterprising Isobel had arranged to meet the same young man during the interval, and when the girls were given permission to walk about in twos, Lavinia had been obliged to make herself scarce whilst Isobel had indulged in an agreeable flirtation.

  And then there were the bets. Isobel had been one of a group of friends who had dared each other to perform all kinds of bits of mischief for their own amusement. Some of them had involved stealing handkerchiefs from people’s pockets, or small items from houses that they visited. Others had entailed tampering with the merchandise in a shop, such as turning all the books upside down on a shelf at one of the local bookshops, or unravelling a whole roll of ribbon at the haberdasher’s.

  When Isobel had indulged in one of her escapades, however, Lavinia had only been expected to act as lookout; and whilst she might have disapproved of the other girl’s behaviour, she had not been able to see how she could refuse. She was never expected to perform any of these deeds herself. Indeed, had Isobel even so much as suggested such a thing, she would have braced herself to go to Miss Hackett immediately and confess the whole, even though it might have meant that she would have been sent away in disgrace.

  Then, of course, there were the copious notes which Isobel had needed passing on to whichever swain was enjoying her favour at the time. Lavinia had often objected and tried very hard to extricate herself from these schemes. But Isobel had been very persuasive, and her requests always couched in such terms that Lavinia had felt she was making a silly fuss even to mention it.

  ‘I only want to spend five minutes with him,’ she would say. ‘Is that such a lot to ask – in view of our friendship?’ ‘It’s just a little note. I would do the same for you; you know I would.’ Lavinia had known that this was not just an idle promise. Isobel would indeed have done the same for her; but there had been no one whom Lavinia wanted to meet; no one to whom she had wanted to send a note. The young men with whom Isobel seemed to want to spend her time always appeared to her to be tiresomely juvenile, and certainly not worth the risk of expulsion.