Portrait of Jonathan Read online

  ‘See no reason why not,’ Kelvin was saying, breathing heavily, his florid face redder than ever, though whether from excess of food and drink or embarrassment, Lord Melmoth was unsure.

  ‘But I didn’t ask you here to talk about that,’ he continued.

  ‘No?’ Lord Melmoth murmured. Here it came, the reason for the invitation.

  ‘Truth is, Lord Melmoth.’ Kelvin spoke almost respectfully for once, Lord Melmoth noticed, smiling inwardly. He tapped his lips with his forefinger and waited for his host to continue.

  Kelvin’s face grew hotter. ‘ Truth is, I’m in a bit of a strait, y’know. I was wondering—what I mean is—you know how things are between my father and me. I was wondering if you’d have a word with him.’

  Melmoth remained silent.

  ‘Fact is, I’d like to come into the business, y’know. After all, I’m his only son,’ he added righteously. ‘Your boys will inherit your share, surely I’m entitled to something?’

  True, thought Melmoth to himself, a resounding good hiding if I am any judge. Still he remained silent, whilst Gervase Kelvin grew more and more flustered.

  ‘Well,’ he asked, almost defensively, ‘will you?’

  ‘Will I—what?’ Lord Melmoth asked mildly.

  ‘Speak to my father?’

  The Earl of Melmoth appeared to meditate whilst Viscount Kelvin grew even more agitated. Melmoth saw that his two sons watched the proceedings with absorption—Jonathan with his slight sideways smile, and Giles, his blue eyes, puzzled, darting from face to face anxiously, not understanding the full depth of meaning behind the scene. Roderick Kelvin’s face remained as vacant as ever.

  ‘Yes,’ Lord Melmoth said slowly, ‘I will speak to your father.’

  ‘Soon?’

  ‘I cannot say for sure—we are not due to meet for a week or more.’

  ‘Can’t you make it sooner than that—I’m depending upon you?’

  But at that Viscount Kelvin would have to be satisfied for Lord Melmoth refused to be harried into giving a certain date for seeing Lord Rowan. Had Kelvin any idea, Melmoth thought to himself, of what he meant to tell Lord Rowan, then he would doubtless have been begging him to forget the whole idea. As it was, Gervase Kelvin seemed heartily pleased with his efforts and when they rejoined the ladies he was in great spirits, even calling his wife ‘my dear’ which appeared to startle and displease her. The only object of her affections appeared to be her pimply son.

  ‘Come and sit here, Roddy, beside me and Lady Melmoth and tell Lady Melmoth how you absolutely adore riding. He’s such a good horseman. Lady Melmoth. It was such a pity we had to sell our horses. However, I am hopeful things may yet take a turn for the better in the future,’ and she glanced at Lord Melmoth as if to insinuate that the family’s well-being lay in his hands.

  ‘And your daughter,’ Lady Melmoth was saying. ‘Does she ride?’

  ‘Lavinia—good heavens no! She is a sad disappointment to us. Lady Melmoth, though I am loath to say it of my own child. She is completely without accomplishment.’

  And as every eye turned to look at her, poor Lavinia blushed scarlet and could have rushed from the room in shame.

  Poor child, mused Melmoth, such an innocent scrap to be sacrificed to Lord Myron’s lechery. He began to study her unobserved. Although at first glance she appeared plain and uninteresting—insipid he would have said—on closer inspection, Lord Melmoth saw that she had a flawless complexion. Her hair, so unbecomingly dressed, was as black and glossy as a raven. Her sorrowful brown eyes were fringed with long, curling lashes. But she was so thin—under-nourished almost—that she looked only a child. Lord Melmoth found himself worrying about the girl’s visit to Lord Myron planned for the next evening.

  Could he do anything to prevent it?

  He turned his gaze away from the girl and as he did so, his glance met Jonathan’s eyes which at that very moment had also turned from Lavinia.

  Instinctively, Lord Melmoth knew that the very same thoughts possessed his son as himself.

  The Eldon family took their leave of the Kelvin household as soon as was politely possible. Immediately they were within the confines of their carriage and a safe distance was between them and their hosts, Giles once more burst forth.

  ‘Sir, can you do nothing for that poor girl?’

  Lord Melmoth sighed before he replied. ‘My boy, I too have been racking my brains to think of some unobtrusive way in which we could prevent her dining with Myron, but short of resorting to tactics which would obviously be interfering, I can think of nothing, can you, my dear?’

  Lady Melmoth’s gentle tones replied. ‘It seems we are all of one mind, that is if Jonathan feels as we three do?’ She paused and waited for her son’s answer.

  ‘Of course I agree with you,’ came Jonathan’s soft voice out of the darkness. ‘But I too cannot suggest a solution.’

  ‘The girl is no more than a child,’ Lady Melmoth said, adding with disgust, ‘it is positively wicked!’

  ‘She’s like her paternal grandmother, poor Mélanie,’ murmured Lord Melmoth.

  ‘Rupert, no,’ his wife countered. ‘ Mélanie was a great beauty—this poor child is plain.’

  ‘No, dear Mama, the child has promise,’ Jonathan’s deep, slow tones remarked.

  ‘You saw it too, then?’ said his father. ‘ With a little help and affection that child would be quite delightful. But she’s utterly starved of attention and affection, anyone can see that. All their love, if you can call it that, is showered upon that—that apology of manhood.’

  ‘But what are we going to do?’ repeated Giles.

  But the other three occupants of the carriage had no answer for him.

  The next evening by the time they anticipated that Lavinia would be on her way to visit Lord Myron, they still had no solution.

  The whole family was disturbed. Giles paced the long drawing-room restlessly. Jonathan tapped the arm of his chair with the tips of his fingers, and Lord Melmoth pretended to read, but so infrequently did he turn a page that to the intelligent observer it would have been apparent that he found concentration impossible.

  Only Lady Melmoth, seated on the brocade chaise-longue—a pole-screen shading the heat of the fire from her face, seemed calm and unruffled. Serenely, she stitched at her embroidery, the silks flashing in and out of the material held firmly by a wooden frame. But a moment’s lapse of concentration caused her to prick her finger and admit that she too was not intent upon her occupation.

  ‘There must be something we could do. She—she might be there by now,’ Giles said. His father laid down his book, cleared his throat and pulled the gold watch from his waistcoat pocket.

  ‘Most likely she’ll just be arriving.’

  ‘They’ll sit down to dinner almost immediately, I would think,’ Jonathan murmured.

  ‘Then what?’ Giles murmured. His mother bent her head over her embroidery. Giles turned towards his father, who cleared his throat again and picked up his book, Giles turned at last to Jonathan who met his gaze steadily.

  Jonathan rose.

  ‘I think. Father, there would be no harm if Giles and I were to take a drive past Lord Myron’s house?’

  ‘No, no, my boy, of course not—it’s a free highway.’

  ‘And Lord Myron’s house is conveniently situated near the road,’ Lady Melmoth murmured, her needle stabbing in and out of her work rapidly.

  ‘Come, let’s be off,’ cried the impatient Giles, flinging the door wide and rushing into the hall, followed more sedately by his brother, the half-smile twitching at his mouth despite the gravity of his thoughts.

  They took their own brougham and the younger of the family’s two drivers as the most likely to match the brothers’ desire for speed.

  The dark streets echoed with the horses’ hurrying hooves. The January night was clear but cold and frosty.

  ‘Why do you suppose Lord Myron dines so late?’ Giles murmured.

  ‘We dine early by some st
andards. But I rather think, in his case, he dines late because it suits his particular purpose.’

  The two brothers fell silent, both, no doubt, imagining just what that ‘particular purpose’ was.

  After about half an hour’s drive, Giles leaned forward to look out of the window.

  ‘This is the street. Is it this side, Jonathan?’

  ‘Yes,’ and he too leaned forward to look out.

  The driver slowed the horse to walking pace, as Jonathan had previously instructed him. Most of the houses had lighted windows. It was not a part of the city the Eldons knew well, but the district seemed to be of equal standing to their own. Lord Myron’s house was easy to pick out being the largest and bearing on its wrought iron gates the name in bold lettering ‘Myron Court’.

  ‘There it is,’ said Giles in a loud whisper.

  The windows of the house were alight but the curtains were drawn across and nothing of the interior of the rooms, nor of their occupants, was visible to the onlooker.

  Jonathan cursed under his breath. Short of somehow gaining entry to the house, they were no better off here riding up and down a darkened street than they would have been at home, and just as helpless.

  Their vehicle turned at the end of the street and went back the way it had come, the occupants changing to the opposite window.

  ‘We’d better go home, Giles,’ Jonathan said. ‘ We can do no more here.’

  ‘Just once more down the street and back,’ pleaded Giles.

  ‘All right.’

  It was on the second return up the street that they saw her, a small figure in a white dress running, without cloak or bonnet, through the heavy gates of ‘Myron Court’ into the street.

  ‘Stop, Wilkes,’ roared Jonathan and with one accord they jumped from the brougham, one out of each side, and ran towards Lavinia. Jonathan reached her first, having chosen the nearer door.

  The girl stopped as she saw him and gave a frightened shriek. In the light of the street lamp, he saw immediately her tear-streaked face, her dress torn at the shoulder and her black hair disarranged and flying loose.

  He felt a rash of pity for the child and at the same time as wanting to comfort her, his anger against Lord Myron was sufficient to have called him out to fight a duel there and then. But the girl was his foremost thought. He stretched out his arms towards her. She screamed again and stepped backwards. Giles came running up and Lavinia’s terror increased. She sobbed hysterically backing away from them all the time.

  ‘Lavinia,’ Jonathan said sharply. ‘Lavinia, control yourself—it’s Eldon—you remember, we dined with you last night.’

  The sobs subsided a little but she still hiccoughed pathetically, straining her eyes in the darkness to see who they were.

  ‘We mean you no harm,’ Giles was saying gently. ‘ We only want to help you.’

  She stood still then and allowed them to approach her, and stand one on either side. She looked up into their faces in the light of the street lamp. Then she covered her face with her hands and wept, but without hysteria now, merely in relief and thankfulness. Jonathan placed his coat about her shivering shoulders and led her towards the brougham.

  As they sped towards ‘Eldon House’ Lavinia burled her face on Jonathan’s shoulder and wept bitterly, whilst he, his arms about her, stroked her hair tenderly.

  And that was the moment when Lavinia fell in love with Jonathan, Viscount Eldon.

  Chapter Three

  When they arrived at ‘Eldon House’, it was Giles who gave a graphic account of their rescue of Lavinia to Lord and Lady Melmoth, whilst the subject of his conversation clung to Jonathan’s arm, not daring to meet their eyes.

  ‘My poor, dear child,’ Lady Melmoth’s voice lacked nothing in kindness and sympathy. ‘Rupert, my dear,’ this in a low tone to her husband, ‘I think you should call Doctor Benning.’

  ‘Do you think it wise, my dear, I mean—the scandal if …?’

  ‘I do think it most necessary,’ Lady Melmoth said firmly.

  Her husband, ever respectful of his wife’s intelligence in such matters, agreed.

  ‘Now,’ she said briskly to the weeping girl, but not unkindly. ‘Come with me, my dear, and well put you to bed. You’ve had an unfortunate experience, but you must put it out of your mind now and try to forget it. Come.’

  Talking kindly to the girl. Lady Melmoth led her away, whilst the three men watched their departure from the room.

  ‘Well, well, I’m sure I don’t know what the world’s coming to,’ muttered Lord Melmoth as the door closed.

  Jonathan shrugged and poured himself a glass of wine.

  ‘Unfortunately, there’s always been Myron’s type about, prepared to take advantage of youthful innocence.’

  ‘He ought to be run through,’ Giles exclaimed glowering savagely and thrusting his right fist into his left palm as if he were giving himself the pleasure of duelling with Lord Myron.

  Jonathan fingered the scar on his cheek.

  ‘ ’Twould serve no purpose,’ he remarked mildly, forgetting momentarily his own similar feeling when first seeing the distraught figure of Lavinia running from Myron’s house.

  ‘Jonathan, how can you be so calm about it—that—that seducer and that poor girl? I should like to see him at the end of a sword for sure.’

  ‘Question is,’ Lord Melmoth mused, ‘what to do with the child now?’

  ‘I’m sure Mama has that all in hand, Father,’ Jonathan smiled his half-smile.

  ‘Ha, yes,’ his father chuckled fondly, ‘no doubt, no doubt.’

  Some little time later, Lady Melmoth rejoined them in the drawing-room.

  ‘She’s sleeping now. The doctor has been.’ She closed the door and walked across the room, whilst three pairs of eyes followed her movement. ‘And he says she is badly shocked, but quite unharmed.’

  The three men grunted their approval, so alike in their manner.

  ‘What are we going to do now?’ asked the ever-impatient Giles of his mother, who, in her turn, looked towards her husband.

  Lord Melmoth’s blue eyes twinkled at her merrily.

  ‘Well, my dear, and what are we going to do?’ he asked, knowing full well she had already decided.

  ‘Well,’ smiled Lady Melmoth, guessing her husband’s thoughts as exactly as if he had spoken them—thus had their marriage brought them to such a degree of understanding. ‘I have been thinking that we should keep her here—for a day or two at least. We can send some message or other to her parents.’ Lady Melmoth dismissed them as of no consequence. ‘And then, I think, we should contact Lord Rowan about her.’

  ‘What?’ Lord Melmoth looked up sharply. ‘ Do you think we should? After all, the girl will scarcely know him since her father and grandfather have been estranged for so long. And,’ he cleared his throat in some embarrassment, ‘Rowan may not want to be troubled about her.’

  ‘If we but get him to see her, that will be enough,’ she replied and noticed Jonathan’s quiet smile.

  ‘Why?’ asked Giles. ‘Why just if he sees her?’

  ‘My dear boy,’ his mother replied, ‘ you wouldn’t realise, but Lavinia is so like Lord Rowan’s wife, Mélanie, he could not refuse to care for her—he could not find it in his heart to do so. I did not see the likeness before, Rupert, but I do now.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Giles.

  ‘Mmm,’ mused the Earl, whilst Jonathan merely smiled to himself.

  So it was that the next day Lord Melmoth, taking his elder son with him for support, found himself undertaking a journey of over a hundred miles to Lord Rowan’s country residence in Warwickshire. They made the journey leisurely, being in no great hurry, and stayed overnight en route to arrive at ‘Avonridge’ the following afternoon.

  Although the Earl of Rowan and Lord Melmoth were business associates, Lord Rowan as the older and more senior partner took a less active part in the day to day running of their trade and now that Lord Melmoth’s sons had both joined the business, the Earl
of Rowan was content to allow the affairs to rest comfortably in the capable hands of the three Eldons. Of course, he was kept fully informed of all important transactions and consulted on all major matters—but his ‘working’ days were far behind him, and instead he lived alone, save for his servants, in his country mansion, heartily weary of the pressures and disappointments of city life.

  ‘Be just the thing for Rowan, y’know,’ Lord Melmoth said suddenly after many miles of silence.

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘To have Lavinia live with him. Just the thing—far too lonely the fellow is, all alone in that great palace of a place in the middle of the countryside. Just the thing.’

  ‘Mama is right, then?’ Jonathan smiled.

  ‘Your mother’s always right—well,’ Lord Melmoth chuckled, ‘chose me, didn’t she?’

  ‘How are you going to tell him about Myron?’

  ‘Lord knows,’ the Earl groaned. ‘What a thing to have to tell the chap.’

  And their journey continued in silence.

  Had their minds not been so preoccupied with the unpleasant task ahead of them, the journey would have afforded them much pleasure for in the pale, wintry sunlight the countryside through which they passed was a delight. Serene, undulating hills and fields with slow winding rivers and patches of woodland, and the villages of thatched cottages and tudor houses—all gave the impression of gentle beauty and peaceful harmony.

  ‘Avonridge’ lay in its own parkland through which the river Avon ran. Deer raised their heads inquisitively as the carriage wound through the grounds to the house itself set on the highest point of the land belonging to the Earl of Rowan.

  Lord Rowan was surprised, but delighted to see his friend and colleague, for though the Eldon family were frequent guests at ‘Avonridge’ it was unusual for the Earl to arrive without invitation.

  ‘This is an unexpected pleasure, Melmoth,’ Lord Rowan said as they were shown into his study. The Earl of Rowan was a tall, distinguished-looking man, with an almost military bearing. His voice was deep. His silver hair was still abundant for a man of his years, springing from his broad forehead, above bright blue eyes which could change with surprising swiftness from sternness to twinkling mirth, or vice versa. His manner was ever-charming though somewhat reserved, and his one trait was to twirl the fine points of his moustache.