This stopped Harry Penwood in full flow, and there was a brief silence, before Mary replied.
‘Yes, Mama, I can see that it would simplify matters, but we all know that life is not simple.’
‘Young girls should listen to the wisdom of their301parents,’ added Lady Damerham, ‘for I am sure Lady Roxton will have warned her daughter about cozening gentlemen. A mother knows best.’
This silenced even Mary, who had rarely found her mama’s advice even pertinent. The coffee was brought in, and Harry only resumed his tale when the three of them were alone again.
‘All I did was say to her, very gently, that her innocence left her vulnerable to the unscrupulous, and she became positively stiff and stern with me. What else should I have done?’ He sounded hard done by.
‘Kept your own counsel, and left remonstrance to her mother,’ said Mary, not unkindly.
‘But …’ He looked both dejected, and a little sulky. ‘So I have ruined everything.’
‘Not quite, just set yourself back a little.Nil desperandum, my dear friend,nil desperandum.’ With which he had to be content.
Lady Kempsey was in her early fifties, but illness made her look older. She had been a devoted wife who believed her spouse to be right in all things, unless it involved colours, for he had been colour-blind, and had laughingly said that he considered his calling to the Church a great blessing in itself, since he did not have to worry about what he wore each day. In her widowhood she was stoic, bearing both her loss and her infirmity with a quiet acceptance which her children found very moving. It had been her decision to live with her widowed sister rather302than be a burden upon her children. Her excuse had been Augusta’s proximity to excellent medical practitioners, but deep down all her children knew that their mother had made the decision so as not to trammel them with her ill health, which, when severe, almost confined her to her chair. They were grateful, but guilt-ridden for feeling relieved.
Sir Rowland was a loving son, though he was aware whenever he spent time with his mother his guilt was increased. His mama was also inclined to worry over her ‘boys’ and was apt to say ‘Oh dear, what would your father advise’ upon hearing of any decision they had taken. Telling her that he was contemplating matrimony was not, thought Sir Rowland, going to be easy, and he did not broach the topic with her for several days.
When he did so, he enumerated Miss Lound’s excellent qualities, commending her good sense and competence, and carefully avoiding any mention that she did not share his mama’s belief in male superiority in the least. Lady Kempsey was surprised, though as she said repeatedly, he was ‘the right age to marry’, which made him think of the Hesiod in the library at Tapley End. However, with such an important decision in life, she was acutely aware that her elder son was making his choice without his father’s invaluable guidance, and was therefore agitated. Sir Rowland consoled himself with the fact that his sire would, he was sure, have liked Mary Lound, for all her independence, for she was genuine and honest.
After five days with his mama, Sir Rowland parted303from her affectionately, and went on to London, which he enjoyed more than usual because so much of what he did there was connected with Mary. He even had a list of purchases, which he ticked off as he made them. Sweetmeats from Gunter’s was the simplest, and he came away not only with a prettily wrapped box of sugared almonds, but also some Turkish delight, which he thought the ladies in the dower house might not have encountered very often, if at all, and some sugar plums, which he knew his brother would enjoy if they were in the house.
When it came to perfumes, there were plenty of vendors in Bond Street, but he went to the one with which he was familiar, Mr Floris in Jermyn Street, whose emporium was the longest established. It was only once he had entered the portals of the shop that he felt the embarrassment of his situation. A husband might purchase a perfume that his wife or even, if he strayed, his mistress adored, but he was doing so for two ladies with whom he was bound by neither blood nor yet intimacy, and unless he simply asked for lavender water and attar of roses, would be making a wild guess. He cleared his throat rather self-consciously, and began hesitantly.
‘I, er, wish to purchase some lavender water and a perfume that would please a lady who favours the scent of roses.’
The assistant gave a small smile.
‘Can you give me some further description of the lady,304perhaps, sir?’ he enquired. ‘It sometimes helps to form an image of what she would suit, though of course her own natural fragrance will subtly alter a perfume.’
‘She is young, but not straight from the schoolroom, and likes the fresh smells of outdoors, grass, flowers, that sort of thing.’ Sir Rowland did not think adding that she liked to fish would help much.
‘Well, sir, if she already shows a preference for the rose, then might I suggest our White Rose? It is a perfume that Mr Floris created with rose at its very heart, but with subtle additions that enhance it, making it more complex than a simple attar of roses. You may detect jasmine and violet, and it has a hint of grassy freshness. Let me show you.’ The assistant selected a bottle from the shelf and dipped the end of a narrow strip of good, thick paper into it. He then handed the paper to Sir Rowland. ‘There, sir, let your senses take up the fragrance.’
Sir Rowland sniffed, a little gingerly. It reminded him of the scent of Miss Lound up close, but it was not just a bunch of roses under his nose. He imagined her with this perfume clinging to her hair, on her skin, being close enough to him for him to take it in, and his eyes half closed. The assistant, well used to gentlemen ‘imagining’, did not say a word.
‘Yes’, said Sir Rowland, slowly. ‘Yes, this would please her, I am sure. I will take a bottle of that, and the lavender water.’
Five minutes later, with his purchases carefully305wrapped in tissue paper, and tied prettily with ribbon, Sir Rowland left the shop feeling pleased with himself. He walked up to Piccadilly, and thence into Bond Street, and in New Bond Street saw an advertisement in the window of Mr Phillips’ auction offices for a sale the following day. Sir Rowland did not come up to London very often, and this seemed a good opportunity to see if there were any items that he might think suited to Tapley End. He entered, and Mr Phillips, who recognised him by sight even though he was not so frequent a purchaser as to be known by name, greeted him as if the encounter had just enhanced his day.
‘We have the contents of an estate coming up for sale tomorrow, sir, and the late Lord Stinsford had a good eye. There are some nice Dutch paintings, and some good bronzes.’
Sir Rowland decided that he might spend a very pleasant hour or so viewing the sale on a cold November day, and surveyed the lots with a critical eye. He was very taken with a van der Neer landscape by moonlight, and could imagine it upon the wall in the yellow saloon. It was only when he had finished inspecting the paintings that he noticed a cabinet containing miniatures, and when he looked down at the images his heart skipped a beat. Among them was one of a man with coppery hair and a neatly trimmed beard, staring boldly from the little oval frame. He was quite young, and dressed in a slashed doublet of green and gold, and was fingering a golden chain which lay upon his breast. In a flowing script it306was annotated ‘Anno Dom. 1586 andAetatis suae28’. Beneath the miniature was written ‘Unknown gentleman by Nicholas Hilliard’. Could it be Valentyne Lound, wondered Sir Rowland? Date and age fitted, as did the garb. He asked to inspect it more closely, and asked for a magnifying lens. One was brought and he looked at the tiny picture intently, not so much for clues as proof, for he felt instinctively that this was the right man. Seeing a resemblance to Sir Robert Lound was too easily done if one wished to find it, and could not be trusted, but the hand that held the chain wore a gold signet ring. Was it fanciful to think that the marks upon it, tiny as it was, were ‘VL’? Sir Rowland tried to clear the excitement from his thought processes. If one added all the evidence together, what chance was there that another copper-haired man, aged eight and twenty, wearing green and gold and fingering a golden chain, had been painted by Hilliard in 1586?
‘Is there the provenance to this piece?’ Sir Rowland asked, and the porter fetched Mr Phillips.
‘A very nice miniature,’ announced Mr Phillips, ‘acquired by Lord Stinsford from a sale in Cirencester in 1778. He made notes of his purchases, which makes matters so very much easier, though the sitter is, alas, unknown.’
That, thought Sir Rowland, clinched the matter. Whilst an item might have travelled a great distance in over a century and a half, if it was only as far away from Tapley End as Cirencester in 1778, this must be307Valentyne. Perhaps a previous Lord Cradley, or the descendants of his steward, if it was he who had stolen it originally, had chosen to sell and realise its value in money. He thanked Mr Phillips, checked the time of the sale for the morrow, and went away with a feeling of eagerness tempered by the realisation that he could not simply buy the piece at whatever the cost. The estimate he had been given was quite reasonable, but he had seen items he liked reach double the estimate or more in the past. There was also the issue of returning it to Miss Lound. She might jib at him giving it to her as a gift. A bottle of perfume was one thing, but this was another. Could it be an engagement gift? Handing back a lady’s ancestor sounded rather outlandish, and a jewel would be more normal. This made him contemplate the jewellers’ shop windows in a manner he had not done previously, though nothing particular caught his eye.
He was not a regular attendee of his club, and November was hardly a month in which it was busy, but as he sat by a cheering fireside after dinner, he was hailed by a man he knew, which made for a pleasant evening. Knowing the gentleman spent far more time in the Metropolis, Sir Rowland asked his opinion for the best place to find ‘something a bit special’ for a lady.
‘Rundell and Bridge, my dear fellow. Not cheap, of course, but always the best quality and my mama would not go anywhere else even to have her jewels cleaned.308You will find them in Ludgate Hill. Mr Bridge could sell a blind man a pair of spectacles, and I am sure he flatters the ladies into purchases, but he knows his jewels.’
The next morning, Sir Rowland, who by nature kept country hours and rose early, took a cab to Ludgate Hill and entered the premises of Rundell, Bridge and Rundell, to give them their full name. Having discounted purchasing a ring upon the grounds that he did not know the size of her fingers, Sir Rowland was taken with the idea of a bracelet, and it was these that he asked to see. He knew she wore aquamarines, and there was a very pretty aquamarine and diamond chip bracelet that caught his eye. He was not to be swayed, even by the silver tongue of Mr Bridge, into a bracelet of emeralds, for if she had no other pieces they were too gaudy, and they were also considerably more expensive. Since he wanted to conserve his guineas for the salesroom in the afternoon, he left with a velvet-lined box containing a gift which would not look parsimonious but would not break the bank. Sir Rowland was not a man who spent money without thought and made a point of settling his bills very promptly. A tiny part of him was quite shocked at his own behaviour, dashing about Town expending considerable sums, and upon a lady who was not, as yet, promised to him. The greater part, however, was filled with delight and anticipation of how she would react.
The auction room in New Bond Street was well309attended, but not as crowded as Sir Rowland had encountered on other occasions. He was fortunate in that quite a few present were interested in a Vermeer interior, and after that had been sold they drifted away. It meant that Sir Rowland was able to purchase the van der Neer at the lowest end of the estimate. However, when it came to the miniatures the prices were higher. Sir Rowland hoped that this was because the first three that were sold were of known individuals. It was with a racing pulse that he raised a hand to commence the bidding upon Lot 82. It was apparent from the start that there was one other interested bidder, but of course it only took one to send the price beyond reach. However, at mid-estimate the gentleman shook his head with a small smile, leaving Sir Rowland the poorer in guineas, but the joyous owner of Valentyne Lound’s missing portrait. He could imagine the moment he presented it to her already, and there was not a shred of doubt in his mind that she would be speechless with delight.
