Читать книгу A Debutante In Disguise - Eleanor Webster, Eleanor Webster - Страница 11

The words, the voice, melodious but firm, brought everything back. Tony remembered that last Season before he went to war. He remembered the dances, music, laughter, warm, perfumed rooms glittering with mirrors and chandeliers. He remembered card games, horse races, fox hunts and his facility for wit and humour—for saying the right thing.

Now, he said nothing or said nothing right. He was in a foreign landscape, uncomfortable within his own skin. He avoided his friends, hiding within the fog of alcoholic stupor.

Whereas before he’d enjoyed friendships and a good story or joke, now he was the story, always under curious scrutiny. Or an observer and everything about him was but a play, a bad play which evoked little interest.

She’d worn a bright-green dress, he remembered. She had been reading about smallpox or cowpox and she’d had remarkable green eyes.

For a moment, the memory was so vivid, it shook him. It was as though he could almost see the girl in her bright ruffles, with those mesmerising eyes.

The clarity of this memory was oddly shocking because, since his injury, his memory had been peculiarly warped. His recollection of his life before Waterloo had felt distant, separate from him as though details from another person’s experience.

But those insignificant moments with the peculiar Miss Barton seemed more real than anything else in this peculiar existence which had been so distinctly dissected; the before and after.

‘Right,’ Miss Barton said crisply. ‘Unless you wished to talk to me further, I will provide Lady Beauchamp with some water.’

‘What?’ He was jerked back to reality and felt again an oddity, a stranger in a world which should be familiar. ‘No, you will not. Lady Beauchamp’s medic advised against water, you should not advise otherwise, certainly not based on a few conversations with a midwife.’

‘Midwives,’ she corrected. ‘And I have never read that a woman’s fluid intake should be limited when with child and I have read extensively on the subject.’

‘No doubt.’ Again, the image of the odd girl in her odd dress flickered before his inner eye. ‘However, I am certain our physician has also read a considerable amount. Indeed, I do not feel that we need impose upon your time any more. I am certain a servant can get anything we might need.’

‘Actually, likely I do need to get you anything you need, because my sister-in-law has every servant out on the lawn and you scared her off by your unpleasant demeanour. Anyway, I am happy for the excuse. I am not particularly fond of chatting.’

‘I remember.’

She glanced at him, a frown puckering her forehead, and he realised that she had not yet placed him. Not surprising—he had been a man of fair looks and now—

With a tiny shrug as though tracking down his reference was not worth the effort, Miss Barton walked back to Elsie. She moved briskly, her unfashionable grey skirts swishing. He wondered that neither the elder nor the younger Mrs Barton had not yet improved her style. Although the gown oddly suited her, the soft grey making her hair and green eyes the more vibrant.

‘You are with child,’ Miss Barton said to Elsie, in that direct way of hers, which would have been shocking in any other unmarried female, but seemed in no way unusual for this woman.

‘Yes, six or seven months.’

‘Your wrists are swollen. Your ankles, too. And your fingers, although that is hard to discern as you are wearing gloves. From your comment about your slippers I would surmise that your feet are also distended. In addition, your face appears unnaturally puffy.’

Elsie laughed. ‘You certainly have a way with words.’

‘As I recall, Miss Barton is under the misapprehension that she has medical knowledge.’ Tony spoke sharply, although this was in part because he realised the woman was right. Elsie looked puffy and the bracelet she always wore was tight, as though cutting into the skin. Why hadn’t he noticed?

‘I am not under any misapprehension. I do not suffer from misapprehensions in general. Now I must get you water.’ Miss Barton took a glass tumbler from the tray which held water and other refreshments.

Her positivity grated. She seemed so sure of herself. This irritated—perhaps because he had once been sure of himself and now was sure of nothing. He remembered his amused curiosity as he had chuckled inwardly at the quaint girl with her strange ideas. He had told Elsie about her, although she’d scarcely attended. That was also the night that she and George had fallen in love. They had known each other for ever, but on that night, friend had morphed into suitor.

And two months later, Father had walked her up the aisle. Elsie had looked happy and beautiful. Edgar had been typically pompous in his regimental uniform and George had looked as though he would burst for joy.

Then the church bells had rung jubilantly as the wedding party stepped out into a bright, cloudless day.

The splash of water into the tumbler caught his attention, piercing through the memories clogging his brain.

‘Miss Barton!’ He spoke hardly. ‘Lady Beauchamp’s doctor says she should not have water.’

‘Then her doctor is a fool.’

‘He is a trained physician,’ he retorted.

‘One does not preclude the other.’

‘You are little more than a school girl and you suggest you know more than a qualified doctor?’

‘Based on my experience—’

‘Your experience? What experience?’

Colour flushed into her cheeks and she opened her lips before snapping them shut. ‘I—’

‘I don’t care,’ Elsie said suddenly and loudly from the couch. ‘I am so thirsty. It is all I can think about. Surely a sip will not do me harm.’

‘It will not. We have water here.’ Miss Barton handed her the tumbler. ‘And keep your feet elevated. You said you have been having headaches. What about vertigo?’

‘Yes, some. I told Dr Jeffers. He did not seem much concerned. Do you—do you think the baby is fine?’ Elsie asked.

Tony heard her fear and felt his worry balloon.

Miss Barton nodded, but Tony saw concern flicker across her mobile features and felt another twist of fear, cutting through his usual numbness.

‘I will summon Jeffers here,’ he said.

‘No, no, please, do not,’ Elsie begged. ‘I feel so tired and I would so much prefer to go home.’

Tony paused. To his irritation, he found himself glancing towards the authoritative young woman in her unfashionable garb and ruddy hair.

She nodded. ‘Likely Lady Beauchamp would feel more comfortable at home.’

‘See!’ Elsie said.

‘The fact that a young miss approves is hardly a deciding factor.’

‘But the ride is quite short—little more than an hour. Most of it is in the shade of the woods and, if we keep the windows down, there will be a breeze and I am feeling much improved.’

Elsie sipped her water, sighing, her relief so palpable that Tony wondered whether perhaps this irritating young woman was not in the right and not the self-important Dr Jeffers.

‘You are looking better,’ he acknowledged. ‘I will summon the carriage and request that a servant be sent to Jeffers so that he can meet us at Beauchamp.’ He went to ring the bell, but was stopped by Miss Barton’s sudden interruption.

‘I realised where we met before,’ she said, her usually serious face lit with delight. ‘It has been bothering me—you know, like a blister when one is walking. It was at my debut and we talked in Lord Entwhistle’s library. You have changed.’

‘A bullet hole and burns will do that.’

He said these things, he knew, to intimidate, to push people away.

‘Yes, although the scarring is limited.’ She eyed him critically.

Oddly, he felt a peculiar relief. Usually people would look his way as though oddly drawn to his wounds and then, their curiosity satisfied, glance away, their distaste and disgust evident.

Turning from her, he tugged on the bell pull, his movement awkward.

‘You are still injured?’ she said.

‘It is nothing.’

‘It impacts your movement which is not nothing.’

‘Regardless, it is certainly not your concern,’ he said, tightly. ‘Now, if you will permit me to focus on my sister, I will transport her home where she might receive the attention of her qualified physician. Provided you approve, of course.’

‘Indeed, that seems an admirable plan,’ Letty said.

* * *

Letty slept well. Perhaps she was just too exhausted to do otherwise. No child arrived and she did not wake until late the next morning. Indeed, the sun was high in the sky and brightly shining through the lace curtains when Sarah roused her.

‘What is it?’ she asked drowsily, rubbing her head and squinting against the sun’s glare.

‘It is past noon and Mrs Barton, your mother, is here,’ Sarah explained.

‘Huh.’ Letty pulled herself up to a seated position, still squinting. ‘No wonder you are looking perturbed. Bring me some tea and I will get dressed. Best make it strong.’

‘Be quick. She hates waiting and does not approve of sleeping in of a morning.’

‘Very strong,’ Letty muttered.

* * *

Some thirty minutes later, Letty entered the morning room. Her mother sat, as always, ramrod straight, having chosen the most uncomfortable chair available. In reality, her mother was not old. Letty had patients still bearing children at her age. Moreover, she didn’t even look old, her hair had only a few strands of grey.

However, Mrs Barton’s worried aspect always gave the impression not only of age, but of her never being young.

‘Lettuce, I am glad you graced us with your presence,’ Mrs Barton said, pushing her lips together with that characteristic click of the tongue.

‘I aim to please.’ Letty crossed the room, placing a dutiful kiss on her mother’s smooth cheek, before seating herself in a more comfortable chair opposite.

‘Although I do not know what time you think this is to be rising?’

‘One in the afternoon,’ Letty affirmed, glancing at the mantel clock.

‘Are you ill?’

‘I do not think so.’

‘Only severe illness is sufficient reason to lie abed until this hour.’

‘I will try to remedy the situation. Would a cold or chill suffice?’

A frown puckered her mother’s forehead. ‘Your sense of humour is too much like your father’s. And you disappeared yesterday almost as soon as you had arrived.’

‘Disappeared—gracious, I feel like a magician at a village fair. I went into the library and then home.’

‘You were invited to a garden party, not to skulk in the library.’

‘Indeed, skulking sounds positively criminal. You always make my life feel so much more exciting than its reality.’

Her mother’s forehead furrowed into a deeper crease. ‘Criminal is not “exciting”. And you always talk in riddles. Your father was much the same. We are lucky that your brother had the good sense to marry a young lady related to a duke.’

‘I believe the relation is distant and Father’s money, as opposed to Ramsey’s sense, might have had more to do with it,’ Letty murmured.

‘Your comment is ill bred and ungrateful. Your brother’s marriage to dear Florence provides you entrance into a level of society I never enjoyed. But do you not take advantage of this? No. You spent close to two years with her in London and did not acquire a single suitor. In fact, you hardly seemed to socialise at all—or only under duress. Now you live here on your own in a ludicrously eccentric manner while squandering your inheritance which is the only thing likely to entice a suitable husband.’

‘My delightful personality and good looks will not?’ Letty quipped. ‘Anyway, my lifestyle is much too frugal for much squandering.’

‘You have purchased a house and must run that establishment.’

‘Two, actually. I rent one to the doctor next door.’

‘Who is also odd, from what I hear. No one even sees the man. Anyway, back to the garden party. Dear Florence purposefully invited Mr Chester. Indeed, she arranged the party all specially for you, you know.’

‘I didn’t. It certainly looked lovely. I appreciated everything. Particularly the elephant. And the giraffe.’ Letty sat in the chair opposite, lolling in excess as though to compensate for her mother’s stiffness.

‘Elephant? I do hope you are not losing your reason. It is not done, you know.’

‘I was referring to the box tree sculpted like an elephant. In fact, the box trees all resembled wild animals. Combined with the stone lion, it felt like a veritable African adventure.’

Her mother’s frown deepened. ‘I am uncertain if African adventures are entirely appropriate.’

‘Really, that quite ruins my plans for next week. By the way, did you want tea or any other refreshment?’

‘Can Sarah make tea?’

‘She can boil water.’

‘Fine, but I won’t be diverted. Florence wanted you to meet Mr Chester. We both did. It was excessively irritating that you did not.’

‘Chester?’ Letty frowned. She remembered a middle-aged gentleman of that name.

‘He has a sizeable income and is related to an earl.’

‘Doesn’t he also have a bald head, a bad temper—and a wife?’

‘She’s dead. A month since,’ Mrs Barton announced with unseemly enthusiasm.

‘Gracious, I can’t drag the poor man down the aisle when she is hardly cold in her grave.’

‘You wouldn’t drag him down the aisle immediately. You would reach an understanding. The wedding would come after a seemly interlude. And really, you cannot be too picky. You are not in the first blush of youth and no great beauty.’

‘Certainly, I am guaranteed not to become vain,’ Letty muttered.

‘Moreover, you have chosen this eccentric lifestyle,’ her mother continued, ignoring the comment. ‘I mean you do not have a proper cook, butler or scullery maid. And sharing Sarah with that young doctor, I don’t think that’s the thing at all.’

‘I hardly think my virtue will be compromised because my maid also dusts for a gentleman.’

Her mother made another tutting sound. ‘You can scoff all you want. But Florence and Ramsey will have their own family soon. I know your father left you comfortably placed, but your funds are not unlimited. And Ramsey cannot be expected to support you in this nonsense.’

Letty rubbed the cloth of her skirt between her fingers, then stilled her hand. She’d heard this all a thousand times and refused to believe her mother’s doomsday prediction. After all, she was almost self-sufficient.

Although she did tend to be paid in rather a lot of root vegetables which, she supposed, might lead to a healthy lifestyle, but hardly one of affluence.

Yes, it was a tenuous, fragile success and one based on smoke and mirrors. The purchase of the two houses and the doctor’s buggy had taken a considerable sum and her training in London was not without cost. Moreover, it would only take ‘Dr Hatfield’ to make some mistake, or some sharp-eyed individual to see beyond the wig, spectacles, her flattened chest and man’s attire.

Briefly, her mother’s face softened. ‘Besides, this must get lonely. Your father and I weren’t close exactly, but we shared a common goal to look after you and Ramsey, to secure the best for you. Surely you must want a family, children?’

For a moment, Letty remembered Mrs Jamison’s expression as she held her baby. It would be something to feel such love. It would be something to create new life. Yet she remembered also the mothers she had seen in hospital whose children could not be saved. She remembered the desperation in their eyes. They had been broken by the loss.

The pain of losing a child must be more awful than anything she could imagine. She’d felt broken enough by her father’s unexpected death. Even now she could see him in stark detail, his face ashen, contorted with pain as his hand flew in a futile gesture to his chest before dropping to the floor.

There was nothing she could do.

Was that when she’d decided that she must find a way, however desperate and crazy, to pursue medicine? Was that when she’d realised that she could not be satisfied with reading alone or even sneaking after the midwives?

Those visits had started a few years earlier. Whenever her mother was in London, Letty would wander to Mrs Soames’s cottage, fascinated with its bundles of herbs hanging from the ceiling, air heavy with the scent of caudle. Later, she became more daring, tagging along when Mrs Soames was summoned to attend a birth. At first, Mrs Soames had shooed her away, but eventually she’d been allowed to boil water or bring in the hot caudle for the mother to drink.

Of course, she’d been motivated in part by rebellion, a need to experience something before becoming enclosed within the noose of societal expectation. But it had become much more than that.

‘I don’t think I have quite the same aspirations as other women.’

‘Tell me something I do not know,’ her mother said with a rare glint of humour, albeit grim. ‘Again, I blame your father. He educated you in a way which did not prepare you to fit into society.’

‘Perhaps you are right about that,’ Letty said.

‘And I was away too much in London. I always found the country so dull. Besides, I worried about the wrong things. One fears one’s daughters will go to dances before they are officially come out or make a fool of themselves over some handsome boy, not wander about as a ministering angel.’

At that moment, the door swung open and Sarah bustled in with the tea tray, placing it on the round table with extra care, as though well aware of Mrs Barton’s critical eye.

Thankful for the interruption, Letty poured the tea and for a few seconds the room was quiet except for the trickle of liquid and Sarah’s soft retreating footsteps as she exited into the corridor and towards the kitchen. Letty handed her mother the cup and Mrs Barton sipped, making no comment.

Fortunately, Mrs Barton chose to abandon the topic of Letty’s adolescence. It had not been pleasant. Her mother had eventually learned of her escapades and put an abrupt stop to those excursions. Even her father had not entirely approved when he’d become fully aware of her activities. Indeed, he’d suggested that she would do better to read about modern advances than to acquire knowledge too steeped in superstitious folklore to be of use. He added also that the former would be safer and considerably less distressing for her mother.

As she drank her tea, Mrs Barton focused more intently on recounting Mr Chester’s virtues and insisted that she introduce Letty to that gentleman as soon as she could determine an appropriate and timely manner to do so.

‘You must realise that a widower of good character and sizeable income will not remain available for long and it is incumbent upon us to move in an expeditious manner.’

‘But—’

‘And if you wanted a younger man with hair, you should have acquired one while in London with Florence, which was the perfect opportunity.’

Letty opened her mouth and then snapped it shut. She had no desire for a husband, with or without hair. In fact, she knew she would be a dreadful wife, but it would be impossible to convince her mother about this.

Instead, she listened stoically, hoping that Mrs Barton would eventually run out of adjectives to describe Mr Chester. Surely, there was only so much one can say about a dead wife and a solid bank balance.

Standing at last, Mrs Barton glanced around Letty’s drawing room. ‘Sarah keeps it tidy enough, I’ll grant you, and I am pleased you do not have too many of those books in evidence which absolutely screech “bluestocking”. But living here with only a servant for company is no substitute for family.’

With those words, her mother left. Letty saw her to the door and then flopped down with unabashed relief, lying on the sofa with her legs inelegantly draped over its arms as the carriage wheels rattled into the distance.

Departure was always the best thing about her mother’s visits.

Her poor mother—she would have been so happy with a nice girl who wanted to get married to a nice gentleman of superior social status with a moderate bank account and have nice children who also wished to marry nice individuals with superior social status and moderate bank accounts.

At times Letty wondered whether she should be grateful to her father for enabling her to escape such a dire fate, or angry that, as her mother said, he had ensured she could never fit into an appropriate role, as prescribed by society.

The door opened. Sarah entered, her face crinkled with worry.

‘What is it?’ Letty asked, lowering her feet and sitting upright.

‘A note, miss. For the doctor.’

‘Very well.’ Letty took the note. It appeared to be on good-quality paper and more literate than the usual summons from a villager or farmer. Her gaze skimmed the terse lines. The writing was in bold black ink and in a masculine hand and she felt a start that was half-panic and half-excitement.

‘Good gracious—Dr Hatfield is requested to provide a consultation to a Lady Elsie Beauchamp,’ she said.

* * *

Tony glared out of his window. He sipped his coffee which was strong and harsh the way he liked it. He was being a damned fool, he knew. It was ludicrous to be swayed by the notions of a redheaded miss with interesting eyes, but lacking a shred of medical knowledge. Dr Jeffers had trained in Edinburgh. He plied his trade successfully, or so it would appear, given his horse, carriage and clothes.

Tony drummed his fingers against the window sill. Indeed, Jeffers had turned up promptly enough following their return from the garden party. He had immediately suggested leeches to withdraw the excess fluid in Elsie’s arms and legs, which made sense, he supposed. The physic had also directed the continued limitation of Elsie’s fluid intake, which also made sense.

After these pronouncements, Dr Jeffers had settled himself with Tony in the library and dedicated himself to his own fluid intake in the form of several brandies.

And Elsie had almost cried when she’d heard she should not drink water or lemonade.

Today she did not look a whit better.

She looked worse.

A lot worse.

Tony could feel the fear. It cut through his numbness. It lined his stomach. It made his mouth dry and his body hollow. Elsie was his only living sibling and the child she carried was his best friend’s heir.

He rang for Mason. ‘Has that new doctor come yet?’ he asked as soon as his man had entered the study.

‘No—sir—but the footman returned and said that he would attend her ladyship.’

Tony nodded. ‘It cannot do any harm to get a second opinion. I would take her up to London, but she begged me not to do so. She said the journey would make her feel too ill, especially in this heat.’

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘I will not have my sister suffer because Dr Jeffers is too busy drinking brandy to properly concentrate on her.’

‘No, my lord.’

‘And you said he was good?’

‘According to the cook’s sister. She spoke quite highly of him, sir.’

‘I am relying on Mrs Greene’s sister?’

‘Mrs Peterson, my lord. Mrs Greene is the housekeeper.’

‘I am relying on the report from a random relative of one of the staff here?’

‘Two, sir. The second footman’s mother had a good report. She didn’t like Dr Jeffers, sir, although you were kind enough to pay for the cost of his visit. Called him foolish, sir.’

Then her doctor is a fool.

He smiled, remembering Miss Barton’s words. ‘The second footman’s mother is not alone in her opinion.’

‘Er—no, sir.’

Tony had felt something yesterday as Miss Barton had brushed by him. He’d experienced a tightening within his stomach and an added level of awareness as she’d skewered him with that bright luminous gaze. It was like a shadow—a reflection of what had been. Or what he had once been capable of feeling.

Before Waterloo, he would have noted her curves, the creaminess of her skin, the elegance of her neck, that russet hair and the firm line of her lips, the bottom lip full and slightly pouted. The very dowdiness of the grey dress almost enhanced her appeal, like an intriguing package, delightfully obscured.

He swore. His hand had jerked, spilling the coffee.

‘My lord?’

‘Clean up this mess. I seem intent on burning my good hand, as well.’

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘And tell me as soon as that new doctor arrives.’

‘Yes, my lord.’ Mason dabbed at Tony’s hand and at the liquid spilled on the sill.

Tony brushed away his efforts irritably. ‘“Yes” and “no”—is that the extent of your linguistic capabilities?’ he muttered. ‘You sound like a bloody parrot. Go. You know I hate hovering.’

‘Yes, my lord. I mean, no, my lord.’