A Debutante In Disguise. Eleanor Webster

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СКАЧАТЬ 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. СКАЧАТЬ