Marrying Miss Hemingford

by Nadia Nichols

  She would not have been so complacent if she could have seen inside Anne’s mind. Her niece was not so easily turned. She could not blow out a flame that had been kindled so suddenly and so hotly when she had thought all hope of ever being warmed by its heat had passed. Love, passion, desire, whatever anyone liked to call it, had invaded her heart, her mind, her soul and could not be quenched. But quenching it and admitting it was hopeless were two different things. She would work alongside him, help him to achieve his aims and perhaps one day… She shook herself. What was the sense of dreaming impossible dreams?

  Chapter Six

  Because Mrs Bartrum and Captain Gosforth entered wholeheartedly into the fund-raising, Major Mancroft felt obliged to join in too, and a working committee was set up that also included Mrs Bartrum, Lady Mancroft, Anne and Dr Tremayne. They met in a room in Tuppen’s library on Marine Parade and thrashed out ways and means of raising money as quickly as possible. This included proposals for a concert at the Old Ship, a rout at Lady Mancroft’s home, and horse racing and sport on the fields to the west of the town, for which there would be an entrance fee that would go to the fund. Lord Mancroft, prompted by his wife, had promised to donate prizes for the winners. And capping it all would be a grand charity ball at the Castle. It was all looking very promising.

  Anne was never alone with Justin, Aunt Bartrum saw to that. Not that Anne minded; in a way she was relieved because she would not have known what to say to him. Even seeing him sitting across the library table brought back that scene outside his house when he had kissed his sister-in-law. She had felt hurt, as a rejected lover might feel, but it had not entered her head at the time that it was anything more than a husband kissing his wife. Since she discovered the truth, the memory had continued to haunt her. Whenever she thought about it, she was overwhelmed with feelings of disgust and could not meet his eyes. Whatever had made her imagine she was in love? She had had a lucky escape.

  But instead of feeling fortunate she was immersed in misery. Something wonderful, something that could have raised her to heights of ecstasy, something for which she longed with all her being, had been snatched from her before it had had time to develop. She felt old, older than her twenty-seven years, old as time itself, and weary beyond imagining. But that was inside. Outside she was bright and cheerful, full of plans, offering her services in whatever capacity they were needed and accompanying her aunt on social outings. She wore herself out so that when she finally fell into bed, she was too exhausted to stay awake. But even her dreams were haunted by the man who had won her heart and disdained it.

  And to make matters worse, Mrs Tremayne seemed to be everywhere. Wherever Anne and Aunt Bartrum went, be it to someone’s soirée or for a stroll along the seafront, she was there. Sometimes she had only her maid for company and then there was nothing they could do but invite her to join them. Sometimes she was in the middle of a gaggle of noisy young people of both sexes, prominent among them a certain Captain Smollett, who looked vaguely familiar to Anne, though she could not place him. In no time at all the gossiping tongues were wagging over her. Why was she in Brighton? Where was her husband? What was he thinking of to allow his wife to stay at an hotel with only a maid for company?

  Had she really come to support her brother-in-law in his efforts to open a hospital? She said that was the reason, but she had arrived before that project had been anything more than a dream and she was rarely in his company. That could have been because he was too busy, but the tattlemongers were adept at inventing stories if they could not get to the truth of the matter. Mrs Tremayne was becoming the talk of Brighton. As far as Justin was concerned, there had been gossip enough over that broken engagement three years before and he did not want it to resurface, especially here, where he had hoped none of it was known.

  He wished with all his heart she would leave the town, but she showed no sign of granting his wish. ‘You must do something before she ruins your plans, old friend,’ Walter Gosforth told him one day when they met at the library where Justin had gone to consult a reference book. ‘No one will support a man who is surrounded by gossip and innuendo.’

  Not wishing to meet her, Justin wrote to her, suggesting she should lose no time in returning to her husband who must surely be missing her, but that only served to bring her to his door. She swept in as she had done before, ignoring the waiting patients and the protests of Mrs Armistead. Sighing, he took off his stained apron, washed his hands and led her to his drawing room.

  She had no sooner sat down than she was up again in a rustle of taffeta, waving his letter under his nose. ‘Justin, how could you be so insensible of my feelings as to write in such cold terms? Anyone would think I had come to Brighton expressly to upset you. How can you be so cruel? I am not your enemy.’ She stopped ranting and her voice took on a wheedling tone. ‘You loved me…’

  ‘More fool I.’

  ‘You cannot mean that. We were everything to each other once…’

  ‘Once.’

  ‘You are still everything to me, Justin. Living with Andrew is hell, but…’ She managed a sob. ‘I would try to be a good wife to him if only you would come home. If I knew I had your support, I could endure his cruelty…’

  ‘Cruelty, Sophie? Surely not.’

  ‘Oh, he is not violent, but he has a cruel tongue. I had to get away, just for a few days, just to see you, to remember what it was like before…’

  Andrew could be sharp-tongued, as Justin very well knew, but he found it difficult to believe that amounted to cruelty. Even if it were true, there was little he could do about it. He had no intention of going home and being on the receiving end of his brother’s sharp riposte and his father’s disapproval of his way of life.

  ‘It is all in the past,’ he said. ‘You are married to Andrew and should be at home with him, not being escorted around Brighton by rakes like Captain Smollett.’

  ‘The remedy is in your hands, Justin. Escort me yourself. There is the day of the races and the Charity Ball at the Castle. If you escort me, then no one will say a thing against it. You are, after all, my brother-in-law and can stand in for Andrew.’

  ‘I may not go.’

  ‘Of course you will. Both events are meant to raise money to fund your hospital and you are duty-bound to put in an appearance.’ She paused, her eyes brimming with false tears. ‘Please, Justin, Captain Smollett cannot keep his hands to himself. I did not know he was like that, he was so charming at first. Now I am afraid. I need your protection.’

  He knew Smollett’s reputation and she could well have bitten off more than she could chew and really he did need to silence the gossips. ‘If I escort you to the ball, will you go home afterwards?’

  ‘Very well.’ She sniffed and dabbed at her eyes with a scrap of handkerchief. ‘I am not insensible of my duty, though it will break my heart.’

  He could see nothing for it but to agree and she flung her arms about his neck to kiss him. He was trying to disentangle himself when there was a knock at the door and Mrs Armistead put her head round it. ‘Doctor, I beg your pardon, but I must speak to you.’

  Grateful for the interruption, he turned to smile at her. ‘What is it, Mrs Armistead?’

  She looked from him to the lady and then back again. ‘My nephew is here, sir. He has come to fetch me. My sister has been taken very ill with a fever and she needs nursing and her husband and children need looking after. There is no one but me…’

  ‘Then of course you must go to her. Do not worry. I can manage.’

  ‘Thank you. There are three people in the waiting room. There’s Mrs Maskell, who looks as if she is about to drop her infant any minute, a man with a mangled arm, dripping blood everywhere…’ she paused to smile when she saw Mrs Tremayne give a visible shiver of revulsion ‘…and Mrs Smith has brought Tildy. She’s scratched the scar on her head because it itched and made it bleed again.’

  ‘I’ll see to them. Off you go.’

  As soon as she had disappeared Justin tu
rned back to Sophie. ‘I am afraid this changes everything. Without Mrs Armistead, I shall doubtless be too busy to attend social engagements…’

  ‘Surely you can find a replacement.’

  ‘At short notice, it will be next to impossible. Mrs Armistead was—is—an excellent nurse as well as a housekeeper and she was prepared to work for next to nothing. She will be hard to replace.’

  ‘One more good reason to put an end to this nonsense. You are not a dogsbody, you are a gentleman. But look at you, grubbing around in the dirt like a labourer, advertising your poverty as if you were proud of it. It quite makes me shudder.’

  ‘Then go away where you will not have to witness it.’ He held the door for her and reluctantly she preceded him down the corridor. He paused outside the door of the waiting room from which a low rumble of conversation could be heard and he knew his patients were becoming impatient. He smiled suddenly. ‘If you must stay, then you can make yourself useful. Take off that bonnet and pelisse and put on an apron. You can fill in the patients’ cards. Names and directions, age, symptoms. It is easy enough. And then you can show them in when I ring for them.’

  She gave a little shriek of laughter. ‘Oh, Justin, as if I would stoop to such a thing.’

  ‘It is what I do.’

  ‘Not for much longer. I will lay whatever odds you choose that you will be persuaded to give up this strange life of yours.’

  ‘Never. I am a doctor and a doctor I will always be, certainly while I have the strength to do the work.’

  ‘So you say, but you have not accepted my wager.’

  ‘Very well, I accept. A large donation to the new hospital if I am still here six months from now. I am sure Andrew can afford that.’

  She laughed, sure of herself, and stretched to kiss his cheek, before letting herself out of the street door, leaving him to cope with his patients alone.

  Having stayed out late at a whist party the night before, Anne and her aunt were sitting in the morning room over a late breakfast bemoaning the fact that neither had won. ‘I had the most useless hands all evening long,’ Aunt Bartrum said, buttering toast. ‘Hardly a trump in them and then only low ones. The Major seemed to have them all.’

  ‘Well, you know what they say, Aunt, unlucky at cards, lucky in love.’

  ‘Well, I was that, of course. Dear Bartrum was a man in a million.’

  ‘I was not referring to the past, but the future. Have you had no offers?’

  ‘Anne, you are being perverse. I do not expect, nor even wish, to remarry. We came to Brighton on your account, not mine.’

  ‘Ah, but if someone should capture your heart, you would not gainsay it, would you?’

  ‘Stuff!’ But her cheeks had gone quite pink and Anne smiled; her aunt was not as immune as she liked to pretend.

  They were interrupted by a knock at the door and the maid came to tell them there was ‘a person’ at the door, asking for Miss Hemingford.

  ‘What do you mean, “person”, Betty? Did she not give her name?’

  ‘She said it was Smith, Miss Hemingford.’

  ‘Oh, not that fish woman,’ Mrs Bartrum said, shuddering at the memory of that claustrophobic tent and the smell of the so-called monster. ‘Anne, I do not think you should encourage her…’

  ‘But I must see her, Aunt. I do not think she would call if it were not important. Perhaps she has a message from Dr Tremayne about the fund-raising. Or perhaps Tildy has had a relapse and I can help in some way.’ The thought of anything happening to that lively child distressed her more than she could say. She turned to the maid, still waiting by the door. ‘Show her into the downstairs parlour, Betty. I will be there directly.’

  The girl disappeared and Anne hurriedly finished her breakfast and went to greet her visitor. ‘Mrs Smith, I hope nothing is wrong. It isn’t Tildy, is it?’

  ‘No, no, Miss, Tildy’s fine. It’s Mrs Armistead. She’s had to go to her sister who’s been took bad and her with seven little ones. The poor doctor is all alone and the waiting room’s that full, he don’t rightly know which way to turn. I tried to ’elp, but he needs someone who can read ’n’ write and ’sides, my family hatta come first. Mr Smith and the children need reg’lar meals and if I was to neglect me job…’

  ‘I understand. Did Dr Tremayne send you to me?’

  ‘No, but I reckoned you’d know how to find him some ’elp.’

  If she was disappointed that the doctor had not thought of her himself, she quickly stifled it. ‘I’ll see what I can do. Thank you for telling me.’

  Mrs Smith, her duty done, departed, leaving Anne with a problem. Could she do anything to help the doctor and would he welcome the interference if she did? But if Mrs Smith told him of her visit and she did nothing, what would he think of her?

  She turned as Mrs Bartrum entered the room. ‘Well, what did she want?’

  ‘Nothing for herself, she was concerned for Dr Tremayne. Mrs Armistead has had to take leave and he is without help and inundated with patients.’

  ‘What did she suppose you could do about it?’

  ‘Go to the agency and hire help for him, I suppose.’

  ‘Surely he could do that himself. After all, he knows what his requirements are.’

  ‘I think he is too busy.’

  ‘Anne, I do hope you are not going to become involved with any more of the doctor’s problems. There is enough gossip about him already. You do not want to be tarred with the same brush.’

  ‘Aunt Bartrum,’ she said firmly. ‘He is not the subject of gossip, his sister-in-law is and he cannot help that. And I am part of the fund-raising committee, part of the whole project—I must help where I can.’

  ‘It will all end in tears.’

  There had been tears in plenty already, but she was not going to admit that. Besides, they had all been shed now and she had dried her eyes and resolved to be sensible. ‘No, Aunt. I had a silly moment, but it has passed now. I am thinking only of the doctor’s patients.’

  Her aunt sighed. ‘You will do as you please, I know, you always have. Shall I come with you?’

  ‘No, dearest, there is no need and I recollect you were going to visit Lady Mancroft this morning to help her with the arrangements for her rout. You may offer my excuses. I may join you later.’

  The agency could find her no one suitable at such short notice. There was a young girl, a housemaid who had been part of a large household, but Anne knew she would not be suitable. The need, she explained, was for someone who could manage ill and injured people, some of them dirty and some possibly deranged or violent. ‘We do not deal with that kind of person at all,’ the woman who ran the agency told her in a voice that left Anne in no doubt such requests were far beneath her. ‘Try the infirmary, they might know of some poor woman glad to earn a few coppers.’

  Anne thanked her and left, starting towards the infirmary and then changing her mind when she remembered Mrs Smith saying people came out of there worse than when they went in. And this had been borne out by Dr Tremayne. ‘They know nothing of cleanliness,’ she recalled him saying at the meeting round the library table. ‘They perform operations and treat wounds with the same unwashed hands they use to prepare food or empty slops. Dirt is the biggest killer of all. That is why I want this hospital, so that we can lead by example.’

  She could picture him, sleeves rolled up, dark hair awry, surrounded by patients, all clamouring to be seen, and it filled her with an urge to be there, to share his burden. She tried to remind herself that she was disgusted with him for kissing his sister-in-law in that intimate manner, but the image of him at work, as she had seen him work on Tildy, quite dispelled that. She set her feet firmly in the direction of his house.

  Her imagination, if anything, had underestimated the pandemonium there. The waiting room was bursting and there was a long line of people patiently waiting at the door. She pushed her way in, amid angry protests that she should take her turn and being a nob didn’t give her the right to be seen
first.

  Justin, hearing the commotion from the adjoining room, went to calm everyone down. His heart gave a lurch when he saw the cause of it, but then he steadied himself and smiled at her. ‘As you see, Miss Hemingford, I am not in a position to receive visitors.’

  ‘I am not a visitor. I am here to help.’

  ‘You?’ He only just managed to stop himself from laughing.

  ‘Yes. Why not? I promised to find you an assistant and here I am. Tell me what to do.’

  ‘You cannot mean that.’

  ‘Indeed I do.’

  ‘You must be mad.’

  ‘No madder than you.’

  They stood three feet apart and glared at each other, until he gave a grunt that could have been a laugh, and said. ‘Have it your own way. I haven’t time to argue. See if you can organise these people. I need to look at the most urgent cases first. And I need records kept.’ He nodded towards a chest of drawers. ‘You’ll find cards in there.’ And with that he returned to the patient on the couch, leaving her to try and carry out his instructions.

  She peeled off her lace gloves and stuffed them in her pocket before removing her coat and bonnet. She hung them on a hook behind the door where she found Mrs Armistead’s discarded apron. It was much too big, but she wrapped it round herself, tying it tightly into her waist and turned to the queue. ‘Now, let’s see if we can have some order, shall we?’

  Justin heard the commotion die down and then the soft murmur of her voice as she spoke to each patient in turn. He did not believe for a moment that she would last out an hour, let alone a day, but at least she was willing, more willing than Sophie had been. He had asked for her help only to goad her, knowing how appalled she would be. Miss Hemingford was not appalled, apparently not afraid, but she had not experienced the worst of it yet. She could have no idea what the work entailed and, for someone who had obviously never done a hand’s turn in her life, it would come hard. He didn’t know whether to be angry that she had the effrontery to think she could make a difference or bemused by her naïveté.