A Holiday in Bath

by Julie Daines

  The man’s smile deepened. “I’ll leave you to it, then,” he murmured. He left her with the slightest of bows as if she, not he, deserved an obeisance.

  “Goodness, Lucy, your cheeks are pink!” Aunt Imogene said when Lucy handed over the glasses. Her cronies broke into giggles.

  “Who was that gorgeous man?” Mrs. Wellbridge, known to the ladies as Mary, asked, sipping from her glass and peering around Lucy.

  “He disappeared into the crowd,” Martha, the Dowager Countess of Brookfield, complained. “Lovely specimen, that. Didn’t recognize him.” Lady Brookfield kept up the pretense that she knew those in the highest circles, but in truth she hadn’t been in London in many years and rarely ventured out of her tiny apartments except to join the ladies in taking the water. Lucy was grateful she could at least afford her own subscription, unlike most of the others.

  “Well, what did he say?” Aunt Imogene urged.

  Lucy obliged the ladies with an explanation. She would have liked to embroider it for their entertainment, but there was little enough to the encounter.

  “A lord?” Anna Moffat gasped. The woman seemed even thinner than she had when Lucy first arrived in Bath. Aunt Imogene doubted her friend got enough to eat and regularly sought creative ways to feed her from her own modest funds.

  The same could be said for Lady Hardy, a baron’s widow who never joined in the banter. She stared down at her half empty glass. Lucy understood how Mrs. Moffat, a spinster, might be reduced to such circumstances, but couldn’t fathom Lady Hardy’s family neglecting her so. The woman never spoke about them. She rarely spoke at all.

  “He did fill out his trousers, I’ll say that. No padding there,” Lady Brookfield remarked with a knowing expression. “Don’t you think so, Lucy?” she added to the general amusement of the company.

  Lucy’s cheeks burned. “I was too busy balancing the glasses to notice, my lady,” she replied.

  When the conversation turned as it inevitably did to aches and affronts of old age, the benefits of the waters, and the necessity of daily dosing, Lucy let her mind wander. The encounter with the gentleman, she thought, would give her something to dream about.

  When Stepmama insisted that Lucy deserved a holiday in Bath, she had no doubt meant it kindly. Stepmama was never unkind, but sending Lucy away also left her with one less mouth to feed and time to concentrate on the marriage plots she wove around her own daughter, Eliza.

  “Only think, Lucy. Perhaps you’ll find a husband in Bath,” her stepmother had said. Did she understand that being thrust upon Aunt Imogene narrowed Lucy’s social circle to women of advanced age? Perhaps.

  There were assemblies here as well, but attending with Aunt Imogene or Mrs. Wellbridge—the only two of the ladies who could also afford a subscription to the assembly rooms—Lucy found herself a wallflower, consigned to the chairs in the corner where the dowagers sat. A husband in Bath? Unlikely, but she could dream.

  She let her thoughts drift back to her encounter with the man with a lovely voice. When she did, it wasn’t the state of his trousers she remembered, but his kind smile and the web of little laugh lines around his eyes.

  * * *

  The Marchioness of Waringford pinned her youngest son with a glare he knew well. “Really, Edmund, how long can it take to fetch a simple glass of water? I should have sent Hildegard,” she said, referring to her companion with a sniff.

  Lord Edmund Parker, long used to his mother’s complaints, stood stoically at her side and said nothing.

  “Who was that girl who importuned you? I don’t recognize her as anyone we should know,” the woman went on.

  “I have no idea,” he replied. He had briefly considered following the young woman to the group of elderly ladies she so obviously cared for, but it would have been rude, if not intrusive. He had no one to introduce him. She had the appearance of an upper servant of some sort. A companion, perhaps, he thought, glancing at Hildegard. Yet she intrigued him for reasons he couldn’t quite say.

  His mother produced a dramatic sigh. “Bath society isn’t at all what it once was. They admit any sort here. One almost regrets that frail health forces one to take the waters. Thank goodness the higher class baths and assembly rooms cater to the better crowd.”

  Mother is as frail as an ox, he thought. She comes to Bath to consult with the other harpies, lest she miss an opportunity to shore up her position at their head.

  The marchioness downed her water, gave an imperious glance around, and, having decided she had made sufficient impression for one day, announced, “We will leave now, the company being less than it ought.” She raised a hand to her son, who dutifully assisted her to rise.

  She moved toward the massive double doors, a frigate in full sail, and Edmund followed ruefully in her wake, hands clasped behind his back. The little group of older women who still huddled in the shadows between two of the massive arched windows distracted him.

  His mother sensed his pause and turned. “I knew Lady Brookfield had fallen, but I didn’t realize how very low. How pitiful for a dowager.” She said the last word in tones she might have used for a vile disease. Edmund’s mother enjoyed her status and loathed the idea of ceding it to a daughter-in-law. Lady Brookfield might be a mere dowager countess, but the marchioness reveled in her full control of the marquess’s household.

  He watched the young lady he had assisted lean forward to listen to one of the women. She made a picture of gentle sweetness that held his attention. What ties her to these women who so obviously have fallen into difficult circumstances? he wondered. None appear able to afford a companion. Is she a daughter or a niece, perhaps?

  “You are gaping like a fish, Edmund. Kindly cease,” his mother snapped, drawing him away. “Come along. We’ve had quite enough for one day.”

  But would the young woman be here again tomorrow? The thought that she might brought a smile to his face. Perhaps he might enjoy this forced sojourn in Bath after all.

  Chapter Two

  “You really ought to be more careful, Edmund. Dressed as you are, you could be mistaken for a servant following after a little nobody like that.” The marchioness waited until they were safely in the confines of her carriage before resuming her verbal assault.

  “What is wrong with my appearance?” he asked. “I thought your dearest hope is for me to become a curate, and I can hardly—”

  “A curate? How appalling! You know full well your father has other ambitions.”

  “The Archbishop of Little Riding?”

  “Don’t joke about such things. It will be a trivial matter to ensure a place for you on the archbishop’s staff as soon as you are ordained, a proper springboard for your career. He is displeased, you know—your father, not the archbishop, although His Grace will begin to wonder soon enough if you don’t act. Do you wish for Canterbury to take personal offense after all your father’s efforts?”

  “We’ve been over this before.” They had been over it daily since they left Waring Park on this miserable holiday. “I have no desire to offend the archbishop, but I wish Father hadn’t acted without speaking to me.”

  “Nonsense. You’ve always known you were for the church. We’ve made that clear since you were a boy.”

  The church. Fate of every third son. Charles—Viscount Philmont—the heir, Nathaniel the soldier, Edmund the cleric. His brothers had each done their duty, to their cost. Charles and his family lived at the family seat under Father’s thumb, and Nathaniel? After lingering for a month when they brought him back from Spain, he lay buried in a soldier’s grave, dutiful to the end. Family demanded that Edmund do his duty as well; he just couldn’t bring himself to it. He tried hinting at his true ambition, but both of his parents ignored him. Did it matter how he lived his life now that Charles had a second son to put more distance between Edmund and the succession? He thought not, but his father had other ambitions.

  He had no answer for her, at least none he hadn’t voiced this past month.

  “
You’ve always been a worry, too dreamy for your own good, too lost in books. Your father tried letting you run free in London last Season to do what all young men do—to no avail, he said.” She smirked at him slyly and went on in a faux whisper, “I heard him tell Philmont you never pursued the first ladybird.”

  “Mother! You shouldn’t even hear such things.”

  “Needs must when a mother worries. Your father does too. He asked Philmont if he should question your, ah, predilections.”

  Edmund colored and looked over at Hildegard, who sat perfectly still, staring at her hands as if a shocking conversation was nothing to her. It probably was. He turned back to his mother and choked out, “And what did Charles tell him?”

  “That he had reason to know you liked women perfectly well but were too pompous to have truck with soiled doves.”

  Am I pompous? he wondered. I’m as hot-blooded as the next man, but not so much that I would take advantage of a woman. Charles talks as if virtue was a failing.

  “All that sober uprightness,” his mother complained, shaking her head. “You belong in the church, Edmund. Accept it and get on with it. But please, improve your appearance. The better sorts of clerics wear serge and linen. You look like an impoverished scholar.”

  “I might like that,” Edmund mused.

  “Better clothing?”

  “The life of a scholar, except many of them do as little good in the world as ambitious churchmen. I’m afraid I don’t have that in me, Mother. If I seek ordination, I will do parish work. Father needs to tell the archbishop his wayward son is not available.”

  The glare this speech received would have melted tin, but Edmund Parker was made of sterner stuff. He had spent most of his freedom in London frequenting a clinic for the poor on the fringe of Seven Dials. Traveling to or from there by night was not for the faint of heart, but he’d done it many nights, coming home smelling of gin and hoping word reached his father that he had been out carousing. If the marquess knew how much Edmund admired the physicians who toiled there thanklessly or the compassion he had developed for the ladies of the night who came there desperate for help, the old man would have flown into a rage.

  The marchioness bit her lip and glared out the window, leaving Edmund to his dilemma. Would they tolerate a gentleman physician in the family? Perhaps, but only if he devoted himself to the megrims of the upper ten thousand, and only then grudgingly. Edmund had no interest in that whatsoever. What else interests you, Edmund?

  The only other thing that came to him had joyful eyes and a kind heart. He wondered how he might arrange an introduction. His mother seemed to know at least one lady in her circle. Perhaps I can trade on that scant acquaintance. How hard would it be to call on Lady Brookfield?

  * * *

  Lucy and her aunt walked the final few blocks to her modest house alone after leaving Norma Wellbridge in the company of grandchildren at her comfortable suite above her son-in-law’s offices. The others, of course, turned off earlier, walking together toward a shabbier section of Bath where Lady Brookfield managed a small apartment with a sitting room and the others rented sleeping rooms in boarding houses.

  “I wish Agnes had accepted my invitation to tea.” Aunt Imogene sighed.

  “Lady Hardy? It’s early. She may yet change her mind.” Lucy bit the inside of her cheek in thought. Her aunt invited the woman daily. She accepted precisely every third day, which Lucy suspected was the most often her pride would allow. Tea included cold meats and fruit on days she accepted—Aunt Imogene’s effort to get good food into her friend. “Is there any other way we can help her?”

  “There are only so many days the baker can contrive to make her believe eight pence worth of stale bread and buns can be had for a ha’penny, though Mr. Fields has been very cooperative.”

  Happy to take Aunt Imogene’s subsidy more like, Lucy thought.

  “Mrs. Wellbridge is keen to attend the assembly this Thursday,” Lucy said, turning the subject to one more enjoyable. “Martha loves to watch the dancing. She says music feeds the soul.”

  “Will her daughter and her husband come this week, do you think?” Lucy hoped so. Mrs. Philmont had a lively humor, and her attendance gave Lucy respite from her elderly circle of friends.

  “Unlikely. Martha says their youngest has the croup.”

  “With four little ones, she rarely has time for assemblies,” Lucy replied. More’s the pity. As much as she wished for Minnie Philmont's company, she envied her. She would much rather spend her days with children than with the dubious joys of the baths, the assemblies, and the Pump Room.

  They walked in silence the final steps. Aunt Imogene’s maid of all work opened the door, bobbed a curtsy, and waited patiently while they removed bonnets and cloaks.

  “Martha thought you might be especially keen for Thursday’s assembly as well,” Aunt Imogene said.

  “Why would that be?” Lucy’s unfeigned confusion amused her aunt.

  “Why, your young man might be there, of course.” The older woman’s eyes twinkled.

  “Really, Aunt Imogene! We encounter people every day when we go to take the waters. A moment of kindness hardly makes him my young man! I don’t even know his name.”

  “He’s newly arrived, or we’d have seen him there before. He’ll be at the weekly assembly. I have no doubt.” Aunt Imogene dropped into her comfortable chair, the one close to the fire with her embroidery nearby. “No doubt at all,” she murmured.

  Would he? The thought, once planted, ruffled Lucy’s serenity. She had been content to sit quietly while her aunt and her friend enjoyed the bustle around them, but oh, how she would love to dance every dance. The Master of Ceremonies occasionally urged a gentleman her way. Bath being overrun with the invalid, the elderly, and the lame, her partners were rarely young or vital. With the assembly two days away, she could only dream. What would it be like to dance with a handsome young man with kind eyes?

  Chapter Three

  A pale girl with large, sad eyes responded to Edmund’s knock. The harassed-looking woman on the ground floor had assured him that this apartment on the third floor belonged to Lady Brookfield. It had taken some effort to ferret out the address at all. The neighborhood, once he found it, had been rather poorer than he anticipated—poor, but not squalid. It looked safe enough. But how on earth does an elderly lady manage the stairs? he wondered.

  The girl frowned and admitted him. “We don’t get much company save Mrs. Crane and Miz Ashcroft,” she said. She stared at him, uncertain what to do.

  “Would you announce me to Lady Brookfield, please?”

  “She be in there,” the girl said, pointing. “You kin announce yersel’.” She turned and walked toward the back of the apartment.

  “Susie? Who is here?” a quivery voice asked from the direction the girl had pointed.

  Edmund squared his shoulders and entered the small sitting room. He had lied to his mother when he told her his destination. He hated lies, but he was about to tell another one, possibly several.

  “Good afternoon, Lady Brookfield,” he announced with a perfectly correct bow. “Please excuse my unannounced call. I am Lord Edmund Parker. I believe you are acquainted with my mother, the Marchioness of Waringford. When she noticed you at the Pump Room this morning, she insisted I call and bring you her regards.”

  The woman blinked several times. A shrewd light replaced her puzzlement, and she smiled at Edmund. “Did she now? How kind of Hester. Is she well? I hope her presence in Bath doesn’t signal illness,” she said sweetly.

  Edmund gathered from this that the woman knew full well his mother visited Bath every year and further that she had never once called on the dowager countess or invited her for tea. “Minor complaints only,” he replied. “She is well enough.” Healthy as a horse.

  The two of them held eyes, each assessing the other, until Lady Brookfield appeared to reach a conclusion. “If you would ring that bell next to you, I’ll have my maid bring refreshments,” she said at la
st.

  At the tinkle of the little bell, Susie shuffled in. “What?” she asked.

  Lady Brookfield blushed at the rudeness and, Edmund suspected, her straitened circumstances, but he would not for the world let on he noticed anything amiss. The countess rose and had hushed words with Susie in the hallway. Edmund suspected she directed her to use fresh tea, rather than reuse leaves, and felt a pang of regret. He couldn’t embarrass her by refusing.

  When she returned, she sat delicately on the sofa. “You say you noticed me in the Pump Room this morning. Everyone who is anyone takes the waters here.”

  “Indeed, disgusting though they might be.”

  She cackled at that. “Yes, but the water brings one thing no other remedy seems to have.”

  “What is that, my lady?”

  “Hope, boy, hope.” She met his smile at that, and for a moment, they were in accord.

  Susie teetered in with a tea tray then, tongue between her teeth, and Edmund put a hand out to prevent disaster, placing the tray with its chipped teapot and mismatched cups on the table in front of Lady Brookfield. Susie scurried out, and the dowager countess began to pour with all the grace of a grand lady in the finest drawing room, which of course she had once been.

  She handed Edmund a cup, lifted hers, and watched him slyly over the top of it. “So, young Lord Edmund, suppose you tell me the real reason you are here.”

  Edmund’s face burned. The lady may be elderly, but she wasn’t a fool. He took a swallow of surprisingly decent tea and set the cup down. “When I noticed you this morning, my mother gave me your name. Pump Room staff gave me your direction.”

  “And?” She took another sip and raised an eyebrow.

  “A young lady sat with you and your friends.”

  Her lips twitched, and he feared for a moment she might tease him about which of the ladies could be described as young. “Miss Lucy Ashcroft,” she said. “The niece of a friend and kindness personified.”