Mary Nichols - Marrying Miss Hemingford

‘Thank you.’ He did not know what else to say. He had misjudged her, but what did it matter if he had? He was merely a physician struggling against the odds in the poorest part of the community and she was a woman of means, that was obvious. Once he might have been her equal, not any more.

‘Where shall the fish be sent?’ Mrs Smith asked.

Anne gave her the address, wondering what cook would say when she was presented with a week’s supply of fish all at once. She could not remember if her aunt was fond of fish, though they had both enjoyed the turbot the night before. She turned to Tildy. ‘Goodbye, Tildy. Be a good girl now, and when you are better, perhaps your mama will bring you to see me.’ She kissed the child’s forehead, smiled at Mrs Smith, who tried to thank her, then held out her hand to the doctor. ‘Goodbye, Dr Tremayne. I shall tell my friends of your good work. It deserves to be recognised.’

‘Thank you.’

She retreated hastily before she could let herself down by telling him she hoped they would meet again, which would have been far too bold. She hurried from the house and made her way home as briskly as she could.

Justin Tremayne watched until the door had closed on her, then turned to Mrs Smith. ‘Look after that child, madam. She needs rest and…’ He stopped. What was the good of telling her she also needed good food? ‘Send for me if you have the slightest cause for concern. Head wounds can be funny things. She was lucky Miss Hemingford brought her here so quickly.’

‘I know, sir, I know.’ She opened her palm to show the coins Anne had given her. ‘How much do I owe you?’

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘You spend that on a good dinner.’

She thanked him and picked up the little girl. He put his finger out to touch the child under the chin and for a moment his eyes softened. ‘Take care.’

‘You’re a fool,’ Mrs Armistead said, as soon as they had gone. ‘You can’t live on air, you know.’

‘Neither can they. And Miss Hemingford has promised a donation, so we can carry on a little longer.’

He only hoped she had meant it. After all, she had promised to return with Tildy’s mother and she had done that and perhaps that meant she was the exception to the rule and was a young lady who kept her word. If and when the donation arrived, he would write and thank her for it, which was only courtesy, after all, and then perhaps… He shook himself and went back to his surgery to call in the next patient.

‘What am I supposed to do with it?’ Mrs Bartrum asked. She and Anne and the cook were looking in dismay at a box full of mackerel, herring, whitebait, crab and lobster that had been dumped on the kitchen table.

‘I never ordered it,’ Mrs Carter said, in an aggrieved voice. ‘Why would I ask for that amount unless you were going to hold a supper party and you didn’t say anything to me about any such thing, ma’am.’

‘No, Mrs Carter, I had no plans for one.’

‘The boy who brought it insisted he had come to the right address and he wouldn’t take it away again.’

‘No, I don’t suppose he would,’ Anne said, trying to stifle her amusement. ‘It is a gift to me.’

‘A gift? Whatever for?’ her aunt demanded. ‘Who do you know in Brighton to give you a gift, and such an extraordinary one as this?’

Anne, who had slipped into the house the day before and changed her bloodstained clothes before joining her aunt, had not seen fit to tell her about the previous day’s encounter. She didn’t know why she had said nothing; it was not in her nature to keep secrets, but her meeting with Dr Tremayne had been so disturbing she wanted to keep it to herself, at least until she had analysed why he had made her heart beat so fast. If she had been young and silly, she might have said she had fallen in love with him on the spot, but she was not young and silly and so it must surely have another cause.

Her aunt was looking at her, expecting an answer, and so she was obliged to explain that she had helped the child of a local fisherman and this was his way of saying thank you. ‘She was hurt in an accident with a curricle. I took her to a doctor and went in search of her mother,’ she said.

‘I can see the child would need help,’ her aunt said. ‘But were there no gentlemen about who could have done so? It is unseemly for you to be associating with common fishermen.’

‘I never met the fisherman, Aunt, only his wife. She is a hardworking woman who wanted to reward me…’

‘Surely you can do a good turn without being rewarded?’

‘Of course I can, but it would have hurt her pride to refuse. I didn’t realise she would actually send it, nor so much. I thought she would probably forget the minute I had left.’

‘So now we have a box of fish that we cannot possibly eat before it goes bad.’

‘If we knew anyone to invite, we could give a supper party,’ Anne said.

‘You are right,’ her aunt said suddenly. ‘I think it is time we began our social calls. Mrs Carter, take some of the fish for yourself and give some to the other servants and find a tasty recipe to use the rest. It gives us very little time, but a supper party it will have to be. Come, Anne, change your dress. We will call on Lady Mancroft first.’

Her ladyship had taken a house in St James’s Place, not far from the homes of the elite who occupied the houses in the vicinity of the Pavilion. She was ‘at home’, which meant her elegant drawing room was filled with friends and those newly arrived in the town, like Mrs Bartrum and Anne. She was a tall, heavily built woman, wearing a diaphanous high-waisted gown in a pea-green colour over a slip of darker green and a matching satin turban with three tall feathers fastened to it with a jewelled pin.

‘Georgiana!’ she cried when she saw Mrs Bartrum. ‘So you are back in society.’ Being so tall, she had to bend to kiss Aunt Bartrum’s cheek and then stood back to appraise her. ‘You are looking well. I declare widow’s weeds become you, which they don’t everyone, to be sure. What brings you to Brighton?’

Mrs Bartrum looked suitably doleful at the mention of her mourning, but quickly recovered. ‘I have brought my niece for a visit. She has not been here before and needed a little diversion.’ She took Anne’s hand and drew her forward. ‘May I present Miss Hemingford.’

Lady Mancroft lifted her quizzing glass to peer at Anne. ‘Granddaughter of the late Earl of Bostock, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, my lady.’

‘Not in mourning?’ There was a hint of reproof in her voice.

‘Grandfather expressly forbade it. It was his dying wish.’

‘But that doesn’t mean the poor girl is not grieving,’ Mrs Bartrum put in quickly ‘She looked after him dutifully and I believe she deserves a little respite.’

‘Then we shall have to do our best to amuse you both. Now, let me introduce you to everyone.’

She led them round the company, naming everyone and explaining who they were in relation to the aristocrats of the day—the cousin of a duke, the daughter of a marquis, a baronet, a banker with no claim to fame except his enormous wealth, Sir Somebody-or-Other, Lady This and Miss That—so that in the end Anne’s head was reeling. She supposed she would remember them all given time.