Marrying Miss Hemingford (8 page)

She was wondering again how she could find the man an assistant. Why were they so hard to find? Was it simply that they disliked working among the lower orders where the chances of advancement were non-existent? She would need to find someone as committed as Dr Tremayne himself—where was such a one to be found? If the Doctor had been right, they were disinclined to accept low wages to help the poor, but surely that was what doctoring was all about? A woman would have more sympathy.

There were nurses and people like Mrs Armistead and handywomen who attended births and deaths, some of whom were filthy and too fond of the bottle, some of whom were clean and efficient, but there were no lady doctors. She wondered why not. She supposed women were considered too sensitive to pain, too revolted by blood and disfigurement, too ready to weep, to be able to work calmly. And in the eyes of men who were their superiors in every way, they did not have the brains to understand about anatomy and physiology. In Anne's opinion that was nonsense.

Women endured the pain of childbirth and could understand it in others, often watched their little ones die, were as stoical in adversity as men and they made good nurses when their kinfolk fell ill, so why not? And there were women who were quite clever enough to do the studying needed. She smiled secretly to herself; Dr Tremayne had called her clever. She sighed; allowing women to become doctors was something not to be thought of. The sound of shuffling and coughing broke in on her reverie and she realised, with a start of surprise, the service was over and Lord and Lady Mancroft were leaving the church, watched by those in the back pews who would make no move until their so-called betters had gone.

Mrs Bartrum rose and set off after them, leaving Anne to follow. She emerged into the sunlight almost side by side with Dr Tremayne. At the church door, the rector stood watching everyone leave, his rheumy eye noting absences that would be pointed out to the miscreants later in the week. He bowed to Lord and Lady Mancroft, who deigned to smile before passing on to chat to others in the churchyard. ‘Dr Tremayne,' he said, catching sight of Justin. ‘I am glad to see you once again among my flock. It does not set a good example when you absent yourself from church.'

‘I cannot come when I am needed elsewhere,' Justin said, tight-lipped.

‘Six days shalt thou labour—' the parson began, but he was not allowed to finish.

‘People fall ill every day of the week, Reverend.'

‘Quite.' He paused, looking at Anne, who had stopped
when Justin stopped. ‘Are you not going to introduce me?' he asked, still addressing the doctor though his eye was taking in every detail of Anne's dress and demeanour. ‘It behoves me to know the names of all my flock.'

Justin had been aware that Anne was standing nearby, how could he not? But the idea that the parson thought she had attended church with him disconcerted him. ‘Reverend, you are mistaken…'

‘I am Miss Hemingford,' Anne said quickly. ‘My aunt, Mrs Bartrum, has taken a house in Brighton for the summer.' She nodded towards her aunt, now in animated conversation with Lady Mancroft, the curling black feather on her bonnet wagging in time with her jaw.

‘Oh, I see my error. I beg your pardon, Miss Hemingford.'

‘There has been no error, Reverend,' she said, slipping her hand beneath Justin's elbow. ‘We are friends of Dr Tremayne. Please excuse us.' And with that, she put enough pressure on Justin's arm to make him walk forward.

‘Why did you do that?' he protested, obeying the tug of her hand because he was too much the gentleman to embarrass her in front of the parson.

‘Who does he think he is, preaching to you?' she demanded in a whisper. ‘Looking down at you like that. Why, you have more good in your little finger than he has in his whole body.'

‘The Reverend and I fight a verbal duel whenever we meet,' he said, half-pleased, half-miffed at her championing of him. ‘I am not a kitten who needs a mother cat to defend it.'

She released his arm and laughed. ‘I did not think you did, but I enjoyed adding my contribution.'

They joined Mrs Bartrum, who was looking at Anne in astonishment. How could she possibly know someone in Brighton well enough to take his arm in public? It must be an old family friend, chanced upon by accident. She prepared herself to be civil, but made a note to speak to Anne later about her behaviour. ‘Aunt, may I present Dr Tremayne. You remember, I told you about the little girl who was injured. It was to Dr Tremayne I took her.'

Mrs Bartrum's welcoming smile faded, but, unwilling to make a scene, she inclined her head in acknowledgement but did not offer her hand or speak. Justin fumed inwardly, blaming Miss Hemingford for the embarrassing situation in which he found himself. A few years before he would have held his own, but not now. He had chosen his path and he had to walk it; if it meant being looked down on by people like Mrs Bartrum and lectured at by parsons, then he had to put up with it. He bowed. ‘Your obedient, ma'am.' The next minute he had clapped his hat on his head and was striding away.

‘Oh, Aunt, you have frightened him off,' Anne said.

‘I should think so too! Whatever were you thinking of, taking his arm like that? I really am quite mortified. There is Lady Mancroft with her mouth open in astonishment and Captain Gosforth pretending not to notice, though I know he did.'

‘Oh, Aunt, don't take on so.' She took her aunt's arm and they began to walk from the churchyard. ‘It was all very innocent. The parson insulted poor Dr Tremayne, bowing and scraping to me when he realised you were my
aunt and ringing a peel over the doctor for not going regularly to church. I had to do something to extricate him.'

‘Why? You do not know him and he is not a gentleman.'

‘Oh, he is,' Anne said, steering her aunt towards The Steine where they had arranged to meet the others who were going to see the monster and to join the picnic. Lord and Lady Mancroft had left in their carriage and would no doubt meet up with them again later. ‘I believe he is a very fine gentleman.'

‘He lives and works among the lower ranks.'

‘By choice, Aunt, and I admire him for it.'

‘One can admire someone without becoming familiar with them. Anne, I despair of you. It is no wonder you have not found a husband if you cannot tell a gentleman from a mushroom.'

‘Dr Tremayne is certainly not a mushroom,' she said. ‘He is making no pretensions to be something he is not. He told me he was a ship's surgeon in the war and sustained a wound that meant he could not go to sea again. He decided to help the poor instead.'

‘You seem to have learned a great deal about him in a very short time, Anne. I understood you had only met him briefly.'

‘So I did,' Anne said, feeling guilty about that second visit to the Doctor, but, judging by her aunt's reaction to being introduced to him, she was glad she had said nothing of it. ‘But it took no longer for him to tell me than it did for me to tell you.'

‘Why did he tell you?'

‘Because I asked him. I was interested in the work
he was doing. He spends nearly all his time and money on it.'

‘No doubt he was boasting to gain your sympathy.'

‘No, he is not a boastful man. And in any case I learned some of it from the little girl's mother. She said he was a saint.'

‘Saints are rare beings on this earth, Anne. For all you know, he may be the very opposite. He may have pretensions to be a gentleman and how do you know he does not have some dark secret in his past?'

Anne hesitated only a moment before replying, admitting to herself that she did find Dr Tremayne a little mysterious. His poor dress and mode of living belied his courteous manners and cultured way of speaking, which was, she supposed, what her aunt had meant. ‘Fustian! You have been reading too many of those romantic novels you are so fond of.'

‘I could say the same of you, Anne, making the man out to be a saint, indeed! He is a man, an ordinary man, not even a gentleman, and you will ruin your reputation if you are not more selective in those you consort with.'

‘Consort, Aunt?' Anne laughed. ‘I pass the time of day with a perfectly respectable man and I am consorting…'

‘It is how it will be interpreted by society.'

‘Then society is a ninnyhammer!'

‘Anne, I beg you to be more circumspect. You will have us gossiped about.'

Anne conceded her aunt was probably right and, though she did not care for herself, she would not for the world have hurt or embarrassed her sponsor. ‘I am sorry,' she said, squeezing her aunt's arm. ‘I did not think.'

They said no more because they had reached The Steine where their friends were gathering. It was an open grassy area, used by fishermen to dry their nets and by the
beau monde
to congregate to walk and gossip. Neither side welcomed the other. According to the wealthier inhabitants of the town, the nets were an eyesore and the ladies often caught their heels in them and there were plans afoot to stop the fishermen drying them there. Naturally the fisherman maintained they had been using the open space for generations and it belonged to them. Being Sunday, there were no nets out and no sign of the fishermen.

‘Are we all here?' Lord Mancroft called out, standing beside his carriage ticking off everyone on his fingers.

‘We are one missing,' Annabelle Barry said. ‘Major Mancroft is not here.'

‘Here he comes,' Lady Mancroft said, as the Major drove up in his curricle.

‘Mrs Bartrum, would you like to ride with me?' the Major called out as he pulled up beside them.

‘No, thank you, Major, I shall walk with everyone else.'

‘What about you, Miss Hemingford?'

Anne also declined.

‘In that case, I will walk too.' He called to one of the men servants to take the curricle back to the stables and then to join the others at the picnic spot to help set it out and start the fire, while everyone went to see the merman. ‘I'll wager a sovereign to a groat it is nothing of the kind,' he said.

No one was prepared to take him on and, once the servants had been dispatched, the whole party set off across Grand Junction Road to the beach.

Anne found herself being escorted by the Major. ‘Do all the officers drive curricles?' she asked him.

‘Those that have enough blunt to keep the cattle do,' he answered. ‘Life in camp can be prodigious boring, you know. And racing horses or curricles is become the thing to do.'

‘In the streets?'

‘That's frowned upon, Miss Hemingford. It could be dangerous when there are people promenading.'

‘But it does go on?'

‘Doubtless there are some hotheads who are prepared to risk it, but usually it is done very early in the day before anyone is about.'

‘Before anyone of quality is about, you mean. The fisherfolk rise very early, you know.'

‘So they do, but they are not long on the streets, are they? They go to sea and when they return they sell their catch and disappear like rabbits into their burrows.'

She decided to ignore his deprecating remark, being more concerned with asking her questions. ‘Was there a race last Thursday?'

‘I have no idea. Why do you ask?'

‘That little girl I spoke of last evening was run down by a speeding curricle which did not stop. It was driven by an officer in the 10th Hussars. I recognised the uniform.'

‘I cannot believe one of our officers would behave so casually, Miss Hemingford. Perhaps he was not aware of what he had done.'

‘How could he not be aware? The child was flung to the ground and badly injured.'

‘Anne, I beg you not to prose on so about those people,' her aunt put in. ‘It is not your concern.'

‘But I am concerned. The man should be reprimanded and all racing banned within the boundary of the town.'

‘That may be, but there is nothing you can do about it,' her aunt said. ‘I doubt anyone would admit to being the culprit.'

‘No, but I shall recognise him and his equipage if I ever see either again.'

The Major smiled. ‘Oh, dear, that sounds like a threat, Miss Hemingford.'

‘Anne, please desist,' her aunt commanded. ‘We are out to enjoy ourselves and I do not want dissension.'

‘I'm sorry, Aunt. I won't say another word.'

Mrs Bartrum went off to walk beside the Captain, who had been marching ahead in order to pay everyone's entrance fee as he had promised. The muslin-clad Barry girls were chatting excitedly, Jeanette on the arm of Lieutenant Harcourt and Annabelle with Lieutenant Cawston, leaving their mother and Sir Gerald to follow more slowly with Lord and Lady Mancroft. Her ladyship was not at all sure she wanted to view this creature, whatever it was, and was already hanging back. It was dead, so there was nothing to fear, her husband told her, to which she retorted that she was not afraid of it, simply worried about catching some horrible disease from the peasants who stood around watching their so-called betters with ill-concealed amusement.

As Anne approached the entrance, she realised that the woman taking the money was Mrs Smith. She smiled at her. ‘I believe Tildy is still improving, Mrs Smith.'

‘Yes, ma'am, and soon she'll be running about and in as much mischief as ever.'

‘And do we really have a merman in here?' She indicated the tent, where a man in thick fustian breeches, an open shirt and bare feet, stood to lift the flap and let a handful of people in at a time.

Mrs Smith smiled and shrugged. ‘To be truthful, we don't know what it is. No one has ever seen one before. But I thought if we charged people to see it, I could pay Dr Tremayne. He has been so good, treating Tildy and coming to see her every day and not a penny piece will he take from us.'

‘And have many people come to see it?'

The woman laughed. ‘They do say curiosity killed the cat. We had lines of people here all yesterday afternoon and ever since we opened again this morning.'