A Debutante In Disguise

‘Lady Beauchamp is downstairs, my lord.’

‘Actually, not so much “downstairs” any more,’ his sister announced, laughing from the doorway.

‘Elsie!’ he said, keeping his injured hand hidden under the bedclothes. ‘You can’t come barging into a gentleman’s bedchamber, even if I am your brother.’

‘I have visited for three days and I am tired of waiting. You are either out or sleeping or in your cups. Besides, you do not return one’s calls.’

‘And you insist on visiting in the middle of the night. Anyway, what is so damned urgent?’ He spoke too loudly so that he winced at the noise of his own voice.

‘I need to go to the country.’

‘Then go. You do not need my permission.’

‘I wanted to talk to you first. Provided I could catch you in a moment of sobriety.’

He glared. ‘Fine. We will chat, but for goodness sake, wait outside while I make myself decent.’

‘Very well, I will see you in the breakfast room, but do not think you can lope off again.’

With those words, his younger sister gave a decisive nod and, thankfully, left the room, the door shutting firmly behind her.

He again flinched, glaring irritably at the closed door. Truthfully, he had been avoiding her. Her presence reminded him too much of the gaping holes within their family.

As well, there was this peculiar, detached feeling. He knew her to be his sister and knew that he loved her, yet could not seem to find the emotion.

He lay back on the bed, staring between half-closed eyes at a crack in the ceiling. Even the concept of rising felt exhausting.

And his bloody head hurt.

‘My lord?’ Mason said, clearing his throat.

Tony groaned.

‘She will be back.’

He nodded, pulling himself upright. His sister had always been persistent. ‘Stubborn and obstinate as a mule,’ their brother had said.

While George, her husband, had called her ‘steadfast’ and ‘resolute’.

But she was his family. Even though he couldn’t find the emotion, he knew he loved her, or had loved her. He knew he had been best man at her wedding. He could see himself. He could see George. He could see Elsie.

But everything felt distant. As though recalling something he had observed—a wedding that was pretty, charming, happy, but in no way closely connected to himself.

Perhaps that was it. Everything felt distant. Both the wedding and that which had come next: the cannons, the corpses, the smell, the blood...

And Elsie and George and Edgar and his father, the happy and the sad, all seemed intertwined, so that he wanted only to shove them from his mind and lie within the dark, oblivion of this room.

* * *

Shaved and dressed, Tony exited his bedchamber. He still had a headache. As always, movement hurt. It was not excruciating any more, but rather a raw tautening, as his skin and muscles moved where the bullet had lodged within his ribcage.

He was already looking forward to his next drink.

Elsie glanced up as he entered the drawing room. As always, she wore the latest fashion. Of course, she was in deep mourning but even this suited her. George, Edgar, their father. Gone.

He hated black.

Sitting opposite, he stretched his feet towards the hearth, wincing slightly with the movement. ‘So why are you going to the country?’ he asked without preamble. ‘It seems a departure from your usual habits.’

Elsie had a low tolerance for boredom. In their youth, he’d tended to egg her on while Edgar, always responsible, had bailed her out of numerous scrapes until she married George, who had then assumed the role.

Until Waterloo.

‘I have been feeling unwell.’

He glanced up sharply. She looked pale, he realised, although her appetite must be fine. She had gained weight. ‘Too many late nights, I suppose.’ While grief and injury had made him a hermit, she had become a social butterfly.

‘You are one to talk—well, at least about the late nights. No, it is not that.’ Elsie paused, glancing downwards, her fair ringlets falling across her forehead. She rubbed the black silk of her dress between her fingers. ‘You see, I am having a child.’

He heard the words. They hung in the space between them, almost visible within the room. He felt nothing. He knew he should feel something: joy, worry, sorrow that George would never see his child...

‘Right,’ he said.

Elsie frowned, scrunching up her face almost as she done when younger. ‘I am announcing that you may soon have a nephew, that George, who was your best friend, might have sired an heir prior to his death and all you can say is “right”?’

‘I am happy for you.’

It was not entirely a lie. It was not that he was unhappy. Rather he was nothing. He felt an odd remoteness as though everything was miles from him—distant and inconsequential.

And then it happened. One moment he sat within the pleasant decor of the sunny salon opposite his sister and, within the next second, the salon had somehow turned into a mire of muck, churned and muddy from cannon balls.

He could even smell the war, a mix of blood, smoke, sweat, manure and urine.

His body felt different. His feet were heavy and his boots sank deep into the mire with a sickly sucking squelch. All around he heard the groans of dying men, their whispered prayers and anguished calls.

‘Tony?’

His sister’s tentative voice came as from a great distance.

‘Tony, you’re white as a ghost. Should I get Mason? Are you in pain?’

‘No,’ he ground out. His hand tightened over the chair arm, the pain intensifying about his ribs. ‘Do—not—I—do—not—need help.’ He pushed the words out.

And then that other landscape disappeared, as quickly as it had come, and he was back in the neatly appointed room with its pleasant floral curtaining and sunshine-yellow walls.

‘Sit down, Elsie,’ he said as she stood, reaching for the bell pull. ‘No need to raise the alarm. I am fine.’

‘You’re certain? You still look pale.’ She glanced at him and then away. People tended to do that as though embarrassed to see the scar snaking down his cheek to his collar.

‘I am fine. Happy to hear your news and to know I will be an uncle.’ He pulled out the trite words, relaxing as her worry eased and she sat back in the chair.

‘Oh, Tony, I didn’t even realise, at first. It was my maid who suspected. I am six months along and usually a person would know before that, but I didn’t. When I felt ill, I thought it was the grief. And now I am so very happy and sad all at once. It was so—so terrible losing George, but having his child—that will make it easier. It will make life worth living again.’

‘Yes,’ he said, again feeling inadequate.

He should feel something. George had been his closest friend. He’d watched the man die. And held him as he did.

‘And Father. This would have been his first grandchild. He would have been happy.’

‘Yes,’ Tony said.

He had been recovering from his own wounds in the hospital when their father died. He’d dropped dead like a stone to the floor when he’d heard about Edgar’s death.

That hurt. Even through the numbness, that hurt.

‘He cared a lot for George. He was happy when you married,’ he said, again because he felt that he ought to do so, that something was expected.

‘Anyway, I have decided to go to Beauchamp and I wanted to talk to you prior to my departure. Since Waterloo, you know, and after losing Father and George and Edgar, I stayed here to keep busy and to keep Mother company. I was afraid to be alone, afraid of my thoughts.’

He looked down. He had been so overwhelmed with his own pain, he had failed to see hers. She’d lost her husband, brother and father. Again, it seemed that he ought to feel more and that his emotional response was inadequate. Since when had feelings ceased to be spontaneous, but become ‘shoulds’? Like one should wash one’s hands before tea.

‘Tony?’

He looked up. ‘I’m sorry, I was miles away.’

‘Anyway, these days I am feeling so tired. My head aches and everything is so noisy here. And even near my house, London does not smell pleasant and vehicles pass day and night. Besides, I am not so afraid of the quiet.’ Her hand touched her belly. ‘I think I will almost like it.’

‘Is there a good doctor there?’

‘I—Yes. I think so.’

‘And Mother?’

‘She is doing well. She socialises much as she always did. She thinks the country will be good for me and will visit after the child is born.’

‘I will go with you.’ He spoke suddenly and felt a jolt of surprise at his own words.

‘You will? Why?’

He didn’t exactly know, except that he was failing his remaining sibling and must make it right. ‘I might like the quiet, too.’

Besides London was too filled with people and empty chairs.

He and Elsie had never been particularly close as children. He’d been closer to Edgar. He remembered fishing with him at Oddsmore, learning to ride that bad-tempered, stout little pony, sharing a tutor, Mr Colden—except Tony had insisted on calling him Coldfish.

He’d viewed Elsie rather as an irritant as she tried to chase after them. Indeed, it had taken a month at least to adjust to the fact that his best friend had suddenly, and without any warning, fallen in love with her.

Still, Elsie was his only living sibling and his best friend’s widow. He should feel something... He frowned, trying to find evidence of sentiment mired within this odd, cold, numbness.

‘You are not going to Oddsmore?’ she asked.

‘No.’

‘It is your estate.’

‘Oddsmore is fine. Mr Sykes does an admirable job and doesn’t need me interfering.’

He had not been there since his father’s death. George... Edgar... Father... Like dominoes.

‘Very well,’ Elsie said. ‘I will enjoy the company and you might be able to help run the estate. I have been feeling I should do more, particularly now.’ She patted her stomach again with a mixture of pride and protection.

‘I would imagine you should do less, particularly now.’

‘Perhaps. Anyway, Oddsmore is not far—’

‘No,’ he said.

‘Well, at least the country will be healthier for you than drinking your days away here,’ she said with some asperity.

He smiled grimly. ‘I doubt the countryside will preclude me from pursuing that endeavour.’

* * *

The delivery of Mrs Jamison’s third child was not as easy as Letty had hoped. She’d had to reposition the baby and the labour progressed slowly so that the night seemed long within the stuffy, airless room. She’d tried to convince the family that fresh air would not cause any harm on such a warm summer night, but country folk were not ready for revolutionary thought. The fear of bad spirits still lingered.

Letty scratched her head. The ancient, old-fashioned, powdered wig always made her scalp itch and prickle with sweat. Of course, by now she had largely got used to her ‘disguise’. She quite enjoyed the freedom of men’s trousers, loved the ability to wear her spectacles whenever she wanted, but still resented the wig.

At least she no longer had to wear it daily as she had during her training, or rather Dr Hatfield’s training.

The fifth Jamison arrived with a lusty cry as her mother collapsed against the birthing stool, her face wet with sweat and tears. The maid wiped her mistress’s face while Letty cut the cord. Taking the damp cloth, Letty wiped the blood from the red, wizened, angry little face. Then she swaddled the infant in the blanket, handing her to her mother’s waiting arms.

‘Thank you,’ Mrs Jamison whispered. There was a sanctity in the moment, Letty thought, a joy that was also pain.

She turned away, rubbing away the sweat from her own forehead. What would it be like to bring life into the world, to be responsible for, to protect and love this fragile, new human being? She hadn’t attended many births during her training at Guy’s Hospital. Most people that came there were incurable, clinging to life by the merest thread. There had been more death than birth.

Helping Mrs Jamison to rise from the birthing stool, she settled her more comfortably on the accouchement bed and tidied the bloodied cloths needed for the birth.

‘A girl. I’m that glad—Lil, my eldest, will be wanting to get wed herself and it will be nice to have someone to help out around the house, mind,’ Mrs Jamison said, bending over the child cradled within her arms.

‘Lil can’t be ready to marry yet?’

‘Well, no, she’s only eleven, but they grow up so quickly, mind. It seemed like only yesterday she was this size.’

‘A few years to wait yet, then. Anyway, perhaps your lads could help.’

Mrs Jamison chortled. ‘Have you met Cedric? He’s a one. Likely burn the house down as like as not.’

Letty smiled. She’d given Cedric stitches on more than one occasion. ‘I have indeed. He is a repeat customer.’

* * *

For the next hour, Letty kept busy, the afterbirth was delivered and then the Jamison family trooped in solemnly to meet their new sibling. Of course, Mr Jamison offered a sup of something to wet the baby’s head and, as always, Letty refused.

She never lingered. With the child born, Mrs Jamison would be more likely to notice her doctor’s feminine features, too poorly disguised. She might see the tufts of red hair peaking from under the wig, the swell of her breasts, despite the binding, or that her hands were too small and delicate for a man.

While treating any patient, Letty seldom worried that she would be discovered. It was as though her mind was too occupied with treatment, remembering the details of anatomy, relieving pain, determining the correct poultice or herb, or placing stitches into flesh. But once finished, her mind circled, worry omnipotent.

At times, she still could not believe that the crazy idea she and Ramsey had concocted four years ago on a bright, starlit winter walk was working...had worked.

Besides, she was too hungry and exhausted to do anything save return home with all possible dispatch.

So, after checking once more on patient and child, she packed her belongings into her doctor’s bag, made sure any stray hair was tucked under the wig, adjusted her jacket, straightened her shoulders and strode out into the bright daylight with a masculine swagger. The Jamison lads had already hitched up her horse, the stalwart Archimedes, and Cedric stood on the second plank of the fence, balancing precariously, a long yellow straw clenched between his lips at a jaunty angle.

‘Hello, Cedric,’ she said, clambering into the trap and watching as he climbed down to open the gate. ‘You happy with your new sister?’

‘She’s all right. A brother would have been better.’ He peered up at her, wrinkling his freckled nose. ‘Girls are dull. Still, at least I’m not the youngest no more.’

With that consoling thought, he swung open the gate and Letty tapped Archimedes into reluctant movement and he ambled forward, happy to find his own way down the narrow lane.

At times, she missed the lectures at Guy’s Hospital, the lively discourse between students, the classes in anatomy and the excitement of the illegal autopsies and new procedures.

Today was not one of them. In London, there had also been an undercurrent of fear. She remembered hurrying through poor, narrow streets with her collar turned high and her shoulders hunched, even more determined to hide her gender than at the hospital.

Sewage from the Thames tainted the air. Garbage littered the streets and beggars and drunks would lie at the entrances of the shops, hospital and along the river bank while urchins would run up to her, grimy hands out-thrust. Sometimes prostitutes would sidle up with their toothless, painted faces, taken in by her male garb.

This was much nicer, she thought, gazing through heavy-lidded eyes at the country’s clean, morning brilliance. It was nice, to relax to Archimedes’s rhythmic movement, the reins limp in her hand.

Sometimes her secret felt heavy, but on this fresh, shimmering hopeful dawn it was delightful and precious.

As always, she took the back route, skirting the village centre so that she could approach the stable by the lane. Doubtless, the villagers thought the doctor an odd recluse and Miss Barton equally eccentric. Still, she could take no chances. She had worked so hard for this life and it still felt fragile—like the houses they’d constructed as children from playing cards and toothpicks.

The lane behind her house smelled of lavender. Already the day promised to be warm. It had been an unusually hot summer and the air had that heavy, lazy perfumed feel of August. Mixed with the lavender she detected manure. Likely Arnold had been gardening, already eager to beat the day’s heat.

‘Ah, there you be, miss.’ Arnold stepped out from the stable. She’d known him since childhood: groom, gardener and friend. He always kept an eye open for her when she was out at night and irritatingly insisted on calling her ‘miss’ despite trousers and wig whenever they were alone.

He was quite stooped with his years, moving with a rolling nautical gait as he stepped forward, taking hold of the reins. ‘You must be that tired. You go up to the house. Sarah will have a bite ready for you, no doubt.’

‘Thank you.’ She gave Archimedes’s wide girth a final pat before getting down from the buggy and entering the stable.

She found her clothes in the small valise under the hay and dusted away the yellow straw, before hurriedly removing her trousers and thankfully pulling off the powdered wig. She shoved this into the valise, running her fingers with relief through her straight red hair. Then she pulled on her dress and exited the stable’s dustiness.

In the winter months, she’d likely abandon this practice. Even now it seemed like an excess of caution, but worry was deeply rooted and in these bright, long summer days she feared that someone might see ‘Miss Barton’ enter the doctor’s house or vice versa.

Thanks to her inheritance from her father, she owned both the two stone houses visible at the far end of the garden. Eagerly, she hurried towards the one on the left, stepping across the paving stones of her overgrown herb garden. The leaves brushed against her skirts which would likely be yellow with pollen.

‘I am that glad to see you back.’ Sarah came to her the moment she’d pushed open the back door.

Sarah had first worked as a nursery maid and was also more friend than servant. ‘Sit there. I have fresh bread and the kettle is hot so I can make tea.’

‘Thank you. I was going to head straight to bed, but perhaps I will eat first,’ Letty said.

She had not eaten for hours and the kitchen smelled delightfully of cinnamon and fresh bread. Kitchens always smelled wonderful. Even as a child, she’d loved kitchens above all other rooms, except the library. Of course, her mother had seldom entered the kitchen, or had done so only to lecture the staff. Her mother was the daughter of a housekeeper and had spent her life trying to forget this fact.

‘Well, I have food enough, but you won’t be having that much time to sleep if you’re planning to visit your sister-in-law.’

‘Good gracious, I didn’t know I was!’ Sarah sat rather heavily, propping her head on her elbows, too tired to stay erect.

‘It is the fourteenth and your mother and Mrs Barton invited you weeks ago—most specific she was.’

Letty groaned. She loved Flo. She owed both Flo and her brother everything. She would never have been able to register at Guy’s Hospital without her brother’s help. Certainly, her mother would never have allowed her to live in London if Flo had not offered her accommodation. Nor would she have pulled off her peculiar double life without Flo’s ingenious excuses.

However, the garden party would doubtless involve her mother.

Letty was a tremendous disappointment to Mrs Barton. Indeed, her mother would have disowned her except she feared it would cause talk. Mrs Barton hated to be the topic of ‘talk’. Besides, Ramsey had convinced one of his more aristocratic friends to provide some mumbo-jumbo about the upper classes adoring eccentricity.

Living alone in her little stone house was certainly eccentric.

Not that Mrs Barton knew about the doctoring. Letty smiled grimly. That information would doubtless have sent Mrs Barton into a decline or given her fits. Indeed, the fact that Letty had wasted almost two years in London without finding a husband was sufficiently dreadful.

‘I suppose I must go,’’ Letty said, her head sinking lower.

‘A failure to show might result in a visit from the elder Mrs Barton.’

Letty groaned. ‘I’d best avoid that.’

‘Indeed,’ Sarah agreed.

‘Give me an hour to sleep,’ she instructed. ‘Then get me up for this flower party.’

‘Garden party, I believe, miss.’

* * *

As expected, her mother’s influence was clearly visible and nothing had been done by half-measures. Liveried servants lined the flagstone path leading towards the comfortable brick façade of Letty’s childhood home. The box trees now resembled African animals and the ornamental fountain frothed and burbled. The flower beds were colourful perfection, the dark soil freshly turned, the weeds removed and a statue of a lion placed in the very centre of the rose garden.

A huge tent stood on the emerald lawn. Long tables covered in white linen extended from its shadows, laden with food, drink, silver cutlery and crystal stemware. Meanwhile colourful groupings of the local gentry and other notables chattered, protecting their pale complexions under ruffled sunshades in pastel hues.

Letty frowned. What was the point of a garden party if one erected a house and hid from the sun?

Just then, she saw her mother. Mrs Barton was not as tall as Letty, but was still slim. She had been talking with several ladies close to the box tree giraffe, but stepped forward on seeing her daughter.

‘I am glad you are here and on time,’ she said, with a bob of her white parasol as she presented her cheek for a kiss. She looked well. She had Letty’s pale skin and reddish hair, but her locks had a pleasant auburn shade, threaded with a few strands of grey, as opposed to Letty’s more vibrant hue.

Letty tried to think of a suitable but truthful response. She couldn’t really say that she was glad to be here. In reality, there were any number of places she would have preferred to be.

‘I am glad you are happy,’ she said. ‘Sometimes I wonder if there is not a connection between one’s physical health and one’s emotions.’

Her mother’s forehead puckered, as though uncertain how best to take that statement. ‘Well, never mind all that. And where is your sunshade? You know how dreadfully you freckle. And why must you insist on wearing such dull shades?’

‘Likely a reaction to the overly bright hues of my youth,’ Letty murmured.

‘But grey? It is such a raincloud of a colour.’

‘But serviceable.’

‘Which you would not need to worry about if you had not decided to waste money buying a house. I am quite certain your father did not intend for you to fritter your inheritance.’

‘The purchase of a house hardly seems frivolous.’

‘It is when you could stay with me at the Dower House or with dear Flo and your brother. Well, no matter—I have a gentleman I particularly wanted to introduce—’

At that moment, Flo, or Florence, approached, her smile wide and genuine. ‘But first, Lord Jephson is here and I absolutely promised him an introduction. He wanted to meet you as he has a lively interest in humours. You do not mind, do you, Mama?’

She addressed this last statement to Mrs Barton while expertly steering Letty towards the house.

‘Humours! You know science has moved beyond humours. And who is Lord Jephson?’ Letty asked as soon as they were out of earshot.

‘A rich lord without a wife which will absolutely thrill your mother. But don’t worry, I don’t think he has any interest in acquiring a wife. Besides, I wouldn’t do that to you. Ramsey is in his study and will be so delighted to see you. He says you are the only person outside of London able to provide intelligent discourse—’