The Wedding Game

by Jane Feather

Gideon threw up his hands in defeat. “Since I don't know half of them, what can I say?”

  “Leave us to do our business just as we leave you to do yours,” Prudence said.

  “You still express opinions,” he commented mildly. “Is a husband to be accorded the same right?”

  “If you're ready, Constance, I believe it's time we went home,” Max said.

  “And I think it's time I went to bed,” Chastity said, jumping up from the sofa.

  “Now look what you've done,” Prudence accused her husband, but with a laugh in her voice. “Driven away our guests by being quarrelsome.”

  “Not a bit of it,” he denied. “They were going anyway.” He moved to the door. “Constance, Max, let me see you out.”

  “By the way, what were you discussing about Christmas?” Constance asked as they all walked into the hall.

  “Now, that is truly none of your business,” Max said.

  “Surprises?” Chastity asked, her hazel eyes glowing. “I love surprises, particularly Christmas ones.”

  “Then I hope you won't be disappointed. Good night, Chastity.” Max kissed her and bade farewell to his hosts. Constance hugged her sisters and the Ensors went out into the crisp night to their motor, waiting at the curb, engine running, the chauffeur huddled into a heavy driving cape.

  Chastity yawned. “I'll bid you good night, Gideon.”

  “I'll come up with you and make sure you have everything you need,” Prudence said, linking arms with her. “Will you be long, Gideon?”

  “No, I'll just turn out the lights and lock the door,” he said. “I sent the staff to bed an hour ago.”

  Prudence examined the arrangements in the guest room with a critical eye. “I think you have everything,” she said, smoothing down the already smooth coverlet before going to the dresser. “There's milk and chocolate and the spirit stove here if you'd like hot chocolate.” It was a reference to the sisters' nightly ritual in their father's house, when they would gather together over hot chocolate in their own private sitting room to talk over the events of the evening.

  Chastity shook her head, smiling. “Not after chocolates and Benedictine,” she said. “Everything is perfect, Prue, so go to bed and I'll see you in the morning.”

  Prudence nodded but hesitated, her hand on the doorknob. “This Douglas Farrell,” she said, “you seem to have developed such an antipathy towards him. Do you think you'll be able to meet him face-to-face . . . do what we have to do for him as a client without betraying something?”

  Chastity unthreaded the topaz ribbon from her hair before answering. Then she said, “I don't see why not. We'll only be meeting in social situations. He won't have any idea that we're the Go-Between. Even if he senses I dislike him, it's not going to matter. People dislike people all the time, but they're perfectly polite about it. Anyway, I'm sure I can hide it. There's no reason why I should ever be alone with him, and when we're in company I'll just keep the conversation on neutral subjects.”

  “I suppose so,” her sister said, sounding unconvinced. “'Night, Chas.” She went out, closing the door behind her.

  Chastity surveyed the closed door for a minute. She understood her sister's puzzlement. She was as puzzled herself by this violent dislike of a man she'd only met once. Maybe, she thought, as she got to know him better she'd find something in him to ameliorate that dislike. First impressions couldn't always be relied upon. But she didn't seem to be able to convince herself, however hard she tried, as she brushed her thick, vivid red curls the requisite one hundred strokes and completed her nighttime ablutions, hanging the emerald-green gown in the armoire before slipping into her nightgown.

  She climbed into bed and lay propped on the pillows, watching the firelight dance on the molded ceiling. For some reason she wasn't sleepy. She reached out and turned on the bedside light again. An easy matter since Gideon, like Max, embraced all modern conveniences of daily life with a vengeance, whether it be electric lights, motorcars, or telephones.

  There was a small secretaire in the guest room, with pen, ink, and a writing tablet. Chastity got out of bed and went to sit at the desk. She began to compose the Go-Between's letter to Dr. Douglas Farrell. He was to present himself at 10 Manchester Square on Wednesday next at three o'clock, when the lady of the house, the Honorable Miss Chastity Duncan, would be holding her weekly At Home. He was to give the butler his card and explain that he needed to talk with Lord Buckingham, whom he had been told he could meet there that afternoon.

  Chastity leaned back in the spindly chair, tapping her teeth with the top of her pen. There was, of course, no Lord Buckingham. The fictitious character was merely the excuse the Go-Between routinely used to bring prospective clients together.

  She put pen to paper again, explaining that Miss Duncan herself would have no idea who Dr. Farrell was, but since she was acquainted with Lord Buckingham would welcome the doctor without question. Intimately acquainted with Lord Buckingham, Chastity reflected with a grin. Since he had sprung for the first time from her imagination.

  A lady whom the doctor might find of interest in his search for a bride would be wearing a white carnation. If, after observation, he wished for an introduction, his hostess would furnish it, again without question.

  Chastity set down her pen and read through the letter. It was one she had written many times before, so she could find no fault. She signed it The Go-Between, blotted the sheet, folded it, and slipped it into an envelope that she addressed to the doctor, care of Mrs. Beedle's corner shop, as Douglas Farrell's original letter had requested. Mrs. Beedle acted as a poste restante for more clients than The Mayfair Lady and the Go-Between, and Chastity had been puzzling for some time over why a London doctor should need a poste restante. Did he not have an address of his own? It was a question that came into the same category as what such a man with his social ambitions was doing frequenting such an unfashionable part of town.

  She frowned, thinking about the surgery just off St. Mary Abbot's. Chastity had never set foot in that area of London, but she knew, or thought she did, that Earl's Court, the Warwick Road, and the Cromwell Road were not just unfashionable but downright slums, for the most part. He couldn't make much money practicing medicine there, which was presumably part of his problem. But just why would a man who was openly and unashamedly trawling for a rich wife and a wealthy practice waste any time at all on the poor and infirm of the London slums? Perhaps he had no choice, she decided. Perhaps he was such a bad doctor, only the poor who had no alternative would go to him. From what she'd seen of his general attitude, he'd have a hard time buttering up the wealthy socialites who required a mixture of obsequiousness and authority in their medical practitioners. He probably realized that, hence the need for the well-connected wife who could smooth out the rough edges, or, in the case of the Signorina Della Luca, ride right over them, herding prospective patients to his Harley Street practice like so many stunned cattle to the abattoir.

  Chastity yawned, somewhat dismayed by her own malice. It was not at all like her. She set the letter on the secretaire, intending to give it to Prue's butler to post in the morning, then returned to bed, this time to sleep.

  It was cold in the bare back room despite the miserable flicker of a coal fire in the grate. The woman on the straw-filled mattress writhed in silence, stoically enduring what she had endured six times before.

  Douglas Farrell straightened from his examination and said softly, “Bring that candle closer, Ellie.”

  The girl, who looked to be no more than eight, hurriedly brought the stub of a candle over to the doctor. She held it high, as he instructed, but averted her eyes from her mother's agony.

  “Did you boil the water?” Douglas asked, his tone still soft and gentle as he palpated the swollen abdomen.

  “Charlie's doin' it,” the child replied. “Ma's goin' t'be all right, i'n't she, Doctor?”

  “Your mother knows what she's doing,” he replied. The woman jerked, and his hands moved swiftly now between
the blood-streaked thighs. “Hold the candle steady, Ellie.”

  The woman cried out abruptly for the first time, her body convulsed, and a blood-soaked scrap appeared between the doctor's hands. He worked fast and deftly, clearing the infant's nasal passages. A thin cry emerged and the blue body took on a pinkish hue. “A boy, Mrs. Jones,” he said, cutting the thick cord and tying it. He laid the child on his mother's breast. “Small but healthy enough.”

  The woman gazed in blank-eyed exhaustion at the infant, then with experienced fingers she attached his mouth to her nipple. “'Tis to be 'oped I've some milk this time,” she murmured.

  Douglas turned to wash his hands in a basin of cold water, the hot would be for the mother and child. There wasn't enough fuel in this hovel to heat more than one bowl. “I'll get the midwife to you,” he said.

  “No, Doctor. Us can manage,” the woman protested weakly. “Our Ellie there can 'elp clean up. No need to disturb the midwife.”

  Douglas offered no objection. He knew there was no money here for a midwife's services and the eldest daughter had enough experience by now. He bent over the woman, felt her brow, said softly to Ellie, “If there's fever, send for me at once. You understand?”

  “Yes, Doctor.” The child nodded vigorously.

  He opened the girl's hand and laid a coin on her palm, closing her fingers tightly over it. “Get candles, a bucket of coal, and milk for your ma,” he said. “Don't let your da see it.”

  She nodded solemnly, tucking her closed fist against her ragged skirt. He patted her shoulder and left the room, bending his head below the low lintel of the narrow door that separated the back room from the front. A room that was in no better case when it came to fire, light, and furniture than the other. Piles of rags scattered across the floor served as beds, a broken chair stood beside a fireplace, where a saucepan with a miserly quantity of water stood on a trivet over two or three coals, tended by a boy of around five, although judging by his stunted growth he could be several years older.

  “Where's your da, Charlie?”

  “Down the pub,” the boy said, staring into the pan as if willing the water to boil.

  “Run down and tell him you've a new baby brother,” Douglas said, lifting the pan off the coals.

  “'E'll be drunk,” the child said listlessly.

  “Tell him to get back here. Tell him I said so.” For the first time a sternness entered his voice. It was enough to bring the boy to his feet.

  “'E'll clip me one,” he said.

  “Not if you duck,” Douglas said aridly. “You can move faster than he can when he's drunk. I've seen you.”

  A faint grin lit the grimy face. “Aye, that I can, Doctor,” he said. He went to the door. “Is Ma all right?”

  “She's fine, and the baby,” Douglas returned. “I'm going to take the water to Ellie. Run and fetch your da.” The boy scampered off, his bare feet slapping on the icy cobbles of the street.

  Douglas took the water into the back room, gave the child some further instructions, and then left, ducking through the door into the street, fastening the buttons of his greatcoat as he went.

  He stood for a minute, pulling on his gloves, turning up his collar, looking up and down the alleyway. He glanced towards the pub on the far corner, watching for Daniel Jones to emerge, red-eyed and bleary, into the gray day. He waited until the man limped out, Charlie dancing just a little ahead of him, and then Douglas went on his own way. Daniel wasn't a bad man when he was sober, and even when he was drunk had a tendency to maudlin sentimentality rather than violence. He'd be pleased enough at the advent of yet another mouth to feed, not feeling himself in general responsible for putting the bread in that mouth or any of the others he had sired.

  Douglas stopped off at Mrs. Beedle's on his way to his surgery behind St. Mary Abbot's. She greeted him with her usual cheery warmth. “Bit parky, isn't it, Doctor? Been busy, have you?”

  “Delivering a baby,” he said. “Fine healthy boy.”

  “Oh, that's nice,” she said. “Postman brought a couple of letters for you this morning.” She reached up to the shelf behind the counter and handed him his post.

  He took it with a murmur of thanks, bade her good afternoon, and went out into the street, examining the envelopes as he emerged from the warmth of the shop. One was from his mother. The handwriting of the other, on thick vellum, was also immediately recognizable. He had a response from the Go-Between.

  He tucked them both into his coat pocket and walked briskly to his surgery. It was the lower rooms of a two-up, two-down row house just behind the church. As usual the front room was thronged with women and runny-nosed children. It was cold and gloomy, the fire in the grate burning low. He greeted them all by name as he threw more coal on the fire and lit the candles. Then he beckoned to a woman with a baby at her breast and a toddler clinging to her apron. “Come on in, Mrs. Good. How's Timmy today?”

  “Oh, the rash is summat awful, Doctor,” the woman said. She turned on the scratching child and clipped him over the ear. “Stop that, you 'ear.” She sighed as the child rubbed his ear and whimpered. “'E won't stop scratchin', Doctor. Not no 'ow.”

  Douglas sat down behind the scarred table that served as his desk. “Let's have a look, Timmy.” He examined the oozing eczema sores on the child's arms and reached up to a shelf to take down a tub of ointment. “Put this on three times a day, Mrs. Good. It should clear up quickly, but bring him back in a week.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.” The woman put the tub into the capacious pocket of her apron. Hesitantly she drew out a copper coin. “What do I owe you, Doctor?”

  The coin, as Douglas could see, was a penny. It would buy a loaf of bread or a pint of milk. It would go nowhere towards the cost of the ointment. But these people had their pride; indeed, in general, it was all they had. He smiled. “Just a penny, Mrs. Good.”

  She laid it on the table with the firm nod of one discharging an obligation. “Well, I thank you, Doctor. Come along now, Timmy, and don't you be scratchin' again.”

  Douglas leaned back in his chair, running his hands through his thick hair as the door closed behind his patients. He looked at the penny on the table, then scooped it into the palm of his hand and dropped it into a tin box. It made a hollow clink as it joined the very small group of its fellows at the bottom.

  A baby wailed from beyond the surgery door and Douglas pushed back his chair to go and call in his next patient.

  It was a long and as always frustrating evening. He couldn't help everyone; so many of his patients suffered from the intractable ailments of poverty, and while medicine could help, he couldn't lay hands on sufficient free medicine for everyone in need. He was bone-weary as he locked up and headed for home.

  Home was a lodging house on the Cromwell Road. The usual smell of boiling cabbage and fish heads greeted him as he stepped into the dark, narrow hallway and closed the door.

  His landlady popped her head out of the kitchen. “'Evenin', Dr. F. You're late. I 'ope the fish is not dried up.”

  “So do I, Mrs. Harris, so do I,” the doctor murmured, heading for the stairs. “I'll be down in a minute.”

  “'Tis all laid out in the parlor for you,” she said. “A nice piece of bream, it is.”

  “Or was,” murmured the doctor, mounting the linoleum-covered stairs.

  “Should I send our Colin to the Red Lion to get a jug o' mild-and-bitter for you, Dr. F?” the landlady's voice drifted up the stairs after him.

  Douglas contemplated dried-up bream and the inevitable mashed potatoes and soggy cabbage, accompanied only by water, and dug into his pocket. He returned downstairs and handed Mrs. Harris a threepenny piece. “A pint, if you please, Mrs. Harris.”

  “Right y'are, Dr. F.” She ducked back into the kitchen and shouted for her son.

  Douglas went upstairs to take off his outdoor clothes. The bathroom, usually occupied by the tenant from No. 2, was free for once. He washed his hands and face, combed his hair, and went down for his
supper.

  He chewed his way through the bream, which was as dried-up and flavorless as he'd feared, and opened the letter from his mother. Folded within the five pages was a bank draft for one hundred pounds. The attached note said, “I'm sure you must have some good cause that could benefit from this. Fergus says it's due you from the trust.”

  Douglas folded the draft and put it in his breast pocket. Fergus was the family banker and he was not in the habit of pressing hundred-pound drafts on his clients, even if the trust in question was a substantial one, which this one most certainly was not. It had been set up by Douglas's father for his son's education, and Douglas was well aware that very little now remained in it. There was very little loose change in the Farrell finances. His mother was well provided for. His sisters all had husbands who were comfortably situated, but they also all had children. Douglas was to have kept himself and a suitable Society wife in proper style by continuing his father's practice.

  He drummed his fingers on the stained tablecloth, the memory of Marianne once again rising in his mind. By giving up the lucrative practice in favor of a slum clinic that absorbed all his personal finances, he had lost Marianne, the prospective suitable Society wife, and effectively reduced himself to penury, although he did his best to hide the latter fact from his overly solicitous mother. Not too successfully, it would seem, judging by the bank draft. It was typical that she had couched the gift in such terms that he couldn't possibly refuse it.

  He turned to the letter itself. It was five pages covered with her tiny handwriting, full of news of his sisters and their various progeny, of the antics of their neighbors, of whom his mother in general did not approve, the whole interlarded with advice as to the well-being of her youngest born, who also happened to be her only son.

  Douglas took a deep draught of his ale and laughed softly. What his mother would say if she could see him in this miserably dreary boardinghouse on the Cromwell Road, forking cold, overcooked fish into his mouth at the end of an unbelievably long day, he couldn't imagine. She would be sitting at this moment in the elegant Farrell mansion on Prince's Street in Edinburgh, probably preparing the menus for tomorrow, if she was not playing bridge with her friends or instructing one of her daughters on some aspect of child rearing or the domestic running of her household.