The Wedding Game

by Jane Feather

  “Right you are, Miss Chas. Give my regards to Miss Prue and Miss Con.”

  “I will. I probably won't see you before Christmas, so have a merry one, Mrs. Beedle, and a wonderful New Year.”

  “And to you too, m'dear.” Mrs. Beedle followed her into the shop.

  Chastity opened the door and peered cautiously out. Douglas was turning the far corner of the street. “Bye, Mrs. Beedle.” She waved and stepped out onto the pavement. Douglas was headed in the opposite direction from her route home, and yet without giving the matter any serious thought she set off after him. She didn't want to meet him, but she did want to find out where he was going with his two pounds of sweets.

  At the next corner, she saw him ahead of her, walking briskly towards the end of the street. She waited until he'd turned the far corner, then ran in the most unladylike fashion, anxious not to lose him at the next corner.

  The streets were getting meaner, dirtier. There were few people about—it was too cold—and those who were standing around in aimless knots were uniformly poorly dressed, and the children who bobbed in and out of doorways were often barefoot. Chastity was so horrified, she could almost feel the freezing cobbles on her own feet. Still, she followed the doctor's unmistakable figure as he strode purposefully ahead, looking neither right nor left.

  “Eh, lady, lady . . . penny, lady . . . go' a penny?” She had been so absorbed in wrestling with her horror at the frozen misery she saw around her that she became aware of the chanted question only belatedly. She turned round and found herself face-to-face with a group of ragged youths, grinning at her, hands stretched out towards her.

  She felt in her pockets for her coin purse and shook a handful of pennies into her palm, aware of the deep-set eyes in thin faces fixed upon her, watching her every move. The group moved closer to her as the coins glinted, and there was a predatory look now in their collective gaze. Suddenly Chastity no longer felt safe. It had been a foolish impulse. Now it was too late to retrace her steps, even if she could find her way back to familiar ground through the twisting warren of streets. She was going to have to reveal herself to Douglas, and God only knew how he'd respond to being followed in this neck of the woods. She tossed the pennies to the street and spun on her heel, running after her quarry while the youths fell in a scrabbling, scrapping heap upon the coins.

  Douglas turned into a narrow alley behind a church and stopped outside a door in the middle of the terrace of houses. He still wasn't aware of her behind him and instinctively Chastity slowed, catching her breath. He opened the door and disappeared within. An icy blast of wind roared down the narrow street, picking up refuse from the cobbles: manure-soiled straw, scraps of filthy paper, potato peelings, and other unidentifiable pieces of jetsam. Chastity shivered as the cold penetrated the thickness of her coat. She couldn't stand out here indefinitely. Squaring her shoulders she walked to the door and pushed it open. She stepped directly into a small, dreary front room that was filled with people—women and children, for the most part.

  She gazed around her in confusion and dismay. She was overwhelmed by the misery all around her. It had a distinct smell that seemed to stifle the breath in her throat. The room was both cold and stuffy, and the coal fire gave off rank fumes that mingled with the burning oil in the lamps.

  Douglas had his back to her and was bending over, talking to a woman seated on a rickety stool, a baby in her arms. He reached down and took the infant from her, cradling it against his shoulder with a completely natural ease. “Close the door,” he said without turning, and Chastity realized that she was still standing in the open doorway, letting the frigid air into the house. She had no business here. She was about to step back into the street, closing the door behind her, when he glanced over his shoulder.

  He stared at her in disbelief, his large hand still cupping the baby's head against his shoulder. “Chastity? What the hell—”

  “I saw you back there and followed you,” she said in a rush, interrupting him. “And then some youths started demanding money and I was suddenly scared. Silly of me, I know.” She looked at him helplessly, knowing it was a pathetically inadequate explanation for what was clearly some monumental intrusion.

  The baby wailed as if at a sudden pain and Douglas instantly turned his attention to the child, seeming to dismiss his unwelcome visitor. He touched the tiny ear and the child screamed. “All right,” he said softly, rocking the infant as the mother looked up at him with a mixture of hope and helplessness in her tired eyes. “It looks like an ear infection; I think we can do something for him,” he said, giving the woman a smile of reassurance. “Come into the office, Mrs. Croaker.” Still carrying the crying baby he went through a door in the far wall, the woman on his heels.

  Chastity remained standing by the outside door, wondering whether she should just slide away and pretend she'd never been there. But that didn't seem like an option somehow. She became aware of something tugging at her skirt and looked down into the hollow eyes of a whey-faced little girl of about four. Her nose was crusted and running. Chastity felt in her handbag for the packet of peppermints she always carried with her. She offered one to the girl, who regarded it for a moment with suspicion before grabbing it quickly and cramming it into her mouth as if afraid someone would take it from her.

  The door to the inner room opened and Mrs. Croaker emerged, carrying her now quiet baby. Douglas appeared behind her. He beckoned Chastity, his expression rather dark. She was aware of dull eyes in thin grimy faces following her with little interest as she passed through them, following him into a smaller room, sparsely furnished with a table, two chairs, a shelf of books, and a screen in the corner.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Douglas demanded without preamble.

  “I told you. I saw you and was trying to catch up with you,” she said as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “I had a question I needed to ask you. Well, several actually.”

  His charcoal eyes were far from friendly as he said, “And just what could possibly have brought the Honorable Miss Duncan to this part of London?”

  “I was visiting an old servant for tea,” she lied glibly. “She lives on Kensington High Street, above a shop . . . a baker's shop. We—my sisters and I—take turns visiting her once a month. The poor old dear gets very lonely. I was just leaving when I saw you turn the corner of the street and I thought it would be a good opportunity to ask you my questions.”

  Douglas's gaze was incredulous. “You followed me for six relatively respectable streets into the depths of this neighborhood just to ask me a question?”

  “Why is that strange?” Chastity asked with a touch of hauteur that she hoped would add verisimilitude to her tale. “If I see someone on the street that I want to talk to, what's strange about following them to attract their attention?”

  Douglas shook his head impatiently. “Why didn't you just call out to me?” he asked. “When you first saw me.”

  Good question, Chastity thought, but she sensed that the truthful answer wouldn't serve her well at this point. Douglas did not look as if he'd have much sympathy for simple curiosity. “I did,” she fibbed. “But you didn't hear me. And you were walking very fast. Before I realized it, I was lost and I had no choice but to keep following you. Where are we exactly?” she added.

  His mouth tightened. He could see the revulsion in her hazel eyes, hear it in the question itself. He could almost hear Marianne asking the same question in the same tone. “Not your usual stomping ground, I'm afraid,” he said with undisguised contempt.

  Chastity flushed a little. “I wouldn't have thought it was yours,” she said. “It's hardly Harley Street.”

  He gazed at her in silence for a minute and she began to feel like an insect under a microscope, then he agreed dryly, “No, it's not. But if you keep yourself to yourself, don't touch anything or anyone, and don't breathe too deeply, it's to be hoped you won't catch anything unsavory.”

  Her flush deepened. She had certainly i
ntruded, but she didn't think she'd done anything to deserve this disdain. “I'll go and find a hackney,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster.

  “Don't be absurd,” he snapped. “You don't really believe hackneys ply their trade in these streets.”

  Chastity took a deep breath and said with careful lack of expression, “If you would tell me exactly how to get out of this warren of streets to somewhere vaguely familiar, I'll leave you to your work. You have a lot of patients waiting.”

  He didn't answer immediately, but the angry frown creasing his forehead above the thick eyebrows deepened. The last thing he wanted was this Society lady poking her nose into his very private business. If she chose to blab about it, it would be all over town in no time. How many wealthy patients would be willing to patronize a physician who also had a surgery in the London slums? They'd run a mile. But the damage was already done and he couldn't in all conscience let her leave unescorted.

  “I doubt you're capable of looking after yourself in that warren, as you put it,” he said eventually. “And you'll certainly draw unwelcome attention to yourself. You may find these surroundings distasteful, but you need to wait until I'm ready to take you home. Take that chair over there.” He gestured to a chair by the window.

  She wanted to tell him that distasteful was not the word. She found the surroundings wretched, desperate; they filled her with horror and compassion, but in the face of his sardonic tone she was damned if she was going to tell him that. “I'll find a seat in the outer office,” she stated, turning to go.

  “I don't recommend that,” Douglas said. “There are any number of infections hanging around in that room just waiting for a rarified flower such as yourself to host them.”

  “And you don't get them?” she inquired, the edge to her voice growing sharper. She couldn't understand his abrupt and hostile manner. He was entitled to some degree of annoyance, but this was too much, and she wasn't prepared to let him get away with it. “You don't consider you might pass them on to people you meet in your other life, Dr. Farrell?”

  “You may rest assured, Miss Duncan, that I disinfect myself thoroughly,” he said with that same flicker of contempt.

  Chastity took herself out to the waiting room and found a spare seat. Children whined and sniffed; their blank-eyed mothers administered slaps and hugs indiscriminately. Everyone shivered. Chastity handed out the last of her peppermints and wished she had more. They were a small enough solace in the face of this collective misery but at least she felt as if she was contributing something. She huddled into her coat with her reflections as Douglas moved among his patients, talking softly to each one in the waiting room before taking them into his office.

  This doctor was a very different man from the urbane physician of Wimpole and Harley Streets . . . and very different from the man who had a passion for music and who could be a charming and witty dinner companion, not to mention a liberty-taking carriage escort. He was a positive Jekyll and Hyde. But why was he working here? Were these the only patients who would come to him? Or was it simply that he didn't yet have a sufficiently established practice in the more salubrious office on Harley Street to give this one up? Could these people even pay him? Certainly not much.

  Could it be choice? she thought suddenly, watching as he knelt on the dirty floor in front of an elderly woman whose badly swollen feet were wrapped in rags. He unwrapped the rags, holding her misshapen feet in the palms of his hands, tenderly palpating the ankles. It came to Chastity as a blinding revelation that he was treating these wretched folk with something akin to love. And they hung on his every word, their eyes following him as he moved among them. But how in the world did this scene jibe with a wealthy Harley Street practice?

  And why had he been so contemptuous, so hostile towards her if he loved what he was doing? If he was proud of what he was doing? It was more as if he was embarrassed at being caught out at something that he was ashamed of.

  For close to two hours, Chastity sat against the wall, trying to appear invisible. At least she'd solved the answer to the licorice and humbugs, she reflected, noticing that most patients as they left had some kind of medicine and the children without exception left his office with a handful of sweets. Finally he called in the last patient and she was the only person left in the waiting room. She got up from the rickety chair, feeling stiff and cold from sitting still so long, and went to the fireplace, stretching her hands to the meager glow.

  She heard his office door open, heard him say, “Bring Maddie back in two days, Mrs. Garth. It's very important that I see her again. Don't forget.” Chastity straightened and turned slowly to watch him show a thin woman and an even thinner child out the front door.

  “Poor souls,” she said rather helplessly.

  “Yes, that's exactly what they are. Poor.” He moved past her to the grate and bent to bank the fire, then rose and extinguished the lamps. “Did you find it an interesting afternoon? An enlightening one, perhaps?” That same adversarial note was in his voice. It was as if he was challenging her in some way.

  “No, I found it depressing,” she said. “I can understand why you would want to move to Harley Street.”

  “Can you?” he said with a short laugh. “Can you, indeed?” He opened the door for her and she stepped out into the icy street, wrapping the scarf around her throat while he closed the door.

  “You're not locking it?”

  “There's nothing to steal, and someone might need to come in from the cold,” he said curtly. He looked down at her with that same frown creasing his brow. “Would it be too much to ask you to keep this little adventure of yours a secret?”

  Chastity thought he sounded as if the request had been dragged from him by wild horses. She said rather coldly, “I'm not in the habit of gossiping. Besides, your business is no business of mine.”

  He looked unconvinced but then gave a short nod and said, “Let's hurry, I'm freezing to death.”

  He took her hand and pulled her along beside him as he strode rapidly away from the terrace and the church and along a series of miserable streets until they turned suddenly into the broad thoroughfare of Kensington High Street. “We'll take the omnibus from the corner,” he said. “It goes directly to Oxford Street.”

  Chastity was about to say that in this cold she would prefer to take a hackney but bit her tongue. After what she'd seen this afternoon it wouldn't surprise her if the doctor didn't have the cab fare. She did, but remembering how he'd reacted when she'd hinted he might be a little short in the coin department, she wasn't prepared to risk a reprise by offering to pay for the ride herself.

  Fortunately, the bus came quickly. It was fairly full but Douglas pushed her somewhat unceremoniously into the center, where there was a spare seat, or half a seat, the other half being occupied by a woman of very generous proportions who was also hung about with parcels and held a capacious handbag on her knee from which she had taken out her knitting. Chastity took the perch available and Douglas stood in the aisle, one hand on the seat back, the other holding the ceiling strap. He was so tall, it brushed his shoulder and he could reach it without so much as a stretch.

  “So, what were these questions you wanted to ask me so urgently?” he inquired, handing the conductor sixpence for their fares as the omnibus lurched to a stop.

  Chastity's large seat companion wanted to get off at the stop, giving Chastity time to consider her hastily manufactured excuse. It seemed rather feeble after the events of the afternoon. With mumbled apologies the woman banged her way past Chastity, parcels swinging precariously, knitting needles sticking out dangerously from the wide-open handbag. When she had finally staggered down the aisle trailing apologies, bruises, and scrapes in her wake, Chastity slipped over into the window seat, which was pleasantly warm from its previous occupant, and Douglas took the seat beside her.

  “So?” he said.

  It might be feeble but it was all she had. “I wasn't sure if we would meet again socially before Christmas
and I didn't have your address,” she said. “I wanted to know what arrangements you wanted to make about coming to Romsey.”

  “That was the question . . . the only question?” he asked incredulously. “You followed me into the darkest depths of Earl's Court to ask me something that trivial?”

  “You might consider it trivial,” Chastity snapped, well on the defensive now. “But as your hostess, I don't find it in the least so. Are you intending to arrive on Christmas Eve, or the day itself? How long do you intend to stay? Will you be bringing servants? These are all vital matters.”

  He leaned his head back and laughed without the slightest hint of humor. “Vital matters. Dear God, I suppose for some people they are.” He turned his head to look at her. “After what you saw this afternoon, how can you call—No, forgive me.” He shook his head. “I know perfectly well I couldn't expect someone like you to understand.”

  Someone like you. Chastity was chilled by something quite other than the cold evening. What kind of person did he think she was? She'd been shocked, horrified, filled with pity for those people. And in different circumstances would have been overcome with admiration for Douglas Farrell. Except that his hostility rather blunted the edge of admiration, and besides, he must presumably be intending to leave that practice when he established himself instead among the rich socialites of the city, a wealthy wife upon his arm. But she couldn't say any of that, because she wasn't supposed to know about the wife part of his ambition, or about the contempt with which he viewed the rich socialites who would line his pockets. He had only revealed that to the representative of the Go-Between. And it was that same contempt he'd been directing at her all afternoon.

  She said tartly, “Since you're abandoning those people in favor of a rather easier and more lucrative practice, I don't think you can throw stones, Dr. Farrell.”