Her stepmother huffed. “You and your sister! Determined to be unhappy because life didn’t give you exactly what you wanted, all the while ignoring what might truly bring fulfillment. No, women cannot be doctors. And yes, Mr. Dalbymarried someone else. Do you really think there is only one path to happiness? God is bigger and life is more complicated than that. You waste so much time pining for what you can’t have that you miss—even scoff at—other excellent opportunities right in front of you.”
Indignation flared. “Are you seriously suggesting Mr. Shufflebottom is my excellent opportunity? My path to fulfillment? Is that all I’m good for—to yoke myself to a near stranger and bear child after child, hips expanding and patience thinning with each one?”
Hands on ample hips, Nancy challenged, “Like me, I suppose you mean?”
“If the cap fits.”
“Anne Louise Loveday!” Her father scowled thunderously. “I am ashamed of you. Apologize to your stepmother this instant.”
Anne looked at her father, the betrayer, and lifted her chin. “I will apologize for being rude, but not for speaking the truth.” Anne wasn’t usually mean-spirited, but her father’s second wife brought out the worst side of her nature. She could not help resenting the woman, only a few years older than she, who was preventing her from carrying out her life’s ambition.
Heated silence followed as the two glared at her, tension radiating off her father and his much-younger wife.
Nancy took his arm. “I told you it was time for her to go. We need the room with another on the way, and her constant rebellion is not good for my health.”
Her father looked at Nancy and did not disagree. Instead he sighed. “Speaking of going, I had better set out for the Barkers’.”
“Without me?” Anne asked.
“Exactly,” Nancy answered for him. “I am sure he and the midwife can manage without you.”
Anne opened her mouth to protest, but at that moment a little hand took hers. She looked down and, through a red haze of anger, saw Matilda’s tear-streaked face. “Anne, I scraped my knee again. Will you help me? Before I bleed through my skirts?”
Relieved for the distraction, Anne replied, “Of course, Matty.” She eyed her young half sister with fondness and guilt. She was not to blame for any of this.
“Excuse us,” she said, leading the girl away.
Anne knew she should not begrudge her father the happiness of his second marriage and second batch of children. Nor resent the woman he had married six years ago, less than two years after her mother’s death.
She had managed, to some degree, until the new Mrs. Loveday had taken on the role of matchmaker as well as stepmother—and then started limiting Anne’s involvement in her father’s practice.
It was not Nancy’s fault women were not allowed to be physicians, surgeons, or apothecaries. But did that truly mean her only other option was marriage to an older man she barely knew? At seven and twenty, Anne realized she was well beyond the first blush of youth, and beyond the first pick of suitors too. At her age, she was unlikely to marry for love, and she vowed not to marry under any other inducement.
She thought again of her sister’s unhappy marriage and of her stepmother’s exhaustion after bearing four children in the last six years, with a fifth on the way.No,thank you.Anne would forgo all that and live a single, useful life, helping others—like Miss Lotty did.
After she had cleaned and administered a sticking plaster to young Matilda’s knee, Anne once again opened the recent letter from her mother’s old friend, Charlotte Newland, with whom Anne had corresponded over the years. A spinster in her mid-forties, Miss Lotty had invited Anne to come andstay with her in Painswick. Initially, Anne had hesitated. Now, after the day’s events, the choice seemed clear. Anne reread the lines, which brimmed with local news, friendly greetings, and how much the dear woman missed her, reminding Anne how long it had been since they’d seen each other. She’d ended the letter with a rather mysterious plea.
P.S. My dear Anne, someone in Painswick could use your help, though I hesitate to name the person, for fear it will put you off coming here.
How curious.
Mystery or no, Anne wrote back to accept. Miss Lotty’s invitation seemed the perfect opportunity. It was time to leave her father’s house, and her stepmother’s matchmaking attempts, once and for all.
By the time her father returned, Anne was feeling a bit sheepish for losing her temper earlier. Tentatively she asked, “How is Mrs. Barker?”
“Perfectly well, as is her newborn son. The midwife was able to turn him, and together we delivered the child without resorting to either instrument.”
Anne sighed in relief. “That is good news. And, um, speaking of news, Miss Charlotte Newland has invited me to visit her in Painswick. I have decided to accept her offer.”
Her father hesitated, then slowly nodded. “I understand.”
Anne felt an unexpected pang at his easy acquiescence, and at the thought of parting from him. They had once worked so well together.
“I know you miss how things were when it was just you, me, and Fanny,” he said, “but—”
“No, Papa. I miss when it was the four of us. I miss Mamma. You may have forgotten her, yet I cannot.”
“What do you mean, forgotten her? I think of her every day and wish I had done things differently. I should never have left her alone in your care.”
