“George looks a little tired,” she murmured. “I think we ought to go now.”
Following the line of her aunt’s gaze, Belinda saw her uncle was seated, resting his chin in his hand as another man stood by, speaking animatedly to him.
Concealing her relief at leaving at last, Belinda followed Rose through the crowd, bobbing her head in farewell at a few guests. Mr Caspar rose at their approach, and the three of them went out into the brisk evening air. As they descended the stairs, George missed a step, nearly falling as he grasped at the handrail.
“Oh, my darling!” Rose cried, grabbing onto him. “Are you alright?”
“I beg your pardon, ladies. Clumsy, clumsy!” He straightened his coat and they continued down the stairs a little more slowly. Once they were inside the unlit carriage, Lindy could hear her aunt’s gown rustling as she snuggled up against her husband on the squab.
“So niece, did you enjoy yourself at all?” Her uncle’s voice drifted to her in the near-dark. “You were strung tight as a lyre when we first arrived, but surely there were a few fellows in that crush to whom you were pleased to speak.”
Dipping into her well of patience, Belinda replied, “Uncle, please recall, it’s a lady’s trust I seek to win, not a man’s attentions.”
“Ah yes! So did any old crones catch your eye?”
“There was one woman who certainly caught myear, as well asevery ear around us,” she said, then told her uncle all about Mrs Phylter and her presumptuous hollering, at which hetsked and guffawed in appropriate turns.
When she had finished, Rose said, “Oh Lindy, no one hearing her could think her serious. And I regret telling you, but nearly every woman, regardless of her rank and situation, is wont to nudge you towards some men and away from others.”
“I would that you were wrong in that, though I suppose you are not.” Belinda chewed her lip.
“Regardless,” her aunt went on, “some promising inroads were made this evening. Don’t you think?”
Lindy murmured her agreement, though none of their new acquaintances stood out to her as a likely employer.
And as they bumped over the cobblestones through the dark night, she wondered what other degradations she might soon suffer.
The Gouty Coquette
AFTER KNOCKING on the front door of one Miss Jepson, Alwyn was led up a familiar staircase to where the aged patient was propped up in bed. With Dr Felix gone off to Yorkshire, Alwyn had come to reassess the woman’s gout.
Rumoured to be the maiden aunt of a lord, Miss Jepson was living out her days in a house in Cheapside. Residing there also was a middle-aged woman called Marjorie, whose sole purpose it seemed was to serve her elderly charge two meals a day, and address any reasonable whims she might be presented with in between times.
Alwyn had grown comfortable with the peculiar intimacy that came with caring for patients in the closeness of their homes, considering it an honour to address the needs and concerns of their ailing bodies. What he wasnotaccustomed to was the way that some of the female patients – usually the older ones – would sometimes flirt with him.
Today was no exception.
Miss Jepson’s thinning white hair was tucked away under a lace-edged cap, escaped strands of it hanging around her flaccid jowls. Her spindly legs, emerging from under the crisp hem of her night rail, ended in a pair of feet which were red and knobby with gout. However, none of this kept her from fluttering her rheumy eyes at Alwyn as he examinedher beleaguered limbs.
You’d think she hopes I’ll ask her to dance,he thought as her coquettish gaze bore into him.
“From now on, I’ll call foryouinstead of that aging Felix fellow,” she said, then lowered her voice as if she was sharing a grave confidence. “He’s about done, I’m afraid.”
Swallowing his laughter, Alwyn replied just as solemnly, “I appreciate your confidence in me, Miss Jepson, butIbelieve he has a few good years left.”
On the bedside table, he saw a tell-tale goblet, noting the wet, reddish dregs it held.
“A diet without red wine and organ meat might bring down the swelling,” he told Marjorie, who raised her eyebrows noncommittally. Alwyn knew she had heard this exact recommendation several times from Dr Felix already.
The patient herself paid no heed to the exchange, but smiled coyly, lifting one of her legs as if she wanted Alwyn to examine it further. He humoured her briefly, then settled the limb back on the bed, spreading the bed covers over it gently.
“I hope to find your symptoms alleviated at my next visit, Miss Jepson.” Alwyn lifted his satchel from the floor.
“Oh, must you go?” she asked, casting him a sorrowful look.
“I shall return in one week’s time.” He smiled as he moved towards the door.
“Pay the man well, Marjorie.”
