Page 56
Chapter Seventeen
Two days passed without a visit from Newberry’s fellow physician. Neville Pridmore reportedly had royal as well as noble patients and a full schedule. Viv spent the time at her desk or at Lady Melforth’s side. Although Lady Melforth kept to her room, she read over pages of their draft and kept Viv busy making small changes and sending them off to Dodsley. Newberry came twice a day to urge his patient to rest rather than write. He said nothing to Lady Melforth of his suspicion that she was subject to a particular palsy, but with Viv, he shook his head and looked grim. The Strydes called often and were turned away on Newberry’s orders, and once Viv heard Mrs. Stryde’s angry voice, warning Haxton that he would be gone as soon as the house was hers.
The night before the consulting physician’s visit, Lady Melforth could not sleep. She insisted that she alone would meet him. She asked Viv to retrace the steps of their walk through the Green Park. Walk Number Six was meant to refresh a woman’s senses and encourage her to enjoy the freedom of a country ramble in the city. Now Lady Melforth worried that the walk was too taxing for a lady, and wanted Viv to walk the route again. Viv knew she was being got out of the way, so that her mentor could face the new doctor alone, but she agreed to go, so that her ladyship could at last sleep.
Viv sat beside the great canopied bed and turned to the other matter on her mind, ending her betrothal. She would ask Lark to accompany her to the park. There, away from others, she would find a way to end their betrothal with dignity and gratitude. She had thought of little else in the few minutes that were hers while attending Lady Melforth and working on the book.
Briefly their engagement had seemed real. His feelings seemed to have changed from the moment when he’d challenged her to accept the ruse. He had said no moonlight and roses, and had kissed her on the pavement in front of the house with someone playing badly in the background and the odors of horses and trash bins in the air.
She had kissed him back and clung to him in that moment. Without meaning to, she had come to regard them as being in league together, taking on the great city and making it theirs. But days of tending to Lady Melforth and holding the book’s pages in her lap had brought Viv to her senses. She had come to London to become a writer. She owed everything she had learned to Lady Melforth. Tomorrow or the next day, she would take the last bits of the book and all the notes and revisions to Dodsley. In days, the proofs would be in her hands.
She knew there were girls who dreamed of seeing their names in the marriage register of some grand church next to a mister or an esquire or even a lord. Not Viv. She had dreamed of opening the cover of a book and finding her name in print. She knew just how their London guide would look now that Dodsley had accepted their title.
A LADY’S GUIDE TO LONDON IN TWELVE SELF-GUIDED WALKS
A FAITHFUL DESCRIPTION OF ROUTES AND PLACES
TO ASSIST WOMEN IN KNOWLEDGE OF THE METROPOLIS
WRITTEN BY LADY AURORA MELFORTH, THE TRAVELING VISCOUNTESS,
AND MISS VIVIAN BRADISH
LONDON: PUBLISHED BY DODSLEY & SONS, 86 THE STRAND
AVAILABLE AT BOOKSELLERS IN ENGLAND, WALES, IRELAND, AND SCOTLAND
It was an old dream, now close to coming true. And Lady Melforth needed her. Viv had no business turning away from her when the caring had become more difficult.
*
The morning of the doctor’s expected visit, Lady Melforth woke early, insisting that she must be up and dressed hours before he was scheduled to arrive. Sarah, her maid, sent for Viv at once. Together they helped her ladyship to her dressing table, where Sarah had placed her ladyship’s cup of morning chocolate. Sarah offered further help, but was sent to bring her ladyship’s clothes from her dressing room. Viv was ordered to gather the latest pages from her ladyship’s bedside.
Her ladyship stared at the mirror, apparently lost in thought. She lifted her hand and rested it on the edge of the dressing table, then with a sudden jerk of the hand, swept the cup of chocolate from the table. She gave an anguished cry and shouted for Sarah. With her shaking hand, she clutched her dripping skirts, scattering drops of chocolate.
Viv’s heart lurched. All of Newberry’s hints that her ladyship might be seriously ill came to mind. She dropped to her knees at her ladyship’s side and put a steadying hand on her trembling arm. Once the tremor subsided, Viv retrieved the cup from the carpet. Sarah came running. “Sarah, please bring some towels and send for Jenny.”
Viv applied a napkin to the worst of the dark spill on her ladyship’s dressing gown. “Don’t worry, ma’am. Jenny will take care of the spill. Let’s move you to the bench and get you out of this wet gown.”
Lady Melforth released her hold of the gown, and allowed Viv to help her to her feet. Together they managed the few steps to the bench at the foot of her ladyship’s grand canopied bed. Viv helped her ladyship to put a hand to the scrolled arm of the bench and stiffly lower herself down. She looked up at Viv with anxious eyes.
“How silly of me to be nervous about this fellow Pridmore’s visit. He’s just another sawbones, no matter how puffed up he is by having exalted patients.”
“Exactly,” Viv agreed. “You know Newberry only wants to be sure that he has not overlooked anything that may be done for you.”
Jenny arrived, and whatever she thought of the dark brown stains on the ivory skirts of the dressing table or the puddle of chocolate on the pale blue carpet, she went to work at once with soap and cold water to remove evidence of the spill. While Sarah and Viv helped her ladyship to dress, Jenny turned the skirts on the dressing table to move the stain to the back. Together Jenny and Viv moved the table a few inches forward to conceal the drying spot on the rug.
When all was in order, Viv and Sarah helped her ladyship back to her dressing table, and Sarah began gently to brush her ladyship’s fiery hair into some sort of order.
“Now, Viv,” said her ladyship, her gaze once again clear, meeting Viv’s in the glass, “you’d best get going if we’re to have those last revisions to Dodsley by the end of day today.”
“Of course, ma’am.” Viv gathered up the pages, gave a mock salute, and turned to go. Outside the bedroom, she leaned against the door, and made a brief, silent prayer for strength for her ladyship.
*
When Viv descended, she found Lark waiting in the hall. It was plain that he and Haxton were now on good terms. Even the least of her acquaintances would feel something when the pretend betrothal ended, perhaps nothing very great, a bit of confusion, a passing sympathy for Viv, but something.
Lark’s questioning gaze met hers at once, and he moved toward her at the bottom of the stairs. “Something’s happened, hasn’t it? Is she worse? You don’t have to tell me, but I am at your service today.”
