Chapter Eleven
“Now remember, discretion is key, even with the servants. We are simply two people calling on a friend. Do not call me doctor, simply refer to me as Bennet, alright?”
It was not the first time that Dr. Pinkton had given Augusta such a rundown during their work together. Since he had gathered her from a lonely spot in the park that morning, where she had left Milly to remain, he had been more skittish than she had ever seen the man.
“You have my word, Bennet.”
To her surprise, he did not cringe against the familiarity. Then again, he was not in society; he was likely used to some of those formalities dropping away in his personal life.
“And you are certain your maid will not talk?”
“No one can ever be certain about anything, Dr. Pinkton-”
“Bennet.”
“Bennet. No one can be certain, but Milly has always been happy to keep my activities discreet so long as I give her healthy sums and treat her amiably. I have no reason to think she will not do so today. She is in possibly the best position a maid could be in - flush with money and now with an afternoon entirely to herself in peace. I do not see why she would risk it.”
Dr. Pinkton frowned, but accepted her answer.
It surprised Augusta some that it was not herself who felt so discomposed.
If anything, she felt calmer attending him to the home of Lady Wallingford than she did attending a lecture wherein not a single soul would know her face.
Perhaps because she knew what it was like to keep a secret in the ton.
She knew what lengths Lady Wallingford would go to in order to keep this visit from becoming public knowledge.
Therefore, seeing Dr. Pinkton become so squeamish about the very situation that he himself had created was, in an ironic way, a bit humorous to Augusta.
“Think of it this way. If we end up in the society papers, it shall only drum up more business.”
Dr. Pinkton nearly choked as his eyes flew up to hers, widening. “It would drum up utter ruin! Oh-” he sighed, seeing the smirk on her face. “You are joking, I see. I apologize, I am not used to you doing that.”
“Quite alright. Neither am I.” Were it not for the fact that the carriage had just rounded the corner to the home of her next real life patient, or the fact that her mood overall these past few weeks had been bolstered by the very man she attempted not to think about, she might not be in such a state to have a laugh.
“What makes you so jumpy, Bennet? Is there something different about this visit?”
The man shrugged. “I do not know. I just have this terrible feeling with new patients sometimes, and I worry that this will be the moment we are found out. I would hate to have done that to you, Miss Browning.”
His words stoked some of the flames of her own anxieties, though she forced them down. “Do not worry about my future. I have made my choices, and I do not regret a single one of them. You are not my keeper, I assure you.”
He offered her nothing but a small smile at that.
As it was, the Wallingford home sprawled out before them. As they pulled up to the front, Augusta allowed the footman to help her out of the carriage. Dr. Pinkton remained close behind her.
Lord Wallingford, a man in his forties with graying hair and a kind smile, met them at the front steps.
“Ah, Miss Browning,” he said kindly. “So good to see you again. And, of course, we are delighted to meet your cousin here.”
Ah, a cousin. Dr. Pinkton had told her early on in their work to go along with whatever the family said in front of the servants, even if it sounded absurd.
They would not know who in the household was aware of their visit’s true purpose, and so it was best to simply affirm everything.
A cousin was an easy enough story to attend to.
“Yes,” she said, far too brightly for her usual temperament. “He has long traveled, but finally arrived from up north.” Was that too much information? Did it sound false?
Perhaps she had been a bit cocky in the carriage.
Lord Wallingford did not flinch at her addition to his story. Instead, he invited the pair inside and walked with them to the drawing room, wherein his wife sat in a chair by the window overlooking the gardens.
“Love,” Lord Wallingford said in a far more familiar tone than Augusta had ever heard from the man. “Your visitors are here for you.”
Though Dr. Pinkton had told her that the spouses of their patients may not always be in the know regarding their visit, Augusta knew right away from the soft, concerned tone of Lord Wallingford that he understood precisely who they were and why they had come.
Lady Wallingford, who Augusta had not seen in many months, despite the fact that she had been at the Wallingford ball mere weeks before, looked up at them with bright, curious eyes.
She was in her thirties, with thick yellow hair and a pretty face.
Not the sallow, sunken kind of patient that Augusta had come to expect, knowing her own penchant for falling into physical disrepair during a spell.
“Come,” the lady said softly, inviting them over to her sitting area.
The trio did as told, taking the available seats across from Lady Wallingford.
“I, erm, am unsure how this usually works,” Lord Wallingford said, oddly bashful. He glanced at the door and lowered his voice. “Should I take my leave?”
“That is up to Lady Wallingford,” Dr. Pinkton said, looking to the woman for her response.
“He can stay,” she said in that same singsong, breathy voice. “He knows everything already.”
For some reason, this made Augusta want to give one of those terrible romantic, girlish sighs of yearning.
The idea that someone might know everything and still remain at her side, content to hear it all laid out before them, was such a ridiculous fantasy.
And yet, she found herself wanting it desperately.
“Alright,” Dr. Pinkton said, finally seeming to settle in, his previous nerves dissipating as he moved through the role that he had grown so accustomed to. “I am aware that you are acquainted with my colleague, Miss Browning, but would you be able to tell me a bit about your life?”
It took every ounce of control that Augusta possessed not to gasp at Dr. Pinkton calling her his colleague. Instead, she inclined her head and listened intently to her patient, imagining for a moment that this was her life, her profession, with no end in sight.
Lady Wallingford drew in a shaky breath, the kind that told Augusta that the woman had spent much of the day dreading this.
“I grew up here in London,” she said. “Although we often went to Brighton in the winter. I have four siblings. I am the eldest girl. Is this…is this what you are asking, Doctor? Or do you want to know something else?”
“No, this is good. Tell me about your parents.”
“Yes. Well, my father was a bit of a cold man, though I believe he did love us. My mother was an exceptionally warm woman, perhaps to make up for my father in some ways. She doted on us, especially myself and my sister. I believe it was because of her that my sister and I made love matches, rather than the typical ton marriage.”
At this, Lady Wallingford glanced at her husband, offering up a small smile, which was returned by his own.
Augusta looked away, suddenly feeling that she was an intruder upon their intimacy. She did not look at them again until Dr. Pinkton spoke.
“Do you recall the first time you noticed your melancholia?”
Lady Wallingford did not have to think long on that.
“In honesty, I do not know that I ever would have noticed it myself. I have always had emotional peaks, where I feel…well, indestructible, for lack of a better word. That was often followed by sadness that is greater than what others seem to feel. It was my mother who pointed it out to me, right before I debuted. She asked me if I wanted to see a doctor, but I refused. She let the matter drop, and then I met my husband, and it simply did not seem so important anymore.”
She paused only for a quick breath. “The first few years of marriage were quite smooth, actually. I had very few mood changes. I believe I was so focused on our children and our home, and it was as though my mind was too busy to do anything else. However, one Christmas I simply awoke one morning and could not get out of bed. I believed I was ill, but a doctor said that it was all in my mind. And…I could not believe it. How could something in my mind affect me so?”
Augusta understood, all too well, exactly what Lady Wallingford was attempting to convey. She, too, had often felt so betrayed by the very mind that she was supposed to have mastery over, but which instead seemed to rule over every part of her life.
“I have had other spells like that over the years, but never so severe as the one which befell me back in the Spring. I have spent all of this season attempting to flee it, but no matter what I do, no matter how many balls I throw, or how many events I attend, or how much I give to charity, my mind cannot be alleviated.”
Dr. Pinkton cocked his head. “Do you believe that all of those things ought to alleviate your mind? The charity and whatnot?”
Lady Wallingford thought about this for a while before shaking her head. “No, I suppose not. There was a small part of me that believed if I did good things, then only good things could happen to me. But that is quite silly, now that I say it aloud. We don’t have control over these things, do we?”
This, Augusta noted, marked a shift in Lady Wallingford.
Until now, the woman had only been describing her condition.
Now, she appeared to be reasoning on it.
With a simple question, Dr. Pinkton had elicited logic from a woman in despair.
She told herself that she would ask him about it later, and would demand that he teach her the skill.
“I look at something that I once loved, and it is like I am not even seeing it at all.” Tears formed in Lady Wallingford’s lovely eyes, but she deftly brushed them away before they could fall.
“It is the cruelest thing, to know what it did feel like to have joy once, but to be unable to conjure it in the moment. I sometimes wish I had just been this way from the beginning. At least then it would be all I know. There would be nothing to compare it to.”
If Augusta’s heart could physically break in two, it would have in that moment. Never in her life had she heard her own condition so aptly described by a fellow sufferer.
Her eyes flitted to Lord Wallingford, who looked at his wife with the kind of wide-eyed love that only a fool of a husband could have, but she knew that he was no fool. He was, simply put, besotted with the woman he had chosen, despite all of the things that she found so shameful.
Augusta tried not to feel envy. What might it mean, to let go of her fear and accept the beautiful things in front of her without question? It could feel like falling. She had not felt that in such a great, long time. It might be nice to be led by her heart for once.
Besides, what good had her mind done her up until that point? It had lost her the first true suitor of her life. It had made her fall into despair. It had hardly ever steered her in the direction of happiness.
Dr. Pinkton spoke, and Augusta listened, trying to drown out the damned hope that had suddenly bloomed within her. But by the time the pair said their goodbyes to the Wallingfords an hour later, promising to return, she still had not managed to stamp it out.