Chapter 11 The Gouty Coquette
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 was not accustomed 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 examined her 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 for you instead 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, but I believe 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.”
Ah yes, payment, he thought as he was led out of the room and downstairs.
Alwyn foresaw that, for him, collecting pence and shillings would be the most uncomfortable aspect of doctoring.
The profit earned each year by his estate ensured he could forgo charging patients anything, but he knew that if he did not require some payment, especially at first, his services would be regarded as suspicious.
So I must get used to holding my hand out at each visit’s end, he thought while Marjorie counted out a few coins for him. I can always donate it to the dispensaries once I have it in hand.
Before he slipped the money into his coat pocket, there was a jangling of harnesses out on the street. A carriage was pulling to a stop just outside the door.
“Who’s this?” Marjorie said, moving towards the window, her decorum dispelled by curiosity. “No one ever comes to see us.”
No one? The sadness of the unguarded statement struck Alwyn. My visit here must be the most excitement they’ll have today…perhaps even this week.
He thought of Aunt Joan who, living hours from London, was even further removed from Society.
At least Miss Jepson has a companion in Marjorie. There’s a thought! Perhaps I could hire a —
“Why it’s Lord Loughley!” Marjorie’s sudden exclamation jolted Alwyn back into the moment.
Lord Loughley? Here? Lunging towards the window, he looked out to see a carriage, a family crest emblazoned on its door. A well-dressed man stepped out and Alwyn knew him at once to be the fellow who had been trounced at billiards more than ten years earlier at Castle Farrmore.
Is he Miss Jepson’s nephew?
But Alwyn would not stay to find out. With no parting word to Marjorie, who was reaching to open the front door, he bolted to the back of the house.
From the kitchen, he dashed outside into the garden, crossing it in a few long strides.
Then he was through a little gate and going down the alleyway.
It wasn’t until he strode past a church, a bell ringing in its belfry, that he realized he wasn’t sure where he was.
Continuing on, he came to a busy street, and finally stopped, his heart still racing.
What a rabbit I must seem, bounding off! His face burned with shame. Or worse, a quacksalver, fleeing the site of malpractice.
Yet, he remembered how sullen Lord Loughley had looked while being teased in the billiards room all those years ago. Alwyn had never seen the man at the castle afterwards when his father’s other friends had come for week-long stays.
If Loughley wanted some sort of revenge against Papa, he might publicly accuse me of playing some elaborate prank, posing as his aunt’s doctor. Then Papa’s legacy, Mamma’s memory, my years of study — all of it might be upended in a moment!
With a few furtive glimpses around, Alwyn saw that no pedestrians were pausing to regard him. Not a single rider had turned his way, nor did any curious face look out at him from a passing carriage. He was clearly of no interest to the rest of the world in his moment of shame.
He took a deep breath, and lifted his chin.
Still clutching the coins, he got his bearings and thought through how to get to Felix’s study and its strongbox.
As he started on his way there, his heart no longer pounded in his ears, but he knew there were a number of details about Miss Jepson’s visit that he would not write down in the good doctor’s log.