Chapter 3
James Fletcher lingered over his solitary late afternoon meal at the H?tel de Lorraine in the center of Spa.
Every table in the dining room was occupied by members of the fashionable set, although many of them resided elsewhere in the small city.
He had arrived at the tail end of last year’s season, just before Spa’s visitors—numbering over six hundred at the season’s peak with entourages who more than doubled that—were in the process of leaving.
Now he was watching the city come to life again as the curists flocked back, all eager to drink the salubrious waters.
Flanked by family members and servants, the hundreds of curists rented rooms in hotels and private lodgings and inns, and even spread out over the neighboring hamlets.
The H?tel de Lorraine was famed for its elegant cuisine and providing sorbets and other iced culinary delights even in the heat of summer, and the Quality flocked to it.
Today, the sight of so much luxury brought him little satisfaction.
Elegance lost its luster when one needed to count one’s shillings.
“Avez-vous terminé, monsieur?”
James hadn’t noticed the servant appear at his side. He nodded, and the servant cleared the table of the dishes that had included several viands and fish. He returned with a bottle of port and a glass.
Although he possessed no title, James was a gentleman physician, learned in the study of medicine and author of several papers on the subject of thermal waters.
It was for this interest and specialty that a guest physician at the Edinburgh Faculty of Medicine had invited him to set up his practice in Spa.
Mr. Vroomen was one of the three physicians of note in the thriving thermal town, along with Mr. Hughes and Mr. Prexley.
Besides them, a host of other lesser-known doctors, surgeons, and apothecaries provided services to the hundreds of invalids in search of a cure.
Though James was a fully practicing physician with a diploma from the Edinburgh Faculty of Medicine, it was no easy feat to distinguish oneself from such a panoply of specialists, and James was not the only one attempting to do so.
Mr. Madden MacFirbis might not have received his diploma as James had, but he would be fully qualified when his apprenticeship was completed.
Unlike James, he was independently wealthy and stood in no risk of falling into financial difficulties while he built his practice.
The subject of finances was what troubled James at present.
Well, finances and taut family relationships that had not improved with distance.
After a considerable delay, he had at last received a response to his letter asking his father for funds to tide him over for a few months while he completed his project of the baths and built up his own practice.
He had even humbled himself to the point of telling his father to consider it a loan.
Unfortunately, his fears of being rejected had proven all too accurate.
James Fletcher Sr. reminded him that he had chosen the field of medicine against the wishes of his family and would have to content himself with the trust that had come into his possession from his mother’s dowry.
That or, if he had been improvident, to wait until his great-aunt Mary died and left him the fortune of twelve thousand pounds as promised in her will.
James had no wish to improve his circumstances by anticipating the demise of a relative, even one with whom he was not close in affection.
Besides, his aunt was a dragon of a woman and would likely hold out for a decade or more.
As for his own modest trust, whatever had not been used to support himself in Edinburgh had gone entirely into constructing the modern baths at the Tonnelet source.
One would almost think his father had preferred he gamble it away.
Upon reading the letter, James had crumpled it in frustration and tossed it into the fire.
Having finished his meal, he moved into the adjoining room, where tea was usually served.
While only slightly larger than the dining area, the hotel drawing room gave an air of immense spaciousness with its wall of glazed, latticed doors lining the back.
Through the windowpanes, the room’s occupants were given a glimpse of the private gardens extending as far as the road that led to the Promenade de Sept-Heures.
James ignored the pastoral view outdoors and the sage-green furnishings and society within, searching instead for Mr. Prexley.
The doctor had promised him more than once to take him on his consultations, and James could not understand why he had yet to do so, considering their arrangement.
His financial situation was not desperate yet, but it lent an urgency to the mission.
“Mr. Fletcher, have you heard a word of what I said?”
“Pardon. What is it?” Startled, James turned to the elderly Mr. Rosemund, who had appeared on his right. He had scarcely heard the man’s remark and knew only that it was regarding his liver complaint. Now, James struggled to grasp what his patient was communicating.
“I was saying”—the white-haired gentleman lifted a gnarled finger—“that, for myself, I do not think it was the bathing. Rather, I think you might have hit upon something when you encouraged me to drink the waters of three different sources. I do believe ’twas that prescription that left my liver much improved.
” He accompanied this declaration with something almost resembling a smile, which meant he must have indeed felt improved.
His usual expression was more like a grimace.
From the corner of his eye, James caught sight of the yellow-and-green justaucorps Prexley sometimes wore, but he resisted the temptation to go after him. Mr. Rosemund was his patient—one of only three—and deserved his undivided attention.
“The bathing was for your rheumatism and not for your liver,” he replied. “I shall come and call upon you in two days’ time. We will catalog your symptoms together then, but I suspect you will need to continue bathing in the water as soon as it grows warm enough.”
He smiled and bowed to Mr. Rosemund, then resumed his search of Mr. Prexley.
The distinguished physician was usually in the hotel’s drawing room at this hour.
With no sign of him, James pivoted to look in the dining room and the corridor beyond it, his attention arrested by the bustle of servants carrying trunks to the upper rooms. New arrivals for the season, likely.
He gave up his search for Mr. Prexley and considered his options for society.
There were only two who were not already engaged in conversation.
MacFirbis, the young doctor who was proving to be James’s biggest competition, although if it had been left to him, he would have preferred to be colleagues and friends.
Then there was the Belgian painter, Monsieur Matthieu Lambert, a handsome and charismatic gentleman who had a pleasing word for everyone at all times.
James had never seen anything shake his urbane manner.
From what he could glean, Lambert was residing in Spa to paint the scenic views, although he was reputed to do portraits as well.
Some of the landscapes he sold locally, and others he sent to dealers in Brussels and Paris, apparently doing quite well for himself.
There was nothing about his person that could lead one to imagine him an artist. He seemed entirely too fashionable and lethargic to be gripped by any muse.
Yet, judging from the few paintings James had seen displayed in the hotel’s dining room and in the newly built H?tel d’Irlande, Lambert clearly possessed talent.
James could admire the man for his skill but did not believe his amiable manner to be entirely sincere.
Still, he was the lesser of two evils, and he went to greet him.
“Mr. Fletcher.” Lambert received James with a phantom smile and a bow. “You must be commended. No other physician is as dedicated as you. At least, neither Mr. Hughes nor Mr. Prexley entertain their patients’ complaints in public drawing rooms.”
It was as though James were less of a gentleman for refusing to ignore his patients outside of visits. “And are you done with painting for the day?” he asked in return. “There is still light enough.”
He glanced through the glass doors that overlooked the garden at the back of the hotel. Outside, the sun filtered through the trees on the hillside and lit the vibrant border of red, purple, and yellow tulips.
“Ah yes. But I am currently painting a series of views at sunrise. Therefore, I allow myself the pleasure of meeting friends for tea, followed by dinner, knowing my labor is behind me.” He smiled kindly.
“Although I should not tempt you to the sin of jealousy, for I fear that is not something you are ever able to say.”
James was saved from more stilted conversation by the sight of his friend George Moreau walking toward both of them.
Morry, as his intimates called him, was the picture of youth and vitality, except for the fact that he depended on his cane to walk with ease.
He had been invited to Spa by his sympathetic aunt and uncle and was convalescing from an injury he suffered in the Mysore skirmish in southern India.
James gave his first unforced smile of the day.
“Fletcher.” Morry shook James’s hand, then the painter’s. “Lambert, how do you do?”
“Never better.” Lambert offered a congenial smile. “We might have a game of cards later, if you wish.”
“Why not? If you promise not to fleece me as you did the last time,” Morry replied, his easy grin revealing a far more charitable nature than James’s.
“It was a stroke of pure luck,” Lambert replied. His gaze swept over the room, and after a moment, he turned to them with a bow. “You must excuse me. I have promised a word with Gruber.”
Morry watched him walk off. “There is nothing to say against the fellow.” When James remained silent, he added, “Except, I suppose, for the fact that he is a more gentlemanly winner than loser.”
“The very definition of a gentleman is one who is courteous at all times, even when he has lost.” James would not easily change his mind about Lambert, even if he did not have a clear reason for his prejudice.
He did not care for the man’s friend Gruber either—a self-proclaimed Austrian nobleman who haunted the gaming tables and was whispered to be an ivory turner.
But they had already spoken about this, and there was no point in doing so again.
“Did you see the new arrivals?” Morry asked. “Three ladies have come with their father from the looks of it. Have you any idea of who they are?”
“I was not informed of any expected newcomers, and Mr. Vroomen has said nothing of it. They must not have written ahead to engage the services of a physician, unless it was directed to Mr. Prexley or Mr. Hughes.”
James frowned when mentioning the latter.
Before arriving in Spa, he had not thought himself a difficult fellow to please, but Mr. Hughes was a physician who believed almost solely in drinking the waters as a means to heal any and every complaint—that, and a proper bleeding.
He took no stock in modern medical practices, despite there being ample evidence for their effectiveness.
As his student, MacFirbis was on a fair way to reproducing his practices to a letter.
Morry shifted the carved wooden cane into his other hand, a sign of his discomfort.
“Well, I, for one, am delighted to welcome three additional ladies to our society. I have seen the same faces all winter and am almost ready to try dancing.” He lifted an eyebrow, challenging James to contradict him.
“I regret to inform you, my dear Morry, but you will not be dancing for at least another six months.”
“Oh, do stop lengthening your lip at me.” Morry smiled, then examined his neatly buffed nails on the hand that was not gripping his cane.
“You are no more my physician than Hughes is, although I would prefer you over him any day of the week. Before I handed my case over to Mr. Vroomen, he must have taken enough blood from me to bring a man back to life.”
“You are in better hands now,” James assured him, then sent Morry a wry smile. “Rather than dancing, I shall endeavor to escort the fairest of the three young ladies to sit at your side and listen to your entertaining conversation instead.”
“Now, that is something I would not mind.” Morry held out his elbow for James to take. “I am ready to sit now, as a matter of fact. I have been following Mr. Vroomen’s orders and have walked from one end of town to the other. Anything to strengthen this leg of mine.”
“If Mr. Vroomen suggested it, it will surely work.”
“I hope it may. I still have my mind set on dancing, though. Waux-Hall opens in six weeks, and I intend to lead a lady onto the floor for the first set of that historic moment.” Morry spoke with humor, but James knew that his slow convalescence was more painful than he liked to let on.
“Very well. I shall not discourage such determination to improve. In fact,” James said, clasping a hand on his shoulder, “I applaud you.”
“As well you should.” Morry sank down into one of the armchairs that were placed between the tall glazed windows. “In the meantime, I expect you to present me to all three newly arrived ladies at La Redoute’s ball tomorrow, so I may be properly entertained.”
“On that you may rely,” James said. “Perhaps you will find one suitable for the role of your wife.”
“I will settle for a dance,” Morry said.