After the Rain Read online

  After the Rain

  Elizabeth Johns

  Copyright © 2017 by Elizabeth Johns

  All rights reserved.

  * * *

  Cover Design by Wilette Youkey

  Edited by Tessa Shapcott

  Historical consultant Heather King

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  ISBN-10: 0-9965754-6-4

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9965754-6-1

  * * *

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, copied, or transmitted without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For Karen, who insisted Yardley have his love child

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Preview of Ray of Light

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Elizabeth Johns

  Chapter 1

  I regret to inform you, mademoiselle, that you must leave the school next week, at the end of the term. There are no more charitable monies left, and as you know, your mother’s funds ran out. You must admit the school has been very gracious.”

  “Oui, madame,” Christelle answered. She kept her eyes downcast.

  “I am very sorry, Christelle. I have kept you as long as I could, but the board feels you are old enough now to provide for yourself. I will draw up a list of potential employers for you to consider.”

  Christelle nodded in acquiescence. What choice did she have? Madame Thérèse was the only one who had ever shown her true kindness.

  “I saved a trunk of your mother’s effects for you,” the headmistress said warily.

  Christelle jerked her head up in surprise.

  “We did not consider it appropriate to give to you at the time. Now, perhaps, it may be of use to you.” The woman pointed towards an old dusty trunk with leather straps and brass tacks. She then left the room and the door shut with a click.

  It had been six years since Christelle had been deposited on the doorstep of the Harriot School for Girls in Paris, the day her mother had left for England. Her mother had gone in search of someone following Monsieur Clement's death, but had never returned. She had perished in a horrible accident in London, Christelle had been told on the terrible day she had discovered she was an orphan.

  Christelle would not miss the school. Due to her circumstances, she had been merely tolerated and, all these years later, there were still whispers about her mother’s occupation. She was no fool. She knew exactly what her mother had done to survive after her English husband had abandoned her. She had married Monsieur Clement, who had taken her in when she was desperate and penniless. He had done her no favours.

  Christelle might bear his name, but he had been no father to her. She looked nothing like him and he had no love for her. Her mother had kept her away from him as much as possible.

  When the other girls had returned home for holidays, Christelle had been the one left behind with the teachers who had no family to visit. Instead of kindness or affection, she was treated more as a servant. She owed her place to charity, after all.

  But where would she go now? What would she do? There were no respectable jobs open to a girl with no connections or references. Was she destined to follow in her mother’s footsteps? Christelle knew what to do. One did not live with the most beautiful woman in Paris without observing and learning.

  She knew she was beautiful too, for it was a source of scorn amongst her fellow students. But she had not her mother’s confidence.

  Christelle looked out from the tiny window, staring over the roofs to the Seine and the Cathedral of Notre Dame. It was a cold, dreary day, and it seemed to reflect the foreboding she felt about being cast into the streets with nothing to her name. Could they not have spared her with a spring eviction at least? A white pigeon landed in front of her on the window-sill, cocking its head around, looking lost.

  She placed her hand slowly against the pane and the bird pecked at it.

  “I have no food for you, little one,” she said sadly. “Soon there will be no food for me if I cannot think of something quickly.”

  The bird flew away, and she turned and eyed the trunk warily.

  It only took a few short steps in her tiny attic room to reach the familiar old chest of her mother’s. She had thought all was lost of her. Christelle ran her hand lovingly through the dust that had settled on it to find the initials LAS. She traced the letters with her finger and wondered why she had never known anything of her mother’s family. There had been no one to turn to when her mother died. But then, they had not planned for her to die so young.

  She undid the buckled strap and slowly lifted the lid. Her nostrils were assailed by a mixture of cedar and her mother’s fragrance of roses. Sadness threatened to overwhelm her as she picked up the garment in which she had last seen her mother alive. It was a bright jonquil silk, and she recalled quite vividly helping her mother put stitches into it. Her mother had been a gifted seamstress and had taught Christelle to sew as early as she could remember.

  She began to rummage through her mother's beautiful gowns, and ideas of how she could rework them for her own use began to form. Perhaps they would be considered unsuitable for a young girl, but the dresses had been the height of fashion in Paris at the time. Christelle wondered if her own talents with needle and thread might be her only hope of survival for the near future.

  At the bottom of the trunk she found some of her own possessions. One was a small stuffed doll she had carried everywhere as a child. She picked it up and held it to her cheek and tears of longing for her mother streamed down her cheeks. She squeezed the doll tight and felt something hard inside it. Pulling it away from her body, she begin to examine it. There had been nothing inside it when she was a child, she was certain. She found some tiny stitches that had been added to a seam.

  She took a small pair of scissors from her sewing kit and cut open the new seam before digging through the stuffing for the object. When her fingers reached it, she pulled out what appeared to be a signet ring. It was made for a large man, fashioned of gold and with a black onyx at the centre of a crest.

  Christelle had no idea who it belonged to. She had never seen it. Had her mother stolen it? Worse, had she received it as payment for her services? Christelle did not wish to think on it. However, she might need it to survive. She placed it safely back in the doll and re-stitched the seam.

  Turning back to the trunk, she saw only a small leather journal at the bottom. She picked it up cautiously, unsure if she was ready to know its contents. She decided she would save it for later after she was resettled. She was placing it back in the trunk when a small yellowed piece of paper slipped out.

  Christelle turned it over and read it.

  * * *

  Rosalind Christine Stanton

  Born the Fifth day of February, in the year eighteen hundred and ten,

  to Benedict Thomas S
tanton and Lillian Adele Stanton

  * * *

  Christelle fell back on her haunches. “Is this me?”

  Seamus Craig, formerly Douglas, had everything he had ever hoped for, and yet he wanted more. He wanted a wife.

  And children. Several children.

  He walked across St. James’s Park and along the river towards Westminster, instead of taking the shorter route up the Mall. It was a cold, wet winter’s day and the wind across the water found every minute hole in his greatcoat, but he sought the view to help him think.

  He and his two sisters had been orphaned at a young age and had lived at the Alberfoyle Priory home. Whilst there, he had been befriended and mentored by a young physician, Gavin Craig. When Gavin had unexpectedly become a baron, he had adopted Seamus and his two sisters as his own.

  Seamus had gone on to become a physician too, studying at the Edinburgh School of Medicine, and had spent the past few years teaching in Sussex, at an academy created by Lady Easton.

  He knew he was no typical bachelor. Most of the men he had gone to school with had little desire to settle down until it became necessary. But Seamus had spent much of his childhood longing to be part of a family again, such as he had known before his parents died. He had been almost finished with his schooling when Gavin had taken him and his sisters in and given them his name.

  He had watched Lord and Lady Easton with their brood of children with some considerable envy. When he was at home, he’d observed Gavin and Margaux with their babes. He found great satisfaction in his work, and he had realized there would always be people in need and he would always be willing to help. Nevertheless, protracted hours in hospital did not erase his longing for a family of his own to come home to.

  There was also a dearth of eligible females in Sussex.

  The patients at Wyndham were almost exclusively male veterans, and there was little society in the country. Since Seamus also had a fascination with Dr. Withering’s work on the circulatory system, and had studied with him, he had decided to try something rash and become a consulting physician.

  He had talked the matter over with Lord and Lady Easton, and her ladyship had helped him arrange a post at the new Charing Cross Hospital in London, with one of her school’s benefactors. Seamus had hoped his father would understand his decision. Lady Easton was all that was kind, and she assured him it was an excellent opportunity for him.

  Seamus had packed his horse with his few belongings—his trunks to follow later—and set forth for the city. He had been to London before, of course, but he soon realized he was but a mere number amongst thousands. He found rooms in St. James's, not far from the hospital since he spent most of his time there.

  Seamus stopped to purchase his usual meat pie from Mrs. Higgins. He was a creature of habit.

  He quickly found a routine: eat, sleep, work. He neither knew where or how to begin looking for eligible females, so he concentrated on what he did know.

  As each day passed, it was becoming more difficult to think of how to manage anything other than medicine. A physician’s time was often not his own. He was, in short, a public servant. Hopefully, once he was established in his practice, there would be some semblance of normality—and time for the family he longed to have.

  He was in a strange class, he thought to himself as he walked; a gentleman, and yet not privy to invitations on his own. He was not the type of person to draw attention to himself or put himself forward. The few bachelors he worked with were either too busy with their work to be troubled, or spent their evenings in gaming hells, chasing the type of woman one would not want for a wife. Perhaps if his adoptive parents were in town, he might meet some ladies at Society gatherings, but it would be some time before they arrived for the Opening of Parliament.

  He would not give up hope, he told himself. His melancholy would subside when the weather improved. His situation was different from that of a country doctor; he had a small office next to the hospital, where patients came to see him. People were afraid of hospitals and the risk of contagion, but appeared willing to see him within this new arrangement.

  Today was to be another long one of treating the infirm, and he already had a patient waiting for him in his office when he arrived. The man was sitting on the edge of his leather chair looking anxious.

  “Good morning,” Seamus glanced at his notes, “Mr. Baker. I am Dr. Craig. What seems to be troubling you today?”

  “You look too young to be a physician,” the man said as he looked Seamus over.

  “I assure you, sir, I have been studying medicine since I was ten years of age.”

  “And what are you now?”

  “Much older, sir,” Seamus answered patiently. He had been through this kind of questioning before with older patients. Mr. Baker was a man of more than seventy and was apparently trying to avoid the purpose of his visit. Seamus knew how to go on. He waited for the man to speak.

  “The missus made me come,” Mr. Baker said after a lengthy silence.

  “Ah, so you do not think you need to be here?”

  “I did not say so,” Mr. Baker said with a frown.

  “Then how may I help you, sir?” Seamus leaned on the edge of his desk.

  “It is my legs.” Mr. Baker reluctantly pulled up the bottom of his trousers to reveal ankles the size of tree trunks.

  “How long has this been happening?” Seamus touched the man’s legs and the imprint of his fingers remained depressed into the ankles.

  “A few months. It is worse in the evenings.”

  “I see.” Seamus picked up his newest purchase from his desk. It was a new stick-like instrument from France called a stethoscope. “Do you find it difficult to breathe when you walk?” he asked, placing the instrument over Mr. Baker’s lungs as he breathed.

  “How did you know? I did not tell you,” the man said with a suspicious look.

  “I see your symptoms often.”

  “Then what is wrong with me?”

  “Dropsy. It is a condition where the heart does not pump well and allows fluid to accumulate in the body.”

  The man appeared to contemplate the news for a moment. “I own a bakery and confectioner’s shop on Bridge Road in Lambeth, behind Astley’s. Me and the missus have worked there every day for five and thirty years.”

  Seamus was used to the older patients telling stories. He would eventually relate it to the diagnosis, he suspected. “Does your name have anything to do with your chosen profession?” He had to suppress a grin as he asked the question.

  “Of course it does, young man. Are you being impertinent?”

  “Perhaps a little,” Seamus confessed. He was enjoying this, despite that the room beyond was likely full of waiting patients.

  “That’s all right, then. I appreciate an honest dealer.”

  “What is your favourite pastry to make?”

  “Chocolate puffs. You won’t find a tastier one anywhere in England.” The man’s chest swelled with pride.

  “I will make a point to stop by and try one for myself.”

  “Then you had better make this dropsy go away. The missus will not let me in the kitchen again until it does.”

  Seamus wrote out a receipt on a piece of paper and handed it to Mr. Baker. “This should help your symptoms improve. You will need to reduce the time you are on your feet, and you must put them up on a stool several times a day.”

  “You seem to know what you are about, despite looking as if you belong in the nursery.”

  “I want you to return in one week to see how you are.”

  Mr. Baker grunted a dour assent before rising gingerly and hobbling from the room.

  Chapter 2

  Christelle shivered as she stood in the pouring rain on the packet to Dover, despite being cramped between passengers. Madame had given her a week's worth of funds to live on, which was fortunate because she had been turned away from every position she had applied for in Paris. She had made a rash decision and purchased the passage to Englan
d.

  She felt around her neck for the small string of pearls her mother had given her, hoping desperately she would not be forced to sell them in order to live. Her plan was to look for work as a modiste, but she could also cook and clean if she must.

  Christelle had continued to have a nagging feeling that she should go to England and discover if she could find Benedict Stanton. Would he want her to find him?

  She wanted to see him and then she would decide. Maybe he was a tyrant or a depraved person like Monsieur Clement. She would use caution, for she did not wish to be employed in the same way her mother had, or the other women residing in the house on Jersey where Christelle had lived for most of the time prior to her mother's death.

  She had seen enough to know there would be no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for her, and if she found her father she might not be welcomed with open arms. But she had nothing in Paris to keep her, and only possibilities in England, but she needed to see him. There were so many unanswered questions she had never thought to have answered. Was this man her mother’s first husband? Christelle assumed so, but why had Lillian kept her father from her? Why had he abandoned them? Her mother had spoken little of her first husband and even less about the divorce.

  She could always return to France if she hated England. Mr. Stanton was the only family she had—if he was even still alive. If nothing else, she felt compelled to see him once. She would think of what to say to him later.