Emily Goes to Exeter (3 page)

The week passed like the stage-coach, rumbling off slowly and gathering momentum. Hannah tipped the Clarences’ coachman to drive her into the City to
purchase an inside ticket for the Exeter Fly. She then recklessly promised him more money if he would rise during the night to get her to the City to join the coach, which left at five in the morning. The coachman pointed out that she would need to pay for two grooms and the outside man as well as there was no way he was going to face the perils of Knightsbridge on his own. Hannah thought of her fortune and threw thrift to the winds. All that mattered now was to get on that coach.

There were so many preparations to make in such a short time. But she had waited so long for an adventure, she could hardly bear to wait any longer. She took modest lodgings in Kensington Village and then packed as many of Mrs Clarence’s clothes as she could into large trunks. The outside man wheeled them in a cart to her new home, two rooms above a bakery.

All that was left was the trunk to take on the journey.

She did not go to sleep the night before the Great Adventure, as she mentally called it. She walked about the house from room to room, seeing herself in every corner. There was the scullery maid Hannah bent over the pots, then kitchen maid Hannah over the stove, chambermaid Hannah screwing up her face as she took down the slops, then between-stairs maid Hannah polishing the oaken treads on the main staircase, then housemaid Hannah in the drawing-room, darting here and there, quick and light, and then her last shell, housekeeper Hannah, proud of her
black gown and starched cap and with the bunch of keys jingling at her waist.

How happy she had been then! There was so much to do, so much pride in her new position. But after Mrs Clarence had run away and the staff of servants had shrunk and all the parties and callers and entertaining had ceased, time had hung heavy on her hands and her employer’s depression seemed to permeate every room. And yet she was loyal to Mr Clarence and ever hopeful that one day Mrs Clarence might appear on the doorstep, gay and laughing, saying she had done it all for fun. But Mrs Clarence had never come back. At first Hannah had glanced idly out at the stage-coach going by. Bit by bit, she had begun to imagine herself on it, until she could not start her day until she had seen the coach thunder by. The sight of that coach made her feel less trapped in the gloom of Thornton Hall, where Mr Clarence grew more grey-faced and the servants moved silently about the house, as if in a house of mourning.

Sometimes she felt like yelling and singing, doing anything to shatter the grim silence, but respect for her employer was in her very bones. She had always been practical and busy until Mrs Clarence had run away, and then she gradually began to live in dreams of bowling along the dusty roads of England where the sun always shone, the birds always sang, and she was as free as the air. One Hannah saw that the rooms were aired and dusted and that the meals were served on time. The other Hannah, the inside Hannah, escaped far away outside the walls of Thornton Hall
and into a dream country of endless travel and movement.

As the hour approached for the coachman to bring the carriage round, she began to worry and worry. What if the lazy old man was still snoring? What if the grooms had refused to come?

But just when she had decided to walk over to the stables and find out, she heard the snorting of horses and the rumbling of wheels. She drew the blue cloak around her and settled the beaver hat more firmly on her head. A new century, a new life, a new Hannah.

She tugged open the main door and then turned briefly in salute, waving goodbye to her past, waving goodbye to her servant’s life, as she had waved so many times to the Flying Machine on the Kensington Road.

Hannah slammed the door behind her with a satisfying final bang, handed up her trunk to the coachman, and climbed inside.

2

Miss Hannah Pym would have found it hard to believe that members of the Quality regarded a journey by stage-coach as a sort of lingering death, preferring their own fast well-sprung carriages and teams of horses.

For to Hannah, standing, slightly open-mouthed, in the courtyard of the Bull and Gate in Aldersgate in the City of London at quarter to five on a freezing-cold morning, the stage-coach was romance on wheels. The coach was faced in dull black leather, thickly studded by way of ornament with broad black-headed nails tracing out the panels, in the upper part of which
were four oval windows with heavy red wooden frames and leather curtains. Up on the roof, there were seats for the ‘outsiders’, surrounded by a high iron guard. In front of the outsiders sat the coachman and the guard, who always held his carbine ready cocked on his knees. Underneath them was a very long, narrow boot, or trunk, beneath a large spreading hammer-cloth hanging down on all sides and furnished with a luxuriant fringe. Behind the coach was the immense basket, stretching far and wide beyond the body, to which it was attached by long iron bars, or supports, passing underneath it. Travelling in the basket was cheap but highly uncomfortable.

A flake of snow drifted down and landed on Hannah’s nose, then another. She climbed inside and, as she was the first, secured a seat by the window. The coachman, many-caped and red-faced, came lumbering and wheezing out and climbed up on the roof. Then came the other passengers. Hannah studied them eagerly as they climbed in and took their places. There was a dainty woman in widow’s weeds supported by a military-looking man who smelt strongly of brandy. They sat alongside Hannah. Opposite her was a beautiful young man, too fashionably dressed for coach travel. He saw Hannah looking at him in awe and hurriedly dropped his long lashes to veil a pair of violet eyes. Auburn hair glinted under a curly brimmed beaver and a slim boyish figure was wrapped in an immense cloak. Next to him was a very fat woman, and then, next to her, a dried-up stick of a man dressed in a black coat and breaches and
sporting an old-fashioned Ramillies wig and a not-too-clean stock.

The City clocks began to chime five strokes. The guard on the roof blew a blast on his horn. And then a voice cried, ‘Hold hard!’ And the door beside Hannah was jerked open. Hannah noticed the youth opposite shrink back in his seat and pull his hat down over his eyes. The aristocratic-looking man who had jerked open the door had a hard, handsome saturnine face and black eyes. ‘No room, hey?’ he said. ‘Better travel on top.’ He slammed the door again. The coach dipped and swayed as he climbed on the roof. The guard blew a fanfare and the coach slowly lumbered forward.

The thin man in the black clothes was the first to break the silence. He passed cards all round and said he was a lawyer, name of Fletcher. ‘If,’ he said, ‘in spite of highwaymen, snow-drifts, ruts a yard deep, we compass the one hundred and seventy-two miles, we may thank our stars when we land safe at the Swan at Exeter.’ There was a murmur of agreement. The fat woman said she was Mrs Bradley, going home to Exeter after a visit to her married daughter. She fished in a capacious basket on her lap and produced a twist of paper which she said contained rhubarb pills, ‘the only cure for sickness caused by the motion of the coach.’ She said she hoped they would not go too fast, for she had a second cousin who had had an apoplexy brought on by the speed of a stage-coach. But, she went on, rummaging again in her basket, Dr Jameson’s powders were the best thing for apoplexy,
so if the rate of speed became too great, she urged the other passengers to avail themselves of this wonderful medicine.

The military man introduced himself as Captain Seaton. ‘Never needed a pill or powder in me life,’ he bragged. ‘Little wife here knows that, don’t you, Lizzie?’ Lizzie blushed and murmured something inaudible. Hannah introduced herself briefly. The captain’s eyes fastened on the young man. ‘And what’s your monicker, me young sprig?’

‘Edward Smith,’ said the young man and then closed his eyes firmly and pretended to go to sleep.

The rest all said they hoped to make the journey in the promised time of three days. Hannah studied them all avidly.

At Hyde Park toll, the guard jumped down to have a word with the toll-keeper, holding his carbine firmly. ‘I hope he knows how to use that,’ said the lawyer uneasily. ‘I shall feel safer when we are through Knightsbridge.’ For before the pretty village of Knightsbridge lay a place of bogs and highwaymen. Here the Great Western Road crossed a stream, the bed of which was composed of thick mud.

The guard climbed back up on the roof and the coach moved away from the line of whale-oil lamps at Hyde Park Corner and into the blackness that led to Knightsbridge. But all too soon, they reached the stream. Days earlier, Hannah had gone through this stream in Sir George’s light carriage with barely a hitch. Even the Thornton Hall coach, which had deposited her in the City that morning, had stuck a
little, but as it was lightly laden, had soon struggled clear.

But into this great impassable gulf of mud the Exeter Fly descended, and after desperate flounderings, stuck fast.

‘Oh, dear, oh, dear,’ said Mrs Bradley, clutching her precious basket. ‘I hope there won’t be no highwaymen. Reckon I’d die of fright, m’dears.’

Only Hannah remained calm. To her, the stage-coaches were impregnable fortresses on wheels. What villain would dare to accost the Exeter Fly?

‘Stand and deliver!’ shouted a great voice from outside. The fat woman screamed, the captain turned a muddy colour, his wife buried her face in her hands, the lawyer swore quite dreadfully, and the slim youth, Edward Smith, sat up with a start and looked around, wild-eyed. ‘Are they come for me?’ he asked Hannah.

Before Hannah could ask him what he meant, the voice shouted again. ‘Outside, all of you in there.’

They climbed out, Hannah conscious the whole time of the money in her reticule. They were all standing now with freezing muddy water half-way up their legs. The highwayman had dismounted and was brandishing a brace of pistols. ‘Bad pickings,’ he commented sourly on seeing the inside passengers. ‘Poor lot. Turn out your—’

That was as far as he got. He was struck a vicious blow from behind and collapsed into the muddy water. Looming over him appeared the aristocrat of the roof, the hard-faced saturnine man. He dragged the highwayman clear of the mud and water and laid
him on the road and bound his hands behind his back. ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Hannah. ‘I am most grateful to you.’

‘Of course,’ blustered Captain Seaton, ‘I was just about to take action meself, but my lady wife had come over faint, don’t you see, and I could hardly leave her.’

The aristocrat of the roof did not reply. The guard was unfastening one of the leaders so as to ride to the Half-Way public house between Kensington and Knightsbridge to get help. He roused the watch on the way, and two watchmen came to march the now conscious highwayman off to the nearest roundhouse. The guard returned with a squad of men. All the passengers, who had climbed back into the coach for shelter, were ordered to dismount. The leader was hitched up again, and with a great shoving and pulling, the Exeter Fly was back on the road.

It was only then that the inside passengers realized the full discomfort of wet and frozen feet. ‘We cannot proceed,’ said Hannah firmly to the coachman. ‘We are all soaked and like to catch the ague.’

‘Get as far as the Half-Way house,’ said the aristocrat, ‘and get the ladies a room where they may change into dry clothes.’

‘And just who’s giving the orders around here?’ demanded the coachman with heavy sarcasm.

‘The man who is about to buy every man jack of you as much rum and hot water as you can drink,’ he replied coolly.

‘Now, that’s different,’ said the coachman. ‘Very.’

At the Half-Way public house, Mrs Seaton, Mrs Bradley and Hannah had their trunks borne upstairs to a bleak room above the pub and began to look out dry clothes. Hannah thanked God she had had the foresight to put another of Mrs Clarence’s cloaks in her capacious trunk. The cloak was of red merino lined with fur. She changed into one of her own black wool gowns and a flannel petticoat, also of her own, wool stockings and half-boots, crammed her beaver on her head, and turned her attention to her two companions. Mrs Seaton had taken more black items of clothing out of a trunk that seemed to contain nothing but black clothes. She was probably much older than she appeared, thought Hannah. In her thirties, perhaps late thirties. Mrs Bradley’s trunk seemed to contain a great deal of foodstuff: a trussed chicken, two jars of jam, a ham, and a large jar of pickles. But somewhere at the bottom she found fresh clothes, or rather a change of clothes, for the smell that arose from her new wardrobe was a powerful mixture of sweat and moth-balls and benzine.

When they descended to the taproom, it was to find a merry party going on. Edward Smith and Captain Seaton had both been wearing top-boots and had not had to change, but the lawyer, who had been wearing buckled shoes and stockings and who could not be bothered changing his clothes, was sitting huddled by the fire with his shoes stuffed with newspaper on the hearth and his wet stockings hanging over the high fender.

A glass of rum and hot water was handed to Hannah. She looked at it doubtfully. In this
hard-drinking age, servants drank as much as their betters, but not Hannah. But she was still cold and she did not want to fall ill and therefore never be able to have any more adventures. For Hannah, now that the peril of the highwayman was over, felt elated and happy and ready to tackle any frights the journey had to offer. Still, she hesitated. She had never drunk anything stronger than coffee in her life. She had seen too many female servants end up in trouble through a fondness for strong drink. She squinted down her nose at the rum and sniffed it cautiously. She became aware of being watched and looked up. The tall aristocrat was leaning against the corner of the high mantelpiece, scrutinizing her with a look of amusement in his black eyes. ‘Your health, madam,’ he said, raising his own glass.

‘Your health, sir,’ echoed Hannah and, screwing up her eyes, she downed the contents of the glass in one go. She gasped and choked and Mrs Bradley slapped her on the back. The rum then settled in Hannah’s stomach and a warm glow began to spread through her thin body. The aristocrat had turned away to speak to the landlord. She studied him curiously. Perhaps he was not an aristocrat, but merely some adventurer. But then, he had an air of command, of authority, and his blue coat was expensively cut and of the finest material. Underneath it, he wore a striped waistcoat over a ruffled shirt. A sign of aristocratic arrogance, or sheer bravery, was that he wore the shirt ruffles at his wrists in full display. Since the French Revolution, still called the Bourgeois Revolution, and
the American War of Independence, still called the Colonial Wars, gentlemen were careful not to flaunt their rank before the common people. Strangely enough, what could drive a London mob roaming the streets looking for trouble into violence was the sight of a gentleman sporting ruffles or a band of white at the wrists, that little display of linen which drew the line between gentleman and commoner. This gentleman was wearing, instead of one of the cocked hats that were only just going out of fashion, a wide-brimmed hat with a low crown.

Hannah turned her attention to Mrs Seaton, sitting by the fire with her captain. Very odd, thought Hannah, her eyes darting with curiosity. Everything black. Of course her father or mother could just have died, rather than a former husband, and she might have married the captain before the period of mourning was up. What an odd sort of husband the captain was – too loud and beefy and gross for such a dainty woman.

Then the coachman was shrugging on his greatcoat and wrapping a massive woollen shawl about his shoulders and calling to the passengers to take their places. Mr Fletcher, the lawyer, unhitched his stockings from the fender and put them on, modestly turning his back on the company as he pulled them on over white sticklike legs criss-crossed with purple varicose veins. Hannah found herself getting quite excited at the sight, not because she found the poor lawyer’s legs attractive, but because the conventions were being shed, one by one, at an early part of the Great Adventure. They were all explorers, she
thought, giving a genteel hiccup, heading out into the jungle of the unknown.

Fresh straw had been put in the carriage and, luxury of luxuries, hot bricks. ‘Probably that there gran’ gennelman, m’dears,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Coachman would never get landlord to busy hisself with our comfort.’

‘Grand gentleman, pooh!’ said Captain Seaton. ‘Something wrong with that fellow, if you ask me. Adventurer, mountebank or deserter. Yes, yes. Just mark my words.’

Off they went. The coach began to pick up speed as it moved through Kensington Village. And then they were racing along the long straight road that led past Thornton Hall. Deaf to cries of outrage from the other passengers. Hannah seized the leather strap and let down the glass and hung out of the window. There was the square box of Thornton Hall. No smoke was rising from the chimneys. With me gone, thought Hannah, the lazy dogs are probably all still abed. ‘Goodbye!’ she shouted, and then pulled up the glass and sat down, smiling into the glaring eyes of the other passengers.