More Sport for our Neighbours

by Ronald McGowan

  “Good Lord!” he exclaimed. “So that’s it! I have often wondered. But tell me, Mr. Bennet, does Jane know all this?’

  “If she did not know before,” I replied, “I believe Mrs. Bennet to be explaining it to her this morning in our absence.”

  “Good Lord!” he repeated. “So that is why….but no matter. But there is Caroline to consider, with her theories about hygiene and such.”

  “Leave Miss Bingley to me.” I told him. “I shall have a word with her this afternoon, and I think you will very soon find that she will be strangely eager to withdraw any possible objections she might have.”

  “You are a wonder, Mr. Bennet. You astonish me, sir, you truly do. But… all this time….Good Lord!”

  And not a word more, save the occasional invocation to the Almighty, did he say until we completed our circuit and reached the shelter of the house.

  I mentioned, casually, to Miss Bennet after lunch that her brother had asked me to look into his accounts.

  “I believe you have been keeping the books for some time, Miss Bennet, like the good housewife that I am sure you are. Perhaps you could produce them for me sometime?”

  “Oh, I forget where they are, just at the moment, but I will get a servant to look them out for you. Will tomorrow do?”

  “At your convenience, Miss Bingley.”

  The following morning, Miss Bingley announced that she had received an express from her sister, Mrs. Hurst, during the night, demanding her immediate attendance upon her because of a ‘family emergency’.

  I had not heard the postboy’s arrival during the night, but, then, I slept particularly soundly after my long walk with Bingley.

  “You must run me to Doncaster for the London coach straight after breakfast, Charles” she commanded. “I know that it will mean you will be away all day, and back late, but there is no help for it. I cannot afford to waste the day that taking the coach at Hathersage will cost me. You will spare me Ermyntrude for the journey, of course.”

  “But why such haste?” her brother replied. “And if it is a family emergency, should I not come too.”

  “It is a female emergency, Charles, and you would only be in the way. Trust me. I know what I am doing.”

  “Very well, so be it. Are you packed? Then let us go.”

  “Forgive me, my darling,” he continued, turning to Jane. “I will be back as soon as may be. And forgive me, Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, Miss Bennet, Miss Kitty, I shall not be at your disposal today, but hope to make up for it tomorrow. Your servant all.”

  And with no more than that, he was gone.

  Shortly afterwards, we heard the rumble of the landau leaving.

  “Whatever can the matter be?” asked Jane. “I have never known Caroline to be so agitated about anything.”

  “I think you will find that it was all a misunderstanding, or some such thing, my darling,” I replied, “ but while Mr. Bingley is absent for the day may I just remark upon how providential it might be if the servants were to have an accident while making up his bed today. Nothing too serious, a leg coming off the bedstead, or the stuffing coming out of the mattress. Or perhaps the lock to the door might jam, rendering it impossible to gain entry until a locksmith can be sent for. Anything that will prevent your husband from sleeping in his own bedroom tonight, if you take my meaning.”

  Slowly, the puzzled expression cleared from her face.

  “Would this be anything to do with the talk mama and I had yesterday?”

  “I should not be at all surprised, my child. Nor if it had some connection with the talk Mr. Bingley and I had yesterday.”

  I was surprised, however, by the warm embrace and kiss with which these words were met.

  “Oh, papa,” she said, “you are wicked.”

  The expressions on the faces of our host and hostess the following morning told their own story. It scarcely needed Bingley’s firm handshake and Jane’s affectionate kiss to confirm what we already knew.

  Even the girls caught something of the atmosphere, and began to question their sister about what cause she had to look so happy, but she put them off with some nonsense about being so glad to have them all to herself, without having to share them with her sister Caroline.

  It was not entirely nonsense, after all, and we spent the rest of the day in perfect content, although I never did lay an eye upon the household accounts.

  Chapter Fifteen : Modern Travel in the North

  But all good things must come to an end, and Mrs. Bennet has never been one to allow happiness to continue unspoiled, and was soon wild enough to be off after Lydia again as to render it perfectly impossible for perfect contentment – or even moderate contentment – to persist.

  “Besides, Mr. Bennet,” she said to me in the privacy of our room, “we must leave the young lovers to get on with things, at last, now that they are free from let or hindrance.”

  There was no denying the justice of her plea, and it seemed but a moment before we were all waving from the windows of the Doncaster coach as Jane and Bingley stood in Hathersage market place to see us off.

  The journey from Hathersage to Sheffield and onwards to Doncaster went as well as might be expected, in fact, rather better. Bingley had used the intervening time, and his influence in the locality to secure us seats inside the coach, and had rather stretched his influence to arrange that we should have it to ourselves. It not being a great time of year for the woollen or cotton trades, there were comparatively few merchants travelling on business between Lancashire and Yorkshire, so we had space and to spare, and all the comfort which may be derived from all day spent on a hard, wooden seat, thirteen inches deep with no more than eighteen inches legroom and the whole contraption constantly bucking and lurching.

  The twenty minutes we spent between coaches at Sheffield afforded us no real leisure, but our views while descending from the hills had in any case instilled in us no great desire to linger there. This was our first sight of a northern industrial city in all its grimy glory, with noise and dirt everywhere and the air thick with the smoke from its myriad belching chimneys, each one taller than the tallest house.

  We welcomed the arrival of the Doncaster Dasher, but soon found that it instilled in us fond memories of our old friend the Perseverance. At least it lasted only three hours before we pulled up for the night at the Ram Inn.

  We were lucky to be able to engage rooms there for the night, and to be allowed to extend our stay for another two nights after I had enquired about onward travel and discovered that it would be another two days before we could expect a coach to York with enough room to accommodate our party inside.

  I had hoped to be able to secure passage right through to Newcastle. After all, we were now on the Great North Road, the first highway of the kingdom, and the number of coaches rattling through bore witness to this.

  I had reckoned, however without most of the inside seats being taken at London at the start of the journey, by passengers travelling all the way to Edinburgh, and it seemed that the furthest we could be sure of from Doncaster was York, where, so the landlord assured me, there would be a greater exchange of passengers and we might hope for seats onward to Darlington, or even Durham.

  The mention of Durham revived memories of Lizzie’s old poetic suitor, and hopes of tracing his mystery manuscript there.

  It is as well that we had such expectations to sustain us during our stay at Doncaster, and even more so during the onward journey.

  The town may be the ancient Danum, but there remains no visible trace of the Romans on its streets, and it has very little else to recommend it.

  The coach thence to York has even less. I remember someone once to have remarked how to be ‘box’d up in a stinking coach, dependent on the hours and guidance of others, submitting to miserable associates and obliged to hear their nonsense, is great wretchedness!’

  I had no real idea of what he meant before I suffered the journey from Doncaster to York. I could write volumes upon the hardships a
nd inconveniences of those thirty-five miles, and my wife and daughters would still accuse me of understatement, but I am become an old man, and averse to tedious recollections, and shall let other pens dwell on pain and misery.

  Of York I had had some hopes, and was not greatly disappointed at the time we had to spend waiting there for our connection, as I was not at all loth to make the acquaintance of the Roman remains and the great cathedral. We came in to the Black Swan Inn, in Coney Street, and before engaging rooms there I made a point of enquiring whence the coaches for Newcastle departed.

  “Why, from here, sir,” replied the innkeeper, “where else? It’s the same coach as you’ve just got down from, and will be going on, bound for Edinburgh, as soon as they’ve changed horses. I dare say you could all have stopped in your seats and gone on with them, for the appropriate consideration.”

  “Could we still do that, do you think?”

  “Well, you could, sir, if the seats aren’t all taken. ‘Tis first come, first served, you know.”

  “You say it will be going on as soon as the horses have been changed? When will that be?”

  “Oh, about,” he paused and glanced at the clock in the corner, - a rather impressive piece by Tompion, no less: these innkeepers on the Great North Road do very well for themselves - “about now, sir.”

  The rattle of the departing vehicle confirmed his timekeeping.

  “When will the next coach be leaving?” I enquired.

  “Not till Monday, sir. There’s nobbut local travel at t’weekend this being a cathedral city, seat of t’Primate of England and all that sort of thing. And I happen to know that Monday’s coach is fully booked.”

  “How can you be so sure of that?”

  “Why, I register the bookings, don’t I? So I know exactly who’s going where. Not but what I daresay room might be found for a real gentleman like yourself, and his family, in the right circumstances, if you see what I mean?”

  I fear I saw exactly what he meant, and realised I might yet have to understand him. But I had a faint recollection of my researches on travelling to the north before we left home, and I did not wish to resort to such measures before I had tried all others.

  I merely thanked mine host for his assistance, and went outside, where I found my family standing forlornly surrounded by a pile of our luggage.

  “Where have you been, all this time, Mr. Bennet?” my wife exclaimed. “We thought you had abandoned us. We could not engage a porter, for we did not know where to direct him.”

  “I have been enquiring what to do next,” I replied. “We have missed the Newcastle coach today, and the landlord tells me there are no more until Monday, and that the next one is fully booked in any case. He strikes me as something of a scoundrel, and angling for a sweetener to persuade him to take our booking, and I am reluctant to play the gullible Southerner for him, or even to take rooms in his establishment, if we are indeed to spend two nights here.”

  “But it will not do to be standing about in the street like this. Why do not you and the girls take some refreshment here, while I make enquiries elsewhere? I will get a man here to store our bags for us the meanwhile.”

  So, having settled the ladies at a comfortable table in the common room, and called for the ordinary, I set out in search of the Assembly Rooms. Surely a famous city such as York would have such an establishment? And there, if anywhere, information for visitors would be available.

  I had no real idea where I was in the city, having seen only the street into which we had turned after crossing the bridge, but I had no doubt that directions would be forthcoming from any passer-by.

  My initial attempts rather disabused me of this notion. The first attempt I made, though apparently a prosperous, well-set tradesman, answered in a rude jargon so full of ‘thays’ and ‘nobbuts’ and ‘gradeleys’ that I could make nothing of it. I had not appreciated the advisability of learning an unknown language when venturing north of the Humber. The second person I accosted, though intelligible enough, had only just arrived himself from Lincoln, and was seeking onward transport to Carlisle. I could give him no useful intelligence on that point, and he scorned my suggestion of asking at the assembly rooms, so we parted as mutually unenlightened as we had met.

  My third attempt, a gentlemanly-looking person of a certain age, clad in a suit of honest broadcloth, proved more helpful.

  It made a good start that I could understand what he said, although I found his vowels rather indistinct.

  “The Assembly Rooms, sir? I see you must be a visitor to our great and ancient city, the heart of God’s own county. It will be a pleasure to show you the way. We are quite proud of our Rooms, you know, there is such good company frequent them. Indeed, what has been, and is, the chief support of the city, at present, is the resort to and residence of several country gentlemen with their families in it, and we dare to boast that, though other cities and towns in the kingdom run far beyond us in trade and hurry of business, yet there is no place, out of London, so polite and elegant to live in. But do you have any further purpose in visiting the Rooms, sir, though, indeed, the mere sight is well worth the walk?”

  I explained our plight to him, and asked if he knew anything of the coaches to Newcastle.

  “Why, if that is all you seek, sir, you need only turn to the left at the end of the street, and walk up to the White Swan. Tell Armstrong there that Alderman Hotham sent you, and I dare say he will accommodate you on Monday morning’s coach. The Newcastle Flyer leaves there every day, and I am sure you will find it more convenient than the Edinburgh coach, which is always full of Londoners and other Southrons. Newcastle may not be in Yorkshire, but at least it is in the North. But forgive me, sir, I spoke without thinking, for I see from your speech that you are from the south yourself, and I must beg your pardon.”

  “Not at all, sir, you have been most helpful. May I enquire to whom I am indebted for this service?”

  “I am Willian Hotham, sir, alderman of this fair city, and barrister-at-law.”

  “Then you have the gratitude of Francis Bennet, of Longbourn, in Hertfordshire, sir. But forgive me, sir, I would willingly learn all you have to tell me about this venerable city, but I fear I must not keep my wife and daughters waiting longer than they must.”

  This was, I believe a fair example of the more polite and cultured kind of Yorkshireman. Most of them I encountered were even more entrenched in their contempt for all things southern and their conviction of the superiority of their own county over everywhere else on earth.

  But this encounter, at least, proved providential.

  Deeming it unwise to return to the Black Swan before I had made certain of the information I had been given, I proceeded to follow Mr. Hotham’s directions to the White Swan, musing the while upon the depressing lack of originality in hostelry names displayed by the inhabitants of the city.

  When I got there, I was rewarded by the sight of a bill, pasted upon the wall next to the carriage entrance, proclaiming the virtues of the Newcastle Flyer, claiming the provision, "for the better accommodation of passengers of a new genteel two-end glass-coach machine being on steel springs and exceedingly light", and ending with the heartening peroration "sat cite si sat bene".

  Such displays of learning among the coaching fraternity are rare indeed, and devoutly to be encouraged, so I went straight in to enquire about passage.

  The reception I met with was quite different, especially after asking for Mr. Armstrong, explaining my plight, and uttering the magic words “Alderman Hotham sent me here.”

  “Geordie Armstrong’s the lad to see you right, there, sir,” replied the stout innkeeper, in an accent which, though strange, I found more understandable than some. “That’s just like that sourpuss Caleb Douthwaite at the Mucky Duck, always trying to screw that bit extra out of the customers. Us foreigners need to stick together in this city. Yorkshire! Think they’re God’s gift, they do!”

  “Of course, it’s understandable that you should ask
down there, being as that’s where you arrived, but that’s where you made your mistake. You should have stopped on the coach. Nobody would have turned you out, as long as you held on. You were lucky to get on it, mind. Those Edinburgh coaches at this time of year are usually full up all the way through from London with the long distance traffic, the international travellers, as you might call them. Ours is different. We only go as far as Newcastle, and we cater for select clients only. Bring your family along at seven o’clock on Monday morning and I’ll see they get on. I can’t guarantee you’ll have the inside to yourselves, but I’ll see what I can do.”

  “That is very good of you.” I said. “How much do I owe you?”

  “Ah,” he replied. “Now, would you be wanting accommodation until Monday?”

  “Yes. We require two bedrooms and a sitting room.”

  “I’m sure we can do that. In that case you will find it all on your bill. And if you are surprised by the reasonableness of the cost, perhaps you will mention that to Lawyer Hotham next time you see him?”

  I almost blurted out that my sole acquaintance with Mr. Hotham consisted of having asked directions of him in the street, but reasoned that it might be best to keep him in reserve, should the innkeeper’s account prove less reliable than his promises, or, indeed, vice versa. With this in mind, I merely asked to see the rooms.

  In the event everything proved more than satisfactory, at least to one whose expectations had been tempered by days of travelling, and Monday morning saw us sitting in state, inside the ‘genteel two-end glass-coach machine’ as it bowled through Bootham Bar, as the gate onto the Great North Road is called.

  This was our last sight of the famous Roman walls, and I should have thought that at least Mary would have had something to say on the subject of these historic fortifications, but no, the ladies were all full of the shops where they had disported themselves on the Saturday, and the dresses worn by the ladies in the Sunday congregation at the cathedral, or ‘minster’ as they call it. This lasted them quite as far as the River Tees, despite all attempts to interest them in the history of the ancient towns we passed through, such as Catterick, not only a Roman site, but of such significance in the ancient Welsh Y Gododdin of the bard Aneirin, and the legends of King Arthur.