by M C Beaton
Emily went on down the stairs, turning the problem of the slipper over in her mind to stop her from thinking about anything else. She went into the kitchen and sat down at the table. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked Hannah.
‘I’ve made some broth from a bit of scrag end hanging in the larder. Thank goodness, the larder is well stocked with meat. I shall prepare a bowl of it for you to take through to Mrs Silvers.’
‘I resent waiting on that lady,’ said Emily haughtily. ‘She looks perfectly well to me.’
‘And to me,’ agreed Hannah.
‘Then why …?’
‘Because I doubt if she usually gets one day’s rest from one year’s end to the other,’ said Hannah. ‘So humour her.’
Emily suddenly jumped to her feet. ‘Leather!’ she exclaimed. ‘Hanging where leather should be!’
She ran through to the larder and looked up into the darkness of the ceiling where joints of meat hung on hooks. She ran back to the kitchen and seized a chair and carried it into the larder and stood on it. And there, high up among the joints, Lizzie’s slipper was hanging.
Emily took a hooked pole and lifted it down, crowing with delight. Hannah came in. ‘I’ve found it!’ said Emily. ‘No work for me tomorrow. I shall spend the whole day in bed. If I only had a novel to read.’
‘Well, go and tell the others it has been found and then come back and get the soup for Mrs Silvers,’ said Hannah.
Emily’s loud announcement that she had found the slipper received a lukewarm reception, the others having become thoroughly tired of looking for it.
She returned to the kitchen and picked up the tray that Hannah had prepared and took it into Mrs Silvers. ‘Just set it down on the table beside the bed,’ said Mrs Silvers faintly. Emily did as she was bid and then her eyes fell on a small pile of books on the window-seat. ‘Books,’ she cried in delight. ‘Are there any novels among them?’
‘I think so,’ said Mrs Silvers. ‘Guests leave books from time to time.’
Carrying a candle over to the window-ledge, Emily eagerly studied the titles and then sighed with pleasure. There was a three-volume novel entitled The Castle of Doom. She looked inside the volume. The steel engravings were about the most lurid she had ever seen. ‘May I borrow these?’ she asked.
‘Of course,’ said Mrs Silvers, now sitting up in bed and slurping soup.
Clasping the precious books to her bosom, Emily left the room and ran up the stairs. Half-way on the stairs, she met Lord Harley, who was coming down. She glanced at him and then the full memory of that sensuous dream sent a tide of hot embarrassment flooding through her body. She gave an odd ducking motion of her head, darted past him, and on up to her room.
Lord Harley tried to put her out of his mind. He should never have contemplated marrying one so young in the first place. In the coffee room, the coachman and the guard were once more at loggerheads. They were drinking dog’s nose, a wicked drink consisting of beer laced with gin, damned in London as a ‘whore’s drink’, even in the Coal Hole Inn in the Strand, which was famous for the concoction. The coachman and the guard tried to fight each other, but both were so very drunk that all they managed to do was swipe the air in the general direction of each other. Resisting a temptation to knock their heads together, Lord Harley went out into the storm and across to the stables to see that the horses were being cared for. They were only coaching horses and had nothing to do with him, and yet it was part of his upbringing to see that the horses were warm and well fed before going to bed.
Lizzie and Mr Fletcher had retreated to a cold corner of the taproom, away from the fighting in the coffee room. ‘You must be very careful,’ said Lizzie quietly. ‘Captain Seaton tried to kill you.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, very sure. Miss Pym seized that tray and the bullet hit it instead of you. I wish this storm would end so that we could get away and be safe.’
He took her cold hands in his. Hannah Pym peered round the door. She saw them sitting holding hands and shut the taproom door quietly and then stood with her back against it. Things were progressing nicely and she did not want anyone to go in and spoil the budding romance.
‘When you say you wish we could get away,’ said Mr Fletcher in a voice that trembled slightly, ‘I could find it in my heart to wish you meant you and me … together.’
Lizzie blushed and hung her head. ‘I cannot press my suit,’ said Mr Fletcher, ‘for I have only a very little money and everyone would say I was pursuing you for yours.’
‘No one who knows you could think that,’ said Lizzie shyly. He tightened his grip on her hands.
‘Oh, my poor heart,’ said Mr Fletcher desperately. ‘I do so awfully want to kiss you.’
‘Then kiss her, you fool!’ muttered Hannah, who was listening outside the door. She saw Mr Hendry approaching and held up her hand. ‘You cannot go in there, Mr Hendry. I have just washed the floor.’
‘But I thought I saw Mrs Bisley go in there with Mr Fletcher.’
‘No, you are mistaken,’ said Hannah, a militant gleam in her eye.
Inside the taproom, Mr Fletcher closed his eyes and leaned towards Lizzie. His first kiss fell on the side of her mouth, his second on her nose, until, with a shy little laugh, she put her hands on either side of his face and guided his lips to her own.
As soon as Mr Hendry had retreated, Hannah pressed her ear to the door panels. Silence. Beautiful silence, thought Hannah with satisfaction.
7
Werther had a love for Charlotte
Such as words could never utter;
Would you know how he first met her?
She was cutting bread and butter.
William Makepeace Thackeray
Hannah arose promptly at five. The first thing she became aware of was the utter silence. Then she realized what it was. The wind had ceased to blow. She drew back the curtains and opened the window and looked out. It was a clear, starry, frosty morning. But the fallen snow lay deep and high and hard and glittering. They would not be able to travel that day.
She turned and looked at Emily. The girl was lying asleep with a volume of the romance she had been reading lying open on her chest. Hannah gently removed the book. She firmly believed that reading novels was a very bad thing for a young impressionable girl to do. It gave her exaggerated ideas of romance. Hannah shook her head sadly, thinking of Mrs Clarence. All that love and passion that had fizzled away like a guttering candle, leaving two people bound by the ties of marriage who had nothing in common. It was much better, thought Hannah as she went to the kitchen, to find someone one liked and then, if one was lucky, love might follow.
She could see that wretched under-butler in her mind’s eye. His name had been Mirabel Flannagan. Mirabel had been a popular name among the aristocracy about fifty years before and, like all fashionable names, had died out at the top level and lingered on at the bottom. Men should have names like George, or John, or Harry, thought Hannah. It was Mirabel’s legs that had seduced her mind, Hannah remembered ruefully. He had splendid calves. Also it had been spring when he had begun to pay her attention, and spring was a dangerous time. Now Emily would be a perfectly suitable bride for Lord Harley. She was beautiful and had good bones, so her beauty would last. She was young and would change and grow as soon as she was removed from the doting affection of her parents and governess.
Whether Lord Harley might make Emily a suitable bridegroom did not enter Hannah’s head. He was not like the captain, he seemed reasonably kind, he was rich and handsome and a lord. Hannah was very much a woman of her age. Outside the servant class, the only career open to a woman was marriage. As a servant, you were lucky to get a job and asked only that your employer be tolerable. It was the same with marriage. It was just as well, thought Hannah with a little sigh, that everyone knew that life was merely a painful journey to future happiness. But what, nagged a treacherous little voice in her head, if there were no afterlife? What if Heaven had been thought up by the human ra
ce because people could not bear the idea that life, which was for most of them wearisome, and which ended in the indignities and pains of old age, was all there was?
She immediately banished the thought, looking nervously around, as if she expected some angel of judgement to fly into the kitchen and take the ungrateful Hannah’s legacy away.
The kitchen door opened and Emily walked in.
‘What got you out of bed so early?’ exclaimed Hannah.
‘I felt I should help,’ replied Emily primly, although the fact was that the lurid story she had been reading had given her nightmares, and when she had awoken in the dark room she had seen monsters lurking in every shadow.
‘I’ve made some tea,’ said Hannah. ‘Have a dish of bohea and then you may begin, although you’re supposed to be let off work for finding that slipper.’
She put a cup of tea down on the kitchen table. Emily sat down and picked it up and looked at Hannah over the rim. ‘Do you really think,’ ventured Emily, ‘that Lord Harley has no interest in me whatsoever?’
‘Not a whit,’ said Hannah cheerfully, kneeling down and stirring up the coals with great vigour.
‘Then what, think you, is he looking for in a bride?’
‘That’s the trouble with men,’ said Hannah. ‘They don’t think. One day, a man decides he wants children and so he enters into the matter like a business deal. That is if he is an aristocrat. He settles on some suitable female and then his lawyers settle the rest.’
‘So love does not exist?’
‘I think it does,’ said Hannah, pulling her nose. ‘But it’s usually a sham and a deceit and it don’t last. Hard on the lower orders because they’ve got to see the husband day in and day out, but for a young lady like yourself, well, the gentlemen spend most of the time in their clubs, or in Parliament or on the hunting field. Being a married woman would give you a lot of freedom. Settle for someone kind and complacent.’
‘How dull,’ said Emily, burying her nose in her cup. ‘So Lord Harley is not likely to fall in love?’
‘He’s probably been in love a score of times already,’ retorted Hannah cynically.
‘So why didn’t he marry one of them?’
‘Probably weren’t marriageable.’
‘Does it not seem odd to you, Miss Pym, that such as I must walk to the altar unsullied, and yet a man like Lord Harley can have scores of affairs without losing one whit of his reputation?’
‘It’s the way the Good Lord has arranged things.’ Hannah banged pots and pans with unnecessary noise because she thought there was a lot of truth in what Emily had said, but felt at the same time that a young lady should not even allow such thoughts to enter her head. Furthermore, she was determined not to encourage Emily to think Lord Harley might become interested her in any way. If Emily thought that, her wounded vanity might be satisfied. If she stayed puzzled and hurt by his apparent indifference to her, then perhaps, thought Hannah, she might make more of an effort to engage his attentions.
There came a stamping and shuffling from the yard and then the outside door, which led through the scullery to the kitchen, opened and three shivering maids came in.
‘Go tell Mrs Silvers some of her staff have returned,’ said Hannah to Emily.
Emily went through to Mrs Silvers’ room. As she opened the door, Mrs Silvers sank lower beneath the bed-clothes and demanded feebly, ‘Yes, what is it?’
‘Some of your maids have managed to return to the inn,’ said Emily.
‘Then I must rise and see to the lazy-bones,’ said Mrs Silvers.
‘Are you sure you are well enough?’ asked Emily maliciously.
‘I be proper poorly, but it be right bad for them girls to see gentlefolk in the kitchen,’ said Mrs Silvers. ‘They’ll be getting ideas above their stations, and that do lead to laziness.’
Emily returned to tell Hannah that Mrs Silvers was getting out of bed. The kitchen now seemed full of inn servants. It looked as if they had all returned.
‘Come along,’ said Hannah to Emily. ‘We can be ladies of leisure again.’
Emily found she was feeling disappointed. She wondered what she would normally have done with the time had the servants been there all along. Well, she would have read books or checked her clothes for holes and darned any stockings that needed darning and perhaps she would have read novels. How tedious it all seemed now.
Breakfast was served in the dining-room. The coachman had been out earlier and said gloomily that there was no hope of them getting on the road that day. The drifts were piled high and frozen hard.
After breakfast, Hannah suggested it would do them all good to walk for a little into the town. The servants had managed to walk to the inn, so there must be paths through the snow.
Only Mrs Bradley said she would stay by the fire and keep warm.
Emily was tired of her wool gown but did not want to venture out in muslin, even with a fur-lined cloak. She spent longer than usual brushing her hair and buffing her nails and putting on perfume, so that when she went downstairs again, the rest were already impatiently awaiting her at the inn door.
Lord Harley offered her his arm and she took it, glancing up at him in surprise.
‘Well, Mrs Bisley,’ came Captain Seaton’s heavy voice from behind them. ‘Are we set?’
He held out his arm. Lizzie shrank back a little. Mr Fletcher firmly drew the widow’s arm through his own.
‘Why, you …’ began the captain. Lord Harley swung around and the captain muttered something and fell back.
The sun was shining and snow glittered everywhere. ‘How beautiful it is!’ cried Emily. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were sparkling.
‘Yes, very beautiful,’ said Lord Harley, looking down at her face.
Emily was conscious of the pressure of his arm. She became quite breathless and then felt a flow of feeling from her own arm to his. She tried to stop it. She began to wish he would release her so that she could breathe properly again.
‘Look, there is a baker’s shop open,’ she cried and disengaged herself from him and ran forward.
‘You cannot want to eat again so soon,’ protested Hannah. ‘You have just had breakfast.’
Emily stayed gazing raptly into the baker’s window until she heard them moving on. She then turned around, but found Lord Harley politely waiting for her.
‘I do not want to appear rude, my lord,’ said Emily, ‘but I would rather not take your arm. You see, you are so very tall, I have to reach up, and … and … it is so awkward … and …’
He simply smiled in an enigmatic way and waited until she fell into step beside him. Then Emily discovered that the soles of her half-boots, always buffed and polished by the boot-boy at home, had hardly any grip on the rutted icy surface of the winding path between high drifts that led down the main street. She slipped and stumbled and then she had Lord Harley’s arm around her waist. The tumult of emotions that contact caused in her body almost made her gasp aloud. It was so dismal to have such a treacherous aching, yearning body when he probably felt nothing at all.
Lord Harley was thinking, if this is the effect she has on me when I simply hold her lightly at the waist, what would it be like if I kissed her now? I have kissed her before, but I would like to find out what it would be like if she kissed me back willingly. The more sensible side of his mind chided him for his folly. He was too old and experienced to ally himself to nothing more than a pretty face.
He fairly rushed her along until they caught up with the others, who were standing admiring giant icicles hanging from a roof. As they moved on again, Lord Harley neatly moved alongside Hannah. Mr Fletcher turned to take Lizzie’s arm again but found to his chagrin that Mr Hendry had been there before him. He offered his arm to Emily and both of them walked along in a disappointed silence.
After some time, Hannah suggested they turn back. The sun had gone in and the sky was turning grey again.
As they entered the inn courtyard, Emily, smarting at the way Lor
d Harley was ignoring her completely, dropped Mr Fletcher’s arm and bent down and scooped up a handful of snow.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Mr Fletcher.
‘Watch!’ said Emily gleefully.
Lord Harley was nearly at the door of the inn. Emily made a snowball and threw it with all her force. It caught him on the back of the neck. He swung about and saw Emily laughing at him.
‘Minx,’ he said, beginning to laugh himself. He made a snowball and flung it back at her.
‘Haven’t done this since I was in petticoats,’ said the coachman gleefully. He made a snowball and threw it at the guard.
Soon they were all indulging in a snow fight, shouting and laughing like children. Everyone was throwing snowballs. Hannah Pym threw snowballs overarm like a cricket bowler and Lizzie was shying the smallest snowballs anyone had ever seen.
And then Mr Fletcher let out a cry and put his hand to his head and collapsed on the snow, blood streaming down his face. Lizzie screamed and ran to him.
Lord Harley pushed her gently aside and loosened the lawyer’s neckcloth and felt his pulse. He then looked on the ground near where Mr Fletcher had fallen. There was a large snowball with a piece of something sticking out of it. Lord Harley examined it carefully and then his face grew grim.
‘I told you, you churl,’ he said, staring at the captain, ‘what I would do to you if you did not leave Mr Fletcher alone.’
‘What are you talking about?’ roared the captain. ‘I didn’t go near him.’
‘You didn’t need to,’ said Lord Harley. ‘You put a large jagged stone inside a snowball and threw it at him.’
‘That’s a damned lie!’ yelled the captain. ‘You’re persecuting me. You all hate me.’
And to everyone’s consternation, he sat down in the snow and began to cry.
‘Help me in with Mr Fletcher,’ commanded Lord Harley in tones of disgust. Mr Burridge and Lord Harley carried the slight body of the lawyer between them. Lizzie followed them up the stairs and insisted on staying with Mr Fletcher until a doctor could be found.