The Girl in the Mask

by Marie-Louise Jensen

  I got out at once. My aunt sighed, complained that her shoes pinched and finally emerged clutching her vinaigrette. ‘What a fatiguing journey,’ she murmured, casting a look of horror at the road that dropped away into the evening gloom ahead of us. ‘Such a steep hill; I really don’t know how I … ’ She gathered her heavy black petticoats in her hands and took a few hesitant steps. Impatiently, my father turned away and spoke to his man. ‘Ride ahead now, will you, Brown,’ he ordered. ‘Announce our imminent arrival and make sure supper will be ready for us. We shan’t be long now.’

  Brown hesitated and then nodded and rode on down the hill. Father rode ahead more slowly. Our groom was already at the offside leader’s head, holding his bridle, so I went to the nearside horse to help.

  ‘I don’t know if you can manage, Miss,’ the groom said, uncertainly. ‘It’ll be hard work. You’ll need to hold tight to stop ’im speeding up as we go down. The carriage is heavy with all this luggage, otherwise it wouldn’t be so bad.’

  ‘I understand,’ I nodded. ‘Let’s go.’

  We set off slowly, one step at a time down the steep road, feeling the push of the heavy chaise in the harness, holding the horses back hard when they were tempted to move forward any faster. It was back-breaking work, especially whenever the chaise wheels lurched forward out of a rut in a rush, threatening to propel us off our feet. I found myself frequently leaning back against my horse, forcing him to slow with my own body weight.

  We descended into a bend in the road, overshadowed on either side by tall trees. It was darker under their profuse spring foliage, and the evening air seemed damp and stale somehow. As my father rode back to see how we were doing, the stillness of the evening was abruptly shattered by a gunshot. We all jumped, Aunt Amelia screamed, and the horses plunged and reared in their traces, fighting to bolt forward down the hill.

  ‘Hold them!’ yelled the groom desperately. I tried, but my small weight was no longer enough, and I was dragged along the stony ground by the terrified beasts. My father flung himself off his own horse and grabbed my horse’s reins at the bit, forcing it to stand still with brute strength. As we all struggled, our attention completely engrossed in our dangerous task, two horsemen rode out of the trees, straight at us.

  ‘Halt!’ they shouted, as though we were not already putting every ounce of our strength into doing just that. The horses were finally brought to a stop. Weak with relief, I turned to see who these travellers were, to be confronted with two masked riders and the muzzle of a pistol. ‘Stand and deliver!’ shouted the bigger of the two men in a rough voice.

  It went through my head even at that very moment, facing the gun and the possibility of death, how pathetically melodramatic and worn-out that line was. It was every child’s playtime cry, and I wondered they could think of nothing more original to say.

  I had no money on me; not so much as a farthing and not a single trinket. Indeed, I owned nothing at all of any value. So I merely stood there, waiting for the scene to unfold. My father let go of the horse and raised his hands, backing slowly away. I guessed he had a pistol strapped to his saddle and was trying to reach it.

  ‘Stand still!’ ordered the masked rider, clearly suspecting the same.

  Father froze, looking furious, hands raised. My aunt was shaking like a leaf and whimpering. I looked quickly away, hiding a smile, delighted to see them humiliated instead of me for a change.

  While the large highwayman kept us covered with his pistol, the small one slipped off his horse to pocket our valuables, taking care not to step between us and the gun. He took a purse from my father, some coins from the servants, and a necklace and two rings from my terrified aunt. He patted their pockets, their hats and their sleeves for hidden valuables. When he came to me, I saw that below the mask the freckled face was scarcely more than that of a child.

  ‘You’re welcome to search me, but I have nothing,’ I said. As he reached forward to check anyway, I thought there was something incongruous about him. I looked closely at his slim figure and what I could see of his face as he patted my clothing expertly and saw smooth skin with no hint of down on it. This was not a youth at all, I realized; this was a girl, her gender hidden behind a mask and a black coat. I confess: I was impressed. The thought that a young girl had the courage to rob travellers on the king’s highroad gave me a thrill. The fact that it was my own father she was robbing added spice.

  The girl reached up to check the neckline of my gown for a necklace, and that’s when I saw her left hand. Or, more precisely, I noticed the little finger, the end mutilated, and I caught my breath with shock.

  ‘Jenny?’ I murmured. I could hardly believe the coincidence. The girl blinked, but showed no other sign that I’d spoken. ‘Your brother Bill’s worried about you,’ I said softly. The girl didn’t reply. She turned away from me without another glance and climbed inside our chaise, presumably searching it for more booty. But if she found anything, I didn’t see it when she emerged. The two riders made off, disappearing into the gathering darkness under the trees as swiftly as they’d appeared.

  I wondered whether it was possible there were two girls in Bath with part of their little finger missing, and concluded it was more than likely. For all I knew, it could be a common injury. Probably I’d been mistaken, and the girl wasn’t Bill’s sister. It was just as well; I was pretty sure he wouldn’t have considered highway robbery remotely respectable.

  I expected rage from my father at being so outwitted. Imagining our whole trip might be ruined if he’d been robbed of all his money, I waited gleefully to hear what he would say. But, to my disappointment, he merely disappeared briefly inside the chaise and then emerged with a satisfied look upon his face.

  ‘Pull yourself together, Amelia,’ he said sharply to my aunt who was sitting by the road, rocking backwards and forwards, close to hysteria. ‘They’re gone now, no one’s hurt and there’s no harm done. Drive on,’ he nodded to the coachman. Just like that, the excitement was all over, leaving us to resume our tortuous descent to the city. I puzzled over my father’s calm. The robbery hadn’t upset him, and for the life of me I couldn’t work out why.

  The lanterns at the city gates were in sight before the coachman considered the road level enough for us to climb back into the chaise. My aunt leant back against the cushions, sighing with exhaustion, her eyes closed. I was not in the least tired and waited with eager anticipation to see the city.

  Brown was waiting for us at the archway, leading his horse. As we came into sight, he mounted and led us to the right. ‘Trim Street is outside the city walls, sir,’ he told my father. ‘Follow me.’

  We rumbled on, skirting the walls. In only a few minutes we pulled up in a narrow street between two rows of pale buildings. Torches flickered outside them, giving me a glimpse of tall, gracious town houses, all joined together in a long row. The façades were plain and yet elegant.

  When we halted, I didn’t wait for the steps of the chaise to be let down, instead jumping down into the cobbled street and looking around me, consumed with curiosity. In the distance I could hear the deep chime of heavy church bells ringing.

  ‘Impetuosity is a grave fault in a girl, Sophia,’ said my father coldly. ‘Strive to curb it.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I said automatically.

  The door of number seven, the finest house in the street, opened, light spilling out of it. We’d arrived at our new home.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  At breakfast the next day, which we ate in the ground-floor dining parlour, I noticed my father pull out his pocket watch and consult it. I stared at it, puzzled.

  ‘How did the highwaymen miss that yesterday?’ I asked.

  My father regarded me ironically, and his eyes flickered towards the new butler who was clearing dishes from the table. I became sure there was some secret. I left my father reading a London newspaper, and followed my aunt upstairs to the main room, a handsome apartment on the first floor, with huge south-facing windows letting in the
bright spring daylight. As my aunt sank onto the settle with a sigh and declared herself delighted with the house, I took note of her pearl necklace and matching bracelet.

  ‘How fortunate that the robbers didn’t find your pearls either, ma’am,’ I said, knowing my aunt was far more likely to be forthcoming than my father.

  ‘Isn’t it indeed?’ she exclaimed. ‘I thought your father was mad wanting to conceal our valuables in the chaise! I’ve always kept them on me before, feeling certain that was safest, but just think! They would all have been stolen to feather some scoundrel’s nest by now! Instead, he advised me to wear only paste and worthless trinkets, and to keep a purse filled with coins of small value as a decoy. So clever! Those men got little enough from robbing us.’

  I smiled and nodded, as though admiring my father’s wisdom, but all the while thinking: So, he has a hiding place somewhere in the chaise, does he? I can find that. Not that I had any reason to do so. It merely seemed like good sport to know my father’s secrets.

  ‘Can I go out and see the city this morning?’ I asked.

  My aunt shrieked with horror. ‘Dressed as you are? Sophia, really, have you no sense at all?’

  I thought that was fine talking coming from the person who’d just betrayed my father’s secret hiding place to me. I said with as much politeness as I could muster: ‘But no one knows me here. What can it signify?’

  Aunt Amelia shuddered. ‘They soon will know you, and think if anyone remembered seeing you in such a dowdy, outmoded gown. Pray, do not think of it.’

  ‘Then … ?’ I began, wondering how I should pass a whole morning shut into such a small house without even books to occupy me. I was interrupted by a loud knock at the front door. I ran to the window, wondering who could be calling on us in a city where we knew no one. There was a bustle and the sound of voices, footsteps on the stairs and the door was opened.

  ‘Mr Richard Nash, Master of the Ceremonies!’ announced the butler.

  My aunt jumped to her feet, flustered, and sank into a deep curtsey, her black petticoats billowing about her. ‘Mr Nash!’ she exclaimed. ‘Such an honour.’

  The visitor bowed with exquisite elegance to us both. ‘On behalf of the Bath Corporation, may I welcome you to the city and wish your stay here will be a pleasant one? I shall certainly do my best to make it so.’

  ‘Thank you!’ cried my aunt, overcome. ‘Allow me to present my niece, Miss Williams. Please forgive her appearance. She urgently needs to visit a dressmaker.’

  I curtseyed awkwardly, stunned by the appearance of our visitor. I’d thought my father richly dressed until this moment. I now realized that he was but a pale shadow compared to this man. Nash’s heavily-powdered long-bottom wig fell about his shoulders in a mass of carefully-arranged grey curls. The tails of his cravat were not worn loose as my father wore his, but instead tucked neatly through a buttonhole. A diamond pin glinted among the rich lace. A pink waistcoat, intricately embroidered with navy and silver thread, his buttons a gleaming silver to match, contrasted with a navy coat with absurdly large cuffs folded back to reveal a quantity of expensive lace at his wrists and jewelled rings on his fingers. Nash wore no sword at his side, which surprised me in such a fine gentleman, but instead carried an elegant walking-stick. Clocked silk stockings were fastened neatly above his knees, and square-toed black shoes with large, sparkling buckles and high red heels completed the vision.

  I fear I gaped. Nash noted my gaze and smirked, clearly pleased by the attention. He no doubt considered it admiration, and his rightful due. I don’t know if I admired him or not. I think I was mainly taken aback that any man would spend so much time and money on his appearance.

  At that moment my father came into the room, still attired in his morning gown and nightcap as he had been at breakfast. I blushed for him, but neither he nor Mr Nash seemed the least concerned at his state of undress. They exchanged conventional greetings. My father complained about the robbery last night, and Mr Nash was suitably shocked and sympathetic. He warned him against the men who carried the sedan chairs in the city and then began speaking of the baths, the pump room, and instructing my father in how he should set about subscribing to balls at the Guildhall and to Harrison’s tea rooms and private gardens. It all sounded insufferably dull. My attention soon wandered to the window. It was a fine day out and I was just wondering whether there was any way I could escape and enjoy it when I realized a silence had fallen in the room. I looked round and found everyone staring at me. My father looked angry.

  ‘I’m sorry … ’ I began automatically, wondering what I’d missed. Mr Nash kindly put me out of my misery:

  ‘I was just asking, Miss Williams, if you are not looking forward to the balls at the Bath? All young ladies love to dance, do they not?’

  I hesitated, uncertain how to reply. Under my father’s frowning stare, I couldn’t tell the truth: that I’d never danced, knew no other young ladies, and would rather die than appear at a ball. ‘It will be … a new experience for me,’ I mumbled at last. There was another uncomfortable silence, broken by a loud peal of church bells.

  ‘More visitors,’ said Mr Nash with every appearance of delight. ‘We welcome every new arrival of note with bells. Did you hear them ringing for you last night?’

  ‘That was for our sake?’ asked my aunt, apparently overcome by the thought.

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ said Mr Nash. ‘I’ll leave you now, if you’ll excuse me, but please do speak to me if there is anything you need to know or if I can assist you in any way.’ He rose, bowed low with great dignity and took his leave.

  ‘Who the devil was that pompous, self-important ass?’ demanded my father as soon as we heard the front door close downstairs.

  ‘Oh, Sir Edward!’ exclaimed Aunt Amelia. ‘That was Beau Nash! Such an honour that he should call upon us personally!’

  ‘Who is Beau Nash when he’s at home? Beau Nash, indeed,’ scoffed my father. ‘An under-bred fellow if ever I saw one!’

  ‘You quite mistake the matter, my dear brother,’ Aunt Amelia assured him. ‘That is to say, I believe his origins may be quite low, his father was a glass manufacturer from Swansea or some such thing. But he is king of Bath!’

  ‘King?’ cried my father, and although he clearly hadn’t liked Mr Nash, I could see now he was simply enjoying contradicting my aunt. ‘If the place has crowned that confounded, jumped-up nobody king, then I say we should pack our bags and leave at once, because it won’t be at all the sort of place I want to stay in! What the deuce did you mean by dragging me here, woman?’

  ‘But, Sir Edward,’ my aunt wailed, thinking he was serious. ‘We’ve only just arrived! And I assure you all the best people come here, and the entertainments are quite the finest outside London. And Beau Nash is very respected, although, I confess, I thought his linen not quite clean, but truly … ’

  ‘I’ll give it two days!’ said Sir Edward. ‘And if they’re all like him, we’re leaving and you can pay the bills.’ My father slammed out of the room and my aunt dissolved into floods of tears. I took the opportunity to slip quietly away, fetch my cloak and leave the house.

  I walked along Trim Street, thinking how new and clean it all was; the sandstone of the houses such a pale yellow it was almost white. To my great excitement, I found a building with Trim’s Theatre painted onto a sign. I resolved to ask my father about seeing a play there at the first opportunity.

  There was a slight whiff of rotten eggs in the air but I couldn’t track down where it was coming from. One end of the street led into fields and the other into a building site, so I took the only other route, a short street called Trim Bridge running at right angles to Trim Street, which took me across the city walls and into the city of Bath itself.

  The city was a crowded, bustling maze of narrow streets, alleys, and jumbled old houses of all shapes and styles, mostly built from the same pale-yellow stone. I roamed through the crowds, avoiding the piles of rubbish lying in the streets, looking around me wit
h great curiosity. I’d visited towns before, once or twice, but Bath was bigger, dirtier, and busier than anything I’d seen. It smelt bad too, over and above the rotting refuse that lay about; that rotten-egg smell grew stronger the further I walked into the city.

  Two men pushed roughly past me, carrying a huge, heavy box slung on poles between them, and I was surprised to see a lady in a fine gown sitting inside it. This must be one of the sedan chairs Mr Nash had spoken of. Before long, I realized I’d reached the fashionable part of the city. Instead of beggars, workmen, and traders, the streets were filled with ladies and gentlemen in absurdly fine clothes, sauntering at their leisure and gazing into the shop windows. The windows truly drew the eye: colourful displays of all kinds of luxuries which I was certain I’d never have a use for.

  I reached a square where one building dominated: a fine abbey built of the same pale stone soared above the buildings around it, dwarfing and outclassing them. It was quite the most beautiful church I’d ever seen, and I stood admiring it for a moment before a noisy crowd caught my attention. Finely-dressed people, and a few less fine, were wandering in and out of a building. Inside was a kind of gallery where they were leaning over a balustrade, laughing and pointing at a scene below.

  I’d finally tracked down the source of the smell. Here below me was one of the famous baths that the city was named for. I looked down and saw bathers of both sexes, dressed with great modesty in some yellowed canvas garments, floating around in the murky waters below us. As I watched, one spectator threw an apple core into the bath, causing shrieks of laughter among those around him.

  ‘Here, let’s throw something bigger in,’ cried a young man. ‘How about you?’ he asked, grasping a young lady around the waist.

  ‘Ooh, don’t you dare!’ she shouted and began shrieking in the most vulgar way as he hoisted her into the air.

  I couldn’t believe he’d really do it, unless perhaps he was drunk this early in the morning; it was a long drop and the young woman could be hurt.