It was dark and damp inside the coach and the padded walls smelt most disagreeably of trodden straw, damp boots, wet umbrellas and mildew. The two women were already wet and dirty, their travelling coats spattered with rain and their boots squelching mud, but at least they had the coach to themselves.
‘You are a dear, kind friend,’ Sophie said gratefully as the coach creaked away. ‘I am uncommon glad I do not travel alone. ’Twill be a bad journey.’
‘’Tis a bad time,’ Nan admitted, warmed by her friend’s affection. And the warmth made her begin to feel that she had been rather uncharitable towards her lover. ‘Poor Calverley! I gave him no kind of welcome at all.’
‘Did he deserve any?’ Sophie said, grimacing at the sight of her skirt.
‘I have loved him a mortal long time, Sophie,’ Nan said, ‘and we have been so much apart. I could have been kinder, in all conscience.’
‘He will forgive ’ee,’ Sophie said easily. ‘’Tis a lover, not a husband.’
The cold was making Nan shiver, but the word ‘husband’ made her sigh too.
‘What is it, my dear?’ Sophie said fondly. ‘Why do you sigh?’
Being enclosed in this little, private, travelling compartment made confidences possible. ‘’Tis a great sadness to me,’ Nan said, ‘that we never married.’
‘He ain’t the marrying kind, my dear. I told you that long since, as I well remember.’
‘Aye, you did. And spoke true. ’Tis a sadness nevertheless. I liked being a wife, Sophie. There was honour in it. And safety.’
‘Aye, my dear,’ Sophie said sympathetically. ‘I know it.’
‘Had he asked me to wed when our affair began I’d have married him that very day,’ Nan said sadly. ‘’Twas no joy to me to be known as a mistress. Not after being married to Mr Easter. It never felt entirely as it should be. But I kept such thoughts a secret, even from you, my dear.’
‘And from Calverley I trust,’ Sophie said shrewdly.
‘Aye. From him too. There’s a deal he doesn’t know.’
‘And is he like to now?’
‘I think not.’
‘Tell me, my dear,’ Sophie said, ‘were he to ask you to marry now, what would your answer be?’
‘I do not know,’ Nan said, and it made her feel sad to confess it. ‘I truly do not know. He would be a poor husband, I fear. Not like my dear Mr Easter.’ And she sighed again. ‘Mr Easter was so kindly.’
‘Aye he was.’
‘There have been times since he died when I have been uncommon lonely.’ It sounded a foolish thing to say, when she had a lover and children and servants and a business, but Sophie understood.
‘It seems to me,’ she said, ‘that loneliness is the common lot of mankind, whether they are married or no. We have such a parlous need for good company, my dear, especially in bad times, which is why I determined to attend this trial.’
‘All is not well with Easters,’ Nan said, confessing again. ‘I have lost a deal of money in the cocoa trade.’
‘Aye, so ’tis rumoured.’
‘And now Mr Teshmaker writes to hint of trouble with my ship.’
‘You have a ship, my dear?’
‘I have half-shares in a merchantman.’
‘What does she carry?’
‘Tobacco, I believe. She plies the African trade.’
Sophie’s face registered instant, round-eyed shock. ‘Oh, surely not!’ she said. ‘Oh, my dear old friend, I did not think it of ’ee. Oh, not the African trade!’
The niggling doubt Nan had felt when she first met the master returned to fill the coach. ‘Why not, Sophie?’ she asked gently. ‘Is there wrong in it?’
‘It is the slave trade,’ Sophie said bluntly. ‘Did you not know it?’
‘No!’ Nan said, understanding perfectly now. Oh, how foul! How unutterably foul! Was that what Mr Teshmaker wanted to tell her? Oh, she would sell out the moment she got back to London. This was not to be endured. ‘Oh, Sophie!’
But at that point the coach stopped and they had to get out in the rain and walk behind it with the two outside passengers as the horses struggled uphill, so their conversation had to wait.
The road was axle-deep in mud, so that the poor creatures slithered and were in danger of falling, and by the time they reached the top of the hill, Nan and Sophie were spattered with dark slime and horribly cold. And then to make matters worse they were joined by a farmer and his wife, who were both impossibly fat and took up far too much room inside the coach, and put paid to any more confidences.
They were also impossibly cheerful. ‘This ol’ weather’ll perk up now we’re aboard,’ the farmer bragged. ‘Always do, don’t it, Mother?’
And Mother, who seemed to be imbecilic as well as overweight, nodded and chuckled as though they were all off on a picnic.
‘This journey will never end,’ Sophie whispered, turning up her pretty blue eyes to the roof, which was now oozing brown moisture.
‘If she don’t stop sniggering,’ Nan whispered back, ‘I shall do un a mischief, so I shall.’
The journey continued in bristling bad humour and incomprehensible jollity for several hours and many miles until the rain eased, spattered and finally stopped.
‘Well, there’s a mercy, say I,’ the farmer declared. ‘A mercy, don’t ’ee think so, ladies?’
Nan and Sophie admitted that they were glad of it. But their gladness evaporated at once, when the gentleman creaked his bulk forwards and opened the window.
‘Pray sir,’ Sophie begged, ‘do remember how injurious cold air …’
‘Shut that window at once, sir,’ Nan ordered.
But he paid no attention to either of them. ‘Bless me if we ain’t got an outrider,’ he said peering through the gap he’d created. ‘Look ’ee there, Mother. A deer, I do declare.’
But his wife said it looked more like a great dog. ‘’Tis too yellow for a deer.’ And while they debated, the horses took fright and began to neigh, but in a terrible high-pitched panicky way, all on one note, which was horribly alarming. They could hear the coachman calling, ‘Whoa there, my beauties! Prime your pistols Jack! Whoa there! Whoa!’ And the coach gave a sudden lurch that threw them all violently about.
‘Sit down, do,’ Nan said to the farmer. ‘You unbalance us all.’
And to Sophie’s surprise, he obeyed meekly, his fat face puzzled.
Now they could all see through the window and sure enough there was an animal of some sort galloping along behind the black hedgerows, but it was moving too quickly and the light was too poor for them to catch more than an occasional glimpse. Of a tawny hide rippling with speed and shadow, of slim straw-coloured legs leaping at full stretch, of the twitch of a long tufted tail. A long tufted tail, Nan thought, staring at the place where it had been. No, surely not! A tuft of brambles perhaps, or old straw, but not a tail. For what sort of creature had a tail like that? And fear tightened her chest and made the sweat start from her forehead, for this was certainly no deer, this was a menacing, hunting animal.
‘Where are we?’ Sophie asked nervously.
‘Coming into Midhurst, ma’am,’ the farmer said. And a pistol exploded deafeningly above their heads, and the coach rocked as though it was about to overturn and the horses screamed again.
The farmer’s wife began to wail. ‘’Tis a highwayman,’ she cried. ‘Hide your waluables! We shall all be killed! Put your purse inside your breeches, Mr Dean, I beg you. ’Tis the only place. Oh, oh, we shall all be killed!’
And the creature leapt through the hedge in one graceful bound to gallop sinuously alongside the coach. And it was a great tawny cat, yellow of eye and snarling. Nan had only ever seen such a creature in paintings but she knew what it was. A lioness pounding in for the kill.
For a second they were all too surprised to believe what they saw. Then the lioness sprang forward into the air as though she was flying and the coach tipped and there was a confusion of movement and sound, pistols firing, coachmen
swearing, horses screaming, a drumming of hooves and wheels, as they slithered to right and left and were flung against the sides of the coach, grabbing at one another for support and finding none. And the coach went careering on at a terrifying speed, as Nan and Sophie screamed and the farmer’s wife yelled that she wanted to get out and the farmer sat stunned and open-mouthed and dribbling.
And then, in the middle of their nightmare ride, they were in a town, rattling down a wide street, with people rushing out of their houses on either side, wide-eyed with horror at what they saw. One of the horses was groaning and they were beginning to lose speed, so that the crowd was able to keep up with them and run alongside, and now they could hear what was being said. ‘Pull up, man!’ ‘The beast is done for.’ ‘Pull up!’
But they didn’t pull up, they laboured on, swinging abruptly round a sharp corner, turning left, and struggling up a sudden gradient with excited people pressing upon them from every side, and the horse groaning more terribly than ever. Nan had a confused impression of dozens of hands reaching out towards them, and then they had stopped at last, and were climbing shakily out of their battered vehicle into the warmth of all those bodies crowded into the narrow roadway.
The leading horse, a fine bay gelding, was so badly injured he could hardly stand. His neck had been bitten in at least three places and now gaped open revealing raw red flesh oozing blood, and his shoulders were striped by long bleeding gashes where he had been clawed. He was foaming and showing the whites of his eyes in terror and the sweat stood on his flesh in oily globules. ‘He’s dying, poor crittur,’ Nan said, and there were many others standing around her who were saying the same thing.
‘What ’appened?’ people were asking, as they went to hold the other three frightened horses, and assist the farmer’s wife out of the coach.
‘Attacked by a lion,’ the coachman said. ‘Come out a’ nowhere. Couldn’t do a thing about it. Jack ’ere fired his pistol valiant. ’Tweren’t a bit a’ use.’
An old woman was leaning out of one of the dormer windows in a row of ancient cottages immediately in front of them. ‘Lion, eh?’ she said. ‘That’ll be Honeybun’s menagerie.’ And she shouted into the house, ‘Run you to south meadow, Japhet, and tell un we got his crittur.’
A flurry of urchins erupted from the cottage door and tumbled together like excited puppies, down the flight of stone steps and into the street and through the crowd and were gone. But the gelding was leaning into his stablemates, dripping blood and breathing noisily, and he looked as though he was going to fall.
‘Take un to smithy,’ a labourer suggested.
‘Use yer gun boy. Put un out of his misery,’ the old lady said, sucking her cheeks. ‘’E don’t look like to last the night.’
But Jack’s much-fired pistols were empty and all the shot used up.
‘’Tis but a short walk to the Spread Eagle, ladies,’ the coachman said to Nan and Sophie, ‘if you would be so kind. We shall ’ave fresh horses at the Eagle. ’Tis but a step.’
‘Are we your only passengers?’ Sophie asked, bemused. There were no travellers outside the coach, and the farmer and his wife had disappeared.
But Nan was more concerned about the gelding. ‘See to your animal,’ she said. ‘We may make shift for ourselves.’
‘Take un out the shafts ’fore he brings all down,’ the old lady advised from her seat in the attic window. And as this seemed sound advice it was acted upon, and the gelding was led limping away.
As they turned the second bend in the road, Nan and Sophie could see the Spread Eagle standing just below the brow of the hill and directly before them, striped with dark timbers, roofed with dark red tiles, puffing warm smoke from all its tall chimneys, its sign bold against the darkening sky. It was bitterly cold and they were both shivering. ‘I shall be glad to be within doors,’ Sophie said.
But when they got to the entrance, and Sophie was drooping with her hand on the latch, they could hear that there was a violent argument under way in the courtyard, and now that they’d seen so much Nan was determined to know what was going on. ‘Go you in,’ she said to her friend. ‘I will follow later.’ And she tucked her cold hands into her muff and marched into the courtyard.
The gelding was still standing, still groaning and still bleeding. His three companions were being soothed and uncoupled, with Jack in anxious attendance. And the coachman was having a furious argument with a large belligerent man in a turkey-red coat. ‘… nearly killed my horse, look ’ee,’ he was saying. ‘A crittur like that should be locked up, not a-roamin’ the countryside preyin’ on the innocent.’
There was a red-and-white cart, labelled ‘Honeybun’s Menagerie’, standing in the entrance to the yard, with a formidable man brooding in the driver’s seat. He had a wall eye and a jutting chin covered with black stubble and he was presently engaged in spitting long brown streams of chewed tobacco between his pony’s ears. There was a large dust-coloured net heaped in the cart and a cat o’ nine tails and several iron bars, and squatting patiently and miserably among them, tied to the side of the cart by a rope, an elderly mastiff, grey-muzzled and red-eyed.
‘Tell yer what I’ll do,’ turkey-red coat said. ‘I’ll take ’im orf yer ’ands. Give yer five pounds for ’im, that’s what I’ll do. Can’t say fairer’n that, now can I?’
‘I can’t sell a company horse,’ the coachman said. ’Sides, that ain’t the point. You’re responsible.’
The driver spat his last stream of tobacco all over his pony’s head. ‘Be we a-goin’ to catch this ’ere beast a’ yourn or bain’t we?’ he said. ‘Be too dark to see if’n we don’t git a-goin’ soon.’
‘Five pounds,’ Mr Honeybun said. ‘’E’s only fit fer the knacker’s.’
Nan looked at the gelding, shivering and groaning with his blood dripping into a dark pool at his feet, and her pity erupted into fury.
‘You’re a cruel heartless man, so you are,’ she yelled at Mr Honeybun. ‘Have you no thought for what your wretched beast did to that poor creature? You may sell him to me,’ she said to the coachman. ‘I will give you five guineas for un and see to it he’s kept alive what’s more.’
‘I’m orf if you bain’t,’ the driver said laconically, and he flicked his whip at his tobacco-stained pony and drove the cart out of the yard.
‘Only fit for the knackers!’ Mr Honeybun shouted, sprinting after him. And he leapt onto the cart and was gone.
The gelding looked as if he were going to fall. ‘Make your mind up to it sharpish,’ Nan said to the coachman.
‘Well now, ma’am,’ he dithered. ‘Is your credit good, if I might make so bold as to ask?’
‘I am Nan Easter, the newsagent,’ she said with pride. ‘If my credit en’t good I don’t know whose is. Come now, is it a bargain?’
So he shook hands on it and she gave him her note of hand. Then she set about getting some help for the animal. ‘Run you to the nearest surgeon,’ she said to a stable lad, who’d been watching the transaction open-mouthed, ‘and beg him to come here with all speed. Tell him he has a deal of stitching to do. And I’ll trouble you sir,’ she said to the coachman, ‘to bring a horse blanket or two. The poor crittur needs warmth.’ Then she set off into the stables to arrange accommodation for her new possession.
The surgeon returned within ten minutes, happily ready to earn a good fee. He was a little put out when he discovered that his patient was a horse, but he recovered when he heard how much Mrs Easter intended to pay him. ‘’Twill take a while, ma’am,’ he said, when he’d examined the gashes, ‘and I cannot guarantee that he will ever do more than limp, even with my very best endeavours, for the muscles are torn. You will get no more work out of him, I fear.’
‘Life is enough,’ she told him briskly. ‘Do what you can, sir and you shall be well paid for it, I promise you.’ Then she dusted the palms of her hands against one another with satisfaction and stomped across the stableyard into the inn to find Sophie.
It was pe
aceful inside the Spread Eagle. There was a huge fire burning in a hearth bigger than a double bed, and the curtains had been drawn and the candles lit. One of the kitchen maids had made a pot of coffee and brought it to Sophie who was sitting in one of the three wooden settles that were drawn up beside the blaze. There were carpets on the floorboards and dark beams enclosing them protectively overhead. It was cosy and domestic and a long way away from the horror on the road.
They drank their coffee and warmed their feet on the hearth, and Nan told Sophie how she’d bought the gelding and Sophie said it was her opinion that it could take hours before they would be ready to proceed. And gradually the fire warmed their chilled limbs and released a numbing fatigue in both of them which was almost pleasant. They decided that now the horse was being cared for they didn’t really mind the delay, and they were quite disappointed when Jack came humbly into the coffee room more than an hour later to tell them the coach was ready.
By now dusk was descending and the coachyard was lit with rushes. To their relief, the coach had been dried and cleaned and fresh straw spread on the floor, and there was no sign of the bloodstains on the cobbles. But as they turned out of the yard, heading south towards the mill pond and the brooding, open countryside, they were passed by Mr Honeybun’s red and white cart, now black and white in the rushlight, but still chillingly recognizable.
The sides of the cart had been raised, but from her high vantage point in the coach Nan could see right down inside it. And there was the lioness safely entangled in the net, her tawny fur pale and her wide paws holding down a joint of meat from which she was tearing huge bloody mouthfulls. It was a very big joint of meat, Nan thought. She could see two legs quite clearly and the remains of a muzzle. Why it was an entire animal, an animal about the size of a dog. And she realized that she was looking at the remains of the mastiff. Dear heavens! They’d used the mastiff as bait. Live bait!
Tuppenny Times Page 39
