The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet

by Colleen McCullough

  Those with the money to purchase a ticket on the stage-coach were not poor, though some were close to it. Mary’s seat companion was a mere child going to governess two children near Peterborough; as she looked into that sweet face, Mary suppressed a shudder. For she knew as clearly as if she were a Gypsy peering into a crystal ball that the two children would prove incorrigible. To hire this child said that the Peterborough parents had devoured many governesses. The woman of midage opposite was a cook going to a new position, but she was sliding down the ladder, not moving up it; her rambling conversation betrayed a fondness for the bottle and unclever fraud. How amazing! thought Mary as the miles ground by. I am learning about people at last, and suddenly I realise that my servants in Hertford cheated me, rightly deeming me an ignoramus. I may not yet have encountered any poor, but I am certainly receiving an education. In all my life, I have never before been inescapably exposed to strangers.

  The poor walked from place to place, and there were many of them along the road to Huntingdon. A few carried a cloth in which were knotted bread and cheese; some swigged at bottles of gin or rum; but most, it seemed, lacked even food or inebriants. Their toes poked out of their flapping shoes, their children were barefoot, and their clothing was in filthy tatters. Women suckled babes and men made water openly, children squatted to empty their bowels exhibiting a chortling interest in what they produced. But shame and modesty are luxuries only those with money can afford, said Argus. Now Mary saw that for herself.

  “How do they manage to live?” she asked a sensible-looking fellow passenger after he tossed a few pennies at a particularly ragged group of these wretched walkers.

  “Any way they can,” he answered, wondering at her interest. “’Tis not the season for work on the land—too late for sowing and planting, too early for harvest. Those walking south are going to London, those walking north probably to Sheffield or Doncaster. Hoping for a job of work in a mill or factory. None of these are on the parish, you see.”

  “And if they find a job of work, they will not be paid enough to afford both food and shelter,” she said.

  “That is the way of the world, marm. I gave that lot my pennies, but I have not enough pennies for them all, and my shillings I must save for myself and my own family.”

  But it need not be the way of the world, she said silently. It need not be! Somewhere there are enough pennies. Somewhere, indeed, there are enough shillings.

  The journey was very long. What had begun in Biggleswade at seven ended in Huntingdon at seven, the coachman smiling from ear to ear at the speed of his progress. So tired she felt light-headed, Mary discovered that the closest inexpensive inn was some distance away at Great Stukely. Well, nothing for it: tonight she would stay at the post house where the coach had stopped, since she was to board another at six in the morning for the wearisome leg to Stamford.

  A meal of properly cooked roast beef, roast potatoes, French beans, peas and hot buttered rolls put new life into her veins, and she slept comfortably—if not for long enough—in a clean feather bed with well-aired sheets. However, half-a-crown was dear. All she could hope was that Stamford held a cheaper place.

  The coach did not reach Stamford until nine that night, in a twilight that ordinarily would have enchanted her, perfumed and misty. As it was, the Grantham stage left early—why do they always leave early? I need to sleep, and I have learned that I cannot sleep sitting bolt upright in a smelly coach.

  From Stamford to Grantham she found herself squeezed in between two selfish old gentlemen and facing two children sharing one seat. Since both were boys, and of quite the wrong age for a coach journey, they drove their mother to the edge of dementia and the other passengers to the edge of murder. Only a sharp crack around the shins from one old gentleman’s cane saved four people from the hangman’s noose, though the mother told him he was a heartless brute.

  Grantham had a coach depot attached to a huge post house and was the centre for a network of stage routes; the town sat on the Great North Road that ran to York and finally to Edinburgh. The only trouble was, Mary learned, that east-west routes did not matter as much as north-south ones. No conveyance bound for Nottingham was due until the day after tomorrow, which left Mary on the horns of a dilemma: did she spend a day of inertia in this busy town at a decent inn, or frugally? Having severely suppressed a qualm of conscience, she elected the elegant post house alongside the depot, secured a room in the back sequestered from the noise of the yard, and ordered a tray of food. A whole two crowns poorer, Mary still couldn’t feel very guilty. Not after those awful boys and their goose of a mother. And who could ever have dreamed that so many old gentlemen with huge paunches travelled long distances by stage-coach?

  A full night’s dreamless sleep did much to mend her temper and her headache. After ringing for hot water and a tray of coffee and rolls, she set out for a brisk walk to sample Grantham’s attractions—not many, and not inspiring. The constant stream of traffic, however, she found fascinating, especially the post chaises, curricles, phaetons, carriages and barouches of the wealthy. Every vehicle going north or south went through the hub of Grantham because the horses kept by its posting inns were superior.

  After a good luncheon she walked to the river Witham and stood upon its bank, only then realising why she felt a trifle flat.

  Such a charming prospect! Willows, poplars, reeds, ducks and ducklings, swans and cygnets, the widening ripple of some fish kissing the water’s surface—how much nicer it would be did she have company! Specifically, the company of Mr. Angus Sinclair. Once the notion dawned, she acknowledged the fact that adventures were more satisfying if shared, from the horrors of the stage-coach to the sights of the countryside and its inhabitants. With Angus, the talkative and inquisitive lady could have been laughed at, those two dreadful little boys easier borne, the argument about whether the windows should be open or shut put in its proper perspective. The visions fell over each other in her mind, crying to be told to some dear friend, yet no dear friend was nigh to hear them.

  I have missed Angus acutely, she admitted, not quite the same Mary after five days on the road in public coaches. I like the way his beautiful blue eyes sparkle with enthusiasm or humour, I like the way he watches out for me when we walk, I like his kind nature and his dry comments. Nor did he spoil it for me by speaking words of love—oh, I could not have borne that! Had he said them, I would have had to send him away. In the ordinary scheme of things I do not overly care for men. They are either overbearing and self-opinionated like Fitzwilliam Darcy, or stuffed with romantic rubbish like Robert Wilde. But I do not think of Angus as a man. I think of him as a friend more satisfying by far than female friends, who care only for eligible marriages and clothes.

  The ducks had gathered, expecting bread, and she had none; turning from the river with a sigh, Mary walked back to the inn and spent the rest of the day reading Henry VI—apart, that is, from spending half an hour devouring a steak-and-kidney pudding and a rhubarb tart with thick cream. Only six days into her journey, and she was losing weight! How could that be, when she had spent them sitting down? Yet another lesson for the student of humanity: that sometimes a sedentary occupation could be more gruelling than mixing mortar.

  And hey-ho, back to the stage-coach on the morrow! Aware that she was heading west now, and that Nottingham was a much shorter distance from Grantham than Stamford, she had climbed into the conveyance in a sanguine mood, rested enough to be at the depot early, thereby securing a window seat. Unfortunately such desirous objects depended upon the coachman, and this day’s coachman was a surly brute who stank of rum. Not five minutes after she was ensconced in her window seat, Mary found herself evicted from it to make room for a party of five men. As they were downy fellows up to every trick of travel, they had tipped the coachman threepence for the best seats. The sole female passenger, she was relegated to the middle of the backward facing seat, and was subjected to leers and pert remarks from the three opposite her and groping hands fro
m the two flanking her. When they realised that she had no intention of talking to them, let alone flirting with them, they judged her above herself and proceeded to make her journey the worst misery she had suffered to date. When the coach stopped to change horses she was imprudent enough to complain to the coachman, and got naught for her pains except to like it, or walk. Advice that the men on the roof and box thought brilliant: no help there. Everyone on this stage was drunk, including the coachman. A furious Mary took her place in the cabin afterward sorely tempted to hit the fellow on her right, stroking her leg; but some instinct told her that if she did, she would be overpowered and subjected to worse.

  Finally Nottingham arrived. All but one of her companions shoved her aside in their hurry to alight, while the stroking one held back, bowing to her mockingly. Head up, she descended from the coach and went sprawling in a heap of reeking, watery manure; the stroking man had tripped her. She fell headlong, tearing the palms of her gloves as she tried to save herself, and her reticule flew to land feet away, its contents spilling out. Including her nineteen gold guineas. Bonnet dangling around her neck and twisted to half blind her, she lay staring in horror at her precious coins, subsiding into more muck. What a slipshod place, an unruly little corner of her mind kept repeating: no one sweeps or cleans.

  “Here, let me,” said a voice.

  In the nick of time. The glitter of gold had attracted much attention, including from the coachman and the stroking fellow.

  The owner of the voice was a big man who had been watching the coach come in. He reached Mary before the others could, gave them a cold glance that saw them back away, then lifted her to her feet. Quick and lithe, he gathered up her guineas, her reticule and its other contents. The reticule was handed to her with a smile that transformed an otherwise menacing face.

  “Here, hold it open.”

  Handkerchief, smelling salts, Argus’s letters, coin purse and all nineteen guineas were dropped into it.

  “Thank you, sir,” said Mary, still gasping.

  But he had gone. The driver had tossed her handbags into yet another pile of watery manure; Mary picked them up with an effort and walked out of the yard vowing that she would never again set foot in Nottingham.

  The room she hired at an inn down a back street possessed a mirror that showed Mary what havoc the day’s disaster had wrought. Her greatcoat and dress were soaked in horse urine and covered with remnants of manure; when she fished it out, she found to her horror that the sheet of paper authorising her to draw upon her funds from any bank in England was an illegible mess of run ink. How could that have happened, when her greatcoat should have shielded it? But it had not, nor had her dress. How much water did one of those huge horses produce? Gallons, it seemed. She was wet to the skin. Her palms were sore as well as dirty, and her tapestry bags were stained, damp on their bottoms—but not, thank God, wet.

  Trembling, she sank onto the edge of the lumpy bed and buried her face in her hands. How dared those men treat her so? What was England coming to, that a gentlewoman of her age could not travel unmolested?

  There was cold water in a ewer on a small table, and by now she had sufficient experience of cheap inns to know that this was the only water she would get. The dress was beyond wearing again until she could wash it, so she draped it over the back of a small chair to dry, and put her greatcoat on the larger chair that said this room was the best the inn could offer. In the morning she would roll dress and greatcoat together, wrap them in paper if she could beg some, and put them in the false bottom of the bigger bag. The water in the ewer would have to be for her own use, though she suspected that it would take a tub of hot water to rid her of the stink of horse excrement.

  Dining in a corner of the taproom was positively congenial after such a day, especially when she discovered that the leg of mutton was fairly tender and the steamed pudding tasty. Let us hope, she said to herself, that my ordeal is over. Even if I have to pay half-a-crown or more a night at the best inn in town, I am doomed to travel by the public stage-coach. A hired carriage, even drawn by one horse and of the least expensive kind, still costs three guineas a day before gratuities. There is no point in writing my book if I cannot afford to pay to have it published. However, when I get to Derby I am going to put up at a place can offer me that tub of hot water.

  Two coaches were waiting in the yard when Mary entered it at six the next morning, having had no sleep thanks to the ammoniac smell wafting off her own body. A dull ache at the back of her head ran through it and made her ears ring, her eyes water. There must be something in the Nottingham air, she decided, that makes people so unhelpful, so rude, for no one in the yard paid her any attention. Desperate, she grabbed at a fleeing groom’s sleeve and forcibly detained him.

  “Which is the coach to Derby?” she asked.

  He pointed, twisted free of her grasp, and ran.

  Sighing, she gave her two handbags to the coachman of the vehicle indicated. “How much is the fare?” she asked.

  “I’ll ticket you first stop. I’m late.”

  Praying that today would be more pleasant, she climbed up and occupied the forward-facing window on the opposite side. Thus far she was the only passenger, a state of affairs she didn’t think would last. But it did! Thank you, God, thank you! The coach, an old and smelly one pulled by four slight horses only, rolled out of the yard. Perhaps, she thought, developing a sense of humour, I am so fragrant that no one can bear my company. Which went to show how much Mary was changing; the old Mary had found little in life to laugh at. Or perhaps the new Mary was so beset by ill fortune that she thought it better to laugh than to cry.

  The sheer luxury of having the cabin all to herself sent her mood soaring. She swung her feet onto the seat, put her head against a herniating squab, and fell asleep.

  Only the cessation of movement woke her. Feet down, she stuck her head out of the window.

  “Mansfield!” roared the driver.

  Mansfield? Mary’s geography did not extend to a list of every town in England, but it was extensive enough to tell her that Mansfield was not on the road from Nottingham to Derby. She scrambled out as the coachman was descending from the box.

  “Sir, did you say Mansfield?” she asked.

  “That I did.”

  “Oh!” she exclaimed, eyes gone as grey as the lowering sky. “Isn’t this the coach from Nottingham to Derby, sir?”

  He looked at her as if she were mad. “Marm, this is the stage to Sheffield. Derby was t’other one!”

  “But the groom pointed me to this one!”

  “Grooms point at the sun, the moon, the stars and stray dogs, marm. This is the Sheffield stage-coach, else it wouldn’t be in Mansfield.”

  “But I don’t want to go to Sheffield!”

  “Happen you’d best get off, then. You owe me sixpence.”

  “Is there a coach back to Nottingham?”

  “Not today, there ain’t. But if you step inside yon inn and wait, happen you’ll find someone going in that direction.” He thought hard, grunted. “Or else going to Chesterfield. A lot of traffic between here and Chesterfield. From there you could get to Manchester, but knowing you, marm, you won’t want to go to any of them places.”

  “I do want to go to Manchester! It is my ultimate destination!”

  “There you are, then.” Out came a callused paw. “Cough up sixpence, if you please. Right or wrong coach, it’s sixpence from Nottingham to Mansfield.”

  Seeing his logic, she loosened the drawstrings of her reticule to give him the coin, and recoiled: the bag reeked! Her guineas! She had forgotten to wash them!

  Off trundled the Sheffield stage-coach, the two men on its roof flat out and snoring. Judging by the clouds, they would soon be soaking wet. Mary walked into the taproom of a small, very respectable inn, resigned to accepting a lift from some farmer who would make her sit in the tray with his pigs. That would contribute an interesting overtone to her aroma!

  The place smelled of strong soap,
and the floor was still wet. The landlord’s wife, wielding a scrubbing brush, got to her feet in a hurry.

  “Be off with you, dirty creature!” she cried, nostrils flaring. “Go on, be off!” She waved the brush like a native his club.

  “I will gladly depart, madam,” said Mary icily, “if first you will furnish me with the name of an establishment from which I may secure transportation in the direction of Chesterfield.”

  Unimpressed, the woman eyed her contemptuously. “There’s only one place for the likes of you! The Green Man. You stink the same.”

  “How may I find the Green Man?” As she asked, Mary found herself being hustled out into the road by a nerve-pinching grasp around her elbow. “Unhand me, you pitiless and worm-eaten female dog!” she cried, wrenching free. “Have you no charity? I have had a nasty accident! But instead of being kind, you are unkind. Female dog? That is a euphemism! I will call you what you are—a bitch!”

  “Sticks and stones! A mile down that road,” said the landlady, and shut the taproom door with a bang. Mary heard a bolt slide.

  “It is easy to see that Eau de Cheval is not anyone’s favourite perfume,” said Mary to no one, and, a bag in either hand, set out down “that road.”

  A cottage stood to right and to left, but after them, the countryside went not to fields but to forest. Frowning, she looked up to find the sun, but no sun peered through the dense overcast. Unless the Green Man was very close, she was going to be drenched. She walked faster. Was she in truth heading west? Or did this road lead into the thickets and impenetrable glooms of Sherwood Forest? Nonsense, Mary! Sherwood Forest is long gone to a figment of the imagination, its great trees felled to make room for the country seats of newly enriched gentlemen, or else to form the strakes and ribs of His Majesty’s ships of the line. Only small tracts of it remain, and those some miles east of Mansfield. My reading has informed me of these facts.