by M C Beaton
‘Edward Smith,’ said the young man and then closed his eyes firmly and pretended to go to sleep.
The rest all said they hoped to make the journey in the promised time of three days. Hannah studied them all avidly.
At Hyde Park toll, the guard jumped down to have a word with the toll-keeper, holding his carbine firmly. ‘I hope he knows how to use that,’ said the lawyer uneasily. ‘I shall feel safer when we are through Knightsbridge.’ For before the pretty village of Knightsbridge lay a place of bogs and highwaymen. Here the Great Western Road crossed a stream, the bed of which was composed of thick mud.
The guard climbed back up on the roof and the coach moved away from the line of whale-oil lamps at Hyde Park Corner and into the blackness that led to Knightsbridge. But all too soon, they reached the stream. Days earlier, Hannah had gone through this stream in Sir George’s light carriage with barely a hitch. Even the Thornton Hall coach, which had deposited her in the City that morning, had stuck a little, but as it was lightly laden, had soon struggled clear.
But into this great impassable gulf of mud the Exeter Fly descended, and after desperate flounderings, stuck fast.
‘Oh, dear, oh, dear,’ said Mrs Bradley, clutching her precious basket. ‘I hope there won’t be no highwaymen. Reckon I’d die of fright, m’dears.’
Only Hannah remained calm. To her, the stage-coaches were impregnable fortresses on wheels. What villain would dare to accost the Exeter Fly?
‘Stand and deliver!’ shouted a great voice from outside. The fat woman screamed, the captain turned a muddy colour, his wife buried her face in her hands, the lawyer swore quite dreadfully, and the slim youth, Edward Smith, sat up with a start and looked around, wild-eyed. ‘Are they come for me?’ he asked Hannah.
Before Hannah could ask him what he meant, the voice shouted again. ‘Outside, all of you in there.’
They climbed out, Hannah conscious the whole time of the money in her reticule. They were all standing now with freezing muddy water half-way up their legs. The highwayman had dismounted and was brandishing a brace of pistols. ‘Bad pickings,’ he commented sourly on seeing the inside passengers. ‘Poor lot. Turn out your—’
That was as far as he got. He was struck a vicious blow from behind and collapsed into the muddy water. Looming over him appeared the aristocrat of the roof, the hard-faced saturnine man. He dragged the highwayman clear of the mud and water and laid him on the road and bound his hands behind his back. ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Hannah. ‘I am most grateful to you.’
‘Of course,’ blustered Captain Seaton, ‘I was just about to take action meself, but my lady wife had come over faint, don’t you see, and I could hardly leave her.’
The aristocrat of the roof did not reply. The guard was unfastening one of the leaders so as to ride to the Half-Way public house between Kensington and Knightsbridge to get help. He roused the watch on the way, and two watchmen came to march the now conscious highwayman off to the nearest roundhouse. The guard returned with a squad of men. All the passengers, who had climbed back into the coach for shelter, were ordered to dismount. The leader was hitched up again, and with a great shoving and pulling, the Exeter Fly was back on the road.
It was only then that the inside passengers realized the full discomfort of wet and frozen feet. ‘We cannot proceed,’ said Hannah firmly to the coachman. ‘We are all soaked and like to catch the ague.’
‘Get as far as the Half-Way house,’ said the aristocrat, ‘and get the ladies a room where they may change into dry clothes.’
‘And just who’s giving the orders around here?’ demanded the coachman with heavy sarcasm.
‘The man who is about to buy every man jack of you as much rum and hot water as you can drink,’ he replied coolly.
‘Now, that’s different,’ said the coachman. ‘Very.’
At the Half-Way public house, Mrs Seaton, Mrs Bradley and Hannah had their trunks borne upstairs to a bleak room above the pub and began to look out dry clothes. Hannah thanked God she had had the foresight to put another of Mrs Clarence’s cloaks in her capacious trunk. The cloak was of red merino lined with fur. She changed into one of her own black wool gowns and a flannel petticoat, also of her own, wool stockings and half-boots, crammed her beaver on her head, and turned her attention to her two companions. Mrs Seaton had taken more black items of clothing out of a trunk that seemed to contain nothing but black clothes. She was probably much older than she appeared, thought Hannah. In her thirties, perhaps late thirties. Mrs Bradley’s trunk seemed to contain a great deal of foodstuff: a trussed chicken, two jars of jam, a ham, and a large jar of pickles. But somewhere at the bottom she found fresh clothes, or rather a change of clothes, for the smell that arose from her new wardrobe was a powerful mixture of sweat and moth-balls and benzine.
When they descended to the taproom, it was to find a merry party going on. Edward Smith and Captain Seaton had both been wearing top-boots and had not had to change, but the lawyer, who had been wearing buckled shoes and stockings and who could not be bothered changing his clothes, was sitting huddled by the fire with his shoes stuffed with newspaper on the hearth and his wet stockings hanging over the high fender.
A glass of rum and hot water was handed to Hannah. She looked at it doubtfully. In this hard-drinking age, servants drank as much as their betters, but not Hannah. But she was still cold and she did not want to fall ill and therefore never be able to have any more adventures. For Hannah, now that the peril of the highwayman was over, felt elated and happy and ready to tackle any frights the journey had to offer. Still, she hesitated. She had never drunk anything stronger than coffee in her life. She had seen too many female servants end up in trouble through a fondness for strong drink. She squinted down her nose at the rum and sniffed it cautiously. She became aware of being watched and looked up. The tall aristocrat was leaning against the corner of the high mantelpiece, scrutinizing her with a look of amusement in his black eyes. ‘Your health, madam,’ he said, raising his own glass.
‘Your health, sir,’ echoed Hannah and, screwing up her eyes, she downed the contents of the glass in one go. She gasped and choked and Mrs Bradley slapped her on the back. The rum then settled in Hannah’s stomach and a warm glow began to spread through her thin body. The aristocrat had turned away to speak to the landlord. She studied him curiously. Perhaps he was not an aristocrat, but merely some adventurer. But then, he had an air of command, of authority, and his blue coat was expensively cut and of the finest material. Underneath it, he wore a striped waistcoat over a ruffled shirt. A sign of aristocratic arrogance, or sheer bravery, was that he wore the shirt ruffles at his wrists in full display. Since the French Revolution, still called the Bourgeois Revolution, and the American War of Independence, still called the Colonial Wars, gentlemen were careful not to flaunt their rank before the common people. Strangely enough, what could drive a London mob roaming the streets looking for trouble into violence was the sight of a gentleman sporting ruffles or a band of white at the wrists, that little display of linen which drew the line between gentleman and commoner. This gentleman was wearing, instead of one of the cocked hats that were only just going out of fashion, a wide-brimmed hat with a low crown.
Hannah turned her attention to Mrs Seaton, sitting by the fire with her captain. Very odd, thought Hannah, her eyes darting with curiosity. Everything black. Of course her father or mother could just have died, rather than a former husband, and she might have married the captain before the period of mourning was up. What an odd sort of husband the captain was – too loud and beefy and gross for such a dainty woman.
Then the coachman was shrugging on his greatcoat and wrapping a massive woollen shawl about his shoulders and calling to the passengers to take their places. Mr Fletcher, the lawyer, unhitched his stockings from the fender and put them on, modestly turning his back on the company as he pulled them on over white sticklike legs criss-crossed with purple varicose veins. Hannah found herself getting quite excited at the sig
ht, not because she found the poor lawyer’s legs attractive, but because the conventions were being shed, one by one, at an early part of the Great Adventure. They were all explorers, she thought, giving a genteel hiccup, heading out into the jungle of the unknown.
Fresh straw had been put in the carriage and, luxury of luxuries, hot bricks. ‘Probably that there gran’ gennelman, m’dears,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Coachman would never get landlord to busy hisself with our comfort.’
‘Grand gentleman, pooh!’ said Captain Seaton. ‘Something wrong with that fellow, if you ask me. Adventurer, mountebank or deserter. Yes, yes. Just mark my words.’
Off they went. The coach began to pick up speed as it moved through Kensington Village. And then they were racing along the long straight road that led past Thornton Hall. Deaf to cries of outrage from the other passengers. Hannah seized the leather strap and let down the glass and hung out of the window. There was the square box of Thornton Hall. No smoke was rising from the chimneys. With me gone, thought Hannah, the lazy dogs are probably all still abed. ‘Goodbye!’ she shouted, and then pulled up the glass and sat down, smiling into the glaring eyes of the other passengers.
‘How come you did that there?’ demanded Mrs Bradley. ‘You’re like to kill us all with cold.’
‘I am sorry,’ said Hannah. ‘I was saying goodbye.’
‘To what?’ asked Edward Smith suddenly.
‘To my past,’ said Hannah grandly, and then smiled in what she hoped was an enigmatic way.
The snow began to fall, not very heavily, but in large, pretty flakes. The coach moved slowly on through the winter landscape. Hannah’s head began to nod. Although she never slept very much, she had had no sleep at all the night before. She had a very odd dream. She was back at a servants’ dance in the servants’ hall and waiting for the arrival of Mr and Mrs Clarence to grace the festivities. When they came in, he looked, as usual, a brooding, handsome man, but Mrs Clarence was dressed as a Shakespearian page in doublet and hose and with a little cloak hanging from one shoulder. ‘Disgraceful,’ Mr Clarence began to shout. ‘How dare you dress as a boy!’
The coach jolted over a rut and Hannah awoke with a start. What a strange dream. It had been so vivid. And yet Mrs Clarence had never dressed as a boy. Hannah’s eyes fell on Edward Smith, now asleep opposite. Surely that was the reason for her dream, for Edward was pretty enough to be a girl masquerading as a boy.
Hannah’s head began to nod again.
The coach stopped at the Pigeons at Brentford, and the passengers alighted to take breakfast. A silly argument broke out between the coachman and the captain. The captain said Brentford was a fine town and the coachman said it was a filthy place. The captain said it was noted for the best post-horses. ‘Ho, is that so?’ sneered the coachman. ‘Well, let me tell you, sir, there war two posting-horses here what got so tired of the vile paving-stones what adorns this here town that they tried for to commit suicide by drowning themselves in the Grand Canal. And would ha’ done it, too, pore things, had not a clergyman come along and told them it was wicked and that the horses’ hell was paved wi’ broken glass.’ The captain, who should have known that very few could out-talk a coachman, fell into a brooding silence.
The snow was falling thicker now. The talk among the passengers, however, was not of the snow but of the perils of Hounslow Heath, which lay in front of them. The captain, full of Nantes brandy and bluster, said he would down any highwaymen who tried to stop them and cursed Hannah under his breath when she said sharply that he had not been too ready to down the last one. Hannah had taken a dislike to the captain.
At the town of Hounslow, they were advised by the landlord of the George not to go forward, as the Bath Flying Machine up to town had been snowed up beyond Colnbrook, and that he had beds aired and ready for them. The coachman, full of valour, called for more brandy and joined the captain in the bar.
Inspired by a large quantity of brandy, the coachman now thought himself to be Jehu, son of Nimshi, and the Fly left Hounslow behind it at a good round six miles an hour.
The first thing to be seen on the notorious Hounslow Heath was the Salisbury coach in a terrific snow-drift; or rather, the coachman’s hat, two horses’ heads, the roof of the coach, and two passengers standing on their luggage, bawling, ‘Help!’ The coachman of the Exeter Fly seemed to regard this disaster as a mere landmark and drove on.
The snow was falling thicker and faster. The horses went slower and slower. The coachman tried fanning them, towelling them and chopping them – which, translated, meant hitting them hard, harder, and hardest. The six horses slowed to a walk and could only be made to go ahead by oaths and curses. The coach took nearly three hours to cover the seven miles from Hounslow to the Bush at Staines. In the language of the day, the passengers all gave themselves up for gone. But as they drew up outside the Bush at Staines, the sun broke through the clouds and the snow ceased to fall.
The landlord counselled rest and dinner, and the passengers, who had never before in their lives come so near to the experience of travelling in a hollowed-out iceberg, were inclined to take his advice. But success, stimulant and a lull in the snowstorm had made the coachman daring. ‘I be an Englishman,’ he growled, ‘and I be inning at Bagshot this here night, and any yellow-bellies can stay behind.’ Hannah looked to the aristocrat for support, but he was standing over by the window, detached from the group.
The party left the inn for the courtyard and voted on whether to go or stay. They stood outside the coach, beating their arms and stamping their feet as they made their votes. Only Hannah slipped away to arrange rescue for the Salisbury coach, the landlord of the Bush saying he would set out with his men himself, delighted at the possibility of guests now that it seemed as if the Exeter Fly meant to go on.
Emboldened by yet more brandy, the captain took the opportunity to show off to his wife and the party by saying, b’Gad, he, too, was an Englishman and would face any peril that the journey could offer. The others were reluctant to be left behind, and so the passengers boarded the coach again, and, to faint hurrahs from the half-frozen post-boys, they set out on the road. At Egham, one mile and three furlongs on, it began to snow again.
The coachman pulled up at the Catherine Wheel for another glass of fortifier and then the coach set out once more.
Now the snow was falling as it should fall at Christmastime, when men are snug in parlours in front of blazing fires and not out braving the blasts in a Flying Machine. The coachman, foreseeing the worst, since at every moment the snowfall was becoming heavier, tried to churn his horses into a canter as the gloom of a winter’s afternoon settled on Bagshot Heath. The guard beside him fingered his carbine delicately and stared anxiously about for highwaymen, but the coachman said no highwayman would be stupid enough to be out of doors in such weather. The guard said that it was due to the coachman’s stupidity that they were all out of doors themselves, to which the coachman replied that the guard always had been a milksop, to which the guard, mad with passion, screamed at the coachman: ‘I ’ates you like pison!’ and fired his carbine in the air.
Captain Seaton, the effects of the brandy he had drunk beginning to fade, had been seeing a highwayman behind every bush.
At the sound of the shot from the roof, he wrenched open the door of the coach and jumped into a snow-drift. At the same time, the coachman drove into a rut a yard deep and the coach stuck fast.
The coachman doubled-thonged his wheelers, who dragged the coach out to the side of the road … and the whole coach slowly overturned into a gravel pit.
Chaos reigned inside the coach. Everyone was lying on top of everyone else in a jumble of arms and legs. The door above them opened, showing them the coachman’s ruddy face and the sky behind him. ‘Better come out o’ there,’ he said and disappeared.
He was replaced by the aristocrat, who lifted Hannah out, then Mrs Seaton, the youth, the lawyer, and then finally, with a great heaving, Mrs Bradley.
‘You are a Troja
n, sir,’ said Hannah to their rescuer. ‘I am Miss Hannah Pym.’
He smiled and swept off his hat. ‘And I, Miss Pym, am Harley. Lord Ranger Harley.’
Behind Miss Pym, the youth gave a slight moan and fainted dead away.
‘Puny little fellow,’ said Lord Harley with contempt. ‘Move aside, Miss Pym, and I will rub some snow on his face.’
In a flash, Hannah remembered her dream about Mrs Clarence. Something made her say urgently, ‘No, leave him to me.’
Lord Harley strode off and cut the traces and led one of the wheelers free, mounted it and rode off in search of help. All the other horses were, amazingly, unharmed.
While Hannah knelt down beside the fallen youth, the other passengers and the coachman and guard stood around in half-frozen attitudes, including Captain Seaton, who was cursing and mumbling and swearing blind he had seen a highwayman.
Hannah loosened Edward’s clothing and discovered that her budding suspicions had been right. ‘Edward’ was in fact not a beautiful young man but a beautiful young woman. But something prompted Hannah to help this girl keep up her disguise. She held a bottle of smelling-salts under the girl’s nose and watched those violet eyes flutter open. Then the eyes became wider with fear. ‘Hush,’ said Hannah, ‘do not say anything. Help is on the way.’ She raised the girl to her feet and kept close beside her.
The coachman was now sitting on a mound of snow drinking brandy, occasionally putting his flask down and moving his arms as if driving phantom horses. The guard had replaced his carbine with a blunderbuss. A sudden movement in the snow made him shout, ‘Highwayman!’, and point his blunderbuss. And the curious shepherd who had approached from behind a bush to view the stranded party turned too late to flee and got his backside peppered with shot. Hannah was reluctant to leave the girl, but something had to be done for the poor man. Mrs Bradley, revived from her dismal frozen torpor by the sight of the accident, bustled after Hannah carrying her basket and rummaging in it for all sorts of medicines to relieve pain. The shepherd was given brandy by the guard and then the ladies placed the afflicted man next to the coachman.
