Emily Goes to Exeter

by M C Beaton

  ‘I have been in mine – many times,’ said Emily proudly.

  ‘To filch cakes from the cook? That is not the same thing. I shall help you with the remaining rooms.’

  He saw the rising colour on Emily’s face and realized she did not want to be alone with him in any bedroom. The silly wench probably thinks I might rape her, he thought. ‘And while we are doing that,’ he went on, ‘you will help me write a small play for our friends.’

  Diverted, Emily exclaimed, ‘A play? Why?’

  ‘If we all sit around at dinner and, after dinner, drinking too much, quarrels will break out. Amateur theatricals are just what we need. We need a little play, and one which involves all of us.’ He raised an eyebrow at her. ‘You, of course, Miss Freemantle, will be the heroine.’

  Emily’s eyes lit up. ‘We could have a play based on the inn. I have run away with my mother, that’s Mrs Bisley, and with my old nurse, that’s Mrs Bradley, from my wicked uncle …’

  ‘And that is I?’

  ‘No, no. Captain Seaton, I think. He descends on the inn and produces a gun, and my brave swain, Jack, wrests it from his hand …’

  ‘And who is Jack?’

  ‘Oh, dear, I suppose it will have to be you, my lord, only it would be so much better if you were younger and had golden hair.’

  ‘Like Mr Peregrine Williams?’

  ‘Like …? Oh, yes, I suppose so. And the coachman can be the coachman, and the guard, the guard, and Mr Burridge and Mr Hendry can play themselves – passengers, I mean.’

  ‘And what of Mr Fletcher?’

  Emily bit her lip. He watched her expressive face with amusement.

  Then her face cleared. ‘Mr Fletcher can be the family lawyer, of course, and he … I have it! He has discovered that the wicked uncle forged Mrs Bisley’s late husband’s will and that he actually has no longer any power over her because Mrs Bisley has all the money. Mrs Bisley is so grateful that she marries the lawyer and …’

  ‘And Miss Emily marries her Jack?’

  ‘Yes, yes, but only for the purposes of the play,’ said Emily.

  ‘You have forgot Miss Pym.’

  ‘So I had. Miss Pym can be the stage manager and find costumes for us.’

  ‘I think I would like everyone to have a part,’ said Lord Harley.

  ‘Oh, dear, who can Miss Pym be?’

  ‘She is a respectable lady,’ said Lord Harley, ‘to whom Captain Seaton once promised marriage, but instead he ruined her after having spent all her savings.’

  Emily jumped up and down and clapped her hands. ‘Oh, famous! When can we begin to write our play?’

  ‘Just as soon as we have done the bedchambers. We will then go to the kitchen and tell the others.’

  Hannah’s odd eyes gleamed green when she heard about the proposed play. A bit of fun was what was needed to bring Mrs Bisley out of her worries about her predicament. Besides, what of Lord Harley and Miss Freemantle? Emily’s eyes were shining and Lord Harley was looking at her with indulgent amusement.

  The landlord, appealed to, produced sheets of paper. Emily was excused from kitchen duties, and she and Lord Harley retreated to the coffee-room hearth. The rest of the travellers, even Captain Seaton, were highly delighted at the idea of the play.

  Mr Burridge and Mr Hendry elected to set up the end of the coffee room as a stage. It was decided that everyone should wear whatever clothes that seemed appropriate for the part.

  Emily began to write busily in a clear hand and Lord Harley copied down what she had written on to different sheets of paper. The whole play or playlet was only to last for about twenty minutes. Captain Seaton said he had a gun. He would point it, unloaded, of course, as someone fired a gun off-stage to produce the desired effect. As he wrote busily, Lord Harley wondered if Emily realized that she had written a touching end to the play where brave Jack clasps the heroine in his arms and kisses her. He thought ruefully that she was probably imagining this fellow Peregrine in the role.

  Then it was discovered that the coachman could not read and that even Mrs Bradley was going to have difficulty with the words, but that was solved when it was agreed on that they should make up appropriate lines for themselves.

  It was a merry dinner with everyone eating and trying to memorize lines and discussing what they would wear. Even Mrs Silvers put in an appearance, saying, despite her rosy cheeks and air of good country health, that she had forced herself from her sick-bed just to see the play.

  It was only when the play began that the exasperated Emily, cast in the role of Lady Gwendoline, realized that her fellow players were determined to play their roles in their own way. Brave Jack was played by Lord Harley as a mincing fop to great effect. The audience of the landlord and his wife were laughing heartily. Then the coachman, elated by his first appearance on the boards, made a long speech about the life of a coachman, the guard told him not to be such an old windbag, the coachman threw up his fists and said he would draw his cork, and Lord Harley, briefly dropping his role of fop, had to separate them. Hannah Pym, remembering the deception of that under-butler, began to berate Captain Seaton in very convincing tones and with such fire and passion that the landlord leaped to his feet and shouted, ‘Huzzah!’

  Mrs Bradley then burst into speech, telling the company how she had nursed Lady Gwendoline from a babe. The short play began to show alarming signs of running as long as any Haymarket tragedy.

  Captain Seaton made a good villain. He had placed a black patch over one eye and leered and cursed with great aplomb. ‘You will return with me,’ he roared, brandishing the gun. Mr Burridge slipped ‘off-stage’, ready to fire his own gun harmlessly out of the coffee-room window into the snow to make it sound as if the captain had actually fired his own.

  Emily looked at the captain in startled amazement. Why would no one keep to the script? Instead of pointing the gun at herself and her ‘mother’, he was pointing it straight at Mr Fletcher.

  ‘I will kill you all,’ he snarled. Hannah was also watching. In a flash, as Captain Seaton pressed the trigger, Hannah seized a heavy pewter tray and held it up in front of Mr Fletcher. There was a deafening report and Hannah’s hands jerked as a bullet struck the tray and ricocheted off it to bury itself harmlessly in a beam in the ceiling of the coffee room.

  Lord Harley snatched the gun from Captain Seaton and muttered, ‘Get to your room. I shall speak to you shortly.’

  ‘But I didn’t know,’ blustered the captain. ‘Someone’s playing a sore trick on me.’

  ‘Go!’ ordered Lord Harley, and Captain Seaton went. Lord Harley said to Hannah, ‘Are you all right?’

  Hannah nodded, her eyes dancing. ‘Another adventure,’ she hissed. ‘Go on with the play.’

  The others seemed so stage-struck, so determined to play their parts, that Hannah was sure very few of them had noticed the shooting. Mr Fletcher made his speech about the forged will. Lizzie curtsied and thanked him most affectingly, and then Mr Fletcher startled everyone by stepping out of his role and clasping Lizzie to his bosom. They stood like that, gazing into each other’s eyes, until Hannah coughed loudly and the couple broke apart.

  Lizzie turned to Brave Jack. ‘And to you, sir,’ she said, leading Emily forward, ‘I give my daughter.’

  Lord Harley smiled down into Emily’s suddenly frightened eyes. ‘Forgot it was me, didn’t you?’ he whispered. He took her in his arms and kissed her, quick and hard, on the lips. The cast applauded themselves, and the landlord and his wife applauded the cast. Emily was shaken. That kiss had burnt, had branded, had caused an upheaval of her senses. Then she recollected that shot. She clutched Lord Harley’s sleeve. ‘What are we to do about Captain Seaton? He tried to murder poor Mr Fletcher.’

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ he whispered fiercely. ‘We do not want to alarm the others. Miss Pym knows, but she is keeping quiet.’

  Lord Harley went quickly up the stairs to where the captain was sitting sulkily on his unmade bed.

  ‘Well, Seato
n?’ demanded Lord Harley, ‘What have you to say for yourself?’

  ‘I do not know what happened, my lord,’ said the captain truculently, ‘and that’s the truth. I practised with that gun before dinner and Mr Burridge agreed to fire his own out of the coffee-room window. My gun was not loaded, I swear.’

  Lord Harley looked at him with loathing. ‘You have brought this on yourself. You will leave Mrs Bisley and Mr Fletcher alone, do you hear? If you so much as approach either one of them again, I will shoot you myself.’

  Captain Seaton got to his feet, his fists swinging. ‘And I am going to teach you a lesson, me fine buck.’

  He lunged at Lord Harley, who dodged the blow and then struck Captain Seaton a smashing punch on the chin with his full weight behind it. The captain fell backwards on the bed.

  ‘I will say it once more,’ said Lord Harley. ‘Do not go near either Fletcher or Mrs Bisley again, or it will be the worse for you.’ And, nursing his bruised knuckles, he made his way downstairs.

  He found Hannah in the kitchen. The rest were still in the coffee room celebrating the success of the play.

  ‘Did you talk to the captain?’ asked Hannah.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, rubbing his knuckles. ‘What a nasty fool that man is. How could he hope to get away with it?’

  ‘It might have been hard to prove murder,’ said Hannah. ‘All he had to do was swear he did not know the gun was primed.’

  ‘We must keep a close watch on the captain. What are you doing now?’

  ‘I am preparing a cold collation for supper.’

  ‘You appear to have been deserted by your helpers.’

  ‘Leave them for the moment,’ said Hannah. ‘I think, however, that we should keep them busy with amusements. If all they are going to do is sit around the coffee-room fire and drink, quarrels are bound to arise. Satan will always find mischief for idle hands.’

  ‘Then let us confound Satan. What do you suggest?’

  Hannah wrinkled her brow and pulled her nose. ‘Charades might cause more ructions. I have it! Hunt the slipper.’

  ‘I do not see how anyone can try to murder anyone playing that,’ said Lord Harley with a grin.

  He retreated to the coffee room, where his suggestion was greeted with cries of delight. ‘What will be the prize?’ asked Old Tom, the coachman.

  ‘No household duties tomorrow,’ said Lord Harley promptly.

  ‘The only one who cannot play,’ pointed out Emily, ‘is the one that hides the slipper.’

  ‘Then let me do it,’ offered the landlord. ‘I can hide it somewheres where I swear none of you will find it.’

  Only Captain Seaton, who had rejoined the group, grumbled it was all tomfoolery.

  It was decided to use one of the ladies’ slippers, so Lizzie ran upstairs and came back with a pretty red-leather beaded slipper, and handed it to the landlord. He told them to give him half an hour and disappeared.

  Captain Seaton sidled up to Lizzie when Lord Harley’s back was turned to him. ‘You’ve been avoiding me,’ he said. ‘You know you are promised to me and a lady never breaks a promise.’

  The laughter died out of Lizzie’s face. ‘We will discuss it some other time,’ she said hurriedly and moved away to talk to Mr Hendry, the shabby gentleman who had been one of the two outside passengers.

  Emily noticed that even Mr Hendry had a tender look on his face as he talked to Lizzie. He was well enough in his way, she thought, plain and honest-looking and simply dressed and younger than Mr Fletcher, but Emily had set her mind on making a match of it for Lizzie and Mr Fletcher.

  The captain waited until they were all busy talking to whisper to Mr Fletcher, ‘You just watch it, you popinjay. Mrs Bisley is going to marry me and so she says, so stop sniffing around her, you churl.’

  ‘Odd’s fish!’ cried Mr Fletcher, enraged. ‘Cannot you see the lady would like to have none of you?’

  ‘What’s going on there?’ demanded Lord Harley sharply, and the captain moved away from Mr Fletcher.

  The landlord eventually reappeared, rubbing his hands. ‘You’ll never find it,’ he said. ‘Reckon Miss Pym’ll have all her helpers on the morrow.’

  They all rushed off to search the rooms. Only Lizzie hesitated. She would have liked to play the game with Mr Fletcher, but felt that by doing so she might be putting Mr Fletcher’s life at risk. The captain had looked so menacing when he had been talking to him. She went off with the delighted Mr Hendry. Emily had somehow expected Lord Harley to pair off with her, but he had gone off with the coachman. She started to search in a half-hearted way and then with more enthusiasm. It was such a small slipper, it could be anywhere. She even took down pint-sized pewter mugs from their hooks in the taproom and looked inside. It was hard work searching. There were so many nooks and crannies in the inn. Then she decided to try her own bedchamber. She turned everything over and looked under the bed and under the blankets, but there was no sign of the slipper. She was very tired. Bursts of laughter from various parts of the inn showed the others were showing no signs of flagging. Emily decided to lie down for just a little. Ten minutes’ rest was all she needed. She lay down on the top of the covers. Her eyes closed almost immediately, and soon she was fast asleep.

  Hannah came in a quarter of an hour later and stood in the doorway, looking at the sleeping Emily. She looked very beautiful and innocent in sleep, thought Hannah. Hannah still nursed hopes of a match between Lord Harley and Emily. She turned quickly and went downstairs and searched about, not for the slipper, but for Lord Harley. She found him in the dining-room, looking in a jug on top of the china cupboard.

  ‘My lord,’ said Hannah. ‘I cannot leave the kitchen for long, for I have some cakes and bread in the oven. Would you be so good as to fetch me my reticule from the Blue Room? It is lying on the armchair by the fireplace.’

  ‘Certainly, ma’am,’ he said, looking at her thoughtfully. He wondered what she was about. Miss Pym, he knew, was still servant enough to fetch her own reticule. Still, he made his way up to the Blue Room and then stood, as Hannah had recently done, surveying the sleeping Emily.

  So that was it. He grinned. There was no more determined matchmaker than a spinster. He would not play her game, although young Miss Freemantle looked very beautiful and appealing. He walked to the armchair and picked up Hannah’s reticule.

  She sighed a little and smiled in her sleep. He went to the bed and looked down at her. Her bosom was rising and falling gently. Her skin was very fair, and dark lashes with auburn tips were fanned out on her cheeks.

  On a sudden impulse, he sat down on the edge of the bed, leaned down, and kissed her gently on the lips.

  Emily was dreaming that Lord Ranger Harley was kissing her. She moved her body sinuously in her sleep and wound her arms around his neck. Startled, Lord Harley kissed her more deeply, pressing his hard lips into her soft beguiling pink ones, feeling her small hands caressing the nape of his neck under his long black hair.

  Then her body went rigid and her eyes flew open. He immediately released her. She sat up with her face flaming and dealt him a resounding slap across the cheek.

  ‘How dare you!’ hissed Emily, her eyes blazing.

  ‘If you were not enjoying my kiss,’ he said furiously, ‘why did you wind your arms around my neck and kiss me back?’

  ‘I was dreaming,’ said Emily. ‘I was dreaming of Mr Williams.’

  ‘If you are in the habit of kissing him like that,’ said Lord Harley, suddenly as furious as she, ‘then I suggest you marry him as soon as possible.’

  He turned and strode from the room, carrying Hannah’s reticule. He went straight down to the kitchen. Hannah was bent over the fire, stirring something in a pot.

  ‘Miss Pym,’ said Lord Harley, handing her the reticule, ‘do not try to arrange a match for me with Miss Freemantle.’

  ‘I?’ exclaimed Hannah.

  ‘Yes, you. She made an enchanting picture, lying there like that, as you very well knew. I am not going to
marry Miss Freemantle. She is a silly little girl of no attraction whatsoever.’

  ‘Then,’ said Miss Hannah Pym tartly, ‘I do not know why you are becoming so exercised. The very sight of her must have filled you with loathing.’

  ‘Pah!’ said Lord Harley and went out of the kitchen and slammed the door behind him.

  Up in the Red Room, Lizzie was saying to Mr Hendry, ‘I am so very tired. I do not think I can search anymore.’

  ‘You are too frail a lady to have to work like a servant in this inn,’ said Mr Hendry. ‘I would that I could protect you from all ills.’

  He had odd light-grey eyes that were suddenly intense. Lizzie realized she was standing with her back to the bed and that he was advancing upon her. ‘Why, Mrs Bradley,’ she called, suddenly seeing that fat figure in the passage. ‘Come and join us in the search.’

  ‘Reckon it won’t do much good, m’dear,’ said Mrs Bradley, but looking curiously from Lizzie to Mr Hendry. ‘Landlord says as how he’ll only give us the one hint. It’s hanging, he says, where leather hangs.’

  ‘The tack-room?’ suggested Mr Hendry.

  Now the landlord had said firmly that the slipper was in the inn, but Mrs Bradley said, ‘There’s a good idea, Mr Hendry. Why don’t you go across to the stables and have a look and Mrs Bisley and I will take a rest.’

  Mr Hendry went with obvious reluctance.

  ‘I don’t know if it’s the money you got or that dainty way of yours, Mrs Bisley, but the men are around you like flies around the jam pot,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘You should be more like our Miss Emily. She got a good hard streak. Pretty as a picture, but not the type of lady to drive the men romantical.’

  Emily had been about to enter the room for she had heard their voices, but as she heard the full import of Mrs Bradley’s country logic, she shrank back. Her lips trembled. How she longed to be home again with dear Mama and Papa and dear Miss Cudlipp. How she longed to be fussed over and petted.

  As she moved away, she heard Mrs Bradley say, ‘As to this here slipper, landlord says it’s hanging where leather should hang. Where might that be, do you reckon?’