by M C Beaton
But, unknown to him, by the following morning the Bath coach was once more on the road. Belinda’s heart plummetted as the coach slowly rolled out of the inn yard. He had not come. He was probably engaged to chilly Penelope by now.
She was relieved that the odious Mr Biles at least had the merit of making Miss Wimple his concern. He fussed over her and handed her smelling-salts and read to her. She fluttered and tittered and thanked him profusely. She appeared to be in prime health and despite her fondness for spirits was evidently as strong as an ox.
Hannah passed the tedium of the journey by regaling Belinda with tales from the guidebook. When they reached Beckhampton, where the Bath roads converged, Belinda was disappointed that they were only to be allowed half an hour, for she had hoped to see the abbey nearby. Hannah had told her a most intriguing story about it. Evidently, in the sixteenth century, there lived a young lady called Miss Sheringham whose father owned the abbey. She had been refused permission to see her lover, one John Talbot. One night she was standing on the abbey battlements calling down to him. Then she said, ‘I will leap down to you,’ a rather unwise decision as the walls were thirty feet high. Nonetheless, she leaped. The wind came to her rescue and ‘got under her coates’ (no doubt, the ulster of the sixteenth century), and so assisted, she flopped down into the arms of Talbot and to all appearances killed him dead on the spot. She sat down and wept. But Talbot, who had only been temporarily winded, recovered and clasped her in his arms. And it was at that point that Miss Sheringham’s father, with a fine sense of the melodramatic, jumped out of a bush and observed, ‘as his daughter had made such a leap to him, she must e’en marry him.’ And so they were married and lived happily ever after.
Belinda could not share Hannah’s enthusiasm for coach travel. Despite the sunny weather, the coach was cold and damp. It had been vigorously hosed down inside after its repairs and did not seem to have dried out. The constant swaying was making her feel sick. She had started her journey hoping it would take as long as possible. Now she felt even Great-Aunt Harriet would be preferable. Every time she thought of the Marquess of Frenton, which was frequently, she felt so low in spirits that she believed there was nothing left anyone could do to lower them any further. At the inn at Beckhampton, there had been a party of bloods from another coach and they had been discoursing loudly and anatomically about the charms of a certain Sally until the horrified landlord had turned them out. Belinda shuddered as she wondered whether the marquess would tell his friends about her vulgar passions.
Bath was drawing even closer. The coachman was a good and steady man and the horses were fresh. But three and a half miles outside Beckhampton they crossed high, windy, unprotected ground. The temperature had been dropping rapidly, and to the dismay of the passengers, they found that snow had begun to fall.
They stopped at a tiny inn called Shepherd’s Shore and all crowded around the fire. The coachman said he thought they should all stay where they were until the storm had passed, but the Methodist minister, Mr Biles, had grown as brave as only half a bottle of good Nantes brandy can make a normally weak man and overrode the coachman and the others by saying this was the last stage before Bath and as soon as they descended to lower ground, the snow would turn to rain. The coachman demurred at first, but he knew the coach was already days late and so he reluctantly agreed to take them forward.
They only got a mile from Shepherd’s Shore when the full force of the storm struck. The coachman cursed himself for his folly in having listened to the drunken minister. He did not want to lose his job, as had the previous coachman, by causing more harm to befall the passengers. He saw dimly through the blinding snow a tall pair of iron gates. The guard blew on the horn and a lodge-keeper came out and swung the gates open.
‘Residence?’ called the coachman to the lodge-keeper.
‘Earl o’ Twitterton,’ replied the lodge-keeper.
‘His lordship’s in for some unexpected guests,’ muttered the coachman, and cracking the whip, he urged his team of horses up the long, wintry drive to the Earl of Twitterton’s home.
6
And Sylphs, like other pretty creatures,
Learn from their mammas to consider
Love as an auctioneer of features,
Who knocks them down to the best bidder.
Thomas Moore
Had Belinda still been at the inn, the marquess might have begun to wonder at the folly of calling on her. But by the time he arrived at the Queen Bess, it was to learn the stage-coach had left.
He was as annoyed as if Belinda had deliberately avoided him. He returned to the castle, ordered his travelling carriage, and set out in pursuit. He traced them as far as Beckhampton to find they had left an hour before and learned they would probably be stopping next at Shepherd’s Shore.
He drove on, and as the ground began to rise, so he found himself enveloped in the same snowstorm that had beset the passengers. They were not at Shepherd’s Shore and he wondered whether this stage coachman was as crazy as the last had been and had forged on to Bath. He began to worry, seeing in his mind’s eye Belinda lying in a snow-drift, calling for help.
He came to the lodge-gates and remembered that the Earl of Twitterton had a hunting-box there. He stopped and inquired at the lodge and was told that the stage-coach had gone up to the house.
He was driving the carriage himself. His valet was warmly ensconsed inside and one complaining tiger hung on the backstrap.
The marquess jumped down and told his tiger to take carriage and horses to the stables. The snow was still falling fast, but it had become wetter and the air was perceptibly warmer.
He presented his card to the butler, who answered the door. The earl himself came out to meet him. He was a bluff, soldierly man who had met the marquess before on several occasions and gave him a warm welcome, not asking the reason for the unexpected visit, assuming the marquess was taking shelter from the storm.
The earl said they had already dined and that the servants would prepare something for him, but the marquess had eaten a hasty meal at Beckhampton and so he said he would change out of his travelling clothes and then join the family. As his valet laid out his evening clothes and powdered his master’s hair, the marquess wondered how Belinda would look when she saw him again. Would she blush? Would she look angry? No doubt the stern Miss Pym had read her a lecture on the folly of her ways.
He found to his surprise that he was nervous. A footman led the way down to the first floor, saying the family and guests were in the drawing-room.
The double doors were thrown wide and the marquess’s name was announced. The marquess raised his quizzing-glass and studied the faces turned towards him. His heart sank.
The earl’s son, Lord Frederick, a brutish-looking young man, was standing by the fireplace. Seated beside the fire was Penelope Jordan. On a sofa, side by side, were her parents, both glaring at him. In a corner was some sort of poor relation, a faded lady netting a purse. The Countess of Twitterton rose to meet him. She was a thin, hard, horsy woman, wearing a row of false curls over her forehead. She should not have gained such a name by marriage as Twitterton, thought the earl. ‘Twitterton’ suggested a vague, dithering sort of female. The countess should have been called ‘Basher’ or ‘Floggem’. She looked like a man masquerading as a woman.
She was an excellent shot, the marquess remembered, and killed anything furred or feathered with a deadly aim. Perhaps that was why this drawing-room, albeit a drawing-room in a hunting-box, did not show any feminine frills or china. Trophies of the countess’s hunting prowess stared glassily down from the walls. All the animals she had killed looked as if they had died in a fit of boredom. There were also various bad oil paintings of slaughtered game. There was one painting of the countess herself over the fireplace. She was dressed in a filmy blue gown, her hair powdered. The artist had done his best to romanticize his subject, painting broken columns in the background, a Greek temple, and an approaching thunderstorm. But he had painted
the expression in her eyes perfectly so that the painted countess surveyed the gathering in much the same way as the real-life one was doing – with a hard, autocratic, judgemental stare.
‘Didn’t think a little bit of snow would drive you off the road, Frenton,’ she said. ‘May I introduce …?’
‘I already know the Jordan family,’ said the marquess. Penelope struck an Attitude. It was meant to represent The Broken Heart. She put one hand on her bosom, stretched the other hand out and cast her eyes up to the ceiling.
‘Got indigestion, Miss Jordan?’ demanded the countess. ‘Rhubarb pills, that’s the thing. Shouldn’t have, though. Got a splendid chef, Frenton. That venison we had for dinner was hung till the maggots were crawling out of it. Sit down, Frenton. How’s hunting?’
‘I don’t know,’ said the marquess. ‘Don’t hunt.’
‘But your papa kept the best pack in the county!’
‘One of his many extravagances,’ murmured the marquess. He looked around pointedly. ‘The lodge-keeper told me the stage-coach had descended on you.’
‘Yes, and a confounded nuisance it was, too.’
‘Hah,’ said Sir Henry in a voice he hoped was laden with sarcasm. ‘Ha! Ho!’
‘And where are the passengers?’ asked the marquess.
‘In the kitchens where they belong.’
‘Is the coach The Quicksilver?’
‘Yes,’ said the countess. ‘Why?’
‘They took refuge with me for a few days.’
‘There you are,’ said the earl. ‘Just proves what I’m always saying. This stage-coach business has got to stop. Not only does it allow the common people freedom to move hither and thither about the countryside, but come a little bit of bad weather, and they think they have the right to thrust their noses inside the door of every noble mansion.’
‘You are behind the times,’ said the marquess. ‘It is not only commoners who use the stage-coach.’
‘Go along with you,’ said the countess. ‘This lot’s got a Methody among ’em.’
‘I escaped that pleasure,’ said the marquess. ‘I entertained them as guests.’
‘With no concern whatsoever for my daughter’s feelings,’ barked Sir Henry. ‘Told you so.’
‘You don’t need to do that sort of thing any more, Frenton,’ said Lord Frederick.
‘What sort of thing?’
‘Well, let a lot of commoners put their thick boots under your dining-table, don’t you see. I mean, it was different when we thought the French Terror would spread over here, but they ain’t going to rise up and hang us from the lamp-posts, so we don’t need to be pleasant to ’em any more. And a damned good thing, too. Beg pardon, ladies.’
‘How refreshingly unsophisticated you all are,’ said the marquess. He raised his quizzing-glass, studied the cut of Lord Frederick’s coat, and sadly shook his head. ‘Now I am not so high in the instep, and by having these stage-coach people in my company, I found a treasure.’
‘Going too far. Too far,’ roared Sir Henry.
The marquess treated him to an icy stare. ‘By which I mean I discovered two of the best voices in the country.’
The countess regarded him suspiciously. ‘Mean that opera caterwauling?’
‘Anything you like,’ said the marquess. ‘They have an enormous repertoire.’
‘Have ’em up,’ said Lord Frederick. ‘Bit of fun. Bit of a lark, hey?’
Lady Jordan stepped into the breach. ‘I do not think you would enjoy these persons’ company at all.’
The countess, who had been about to refuse to send for the passengers, turned contrary and glared at Lady Jordan. ‘I’ll have ’em here if I want.’
Belinda and the passengers were eating a late supper in the servants’ hall. They all knew the Jordans were staying as guests. Belinda was glad that they were confined belowstairs.
It was therefore with a sinking heart that she heard the summons from the butler that they were all, except the coachman and guard, to go up to the drawing-room.
She smoothed down the creases in her gown as she stood up. She wished there were some way she could change into evening dress, but the butler was waiting impatiently and so, keeping very close to Hannah, she mounted the stairs.
When she reached the drawing-room, she half-turned to flee. There was the Marquess of Frenton, there the Jordans. They must have come together, thought Belinda. He must mean to marry her if he has started taking her about with him on visits.
Penelope was wearing a white silk slip of a gown with a silver gauze overdress fastened with gold clasps. A heavy gold-and-garnet necklace emphasized the whiteness of her throat and her glossy brown curls were bound by a gold filet. Her gown was looped over her arm as she stood up, revealing a surprisingly thick leg and shapeless ankle. A thin ray of sunlight shone into the gloom of Belinda’s mind as she saw that leg. Also, Belinda had taken off her pelisse before leaving the kitchen and knew that her muslin morning gown was ruffed and vandyked with the finest lace, and for almost the first time she took comfort in the armour of expensive fashion.
The marquess made the introductions. ‘Yes, yes,’ said the countess impatiently. ‘Which are the singers?’ The Judds edged forward, holding hands.
‘Then sing!’ commanded the countess, waving her hand imperiously towards a spinet in the corner. Hannah went with them and pretended to be helping them by lighting the candles that stood on top. ‘Sing something John Bullish and patriotic,’ she hissed.
She returned and took a seat in the corner next to the poor relation, who turned out to be a Miss Forbes, a fourth cousin of the countess.
‘I do hope they don’t put Lady Twitterton in a taking,’ whispered Miss Forbes. ‘When she was but a gel, she threw a vase of flowers at an Italian opera singer’s head.’
And indeed, it did look as if the countess was regretting her invitation. ‘One song and that’s that,’ she muttered in an aside to her son.
This time it was Mrs Judd who played the accompaniment. Mr Judd stood with one hand in his waistcoat pocket and the other resting on the edge of the spinet. He threw back his head, stuck out his chest, and began to sing:
‘Come, cheer up, my lads! ’Tis to glory we steer,
To add something more to this wonderful year;
To honour we call you, not press you like slaves,
For who are so free as the sons of the waves?’
The Judds looked considerably taken aback, but then delighted as the Earl and Countess of Twitterton and their son began to roar out the chorus. Hannah saw the stark disapproval on the Jordan family’s faces and gleefully prepared to join in.
‘Heart of oak are our ships,’ screeched the countess.
‘Heart of oak are our men,’ bawled the earl.
‘We always are ready; Steady boys, steady,’ roared Lord Frederick in a deep bass.
And then the Twitterton family, Hannah, Miss Wimple, Mr Biles, Belinda, and the marquess all joined together in the last of the refrain:
‘We’ll fight and we’ll conquer again and again.’
Mr Judd’s performance was cheered. Much emboldened, he went on to sing: ‘Oh, the roast beef of England, And England’s roast beef!’
The countess was noisy in her delight and called to Mrs Judd to sing something. Hannah almost held her breath. She hoped Mrs Judd would not sing something operatic. To her relief, Mrs Judd threw a rather saucy look at the earl and began to sing merrily:
‘A Captain bold, in Halifax, who dwelt in country quarters,
Seduced a maid who hanged herself, one morning in her garters,
His wicked conscience smited him, he lost his stomach daily,
He took to drinking ratafee, and thought upon Miss Bailey.
Oh, Miss Bailey! unfortunate Miss Bailey.’
Then, when the company had finished laughing at the plight of Miss Bailey’s ghost, Mrs Judd sang a sentimental ballad. This, too, pleased the countess immensely.
Penelope looked covertly at Belinda E
arle. But the girl was still not beautiful at all; in fact, she looked crushed and diminished. Why was it then that Frenton appeared to be trying to seem unaware of her and Lord Frederick kept beaming at Belinda with a silly smile on his face? Then, horror of horrors, Lord Frederick left his post by the fire-place and drew up a chair next to Belinda’s. Before the arrival of the marquess and these hell-sent stage-coach passengers Lord Frederick had been behaving with Penelope just as he ought. He had paid court to her beauty and found every opportunity to be in her company.
Penelope could not know what was going on in Lord Frederick’s rather simple brain. He had been thinking what a rare treat this evening must be for a common lady like Belinda and how she would no doubt cherish it forever and talk to her grandchildren in later years about the evening she spent in a noble household. It made him feel grand and sort of Lord Bountiful-ish. In a pause in the musical recital, he asked Belinda what she thought of the hunting-box. Her reply startled him. ‘It always amazes me,’ said Belinda, ‘that a building called a mere “box” should always be so very large and grand. Mind you, my lord, I have only stayed at one before and that was at Lord Bellamy’s near Nottingham.’
‘Coach break down there as well?’ he asked sympathetically.
‘Oh, no,’ said Belinda. ‘Lord Bellamy is my great-uncle.’
‘Haven’t seen Bellamy this age,’ said Lord Frederick, barely able to believe her.
‘He died last year,’ said Belinda. ‘My Great-Aunt Harriet, Lady Bellamy, lives in The Bath, and it is there that I am bound.’
He looked at her doubtfully. ‘I have heard of ladies travelling by the stage because it saves the expense of out-riders, postilions and goodness knows how many other servants.’
‘It was the decision of my uncle and aunt to send me by the stage,’ said Belinda.
