by M C Beaton
Contents
Title Page
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By the Same Author
About the Author
Copyright
1
Then dress, then dinner, then awakes the world!
Then glare the lamps, then whirl the wheels, then roar
Throughout street and square fast flashing chariots, hurled
Like harnessed meteors.
Lord Byron
Lady Beatrice Marsham had been a widow for over a year and enjoyed every minute of her now single state. She well remembered the first day of her freedom, when she had descended the stairs of her husband’s town house to see her spouse, Mr Harry Blackstone, being carried into the hall by his drinking companions.
‘Foxed again,’ they had called cheerfully, dumping the body in a chair. Lady Beatrice had looked at her husband with impatient distaste, called her maid, pulled on her gloves, and gone out to make various calls.
She was surprised on her return to find the blinds down and a hatchment over the door. Her husband, it transpired, was not dead drunk, but simply dead.
As Lady Beatrice – she had never used her married name – settled herself comfortably in a corner seat of the Brighton stage-coach, she remembered her overwhelming feeling of relief when they told her Harry was dead. No more drunken scenes, no more embarrassing fumblings in the bedchamber at night, no more jealous rages. She was free of it all.
Her parents, the Earl and Countess of Debren, had arranged that marriage. Lady Beatrice had assumed that, being a widow of twenty-eight, she would now be left alone. But only two days ago, her father had visited her to say that a marriage had been arranged for her with Sir Geoffrey Handford. In vain had she raged. The earl had pointed out brutally that she had not yet borne any sons. It was her duty to marry again. Then Sir Geoffrey had called, a thickset, brutish man in snuff-stained clothes.
To get rid of both her father and Sir Geoffrey, Lady Beatrice had said she would consider the matter and had then decided to take herself off to Brighton, hoping that by the time she returned, the matter would have been forgotten. She had sent her servants and most of her baggage ahead, having rented a house in Brighton through an agent in London. She had planned to drive down the Brighton road herself, for she was an expert whip, but the weather had turned very wet and so she had decided to take the stage.
It was not unusual for an aristocrat, even a female one, to travel on the Brighton stage. The stage-coaches on that route were becoming very fashionable. Had not the Prince of Wales made Brighton fashionable? And it therefore followed that everything associated with that watering-place should be considered bon ton. Besides, the Brighton road was famous for its inns, and the journey took a mere six hours.
Also, it was amusing to be in such a plebeian carriage and in such low company. Lady Beatrice was an expert at keeping low company at bay. In fact, she had become quite expert at keeping the whole wide world at bay. She had been in love once, when she was eighteen, a tremulous, vulnerable maiden. That was when her parents had betrothed her to Harry. She felt that by that act they had taken everything from her, her hopes, her innocence, and, most of all, her freedom. She grew in beauty and coldness. She despised all men. She occasionally amused herself with flirting with one of the beasts, only to reject him as nastily as she knew how.
She wished the coach would move. It was Sunday, and everything in London was shuttered and closed and sooty and black. All the church bells were ringing, a persistent, irritating cacophony. Not far from the White Bear Inn in Piccadilly was St James’s Church, which, reflected Lady Beatrice sourly, seemed to have a more hellish group of bell-ringers than most as they performed their jangly, insistent triples and majors. What did the workers of the world, after toiling six miserable days a week, think of this day of rest, black and more miserable than all the others, dingy and stale and dull? thought Lady Beatrice. How could one think of spiritual things when no prospect pleased and the air was rent by the clamour of the bells?
She glanced briefly at her fellow passengers. Beside her was a small dumpy man who smelled strongly of ale, and beside him in the other corner was a tired, bedraggled woman with a snivelling child on her lap. Across from her was a soldier, asleep with his mouth open; beside him, a small dwarf of a woman with huge pale eyes like saucers, and opposite Lady Beatrice was a thin lady, elegantly dressed. She had sandy hair under a neat bonnet, a crooked nose, odd eyes which appeared to change colour, and a clever mouth. Lady Beatrice’s chilly gaze rested a bit longer on this lady than it had done on the others. To her surprise, the lady smiled and said, ‘Allow me to introduce myself. I am Miss Hannah Pym of London.’
Lady Beatrice allowed her eyelids to droop slightly, her upper lip to raise a fraction, and then she slowly turned her head away and looked out of the window.
Miss Hannah Pym bit her lip in mortification. Although Hannah now had the appearance, clothes, manner, and speech of a lady, inside lurked the servant she all too recently had been, and she thought the cold and beautiful creature opposite had snubbed her because she had recognized in Hannah an inferior person.
She covertly studied the haughty lady. Lady Beatrice had jet-black hair under a Lavinia bonnet, her face shadowed by the wide brim. She had very clear white skin, a straight nose, and large grey eyes fringed with thick lashes. Her mouth was slightly pinched at the corners, as if it had once been a fuller mouth which the years and disappointment had thinned down. Hannah sensed that she was tired and anxious, and yet Hannah was disproportionately worried by that snub, if snub it had been.
Her legacy of five thousand pounds, left her by her late employer, Mr Clarence, in his will, had initially seemed a vast sum, but now that she had become accustomed to higher society in the shape of Mr Clarence’s brother, Sir George, who had recently taken her out to the opera, and since she had moved her quarters to the fashionable West End, it seemed very little in a world where men and women gambled more than that at the gaming tables of St James’s every night.
And yet, just a little while ago, she had been Hannah Pym of Thornton Hall in Kensington, a housekeeper who had clawed her way up the servants’ hierarchy from scullery maid.
Her thoughts drifted back over the years. She should not despise her old life. She had been well-treated, particularly by pretty Mrs Clarence before she had run off with that footman and left her husband to sink into apathy. The hard times had come when Mr Clarence had become a semi-recluse, locking up half the rooms and dismissing half the servants, and there were no more balls or parties. That was when Hannah had begun to watch the stage-coaches, or Flying Machines as they were called, hurtle along the road at the end of the estate, symbols of freedom and adventure.
This was to be her fourth journey. The past three had been full of adventure. She sighed a little. She was a determined matchmaker and there was no one on this coach she could possibly pair together in her mind. Her footman was on the roof with the outside passengers. Hannah brightened. It surely increased her social standing to have a footman. She had adopted her deaf-and-dumb footman, Benjamin, during her last adventurous journey. He expressly did not want wages. In fact, he had an embarrassing habit of paying her out of his frequent winnings at dice.
The chilly lady opposite turned her gaze on Hannah again. Hannah immediately said airily, ‘I do hope my poor footman is not getting a soaking up on the roof.’
A slight look of contempt flicked across the fine eyes opposite. Hannah cursed herself and wished she had never spoken. Only parvenus spoke of having footmen. The frigid travelling companion she was trying
to impress probably had scores of footmen.
Worse was to come. The small dwarf-like woman next to Hannah said in a hoarse whisper, ‘Ain’t no use tryin’ to impress the likes o’ her. She don’t care a fig for any of us.’
‘I was not trying to impress,’ said Hannah with a pathetic attempt at hauteur.
The guard on the roof blew a fanfare and the coach rumbled forward.
The coach was to take the new route to Brighton, going by Croydon, Merstham, Reigate, Crawley and Cuckfield, making the distance fifty-three miles exactly.
Hannah looked bleakly out at the driving rain and decided to ignore that cold creature opposite. She should, after all, be looking forward to her first visit to Brighton.
The Prince of Wales had gone to the fishing village, then called Brighthelmstone, as early as 1783 to try a sea-water cure for swollen glands. He rented a small farmhouse on the Steyne, a broad strip of lawn that ran down to the sea. In the summer of 1787, Henry Holland, fresh from planning the reconstruction of Carlton House, built for the prince a bow-fronted house in the classical manner, topped by a shallow dome, which came to be known as the Prince of Wales’s Marine Pavilion. The prince, who had a taste for oriental design, was rumoured to want to create an oriental palace for himself. He wanted to enclose the entire pavilion in the style of a Chinese pagoda, but so far had been held in check when it was pointed out that such a design would clash with Holland’s classicism.
Hannah had hopes of actually seeing the prince, for he was reported to be in Brighton, and although he longed for privacy and hated the London mob, he was more tolerant of the people who flocked after him to Brighton to stare, some of them armed with opera glasses and even telescopes.
Lady Beatrice was beginning to feel oddly uncomfortable. There had been no reason to be so rude to the lady opposite. Hannah, could she have known, would have been delighted to learn that she was classed in Lady Beatrice’s mind as ‘lady’, rather than ‘woman’.
And yet Lady Beatrice was used to cutting all and sundry. She had no female friends, finding the ladies she met at balls and parties too silly and affected. Although she was dimly aware that she had taken her own misery over her marriage out on everyone else, she had felt more comfortable in her isolation, using her beauty to attract men for the fun of repulsing them.
It must be, reflected Lady Beatrice, because her companion of the stage-coach opposite had such an expressive face. For the first time in years, she would put herself in the way of a snub in order to make amends. Lady Beatrice smiled slightly at Hannah and said, ‘Dreadful weather, is it not?’
Now, here was Hannah’s opportunity, and for the life of her, she could not take it. She started by turning her head away, only to be made aware of the avid stare of those pale, saucer-like eyes next to her. She turned back to face Lady Beatrice. ‘Yes, quite dreadful,’ she said calmly.
Then she took a small book out of her reticule and pretended to read.
The coach drew up at the Bear in Croydon to change horses. The passengers filed into the inn for cakes and tea because it was in that meal-less desert between breakfast, which was usually about nine in the morning, and dinner, normally at four in the afternoon, although some fashionables were already beginning to take their dinner at a later hour.
Hannah was pleased she had her footman, Benjamin, so tall and well-groomed, with his clever East End face, in attendance, well aware of the air of consequence it gave her. Hannah often wondered where Benjamin had come from. She had been instrumental in rescuing Benjamin from the gallows for a crime he had not committed, and he had become her devoted slave. Although he was deaf and dumb, he could write, but he never wrote down for Hannah any of his history. But he had come a long way in appearance from the battered-looking criminal in irons who had touched Hannah’s heart on her last stage-coach journey. He wore his plush livery with an air, his hair powdered, his white gloves impeccable.
There was a small altercation when the woman with the pale eyes, who had announced to all in general that she was Mrs Hick, pulled a large plate of cakes in front of her and began to demolish them. The woman with the child glared and pointed out that there were others at the table who might like cakes, and her child began to roar and cry as he saw all the treats disappearing down the little woman’s large mouth.
Benjamin walked firmly round the table, snatched up the plate of cakes, presented them first to Hannah, then to everyone else, and then set the remainder back down on the table as far away from Mrs Hick as possible.
‘You are fortunate in having such an efficient servant,’ said Lady Beatrice to Hannah.
‘Yes,’ said Hannah baldly, having not quite forgiven her for that snub.
‘Do you travel all the way to Brighton?’ pursued Lady Beatrice.
‘Yes,’ said Hannah, and visibly thawing, added, ‘I am looking forward to seeing the sea again.’
‘And that is the sole reason for your journey?’ Lady Beatrice looked amused.
‘Not quite, Miss … er …’
Lady Beatrice took out a card-case and extracted a card and handed it to Hannah. Hannah coloured. She herself had no cards.
To her surprise, Benjamin leaned over her shoulder and put a small leather case down in front of her. Hannah opened it and saw in amazement that it contained elegantly engraved cards. ‘Miss Hannah Pym, 16 South Audley Street, London’.
She quietly took one out and presented it to Lady Beatrice, determined to ask Benjamin later how he had come by them.
‘So, my lady,’ said Hannah, ‘what takes you to Brighton?’
‘I have rented a house there,’ said Lady Beatrice. ‘London fatigues me.’
‘I do not think I could ever tire of London,’ said Hannah. Her odd eyes glowed. ‘But I love to travel. I have had so many adventures.’
‘Stage-coach travel can be adventurous,’ said Lady Beatrice drily. ‘Broken poles, bolting horses, coaches stuck in ruts or snowstorms, not to mention highwaymen.’
‘Oh, I’ve had highwaymen,’ said Hannah proudly, and with the air of a professional invalid saying, ‘Oh, yes, I have had the smallpox.’
Lady Beatrice laughed, and that laugh quite altered her appearance. The eyes shone and that tight mouth relaxed and became fuller. ‘I see you are an intrepid traveller, Miss Pym.’
‘And matchmaker,’ boasted Hannah. ‘I have been instrumental in making matches between stage-coach passengers …’
Her voice faded away. A shutter had come down over Lady Beatrice’s eyes.
‘I see we are leaving,’ said Lady Beatrice. She rose quickly and walked out into the inn yard. Hannah followed, sad that her boast of matchmaking had had the effect of freezing this strange Lady Beatrice up again. And then, as Hannah reached the inn door, she saw a strange sight. A handsome travelling carriage was standing in the yard with the coachman on the box and two grooms on the backstrap. There were also two outriders.
A thickset man approached Lady Beatrice and seized her by the arm. She let out a cry. He bent and said something, and Hannah, watching, startled, was sure that he was thrusting something like a pistol or a knife against Lady Beatrice’s side.
She ran forward, with Benjamin at her heels. ‘Lady Beatrice!’ called Hannah. ‘Is aught amiss?’
The thickset man glared at her and said, ‘Lady Beatrice has decided to continue the journey in the comfort of my carriage. Is that not so, my dear?’
Lady Beatrice was very white. ‘That is so,’ she said in a low voice.
The man who held her so tightly called to one of the grooms, ‘Fetch my lady’s baggage from the coach.’ He then guided Lady Beatrice into his own carriage, climbed in after her and slammed the door.
‘Help!’ shouted Hannah at the top of her voice. Ostlers, waiters, and the other passengers came running up. ‘I am sure Lady Beatrice is being abducted,’ said Hannah wildly.
The groom had found Lady Beatrice’s baggage in the coach and was returning with the coachman.
‘What’s all this, the
n?’ demanded the coachman. There was a babble of voices above which Hannah’s sounded loud and clear. ‘Lady Beatrice is being taken away by force.’
‘Ho, now.’ The coachman, like most of his kind, was fat and grog-faced and swathed in shawls. He lumbered towards the carriage. The man inside let down the glass.
‘Are you running off wiv thet ’ooman?’ demanded the coachman.
‘Stow your whids, coachee,’ growled the man. ‘I am merely taking Lady Beatrice to Brighton in a more comfortable carriage.’
‘Let her speak for herself,’ shouted Mrs Hick.
Lady Beatrice leaned forward. ‘I am going of my own free will,’ she said quietly.
‘That’s that, then.’ The coachman rounded truculently on the watchers. ‘Who started all this ’ere fuss, then? Let’s be ’aving ye.’
‘It was I,’ said Hannah unrepentantly. ‘I am sure that man was holding a pistol or a knife to Lady Beatrice’s side.’
The coachman turned away in disgust and could be heard to mutter something about women with bats in their belfries who read too many romances.
The other passengers surveyed Hannah reproachfully when they were all on board again.
‘Trouble is,’ said Mrs Hick, who was now eating a large sandwich, ‘you was so taken up wiff the idea of speakin’ to one of the nobs, that you got carried away.’
Well, there was one lesson Hannah Pym had learned from Lady Beatrice. She drooped her eyelids wearily, curled her lip, and turned her head away.
‘You learned that offa her,’ jeered Mrs Hick with all the dreadful perspicacity of some vulgar women and drunks. ‘Don’t come the ’igh and mighty wiff me. Reckon that so-called footman o’ yourn ain’t none other than your son.’
This was greeted by a roar of laughter from the other passengers and Hannah felt like the uttermost fool. She felt she was standing astride the yawning gulf of servant and lady with a foot on either side and not knowing quite how to behave.
She settled back and closed her eyes firmly. She thought of Mrs Clarence, her late employer’s dainty, pretty wife. Now Mrs Clarence, mused Hannah, had been a real lady. She had treated everyone just the same. ‘But she must have had low tastes,’ jeered an awful Mrs Hick-like voice in her head, ‘or she would never have run off with that footman.’ Hannah turned her thoughts to Sir George Clarence. Now there was a gentleman! He had even taken her to Gunter’s for ices, introduced her to his bank, taken her to the opera.
