Beatrice Goes to Brighton (2 page)

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, then?’ 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.

‘But you can never hope for anything else,’ sneered that awful voice again. ‘I do believe you are getting quite spoony about him, Hannah Pym, and he knew you as a servant.’

Hannah opened her eyes and looked out of the window to banish her thoughts. A watery sunlight was struggling through the clouds. There were wild daffodils blowing by the roadside, dipping and swaying in the blustery wind. Soon the leaves would be back on the trees and there would be summer to look forward to.

The journey continued on in blessed silence, blessed for Hannah, who did not think she could bear any more insults.

But when they arrived in Cuckfield and entered the White Hart, somehow the splendour and elegance of the famous inn brought out the worst in Mrs Hick.

She saw Hannah looking with interest at a tall man who was lounging at his ease in the corner. Hannah was wondering who he was. In an age when most people were not much taller than five feet, he seemed a giant. He had lazy blue, amiable eyes and golden hair, tied back at the nape of his neck with a blue silk ribbon. He had a strong, handsome face, lightly tanned, broad shoulders, and the finest pair of legs Hannah had ever seen. He was wearing a beautifully cut coat of fine blue wool with gold buttons, worn
open over a silk waistcoat embroidered with
peacocks
. His legs were encased in skin-tight leather breeches and Hessian boots with jaunty little gold tassels.

Tiny Mrs Hick screwed round in her chair and her saucer-like eyes fastened on the focus of Hannah’s attention.

‘Miss ’Igh and Mighty ’ere is casting her glims at that prime bit o’ Fancy,’ jeered Mrs Hick. ‘Next, she’ll be over there, chattering about ’er footman.’

The waiter, a lofty individual with a sallow face, snickered as he placed another plate of cakes on the table.

‘We see ’em all, ma’am,’ he said to Mrs Hick. ‘You’ve no idea the number o’ ladies who come in on the coach pretending to be Quality.’

Hannah half-rose from her seat, her face scarlet. But a voice from behind her chair made her sink back down in amazement.

‘Shut yer bleeding cake-’ole,’ said a Cockney voice, ‘or I’ll draw yer cork, you litre turd ov a jackanapes.’

Hannah twisted round and stared open-mouthed at Benjamin. She was as amazed as if the teapot itself had burst into speech.

‘You’ll draw my cork,’ sneered the waiter. ‘I’d like to see you try.’

‘Outside,’ roared Benjamin.

‘The dumb fellow can speak arter all,’ cried Mrs Hick.

Benjamin and the waiter marched outside to the inn yard. ‘A mill!’ cried the soldier, and the whole inn
followed them outside, even the aristocratic-looking gentleman, even Hannah, almost as dumb with amazement as Benjamin had pretended to be.

Benjamin carefully removed his coat and placed it on a mounting-block. Bets were rapidly being laid, the betters favouring the waiter. Benjamin then removed his clean shirt and placed that tenderly on top of his coat. Stripped, he revealed a well-muscled chest and strong arms. Some of the bets changed in favour of Benjamin.

Hannah made a move to stop her footman but found her arm taken in a gentle but powerful grasp. She found the aristocrat beside her. ‘Don’t ruin a fight, ma’am,’ he said plaintively. ‘I should not really worry about your footman. My money is on him.’

‘I didn’t know he could talk,’ said Hannah. ‘All this time and he has pretended to be deaf and dumb.’

The waiter and Benjamin squared up. The
coachman
, who had elected himself as referee, dropped the handkerchief and the pair set to.

Benjamin dodged and feinted, moving like
lightning
, prancing about on his new leather pumps, which he kept polished like glass.

Then Benjamin’s fist seemed to come up from the ground and it smacked the waiter full on the chin with an enormous thwack. There was a silence as the waiter staggered this way and that and then stretched his length on the ground.

In an age when a good fight was expected to last eighteen rounds at least, this was considered a poor sort of match.

Hannah marched up to Benjamin as he carefully donned his shirt.

‘What is the meaning of this, Benjamin?’ she cried. ‘Why did you pretend you couldn’t speak?’

Benjamin smoothed down the ruffles of his shirt with a fastidious hand and then put on his plush coat. ‘I couldn’t tell you, modom,’ he said in strangulated accents very different from his Cockney outburst in the inn. ‘You was that sorry for me. I pretended to be deaf and dumb, ’cos I knew Lady Carsey liked freaks and I needed work. That’s how I got started as a footman.’

‘But when Lady Carsey falsely accused you of taking her brooch, why did you not speak then?’

‘I daren’t, modom, for the magistrate might have thought that since I was lying about one thing, therefore I might be lying about being innocent of the theft. Not that it did me much good.’

‘But you had no reason to lie to
me
!’

‘Thought you might not be sorry for me no more and turn me off,’ mumbled Benjamin.

Hannah, aware of the listeners, said, ‘We shall talk of this further when we get to Brighton.’

Lord Alistair Munro watched with amusement as Hannah took her seat with Benjamin standing
punctiliously
behind her chair.

Mrs Hick had bet on the waiter and was not feeling charitable. ‘Fancy not knowing her own footman can speak. That is, if he
is
a footman.’

‘Stow it, you ’orrid old crow,’ said Benjamin suddenly. ‘I’m a proper footman, I am, not that I
expects a piece of kennel garbage like yerself to recognize one, not even if you met one in yer soup!’

This was said with such blistering venom that not only Mrs Hick but the whole stage-coach party fell into a deep silence, each one frightened to catch Benjamin’s angry eye.

No, thought Hannah, Benjamin had never been a footman before that episode where he had worked for Lady Carsey in Esher, Lady Carsey who had tried to get him hanged for a theft he had not committed, Lady Carsey who liked freaks and wanted Benjamin in her bed. Footmen were indolent creatures and vain. Most would have enjoyed their mistress’s
discomfiture
.

A new waiter bent over Hannah and whispered, ‘The gentleman over there, Lord Alistair Munro, wishes the honour of entertaining you.’

Although she was still bewildered and upset by Benjamin, Hannah was glad to escape from the stage-coach passengers.

She rose and went over to Lord Alistair’s table. He got up as she approached and drew out a seat for her. Benjamin, with a last threatening look at the cowed passengers, went to stand behind her chair.

‘I hope what I have to say will not offend you,’ said Lord Alistair. ‘I have taken a great liking to your footman. I am sorely tempted to steal him away from you.’

‘Wouldn’t go,’ snapped Benjamin from behind Hannah. ‘Not foralla tea ’n China. No.’

‘Benjamin,’ said Hannah impatiently, ‘I am
touched by your loyalty, but you must not address Lord Alistair in such a manner.’

‘That’s all right,’ said Lord Alistair amiably. ‘You were very surprised when he spoke.’

Hannah told him the tale of Benjamin’s adventures and that led to tales of her other adventures. Lord Alistair appeared fascinated.

‘You are a lucky man,’ he said to Benjamin at last. ‘Many employers would be furious to find that they had been writing reams of instructions to you when all the time you understood every word.’

Benjamin gave a little cough. ‘The passengers have left, modom.’

‘I did not even notice,’ said Hannah, starting up. ‘Run and tell them I am just coming.’

Lord Alistair held out his card. ‘I am bound for Brighton as well. If I can be of service to you, Mrs …?’

‘Pym.
Miss
Pym.’

‘Miss Pym. Do not hesitate to call on me.’

Hannah took his card and then hurried out, remembering only when she reached the inn door that she was now the proud possessor of cards of her own, and did not even know yet how Benjamin had come by them.

Benjamin came striding towards her, his face dark with anger. ‘The bastards ’as gone,’ he shouted.

‘I beg your pardon,’ said Hannah frostily.

‘Sorry, modom, but them passengers must ’ave … have … told the coachman you was on board and off they’ve gone, baggage and all.’

Lord Alistair emerged from the inn in time to hear this.

‘Well, you are fortunate, Miss Pym,’ he said. ‘I am just leaving myself and I can take you up. In fact, I can take you all the way to Brighton.’

‘Please, my lord,’ said Hannah, ‘if you could just catch up with the coach so that I may tell them all what I think of them.’

‘Gladly.’

Benjamin’s eyes lit up as an ostler led a smart curricle up to the front of the inn. The curricle had only recently become fashionable. It was a two-wheeled carriage with a hood and the only two-wheeled carriage which used two horses abreast. It had been damned as ungraceful; the hinder curve of the sword case had been called positively ugly and the crooked front line and the dashing iron in the worst possible taste. But it was the fastest vehicle on the road, being the lightest.