Emily Goes to Exeter

4

Snow had fallen, snow on snow,

Snow on snow,

In the bleak mid-winter,

Long ago.

Christina Rossetti

Hannah awoke at six o’clock, climbed out of bed and drew back the curtains. She could see nothing but a sort of raging white wilderness. She washed and dressed and then raked out the fire and lighted it. If Emily wanted hot water to wash herself, then she would need to fetch it from the kitchen. Hannah was sure none of the servants would be able to manage to get to work that day.

She went down to the kitchen. Mrs Silvers was sitting at the table wearing a night-gown, a wrapper, and a huge red nightcap. Her nose was red and her eyes watery.

‘Oh, Miss Pym,’ she said. ‘I do feel mortal bad.’

‘Then you must go to bed,’ said Hannah briskly. ‘Where is your husband?’

‘Out at the stables, rousing the post-boys. They sleeps over the stables.’

‘Good,’ said Hannah, relieved to find that there was some help. She looked around her. The soiled linen lay piled up in a basket in the corner, but the fire was blazing brightly. ‘Please do go to bed, Mrs Silvers,’ she urged, ‘or we shall all catch your cold. We can all make shift for ourselves.’ Her eyes gleamed green with excitement. ‘It is an adventure for me.’

Mrs Silvers went reluctantly and Hannah set to work, filling a huge copper with water from the scullery pump and hanging it on a hook over the fire. She found a bar of washing soap and began to shave flakes off it for the wash. There was a container of chicken dung in the scullery, so useful for whitening yellow linen, but Hannah did not think she could bear the smell of it so early in the day. After she had put the clothes on to boil, she made herself a cup of hot chocolate, drank it and then ran up the stairs and roused Emily.

‘It is still darkness,’ moaned Emily. ‘What’s to do?’

‘The servants went home last night and are not able to return this day because of the ferocity of the storm. You must rouse yourself and help me prepare breakfast.’

‘I!’ said Emily aghast. ‘I, work in a common inn kitchen? No, I thank you. I would rather starve.’ She pulled the blankets over her head.

‘In that case you will starve!’ said Hannah. ‘If you are not prepared to work, then you will not be allowed to eat.’ She went out and slammed the door behind her.

Lord Harley heard the indomitable Hannah rousing Mrs Bradley and Mrs Bisley. He heard her tell them that there were no servants and that she was in need of help. He picked up his watch and looked at it by the light of the rushlight beside his bed. Seven o’clock. He groaned. But she had the right of it. Everyone must help. He swung his long legs out of bed and then twisted around and looked at the sleeping Mr Fletcher. The lawyer lay calmly asleep. His face looked younger with the lines smoothed away. Lord Harley decided to leave him. Wouldn’t be of much help anyway, he thought.

Emily did not go back to sleep. At first she felt tearful. Here she was in a strange inn with that monster somewhere about and she was expected to work like a common servant. It was too bad.

Then she heard Mrs Bradley’s voice from the corridor. ‘Right you are, Miss Pym, m’dear. Just get my duds on and I’ll be with you in a trice.’ And then the sleepy voice of Mrs Bisley: ‘I shall be there, too, Miss Pym. Give me but twenty minutes.’

The beginnings of an awakening conscience stabbed at Emily. She got out of bed and studied the little amount of cold water left in the cans on the toilet table. She rang the bell and waited. Back down in the kitchen, Hannah looked up at the swinging bell and tightened her lips. Miss Freemantle would soon find there was no one to wait on her.

Emily washed herself as best she could and brushed her short hair till it shone. She noticed all her clothes had been hung away but assumed the servants had done it while she was asleep. She lifted out a blue kerseymere wool gown. It was high-waisted with a high neck and long sleeves. She put on two petticoats and woollen stockings and half-boots before putting the dress on.

Emily pushed open the door and went into the dining-room. It was cold and dark. She went through to the coffee room. A fire was blazing brightly. She shivered and went to stand in front of it.

The door of the coffee room opened. Lord Ranger Harley came in and stood for a moment watching Emily.

She was standing looking into the flames, one little booted foot on the fender. Then, as if conscious of his gaze, she slowly turned and looked at him, her eyes widening with fear.

‘Miss Freemantle,’ he said coldly, ‘before you start to scream or indulge in any further stupid behaviour, let me make one thing very plain: having met you, I would not marry you if you were the last woman on earth.’

The fear left her eyes and she looked at him in ludicrous amazement. ‘You are … you are sure?’

‘Of course, you widgeon. What man of any sophistication and breeding would want a silly little schoolgirl?’

Her eyes flashed. ‘I am out of the schoolroom this age, sir!’

‘But your behaviour is not. Where is the excellent Miss Pym?’

‘I believe she is in the kitchen.’

‘And in need of help?’

‘So I believe. But I do not see why—’

‘Then shall we join her?’

Emily had been about to say she did not see why she, a lady, should be expected to work in an inn kitchen, but something told her that Lord Harley would despise her further for that remark. Never in her short life had anyone ever despised or disliked Emily. She had been cosseted and feted and petted from the day she was born.

‘I do not know where the kitchen is,’ she said.

‘But I do. Follow me.’

Emily reluctantly followed him through to the kitchen. Hannah was cutting slices of bacon, and Mrs Bisley was frying sausages. Mrs Bradley was out in the scullery, scrubbing the boiled clothes on a washboard.

‘More help here,’ said Lord Harley. ‘What would you like us to do?’

‘Lay the table,’ said Hannah promptly, ‘and then rouse the other guests. They cannot drift down to meals just when they feel like it.’

‘Where is a tray for the dishes?’ asked Emily, looking helplessly around.

‘We’ll all dine at the kitchen table,’ said Hannah.

All in that moment, Emily hated Hannah Pym. This woman was determined to humiliate her. Emily Freemantle being asked to dine in the kitchen!

‘Stop dreaming,’ ordered Lord Harley. ‘Help me with the plates.’

Hannah handed slices of bacon to Mrs Bisley to put in the pan and watched Lord Harley and Emily out of the corner of her inquisitive eyes. Emily was slamming plates down on the table in a sulky way and Lord Harley was paying no heed to her whatsoever.

Hannah swung open the heavy door of the oven in the wall beside the fire and brought out a tray of hot rolls. She said to Lord Harley, ‘If I could trouble you to rouse the other guests.’

Lord Harley grinned at her. ‘I’ll have trouble with Seaton. The commoner these fellows are, the more they expect to be waited on.’

Emily flushed with mortification, thinking the remark was directed at her.

The rest of the guests, the coachman and guard gradually came in one by one, all still in their undress and yawning and grumbling. The one exception was Mr Fletcher. He looked a new man, thought Hannah with satisfaction. The wig looked very fine and neat and the whiteness of his shirt and neckcloth was dazzling. His black coat and breeches looked refurbished because Lord Harley had ruthlessly brushed them after he had finished brushing his own clothes.

Hannah pushed Mrs Bisley into a seat and made sure Mr Fletcher was placed next to her. The captain, in a large night-gown with showy frills of cotton lace and a dirty dressing-gown and Kilmarnock nightcap, glowered at Mr Fletcher from the other end of the table. The landlord came in shivering with cold, and looked first amazed and then gratified when Hannah told him to take a seat and served him with breakfast and small beer.

Lord Harley watched Hannah with admiration as she served everyone in record time and then sat down herself, consumed a great quantity of bacon and eggs at amazing speed, and then started to load up a tray to take to Mrs Silvers’ bedchamber.

When breakfast was over, Hannah returned to say that as the circumstances were unusual, she would appreciate any help the gentlemen had to offer in clearing up. Emily was about to say that she had done enough, but Captain Seaton began to bluster that he was a gentleman and would not soil his hands with women’s dirty work. Anxious not to be associated with the captain in the public mind, Emily stood about, hoping she looked willing and hoping at the same time that Hannah would not ask her to do anything.

The coachman, who divulged that his name was Old Tom, or, rather, that that was what everyone on the road called him, said cheerfully that if Hannah put some bits and pieces of food together, along with some ale, he would take it out to the post-boys. Assured by him that the post-boys were snug enough from the storm before the tack-room fire, Hannah set about preparing a tray for them. Ignored, the captain got sulkily to his feet. ‘Come along, Mrs Bisley,’ he growled. But to his mortification, Lizzie did not seem to hear him. She was tying one of the waiters’ aprons around Mr Fletcher’s waist, the little lawyer having said he would be glad to help with the dirty dishes. Mrs Bradley went off to get her basket of medicines to find something to ease Mrs Silvers’ cold.

Lord Harley rounded up the rest of the men and said to Hannah’s relief that a path to the outside privvy must be dug through the snow, ‘for no one surely expects these excellent ladies to empty chamber-pots, and if any of you have used that utensil during the night, then I suggest you carry it down and empty it yourself.’

Emily turned as red as fire. She had been about to nip up to the bedchamber to make use of the chamber-pot but now she could not, for that would mean carrying the nasty thing down in full view of everyone. No one cared about her predicament, she thought tearfully, quite forgetting that no one could possibly know.

The guard, who was called Jim Feathers, and the two outside passengers, Mr Burridge and Mr Hendry, followed Lord Harley outside to find shovels to start digging. Mr Fletcher and Lizzie Bisley were out in the scullery washing dishes.

‘Now dinner,’ said Hannah. ‘There is a pot of stock here, and soup would be a great thing to begin. Miss Freemantle, if you would be so good as to clean the vegetables.’

‘I don’t know how,’ said Emily.

‘For a start, here are carrots. You scrape them, so, and then cut them into slices, and when you have finished that, I shall give you the onions.’

Emily felt too intimidated to protest. Lord Harley’s remark about not wanting her hurt the more she thought about it. There was no Miss Cudlipp to whisper in her ear that he really did not mean it. And if he returned to the kitchen and found her rebelling, she knew his contempt for her would be awful. He could not really be aristocratic, thought Emily, ferociously chopping carrots. There must be common blood in the Harleys. Aristocrats did not dig snow to clear a path to the privvy. Gently born people hardly ever mentioned the place, and if they did, they referred to it as the ‘necessary house’.

But when Lord Harley came in, stamping snow from his boots, and said the path was clear, Emily slipped gratefully out of the kitchen and fought her way through the storm to the Jericho in the garden, suddenly grateful she had managed to avoid the humiliation of the chamber-pot. She came back to the kitchen brushing snow from her dress, her cheeks pink with the cold.

‘Onions, Miss Freemantle,’ said Hannah, putting the offensive, nasty things down on the table. Emily saw a flash of amusement light up Lord Harley’s eyes and bent to her work. But while she chopped onions, occasionally rubbing her streaming eyes with a handkerchief, she began to feel a glow of satisfaction. Yes, she had behaved badly by running away, but her doting parents would forgive all when they heard how she had been used. And what stories she would have to tell Miss Cudlipp! She could see Miss Cudlipp’s rather sheeplike face looking at her in amazed admiration. ‘Come along, Miss Freemantle,’ came the hated Miss Pym’s voice, ‘don’t take all day.’ Lord Harley grinned and left.

Mr Fletcher was polishing dishes in the scullery and admiring the tender white nape of Lizzie Bisley’s neck as she bent over the sink. She turned to hand him another dish and Mr Fletcher, with a little spurt of gladness, noticed the fine network of wrinkles at her eyes. He had thought her much younger than he.

‘I could not help but notice you are in mourning and you did say something about having been recently bereaved,’ said Mr Fletcher. ‘When did your husband … er … pass on?’

‘Eight months ago,’ said Lizzie. ‘I miss him sore.’

‘What did he do?’

‘He was a lawyer.’

‘Indeed!’ Mr Fletcher furrowed his brow. Bisley. Then his face cleared. ‘Not John Bisley of Bisley, Rochester & Bisley.’

‘The same,’ said Lizzie, turning her back on the sink and leaning against it.

‘He was a very successful lawyer,’ said Mr Fletcher wistfully. ‘I, too, am a lawyer, Mrs Bisley, but have not had any success at all. That is why I am going to Exeter, to try my luck there.’

‘Do you know anyone in Exeter?’

‘Yes, an old school friend. He is in practice in the town. He said he could put some bits and pieces my way.’

Lizzie looked at his tired, sensitive face. ‘I am sure you will have better luck in Exeter. And do call on us after we are married.’

‘Never!’ said Mr Fletcher passionately, and then turned red and twisted the dishcloth in his hands.

Lizzie turned back to the sink and began to attack the plates as if they were personal enemies while Mr Fletcher looked miserably at her slim back.

‘I should not have said that. Please forgive me.’ Mr Fletcher waited anxiously.

Lizzie slowly turned around. ‘Very well, you are forgiven.’

‘What think you of our Miss Pym?’ asked Mr Fletcher, all eagerness to avoid painful subjects.

‘She makes me want to laugh,’ said Lizzie with a smile, ‘and that is unusual these days. She has those funny eyes and that odd way of looking down her nose. I think she must have been used at one time to managing a large household. She is monstrous efficient.’

They fell to discussing the other members of the party, with the notable exception of Captain Seaton. Out in the kitchen, Hannah was aware the couple were taking a very long time to wash the dishes and was pleased.

She herself was busy hoisting a leg of mutton on to the clockwork spit. She was glad the spit was operated by clockwork. She had a sentimental streak about animals and was always sorry for the dogs when she saw them in their cages turning spits. She saw Emily edging toward the kitchen door, and determined that she must not leave. A little housewifery was the way to a man’s heart.

‘I would now like you to make some tartlets for dinner, Miss Freemantle,’ said Hannah.

‘I do not know how to,’ said Emily loftily. ‘I am used to servants doing all menial work for me.’

‘As I am,’ said Hannah pleasantly, ‘but you must admit the circumstances are extraordinary. There is a recipe here’ – she held out a sheet of paper – ‘for jam tartlets. Very simple. You just follow the instructions and measure out the ingredients. Come. I will show you what to do.’

Emily sighed loudly but returned to the kitchen table. Under Hannah’s instructions, she mixed the ingredients for the pastry and made little cases in a baking pan, filled the cases with strawberry jam, and put little crosses of pastry across the top of each.

The storm howled outside. The kitchen fire blazed merrily. The air was full of the smells of cooking. For the first time in her life, Emily felt a sense of achievement as Hannah opened the oven and put those precious tartlets inside.

‘And now?’ asked Emily.

Hannah smiled. ‘And now I think you may repair to the coffee room and have a rest.’

Perversely, Emily was reluctant to leave. The conversation in the scullery had ceased. Lizzie Bisley was singing ‘Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill’ in a tuneless soprano, and then Mr Fletcher joined in in a light tenor.

‘Tartlets on their own are not very much for dessert,’ Emily said. ‘Can I try something else?’

‘There is fruit-cake,’ said Hannah. ‘Gentlemen love rich fruit-cake, but I fear that might be beyond your powers.’

‘But you could show me?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘May we try?’

How very pretty she was, thought Hannah, when whe was like this, all flushed and happy and unselfconscious.

Together they looked out dried fruit and flour and butter and eggs, cream of tartar and baking soda. Hannah took turns at beating the cake because Emily laughed and said her wrists were aching. How excited Emily was when the rich mixture was finally loaded into a round tin. She had forgotten about Lord Harley, about the storm. There was no way she was going to leave that kitchen until the results of her labours came out of the oven.

Hannah set her to grinding coffee beans to make coffee. Mrs Bisley and Mr Fletcher came into the kitchen and said they were going to tidy up the bedchambers and Hannah smiled on them in a maternal way. Lord Harley entered the kitchen with Mr Hendry and Mr Burridge but Hannah shooed them out, saying the ladies were too busy working, and Lord Harley looked at Emily with a flicker of amazement in his black eyes.

Lizzie and Mr Fletcher had to go through the coffee room to get upstairs to the bedchambers. In front of the coffee-room fire sat Captain Seaton, a glass of brandy in front of him.

‘Oh, there you are,’ he cried when he saw Lizzie, but his face darkened as he saw the little lawyer behind her.

‘We cannot stay,’ said Lizzie hurriedly. ‘We must do the bedchambers.’

‘Do the …? You sit down here, Mrs Bisley. It is time we had a talk. Let that poor fellow there act as chambermaid if he wishes.’

‘Take that back,’ shouted Mr Fletcher, fists swinging. Lizzie sprang between them. ‘Please go … for me,’ she pleaded with the lawyer. ‘I shall join you shortly.’ Mr Fletcher reluctantly withdrew.

‘Sit down, my sweet,’ cajoled the captain. ‘We have hardly had time to talk.’

‘There is work to do,’ said Lizzie. How gross and common the captain seemed. How could she ever have leaned on him for support? She had met him a month before by chance at the home of a friend. He had been low-voiced and courteous then in a sort of bluff way. He had seemed a tower of strength. The fact was that, much as Lizzie was convinced she had adored the late Mr Bisley, the man had been a household bully, not allowing her an idea of her own or any independence whatsoever. His death had left her alone and helpless, not really knowing who she was. The captain had seemed so masculine, so confident, so prepared to take all arrangements for living out of her hands.

‘Let the others do it,’ the captain was saying. ‘This bent-nosed spinster is common enough. She don’t mind. But a lady like you …’

‘Lord Harley does not mind dirtying his hands,’ said Lizzie, her voice trembling, for she had not been in the way of speaking up for herself or indeed of contradicting anyone whatsoever.

‘That’s different,’ blustered the captain. ‘He’s amusing hisself at the moment. Another day and he’ll have you waiting on him hand and foot. I command you to sit down here with me.’

Lizzie slowly moved forward and then stopped still.

‘No,’ she said quietly, ‘we must all help. You have no right, sir, to command me to do anything.’

‘I am your fiancé, madam, I’ll have you know.’

‘We were never officially engaged,’ said Lizzie sadly. How had it all come about? He had suggested this journey to Exeter. He had said he had friends and family there. But he had made her promise not to tell her friends. Why? And why had she done such a stupid thing? ‘Because he ordered you,’ said a voice in her head, ‘and all your life you have obeyed orders without question.’

‘We will talk later,’ said Lizzie, her voice slightly squeaky with fright, ‘but I am leaving you now.’ And she darted from the room.

She ran lightly upstairs and found Mr Fletcher in one of the bedrooms, raking out the fire.

She hesitated in the doorway. He stood up and smiled at her with simple affection. She dreaded his asking her questions but braced herself for them.

Instead, he said mildly, ‘We will make up the fires this once, I think, and then announce at dinner that each must see to their own fires while the storm lasts. But there is no need for both of us to dirty our hands. Perhaps if you start to make the beds …?’

Lizzie agreed eagerly and was disappointed when the bulk of Mrs Bradley loomed in the doorway offering to help.

With the exception of Captain Seaton, who had done nothing, they all sat down to dinner at four o’clock in the afternoon feeling like brave adventurers. The men and Lord Harley had chopped wood and dug paths in the snow to the stable and to the front of the inn. All were tired from their exertions. Emily nursed burnt fingers. She had been so anxious to take that cake out of the oven herself that she had burnt her fingers on the knob of the oven door.

It was a simple dinner with no extra side dishes. There was soup to begin with, roast mutton, vegetables and potatoes as a main course, and Emily’s tartlets and the cake splendidly iced to make do for dessert.

The men praised Emily the most and Emily took it all as her due, forgetting Hannah had done most of the work. Once more, she was where she felt she belonged, the centre of attention. Normally, she would have drunk lemonade, but everyone was drinking fortified French wine – the English merchants strengthening wine with brandy. She began to talk about her adventures, about running away from home, at first frankly and then, as the wine went to her head, she began to brag.

It was too much for Mr Fletcher. Emily had reached the point in her narrative when she had taken over the whole running of the inn single-handed. ‘Now, now,’ he chided, ‘you are going too far, Miss Freemantle. You must admit Miss Pym organized the inside work and Lord Harley arranged all the outside work. Mrs Bisley here has been washing dishes and making beds and cleaning the bed-chambers for all of you.’

Stopped in mid-flight, Emily looked at him tipsily and then her eyes narrowed.

‘That looks very much like my wig,’ she said. ‘How did you come by it?’

‘I gave it to him,’ said Hannah, cursing inwardly. ‘You have no need of men’s clothes, my child.’

‘Just helping out the poor,’ jeered Captain Seaton.

Mr Fletcher leaped to his feet, his face scarlet. He tore off the wig, walked round the table, and laid it in front of Emily, and, looking like an angry fledgling with his short-cropped hair, he stalked out of the room.

Emily rounded on Hannah. ‘You had no right to steal from me,’ she snapped.

‘I meant to discuss the matter with you,’ said Hannah, standing her ground, ‘but I forgot.’

‘What di’ye think of your pauper lawyer now, Mrs Bisley?’ laughed the captain. ‘Can’t even afford a decent wig.’

Lizzie burst into tears and ran from the table.

There was a silence and then Lord Harley’s voice, dripping ice, said contemptuously, ‘You silly goose. How dare you humiliate poor Mr Fletcher so? You could have had a word with him in private. But not you. You were bragging and bragging and puffing yourself up and he rightly pointed out that everyone else had been working much harder. I’ll buy the poxy wig from you. How much?’

Emily looked at him white-faced. She could have stood his contempt, for she had cast him in the role of villain, but Old Tom the coachman was shaking his head at her in a reproachful way, and cozy and fat Mrs Bradley was actually looking at her with dislike. Her only ally was the captain, and who wanted an ally like that?

‘I hate you all!’ she shouted. Hannah watched as she stumbled from the table and then from the room.

‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘Landlord, I shall leave you to serve the port.’

She went up to Lizzie’s room and knocked softly on the door. There was no reply. After a moment’s hesitation, she went in. The room was empty. She stood for a moment, baffled, and then went to the room Mr Fletcher shared with Lord Harley and leaned her ear against the door. She could hear Lizzie crying and the low sound of Mr Fletcher’s voice comforting her.

Perhaps it was the best thing that could happen, she thought. But what a silly child Emily is. I will never be able to make a match for her. And yet I wish Lord Harley could have seen her when she was alone with me in the kitchen. So natural. So charming. I will not go to her. She deserves to suffer a little.

She went back downstairs and determinedly began to talk of every subject she could think of to keep the conversation going.

Up in the Blue Room, Emily was putting on a warm cloak and a felt hat and gloves. Bagshot was a town. There was bound to be another hostelry, and surely the storm had abated. All she had to do was walk a little way, find another inn, and send them to collect the trunks.

Glad only that the rest of the travellers were still in the kitchen and not in the dining-room, she made her way softly to the main door of the inn.

Gently she opened it and then closed it softly behind her. She could hear the scream of the wind, but it had stopped snowing and a path had been shovelled through the courtyard to the gate.

She left the shelter for the high-walled courtyard and turned right.

And then the full force of the blown snow driven by the wind struck her. It was as if some white monster had been lying in wait for her, and then pounced. In the swinging light of the lantern over the arch to the courtyard, she could see long blown fingers of snow reaching out to her just before she was engulfed in a stunning white maelstrom.