of the one she had broken hitting the footman. She booked a ticket on the stage-coach that was to leave the following day. On her return to the Pelican, she sat down at a desk in the coffee room and wrote a brief letter to Sir George Clarence, telling him of the day of her return, and reminding him of his promise to show her the gardens. Hannah wanted his reply to be there, waiting for her, when she got home.
She felt very rich now that the marquess’s gold was added to her legacy. She would perhaps ask Sir George to put it in the bank for her. But then she changed her mind. She would use up the gold first on her travels and save her legacy. Besides, it gave her a feeling of comfort to think of all those gleaming sovereigns reposing at the bottom of her large reticule.
She tried on her new hat, called a Grecian bonnet. Hannah thought it so becoming that she took herself to the Pump Room for tea and enjoyed herself immensely.
As she climbed aboard the stage-coach next day to set out for London, she scanned the faces of the other passengers eagerly, but decided that her adventures were over for the present. There were an enormously fat lady with a thin little husband, a doctor and a sailor, and four noisy bloods on the roof, who promised embarrassment rather than adventure on the road home. Fortunately for Hannah, the bloods drank themselves into a state of oblivion before Devizes was reached and the whole journey to London passed without incident.
She found herself quite breathless with excitement as she climbed the stairs to her flat above the bakery in the village of Kensington. But when she unlocked the door and went inside, there was no letter there. She descended to the bakery to learn with a sinking heart that there had been no post for her at all.
Hannah waited a whole week. At last she felt so low in spirits that she called on Belinda’s aunt and uncle and gave them a piece of her mind.
‘I do not understand,’ wailed Mrs Earle after her maid had brought her out of the swoon Hannah’s news had caused. ‘A marquess! Why should she run away?’
Hannah told them roundly of all Belinda’s adventures, ending up with her treatment at the hands of her great-aunt. ‘So I suggest,’ ended Hannah, ‘that you write to Baddell Castle and tell the new Marchioness of Frenton how very sorry you are!’
Feeling slightly more cheerful, and more hopeful, Hannah returned to her flat. Surely that precious letter would be there by now. But it did not arrive. She felt the time had come to set out on her travels again. But surely Sir George would write. Another long week passed, a week during which Hannah Pym began to feel like a presumptuous servant who did not know her place, expecting someone as grand and handsome as Sir George Clarence to pay her any attention whatsoever.
The Marquess of Frenton propped himself up on one elbow and looked down at his wife, who was lying in the bed beside him.
She was awake and looking up at the bed canopy with a vague stare.
‘Thinking of me?’ he said in a teasing voice.
‘No,’ replied Belinda, ‘I was thinking of Miss Pym.’
‘Darling and dearest, we have just travelled to heaven and back this night and all you can think about is Hannah Pym!’
Belinda stretched her naked body and smiled up at him.
‘I was thinking how nice it would be if Miss Pym married Sir George Clarence.’
‘Clarence? Old stick who used to be in the diplomatic corps?’
‘Possibly. It is all very romantic, you see.’ Belinda told her husband of Hannah’s rise up through the servants’ ranks and then of that legacy. ‘And Sir George took her to tea at Gunter’s, and he has promised to show her the gardens at Thornton Hall on her return.’
‘Romance and Miss Pym do not mix. She is always practical. She thought we would suit very well and she was right, for there is more to marriage than bed, and you enchant me even when you are fully dressed.’
‘Did Lady Devine enchant you?’ asked Belinda, forgetting Hannah’s good advice.
‘She amused me and I her for a little while. That is all.’
‘Are you sure that is all?’ asked Belinda.
‘Have I not just said so?’ he demanded angrily. ‘I believed that fairy tale of yours as related by Miss Pym about the footman, and that was hard to swallow, believe me!’
‘It was all true,’ said Belinda wrathfully. ‘You are a pig and a beast. You didn’t believe me at all. You only pretended to.’
‘I am going to get dressed,’ he said in a flat voice. He swung his legs out of bed. Belinda surveyed his naked back in dismay. Tears started to her eyes. Their marriage was over before it had begun. She gave a choked sob.
He immediately turned around and then got back into bed and gathered her into her arms. ‘I am a brute, Belinda,’ he said softly. He caressed her naked breast and smiled down into her tear-filled eyes.
‘Do not let us quarrel ever again, Richard,’ said Belinda.
‘Not ever,’ he promised fervently.
But of course they did, violently and bitterly, from time to time, and so had a normal and happy marriage.
Hannah roused herself from her despair. Cold frosty nights and sunny days made fine weather for travelling, and the roads of England stretched out from London, holding excitement and adventure.
But before she left again, she would walk out of the village and along the Kensington road and look in at the grounds of Thornton Hall. Looking at the grounds and the improvements would give her something to take with her on her next journey. She would not go in through the gates but just stand and look.
She walked along in the sunlight, feeling better than she had since she left Bath. She was approaching the place where she had worked all those long years, the place
Soon she saw the familiar roofs of Thornton Hall rising above the bare branches of the trees. Trees! Hannah stopped and stared. For there had been no trees at Thornton Hall, only acres of grass kept down by a flock of sheep. Mrs Clarence had wanted a garden and had started a rose garden at the back of the house. After she had fled, Hannah had done her best to keep it in order, just in case Mrs Clarence came back, but Mrs Clarence had not come back, and gradually the weeds had encroached on the rose garden.
She walked more quickly now, until she was standing before the familiar iron gates. She looked through them in awe. An avenue of lime-trees marched all the way up to the house. There seemed to be men working everywhere – men digging over the ground, men planting – and there, supervising the work, stood the tall figure of Sir George Clarence.
All Hannah’s newfound lightness of spirits fled. He had not troubled to reply to her letter. She turned sadly away.
Something made Sir George look down the long avenue. He saw the figure of a lady at the gates, and as she turned to leave, he thought he recognized those hunting shoulders, square and sharp-edged. He gave an exclamation and said to one of the gardeners, ‘Run to the gates. There is a lady wearing a Grecian bonnet who has just left. Catch up with her, and if she be a Miss Pym, bring her back with you.’
Hannah trudged along. She did not want to go travelling again. How she had dreamt of telling him of her latest adventures. Now she had no one to tell. She felt old and alone and friendless.
‘Miss Pym!’
Hannah swung around.
A gardener came running up to her. Her gave a jerky bow and asked, ‘Be you Miss Pym?’
‘I am she,’ said Hannah.
‘Sir George wishes to speak to you, mum.’
‘Very well,’ said Hannah, not knowing that at that moment her face had become as transfigured by love as Belinda’s had been when the marquess told her he loved her.
By the time she returned to the gates with the gardener, Sir George was waiting for her, his bright-blue eyes studying her curiously. ‘What is the meaning of this, Miss Pym?’ he cried. ‘I am anxious to show you the gardens. Why did you not enter?’
‘I did not think I would be welcome,’ said Hannah, suddenly as shy as a young girl. ‘I wrote to you, sir, but you never replied to my letter.’
‘But I am just returned from the north. I have been visiting an old friend. You are not the only traveller, Miss Pym. I came straight here. But now you are here, let me show you what we are planning.’
