social events whilst we are staying with Mr. Hatton. So make sure, my dear, that you have at least two of your best dresses with you. I will send Martha now to help you, so that we are ready to leave in the morning soon after breakfast. She can do my trunk after yours.”
The weather proved to be rather grey as they left Bath the next day. It had rained during the night, and the carriage wheels kept slipping on the cobbled surface as the horses pulled the carriage towards the bridge over the River Avon. Julia gazed wide-eyed at the poorly dressed people at this end of the city, for she had heard that it was the rougher part of town, and Aunt Lucy had warned her not to venture there on her own.
“You see what I meant, Julia?”
She did indeed, although to assume that everyone who was rather poorly dressed must be unpleasant or threatening seemed to Julia to be going rather too far.
“Have you ever come to this end of Bath, Martha?” asked Julia.
“Yes, Miss, but never on my own, and only during the day time. I would not risk it at night, for I have heard some terrible tales of robbery.”
“And worse,” said Aunt Lucy.
The locality did not seem much improved on the other side of the river, as the carriage passed by the mean houses huddled together along the street, and was pulled by the horses up the Holloway Hill on the far side of the city.
However, once beyond the edge of Bath, the dilapidated yellow stone houses gave way to open green fields as they made their way along the Wells Road and on through pleasant countryside and then down the slope into Norton Radstock. There they stopped to rest the horses for a few minutes at the coaching inn.
Whilst they waited, Martha ventured to say that her elder brother Jem had worked in the town.
“What does he do?” asked Julia.
“He is a coal miner, Miss. There has been mining in the area in Somerset, especially around Radstock, for a long time. Those strange pointed hills that you can see over there are not natural; they are made from the coal waste.”
Julia was surprised, for she had not realised that there was any mining in Somerset. She looked at the conical shapes with interest, for she was familiar with coal mining near Derby, for fluorspar for decorative objects and iron smelting on the Brandons’ land near Cressborough Castle, and in the lead mines on other estates nearby in Derbyshire.
“Is your brother working here now, Martha?”
“No, Miss, he has got a new job with some of the other men. They are busy down by the coast. But I don’t know exactly where. He only comes back home every month or so. But my mother says that he’s getting good money.”
Aunt Lucy looked at her maid with surprise, then at Julia, raising her eyebrows in disbelief. But she didn’t say anything until they stopped for the night at an inn near Yeovil, and she came into Julia’s bedchamber to make sure that she was comfortable for the night.
“Martha must have got that wrong, Julia, about her brother, I mean, for I don’t know of any mining taking place down near the coast. She’s a nice girl, but not always very bright.”
Sometimes her aunt could be rather dogmatic, thought Julia, just like Mama. Martha seemed to her to be as bright as anyone in her aunt’s employment.
The following morning, the weather seemed better and the carriage made good progress past Yeovil and towards Halstock. The colour of the local stone in the buildings now was tinged with brown amongst the yellow, and most of the roofs were thatched, although many were in a state of disrepair. The tumbled green fields were so small that Julia thought that they must be quite difficult to farm, but the wild hedgerows seemed to be full of singing birds as they passed by, with some of the branches almost meeting across the narrow lanes above the top of the carriage.
Julia had brought a book with her for the journey, but trying to read as the carriage shook from side to side on the rough surface was almost impossible. Aunt Lucy dozed fitfully opposite her. Martha gripped the seat rather tightly with her hands, and just managed to smile at Julia.
“I was interested in what you mentioned yesterday about your brother, Martha. Did you say he was down here, mining near the coast?”
“I didn’t say mining, Miss, for I don’t know exactly what Jem’s doing. Only that he and some of his mates were offered work with very good pay at the end of last year, and he’s been down there ever since. I haven’t seen him on any of my days off since then.”
“Do you have any other family, Martha?”
“Yes, Miss. My widowed mother still lives in Radstock with the younger children, but my elder sister is married. She and her husband have a cottage in a village near Gloucester, to the northwest near the River Severn. And one of my younger brothers is working in a woollen mill, and he lives with an aunt in Trowbridge, a few miles to the east of Bath.”
The carriage stopped to rest the horses for a few minutes at the Fox Inn, hidden in the green valley at Corscombe, before making its way up the narrow lane beyond to reach the crossroads with the main route from the county town of Dorchester at the top of the hill. Once safely across, they continued for about a mile across Beaminster Down. Then the coachman asked them to alight and walk behind the carriage for the next mile to lighten the load, as he held back the horses and drove with great care down the long steep slope. At the foot of the hill, they took their seats again and the carriage continued on a little further before they reached the centre of the small stone-built town of Beaminster. There, the carriage paused opposite the stone cross that indicated the location for the market. All around the centre of the little town square, honey-coloured hamstone houses with thatched roofs and shop fronts at ground-floor level were crowded together side by side with several inns, and all was bustle and activity in the market as the local people went about their business.
“Not far to go now, Miss,” confided Martha, who had seen the directions to Morancourt given by Mr. Hatton, “only about three miles.”
“Over there on the right is the Greyhound Inn, behind the market cross, Julia,” said Aunt Lucy. “I will ask the coachman to fetch us all a glass of cordial. My throat is very parched.”
The cool liquid was very welcome and, as soon as the tray and the glasses had been returned to the inn, the carriage set off on its way out of the square on the last stage of their journey.
Once they had left the edge of the town, the carriage plunged into yet another lane deeply set between the field boundaries on each side. Passing only the occasional cottage alongside the track, the surface was uneven and the route twisted and turned, up and down, until at last the wheels came to a stop. Julia looked out of the carriage window to see two tall old stone pillars framing a pair of worn wooden gates, with a thatched cottage on one side. The coachman got down from his perch and walked forwards to speak to someone standing by the gates, and slowly they were opened to let the carriage through.
To her surprise, they stopped on the far side, and a familiar voice could be heard speaking to the coachman. Then Mr. Hatton walked across to the carriage window.
“Mrs. Harrison, Miss Maitland, welcome to Morancourt! You have made very good time today,” He smiled at Julia through the window. “I will ride ahead now, but you will see the manor house on the left as you go down the drive.”
She could hear the clatter of the stirrups as he mounted his horse, and the sound of the hooves on the gravel, before the carriage lurched again into motion along the drive.
After a short interval, they negotiated a bend and there beyond was the house set back behind a rough lawn. On one side, the steep roof was thatched over old stone gables, with the walls pierced by wide mullioned timber windows at ground- and upper-floor levels. On the other side, in a wing three storeys’ high of more recent date, the stone lintols were intricately carved over tall windows set into deep reveals in the walls above wide stone sills. The front door was set in a porch between the two wings, with a worn stone coat of arms just visible above the entrance. The low garden walls on each side of the house were almost invisible, buried in a tangle of flowers and shrubs. Behind them, there were glimpses of parkland through trellis arches and a fence woven from tree branches.
Once the carriage had stopped moving, Aunt Lucy eased herself with relief up from her seat and, helped by a footman, descended rather unsteadily down the carriage steps. Julia, followed by Martha, joined her at the front door, where Mr. Hatton was waiting for them with another footman standing beside him.
