‘They are my brother’s. He is at sea. He is much older than I – twenty-five – and these are the clothes he wore when he was my age. He had not thrown them away.’
Emily yawned. ‘You had best get to bed,’ said Hannah, her mind racing. ‘You do have women’s clothes with you?’
‘Yes, in my trunk. I only have this one suit of men’s clothes and two clean shirts and neckcloths and two pairs of small-clothes and unmentionables.’
The door opened and two waiters came in bearing their trunks. Emily had two enormous trunks that made Hannah’s one serviceable trunk look modest.
Hannah tipped the waiters and then threw open the lid of her trunk and took out the clothes that had become soiled in the stream in Knightsbridge. ‘I will just take these down to the kitchen and see if anyone knows how to clean and press them,’ said Hannah.
Emily rose and yawned and staggered slightly. ‘I feel quite drunk,’ she said with a giggle.
Hannah picked up her soiled clothes and went down to the kitchen. Mrs Silvers, the landlord’s wife, was giving instructions to the cook. She took the clothes from Hannah and said she would see that the linen was washed and that the mud was brushed from the other items when they were dry, for they were all still damp from their soaking. Hannah then regaled the landlord’s wife with a vivid account of her adventures. Mrs Silvers listened open- mouthed and then ran to fetch her husband, and Hannah had to tell her story all over again. The landlord was greatly intrigued and said she told a rare tale. Producing a bottle of French brandy, he poured Hannah a measure. Hannah was beginning to feel like a sot. After a lifetime of abstinence, she seemed to be making up for it all in a short space of time.
But the brandy, instead of making her feel sleepy, seemed to activate her busy brain more.
She returned to the Blue Room. Emily was in bed and asleep, looking young and defenceless. Her discarded clothes were scattered all over the room.
Not a bad child, thought Hannah, but thoroughly spoilt. How amazing the amount of damage that can be done by one silly governess. She moved about picking up the clothes. Emily’s trunks were open. On the top of one was a man’s shirt and clean neckcloth. Hannah picked the shirt up and took it over to the fire, where a lamp was still burning on a side-table. It was ruffled and of the finest cambric. She returned to the trunk and without a shred of conscience searched its contents. She was relieved to find that Emily had spoken the truth. There were only a few items of men’s clothing. The rest was an assortment of beautiful gowns and underwear. Apart from Emily’s two trunks, there was a large hat box, lying open, hats spilling over the floor. Hannah clucked in irritation and carried them over to the wardrobe and put them on the capacious upper shelf. Among the hats was the man’s wig. No doubt Emily had meant to use it as part of her disguise and had cut her hair short instead. Hannah carried it to a wig-stand and then studied it. It was a fine wig of real hair, white and curled and tied at the back with a black silk ribbon.
She returned to Emily’s trunks and took out dresses and pelisses and mantles and hung them away and then arranged the underwear in the top half of the chest of drawers. Then she opened her own modest trunk and put her own things away. She carried her hairbrush and pin-box to the toilet table. It was already crammed with silver- topped bottles of lotions and creams, brushes, combs and bone pins, Emily having unpacked her toilet things. The towels were damp and had been thrown on the floor, and it appeared Emily had used up both cans of hot water.
Hannah rang the bell and gave the chambermaid the empty cans and basin of dirty water and the soiled towels and asked for a replacement.
She kept on working until everything was put away and the trunks and bandbox stowed under the bed. The maid returned with fresh towels and hot water. Hannah knew that such luxuries would be put on the bill and was determined Emily should pay for them.
Her gaze fell on that wig, gleaming whitely on the wig-stand. She picked it up, then a clean neckcloth, and then the cambric shirt, and made her way downstairs and asked where she might find the lawyer, Mr Fletcher. She was told he was sharing the Red Room – ‘Top of the stairs and turn left’ – with Lord Harley.
Hannah went up to the Red Room and, forgetting that she was no longer a servant but a guest at the inn, failed to knock, but simply turned the handle and opened the door.
There was a squawk of dismay from Mr Fletcher. The lawyer was stark naked, sitting in a hip-bath in front of the fire. Lord Harley was scrubbing his back.
Hannah retreated.
She waited outside the door, and after a few moments Lord Harley came out and closed the door behind him. ‘What is it, Miss Pym? And do you never knock?’
The answer to that was, ‘No, good servants never knock,’ but Hannah had no intention of letting Lord Harley or anyone else know she had been a servant.
‘I am sorry, my lord,’ said Hannah. ‘I am sleepy and forgot.’
He thought she looked remarkably wide awake, and was further amazed that the sight of a naked man had not even raised a blush to this spinster’s cheek. He could not know that Hannah was accustomed, from her days in the lower ranks of servants, to coming across gentlemen in the buff.
Hannah held out the wig, shirt, and neckcloth. ‘Miss Freemantle will not be needing these items, and I thought Mr Fletcher might appreciate a fresh change of shirt and perhaps a new wig. Mr Fletcher is thin and Miss Freemantle is slim and I felt sure the shirt would fit.’
Lord Harley’s lips curled in amusement. Poor Mr Fletcher. There had been no doubt that Mr Fletcher was slightly ripe. Lord Harley had cajoled him into taking a bath, not wanting to share the bed with a smelly stranger. ‘You had best give these things to me,’ he said, opening the door again to enter. ‘Tact is called for. Wait there.’
‘I have come upon some fresh articles of clothing,’ said Lord Harley, putting shirt, wig and neckcloth on a chair beside the bath. ‘Pray give me your soiled linen and I will take it to the kitchen for washing.’
‘Very well,’ said Mr Fletcher, trying to cover himself modestly with a large bar of soap. ‘But these things were washed last month.’
‘Another washing won’t harm them,’ said Lord Harley. ‘Do you have fresh linen?’
‘In my trunk,’ said Mr Fletcher, feeling like a schoolboy.
Lord Harley searched in it and found items which he noticed were actually fresh and clean. He scooped up Mr Fletcher’s discarded underwear and shirt. ‘Do not wait up for me,’ he ordered. ‘Leave the bath and I shall send a couple of waiters up to take it away.’
Mr Fletcher nodded dumbly. He was not insulted. He thought this bathing thing was a mad foible of the aristocracy, but he was too overwhelmed at the honour of being looked after by a real-live lord to protest.
Lord Harley went out and joined Hannah on the landing. ‘I will take these from you,’ said Hannah briskly.
‘No, I shall come with you. It is early yet.’
He followed Hannah to the kitchen and watched as she gave orders for the clothes to be washed and pointed to a couple of minute tears and asked that they might be stitched.
‘Put it on my bill,’ said Lord Harley to the landlord, who was sitting at the kitchen table eating a late supper. Hannah stifled a sigh of relief. She was thrifty by nature and her recent elevation to the ranks of the middle class had made her realize that five thousand pounds had to be guarded carefully. ‘Is there anyone in the coffee room?’ Lord Harley asked.
‘No, your honour,’ said the landlord, Mr Silvers. ‘They’s all abed.’
‘Then have a bottle of brandy sent up. Miss Pym and I have much to discuss.’
Hannah’s eyes flashed green with excitement. But although she was happy to let the thought of drinking brandy with a lord go to her head, she was worried about the effects of so much alcohol, and when they were seated in the coffee room before the fire, she asked for only a little to be poured for her.
The wind howled ferociously outside, and snow whispered busily against the glass of the bay window that overlooked the courtyard of the inn.
‘Nasty weather,’ said Lord Harley. ‘I fear it will be a few days before any of us can move.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ said Hannah happily. She felt she had walked out of the wings on to the centre stage for the first time in her life. There was so very much to interest her in the other guests.
‘Now to Miss Freemantle,’ said Lord Harley, stretching out his booted legs to the fire. They were very handsome legs, Hannah noticed. Hannah firmly believed that any gentleman with good legs was set for life. No one
