1
Go call a coach, and let the man be call’d,
And let the man who calls it be the caller;
And to his calling let him nothing call,
But Coach, Coach, Coach! O for a Coach, Ye Gods!
Henry Carey
Hannah Pym stood by the drawing-room window of Thornton Hall and waited for the stage-coach to go by.
Thornton Hall was a large square building, rather like a huge doll’s house, with a drive that led down to the Kensington Road. There were no formal gardens or trees at the front, only lawns cropped short by sheep, with the arrow-straight drive running down to tall wrought-iron gates flanked by stone gateposts topped with stone eagles.
It was six o’clock on a winter’s morning and a low moon was shining. During the night, the wind had blown a light fall of snow into scalloped shapes across the lawns.
Hannah tugged open one of the long windows which led out on to a shelf of a balcony guarded by a wrought-iron railing. She walked out, and listened.
Then she heard it, the thud of hooves, and hung on to the rail and peered down the drive.
‘Here she comes,’ she whispered.
And bowling along the Kensington Road came the stage-coach, the Flying Machine, pulled by six powerful horses. She felt that breathless excitement which the sight of the stage-coach always gave her and lifted her hand and waved. The groom raised the yard of tin and blew a merry salute. The passengers on the roof were clutching their hats. How loud the horses’ hooves were on the hard ground. What speed! And then the stage-coach was gone, taking life and adventure away into the darkness and leaving behind the bleak winter scene.
Hannah gave a little sigh and stepped inside and closed the window behind her.
Time was, she thought, when she had been too busy and happy to need the excitement of watching the stage-coach go by. That was when the mistress, Mrs Clarence, had been in residence: pretty, frivolous Mrs Clarence, filling the house with parties and friends and flowers and colour and light. But Mrs Clarence had run off with a footman just after Hannah had achieved her life’s ambition and been made housekeeper.
Then a sort of darkness had fallen, for Mr Clarence had gone into a gloomy decline. Half the rooms were locked up, half the servants were dismissed and poor Hannah felt she was presiding at a perpetual funeral. That was when she began to wait for the stage-coach to go by, needing the sight of all that motion and life to raise her spirits. And then at last, she found she was supervising the arrangements for a real funeral. Mr Clarence had died just after Christmas.
In that year of 1800, the stage-coaches were advertised as Flying Machines. To Hannah they stood for everything that was missing from her now dark and bleak life: adventure, other worlds, hope, life and laughter.
But she could remember happy times before Mrs Clarence had run away, oh, so long ago, when life had been busy and exciting. At the age of twelve, she had left her parents’ home in Hammersmith and entered into service in Thornton Hall, the Clarences’ residence. She had worked hard to become a kitchen maid, then a between-stairs maid, then chambermaid, then housemaid, then chief housemaid, and had finally been exalted to the position of housekeeper. There had been servants’ parties, she remembered, especially at Christmas, when Mrs Clarence and her husband would descend to the servants’ hall and Mrs Clarence would dance with the menservants and Mr Clarence with the maids.
Hannah left the drawing-room and went down to the kitchens and made tea. She had always risen early, being one of those rare people who need very little sleep. She liked being up before the other servants to enjoy a little bit of peace and quiet on her own.
She was worried. She was forty-five, a great age, nearly old. It would be hard to find another position as housekeeper. In making the arrangements for the funeral and coping with the Clarence relatives who had descended like vultures, she had not had time to seek another post. She had only a little money saved. ‘And that,’ said Hannah Pym aloud, ‘is your own fault.’ Hannah could not help interfering in other people’s lives. There had been money given to servant girls to help them get out of trouble, somewhere to go and stay until the babies were born. There had been money given to a footman to go to university and make a new start, for he had been a bright, sensitive lad, hopeless as a footman. There had been money – Hannah winced – given to that under-butler who had proposed marriage to her. He had said he would go and purchase a cottage with her savings and had never come back. But now she was older and wiser and could often see through people and, besides, there was no use regretting the past.
The relatives, who had mercifully left for a few days after the funeral, were ready to descend again for the reading of the will. Sir George Clarence, Mr Clarence’s brother, would be there this time, thought Hannah, and there would be someone to take charge. Sir George had been abroad in the diplomatic service for a long time and had returned to England only recently. She remembered him vaguely as being a rather austere and cold man. She felt sure Mr Clarence would not have remembered her in his will, although she was the last of the old servants. Since Mrs Clarence had left, the house had become too gloomy to attract regular staff, and a bewildering variety of maids and footmen had come and gone. It had been years since there had been a butler, that job having been added to Hannah’s by the seemingly uncaring Mr Clarence.
The morning was busy with preparations for the reading of the will. A cold collation was to be served to the relatives in the dining-room about two o’clock. At four, they would adjourn to the library, where Mr Entwhistle of Entwhistle, Barker & Timms would read the will.
For a short while it was heart-breakingly like old times, with fires in the rooms and bustle and hurry. Hannah in her black gown and with her keys at her waist went here and there, running her fingers over ledges to make sure there was not a trace of dust, plumping up cushions, checking coal scuttles to make sure they were full, filling cans with hot water, arranging flowers, and giving a final polish to the brass and steel of fenders. Then, with the one remaining footman and two housemaids beside her, she waited in the hall for the arrival of the relatives.
First came Mrs Jessop, the late Mr Clarence’s sister, a small, fussy woman with her thin and whining husband and their three children, all boys in their teens, and spoilt, in Hannah’s opinion, beyond repair. Then there was a fluttering of cousins, spinster ladies, gossiping and complaining about the cold. Then Mr Clarence’s other brother, Peter, a fat, jolly man with a ferocious laugh and a weakness for practical jokes, his wife, Freda, fat also, but languid and a professional invalid, and their seven children of various ages.
And then arrived Sir George Clarence. He was a tall, spare man in his fifties with white hair, a hawklike face, and piercing blue eyes. He was impeccably dressed in a blue swallowtail coat and darker blue knee-breeches with striped stockings and buckled shoes, the splendour of which was revealed when the footman relieved him of his many-caped greatcoat.
‘How are you, Miss Pym?’ he asked, and Hannah flushed with pleasure because he had remembered her name. She had never adopted the courtesy title of ‘Mrs’, like most housekeepers and cooks, and he had remembered that too.
She supervised the serving of the cold collation. Bedrooms had been prepared, although no one but Sir George was staying the night, because she knew the guests would like somewhere to retire.
Then when the ladies had gone through to the drawing-room and the men were left to their wine, she went down to the hall to greet the lawyer, Mr Entwhistle.