He left behind a shocked silence. ‘Well done!’ said Lord Harley suddenly, smiling at Emily. ‘If you had not found that scrap of paper, we would have been hard put to find evidence against him.’
‘Shall we all need to stay here until the trial?’ asked Emily.
‘No,’ said Lord Harley. ‘I shall take along that piece of paper and the letter as evidence and I will send my lawyer to be present at the trial.’
‘Reckon that letter-writing thing was all a hoax,’ said Mrs Bradley.
‘I’m afraid it was,’ said Lord Harley, ‘and so I shall give a guinea to you, one to Mr Burridge, one to our coachman, and one to the guard.’
‘Don’t Miss Freemantle get anything?’ asked Mrs Bradley. ‘Seeing as how it was her quick wits what trapped the fellow.’
‘I think Miss Freemantle will consider a journey home in a comfortable post-chaise reward enough,’ said Lord Harley.
They sat up late that night, talking over the attempted murder. Lizzie and Mr Fletcher entered and the whole tale had to be told over again.
‘Are you sure it will be safe to travel on tomorrow?’ Hannah asked the coachman. ‘Despite the good drying wind you described, such a quantity of snow will surely produce floods.’
‘We’ll get through all right,’ said the coachman, who, like most of his breed, was never happier than when seated up on the box. The prolonged inactivity at the inn was beginning to irk him.
‘We shall not be going on,’ said Lizzie quietly. ‘I see no reason to go to Exeter. Mr Fletcher and I will stay here until he has fully recovered his strength and then take the up coach back to London.’
‘It’s a hard business when a respectable man like me should first be accused of attacking that fellow and then have his promised bride go off with him,’ said the captain.
‘Mrs Bisley has made her choice,’ remarked Lord Harley, ‘and I suggest you accept it with good grace.’
‘I’ve never been so shoddily treated,’ grumbled the captain. ‘And now that the staff are back at the inn, I don’t see as how a gentleman like myself should be expected to dine at the same table as a coachman, a guard and an outsider.’
‘Now there ain’t no call for you to get uppity.’ Mrs Bradley looked into her basket as if hoping to find a medicine to cure snobbery. ‘Here’s his lordship, turned his hand to everything to help, while you sat about doing nothing. I know we don’t normally dine with them outsiders, but things is different this time.’
The outsiders, that is, the passengers who travelled on the roof, were always looked down on by the insiders, and landlords had learned never to put them at the same table. Mr Burridge, who was seated next to Captain Seaton, edged his chair away. ‘Would never dawn on you that I might be pertickler over which company I keep.’
‘It looks as if we shall have the carriage all to ourselves and the captain,’ said Hannah to Mrs Bradley. She turned to the coachman. ‘Surely you could allow Mr Burridge to travel inside with us until you take up more passengers?’
But here the coachman dug in his heels. The outsider had only paid an outsider’s fare, and there was no way he was going to allow Mr Burridge to travel on the inside.
They were all separating already, thought Hannah gloomily. Rank and pecking order were asserting themselves. And what of Emily and Lord Harley? He barely looked at her. Now that the staff were all back, there was no cozy kitchen to which to retreat for private confidences.
Lord Harley rose to his feet. ‘I am going to walk to the livery stables to make sure a post-chaise will be ready for the morning.’
‘I need a breath of fresh air,’ said Hannah quickly, ‘I shall accompany you.’ She ran to fetch her bonnet and cloak.
But as she walked through the slush to the livery stables, Hannah found Lord Harley rather distant and uncommunicative. Once more she felt like a servant and thought that any probing about his feelings for Emily might be treated as presumption.
After Lord Harley had ordered the post-chaise and they were returning to the inn, Hannah could not bear it any longer and said impulsively, ‘I feel Miss Freemantle’s parents had the right of it. You would make a very suitable couple.’
‘The difference in age and experience is too great,’ he said, his voice seeming to come from a great height.
‘But—’
‘Miss Freemantle does not love me, nor I her. Now let that be an end of the matter, Miss Pym.’
Hannah stroked the expensive material of her cloak, almost as if to reassure herself she was no longer a servant. He turned and faced her at the inn door. ‘I am grateful to you, Miss Pym,’ he said, ‘for all the help you have given, for all the meals you have cooked, and for your bravery and gallantry.’
Hannah looked up at him, bewildered at the sudden compliment. He smiled down at her and then stooped and kissed her lightly on the cheek.
It was a crying shame, thought Hannah, as he held open the inn door for her, that he could not, or would not, marry Emily Freemantle.
‘Please tell Miss Freemantle that we leave at six o’clock in the morning,’ said Lord Harley.
‘Would you not like to tell her yourself?’ suggested Hannah, faint but pursuing.
‘I see no need for that. Good night, Miss Pym.’
Emily was getting ready for bed when Hannah entered the Blue Room. ‘Lord Harley has hired a post-chaise and he will be ready to escort you to London at six o’clock in the morning,’ said Hannah.
‘Very well,’ said Emily in a quiet little voice. ‘As you can see, I have already packed. I suppose I had better wear that woollen dress again. I am sick of the sight of it.’
‘Never mind,’ said Hannah. ‘You will soon be back with your parents.’
‘Yes.’ Emily looked bleak.
Hannah awoke at five o’clock and busied herself getting dressed and then roused Emily. Emily herself dressed very quickly and Hannah noticed the girl did not pay any particular attention to her appearance.
She followed Emily down to the dining-room. There was no sign of Lord Harley. The landlord served Emily with toast and tea and told her that Lord Harley was already outside and waiting.
Feeling very low and sad, Hannah followed Emily out of the inn. Emily stood with one little foot on the step of the post-chaise. Lord Harley, already mounted on a large black mare, was waiting alongside.
‘May I have your address in London, Miss Pym?’ asked Emily. ‘I would like to write to you.’
‘Of course. One moment.’ Hannah ran back into the inn and came out with a sheet of paper and a lead pencil. She tore the paper in half and wrote her address on one piece and then said, ‘And your address, Miss Freemantle?’
As Emily wrote it down, Hannah called up to Lord Harley. ‘And where might you be found, my lord?’
She waited anxiously for his reply, half expecting a snub. ‘St James’s Square,’ he said. ‘Number twenty-seven.’
Emily handed over her address and climbed into the post-chaise. Hannah waved as the carriage drove off and then turned away sadly, for Emily had had tears in her eyes.
The coachman lumbered out and said he would be hitching up a team and would be obliged if Miss Pym could hurry the others up, as they had just started their breakfast.
But Hannah collected more sheets of paper and pen and ink from the taproom, where they had been left lying from the night before. She went into the Red Room and gently shook Mr Fletcher awake.
‘I need your help,’ she told the startled lawyer. ‘I have letters to write and do not have either the education or the necessary delicacy.’
Mrs Bradley was disappointed in Hannah Pym. The captain had not joined them. He had decided to stay at the inn and wait for the next coach back to London. Mrs Bradley and Hannah were therefore alone inside the coach as far as Salisbury, where they took up more passengers, but Miss Hannah Pym turned out to be a sadly silent companion. Even when they had to drive through a flood and the water came up as far as the windows, Hannah remained silent and morose.