She was wearing her blue cloak and a very fashionable bonnet under which her short curls glowed in the sunlight.
As the hack plodded off she turned towards him, smiled shyly, and held out both her hands.
All his determination to tell her the letters were forgeries fled from his mind. He walked straight up to her and seized her hands and looked down into her face.
She stood there laughing and blushing and looking adorable.
He caught her in his arms and bent his head and kissed her and Emily kissed him back and it was all he had ever dreamt of. Senses reeling and deaf to the conventions and blind to the interested gaze of a park warden, they kissed and kissed with single-minded passion. At last he raised his head and smiled down at her. ‘Marry me,’ he said. ‘Very soon.’
‘How soon?’ demanded Emily.
‘As soon as we can. Let us go and tell your parents our news.’
Mr and Mrs Freemantle both cried with delight. Miss Cudlipp looked astounded and kept saying feebly, ‘But Mr Williams? Poor Mr Williams.’
But she was pulled from the room by Emily’s parents. The happy couple must be left alone for ten minutes to exchange their vows.
As soon as the door closed behind them, Lord Harley seized Emily in his arms and kissed her breathless. ‘Can you bear to be married to such an old man?’ he said at last.
‘You are only thirty-two,’ said Emily.
‘I am more than that, my child. I am thirty-three.’
‘But you said in your letter—’
He silenced her with another kiss and then said, ‘Do you have that letter with you?’
‘Yes, it is here in my reticule.’
‘Let me see it.’
Emily took it out and handed it over. He read it and then began to laugh. ‘The cunning old trout,’ he said.
‘Who? Oh, what are you talking about?’
‘My love, I never wrote that letter and I knew as soon as I got one supposed to come from you that you had not written it either. If I am not mistaken, both letters were sent by the interfering Miss Hannah Pym.’
‘But … but …’ said Emily desperately. ‘You came and you said you loved me … You were joking!’
‘My darling, not I. I bless Miss Pym and all her interfering ways. Kiss me again!’
Emily looked up at him nervously. In that moment, he looked a stranger, a stranger with thick black hair and black eyes and richly dressed. Then he smiled at her and her heart did a somersault. She wound her arms tightly about him as she had done in her dream and raised her face to his.
Her parents stood nervously outside the door, listening to the long silence from within. At last they opened the door. The couple were so wrapped up in each other that they did not notice them. ‘Do something,’ hissed Miss Cudlipp tearfully. ‘Poor innocent Emily!’
‘Go to your room,’ said Mr Freemantle savagely. ‘Our Emily’s growed up!’
9
Love’s like the measles – all the worse when it comes late in life.
Douglas William Jerrold
Hannah Pym was back in her two small rooms over the bakery in Kensington. She wanted to call on Sir George Clarence and recount her adventures. But how could she enjoy telling her adventures when her conscience was so sore?
She remembered getting poor little Mr Fletcher to write those letters. She had bullied him into it, although he had protested that it was surely immoral to stoop to forgery. She had eagerly studied the social columns for days now, hoping for an announcement of a wedding between Lord Harley and Miss Freemantle. Such an announcement, she felt, would lift the terrible guilt from her mind. She could then call on Sir George and plan her next expedition.
What adventures she had had! And how miserable that she could not even turn them over in her mind without coming across the great stumbling block of her own bad behaviour.
She chided herself. She had always been nosy, had always interfered in other people’s affairs. Never again. When she took her next journey on the Flying Machine, she would look at the scenery and ignore the other passengers.
The two little rooms were very dark and bleak, but she did not want to set about looking for a cottage until she had satisfied her lust for travel and adventure. But adventure to Hannah was not only travel on the stage-coach. It meant adventuring into other people’s lives. When there had been a regular staff at Thornton Hall, she had enjoyed herself immensely busying herself in their affairs. She thought of going back to look at Thornton Hall and then rejected the idea. There would be some strange caretaker and his wife in residence. There would be no one to talk to.
For the first time in her busy life, Hannah began to feel lonely. She put on her cloak and hat and went out into Kensington Village and spent far too much on two bunches of spring flowers, lately arrived from the Channel Islands, to give her drab living quarters some colour.
But once the flowers were arranged in vases, she began to feel cheered.
And then there came a knock at the door. She wondered who it could be. The baker had been paid rent in advance.
She smoothed down her gown and opened the door and then fell back a pace.
Lord Harley and Emily Freemantle stood on the threshold.
The entrance was dim and Hannah’s sharp eyes scanned their faces hopefully, but both were looking solemn and severe.
‘Come in, Miss Freemantle, my lord,’ said Hannah nervously. She raked the fire to a glowing red and put a kettle on it. ‘You will take tea?’
‘We should be furious with you, Miss Pym,’ said Lord Harley, ‘and you know why.’
It was no use trying to pretend otherwise. ‘How did you know?’ asked Hannah miserably.
‘Because I would not write such fustian, and neither would Miss Freemantle.’
Hannah’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Pray forgive me,’ she said. ‘You both seemed to be very suited, and I thought …’
She gave a pathetic little sob.
‘Put her out of her misery,’ said Emily with a laugh, and Hannah looked at the girl’s glowing face, hope dawning on her own.
‘Yes, you travelling matchmaker,’ said Lord Harley. ‘Your plan worked. We are come to invite you to our wedding.’
‘Oh, my lord,’ gasped Hannah. ‘It is more than I deserve. When is the marriage to take place?’
‘In three months’ time,’ said Emily. ‘You will receive an invitation very shortly.’
To Emily’s consternation Hannah sat down suddenly and began to cry in earnest. ‘I have been feeling so guilty,’ said Hannah, mopping her eyes. ‘So very guilty. I forced poor Mr Fletcher to write those letters for me, and when I went to say goodbye to him at the inn, he could barely bring himself to speak to me.’
‘Poor Miss Pym,’ said Lord Harley. ‘Now what about some tea?’
Hannah busied herself making a pot of tea and then ran down to the baker’s to buy cakes. By the time she returned, Lord Harley and Emily were wrapped in each other’s arms. She retreated to the passage and coughed loudly and then walked in again.
The couple were once more apart and Emily began to talk about their adventures at the inn. Lord Harley said that Mr Hendry’s background had been discovered. He had been an apothecary’s assistant in London and had been trying to court his master’s daughter. The apothecary had sent him packing and discovered after Mr Hendry had left that he had stolen money from the shop and a quantity of drugs. ‘Will he hang?’ asked Hannah uneasily. In an age of mass hangings that were always well attended, it was surprising the number of people who loathed the very idea of that ultimate punishment.
‘I do not think so,’ said Lord Harley. ‘I believe he will be transported.’ The couple then began to talk generally of their adventures. Hannah joined in, but after a while Lord Harley and Emily seemed only to want to turn over and over again how they first came to fall in love, and Hannah felt excluded from the glowing circle that seemed to surround the happy pair.