I remember looking at my shadow and wondering if it hadn’t taken my soul from me, for never had I been more absent from myself than I was in the days following Lord B’s death. The house that had vibrated with him felt abandoned, as if its very walls had no idea what to make of the silence. The wolfhounds dilly-dallied about and I could hardly think how to move one leg in front of the other. I wrote to Hope and then to Queenie to tell them what had happened. Their replies arrived on the same day as a letter from Mr Ainsley requesting that I leave his uncle’s house immediately. I had expected nothing different. Defeated by the letter, I wondered if I shouldn’t act on it straightaway.
Mr Merritt, steadfast as always, said that his lordship would have been most disappointed if I did not attend his funeral. We agreed that arrangements would be made for me to leave afterwards.
On the morning of the burial, my trunks were already packed when Mr Ainsley and his wife arrived unacceptably early, too early to be considered polite. They dismissed all the preparations that had been made by Mr Merritt and myself and complained that they had not been consulted. Despite the parson’s insufferable whining Mr Merritt showed not a flicker of annoyance.
The funeral took place in the afternoon. The wind blew and leaves fell, golden tears to rest upon his grave. Lord B was buried in the family vault alongside his lady. Many came to pay their respects and Mr and Mrs Ainsley did their best to receive as many courteous condolences as came their way. Mr Ainsley purposely ignored me, no doubt hoping others would be led by his good example. No one thought it an example worth following.
Afterwards, with the help of my maid, I changed into my travelling gown underneath which I hid about my person all the jewels and the money his lordship had given me. I took a last look round the chamber and went down to the hall, carrying Boozey in his cage. The chariot had pulled up on the gravel drive at the front of the house and my trunks were already strapped to the roof. I was about to say my farewells to Mr Merritt and the other staff when Mr Ainsley came into the hall.
Not addressing me, he said to Mr Merritt, ‘That is his lordship’s carriage, is it not?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Mr Merritt.
‘Then what is it doing outside? Did I order a carriage? I did not.’
‘It is for Miss Truegood, sir,’ said Mr Merritt.
‘That woman is quite capable of going by stagecoach,’ said Mr Ainsley, still ignoring me. ‘It is far more appropriate to her station. Send the carriage back to the stables.’
In exactly the same tone as he always spoke, his voice never rising or falling, his temper never wavering, Mr Merritt said, ‘Until Mr Attaway has read his lordship’s will, all the arrangements that were put in place before his lordship’s death will be carried out to the letter.’
‘Are you disobeying my orders?’ asked Mr Ainsley, his lips pinched tight together, giving him the appearance of a rather ugly girl. He stamped his foot. ‘You had better watch your step, Merritt.’
Seeing that Mr Merritt was unmoved by his threat, Mr Ainsley turned so red that I thought he might well burst.
‘Witch,’ he hissed at me. ‘You should be burned.’
Mr Merritt took no notice and walked me to the coach, while from the safety of the house, Mr Ainsley shouted again, and louder, ‘Witch!’
‘I am sorry that he will be your new master, Mr Merritt,’ I said. ‘I think you would have fared better if Lord B had left his estate to his dogs.’
‘My lady,’ said Mr Merritt, bowing deeply, ‘it has been a pleasure to know you.’
Biting on the inside of my cheek so as not to cry I was relieved when, with a jolt, we set off.
I suppose it was a dangerous undertaking, maybe even foolhardy, to travel with so much jewellery and money on my person. I should have been far more concerned than I was, but perhaps not caring a jot was, ironically, my greatest weapon for we were indeed stopped upon the King’s Highway. It was approaching nine o’clock when the coach ran into trouble and the wheels became stuck firm in the mud. The footman helped me from the carriage and I stood on the side of the windswept highway while by the light of the postilions’ lanterns, he and the coachman pulled the wheels free. I was so lost in my own thoughts that I was totally unaware of a horseman coming up alongside us. Only when I saw the rider did I realise we were in danger. He wore a three-cornered hat, a kerchief across his nose and mouth and held a pistol.
‘Take down the trunks,’ said the highwayman.
‘No,’ I said, emphatically. ‘No.’
‘Madam, I advise you to keep quiet if you want to live.’
‘The trouble is,’ I said, ‘I’m not sure that I do. But I am positive that you will not take one shoe buckle from me while I am alive.’
The highwayman waved me aside with his pistol and again ordered the footman to take down the luggage.
‘Leave it where it is,’ I said and moved in front of the coachman, standing so that the highwayman would be forced to shoot me before anyone else.
‘Madam,’ pleaded the footman, ‘he will kill us all if we don’t do what he says.’
The highwayman hadn’t yet dismounted, which I, knowing nothing about these robberies, took to be a good sign. I could see that I was proving something of a conundrum for he appeared uncertain how to proceed. I can well imagine that he didn’t often encounter such determined resistance as mine – for I meant every word I said.
‘Your ring, madam,’ he said.
‘No,’ I said. ‘The same principle applies: you will have to shoot me first. There’s no other way you’re going to have it or anything else of mine.’
The highwayman laughed.
I took that as a cue to make our exit. ‘Is the carriage ready?’ I asked the shaking coachman.
The poor man looked as if he was about to piss himself. ‘Yes, my lady.’
‘Then take your position for we are leaving.’
‘If you move I will fire,’ said the highwayman.
‘Then I have the measure of you, sir,’ I said, turning my back on him, ‘for it shows you to be a complete coward. If you are to kill me, do it face to face.’
I climbed unaided into the coach and called to the coachman, ‘Drive on.’
Suffice to say we were not shot at and the highwayman did not come after us. I thought it best to find an inn for the night so that everyone might recover their wits. It had begun to rain when we reached the next staging post. Another carriage stood in the courtyard. We entered to find that all the rooms had been taken by a French lady and her daughter, who were in the back parlour with a constable for they too had met with a highwayman. I left my coachman and went into the parlour in the hope that I might persuade the French lady to relinquish one of the chambers for my use.
She was a small, birdlike woman. Her clothes were in a sorry state and her face was caked in mud. In her hand she held her false curls; the young lady with her was clutching a rosary. She was deathly pale and her gown was torn.
‘We were robbed. I lost everything – and my curls – look what the monster did,’ said the French lady shaking her false hair at the constable. ‘We were in fear of our lives.’
As she said most of this in French, the poor man understood very little.
‘Please, madam, speak more slowly – and in English,’ he said.
‘We were in fear of our lives, mon dieu.’ Turning to her daughter she said, ‘This is a terrible country. We should not have gone to Bath – it is a dirty, provincial place with houses that look like hospitals. Even the baths themselves were dirty – like the English. This is a country of barbarians.’
She stopped when she saw me, and I curtsied and asked her in French to explain what had befallen them. It seemed that the same highwayman we had encountered had collected a fair prize from this lady.
‘We were robbed of everything, everything I tell you. I have nothing left.’
‘Then, madam,’ I asked, ‘how do you intend to pay for all the chambers you have taken?’
The poor woman hadn’t thought of that and it set off another bout of protesting that she wanted to be home, away from these savages.
‘Maman,’ said her daughter, ‘calm yourself.’
At least she possessed some manners, which her mother was most decidedly lacking.
The innkeeper burst into the parlour. ‘Is it true, madam,’ he said to me, ‘that you too were attacked on the highway?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘And everything taken?’ asked the lady.
‘Nothing,’ I said.
‘Nothing?’ she said, outraged. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Whether you believe me or not, I need a chamber for the night and have the means to pay for it. As you have nothing, I’m afraid you will have to rely on my charity.’
Every inch of her bristled. I could see she was a woman who was rarely defeated. Her daughter was still fingering her rosary and muttering Hail Marys. I was too exhausted to be bothered further with their drama. They struck me as tiresome women.
The next morning, I breakfasted, settled my bill and that of the French ladies and, as soon as it was light, set off again. As we journeyed towards London on that sad October day, I had time to contemplate all that had passed and all that lay ahead. I had enough money to be independent of Queenie and the notion of renting rooms in St James’s had a certain charm. I may well have been tempted if it hadn’t been for the spectre of my ne’er-do-well husband, Captain Spiggot, who cast a long shadow over any hope of freedom.
London has a stench to it that floods the senses the minute you arrive; a perfume of which only those born in this cesspit of a city have any fond remembrances. A cold, autumnal nip was in the air and the mellow mist that journeyed with us from the countryside had, by the time we reached the metropolis, gathered itself into a grey, foggy veil, shrouding the city into a half-forgotten thing.
I arrived at the fairy house, having first deposited my jewels with Mr Little of Coutts in the Strand. With the departing of the coach the last ribbon that connected me to Lord B had been severed.
Writing of Lord B has brought on a great melancholy in me. I regret much that I never told him I loved him, for in my naivety I thought then that the heart could love only once. I see now that I have loved three people: none of the loves were the same and each is held in a different chamber of my heart. Mercy, Lord B. In the largest and least furnished chamber by far is the love I have for you. It has little more in it than a bed. How strange to have given you the lion’s share of my heart when you have done so little to deserve it and I know so little of you.