Colleen McCullough - The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet

A full night’s dreamless sleep did much to mend her temper and her headache. After ringing for hot water and a tray of coffee and rolls, she set out for a brisk walk to sample Grantham’s attractions-not many, and not inspiring. The constant stream of traffic, however, she found fascinating, especially the post chaises, curricles, phaetons, carriages and barouches of the wealthy. Every vehicle going north or south went through the hub of Grantham because the horses kept by its posting inns were superior.

After a good luncheon she walked to the river Witham and stood upon its bank, only then realising why she felt a trifle flat.

Such a charming prospect! Willows, poplars, reeds, ducks and ducklings, swans and cygnets, the widening ripple of some fish kissing the water’s surface-how much nicer it would be did she have company! Specifically, the company of Mr. Angus Sinclair. Once the notion dawned, she acknowledged the fact that adventures were more satisfying if shared, from the horrors of the stage-coach to the sights of the countryside and its inhabitants. With Angus, the talkative and inquisitive lady could have been laughed at, those two dreadful little boys easier borne, the argument about whether the windows should be open or shut put in its proper perspective. The visions fell over each other in her mind, crying to be told to some dear friend, yet no dear friend was nigh to hear them.

I have missed Angus acutely, she admitted, not quite the same Mary after five days on the road in public coaches. I like the way his beautiful blue eyes sparkle with enthusiasm or humour, I like the way he watches out for me when we walk, I like his kind nature and his dry comments. Nor did he spoil it for me by speaking words of love-oh, I could not have borne that! Had he said them, I would have had to send him away. In the ordinary scheme of things I do not overly care for men. They are either overbearing and self-opinionated like Fitzwilliam Darcy, or stuffed with romantic rubbish like Robert Wilde. But I do not think of Angus as a man. I think of him as a friend more satisfying by far than female friends, who care only for eligible marriages and clothes .

The ducks had gathered, expecting bread, and she had none; turning from the river with a sigh, Mary walked back to the inn and spent the rest of the day reading Henry VI -apart, that is, from spending half an hour devouring a steak-and-kidney pudding and a rhubarb tart with thick cream. Only six days into her journey, and she was losing weight! How could that be, when she had spent them sitting down? Yet another lesson for the student of humanity: that sometimes a sedentary occupation could be more gruelling than mixing mortar.

And hey-ho, back to the stage-coach on the morrow! Aware that she was heading west now, and that Nottingham was a much shorter distance from Grantham than Stamford, she had climbed into the conveyance in a sanguine mood, rested enough to be at the depot early, thereby securing a window seat. Unfortunately such desirous objects depended upon the coachman, and this day’s coachman was a surly brute who stank of rum. Not five minutes after she was ensconced in her window seat, Mary found herself evicted from it to make room for a party of five men. As they were downy fellows up to every trick of travel, they had tipped the coachman threepence for the best seats. The sole female passenger, she was relegated to the middle of the backward facing seat, and was subjected to leers and pert remarks from the three opposite her and groping hands from the two flanking her. When they realised that she had no intention of talking to them, let alone flirting with them, they judged her above herself and proceeded to make her journey the worst misery she had suffered to date. When the coach stopped to change horses she was imprudent enough to complain to the coachman, and got naught for her pains except to like it, or walk. Advice that the men on the roof and box thought brilliant: no help there. Everyone on this stage was drunk, including the coachman. A furious Mary took her place in the cabin afterward sorely tempted to hit the fellow on her right, stroking her leg; but some instinct told her that if she did, she would be overpowered and subjected to worse.

Finally Nottingham arrived. All but one of her companions shoved her aside in their hurry to alight, while the stroking one held back, bowing to her mockingly. Head up, she descended from the coach and went sprawling in a heap of reeking, watery manure; the stroking man had tripped her. She fell headlong, tearing the palms of her gloves as she tried to save herself, and her reticule flew to land feet away, its contents spilling out. Including her nineteen gold guineas. Bonnet dangling around her neck and twisted to half blind her, she lay staring in horror at her precious coins, subsiding into more muck. What a slipshod place, an unruly little corner of her mind kept repeating: no one sweeps or cleans.

“Here, let me,” said a voice.

In the nick of time. The glitter of gold had attracted much attention, including from the coachman and the stroking fellow.

The owner of the voice was a big man who had been watching the coach come in. He reached Mary before the others could, gave them a cold glance that saw them back away, then lifted her to her feet. Quick and lithe, he gathered up her guineas, her reticule and its other contents. The reticule was handed to her with a smile that transformed an otherwise menacing face.

“Here, hold it open.”

Handkerchief, smelling salts, Argus’s letters, coin purse and all nineteen guineas were dropped into it.

“Thank you, sir,” said Mary, still gasping.

But he had gone. The driver had tossed her handbags into yet another pile of watery manure; Mary picked them up with an effort and walked out of the yard vowing that she would never again set foot in Nottingham.

The room she hired at an inn down a back street possessed a mirror that showed Mary what havoc the day’s disaster had wrought. Her greatcoat and dress were soaked in horse urine and covered with remnants of manure; when she fished it out, she found to her horror that the sheet of paper authorising her to draw upon her funds from any bank in England was an illegible mess of run ink. How could that have happened, when her greatcoat should have shielded it? But it had not, nor had her dress. How much water did one of those huge horses produce? Gallons, it seemed. She was wet to the skin. Her palms were sore as well as dirty, and her tapestry bags were stained, damp on their bottoms-but not, thank God, wet.

Trembling, she sank onto the edge of the lumpy bed and buried her face in her hands. How dared those men treat her so? What was England coming to, that a gentlewoman of her age could not travel unmolested?

There was cold water in a ewer on a small table, and by now she had sufficient experience of cheap inns to know that this was the only water she would get. The dress was beyond wearing again until she could wash it, so she draped it over the back of a small chair to dry, and put her greatcoat on the larger chair that said this room was the best the inn could offer. In the morning she would roll dress and greatcoat together, wrap them in paper if she could beg some, and put them in the false bottom of the bigger bag. The water in the ewer would have to be for her own use, though she suspected that it would take a tub of hot water to rid her of the stink of horse excrement.

Dining in a corner of the taproom was positively congenial after such a day, especially when she discovered that the leg of mutton was fairly tender and the steamed pudding tasty. Let us hope, she said to herself, that my ordeal is over. Even if I have to pay half-a-crown or more a night at the best inn in town, I am doomed to travel by the public stage-coach. A hired carriage, even drawn by one horse and of the least expensive kind, still costs three guineas a day before gratuities. There is no point in writing my book if I cannot afford to pay to have it published. However, when I get to Derby I am going to put up at a place can offer me that tub of hot water.