Fourpenny Flyer (10 page)

The passengers stood about coughing dismally and taking the occasional swig from their hip flasks in a vain attempt to garner a little warmth. And below them the city of Bath lay in a hollow between the damp hills, almost entirely obscured by swirling clouds of greeny-white vapour. To John's travel-jaundiced eyes it looked like some huge steaming cistern where small black figures bobbed into view, as though they were being boiled, to swim and struggle for a second before being sucked into the muck again. Here and there through the mists he caught a glimpse of a pale yellow wall, or the honeycombed mullions of an abbey or the corner of some grand parade where miniature sedan chairs jogged and bounced and dark coaches rolled in and out of the mist, but it was a dispiriting view.

‘What a ghastly place!' he said to his companion, a cheerful middle-aged man who had introduced himself as Mr Bourne.

‘'Tis the mist makes it so,' Mr Bourne observed, rearranging his muffler about his nose and mouth. ‘In fair weather 'tis a fine fair city and uncommon good for one's health.'

John found that very hard to believe and was beginning to have quite serious doubts about the advisability of this visit. But it was too late to change his mind. The horses were rested and it was time to descend into the cauldron. Perhaps, he thought, trying to cheer himself as the drags were adjusted, it will improve upon closer acquaintance.

It got worse. As the mist gradually enveloped them, the outside passengers were chilled to the bone, and soon they were all coughing and spluttering and wiping their eyes and blowing their noses, and wishing themselves anywhere but where they were.

But at last they reached the city and came to a steaming halt in Stall Street outside the White Hart Inn, and opposite an imposing colonnade which, so his new friend told him, led to the entrance to the Baths themselves. And John got
his first appalled view of the inhabitants.

They were all old, all deformed, all cripples! And as noisy as crows. Either being carried into the place in bath chairs, swathed in bandages, pale-faced and complaining, and clinging like grim death to the greasy thongs that swung beside their ears, or being wheeled out of it, still swathed in bandages, but this time boiled red as lobsters and limp with heat exhaustion. He'd never seen such a hideous collection in his life.

I will have breakfast, he vowed, and then I will buy a map of the town, decide upon the most suitable site for our shop, rent it with all speed, and travel on to Bristol on the very first coach out.

The breakfast was surprisingly good, the map was informative, the choice of sites obvious, but the renting office was closed, and according to a neat notice hung on its clammy door would not be open until eight of the clock the following morning. He would have to stay a day in the city after all.

His fellow passengers were still in the coffee room of the White Hart when he came dripping back to join them.

‘Ah!' Mr Bourne said, ‘there you are. We waited for you, d'ye see. We're all off to take the waters, since it seems that everybody takes the waters or bathes at this hour. They say the Pump Room is splendid. Just the place to be, what?'

‘If I take any more water I shall turn into a sponge,' John said. But at least it was one way of passing the time. So he went.

The Pump Room was really rather a handsome place. It was a long room, decorated in the best fashion in duck-egg blue, white and gold, and beautifully proportioned, with five long windows on either side divided from each other by Corinthian columns painted white and gilded gold. It was full of people and there were invalid chairs and their impatient patients pushing and shoving in every direction, but there were two good fires to warm them and a fine band to play to them.

‘Have a glass of Spa water, my dear friend,' Mr Bourne said, pressing one into John's hand. ‘There's a seat for us by the inner windows. I've sent my man to secure it. Just
the place, what?' And although John had no desire to take the waters, he took the glass and followed his new friend's broad shoulders towards the inner windows.

‘Your very good health, sir,' he said to Mr Bourne. And he sipped his metallic water, found it extremely disagreeable and turned his head to look through the window so as to avoid drinking any more of it.

And he found he was gazing straight down into one of the baths, an ancient stone pit filled with water as thick and green as pea soup, and steaming. And bobbing about in it were scores of people, some young and slender, others old and extraordinary: bald-headed men without teeth and billowing women without stays, tumbling together in the steam, wearing sulphur-yellow nightcaps above steam-red faces and sulphur-yellow nightgowns below. He had never seen anything so gross. But the fascination of the sight was so intense that he watched on, intrigued.

And one of the fat women suddenly rolled over in the water and turned up her eyes and gave a roar, flailing so wildly that she knocked several of her nearest companions into the water. Then, still roaring, she began to sink, her yellow gown slowly filling with air like a balloon. He watched with passing interest as two attendants arrived and dragged her rather unceremoniously to the water's edge. Then he looked back idly at the other bathers who were still struggling and floundering in the water. One of them appeared to be fainting, for she was drooping over the arms of her slender companion and her cap was drifting away from her on the scummy water. A rather odd-looking cap, he thought, watching it, for there were bunches of false curls attached to it on either sides. False yellow curls, rather like old Miss Pettie's.

And the slender young women looked up, calling for help. And she was Miss Harriet Sowerby.

Harriet Sowerby was never so glad of anything in her life as she was at the sight of her own dear Mr Easter looking down at her from the Pump Room on that dreadful, dreadful afternoon.

When the fat lady made that unearthly groaning noise and fell backwards into the water, Harriet was alarmed and upset, but when those awful flailing arms knocked poor Miss Pettie off her balance, she was so frightened she hardly knew what she ought to do.

She called for help but everybody was attending to the fat lady and nobody heard her, and in the meantime Miss Pettie was sinking. She knew that the imperative thing was to keep a drowning person's head out of the water. But Miss Pettie's head was quite extraordinarily heavy and her body was drifting of its own accord. Oh! Oh! What should she do? What if Miss Pettie were to die? What would her mother say when she heard of it? She hung on, trying to push the air out of that awful swelling gown with one hand and supporting Miss Pettie's white wet head with the other and all the time she was praying frantically. Dear Lord, please don't let her die! Oh, please don't.

And there he was. Like a miracle. The answer to her prayer. Looking at her with so many expressions following one another so rapidly on his remembered face, surprise, recognition, alarm, and then the most tender concern. He was saying something to her through the glass, but she couldn't hear what it was. And the next second he was gone. She was weak with relief, the strength ebbing out of her arms, but she hung on, and presently she could hear his voice echoing round the bath, giving orders.
‘Attendant! Attendant! Quickly! This way! Follow me!' How wonderfully commanding he was.

And then he was standing beside her in the water, stripped to his shirt, and there were two bath attendants with him who lifted Miss Pettie out of her hands and carried her to the steps, dangling her body between them like some huge wet sail. And Miss Pettie wasn't dead after all, praise be! She was fluttering her hands and begging to be forgiven tor being such a nuisance. ‘I am so sorry, so very sorry. Oh John, my dear boy, how can you forgive me? What a dreadful thing!'

He was wading beside her, soothing her, his fine shirt stained by the water. ‘It is no trouble, Miss Pettie. You are not to think it. We will soon have you better. Lift her gently, if you please, sir.'

They were lowering her into a chair which had been brought down to the water's edge by a third attendant, and now a small crowd was gathering around her, avid with interest, and what with their saffron-yellow backs and the steam rising from the bath, Harriet couldn't see any more of Miss Pettie except for her poor old head with its thin cap of scant white hair. And she remembered how sensitive the lady was about her appearance and how much she must be suffering to be seen in public without her cap, and she went wading off to find it.

By the time it was retrieved and Harriet had pushed her way back through the heavy water to the steps and finally climbed out, the fat lady had been carried away and the crowd around Miss Pettie was consequently a great deal bigger. It now contained two physicians, who were both red in the face and shouting at one another for the privilege of attending poor Miss Pettie, who had been bundled in towels and blankets and seemed to be recovering. She was certainly a much better colour, although her mouth was trembling and she looked as though she would burst into tears at the slightest provocation. Mr Easter was wrapped in a towel too, but he wore his with a romantic air, swathed about his shoulders like a poet or a wild Scottish chieftain or a …

‘Where do you stay?' he asked, walking to the edge of the bath and holding out his hand to assist her.

What a comforting thing to be supported so! And what a warm, firm hand it was. ‘In the White Hart,' she said. Thank 'ee kindly.'

The attendants were wrapping her in a towel too. ‘What good fortune.' Mr Easter said, smiling at her, ‘for that is where I am staying too. I will escort you to your rooms. Does Miss Pettie have a maidservant with her?'

‘Jane is here,' she said, handing Miss Pettie her bedraggled cap. ‘We sent her to Milsom Street to make a few little purchases.'

‘Then she may return for your clothes,' he said, and Harriet noticed that he was careful not to look at Miss Pettie while she draped her head. ‘We need not delay here a moment longer.' And he turned to the physicians. ‘I am sure we are all grateful to you for your concern, gentlemen, howsomever we have no need of your services at present.'

‘You will take my card, sir,' the smaller of the two said instantly, handing one damply across. ‘Recommended by Persons of Quality as you see, sir.'

‘And mine, sir,' the other bristled. ‘Recommended by a marquis, sir.'

‘Your servant, gentlemen,' John said coolly and he turned his body away from them to give orders to the attendants. ‘A chair for the young lady, if you please.'

‘Oh no,' Harriet demurred, embarrassed to be put in the same social position as Miss Pettie. ‘I can walk, Mr Easter. Indeed I can.'

But he wouldn't hear of it. ‘After such a to-do and in such a state? The very idea! A chair for the young lady,
if
you please.'

It was really quite thrilling to be carried from the baths, even if the chairs
were
horribly damp and even if they
did
smell of mildew and even if she
did
feel she had no right to be in one. Mr Easter walked between her chair and Miss Pettie's, giving them both the most careful attention as if they really were equals. He had picked up his coat and hat, and carried them across his arm, but it was the arm nearest Miss Pettie and so Harriet had nothing to obstruct her view of him. And how handsome he was. A true knight, in
his wet shirt and his wet breeches with that straight dark hair ruffled by his exertions. A true knight come to her rescue, just at the very moment when she needed him most. Even in her most daring dreams she'd never imagined anything remotely like this. It was like a fairy tale.

Miss Pettie began to weep the moment they emerged into the crowded street. Her false hair was so sodden that it hung on either side of her poor old wrinkled face in long, straw-coloured rats' tails.

‘Oh John, John,' she sobbed, clutching at it. ‘What a disgrace to be seen so. I cannot abide it. Indeed I can't. We must go home at once, Harriet. At once. I have brought shame to us both. And to you too, I fear, John. Oh what recompense for all your goodness.' She was awash with distress. Pea-green water dripped from the rats' tails, and tears rolled down her nose and the chair dropped puddles at every step. ‘Oh John, John, I want to go home.'

He remembered his timetables even in the rush of rescue. ‘And so you shall, Miss Pettie,' he promised. ‘There is a coach leaves the White Hart for London at half past five this very afternoon. It would mean travelling by night, but if that is what you wish, I will take seats upon it this very minute as ever is.'

‘Oh,' she said, as they dripped through the colonnade, ‘it is. It is.'

And then they were being carried over the threshold into the White Hart and there was such a rush of activity that Harriet could barely catch her breath. Porters lifting Miss Pettie from her wet chair to a dry one and trotting away with her in a warm noisy procession, a stream of maids bearing brass bed warmers and potboys balancing brandy and hot water, Miss Pettie's old servant Jane arriving, rabbit-eyed with anxiety, bundled about with parcels, her bonnet askew and her grey hair disordered, patting her mistress's hand as well as she could as she ran beside the chair. And Mr Easter still coolly in command, requiring more blankets, giving Jane instructions, tipping the maids and the potboys, dismissing yet another unwanted physician and finally unlocking Miss Pettie's
door and smiling at Harriet as she walked past him into the room.

‘Should Miss Pettie require a physician,' he said, ‘tell her I will arrange one for her. This town is full of quacks. If she were left to her own devices she would pay a great deal to very little purpose. I do not think she has taken any real harm from the blow. She is upset, that is all, and overcome by the heat of the baths. Get her to bed and keep her warm. I will return.'

And so he did, with the news that he had managed to acquire four seats on the evening coach, ‘two inside for Miss Pettie and Jane, and two outside for Miss Sowerby and myself.'