Emily Goes to Exeter Read Online Free PDF

Perhaps he was not an aristocrat, but merely some adventurer. But then, he had an air of command, of authority, and his blue coat was expensively cut and of the finest material. Underneath it, he wore a striped waistcoat over a ruffled shirt. A sign of aristocratic arrogance, or sheer bravery, was that he wore the shirt ruffles at his wrists in full display. Since the French Revolution, still called the Bourgeois Revolution, andthe American War of Independence, still called the Colonial Wars, gentlemen were careful not to flaunt their rank before the common people. Strangely enough, what could drive a London mob roaming the streets looking for trouble into violence was the sight of a gentleman sporting ruffles or a band of white at the wrists, that little display of linen which drew the line between gentleman and commoner. This gentleman was wearing, instead of one of the cocked hats that were only just going out of fashion, a wide-brimmed hat with a low crown.
    Hannah turned her attention to Mrs Seaton, sitting by the fire with her captain. Very odd, thought Hannah, her eyes darting with curiosity. Everything black. Of course her father or mother could just have died, rather than a former husband, and she might have married the captain before the period of mourning was up. What an odd sort of husband the captain was – too loud and beefy and gross for such a dainty woman.
    Then the coachman was shrugging on his greatcoat and wrapping a massive woollen shawl about his shoulders and calling to the passengers to take their places. Mr Fletcher, the lawyer, unhitched his stockings from the fender and put them on, modestly turning his back on the company as he pulled them on over white sticklike legs criss-crossed with purple varicose veins. Hannah found herself getting quite excited at the sight, not because she found the poor lawyer’s legs attractive, but because the conventions were being shed, one by one, at an early part of the Great Adventure. They were all explorers, shethought, giving a genteel hiccup, heading out into the jungle of the unknown.
    Fresh straw had been put in the carriage and, luxury of luxuries, hot bricks. ‘Probably that there gran’ gennelman, m’dears,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Coachman would never get landlord to busy hisself with our comfort.’
    ‘Grand gentleman, pooh!’ said Captain Seaton. ‘Something wrong with that fellow, if you ask me. Adventurer, mountebank or deserter. Yes, yes. Just mark my words.’
    Off they went. The coach began to pick up speed as it moved through Kensington Village. And then they were racing along the long straight road that led past Thornton Hall. Deaf to cries of outrage from the other passengers. Hannah seized the leather strap and let down the glass and hung out of the window. There was the square box of Thornton Hall. No smoke was rising from the chimneys. With me gone, thought Hannah, the lazy dogs are probably all still abed. ‘Goodbye!’ she shouted, and then pulled up the glass and sat down, smiling into the glaring eyes of the other passengers.
    ‘How come you did that there?’ demanded Mrs Bradley. ‘You’re like to kill us all with cold.’
    ‘I am sorry,’ said Hannah. ‘I was saying goodbye.’
    ‘To what?’ asked Edward Smith suddenly.
    ‘To my past,’ said Hannah grandly, and then smiled in what she hoped was an enigmatic way.
    The snow began to fall, not very heavily, but in large, pretty flakes. The coach moved slowly onthrough the winter landscape. Hannah’s head began to nod. Although she never slept very much, she had had no sleep at all the night before. She had a very odd dream. She was back at a servants’ dance in the servants’ hall and waiting for the arrival of Mr and Mrs Clarence to grace the festivities. When they came in, he looked, as usual, a brooding, handsome man, but Mrs Clarence was dressed as a Shakespearian page in doublet and hose and with a little cloak hanging from one shoulder. ‘Disgraceful,’ Mr