Belinda Goes to Bath Read Free

coffee, fresh bread and bacon.
    Before she could sit down at the table, Miss Wimple drew Hannah aside. ‘Do not encourage my charge to prattle. She must be kept aware at all times that she is being sent away to The Bath in disgrace.’
    ‘Why? What did she do?’ asked Hannah, her odd eyes snapping with curiosity.
    ‘My lips are sealed,’ said Miss Wimple.
    As soon as breakfast was over, Hannah slipped away and asked the landlord if the ladies of the party might have the use of a bedchamber in which to put on some more warm clothes, and also if hot bricks could be put on the carriage floor. She tipped the landlord generously and then had to tip the coachman equally generously so that the ladies’ trunks might be unloaded.
    Mr Judd said firmly that his wife was very well as she was. Hannah ignored him and addressed Mrs Judd directly. ‘I have a spare cloak in my trunk. If you put it over your own, you would be so much warmer.’
    She cast a scared, rabbit-like look at her husband.‘Come along with me,’ said Hannah bracingly. ‘We shall only be a moment, Mr Judd.’
    She led Mrs Judd up the stairs and Belinda and Miss Wimple followed.
    ‘This is an excellent idea,’ said Belinda, throwing back the lid of a trunk. ‘I am going to put on two more petticoats.’ Even Miss Wimple seemed to be thawing towards Hannah as she took a large shawl out of her own baggage and wrapped it around her massive shoulders.
    Hannah found a scarlet merino cloak and insisted Mrs Judd put it on over her own.
    It was a much more cheerful party that set out on the road again, all exclaiming with gratitude at the heat provided by hot bricks placed in the straw on the carriage floor. Mr Judd did slightly sour the atmosphere by lecturing his wife on having borrowed Hannah’s cloak, but Hannah noticed that Mrs Judd drew the scarlet cloak more tightly about her and that her soft mouth was folded into a firm line of defiance.
    A red sun rose, sparkling on frost-covered fields. Bare branches of trees stood out skeletal and black against the red sky.
    Mrs Judd fell asleep first, followed by her husband and then Miss Wimple.
    ‘Heigh-ho,’ said Belinda to Hannah, ‘we are travelling at some speed now.’
    ‘You arrived at the Bell Savage in an extremely handsome carriage,’ said Hannah. ‘I am surprised you took the stage.’
    ‘I am in disgrace, you see,’ said Belinda calmly. ‘My uncle and aunt said they had already spent a fortuneon trying to marry me off and were not going to waste any money on me. I am being sent to my Great-Aunt Harriet in The Bath. She is a very religious old lady and is to teach me the folly or my ways.’
    ‘That folly being …?’
    Belinda glanced at the sleeping occupants of the carriage and then leaned forward. ‘I ran away with a footman,’ she said.
    Hannah looked at her sympathetically. Mrs Clarence, wife of her late employer, had done just that; pretty, witty, gay Mrs Clarence, whose going had sent Thornton Hall into a sort of perpetual mourning.
    ‘Tell me about it,’ said Hannah.
    ‘Are you not shocked?’
    Hannah shook her head.
    ‘I had better tell you how it all came about.’ Belinda gave a little sigh. ‘I am nineteen years of age. Mama and Papa died of the smallpox two years ago. I inherit all their money when I am twenty-one or when I become married. Papa was a scholarly man and Mama was very pretty, not like me. My uncle and aunt, Mr and Mrs Earle – my uncle is my father’s brother – are quite different. They are very rigid and very high in the instep. My fortune impressed them with the idea that it would be simple to find a duke or an earl for me to marry. To that end, they brought me out at the last Season and then again at the Little Season. I did not take. Or rather, there were actually several gentlemen interested in me but they were not titled and so were discouraged. My aunt and uncle said there was a certain lack of necessary innocencein my appearance which attracted the