Belinda Goes to Bath Read Free Page B

romance,’ said Hannah.
    ‘Pooh. How much better to be free and single.’ Belinda lowered her voice and glanced at the sleeping Judds. ‘Now there is a typical marriage.’
    Hannah frowned. She herself thought the Judds’s marriage was indeed typical but she was not going to agree with Belinda. Young women should all getmarried and have children. That was Hannah’s firm belief. It was different for someone like herself. Ambitious servants knew they could not marry.
    ‘You might meet someone in Bath.’ Hannah had become tired of saying ‘The’ Bath. It sounded vaguely indecent anyway.
    ‘I shall never meet anyone,’ said Belinda firmly.
    ‘But think, my dear, although you may not have attracted certain titled gentlemen, was there no one you met during the Season who attracted you in the least?’
    ‘Not one.’
    ‘In any case, since you are here, I assume when you arrived home that day your disappearance had been noticed?’
    ‘Oh, yes. And oh, the folly of it. I had left a note, you see, telling them that I must have my freedom. And so it was decided to reform me.’ Belinda sighed. ‘Travel on the stage does seem a sort of purgatory.’
    ‘Is your great-aunt so very strict?’
    ‘Yes, she has turned Methodist, you see. I shall simply have to be patient until I am twenty-one.’
    ‘And then what will you do?’
    ‘I shall travel.’ Belinda gave a little laugh. ‘Comfortably. I shall have a travelling carriage built. I shall go to the Low Countries, to Italy, to Turkey.’
    ‘Foreign places?’ Hannah sniffed. ‘I prefer to see England.’
    ‘And what of Scotland?’
    ‘Full of savages in skirts.’
    Belinda smiled. ‘Nonetheless, I am determined toremain cheerful. I shall endure the next two years planning my freedom.’
    ‘We may have an adventure on the road to Bath.’
    Belinda sighed. ‘It is reputed to be the best road in the country. Oh, no. We shall travel sedately in this freezing cold and eventually we shall arrive, numb and miserable. I am sure my great-aunt considers fires in the bedchambers a sinful waste of money.’
    Hannah looked out of the window. ‘It is beginning to snow,’ she said.
    Light, feathery flakes were drifting down, dancing and spiralling. The sun had disappeared behind a bank of heavy grey cloud.
    As the coach turned into the courtyard of another inn, the other passengers awoke. The dandified coachman, Hannah noticed with displeasure, had his hand out for tips before they were even seated round the table. He obviously did not think much of what he got, for he tossed the coins contemptuously in his hand before going off with the guard to the coachman’s room.
    ‘I do hope we will not land in a snow-drift,’ said Mrs Judd nervously, as they were drinking the inevitable rum and hot milk and nutmeg. They were all so cold that even Miss Wimple did not protest when Belinda raised the tankard to her lips. It was customary for the gentlemen of the party on the stage-coach to pay for the ladies’ refreshment. Mr Judd did not appear to find this courtesy necessary in this case, possibly because he was the only male passenger.
    ‘We shall not come to any harm,’ he said pompously. ‘I shall see to that.’
    ‘If it snows really hard,’ said Mrs Judd, on whom the rum was having an invigorating effect, ‘I do not know that you can do much about it.’
    ‘I shall take the ribbons myself,’ said her husband, quelling her with a frown. ‘I have a pretty hand with the ribbons.’
    ‘But I have only seen you drive a gig,’ exclaimed his wife. ‘Not a four-in-hand.’
    He whispered something fiercely in her ear and she blushed, looked miserable, and said, ‘Yes, dear.’
    It was an unusually long stop. The waiter filled their tankards several times. The heat from a large roaring fire was thawing them all out and no one showed any signs of being anxious to be on the road again.
    Then the coachman could be seen, lurching through the yard. He appeared, Hannah observed