madhouse bride 17

 

Chapter 17

 

Julian and Anne were up on deck to see the fishing smack sailing triumphantly up the Firth of Forth, the pall of smoke over Edinburgh proclaiming with more clarity than any explanation why that premier Scottish city was generally known as ‘Auld Reekie,’ and little translation necessary.

“Well! I am not sure where to go, now,” said Julian. “I don’t think Edinburgh stretches to cabs; we’ll walk up to the castle and get married in the chapel there. I believe it maintains a chaplain, and I’m a viscount so I don’t see why they would turn me away.”

The mean streets and wynds near the docks gave way to broader streets, and led up the long hill to the castle. There seemed to be some kind of festival or fair which was in the process of being dismantled.

“Oh! I had forgotten,” said Julian. “They held a festival of music here; we have just missed it, I am so sorry, if I had thought we could have made it the excuse for coming here.”

“Never mind,” said Anne. “We can pretend we were here earlier and that was why we came, and getting married was incidental. There will be an account of it in all the good papers, and I am not sufficiently musical to mind reading about it instead of hearing it.”

“What a jewel you are,” said Julian. “We shall do that, then.”

They were able to get into the castle, and went looking for a chaplain.

One of the soldiers on guard directed them, and they knocked on his door.

On being bade to enter, they went in.

“We want to be married,” said Julian. “Only we want a real vicar, not some semi-literate blacksmith.”

“Aye, weel, a chaplain is a guid place tae start,” said the elderly cleric. “The Chapel of St. Margaret within the castle is consecrated for use. Ye’ll need witnesses.”

“Will our maid and manservant do? And we can perform the same service for them,” said Julian.

“Ye cannae be a witness syne ye are no’ over one and twenty,” said the chaplain.  “It’s of nae matter, I’ll ca’ a guardsman or twa.”

 

The prayer book used in the Scottish kirk was slightly different to the one they were used to, but it made little real difference.  And soon, Julian and Anne were married, and so were Meggie and Jem. They signed the register, and took copies of their marriage lines, paid the chaplain, and gave their soldier witnesses a generous encomium to toast the happy couples.

They stayed to look at the castle, and hear the gun fired at one o’clock, to be able to say they had done so, and returned to the boat.

“We shall all have to wait until we are somewhere more comfortable to consummate our marriage vows, but we have already waited,” said Julian.

“Oh, Julian! What if my uncle has it annulled for non-consummation?” panicked Anne.

“Hush, sweetheart, it doesn’t actually work like that,” said Julian. “It can only be annulled if either party is incapable of performing. That’s grounds for annulment.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” said Anne.

“I thought we would stay in an inn in Flamborough for a couple of nights, and walk on the sands,” said Julian. “I saw a decent looking inn, called the Rose and Crown.”

“Oh, that does sound nice,” said Anne.

 

Higgs was ready to leave on the tide, and two newly-wed couples had an excellent view of the white cliffs, lit by the rising sun as they came into Flamborough next morning.

“How lovely,” said Anne.

“It truly is,” said Julian. “A good omen for our marriage.”

Meggie and Jem were equally stirred by the pleasant picture, if less inclined to talk about it.

 

At the Rose and Crown, where Robbie had also settled, Julian bespoke two double rooms.

“We’ll maid and valet for each other,” he said to Jem. “You and Meggie can have a couple of days’ off as honeymoon, and I’ll pay for the good room and meals.”

“Thank you, my lord,” said Jem, much overcome. Few masters were so generous.

 

“Happen tha’ve come at reet time,” said the landlord. “That’s a reet nice St. Martin’s little summer we’re having.”

“Oh, what is that?” asked Anne.

“That’s when t’weather be good at start o’ November, sithee,” said the landlord. “Happen that won’t last past t’end o’ t’ week, think on, so make the best o’t.”

“Thank you,” said Anne. “Let us go and take advantage of it to walk on the beach now, Julian, and come back to our chamber later.”

“I’d be flaysome to bathe off the beach, mind,” said the landlord.

“Not in November, however unseasonably fine,” said Julian. “The weather is notorious for sudden change.”

The landlord went into paroxysms of laughter.

“Ee, lad, milord, tha has it reetabout,” he said. “Sit on t’ beach in t’morning, be carried out t’t’ sea in t’afternoon happen.”

“I’ll keep a weather eye out for clouds on the horizon and catspaws on the waves,” said Julian.

 

It was pleasant to walk on the golden sand, marvelling at the carven stacks and arches where the sea had eaten away over time at the soft chalk rocks.

“What a nice place,” said Anne. “I would never have thought of having a honeymoon here, but I would not object to bringing children here for a holiday, when we have them.”

“Then we shall,” said Julian. “But perhaps make for the coast, not go north, and sail up the coast. The idea of fractious children getting bored, or worse, travel sick, in a coach for days on end fills me with trepidation.”

“Oh! Yes, of course, one must consider the practicalities,” said Anne. “We might get that fictitious yacht with which I bestowed you.”

“We might indeed,” said Julian. “I can well afford it.”

Anne enjoyed collecting shells.

“I’ve never done any shell-work, but I shall sketch a view of the beach tomorrow before we go, and then I will put the shells on the frame, so we have a memento,” she said.

“Wise,” said Julian. “You may be a little sore tomorrow, after our first time, and I will hire someone to carry a chair for you to sit on to sketch.”

 

They discussed an excellent meal of fish stew with shallots and dried peas, removed with a saddle of mutton, with creamed potato and Swedish turnip, baked onions, and broad beans.

Anne felt rather shy, and blushed a lot as Julian escorted her to their chamber.

“I’ll try not to do anything you find too startling until you are ready,” he promised her.

Anne found many things which were startling, but not in a bad way, and the young couple passed a pleasant night, which held very little sleeping.  Anne was, however, quite happy to sit on the shore to sketch the next day, and was glad of the spencer she was wearing, for there was a brisk wind. And in the afternoon, the first clouds rolled up.

“Well, that was St. Martin’s little summer,” said Julian, ruefully, as the first spots of rain descended. They got back to the inn without getting too wet, and with only a couple of rainspots on Anne’s painting.

“I’ll not paint them out,” she said. “It will be a reminder that we were lucky, but even the best of luck does not last forever. And our love will survive even under rain.”

“It will, indeed,” agreed Julian.

 

oOoOo

 

Whilst Julian and Anne and their servants were getting married, Denver and Wilcox were enduring the miseries of travelling on the mail coach. They were jammed in with four other occupants, breaking the rules of no more than four inside, because Denver bribed the coachman to take them, and Denver was perforce sitting in the corner whose seat was suspiciously damp and somewhat pungent. The other passengers gave them flat, unfriendly stares and Wilcox must endure the moving elbows jabbing his ribs as the generously-built farmer’s wife sat next to him continued placidly to knit, as if he was not there.

“Can’t you cease that knitting, madam?” he demanded.

“No,” said the woman. “Happen I have time to finish it over the journey, but happen it’ll not knit itself if I put it away. Sithee, I never asked tha tae sit beside me.”

“You tell the gomeril, Lizzie,” said her husband.

The journey south to London would take eighty hours, without rest or surcease. Denver thought they would be the longest eighty hours of his life. And he would never wear this pair of trousers ever again.

 

And if Denver thought he was miserable to start with, the incident in which a young bravo riding on the roof thought he could drive better than the designated coachman left him sweating in terror as the coach bucked and swayed as the horses were whipped up to unaccustomed speed.

There was a nasty moment when the coach lurched alarmingly, and a body dropped past the window on the off-side, and a more regular motion was attained.

“Happen the guard knocked of yon tyke, daft as a brush, and soft in’t barm pot,” said the goodwife, placidly knitting on. She had not ceased through the mad dash.

“Softer now in’t barm pot, think on, for landin’ on’t,” said her husband with a laugh. “Happen it’ll crush like an egg.”

Denver shuddered.

He had no interest in the fate of the young bravo, but the calm acceptance of the bucolic pair that he had been thrown off to his death for seizing the whip was unnerving.

“Isn’t… wasn’t he a gentleman?” he said, his throat dry.

“Bless thee, luv, yon’s no gennelman sithee, not when yon is so brossend as that. Fair radged he wuz! Us’ll do gradely ba’ht un, wemmellin’ usen abaht, think on. Din tha be cloutered arter un.”

“I wish you spoke English,” said Denver, who had not followed more than a couple of words of this diatribe about the drunken crazy man, and that things would be better without him weaving the coach all over the road.

“Nah then! I speak the king’s English fine well, tha mardy gomeril! ʼTis thee as talk reet queer,” said the goodwife, with spirit.[1]

. She knitted with spirit and aggression to the discomfort of Wilcox.

Neither man felt that he would be able to rest in the shaking, swaying, rattling coach, jammed so close to other travellers, but each fell into a fitful doze at least, from sheer exhaustion. Denver had no intention of making trouble, not since the guard seemed to have had little or no compunction in throwing off a young man of some quality for wanting to race the coach.  As it happened, Denver wronged the guard, who was merely trying to subdue the drunken young man; but who was not about to stop and worry about him if he was stupid enough to fall off. A man that drunk was likely to land bonelessly, if he did not break his neck; and Jack Wimble, the guard, had seen it before, that a young blood who had fallen off a coach at full speed had come running after it swearing and cursing over having paid for his seat. Jack Wimble would not have expressed his pleasure in being without the young fool in the same idiom as the goodwife, being a Londoner, but the emotions he felt were similar. It was illegal to permit sporting fellows to take the reins, but when the coachman is shoved to one side by a man used to brawling, Jack did not think he had anything with which to reproach himself for discouraging the fellow with a blow to the back of the head from the stock of his blunderbuss and shoving him to one side. If the man had not stood up, likely he would have kept his seat. But he did stand up, and took a step to steady himself outside of the confines of where there was anything to stand on.

And that was life.

And the mail thundered on inexorably, day and night, stopping for three minutes every twenty miles to change horses, every forty miles to change driver, and to allow those in the coach time to relieve themselves and grab such sustenance as they might. Seasoned travellers came with pewter mugs with lids on for their hot coffee or tea to be poured into, and had baskets of sandwiches and pies.  Neophytes to the rigours of travel by mail must go hungry and thirsty for having barely enough time to relieve themselves, if they wished to be in the coach before it left.  Denver and Wilcox were reduced to slaking their thirst in sundry horse troughs, and listened in dismay to the growling of their bellies as hunger crept up on them.

“Won’t do you any harm to miss a few meals,” opined a spare clergyman who was sat kitty-corner across from Denver. “There’s altogether too much of the both of you to be allowed inside and over the legal number.”

“I have no interest in your opinion,” said Denver, loftily.

“No, I dare say you don’t,” said the clergyman. “I, however, feel much better for having expressed it, and will be able to pray for forgiveness for my uncharitable thoughts towards you, for having been frank about them.”

“Go to Hell,” said Denver.

“If it is my sad lot not to please my Maker sufficiently to avoid that fate, I will reserve a place by the fire for you,” said the vicar, who was done with being charitable.

By the time the pair disembarked in London, and sought a Hackney cab to return to Denver’s house, they were exhausted, cross, sore, and battered in spirit, with burgeoning headaches which would have put the hangover of any drunken lord to shame. To add insult to injury, the Hackney driver refused to take up Denver, who smelled of what he had been sitting in. Gold overcame his scruples, but he insisted that Denver sit outside on the box beside him.  As Wilcox must perforce go inside, as if he were the master and Denver the servant, this was of more gall and wormwood to Denver.

He would probably have sworn loud and long had he been aware that his niece was just coming into York on the way back from a very brief honeymoon, with the intent of driving back day and night, Julian, Jem, Robbie and Joseph taking turns at sleeping in one or other of the coaches, to return home as soon as possible. The horses had had a good rest, but were as fit as they might be, and if treated well, being of better stock than the Mailcoach horses, would likely not take much longer than the mail. Julian thought that they could get back to Ravenscar in four days by this expedient; and set off accordingly.

 

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[1] It’s only at about this time that regional accents were beginning to be broken up by increased travel and widespread newspapers and literacy. It was the railways which really thrust received English onto the population.