Epithalamion, or, A Lyric Ode in Honor of a Bride and Bridegroom
Chapter Two
Had they been fond of gambling, they could have doubled their fortune by wagering on the capriciousness of the weather, the roads, and any other variable that could conceivably go against them.
The first of their misfortunes struck not long after they had left Halmiston in the midst of boisterous May-Day preparations. The slowing and stopping of the carriage awoke both from a doze, and Brandon stepped out to see the coachman and postilion clucking over the near front hoof of the postilion's mount. "What's the matter?"
"He's thrown a shoe, sir," said George to his master with a sigh. "Prob'ly that stony patch a ways back."
"Can he continue safely?"
The postilion touched his cap. "Aye, sir, if we take it slow. The hoof's not cracked, just a bit tender, I'm thinking. There's a smith in Laurelton up ahead."
"Very well. There's no need for haste--do what is necessary to spare the horse."
"Aye, sir, and thank you, sir."
Proceeding at a careful walk, they were a full hour in reaching Laurelton, but as the slow pace offered a smoother ride, they napped to good advantage and emerged from the chaise in a better humor than the postilion was accustomed to see from gentry vexed by similar inconvenience.
While the postilion and the coachman oversaw the blacksmith, the Brandons walked alongside a tranquil stream, whose bank had been softened almost to mud by an overnight rain. A ceiling of clouds promised further inundation later in the afternoon.
"If those let fall we'll not make five more miles today," the colonel remarked, without seeming unduly perturbed.
"But we are so much before our time we shall hardly notice the delay," Marianne pointed out.
Just behind them walked their manservant and maid, engaged in conversation equally taxing. Handing them some coin, Brandon sent them to the inn for cakes and beer for the entire party and for the smith as well, in the hope of inspiring efficiency. Whether this stratagem was successful or the man was naturally quick about his work, they were under way within the hour, not long after Tim and Polly had returned the mugs and napkins to the inn, and just in time for the heavens to break apart and release their burden.
Man and maid accepted with alacrity their master's invitation to ride inside the chaise, showing no great sympathy for their comrades confined to the saddle and the box with only their hats and greatcoats for protection from the elements. While the rain spattered on the tarpaulin thrown over the trunks and cases and ran in rivulets along the glass, obscuring the suddenly gray world outside, Marianne took the opportunity to become a little acquainted with these two of her servants. Her several questions about their respective families and her attention to their replies put them sufficiently at ease with their new mistress that Polly could be persuaded to recite some clever limericks of her own composition and Tim to repeat some of the less vulgar jokes dispensed with the ale at the Cock and Bull in Delaford.
Again their pace was tedious, slackening further as the ruts and potholes deepened under the onslaught of the rain, and it became rather wearisome to always be thrusting one's arms out to the walls to keep from being bounced onto a neighbor's lap or the floor. When the coach slowed, hope rose within them that they might be nearing their next destination or at least turning onto a less antagonistic road; but the hope was dashed as George explained, opening the panel only slightly and holding his hat over the gap in an attempt to prevent water from getting inside, that in the gloom and wet they had overshot the Birmingham road and must now turn back to search for it. Unable to distinguish many details of the washed-out landscape only a short distance away, Marianne could easily comprehend how a slender signpost might have been hidden by curtains of rain. But the error was even more readily explained than that, for when they located the crossroads some thirty minutes later, after a total loss of an hour's time, they found that the signpost had expired entirely, its anchoring foundation having turned to unstable mud, and lay where it had fallen on the sodden ground.
Given these incessant difficulties it was remarkable that they reached the post inn at Lichfield as early as three o'clock, Birmingham itself having made little impression other than of wet walls and drenched pedestrians and factory chimneys disappearing into mist. As the weather had already cost them the time they had meant to devote to the cathedral, and as by this time the rain had eased substantially and the sky promised to be blue again very soon, they thought to attempt a further seven miles to Black's Heath before stopping. But again they were stymied: the Marquess of G---- had come through an hour before with a large party and taken all the horses.
"They be back in an hour, sir," the hostler predicted. "You can have a team then, and there be a nice warm fire inside to wait by."
"Two hours, more like, Colonel," said George as he wiped the coating of mud from the body of the chaise, "if their road be like ours was. And the horses but half-rested when they get back."
Brandon stepped over to Marianne, who had walked about the stable to stretch her legs and was now petting a friendly old tabby curled into a ball on a bale of hay. "Do you wish to go on? The weather is clearing quickly, and we could obtain horses from another inn."
She looked up at him with apology written on her face. "I must confess that I have got a headache from all the bouncing, and I'm quite sure that if I come to rest now I shan't want to rouse up and go on at a later hour."
He pressed her hands in instant protective sympathy. "Dear Marianne, you should have said so at once. Of course we shall stay the night here."
With the quick-thinking efficiency he always displayed when there was something to be done, he began to arrange matters to suit their needs. Polly was sent to secure a room and Tim instructed to bring down and place the luggage and then return to help clean the chaise, while poor wet George was to have the best food and drink the inn could boast. The postilion received two shillings for conveying them in safety and the hostler the same for reserving his swiftest team for them on the morrow. As for Marianne, a hearty meal by the fire, a warm glass of wine, and a quiet game of backgammon completed the restoration of energy that the relief from vibration and the cat's soothing purr had begun, and she willingly demonstrated to her husband that she bore him no ill will for his trouncing her at the game.
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Morning brought a bright yellow sun and a cloudless azure sky, and as they took their seats in the carriage they felt such optimism that the previous day's obstacles might never have occurred. But they soon learned that they had not yet paid the full price for the rain: before they had gone two miles they learned from a passing itinerant artist that the Black's Heath bridge, which they had particularly counted on, had been washed away the night before by a river swollen with rainwater draining from the surrounding hills.
After consultation with the postilion and his own encyclopedic knowledge of the highways of England, George announced, with an air that plainly said he would rather announce anything else no matter how terrible, "Nothing for it, sir, but to go back through Lichfield and take the Havenstone road east, then go north to the Wexford bridge. They'll never get a ferry set up at Black's Heath 'til the water goes down."
"We should have continued yesterday," Marianne said mournfully. "We missed getting across only because of my silly headache."
"Your headache may well have kept us from being swept away with the bridge," her husband countered. "Besides, if we had got there and seen it weakened by flood, we would have had to choose this same alternative, with even more time lost. Nothing for it, George, as you say. Let us be about it."
While George regained his box and the postilion his saddle, the artist, with an admirable eye for opportunity, here offered to sell them a sketch he had made of the lamented structure only the morning before. Marianne, not without a sense of absurdity, bought it, while the colonel wryly congratulated the young man on reaching his desired bank of the river before the extinction of the way across.
Back they went southward to Lichfield, stopping briefly to inform the hostler and the innkeeper of the disaster to the north, and on to the Havenstone road, for a total loss thus far in one morning of nearly five miles--the colonel trying unsuccessfully all the while not to keep a count. They were slow miles, as well, for the road had drained but slightly overnight, and the rocking and rattling of the chaise was only a little less violent than it had been the day before. Again he cradled Marianne almost on his lap to try to protect her from the worst of the turbulence, but presently she began to frown and rub at her neck and press the bridge of her nose, and he knew his efforts to spare her another headache had been frustrated. "Perhaps you would feel better if we walked a while--? The path looks to be fairly dry--"
"I should have thought of that myself. I do have a clever husband!"
As a result of a cool breeze against her face, steady ground underfoot, and the free movement of her limbs, she began to smile again, and looked at him from under the brim of her straw bonnet with such a grateful smile that he felt rather pleased with himself for having been her savior. For a time they alternated riding and walking, and spirit as well as body benefited from the variation, but at length even the footpath became so muddy and rough that they were forced back into confinement. Reading and singing were difficult when every third word was broken by a pothole, and the most pleasant distraction of the early days of their journey was impossible given the not unamusing risk of bruised lips and blackened eyes. The scenery crawled by no more quickly than the hours, prompting a feeble attempt at humor from Marianne: "I do believe the Lakes are receding from us." The colonel tried to smile, but he could not look at her drawn face without hearing a wistfulness and fatigue he was powerless to alleviate. He even questioned George as to whether there were any country houses in the vicinity they might visit as a respite from the road, but the coachman's response, after a brief look in the copy of Paterson's that he always carried in his box, was disheartening.
"We're nearest Selby Hall, sir, but e'en that's eight miles, with a change of horses at Yarborough, and then we'd have to come back to this road to be able to meet the turnpike again."
"A lengthier delay than slow travel, then."
"Aye, sir."
In spite of their shared misgivings the colonel put the suggestion to Marianne, but was not surprised when she declined. "We're encountering delays enough without any deliberate effort on our part."
"So we are," he replied, helplessly. His own head was beginning to throb. "All right, George, continue on."
Though they sought no further impediment they found one nonetheless, its being market day in Stone and thus requiring the better part of an hour to creep the half-mile clogged with wagons, horses, and carriages, as well as pedestrians who seemed to think they could best a chaise and four in any competition for a place in the road. They squandered no time during changes of horses or in stopping for refreshment, instead breaking out the sack of bread and cheese and cakes they had purchased at the inn that morning, but it was not until nearly seven o'clock that they climbed down from the coach in the courtyard of the Hawthorne Inn at Briarton, having travelled many miles but made little northward progress.
Of the private rooms only the smallest was available, and that at an exorbitant rate if they wanted to ensure that further latecomers would not be imposed upon them. With pounding heads and aching joints they climbed the stairs, and when they saw their accommodations--"It isn't a room, but a closet," Brandon muttered as the maid pushed open the door--thought it no more than a fitting end to the day that it should hold a bed too narrow for two and but one thinly upholstered chair. Dinner was brought up to them willingly enough, but as it had been prepared for serving at five the roast beef was dry and the vegetables cold, and needed several glasses of wine to make them palatable.
Polly had brought a pot of chamomile tea, and by the time Marianne laid her head on the lavender-scented pillow its thrumming had eased considerably. She could not sleep, however, for the bed was cold and inhospitable without her husband to share it--he having made himself as comfortable as possible in the chair and fallen asleep while reading by the light of a single candle. Though she knew that sleep would be the best restorative for herself as well, after such a trying day she wanted to feel his arms around her, wanted to hear his soft voice in her ear, murmuring those sentiments that could not be voiced across so vast a distance as the three or four feet that separated the chair from the bed--wanted to whisper affectionate words to him in return, for such had been his own fatigue that even during dinner he had said little and rarely even smiled.
She must have dozed off while watching him, for her next awareness was of the candle guttering in its holder and her colonel's eyes, wide open and dark, resting upon her. The flickering light made him look glum, even apprehensive, but the impression was false, for as soon as he saw that she was awake a smile of shy embarrassment, that she had witnessed his silent adoration, no doubt, swept all other expression from his face. With an answering smile she held out her hand, and he threw off his blanket and came to her, and they found that the bed offered room enough for two after all.
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They set out the next morning with renewed fortitude, their spirits lifted further by a noticeable improvement in the roads: they were not yet dry but the passage of heavily laden coaches and farm wagons had compressed them and somewhat filled in the worst of the ruts and potholes. Reading and songs and riddles resumed, and at times the curtains were closed again.
And then, a little past noon, the carriage abruptly sank beneath them with an ominous sucking and slurping, and came to a halt. Filled with foreboding, Brandon slowly opened the door--to see a sinister, brownish-gray mud bubbling and popping about the step as the carriage settled deeper. The oath he uttered was one, Marianne supposed, with which only military men were acquainted.
George appeared at the door, slogging through muck to his knees, looking ready to weep. "I do beg pardon, sir, I do beg pardon. We knew it be soft right here, being at the bottom of a hill, but the horses had sure footing even past this spot."
"Ruts down at the bottom, that's what it is," offered the postilion, who was steadying the horses as they were inclined to be fretful.
Brandon reined in his temper, for he could see that he was shocking his wife, and in any case a display of biliousness would not free a stuck chaise. "We must unload the heaviest items and then break it out. George, since you are already muddy I shall ask you to assist Mrs. Brandon to dry ground. Tim, hand me down my heavy boots, then help Polly down and take off the cases."
All this being done, Marianne and Polly seated themselves on the luggage well out of range of splashing mud, while the men debated what system of leverage might be best employed. There were no farmhouses in the immediate vicinity so it would take some time to locate assistance, but the four horses would be capable of pulling the carriage forward if the power of the suction could only be overcome. Brandon, recalling an occasion on the march in Bengal of having to break a cannon out of a quagmire, suggested a method that the others thought promising. As the operation would need three men, the colonel himself, with apologies to the ladies, removed his coat and neckcloth and rolled up his shirt sleeves. One of the coachman's aprons further protected his clothing, and the men set to work gathering stones and branches and chopping sturdy oak saplings from the surrounding fields and woods. Marianne folded the clothing still warm from her husband's body and held it on her lap, and watched him direct his servants and work alongside them with a feeling of pride in his capability. He placed George at one wheel and himself at the other, with Tim, the strongest of the three, at the rear. The postilion continued to hold and soothe the horses, and presently, when the chaise seemed to be a little freed from its restraint, urged them from side to side in a further effort against the suction.
At last, with a loud gurgle of complaint, the bog gave up its prize and the vehicle lurched forward, the postilion half-dragged for several feet by the straining horses, the others sweaty and panting and muddy to their thighs. George examined the wheels and axles and pronounced them sound, and the men rinsed their faces and hair and cleaned their clothing as well as they could in a nearby stream, the cold water bracing after their exertions. For his efforts Tim had received a gash on his arm, and Marianne, glad of an opportunity to be useful, rummaged for salve and a bandage in the medicine box Mrs. Baynes had prepared. The wound dressed and the luggage reloaded, they were again on their way.
The colonel was subdued during the remainder of the day's journey, having little energy for any of the pastimes of the morning, but Marianne could hardly wonder at this, for she felt a sympathetic ache in her own muscles just thinking about such heavy toil. Probably he would order a hot bath that night, and she thought with a secret smile that perhaps she would insist on remaining in the room, in case he should want to be handed a sponge or a towel, or possibly need assistance with scrubbing his back. She could feel herself blushing furiously at these pleasurably indecent thoughts, but it was proof of his weariness, had she needed further indication, that he did not notice.
Once they were safely ensconced in a pleasant, and acceptably spacious, room at the Swan in Leek--which, in the first stroke of good luck within, it seemed, living memory, they had not reached on market day--Brandon expressed a desire to purchase a new shirt, for his had torn at one shoulder. "I saw a haberdasher's shop as we came into town--he should have something suitable. I haven't brought so many shirts that I can ignore an opportunity to replace this one. I shall return shortly."
Marianne had been making certain the rubbings and the contents of the book box had not been damaged; now she looked up, startled. "Do you not want me to come with you?"
The hurt in her look and voice surprised him, for he had assumed she would welcome a respite from his company. "Yes, of course--if you like. But if you have other tasks--"
"Of course I want to come. Why ever should you think I would not?" As he helped her don her pelisse, she said brightly, "Won't Mrs. Baynes be amazed when she sees our accounting! So many inns--new clothing-- She will think I have been an unsound influence on you!"
"I trust that Mrs. Baynes will adjust her ledgers as required without comment about either of us."
With her back to him she could not see his face, but his cold tone shocked her and she spun around--but he was already shaking his head and running a tired hand through his hair. "Forgive me, Marianne--I have exhibited entirely too much temper today."
Her confused tension dissipated at once, and she took his arm. "I think we have all had cause for temper today."
Oddly, he seemed to stiffen at her touch, and she could not completely dispel the impression of a faint sigh of resignation; but by the time they reached the street he was smiling down at her and tucking her arm snugly against his ribs, and she decided she must have imagined that brief but troubling darkening of his mood. Her designs on him for the evening, however, were thwarted, for he did not order a bath, but was instead satisfied with the basin and one pail of hot water; and though the bed was ample in size nothing without or within the room disturbed their slumber.
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It was with no little trepidation, unspoken but genuine, that they stepped into the chaise the next morning after lingering over a delicious breakfast--with no little thrill of anxiety that they heard George chirrup the horses into a trot. Any of a hundred mishaps could befall travellers--which would they suffer today?
It was as they were crossing with care a narrow causeway between two low fields, all the passengers smiling at George's loud complaints that "any fool" would lay a road not wide enough for two carriages to pass abreast "without what their outside wheels have to go on a prayer," that a small flock of grouse exploded from a hedge right in front of the horses.
Upon hearing George's sudden shouts of "Spur 'im--spur 'im!" and the cracking of his whip, the Brandons traded looks of alarm. The colonel was reaching for the panel when the chaise began to lurch and sway in a sickening fashion and threw him back into the seat. And then, despite the frantic efforts of coachman and postilion, it surged backward and the right rear wheel dropped off the bank and there was no holding it on the road.
Clinging to the straps as the carriage went over, Marianne was aware of the neighs of horses and the curses of men, of Polly's screams and Tim's shouts to "Jump, Pol--jump!"--of items tumbling from the seats and cabinets and Christopher trying to shield her with his body, of his grunt and gasp of pain as something heavy struck him from behind and he crashed against her, pinning her to the wall.
The last thing she heard was her own voice crying his name--
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Continue to Chapter Three