Page 4 of Hold Me Fast
Even after Jowanhad agreed to go to London, he kept finding reasons to put off the journey. After the shearing finished, he met with all his farmers to discuss the planting, and with the mining engineer to sign off the plans for the new mine. Then he couldn’t go until the first sod had been turned, for they were having a ceremony, and he was to give a speech. After that, he insisted that he couldn’t leave before Mrs. Dunstone’s eightieth birthday party.
Bran sighed but did not openly accuse his brother of procrastination. However, he became an avid reader of the London papers, searching for the little bits of news they published about Miss Lind, the Devon Songbird, and sharing them with Jowan.
One morning, some five weeks after Bran ringed the first article, he double-ringed another.
“Miss Lind, the Devon Songbird, has been taken ill and is to be replaced in the performance ofLe Nossi de Figaroby Miss Stephens, who is no stranger to London audiences, and will, we are certain, sing a wonderful Susana. We are sure our readers will join with us in wishing Miss Lind a swift recovery from her illness.”
Jowan unfolded the paper so that he could find the date. “This was two weeks ago,” he complained. He put down the paper and went to the door, calling for the butler. “Ask my valet to step into the breakfast room and tell the stable master that I’ll be leaving for London in two hours. He’s to have my horse ready at the door.”
“And mine,” said Bran. “Jowan, I am coming with you.” He set his chin, ready for an argument, but in truth, Jowan felt nothing but relief. One or both had put in motion all the major projects planned for the early summer. The people in charge of each piece of work could carry on without one of the brothers leaning over their shoulders.
Also, they still hadn’t had the first payment of capital needed for the mine works. The man in London had come highly recommended, but all Jowan had got from him were excuses.
“I’m glad to have your company, Bran,” he said. “I need to send my apologies to the Dunstones, see the land steward and the mines’ overseer, and write a note to the engineer letting him know that the overseer will be reporting to me by letter every week. Anything else?”
Bran mentioned a couple of other social engagements and offered to send for the steward and the overseer while Jowan dealt with the correspondence. The valet knocked on the door and was invited to enter.
They left two hours and ten minutes later, heading for Exeter, which was a six or seven hour ride away. The mail coach traveled both day and night and completed the journey from Exeter to London in thirty-two hours. On horseback or in a private or hired coach, Jowan and Bran couldn’t expect to cover the same distance in less than two and half days, and possibly more.
“Collect the horses from the Arundel Arms in Lifton after giving them a day to rest,” Bran ordered the stable master.
“Send any questions or reports to Bran or me, care of Fladongs Hotel on Oxford Street,” Jowan told the butler, the steward, and the mines’ overseer.
It was a hard day’s ride, up and down hills, skirting the high moorland, and keeping to the coach roads. They didn’t try for more than fifteen miles in a post, carefully checking the horses offered for the next stage before they paid the fee and took off again.
The day was fair, and they received few checks. Bran put the toll fees for each stage into a handy coat pocket, so they needed to stop only long enough to hand over the money and wait for the toll gate to open sufficiently for them to ride through in single file.
At Okehampton, they grabbed a pie and a jug of ale. It was half an hour past noon, and they were just over halfway, but the road ahead was more down than up. If they wasted no time, they would easily make today’s mail coach, which left Exeter at four in the afternoon, come hell or high water.
They changed for the last time at Crockernwell, at the Golden Lion, the same place used by the man who brought the news of the Battle of Trafalgar from the Mediterranean to the Admiralty in London.
For old times’ sake, they stood for a moment to look at the plaque commemorating that historic moment. They had heard the story for the first time when they stopped at the Golden Lion to change horses on their way to their first year in Oxford.
But they had no time to reminisce. It was nearly two o’clock and they had perhaps as much as twenty miles to go. Two good horses and a clear run. They should be able to do it easily.
“If we miss the coach,” Jowan said, “We will lose twenty-four hours.”
“Then we had better not miss the coach,” Bran told him.
Those were the last words they spoke for some time. They stopped only for the toll house at Cheriton Bishop, and they arrived at Exeter with twenty minutes to spare. The inside seats were all sold, but they secured two seats on the top, and Bran went to find food while Jowan secured a couple of bottles of light ale each.
The mail didn’t stop for the convenience of its passengers and the inns had changing a team down to a fine art. They’d have to eat and drink whatever was available when the coach took one of its brief pauses, and the same with any other needs of their bodies.
They left Exeter holding on to their seats with one hand while eating meat and potato-filled pasties with the other. It would do. Bran had also brought them an apple each for dessert, which, Jowan told him, elevated the meal to a feast.
They were grateful for their greatcoats to protect them from the bitter wind, but as the hours passed and the sun came out, the trip was not unpleasant. They bought bread from a peddler at one stop, and yet more pies at another. When they reached Bath in the early evening, two of the inside passengers ended their trip. The brothers were able to take those inside seats and sleep the rest of the way to London.
They shouldered the bags that had traveled the distance in the coach’s baskets, and, not wanting to search for their hotel in the dark, went inside the Swan with Two Necks Inn, where they were able to secure a room for what remained of the night.
London was no less of an assault on the senses than the last time they visited. A quiet moorlands village in Cornwall was no preparation for the noise, the smell, the sheer number of people. They’d been recommended to try Fladongs Hotel, on Oxford Street, which was almost an hour’s walk away, but the vicar, who had stayed there himself, said it was very pleasant, and not at all noisy.
Oxford Street proved to be a major thoroughfare, but they reserved judgment and secured a room, anyway. The place was supposed to be comfortable and was on the outskirts of the upper-class areas of the city, as well as being nicely placed for the theatre district. Until Jowan had done a little research, he had no idea whether Tamsyn was living close to where she worked, perhaps with other performers, in the household of the Earl of Coombe in Mayfair, or somewhere else he had not yet considered.
The hotel was also, apparently, popular with naval officers. They thronged the public rooms and Bran and Jowan saw even more coming down the stairs as they went up.
“Let’s just drop our bags and call on Coombe,” Bran proposed.
“People like Coombe won’t be awake at this time of the morning,” Jowan protested. Now that it came to it, he was afraid of what he might find. She had forgotten him, it was clear. In favor of Coombe? It seemed all too likely, though from what he’d read of Coombe, the man was unlikely to be satisfied with just one female at a time, or with any woman for the length of time Tamsyn had been in his clutches.
