The Shadow of Albion (6 page)

caught up was she in the desperate determination to reach her appointed place. The

world was mist-grey and now, at last, Lady Roxbury heard what she ought to have

heard earlier – the earthshaking rumble of an eight-horse coach on the road ahead.

And suddenly the coach was there, filling all the road, and she was desperately

dragging back on the ribbons to save her team, but the reins slipped through her

nerveless fingers and she felt the phaeton lurch wildly, uncontrolled, before she felt

nothing at all.

* * *

Only a stubborn determination to have her own way, and the ability to pass

unobserved that she had gained in the forests of her New World childhood enabled

Sarah to reach her goal in safety.

The conversation of the other passengers, overheard as the Lady Bright sailed

into Bristol harbor, informed her that a coach carrying mail and passengers left the

port city each day at noon, reaching London the following morning. With that

information to guide her, it was a simple matter for Sarah to pack an inconspicuous

bandbox with the most necessary items for her journey, muffle herself to anonymity

in a hooded grey cloak, and slip down the Lady Bright & gangway in the bustle of

departing passengers before Captain Challoner or any other well-meaning good

Samaritan could stop her. Unfamiliar sounds and smells assailed her on every side,

and at any moment Sarah expected to hear Captain Challoner’s voice raised behind

her. She hated to deceive him – even if only by misdirection – but Sarah was quite

certain that if the Lady Bright's captain had known of her plan to travel to London

by the Mail he would not have allowed it.

Fortunately, through the late Mrs. Kennet’s good offices Sarah was provided not

only with a bank-draft which, Mrs. Kennet had assured her, any English bank would

be pleased to honor, but with a small budget of English coin as well, which

contained enough to pay the eleven-shilling coach fare with something left over.

As wary as any wild creature, Sarah walked onward, and soon found that she had

left the Bristol docks behind for a world of imposing brick warehouses whose

construction made even the vast Baltimore wharf from which Sarah had embarked

scant weeks before seem small and shabby. Then the warehouses gave way to a

street of buildings jammed cheek by jowl – a street filled with vehicles of every kind

and people of every description. Sarah pressed her hands to her cheeks in utter

confusion. Though Mrs. Kennet had spoken of Bristol as a great city, never in her

wildest nightmare had Colonial-bred Sarah imagined that a city could be so large, so

noisy, and so filthy. And London, so she understood, was even larger.

For a moment her resolve failed her, and Sarah wished nothing more than to flee

back to the familiarity of the Lady Bright and let Captain Challoner determine her

fate. But that stubborn streak of independence which, more than any other

characteristic, had shaped Sarah Cunningham’s life so far, forbade so craven an

action. Only boldness would serve her purpose now, so bold she would be. Sarah

took her courage firmly in hand and approached one of the street’s inhabitants for

directions.

„If you please, sir, which way is it to the Goat and Compasses?“ she asked.

The man thus hailed possessed a certain air of respectability which, on closer

examination, had a marked taint of illusion to it. He wore a suit of plain brown cloth

elaborately faced with purple velvet, and his sleeves were trimmed with buttons that

resembled nothing so much as a row of large brass sovereigns.

„Well, now, and what would a pretty country miss such as yourself be wanting

with the Goat? I know a place quite near here that can answer all your wants, and a

sweeter snuggery you’ll not find, or my name isn’t Reverend Richard Blaine!“ The

man smiled ingratiatingly and stepped forward to take Sarah’s arm.

„And no more it is!“ rumbled a deep voice from behind Sarah. She spun about to

confront the most enormous coal-black man she had ever seen.

He was at least a handspan over six feet tall, and nearly as wide. He wore no coat,

and his workshirt bulged over a massive barrel chest. On one shoulder he carried an

iron-bound wooden keg of the sort that usually contained spirits.

„You’re no more a Reverend than I am, Dickie Blaine, and your kind isn’t wanted

here,“ the newcomer said meaningfully.

If Sarah had possessed any doubts about the „Reverend’s“ bona fides, they were

substantiated by the speed with which the man took to his heels.

„I suppose I must thank you, sir,“ she said to her rescuer.

He shifted the keg upon one work-shirted shoulder and grinned down at her from

his formidable height, a brilliant white smile upon his smooth ebony face.

„The docks is no place for a mite of a girl like you. Run along back to your nurse

before worse happens to you, little miss,“ he said, not unkindly.

„But I must reach the Goat and Compasses! They said on the – I have heard that

the London Mail leaves .from there, but I don’t know where it is,“ Sarah finished in

a rush.

„The Mail, eh? Skipping out on your articles to become an Abbess, eh?“ The

man’s easy smile was gone, and he regarded her critically.

Sarah gathered her dignity as best she could, though she had understood not one

word of what seemed to be a condemnation of her plan.

„I do not perfectly collect your meaning, sir. I am from Baltimore – and I have an

appointment in London.“

He inspected her for one more critical moment, and then the easy smile returned.

„American, eh? Well, then, best you come along of me. I knows the Goat. Just you

come along of old Cerberus, Missus, and he’ll have you there quick as cat can lick

her ear – aye, and safe aboard the Mail as well.“

With the aid of her Brobdingnagian companion, Sarah reached the Goat and

Compasses without further incident. There Cerberus delivered his keg and Sarah

purchased her ticket. At his advice, she purchased a dish of coffee as well, which

allowed her the use of the common parlor in which to await the coach’s arrival. The

last she saw of her savior was his head and massive shoulders towering over me

press of humanity in the street as he strode in the direction of the docks once more.

Several hours later, Sarah looked back upon that moment as the last one in which

she had enjoyed any degree of physical comfort whatever. Upon the coach’s

summons, she had left the coffee room of the Goat and Compasses to be packed,

with ten other fortunate passengers who had paid the extra shilling to ride „inside,“

into the Mail’s cramped, stuffy, ill-sprung, unpadded interior.

Over the thunder of the horses’ hooves, Sarah could hear the crack of the whip

and the hoarse cries of the driver. Though the horses would receive frequent

changes, the driver would not, and Sarah wondered with some small part of her

mind how he would endeavor to maintain such a performance until they reached

London with tomorrow’s noon.

The vehicle had rattled quite fearfully at first – its entire exterior was covered with

bags and bundles, the possessions of the passengers, and those persons who had

chosen for reasons of economy to ride on the roof – but now everything capable of

making noise had either fallen off or been jammed immobile into some corner of the

coach. Everything, Sarah reflected unhappily, except the passengers, who continued

to be flung back and forth at the whim of rut and road.

The pauses the coach made to take up mail and discharge passengers were the

only respite from the eternal battering of the journey, and none of them, even those

including a change of team, lasted more than a few minutes. Day fell into night and

Sarah dozed fitfully, body numbed at last by the relentless jarring of the coach’s

headlong progress.

She roused to see the faint light of dawn leaking in through the coach’s leather

curtains, and pushed one aside to see where they were.

Beyond the coach window lay a landscape unlike any she had ever known:

treeless and flat, strangely colorless in the grey morning light. To her left she could

see what she thought at first were the stumps of mighty trees, but as the coach

passed closer she saw that the figures were not trees, but vast, rough-hewn pillars of

stone, placed in the middle of this plain by some unknown people for some

unfathomable purpose.

The sudden awareness of danger was a cold thrill along her limbs, and at the very

moment Sarah recognized it and searched for its source, the music of the mail

coach’s thundering progress changed. She heard the driver cry out, the crack of his

whip, the faltering of the horses’ headlong pace. The other passengers began to

rouse, and then the coach slewed violently.

Sarah was half flung through the window with the jolt, and in the split-instant

before disaster she saw the cause – a woman, standing upon the high perch of some

strange spidery chariot, her arm flung back to wield the whip upon her wildly

plunging four-horse team. The woman’s face was pale, intent –

 – and suddenly Sarah realized she was staring at her own face, as if she gazed

into an eerie mirror. In the next moment, the coach was struck by some heavy

unseen hand, and Sarah felt herself falling, the image of her own face seen from

without frozen in memory.

* * *

She opened her eyes in a room she had never seen before. Through long

windows to her right, sunlight shone at the slanting angle of late afternoon, and when

she turned toward that light Sarah could see pale blue sky and a line of trees. The

movement of her head was rewarded with the commencement of a dull throbbing

ache in every limb. Now she remembered: there had been a coaching accident – a

hideous crash. She had been there. And now she was here.

Sarah opened her mouth to summon help, and a wave of giddiness threatened to

whirl her back into unconsciousness. She bit her lip, willing the darkness to recede,

and concentrated on her surroundings to distract herself from swooning.

The bed upon which she lay was very fine, with elaborate carven posts and

fringed canopy. Hue velvet curtains, lined in white silk and embroidered in silver,

were drawn back from the sides and looped to each bedpost with a tasseled bullion

cord. A .merry fire crackled in the carved stone fireplace at the foot of the room,

and such of the furnishings as Sarah could see from her supine position rivaled for

elegance any of the engravings in Cousin Masham’s pattern books. Some private

house in the neighborhood of the accident, no doubt – but why was she here?

Sarah clutched at a strap dangling near the head of the bed, and by its aid

managed to pull herself upright, realizing only then that her traveling clothes had been

removed and a nightdress substituted. In a sudden pang of fear Sarah clutched for

her father’s ring, and relaxed as she felt the hard shape of it, still laced on its ribbon

beneath the bosom of the nightdress. She leaned back against the carved maple

headboard, weak with the effort of moving.

„Oh –!“ A gasp of dismay made Sarah turn her head. A maid stood in the

doorway to the right of the bed, regarding Sarah woefully.

„I’d only stepped out for a moment when I heard you ring – Mistress did not

think you’d wake before sundown, my lady.“

Sarah smiled reassuringly, tfiough the effort made her entire face hurt. „There is

no harm done. But tell me – where am I?“

The maid bobbed a nervous curtsy. „Bulford Hall, my lady. Mistress Bulford said

I was to sit with you until you woke. Shall I – “

„Please help me up,“ Sarah said, not meaning to interrupt, but unable to bear lying

helpless a moment longer. The maid came to the side of the bed and helped to turn

back the heavy brocaded coverlet. „What is your name?“ Sarah asked kindly,

hoping to dispel some of the girl’s nervousness.

„Rose, my lady.“

It was the third time since her awakening in this strange place that Sarah had been

addressed by a title that was not hers. Before she could correct Rose, the girl had

turned away, collecting a voluminous woolen shawl from a nearby table and

returning to wrap it about Sarah’s shoulders.

„Mistress says – or she would say if she was here, my lady, how very sorry she is

that you hasn’t your own things to hand, but never you fret, ‘coz Jem has ridden for

Mooncoign and't’will not take him long at all, with the Squire putting him up on the

fastest in all the stables – “

Sarah leaned upon Rose’s arm and stood shakily upon limbs that quivered with