Gibbous House 8 (edit)

Thackeray had a wary eye on me as I turned to face him. He remained quite expressionless as I bade him prepare my account for settlement , merely intimating that my debt to him was in the sum of three pounds. I presented him with my bill of exchange, adding;

‘In the sum of three guineas, in recognition of the pains taken for my comfort.’

Answer gave he none. He merely tore my bill into tiny pieces and jerked his head toward the descending figure of his spouse, carrying my valise down the stairs.

It was late afternoon, I supposed. Baggage in hand, I hailed a carriage and directed the driver to Charing Cross, in the hope of securing a coach north that very evening. Regarding my inheritance, I considered the prospect of having the wherewithal to make the journey north on the steam locomotive; the iron line finally having joined London with the place of my birth at the beginning of the decade. My means were such that I could afford only a seat on the coach out on the Great North Road, and that outside. In the interest of expediency, whilst availing myself of the Fortune Of War’s privy, I relieved a sleeping and somewhat portly gentleman of his topcoat. Scarce a half century ago, he might have been less fortunate at the hands of the resurrectionists who frequented the inn in those days. I left a shilling or two in recompense, for the coat was not in style and a d___ poor fit.

At the hour of eight, the coach was all but ready for departure, save for the absence of one of the inside passengers. The coachman himself fussed impatiently with the traces, but showed less impatience than the clergyman whose red bulb of a nose emerged periodically into the cooling air to the accompaniment of much harrumphing and sighing. Myself, I was merely curious: who was the passenger of such quality as to hold the departure of the Newcastle coach?

After a time, and possibly only shortly before the Reverend suffered an apoplexy, the tardy traveller arrived. It was a womanly figure, well wrapped against the elements, and perceptably that of a young woman, despite the swaddling. She moved daintly but determinedly, deigning to nod at the coachman as she waited for him to assist her boarding. I laughed as the churchman’s head attempted the window at the very moment the coachman opened the door. The woman looked up at me, and it is no self-deception to say that I discerned the lineaments of a smile, before she averted her gaze.

The memory of the journey, and others like it, sits deep in my marrow, so penetrating was the cold. Inside, the jouncing and jostling from the ruts and potholes of the roads so poorly maintained by the Turnpike Trust were sufficient that ladies in a delicate condition were often advised against travel. Similarly, those few ladies who repeatedly undertook short journeys by coach were viewed with suspicion by the less charitable passenger. Outside, where I in my pantagruelian topcoat had taken post, each stage was a gargantuan struggle not to be thrown off at every corner. Gripping with hands numb with icy cold it was a wonder there were not more unfortunate incidents. But I was no tyro in matters of the outside fare and held tight to the post for my life.