Read Online Emily Goes to Exeter by M. C. Beaton - Free Book Online Page B

Harley. ‘What would you like us to do?’
    ‘Lay the table,’ said Hannah promptly, ‘and then rouse the other guests. They cannot drift down to meals just when they feel like it.’
    ‘Where is a tray for the dishes?’ asked Emily, looking helplessly around.
    ‘We’ll all dine at the kitchen table,’ said Hannah.
    All in that moment, Emily hated Hannah Pym. This woman was determined to humiliate her. Emily Freemantle being asked to dine in the kitchen!
    ‘Stop dreaming,’ ordered Lord Harley. ‘Help me with the plates.’
    Hannah handed slices of bacon to Mrs Bisley to put in the pan and watched Lord Harley and Emily out of the corner of her inquisitive eyes. Emily was slamming plates down on the table in a sulky way and Lord Harley was paying no heed to her whatsoever.
    Hannah swung open the heavy door of the oven in the wall beside the fire and brought out a tray of hot rolls. She said to Lord Harley, ‘If I could trouble you to rouse the other guests.’
    Lord Harley grinned at her. ‘I’ll have trouble with Seaton. The commoner these fellows are, the more they expect to be waited on.’
    Emily flushed with mortification, thinking the remark was directed at her.
    The rest of the guests, the coachman and guard gradually came in one by one, all still in their undress and yawning and grumbling. The one exception was Mr Fletcher. He looked a new man, thought Hannah with satisfaction. The wig looked very fine and neat and the whiteness of his shirt and neckcloth was dazzling. His black coat and breeches looked refurbished because Lord Harley had ruthlessly brushed them after he had finished brushing his own clothes.
    Hannah pushed Mrs Bisley into a seat and made sure Mr Fletcher was placed next to her. The captain, in a large night-gown with showy frills of cotton lace and a dirty dressing-gown and Kilmarnock nightcap, glowered at Mr Fletcher from the other end of the table. The landlord came in shivering with cold, and looked first amazed and then gratified when Hannahtold him to take a seat and served him with breakfast and small beer.
    Lord Harley watched Hannah with admiration as she served everyone in record time and then sat down herself, consumed a great quantity of bacon and eggs at amazing speed, and then started to load up a tray to take to Mrs Silvers’ bedchamber.
    When breakfast was over, Hannah returned to say that as the circumstances were unusual, she would appreciate any help the gentlemen had to offer in clearing up. Emily was about to say that she had done enough, but Captain Seaton began to bluster that he was a gentleman and would not soil his hands with women’s dirty work. Anxious not to be associated with the captain in the public mind, Emily stood about, hoping she looked willing and hoping at the same time that Hannah would not ask her to do anything.
    The coachman, who divulged that his name was Old Tom, or, rather, that that was what everyone on the road called him, said cheerfully that if Hannah put some bits and pieces of food together, along with some ale, he would take it out to the post-boys. Assured by him that the post-boys were snug enough from the storm before the tack-room fire, Hannah set about preparing a tray for them. Ignored, the captain got sulkily to his feet. ‘Come along, Mrs Bisley,’ he growled. But to his mortification, Lizzie did not seem to hear him. She was tying one of the waiters’ aprons around Mr Fletcher’s waist, the little lawyer having said he would be glad to help with the dirty dishes.Mrs Bradley went off to get her basket of medicines to find something to ease Mrs Silvers’ cold.
    Lord Harley rounded up the rest of the men and said to Hannah’s relief that a path to the outside privvy must be dug through the snow, ‘for no one surely expects these excellent ladies to empty chamber-pots, and if any of you have used that utensil during the night, then I suggest you carry it down and empty it yourself.’
    Emily turned as red as fire. She had