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The tale bearer pushed her prodigious bosom upwards with muscular arms. “Two of the rooftop passengers froze to death, they did. The snow came so sudden, like. No warning at all.”
Both ladies peeped to the window.
Isabelle did likewise.
Still raining. A bitter torrent that had stung like needles whenever they’d dashed to an inn for a warm brew as the horses were being changed.
Indeed, the weather had grown steadily worse since they’d crossed the border.
Three days previous, the sun had glittered off the dewy English Shropshire hills near Oswestry, where she’d disembarked the three-day express London to Liverpool stagecoach for this cramped more local one, but as they’d approached the village of Chirk, the first in Wales, the sun had abruptly slid behind a cloud, and as the village names had become ever more incomprehensible, so the sky had evermore darkened.
At a signposted turn to Glyndyfrdwy – perhaps the sign painter had skipped a vowel? – the rain had pelted down.
And not ceased.
Perchance she ought to have sent a missive stating she could no longer accept the post due to an onset of typhoid fever or a fit of the convulsive vapours…
Yet a duke’s name upon her résumé would assuredly add distinction, allowing Isabelle to pick from the cream of the debutante milk pail in the future.
Moreover, the wage of ten guineas was not insubstantial. For despite stinting on tea leaves and new gloves, Isabelle had solely managed to accumulate twoscore guineas for her Retirement Savings Pot as there was oft a gap of a few months in between employment when she was obliged to dip into it for food and the extortionate short-term rent of a respectable boarding house.
At least accepting this employ would avoid such an expense, and autumn was a scarce season as most posts had already been filled, the families settled for winter.
She buried her cold hands beneath her skirts.
Ten days past, she had attended her previous charge’s wedding – seated at the back, of course. Nigh a year she’d spent with that household, but as ever, just as it had begun to feel like a home, it was time to move on.
She winced as the stagecoach jolted, wheels groaning over the terrain in agony.
Previous to the inheritance of his dukedom, her employer’s title had been solely the Earl of Llanedwyn, his entailed estate to which she was headed situated in some forsaken corner of the north-west coast of Wales.
Isabelle could only be thankful that he had in fact inherited the dukedom and hence be addressed as Your Grace rather than the abomination of letters that was Lord Llanedwyn.
But a year or so in Wales to prepare this girl for her first Season would not be too onerous… And mayhap the Duke of Aberdare’s household would relocate to their Mediterranean villa for spring?
Rain drummed upon the stagecoach roof, beating its demand for entry, and her companions had fallen silent, the clack of their knitting needles submerged beneath the deluge. Isabelle almost wished they’d return to reminiscing on their most unpleasant stagecoach journeys.
Anything to allay her carriage unease – the sensation of being shut in…
With a resolute shake of head, she busied herself, stowing away her poetry book amongst the brown dresses in her capacious carpetbag and swapping it for…
The Welsh Language for English Travellers, 1815.
Isabelle was not taking it for granted that all those of the household would speak English and hence had purchased this book at Hatchards on the recommendation of the assistant. After all, she already spoke French, Italian, Spanish, and a smattering of Latin. How hard could it be?
Although…
A fedrwch chi gael i mi ychydig o ystrewlwch– Where can I buy snuff?
Not all that useful for a female traveller. And how on earth did one pronounce ystrewlwch? Or indeed the rest of it.
Merely reading it was troublesome enough.
Never one to be daunted, Isabelle attempted to curl her tongue as the manual instructed.
“Are you well, lovie?” A knitting needle poked her arm. “Are you sickening?”
“I’m learning Welsh.”
