Free The LadyShip by Elisabeth Kidd

repast for this company, which con sisted of a pair of thick-set merchants in bright red vests, an elderly lady holding a vinaigrette to her nose, a younger lady in spectacles, a small boy apparently in the care of the elderly lady but indiscriminate in his attachments (for he entered the inn clutching the young woman’s hand), and a very thin man with a red scarf wrapped around his head to ward off the cold he had been sub jected to while riding on the outside of the coach—per sons whom Evans, the Beau Brummell of the coaching world, would never have deemed to serve had not his employer’s sharp eye been fixed on him.
    This assemblage having been unexpectedly blessed with time enough to eat anything they liked, Evans soon found himself serving up large portions of broiled cutlets, Stilton cheese, and glasses of brandy and soda, and sending for such seldom-called-for esoterica as a bottle of Harvey’s sauce and a jar of pickled olives. Cries of “Waiter, waiter!” sounded continually, echoed by a “Coming, sir!” from Ivor (who was then obliged to tend instead to a passenger who had seized his apron to demand his prior attention) or a muttered imprecation from Evans, whose fixed smile masked his precise meaning from those who were more concerned with their breakfast than with the opinion of even the most superior of waiters.
    Most of the other male servants were pressed into duty to haul the disabled coach into the yard, where the wheel wright inspected it and shook his head, estimating the dam age to be severe and wishing Master Edward were there to see it, for even he couldn’t fix it in under three hours. Eli nor told him roundly to hire help from wherever he could find it and get the job done in one.
    Meanwhile, the coachman, a colourful individual with a large red nose and a broad, mottled face topped by a low- crowned hat, was attracting the neighbourhood youngsters. He strolled around the yard with his huge hands thrust into his greatcoat pockets and regaled his mud- spattered audience with outrageous tales of his exploits on the road. On request from one of them, he described the proper method of putting a team to a coach—”taking care, young sir, mind you, that them pole chains ain’t too slack, nor yet your leads caught up on summat, which sure as check’ll upset you on the first bend”—and at the slightest encouragement from some other listener expounded on the relative merits of geldings as coach horses over mares— “which be no werry easy matter to train.”
    Elinor had to ex tricate two messengers and her youngest ostler from this admiring crowd in order to care for her regular clients, who were quickly ushered into private parlours to protect them from the loud and unseemly complaints emanating from the coach passengers in the public dining-room.
    “Beg pardon, ma’am,” said Jenny the barmaid, passing Elinor in the hall, “but we’ve run clean out of the good brandy.”
    “Good heavens! At this hour? Which of them ordered it?”
    “The swells—I mean, the gentlemen in the vests, ma’am.”
    Elinor glanced through the doorway at the personages in question, who had shed their greatcoats and gloves and whose faces were rapidly turning as scarlet as their gar ments under the influence of the heat of the fire and the un accustomed excellence of The LadyShip’s brandy; they were even talking—Evans informed Elinor in horror after wards—of spending the night in this “demmed fine place— lucky we stumbled on it, eh?”
    “Give them a cheaper bottle,” Elinor told Jenny. “They’ll not notice the difference now.”
    After what seemed an interminable delay—expressly or dained, Elinor was convinced, by a malicious providence to ruin the reputation of her house among its best clients— the wheel was at last repaired. The guard was extricated from the taproom, in which he had secluded himself the instant his coach had come to a halt within hailing distance of it; the passengers,