Belinda Goes to Bath

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Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others.

Oscar Wilde

Hannah Pym arose at four in the morning in a bedroom in the Bell Savage Inn in the City of London and prepared for adventure.

For Hannah, adventure lay in the Flying Machines, as the stage-coaches were called. A legacy left her by a late employer had given her new freedom. She had already made one journey to Exeter and had had many adventures, which had only whetted her appetite for more.

She lived in Kensington, and the thickening fog of the day before had made her take the precaution of travelling to London and booking a room for the night at the inn so as to be in time for the coach in the morning. She lit a tallow candle on the mantelpiece of her bedchamber and carried it to the toilet table, where she sat down and studied her face in the glass.

Hannah had taken to studying herself closely in the glass since her last journey, not because she thought she was beautiful, for she knew she was not, but to see if she had begun to look like a lady. Her late employer’s brother, Sir George Clarence, had befriended Hannah Pym, ex-housekeeper now and, thanks to his brother’s generous legacy, a lady of independent means. Hannah was flattered and pleased at this new and unlikely friendship and hoped that the elevation to such distinguished company would begin to show in her features.

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