It appeared that the thin lady was going all the way to Southampton. She didn’t get off in Frimley Green with the mother and her son, or in Basingstoke, when the man with the dirty muffler left the carriage. The smell in the stagecoach changed with each new passenger. Coffee when the attorney’s clerk settled into his seat. Cabbage and sweat when the farmer came aboard.
At every stop the stagecoach fell a little further behind schedule—a fact that the thin lady didn’t fail to remark on. Each time she did, Willie had to bite her lip a little bit harder to stop from laughing out loud.
The stout matron left the carriage at North Waltham, taking with her the scent of lavender. Her replacement was a sailor, and he was drunk. Willie knew that fact even before he climbed aboard. His too-loud voi
