We were to be moved on, then, like sheep shifted from one cropped field to another. And John must be our shepherd.
The next morning he laid on the breakfast table a book he had borrowed from a friend. "I thought for your summer holiday you might like to go somewhere new rather than visit our aunt and uncle in Brighton again," he suggested. "A little tour, if you like, along the south coast. With the war with France cutting off travel to the Continent, so many more coastal resorts are springing up. There may be places you will like even more than Brighton. Eastbourne, perhaps, or Worthing. Or further afield, to Lymington, or the Dorset coast: Weymouth or Lyme Regis." John was reciting these places as if going down a list in his head, placing a little tick beside each one as he named it. That was how his tidy solicitor's mind worked. He had clearly thought through where he wanted us to go, though he would herd us there gently. "Have a look to see what you fancy." John tapped the book. Although he said nothing, we all knew we were looking not simply for a holiday destination, but for a new home, where we could live in gently diminished circumstances rather than as London paupers.
When he had gone out to his chambers, I picked up the book. "A Guide to All the Watering and Sea-Bathing Places for 1804," I read out, for Louise and Margaret's benefit. Flipping through it, I found entries on English towns in alphabetical order.
Fashionable Bath had the longest entry, of course--forty-nine pages, along with a large map and a pull-out panoramic view of the city, with its even, elegant facades cupped by surrounding hills. Our beloved Brighton had twenty-three pages and a glowing report. I looked up the towns our brother had mentioned, some of which were little more than glorified fishing villages, warranting only two pages of indifferent platitudes. John had made a dot in the margin of each. I expect he had read every entry in the book and chosen those that suited best. He had done his research.
"What's wrong with Brighton?" Margaret demanded.
I was reading about Lyme Regis then, and grimaced. "Here is your answer." I handed her the guide. "Look at what John has marked."
"'Lyme is frequented principally by persons in the middle class of life'," Margaret read aloud, "'who go there, not always in search of their lost health, but as frequently perhaps to heal their wounded fortunes, or to replenish their exhausted revenues'." She let the book drop in her lap. "Brighton is too expensive for the Philpot sisters, then, is it?"
"You could stay here with John and his wife," I suggested in a burst of generosity.
"They could manage one of us, I expect. We may as well not all be banished to the coast."
"Nonsense, Elizabeth, we shan't be separated," Margaret declared with a loyalty that made me hug her.
That summer we toured the coast as John had suggested, accompanied by our aunt and uncle, our future sister-in-law and her mother, and John when he could manage it.
Our companions made comments like "What glorious gardens! I envy those who live here all year round and can walk in them any time they like," or "This circulating library is so well stocked you would think you were in London," or "Isn't the air here so soft and fresh? I wish I could breathe this every day of the year." It was galling to have others judge our future so casually, especially our sister-in-law, who would be taking over the Philpot house and didn't seriously have to consider living in Worthing or Hastings. Her comments became so irritating that Louise began excusing herself from group outings, and I made more and more tetchy remarks. Only Margaret enjoyed the novelty of the new places, even if only to laugh at the mud at Lymington or the rustic theatre at Eastbourne.
She liked Weymouth best, for King George's love of the town made it more popular than the others, with several coaches a day from London and Bath, and a constant influx of fashionable people.
As for myself, I was out of sorts throughout much of the tour. Knowing you may be forced to move somewhere can ruin it as a place for a holiday. It was difficult to view a resort as anything but inferior to London. Even Brighton and Hastings, places that previously I had loved to visit, seemed lacking in spirit and grace.
By the time we reached Lyme Regis, only Louise, Margaret and I were left: John had had to return to his chambers, and had taken his fiancee and her mother back with him, and our uncle's gout had caught up with him, sending him and our aunt limping back to Brighton. We were escorted to Lyme by the Durhams, a family we'd met in Weymouth, who accompanied us on the coach and helped us to get settled at lodgings in Broad Street, the town's main thoroughfare.
Of all the places we visited that summer, I found Lyme the most appealing. It was September by then, which is a lovely month anywhere. With its mildness and golden light, it will soften even the grimmest resort. We were blessed with good weather, and with freedom from the expectations of our family. At last I could form my own opinion of where we might live.
Lyme Regis is a town that has submitted to its geography rather than forced the land to submit to it. The hills into town are so steep that coaches cannot travel down them--passengers are left at the Queen's Arms at Charmouth or the crossroads at Uplyme and brought down in carts. The narrow road leads down to the shore, and then quickly turns its back on the sea and heads up hill again, as if it wants merely to glimpse the waves before fleeing. The bottom, where the tiny River Lym pours into the sea, forms the square in the centre of town. The Three Cups--the main inn--is there, across from the Customs House and from the Assembly Rooms that, while modest, boast three glass chandeliers and a fine bay window overlooking the shore. Houses spread out from the centre, along the coast and up the river, and shops and the Shambles market stalls march up Broad Street. It is not planned, like Bath or Cheltenham or Brighton, but wriggles this way and that, as if trying to escape the hills and sea, and failing.
But that is not all there is to Lyme. It is as if there are two villages side by side, connected by a small, sandy beach where the bathing machines are lined up, awaiting an influx of visitors. The other Lyme, at the west end of the beach, doesn't shun, but embraces the sea. It is dominated by the Cobb, a long grey stone wall that curves like a finger out into the water and shelters the shore, creating a tranquil harbour for the fishing boats and the trading ships that come from all over. The Cobb is several feet high, and wide enough for three to walk along arm in arm, which many visitors do, for it gives a fine view back to the town and the dramatic shoreline beyond of rolling hills and cliffs in green, grey and brown.
Bath and Brighton are beautiful despite their surroundings, the even buildings with their smooth stone creating an artifice that pleases the eye. Lyme is beautiful because of its surroundings, and despite its indifferent houses. It appealed to me immediately.
My sisters were also pleased with Lyme, for different reasons. For Margaret it was simple: she was the belle of Lyme's balls. At eighteen she was fresh and lively, and as pretty as a Philpot was ever going to be. She had lovely ringlets of dark hair and long arms she liked to hold aloft so that people could admire their graceful lines. If her face was a little long, her mouth a little thin, and the tendons in her neck a little prominent, that did not matter when she was eighteen. It would matter later. At least she didn't have my hatchet jaw, or Louise's unfortunate height. There were few to match her in Lyme that summer, and the gentlemen gave her more attention than at Weymouth or Brighton, where she had more competitors. Margaret was happy to live from ball to ball, filling the days in between with cards and tea at the Assembly Rooms, bathing in the sea, and strolling up and down the Cobb with the new friends she had made.
Louise did not care about balls and cards, but early on she discovered an area near the cliffs to the west of town with surprising flora and wild, secluded paths shaped by fallen rock and covered with ivy and moss. This pleased both her botanical interest and her retiring nature.