The truth was that we knew this already, having spent almost an hour the previous weekend poring over Bradshaw’s Guide trying to work out the best way to get to Codrington Hall. But the young ticket clerk’s pleasure in having worked it all out for us was so evident that it would have been churlish to tell him.
Lady Hardcastle paid for our two First Class tickets, and ‘Old’ Roberts led the way to the ‘down side’ platform, where we sat in the waiting room and awaited the local train to Bristol.
‘You know, Flo,’ said Lady Hardcastle, looking out of the window at Roberts as he carefully wrote our details on to tags and tied them to our baggage, ‘this journey would have been so much more straightforward if we’d sent our traps on ahead. I know they’re really rather organized, but I do worry that something will go missing with so many changes of train for them to deal with. If we’d sent them in advance, they’d have more time to find them and re-route them if they went astray, don’t you think?’
I said nothing. I had made this very same point several days earlier, but my concerns had been pooh-poohed. With everything else I had to contend with, I had decided not to pursue it. Being proven right and finally getting Lady Hardcastle’s agreement was a hollow victory, though, so I decided not to pursue that either.
Instead, I said, ‘Oh, we’ll be fine, my lady. Everything will be unloaded and waiting for us by the time we’ve put our books back in our pockets and stepped on to the platform. They deal with much more complicated consignments than this every day. And even if something does go astray, it’s all properly labelled. We’ll just get Lord Riddlethorpe to send a man to the station to pick it up when it finally arrives.’
‘You’re right, of course. Still, I should have listened to you when you suggested it.’
My mouth was still hanging open in surprise as the train pulled up and we stepped out to board it.
Chapter Two
The journey was a long one. A hundred years earlier it would have been longer still, of course, but we weren’t travelling a hundred years ago. Viewed with the impatience and lack of perspective of the modern traveller, it took an absolute age. Our changes at Bristol Temple Meads (Brunel’s Tudor-style railway castle), Birmingham New Street (with its immense roof), and Leicester London Road (still feeling almost new) went without even the slightest hitch. We transferred from train to train with a clockwork efficiency that must be the envy of the world. Our baggage, too, managed to follow us with nary a problem.
The problem, for there was bound to be one, was that, as I’ve already mentioned, the whole proceeding took an absolute age. There are only so many conversations two travellers can profitably have about whether cattle are frightened by the passing trains (and serve them right if they are – dreadful creatures), or about whether trains might one day be powered by electricity in the same way that trams are. Lady Hardcastle, who followed developments in the world of science and technology with great enthusiasm, insisted that they would. The gentleman who was sharing our compartment at the time snorted his derision, but was wise enough to say nothing.
We read the newspaper. We read our books. We played word games. We devised fantastical biographies of the people we saw standing on the platforms of the stations we passed through. The handsome young man in the luridly striped blazer whom we saw somewhere just outside Birmingham, for instance, was a solicitor’s clerk called Raymond, who was on his way into the city to audition for a part in a musical. His sweetheart, a girl called Mildred, who had a squint, a wooden leg, and a heart of gold, had packed his lunch for him and sent him on his way with a loving kiss to pursue his dreams. The snorting gentleman left the compartment at this point and never found out what became of Raymond and Mildred.
It was a relief when we finally disembarked at Riddlethorpe station to find not only that our baggage was all present and correct, but that Lord Riddlethorpe’s chauffeur was waiting for us with his lordship’s Rolls-Royce. Having so carefully planned the details of our expedition, we had been able to telegram Codrington Hall well in advance with our anticipated arrival time.
Despite the length of the journey, I was in a cheerful mood as we alighted to be reunited with our baggage. Lady Hardcastle, too, was in ebullient form, and swished through the station, charming everyone as she went.
Codrington Hall was a few miles from the small town of Riddlethorpe, and the drive gave us ample time to get to know Morgan, Lord Riddlethorpe’s young chauffeur.
‘Have you visited the house before, my lady?’ he said as we drove along the surprisingly flat road. There were slight bumps on the horizon, but nothing that would properly qualify as a hill, and with ditches lining the road instead of hedgerows, the effect was to make the sky seem far larger than I was used to.
‘No, we haven’t,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Is it a fun place?’
He laughed. ‘Fun enough,’ he said. ‘Especially if you’re interested in motor cars. But presumably you know his lordship well enough to know that.’
‘Actually, I’ve only met him a few times, and that was years ago when we were up at Cambridge. He’s a friend of my brother’s, Harry Featherstonhaugh.’
‘Ah, I see. Well, Mr Featherstonhaugh arrived last night, and he and his lordship seem to be very good friends indeed. There was much merriment in the billiards room, by all accounts.’
‘Good-o,’ she said. ‘Are there any other guests?’
‘Not yet, my lady. But we’re ’spectin’ quite a few. His lordship’s got two more comin’, and Lady Lavinia will be arrivin’ tomorrow with a couple of friends of her own.’
‘Lady Lavinia? Lord Riddlethorpe’s wife? His daughter?’
‘Sister, my lady. Lord Riddlethorpe never married.’
‘A sister? All these years and I never knew he had a sister. Well, it’ll be a houseful, then.’
Morgan laughed again. ‘It’ll be busy, my lady, but I dare say they’d need a good many more guests to actually fill the house.’
Lady Hardcastle smiled. ‘Have you worked there long?’
‘’Bout a year. His lordship saw me tinkering with a motor car at m’dad’s forge, and offered me a job there and then. Dad’s a blacksmith, see? He wanted me to follow him into it, and I’ve learned a lot, but I don’t reckon there’s much future in it. I reckon motor cars are the future, but he don’t see it.’
‘So you do more than just drive for Lord Riddlethorpe?’
‘Oh-ah, my lady. I’m his mechanic. I look after his racin’ cars. You know about his racin’ team?’
‘Not in detail, no. Harry said that’s what the party was for, but nothing further. He said his lordship has a racing circuit at the house, which sounds like fun. But I confess I don’t know quite what to expect.’
‘Thought it was a rich man’s fancy?’
She looked thoughtful, as though surprised by this perceptive young man. ‘As a matter of fact, I did,’ she said. ‘Have you read Kenneth Grahame’s book, The Wind in the Willows?’
‘Can’t say I have, my lady.’