station on the route, quite belying Ellen’s fears that the motion and velocity wouldcause such a pressure inside our brains as to risk a fatal injury – a nosebleed at the very least!
Papa had laughed and called her mad to entertain such notions. Even so, when I think about it now, perhaps Ellen Page was right to fret. Perhaps she had some second sight, some premonition of danger to come, a suspicion of Papa being ill? It’s obvious now, the way he’d been tired and distracted for months, hardly lifting his pen to write a word and then, when he did, his hand trembling so that writing was nigh on impossible. Still, any fellow passengers who peered through the glass of our carriage door might only assume him in perfect health; a wholly distinguished gentleman whose long grey hair and beard were trimmed and whose suit, despite smelling of mothballs and mould if you happened to venture a little too near, was pressed so sharp it might cut like a knife – as sharp as Ellen’s warnings, which kept playing again and again in my mind, as if she was really there on the train. And I think she would have been, you know, if only she’d been invited. A nod and a wink from Frederick Hall and Ellen Page would fly to the moon, she would face any peril life threw head-on – instead of which she waved us off with those premonitions of doom and gloom rattling like bullets off her tongue –
‘You be sure to be careful and keep your wits. There’s folk there in London who’d slash your throat for the sake of no more than a penny apiece. There’s thieves who’ll try to chop off your hair and sell it to barbers for making wigs. And don’t you go trusting any strange men’ – that said with a serious nod at me – ‘there’s more than one innocent country lass been flattered and charmed, then dragged to her ruin . . . her brains all addled by drugs or booze, her virtue in tatters before the next crow of the morning cock.’
When she said that Elijah laughed, and then blushed as red as a beetroot, though the joke was entirely lost on me, but the rest of her cautions continued to nag until my brother touched my hand, murmuring, so as not to wake Papa, who by then was dozing at my side, his head rolling gently forward in time withthe rocking of the train, Little sister . . .’ My brother’s eyes shone silver within the dark frame of his lashes, and he offered his most mischievous smile. ‘You look as timid as a mouse. But really, you shouldn’t be worried at all! What does Ellen know of London life . . . except what she reads in magazines?’
He had recently taken to calling me ‘little’, having grown four inches taller that year, his new trousers already too short in the hem, no material left to let down again. But I didn’t mind, and I had to agree, because it was true that Ellen Page had never gone anywhere very much beyond our village church or shop.
‘And, of course, Uncle Freddie will be there to meet us.’ The words ran smoothly off my tongue, though with every chugging lurch of the carriage my toes were wriggling round in my boots and I fidgeted back and forth in my seat. But then, as the day faded into mauve shadows, I must have dropped off to sleep as well, my cheek pressed hard to the window glass – until jolted awake with such a fright when the engine’s whistle screeched so loud and I tried to look out of the window again and all I could see was cold black glass with reflections of me, and Elijah, and Papa, each one of us a silvery ghost beyond which a rolling bank of steam was flecked with glowing cinders – all that fire and whiteness through which we stepped in something of a weary daze when, at very nearly midnight, we found ourselves on the platform edge – and there was Freddie, just as he’d said, holding his arms out to greet us, as if to embrace the whole wide world.
What grandeur there was in Freddie’s world! What immensely tall buildings. What breadth of streets that seemed to run on for
Papa had laughed and called her mad to entertain such notions. Even so, when I think about it now, perhaps Ellen Page was right to fret. Perhaps she had some second sight, some premonition of danger to come, a suspicion of Papa being ill? It’s obvious now, the way he’d been tired and distracted for months, hardly lifting his pen to write a word and then, when he did, his hand trembling so that writing was nigh on impossible. Still, any fellow passengers who peered through the glass of our carriage door might only assume him in perfect health; a wholly distinguished gentleman whose long grey hair and beard were trimmed and whose suit, despite smelling of mothballs and mould if you happened to venture a little too near, was pressed so sharp it might cut like a knife – as sharp as Ellen’s warnings, which kept playing again and again in my mind, as if she was really there on the train. And I think she would have been, you know, if only she’d been invited. A nod and a wink from Frederick Hall and Ellen Page would fly to the moon, she would face any peril life threw head-on – instead of which she waved us off with those premonitions of doom and gloom rattling like bullets off her tongue –
‘You be sure to be careful and keep your wits. There’s folk there in London who’d slash your throat for the sake of no more than a penny apiece. There’s thieves who’ll try to chop off your hair and sell it to barbers for making wigs. And don’t you go trusting any strange men’ – that said with a serious nod at me – ‘there’s more than one innocent country lass been flattered and charmed, then dragged to her ruin . . . her brains all addled by drugs or booze, her virtue in tatters before the next crow of the morning cock.’
When she said that Elijah laughed, and then blushed as red as a beetroot, though the joke was entirely lost on me, but the rest of her cautions continued to nag until my brother touched my hand, murmuring, so as not to wake Papa, who by then was dozing at my side, his head rolling gently forward in time withthe rocking of the train, Little sister . . .’ My brother’s eyes shone silver within the dark frame of his lashes, and he offered his most mischievous smile. ‘You look as timid as a mouse. But really, you shouldn’t be worried at all! What does Ellen know of London life . . . except what she reads in magazines?’
He had recently taken to calling me ‘little’, having grown four inches taller that year, his new trousers already too short in the hem, no material left to let down again. But I didn’t mind, and I had to agree, because it was true that Ellen Page had never gone anywhere very much beyond our village church or shop.
‘And, of course, Uncle Freddie will be there to meet us.’ The words ran smoothly off my tongue, though with every chugging lurch of the carriage my toes were wriggling round in my boots and I fidgeted back and forth in my seat. But then, as the day faded into mauve shadows, I must have dropped off to sleep as well, my cheek pressed hard to the window glass – until jolted awake with such a fright when the engine’s whistle screeched so loud and I tried to look out of the window again and all I could see was cold black glass with reflections of me, and Elijah, and Papa, each one of us a silvery ghost beyond which a rolling bank of steam was flecked with glowing cinders – all that fire and whiteness through which we stepped in something of a weary daze when, at very nearly midnight, we found ourselves on the platform edge – and there was Freddie, just as he’d said, holding his arms out to greet us, as if to embrace the whole wide world.
What grandeur there was in Freddie’s world! What immensely tall buildings. What breadth of streets that seemed to run on for
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