Off the Rails

by Beryl Kingston

  ‘It is, Mrs Cartwright, ma’am,’ the coachman said, catching her excitement and beaming at her. ‘Sir Felix sent me. Born last night. He thought you’d want to visit and see him.’

  ‘I should just think I would,’ she said. ‘My first grandchild!’

  He was the most contented baby. When Jane was ushered into the bedroom, he was lying happily fed and blissfully asleep in Milly’s arms. And what better place for him, dear little man. For the next hour and a half, they were lost to the delights of baby worship, admiring his exquisite fingers, his soft fair hair – isn’t he just exactly like his father? – his dear little snub nose, the delicious smell of him. It was the happiest, easiest occasion and one that was to be repeated every day all through Milly’s fourteen-day lying in.

  ‘I’ve never seen her so happy,’ Jane said to Nathaniel when he finally came back from Scarborough. ‘Not even when Felix asked her to marry him and I thought she was happy then. As she was. But this is different. ’Tis an absolute joy to see.’

  ‘All very natural,’ Nathaniel said. ‘You were just the same when Nat and Mary were born. You looked like a cat that had had the cream.’

  ‘She’s been saying she’ll need a nursemaid,’ Jane told him. ‘She was talking about it again this afternoon. Do you think she would like Audrey? Should I suggest it?’

  ‘What about Nat and Mary? Don’t they need her?’

  ‘They’re too old for a nursemaid,’ Jane said easily. ‘Nat will be off to school next year, don’t forget.’

  That was true. ‘In that case,’ Nathaniel said, ‘you might suggest it.’

  Nat and Mary weren’t at all sure that they approved of their mother rushing off to see some strange baby every day and when she told them she was sending their Audrey to be the baby’s nursemaid, they were both decidedly cross.

  ‘I know it’s Milly’s baby,’ Nat said, when he and his sister were sitting together in the empty drawing room, ‘but it doesn’t have to have our Audrey. That’s not fair. And Mama doesn’t have to go rushing off to see it every day. I’m beginning to forget what she looks like.’

  ‘Are you?’ Mary said, blue eyes wide.

  ‘Not really,’ Nat admitted. He was aggrieved but he had to be truthful. ‘But that’s what it feels like. When was the last time she read us a fairy story?’

  Mary couldn’t remember.

  ‘There you are then.’

  ‘I tell ’ee what,’ Mary said, trying to cheer him. ‘Let’s take Spot out for a walk.’

  ‘Who with?’ Nat wanted to know. They always went for walks with Audrey.

  There was a lot of the daredevil in Mary. ‘Ourselves,’ she said.

  So they took the dog and went out for a very long walk, across the fields until they came to Monkgate and then back home through the crowded streets. And as they were strolling along Goodramgate, calling to Spot to keep up with them, who should they meet coming out of the draper’s with two fat parcels in her shopping basket but Mrs Hudson. She was rather surprised to see them and stopped to talk.

  ‘You’re never on your own,’ she said. ‘Surely.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Nat said with splendid aplomb. ‘We often walk on our own nowadays, don’t we, Mary?’

  Mary agreed with him, staunchly, nodding her head and giving Mrs Hudson the benefit of her honest blue eyes.

  ‘I thought you had a nursemaid,’ Lizzie said.

  ‘We’re much too old for nursemaids now,’ Nat said grandly. ‘I’m going to school next year. You don’t need a nursemaid when you’re a scholar. She’s gone to help our sister Milly with her new baby.’

  ‘Fancy!’ Lizzie said, and she was thinking, Just wait till I tell George all this.

  He wasn’t the least bit interested, although she thought she’d chosen her moment well, between the roast and the sweet, when he was full fed and had drunk a great deal of wine and ought to have been in a good humour. But when she’d told him all about meeting the children and how she was sure the little dog was Dickie’s that he used to have, he was the spit and image, if a dog can be the spit and image if you know what I mean, and about Milly’s baby and how she could hardly believe it, she truly couldn’t, he put down his empty glass and glared at her.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ he said.

  ‘Milly’s baby,’ she told him, quivering a little because he looked so stern.

  ‘Who?’ he hooted.

  ‘Milly,’ she said and now she was visibly quivering. ‘You remember Milly. She was Dickie’s nursemaid and a better one you couldn’t hope to find. I mean to say, the way she picked him up off the floor when he’d tumbled over that time, poor little man, and kissed it better….’

  ‘Why do you imagine I should be interested in some nursemaid’s child?’ he said crossly, pouring himself more wine. ‘I’ve got better things to do with my time. It’s the grand opening of the York to London railway in a matter of weeks, or have ’ee forgot?’ He sighed dramatically. ‘There are times when I despair of you, Lizzie, I truly do.’

  ‘She’s Jane’s daughter,’ Lizzie ploughed on. ‘You remember Jane. Mrs Smith as was when she was our housekeeper only now she’s Mrs Cartwright, of course, on account of marrying Mr Cartwright.’

  ‘If you’ve nothing more illuminating to talk about than housekeepers and nursemaids, you’d be better to stay silent,’ George told her sternly. ‘These people are nothing to me. I have a railway to run.’ And another to build and profits to watch.

  Trade had not been good for the last twelve months, with the price of most shares falling rather too steeply and far too many bankruptcies and far too many shops closing, which was never a good sign. In fact there was a general air of decided gloom pervading the city and something would have to be done to dispel it. I must organize something spectacular for the grand opening, he thought. That should do the trick.

  The first train on the York to London line ran on 30 June, exactly as Mr Hudson had promised. Thanks to his extravagant planning, it was a great occasion with bunting fluttering in the summer breeze, a band playing very loudly and occasionally in tune, and magnums of champagne being served to the guests. When the train puffed away from the station there was a chorus of happily contented cheers.

  I must push them to get on with the railway hotel, George thought as he looked back along the line. We need Mr Andrews’ grand building up and running. Our little station won’t do at all now we’ve got a direct line to London – and that site’s been cleared and ready for nearly a year. There’s no need for all this shilly-shallying. The council must be made to see it. As always on these occasions, he felt he was equal to anything. Let lesser men go to the wall, he thought, as the engine blew its triumphant whistle. I mean to go from strength to strength.

  Young Master Felix Nathaniel Fitzwilliam, having been given the traditional silver spoon and had his name put down for Eton in the traditional way, was going from strength to strength that summer too. He was christened when he was three weeks old, looking angelically pretty in the family christening gown and with his entire and fashionable family gathered about the font in their grand clothes and their most elegant hats and bonnets to welcome him into the clan. His father looked particularly handsome in his fine clothes with a Prince Albert moustache silky on his upper lip and his mother wore her finest day gown, with its seams let out for the occasion, and smiled a welcome to her guests as if she were a lady born.

  ‘We shall expect great things of him,’ Lady Sarah told her brother, when the company was back in Foster Manor sipping champagne.

  ‘He won’t disappoint you,’ Felix promised her. ‘He has a splendid spirit.’

  ‘Never a truer word!’ Milly laughed. ‘I never knew such a determined baby.’

  She was right, for despite his angelic appearance, with that soft fair hair and that delicate skin, he was a lusty child and had made it clear, almost from his first day, that he had no intention of being asked to wait for anything, especially his food. By the time he was five months old and w
as sitting up in his highchair, he had learnt to bang on the table with his spoon and to go on banging until he got the attention he wanted. But he had a smile of such melting sweetness that Milly said she couldn’t deny him anything. And his grandmother was bewitched by him and took the carriage to visit him whenever she could.

  By this time, Nat and Mary weren’t upset by her absences because it left them free to go exploring whenever they wanted to. Over June and July they discovered a water mill, two half-demolished haystacks and a disused clay pit which was the best of all, because it was wonderfully, squashily muddy and they could paddle there without being told not to get wet. Nat said it was almost as good as being at the seaside.

  ‘How do you know?’ Mary said. ‘You’ve never been to the seaside.’

  ‘I have so,’ her brother told her loftily, ‘and I can remember every bit of it.’

  ‘Did I go too?’

  ‘Yes. Course you did.’

  ‘I don’t remember it.’

  ‘That’s on account of you were very little,’ Nat said. ‘Spot went too, didn’t you Spot? I’ll bet he remembers.’ And then he noticed that his sister was looking cast down, so he said, ‘Happen we’ll go again sometime. Then you’ll see.’

  ‘Do you think we will?’ Mary said.

  ‘You never know,’ her brother told her.

  But they were both surprised when their father came home from his latest stint on the railway to tell them he’d booked a cottage by the seaside so that they could all go away for a holiday. It was almost as if he’d been listening to their conversation. And when he told them it was at Whitby and Nat remembered that that was where they’d been for that first seaside holiday, they couldn’t believe their luck.

  It was a wonderful holiday and they enjoyed it so much that Nathaniel said he would take them to some of the other places he had to visit that summer. So they went to Darlington, where they explored the centre of the town and went to see where the new railway station was being built, to Scarborough, where they were impressed by the wide roads and the fine carriages that filled them but much preferred climbing the sea cliffs at the edge of a wild sea, and to Leeds, where their mother showed them round the town, as well as travelling six times to Foster Manor, to see their sister and her baby, who was now called Fill, to distinguish him from his father.

  The next year was even better, for this was the year when Nat started at the Quaker school. He came home every day glowing with tales of the new things he was learning and the new friends he was making until Mary grew quite envious and confided to her mother that she didn’t see why girls couldn’t be scholars too. But although she sighed very sadly, she knew she had to accept the situation. There was no hope of her joining her brother because they only took boys at his school and there were no schools for girls.

  But she was wrong. The times were changing. When Nat had been a scholar for two terms and the new year was four months old and Fill had celebrated his second birthday with a great iced cake and eaten so much of it that it gave him hiccups, and big sister Milly was expecting her second baby in two months time, her papa came home one April afternoon with a little booklet in his hand.

  ‘There you are, Miss Mary,’ he said, handing it to her. ‘What do you think of that?’

  He had his teasing face on, so she read the little book at once. It was called ‘A Brochure’ which seemed an odd sort of title but inside it was all about a new school that was going to be opened in York in September and, wonder of wonders, it was a school for girls.

  Her face was a study of surprise and delight.

  ‘Am I to take it that you would like to be put down for a place?’ her father said.

  Her answer was instant and loving. She bounded towards him, brochure in hand, and threw her arms round his neck. And Jane, watching them from the comfort of her armchair, was suddenly overwhelmed by such happiness that her cheeks grew hot and she had to put up a hand to try to hide her blushes.

  These first happy years of the decade had been good to George Hudson too. He’d made sure of it. Just as he’d predicted, some of the small railways companies were struggling within months of coming into existence. So he decided to give them a little canny encouragement. In April 1841, he called a meeting in York for all the companies who were ‘interested in forming an east coast link from York to Edinburgh’ and, when their directors were gathered together and enjoying his hospitality, he told them he planned to build a line from Darlington to Durham. They were impressed, as he knew they would be, for if he built a line, everybody knew it would be up and running in no time and, what is more, it would be successful. One or two of them wondered how such an ambitious project as a line to Edinburgh could possibly be funded and how much it would cost. He told them grandly that it would probably be in the region of half a million pounds and was delighted when one or two of them gasped. Then he told them there would be a second meeting in four months’ time, when he would outline his plans in full.

  It was no surprise to him when the directors returned in August in a miserably chastened mood. They had made careful estimates of what it would cost to build their section of the line and they knew it was beyond their resources. They weren’t rich men, when all was said and done, and potential shareholders were loath to invest when times were so bad. George looked round at their glum faces, as he stood up to address them, and knew they would fall into his lap like ripe apples.

  He told them the cost of the project was indeed £500,000 and agreed that that was a sum which was unlikely to be raised on the open market. ‘However,’ he said, grinning at them, ‘that need not disturb us unduly. There are other ways to raise capital. What I propose is this. We have eight companies between us. Very well then, let us join forces and offer these shares to our own shareholders—’ He paused so that his next words would have their maximum impact ‘—with a guaranteed dividend of six per cent.’

  There was a frisson of excitement. One man called ‘Bravo!’, another threw his hat in the air, there was general applause, which George acknowledged with a wave of his fat hand. One bold soul did venture to ask how he could be sure of such a dividend but the answer to that was simple.

  ‘I have given you my word on it,’ he said, ‘and when George Hudson gives you his word you may depend on it.’

  The formation of the new company was ratified by all eight small companies just before Christmas and naturally enough Mr George Hudson was elected chairman and made it his business to have Richard Nicholson as his company treasurer, there being nothing like keeping things in the family. By the time Jane was cuddling her second grandson and telling Milly what a little darling he was and agreeing that the name Jonathan was just perfect for him, the bill for the new Darlington to Newcastle Railway was before parliament. By the following September there was a unified rail network throughout the Midlands with lines stretching from Rugby and Birmingham to York and Newcastle. And the Railway King owned it all.

  ‘There you are, you see,’ he said to Lizzie. ‘They can carp all they like, but there’s no stopping me when I’ve set my mind to a thing.’

  24

  GEORGE HUDSON’S SPECTACULAR progress was the main topic of conversation at the dinner parties in York during the spring of 1844, that and his ability to pay such high dividends to his shareholders when all the other railway companies were struggling.

  Even Nathaniel was beginning to have doubts about his hero. ‘What I can’t understand,’ he said to Mr Leeman, one summer evening, when his particular group of friends and neighbours was gathered about his dining table, ‘is how he was able to predict the dividend his new company would pay, even before the line was built and the profits were coming in. He must have had a crystal ball.’

  ‘That has occurred to a good many of us over the last few years,’ Mr Leeman said and he gave Jane his quiet smile.

  Then they’re still keeping an eye on him, Jane thought. She’d grown adept at picking up messages at these dinner parties of hers.

  ‘I can�
��t believe he would be dishonest,’ Mr Patterson said, smoothing his whiskers. ‘He is a considerable businessman, when all’s said and done, and I daresay they have different ways of doing things.’

  ‘So it would appear,’ Mr Leeman said – and again that smile at Jane.

  ‘And we mustn’t forget he has built us the De Grey Rooms,’ Mrs Patterson said, ‘which are a great adornment to the city. He’d not have done that had he been dishonest, now would he.’

  ‘He’ll overreach hisself one of these days,’ Mary Jerdon told them all, nodding her head. ‘You mark my words. Men like that allus do.’

  The company were used to her gloomy predictions about the great Mr Hudson, having heard so many, and took very little notice of her, although her daughter breathed ‘Amen’ and hoped she would be proved right. Then she looked up at Mrs Anderson and turned the conversation to an easier topic. ‘What did you think of Mr Dickens’ latest instalment, Mrs Anderson?’ she asked.

  ‘That Mr Pecksniff is so awful,’ Mrs Anderson said happily. ‘You really hate him. Leastways, I do. I hated him from the minute he made his first appearance. I do so enjoy Mr Dickens’ characters.’

  And then they were all off, praising and dissecting, admiring ‘that dear Mark Tapley’, wondering whether America really was as bad as Mr Dickens painted it, hoping that Mary Graham would marry Martin Chuzzlewit.

  ‘Have you all read the latest instalment?’ Mr Greer wanted to know.

  ‘We read it yesterday evening,’ Nathaniel told them, adding with pride, ‘Our two scholars took it in turns to read it aloud to us.’

  ‘What a blessing it must be to have two scholars in the family,’ Mrs Patterson said. ‘A son to follow his father into the profession and a clever daughter to keep her mother company.’