Off the Rails (24 page)

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.’

G
EORGE
H
UDSON’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.’

Nathaniel agreed that it was indeed a blessing and he and Jane exchanged an amused look because they knew it wasn’t a foregone
conclusion
that Nat would become a railway engineer. His classics master thought he ought to go to Oxford and had told them so, when they’d gone to the school to discuss his future. ‘A clever boy,’ he’d said to them. ‘We feel he should sit the Oxford Entrance if you would be agreeable to it.’ They’d agreed at once. What parent would not? It would be such an opportunity
and they could well afford it. But they’d decided not to say anything to their neighbours until after the results of the examination were out, just in case he wasn’t as clever as his teachers thought. But it was a wonderful secret to hug to themselves.

The dinner party meandered amiably on, the latest news was dissected, the price of cloth deplored, the new railway to Whitby praised and the name of Queen Victoria’s latest baby discussed at length. When they parted from one another at a little after eleven o’clock, they were all in very good humour.

‘If you have any news of our esteemed friend,’ Jane said as she shook Mr Leeman’s hand, ‘I would be glad to hear it.’ Nathaniel was talking to Mrs Leeman and safely out of earshot.

‘If and when I have news, Mrs Cartwright,’ Mr Leeman promised, ‘you shall be the first to hear it. I give you my word. There is much being said, as you can imagine, but nothing to any purpose – as yet.’

But in the event, when news
did
come, it was brought by Lizzie Hudson.

The Railway King was in a temper. ‘Look at that!’ he shouted, throwing his copy of
The Times
across the breakfast table at his wife. ‘Who gave him leave to pontificate? Eh? Tell me that. Damned man. Carping and
criticizing
. Who asked
him
? Read it.’

Lizzie picked the paper up very gingerly as if it might bite her, looked at it and tried to read it. It was a chilly morning and the fire hadn’t taken at all well so she was cold as well as nervous. If only he wouldn’t shout so.

‘Well, read it!’ he shouted. ‘Read it.’ And he leant across the table and squashed his fat finger against the offending passage.

It was a letter in the correspondence column and, as Lizzie feared, it was all about him and none too complimentary.

‘I consider Mr Hudson to be a shrewd man,’
the letter writer said,
‘but for pity’s sake, Sir, call the attention of shareholders to the sway this person is obtaining. Shareholders should be cautious ere they raise a railway
autocrat
with power greater than the prime minister.’

‘Am I to be told how I’m to run my own business now?’ George shouted. ‘Is that the size of it? I never heard the like. God damn it, how do they think I can run a railway if I’m not to have any power? That’s how the system works. Power and brass. That’s the size of it. Power and brass. Which I’ve earned by t’sweat of my brow, dammit. And now this jumped-up
pip-squeak
comes along and thinks he can tell me how I’m to spend my own money. He’d not do such a thing if I were gentry. Oh no! It’d be yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir, if I were gentry. I’ve said this afore, Lizzie, but I’ll say it again, I’ve a damned good mind to buy myself a country estate. That’d
show ’em. Summat grand and costly. See how they’d treat me then. What do ’ee think of that? Eh? Shall I buy an estate?’

Lizzie didn’t know what to think – or what to say. ‘If you think so, George,’ she quavered.

‘I
do
think so,’ he said. ‘Should ha’ done it years ago. I’ll get the opening of the Newcastle and Darlington out the way and arrange the dinner in Gateshead and then I’ll set about it.’

‘He means it,’ Lizzie said to Jane two days later when they were taking tea in Jane’s pretty parlour. ‘And how we shall mek out in some great house stuck out in the middle of the country I do not know, away from all our friends. I shall never see you and Richard ever again, which I couldn’t abide, I mean for to say after all these years. And what’s to become of Monkgate? Tell me that. We can hardly live in two places at once, now can we?’

‘Plenty do,’ Jane told her. ‘The gentry have houses all over the place, country estates and town houses in London and all sorts.’

‘But we’re not gentry,’ Lizzie said. ‘I mean for to say, gentry are born and bred. You’ve only to listen to ’em to know that. You should hear young Georgie these days. He speaks so grand I can hardly understand what he’s saying half the time what with stuff about the beaks, which is what they call the masters at Harrow seemingly, and capping and shells and yearlings and I don’t know what all. Not that I’m saying he’s gentry, mind, I’d not presume to that, but he sounds like gentry, there’s no gainsaying it, what I suppose I should be glad on. George says ’tis first rate and ’twill stand him in good stead when he gets to Oxford, where he’s a-going apparently. He should know, shouldn’t he, mixing with the gentry an’ all – George, I mean not Georgie, although I suppose he’s mixing with the gentry in Harrow, because they all seem to be gentry there. Some of ’em are Honourables. What I can hardly believe, my son hob-nobbing with Honourables. I mean for to say.’ Then she paused to gather her thoughts. ‘Oh, what if I have to leave York, Jane? I wouldn’t see you or Richard ever again.’ And she began to cry, the tears running down her long nose and into her mouth.

‘Try not to fret, my dear,’ Jane said, full of sympathy for her poor weeping friend. ‘It might not come to it. He might change his mind.’

‘No,’ Lizzie said, resignedly, wiping her eyes, ‘he won’t. Once he’s set his heart on a thing he never changes.’

She was right. He bought his first country seat that summer, just after the Newcastle and Darlington Railway had been officially opened. It was a very large estate called Octon and he bought it for
£
100,000 from the Duke of Devonshire, no less, along with a considerable piece of land at Baldersby near Thirsk.

‘Now let ’em criticize me,’ he said to Lizzie when he’d shown her round his enormous building. ‘This is the style, eh? That’ll show ’em.’

‘What will happen to Monkgate?’ Lizzie ventured. ‘Shall we go on living there?’

‘We’ll live there for the time being,’ he said, ‘until this is signed and sealed. Then I shall put it on t’market an’ this’ll be our home and we’ll live here. This is just the place for us. Plenty of room. We can hold some rare old parties here. Think on it, Lizzie.’

But Lizzie was thinking of her dear brother Richard and her dear friend Jane and wondering how she would ever get to see them when she had to live in this awful great place, stuck out in the country.

Had she known it, Jane was ‘out in the country’ that afternoon too. She’d had a letter from Milly that morning that had sent her rushing to catch the first train to Foster Manor.
‘Dearest Ma,’
the letter had said,
‘I feel so sick and ill I hardly know which way to turn. You would not believe how ill I feel and Felix is worried silly and told me to write to you. Please, dearest Ma, come and see me. I long to see you. Please come as soon as ever you can. Your miserable and loving daughter, Milly.’

It seemed like a very long train journey and Jane worried through every mile of it. But when she got to Foster Manor and was ushered up to her daughter’s bedroom she only had to ask two questions and she relaxed at once, for Milly wasn’t in a fever or covered in spots or blisters or anything untoward like that. She was nauseous because she was carrying again.

‘Have ’ee been very sick?’ Jane asked, sitting herself beside the bed and holding Milly’s hand.

‘Endlessly,’ Milly sighed. ‘On and on. You’d never believe it. It starts as soon as I sit up. I can’t understand it. I wasn’t like this with the other two.’

‘Um,’ Jane said. ‘It does happen sometimes. How far gone are you?’

‘Nearly three months,’ Milly told her. ‘Mrs Hardcastle said everything was coming along well but I don’t see how it can be when I’m feeling so ill. I don’t understand it.’

‘’Twill pass when you’ve reached the third month,’ Jane promised. ‘And I’ll come in and see you every day until it does.’

In fact it took another twenty days and Jane travelled to Foster Manor on every one of them. When Lizzie’s unhappy letter arrived to tell her she had moved to
‘this awful great house where I shan’t see anyone and what will become of me here I cannot think and now he is going to put Monkgate on the market, what I can’t see the necessity for, and he is so cross on account of this other railway’,
it was nearly a week before she could find
time to answer it. And then she couldn’t think what to say because it was such a rambling letter she didn’t understand a lot of it.

It wasn’t until Nathaniel came back from Durham that she found out about ‘this other railway’.

‘There
is
a new railway being proposed,’ he told her. ‘The company was formed in May. It’s going to be called the London and York Railway because it’s to run from London to York. Mr Hudson is furious about it.’

‘But we’ve already got a railway from London to York,’ Jane said.

‘Exactly so,’ Nathaniel said, ‘which is why Mr Hudson is so annoyed. ‘This is another one, taking another route. It will run through St Neots, Peterborough, Lincoln, Grantham and Doncaster and it will be a great deal quicker than Mr Hudson’s route on account of it being more direct. The MP for Doncaster is backing it, so I believe, and another MP called Astell.’

‘Competition,’ Mary Jerdon observed, grinning at him. ‘Now there’ll be ructions.’

‘They’ve started already, Nanna,’ he told her. ‘According to Mr Leeman, he’s asking the Midland to put up two and a half million pounds to build more lines.’

‘He spends money like water,’ Mary Jerdon sniffed. ‘There’ll be ructions.’

The ruction, when it came, was so violent and so public that it sent shockwaves all along the route of the proposed new line from York to London.

It happened on a cold January day and in the middle of Derby railway station and its onset was almost accidental. The great George Hudson had just stepped ponderously down from one of his fine, new, first-class carriages, moving carefully because his gout was playing him up, when he found himself precipitously face to face with his arch enemy, Mr Edmund Beckett Denison, MP for Doncaster and co-founder of the London and York Railway. The two men eyed one another for several seconds and then Mr Denison greeted his rival with apparent courtesy but in tones that
indicated
unmistakable disdain and hostility. ‘Your servant, Mr Hudson, sir.’

‘Servant be dammed,’ George said, instantly in a fury. ‘Out of my way, sir. I have no truck with men who raise capital by foul means.’

‘Have a care, sir,’ Mr Denison warned. ‘I’m not a man for foul means, not for any of my endeavours, which is more than can be said for some. You would be well advised to watch your tongue, sir.’

‘You watch your own tongue, sir,’ George roared. ‘God damn it, I won’t be spoken to in that way in my own station.’

They were toe to toe and bristling like fighting cocks and their furious voices and hot faces were attracting a crowd.

‘You’ll be spoken to in any way I choose,’ Mr Denison shouted.

‘I will not, God damn it,’ George shouted back. ‘Foul means I said and foul means I meant. I’m a man as speaks my mind.’