Off the Rails (29 page)

‘Splendid,’ his grandmother said, when the tale was told. ‘That’ll larn him.’

And his mother said, ‘I’ve heard of your Mr Prance. By all accounts, he’s a very good man.’

‘After what I’ve seen of him this evening,’ Nat said, ‘that would be my opinion of him too.’

‘He’s writing a report on Mr Hudson’s doings,’ Jane told him. ‘It should make good reading.’

‘Is he so? Nat said. ‘When will it be published? Do you know? I’d like to get hold of a copy. Maybe I could interview him about it, if he were
agreeable
. Any revelation about Mr Hudson’s activities would be newsworthy. My editor would love it. He can’t stand Mr Hudson at any price.’

‘Hold your horses,’ Toby said, laughing at his eagerness. ‘You’ve got finals to sit before you can start reading reports.’

‘Finals,’ Nat told him happily, ‘will be easy after this.’

As it turned out, for neither of them had any real problems with any of the papers and earned themselves double firsts and what Nathaniel called ‘well-deserved praise’. And when the academic slog was over, there was the May ball, to which Mary was invited, and which they all enjoyed
uproariously
, and then a week of parties and fireworks and gallons of champagne to drink, so that although Mr Prance’s report was published none of them noticed it.

It had actually come out in April and it was incendiary. Mr Hudson’s wrongdoings were listed and examined, calmly and inexorably, one after the other. It was established that
he
was the one who had fixed the price of the Great North of England shares which he had then sold to the York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway at an exorbitant profit, exactly as Mr Prance had said at the company meeting. In addition to that, there were other charges. Rails had been bought cheaply and sold for huge profits, compensation cheques had been withheld from landowners and left in Mr Hudson’s account to accumulate more profit for him and shares in the Bradbury Junction Railway Company had been illegally appropriated. It was unanswerable and it had to be answered.

By the time Nat and Toby came down for the last time – Nat to begin full-time work with
The Yorkshireman
, Toby to start his life as a clergyman and to set about redecorating and modernizing his shabby vicarage, according to Mary’s detailed requirements – the York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway had sued their chairman for
£
30,000 and the citizens of York were agog with gossip, either shaking their heads at the news or rubbing their hands, according to their opinion of the man, but all of them telling one another that his downfall was imminent. By the beginning of May, the rumours reached Richard Nicholson’s elegant house in Clifton Green.

At first he tried to tell himself that it was a storm in a teacup and would soon pass over but the rumours persisted and when he read that his brother-in-law was being sued by the York, Newcastle and Berwick for illegal share-dealing, he remembered the shares they had bought and sold together and was seriously alarmed. Painful though it most certainly would be, he would have to buy this dreadful report that everyone was talking about and read it for himself.

He found a copy in the bookseller’s beside the Minster and bought it, which took a moment of courage because he felt that everybody in the shop was staring at him accusingly and it was a struggle not to look shamefaced. Then he hid it in his pocket and took it home to see what it contained. It shocked him so much that he couldn’t speak for the rest of the day. He
couldn’t, wouldn’t believe it. I may be a bit of a fool, he told himself – that was undeniable, everybody knew it – but I’m not dishonest. Never have been, never will be. And yet there it was. In print. The shares were crooked. He and George had broken the law. Oh dear God, how
could
it have happened?

He lay awake all night, in a state of terror, worrying and fretting and feeling sick and utterly at a loss to know what he could do. It wasn’t until dawn was breaking at slow last that he remembered Lizzie. That was the answer. He would write to his sister and ask her what he ought to do. She knew George better than anyone else. She could tell him.

The letter was sent as soon as he’d eaten what breakfast he could. And twenty-four hours later Lizzie arrived in his parlour, her face full of concern.

‘Now don’t you go a-worritting your poor old head about all this nonsense,’ she said. ‘I mean for to say, what is it? I’ll tell ’ee. ’Tis just nonsense. Folk being jealous, that’s all. What does that Mr Prance know about running railways? You tell me that. Nowt, that’s what he knows. Pay him no mind, that’s my advice to ’ee. Pay him no mind at all. I mean for to say, who is he? He’s a nobody, that’s who he is.’

In his terror-heightened state, Richard had acquired a peculiar
sharp-sightedness
. She doesn’t know what’s been going on, he thought. This is all George talking, not her. I can hear his voice. And she’s taken it all in and believes him. Oh my poor Lizzie. ‘He’s a member of the Stock Exchange,’ he said, wearily. ‘He knows about shares.’

‘Well, let him,’ Lizzie said stoutly. ‘What’s that got to do with us? My George wouldn’t do anything dishonest. You know that. Never in this world. So don’t you worry your head. It fair makes my blood boil the way he’s upsetting folk. Not my George, I don’t mean. The other one. That Mr Prance. I’d prance him if I could get my hands on him. Upsetting folk. Saying things. And in print too. I don’t know what the world’s a-coming to. I truly don’t. My George is a fine, upstanding God-fearing man and as honest as the day. Don’t you go worrying your head. That’s my advice to ’ee.’

Your George cuts corners and goes in for shady deals, Richard thought. He’s done it for years, if Mr Prance is to be believed and I see no reason to disbelieve him, and you don’t know. You’ve never known. I’ve had a sneaking suspicion sometimes but you’ve never known. She was still
prattling
on, so he looked away from her and sighed as deeply as he dared, accepting the fact that she was no help to him at all and feeling achingly sorry for her, because she thought she was doing her best for him. Then he served her tea and tempted her with the sugar cakes he couldn’t possibly eat
himself. And when she left, he kissed her goodbye and thanked her for coming over so quickly and, as a loving afterthought, told her he would take her advice.

‘Much the best thing,’ she said and trotted across the path to her carriage, waving to him quite gaily. It was the last time she would ever see him.

That evening, when he’d toyed with his dinner for nearly an hour, he put on his hat and his second-best jacket, because the best one was too
recognizable
, and walked down to the river to think. His misery had deepened during the day and the chill air and ominous gloom of the evening made it worse. He was finished. He knew it as surely as he knew he was standing by the river. It wouldn’t be long before he and George were arrested and taken to court to face their crimes. Oh dear God, arrested and taken to court. How could he bear it? He had no idea what sort of sentence they would have to serve but that was immaterial. He couldn’t face a court case, let alone a prison sentence. It was insupportable.

The rank smell of the river rose to fill his nostrils and he looked down at it, licking at the banks, and noted vaguely that it was moving at a greater speed than usual. If I were to fall in, he thought, I would drown because I can’t swim. I would drown and it would all be over. The thought was suddenly extremely tempting, filling his mind and pulsing along his veins. I would drown and it would all be over.

He took off his jacket and his boots and held his nose and jumped into the running water. It struck so cold it took his breath away, so cold that it filled his mouth, so cold it clogged his nose, so cold it blanked his eyes and made his ears roar. Somewhere at the back of his frozen mind he knew he was slipping away downstream. I shall drown, he thought, but the words were taking a long time to enter his mind and he felt peculiarly calm.

They fished his body out of the river the next morning and his death was reported in the evening papers, the reporter saying that there were no marks of a struggle on the body and that it was to be presumed that Mr Nicholson had taken his own life.

Nathaniel had been working on a complicated engineering design in the library for most of the day. He carried the paper into the parlour and gave it to Jane as soon as he’d read it.

‘I think you’d better see this,’ he said and waited anxiously while she read it too.

She was very upset. ‘Suicide?’ she said. ‘No, surely not. Whatever got into him to do such a thing? It’s not like him. Not suicide. He was always so light-hearted. Wouldn’t ’ee say so?’

‘He found us this house,’ Nathaniel remembered. ‘He said it was rare sport to take me house-hunting. But as to suicide …’ And he paused. ‘Happen it was something to do with Mr Prance’s report.’

She was struck by a shock of the most uncomfortable conscience. ‘Surely not,’ she said again. ‘I mean to say, the report was about Mr Hudson, not him. It couldn’t apply to
him
surely.’

‘It could if he was buying and selling the same shares.’

‘But that’s dreadful,’ she said. And yet even as she spoke she knew it could be possible. Oh, poor Mr Nicholson. What a fearful thing for him to have done. He must have been desperate.

‘Yes,’ Nathaniel agreed. ‘It is. I wonder how poor Mrs Hudson is taking it. It will be a parlous shock to
her
.’

Mrs Hudson was screaming abuse at her husband. It had been a totally awful day. First her poor Ann had come weeping into her bedroom before she was dressed, to tell her she’d had a terrible letter from Mr Dundas informing her that ‘in view of the present situation’ he was ‘releasing’ her from their engagement.

‘I’m to be shamed before the whole of society,’ she wept. ‘The whole of society. It’s not fair, Ma.
I
didn’t sell any shares. Why should I have to be shamed because of what my father’s done? It’s not fair.’

‘Happen you could marry someone else,’ Lizzie said, trying to comfort her.

‘No one’ll have me,’ Ann wept. ‘Not after this. I’m ruined. Oh, Ma, it’s not fair.’

It had been well into the afternoon before she stopped crying and then she went off to her bedroom and locked herself in and the housekeeper came storming into the parlour to complain to Lizzie because the maids couldn’t get in to clean the room. As if
that
mattered when her daughter’s heart was broken.

Then the newspaper arrived and the stupid housekeeper brought it in to her at teatime as if she were doing her a favour.
‘I thought you ought to see this, ma’am.’
What a thing to say. She’d had to read it twice because she couldn’t bear to believe it the first time. He couldn’t have done such a dreadful, awful, appalling, sinful thing. Not her Richard. Not her darling Richard. And to have it all in the papers for everyone to read. It made her want to scream that it wasn’t true, that it couldn’t be true.

And then as if all that weren’t bad enough and just as she’d stopped wanting to scream, a second letter had arrived and that one was from William to say that he was
‘going to take the Queen’s shilling and join
the 
army, on account of it is impossible to stay at school now there is all this
fuss over Papa.’

‘I can’t bear it!’ she shouted when George came whistling into the house. Whistling! As if there were nothing the matter, when her world was falling to pieces. ‘Don’t you understand? I can’t bear it. First my poor Ann and how she’ll get over a blow like that I really don’t know, she were crying fit to break her heart, and then that awful newspaper – what I mean to say, she didn’t have to bring it up to me like that. She must have known what was in it. And William gone for a soldier, when he should have been going up to Oxford like his brothers. It’s enough to drive anyone distracted.’ And she started to howl.

‘Stow that row!’ George shouted at her. ‘Do you hear me? Just stow it! I’ve not come home to listen to all this rubbish.’

‘Rubbish!’ she screamed. ‘My brother’s dead.’

‘Yes,’ he said shortly. ‘I’ve heard.’

That stopped her for a second – but only a second and then she was screaming at him again. ‘What are you going to do about it?’

‘Do?’ he roared. ‘What are you
on
about, woman? The man’s dead. Can’t you understand? He took the easy way out and he’s dead. You can’t bring the dead back to life.’

By that time, she’d reached spitting fury. ‘Easy way out!’ she shouted at him. ‘Easy way out! How can ’ee stand there an’ say such a vile, hateful thing? You’re … you’re …’ What was the word she wanted? ‘You’re
heartless
, George Hudson. That’s what you are. Heartless. You’re the most heartless, abominable wretch I ever clapped eyes on – and the most selfish and the most unkind, and, and … And here’s my Ann been jilted and my William gone for a soldier and all you can do is stand there and say easy way out. You should be ashamed of yourself! Downright ashamed!’

He drew himself up to his full dominant height, red in the face and hot with fury. ‘I will not be spoken to like this in my own house!’ he roared. ‘Make your mind up to it. I’ve enough on my plate wi’ court cases an’ people bellowing at me to resign and threatening to take away my estates and all my capital, wi’out having to listen to your stupid nonsense. If you go on, I’ll have you sent to an asylum for the insane. Do you hear me?’

‘The whole house can hear you!’ she shouted at him. ‘The whole world.’ Then she ran from him, sobbing wildly.

Heartless and foul tempered he might be, but what he was telling her was correct in every detail. He was being beleaguered on all sides. The bank had foreclosed on his mortgage, which meant he would have to sell Albert Gate, he’d already resigned his chairmanship of the York, Newcastle and Berwick
and all his other railway companies were demanding his resignation too, he had three court cases pending, all of them in Chancery, and in seven days’ time he had to appear before the House of Commons to answer charges that he’d been bribing MPs. His life couldn’t have been at a lower ebb. But he had no intention of sinking into self-pity. He was George Hudson, the Railway King. They’d not see
him
taking the easy way out. He’d stand up to ’em. He’d show ’em. If he couldn’t beat ’em, he’d go down fighting, God damn it.