Page 53 of A Gathering Storm
Ward didn’t usually notice the difference between their clothes, but here in Truro, he found himself doing so, and other things besides. The difference between his own cut-glass vowels and Nicholas’s warmer, rounder ones, his stiff manners with the serving girl and Nicholas’s easy good humour.
“Have you been to the railway before?” Nicholas asked, interrupting Ward’s thoughts.
Ward glanced at him. “Yes, Pipp and I came down last year to meet with the architect of Varhak Manor. Afterwards, I took the train to Penzance to visit a friend. What about you?”
“Not yet,” Nicholas said. “I’d dearly love to go on a train, but I’ve no reason to visit Penzance.” He smiled. “That’s the trouble with this railway line. It doesn’t go anywhere I need to be.”
“Well, it won’t be long before they finish the line between Truro and Plymouth, and then you’ll be able to go anywhere. All the way to London in a single day. And then from London all the way to Scotland.”
“I’ve never been to London,” Nicholas said, “or Scotland.”
“I’ve not been to Scotland either,” Ward admitted, “but I can tell you, you’ll love London. I mean, it’s dirty and noisy of course, and dangerous in places, but there are so many wonderful things to see. There’s no place in the world more alive, I think.”
“You miss it,” Nicholas observed. “No wonder. It’s so quiet in Porthkennack.”
“I didn’t mean that Imissit,” Ward said. “Only that I would like to show it to you.”
As soon as the words were out, he felt colour flood his face at how thoroughly betraying they were. Nicholas turned his head to look at him in surprise, and Ward quickly averted his gaze, realising with something very like relief that they were almost at the station.
“Ah, here we are,” he exclaimed, picking up his pace and striding towards the tiny office. “I’ll ask the stationmaster if there’s a train due anytime soon. I believe there are a few each day, so we might be lucky.”
It turned out there was a train due in forty minutes, so they waited, standing side by side, leaning against a low wall that looked over the platform, while Ward explained how steam engines worked, and the problems that had been encountered with the rival atmospheric system, so recently abandoned by Mr. Brunel in neighbouring Devon.
“Perhaps they’d have finished the line from London to Penzance already if they’d stuck with steam engines,” Nicholas said, sending a teasing glance Ward’s way. “And then you could’ve taken me to London like you said you wanted to earlier.”
Ward’s face flamed, and Nicholas chuckled softly, though not unkindly. He turned his back, settling his hips against the wall so that he was facing away from the tracks, looking Ward directly in the eye.
“Where would you take me, if we could go there tomorrow?”
Nicholas’s mouth was hitched in a familiar half smile and there was something wistful in his gaze that made Ward feel strangely tender to him, and that made his own embarrassment fade.
He said, “I’d take you to the British Museum to see the Rosetta Stone and the Elgin Marbles. And then to Hyde Park. You can walk for miles there. Perhaps we’d even go boating on the Serpentine. Or riding on Hampstead Heath—we could go up to Parliament Hill. You can see the whole city from there.”
Nicholas’s gaze was warm. “That all sounds wonderful.”
Ward grinned. “Oh, that’s just for starters! I’d take you to the zoo and to Astley’s circus, and there are dozens of music halls and theatres we could go to. I’m not one for those sorts of entertainments usually, but I’d love to show you—” He was babbling so quickly, his voice cracked, the words petering out on a croaky rasp.
“I can’t even imagine a place so lively,” Nicholas said. “The most entertainment I’ve ever seen is the Christmas mummers, and the music hall here in Truro a time or two.”
“Did you like the music hall?”
Nicholas gave a huff of laughter. “Some of it. There were one or two good singers, several awful ones, some decent acrobats, and a so-called mind reader my mother could have given a run for his money.”
“Your mother read minds too?”
“No,” Nicholas scoffed. “But she could read people.Why do you think all the village women came to her about their loved ones who’d passed? She was very astute. Very good at understanding what people wanted to hear.”
It was in that moment Ward realised that Nicholas didn’t—reallydidn’t—believe in his own mother’s powers as a medium. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise—he’d alluded to as much several times before, and yet Ward felt stunned.
Nicholas didn’t seem to notice. He gave a sigh and turned back to look over the wall again. “My life has been small, Ward. I’ve lived all my life in Porthkennack. Truro is about as far from home as I’ve ever been.”
“There’s nothing wrong with staying in a place you love,” Ward said.
Nicholas gave a short laugh. “Well, it’s true I’ve never felt a burning desire to leave Porthkennack. And it would be all too easy to live out my days there. But . . .”
“But what?”
“I have never truly belonged.”