Page 4 of The Heart’s Choice (Cotton Cops Mysteries #1)
Chapter 3
Trains
“W ill this nightmare soon be over?” Bea’s mother asked, as Odlum herded the Parkers into their fourth dingy train compartment in two days, then rushed off to check that Glenda had made sure their luggage was loaded into the baggage car.
Bea herself was exhausted by guttural shouts of All Change , piercing whistles, slamming doors, garbled arrival and departure announcements, dark and dirty railway platforms, steam engines belching smoke, and choking air that blackened her nostrils. She’d never experienced jostling crowds before, nor been assailed by so many unidentifiable unpleasant odors. In Milton Abbas, people went about their business in a relaxed, easy-going manner. Everyone traveling by train seemed to be in a great hurry. However, excitement about a new adventure kept her going. In her opinion, trains were a wonderful invention, if noisy and dirty. The huge wheels of the engines were more than a little terrifying. She didn’t share her opinions with her mother, who dreaded this new beginning and couldn’t get over her conviction that locomotives were accidents waiting to happen. At least she hadn’t swooned.
The train stopped at every little station between Poole and Waterloo Station. This made the journey seem never-ending, but the scenery was pleasing, until they reached the outskirts of London.
They lodged at the Hotel Victoria after a chaotic journey through London traffic from Waterloo Station to Euston Station. Glenda had a loud confrontation with the porter who showed them to their rooms. Odlum chided her behavior, calling her a country bumpkin, though he was the one every passerby stared at. She remained tight-lipped and sulky after his tirade. Odlum himself spent the night in the hotel on the opposite side of the Euston Arch because it “catered to a better class of person.”
After their stay at the less-than-salubrious Hotel Victoria, they boarded a train for Manchester. As they traveled north, the landscape changed. Long stretches of open fields and majestic oaks and beeches reminded Bea of Dorset, but the increasingly large towns consisted of grime-encrusted buildings, factory chimneys belching smoke, and row upon row of terraced houses crammed together.
Bea’s parents dozed for hours during most of the interminable way north. Glenda snored. Odlum was nowhere to be seen in the crowded third-class carriage. In fact, as soon as they were settled in this last train from Manchester to Bolton, she was certain he’d bolt for first class after checking on the baggage.
“Last lap,” she said, in response to her mother’s question. “Bolton next stop.”
“Thank goodness James came with us,” her father said wearily. “He’s been a godsend.”
Bea privately thought the fop should invest in more than one pair of pantaloons, perhaps in more sober colors and less tight-fitting.
* * *
Having arrived in good time, Roger paced the forecourt of Great Moor Street station. He checked his pocket watch numerous times, willing the Parkers’ train to arrive at the empty platform each time he passed by the gate. The railway had made the transportation of goods easier for businessmen like himself, but was it too much to ask that passenger trains keep to the scheduled arrival times? He made it a point to always be punctual, more often than not arriving early for an appointment.
Aware the Belmont estate possessed only one dilapidated carriage, he’d brought his own brougham. The new Baron Belmont would find out soon enough that the estate had been neglected for many years.
Earlier in the day, he’d spoken with Pickering’s father. It wasn’t surprising Malcolm was such a tearaway. His father was a brute who often came to work inebriated. The fellow had turned up for his shift, even though the spinning room was still closed, three days after the incident. “Better’n bein’ ’ome wi’ the missus,” he’d insisted.
Roger thought to reply that the grieving mother probably needed comforting, but he doubted Pickering gave a fig for his wife’s feelings. He hardly seemed bothered by the fact his son had been murdered, and evidently preferred loitering idly at the mill to staying home with Mrs. Pickering.
Roger’s patience was wearing thin when the great iron horse snorted and chugged into the station, plumes of black smoke adding to the grime on the glass panels in the vaulted platform canopy. Jolted from his reverie about the murdered boy’s father, Roger walked toward the platform gate.
No sooner had the wheels squealed to a halt when a young man stepped down from the first-class carriage. “City ponce,” Roger muttered, curious as to why the fellow clad in bright yellow trousers was heading away from the gate. Clouds of steam obscured the platform for several minutes. Out of the mist came the fop, accompanied by a motley crew. The older couple were much as Roger expected. The stunningly beautiful redhead supporting her mother was not. She was soberly dressed, but his male body reacted predictably to the generous swell of her breasts and shapely hips.
A portly maidservant trudged in the family’s wake, a large valise in each pudgy hand, a portmanteau tucked under her arm.
As soon as they were through the gate, Roger stepped forward to introduce himself to the new Baron Belmont.
The fop came between them. “Be a good chap and assist the menial so she can make sure the luggage gets unloaded.”
* * *
Bea gasped. Odlum considered himself a sophisticated man-about-town, yet he’d mistaken the tall, well-dressed gentleman for a servant.
“I am not a porter, sir,” the man replied, elbowing Odlum aside as he offered a hand to Bea’s father and removed his top hat. “My name is Roger Sandiford, master of Broadclough Mills. The local business community bids you and your family welcome, my lord.”
Disappointment flooded Bea. She’d felt an instant attraction to the handsome fellow, but he was a tradesman, not a gentleman after all. He’d barely been able to utter the words, my lord , as if they stuck in his throat.
“Good of you to meet us, Sandiford,” Bea’s father replied, as they shook hands.
“My task here is complete,” Odlum declared. “This businessman can take care of conveying you to Belmont Grange.”
Bea understood the snarl that marred Sandiford’s chiseled features when Odlum hissed the word businessman and eyed him with disdain.
“Indeed,” Sandiford replied, dark eyes narrowed at the yellow pantaloons. “You can run along.”
Odlum hesitated, apparently not quite grasping that he’d been summarily dismissed. Bea’s father put him out of his misery by shaking his hand and thanking him profusely, whereupon he strutted off.
Bea was glad to see him go but wasn’t sure how to greet Sandiford. Her limited social circle in Dorset didn’t include mill-owners, or men at all for that matter.
“Arthur Parker,” her father said, saving the day. “May I introduce my wife, Abigail, and my daughter, Beatrice.”
Sandiford might not be a gentleman, but he knew enough to bestow a courtly kiss on her mother’s knuckles. “Baroness,” he said politely.
Bea was strangely disappointed when he merely nodded in her general direction and muttered, “Miss Parker,” as he settled the shiny top hat back on his black locks.