mistook the gesture.
“You don’t agree?” he said. “Come on, Lad! I know you’re an artist, and supposed to believe in all that Romantic fiddle-faddle about the loveliness of Mother Nature, but you’re young, damn it! What are you, twenty-three, twenty-four? I suppose that makes you a child of the eighteenth century, but only just! You’re a son of the Age of Steam, the Era of Progress! You must look to the future, my boy, as a wonderland of opportunity—and I shall make it my business this weekend to see that you do! Escott will fight me all the way, of course, and so will that old fool Carp, but Langstrade’s in my camp, and so is Marlstone. They’re both lunatics, admittedly, but they’re lunatics on the side of the angels. Stick with me, young Laurel, and I’ll show you the way the world’s going, or my name’s not Hope!”
The last remark was a quip that Quentin Hope produced so often that even Michael, who hardly knew the man, had overheard it half a dozen times before. Michael hastened to assure the optimist that his gesture had not been intended as a denial, and that he was indeed looking forward to telling his wonderstruck grandchildren that he had traveled from London to York on a train pulled by the Sir Richard Trevithick on the afternoon of Thursday the fifteenth of August 1822, a mere nine days after her first scheduled round trip.
Instead of rejoicing in this news, however, Hope sighed again. This time, the locomotive was not sympathetic.
Michael guessed that the third sigh had been occasioned by the fact that the older man might be beginning to wonder whether he would ever have the opportunity to dandle awestruck grandchildren on his own knees, in order that he could replicate the proud boast in question before an appropriate audience. Although it was by no means uncommon for gentlemen who had turned forty to marry, it was rare for those who delayed marriage so long to live to a sufficiently ripe old age to see their own grandchildren learn to walk. Michael hoped to be married long before he turned thirty, although he was quite convinced that, if fate were sufficiently cruel to prevent him from marrying Cecilia Langstrade, he would die a bachelor—quite probably of a broken heart.
He was distracted from this tender thought by the sight of a man elbowing his way urgently through the crowd, red-faced and perspiring in spite of his near-spectral thinness, which contrasted strongly with Hope’s healthy rotundity. James Escott, it seemed, was not lurking in the first-class carriage reserved for the inner circle of Lord Langstrade’s weekend guests, avoiding soot and his rival’s lyrical speeches on the modern wonders of steel, steam and telegraphy.
“There you are, Hope!” the thin man said, extending his hand as he arrived. “Good to see you, Laurel!” he added, swiftly.
This time, Michael had had time to prepare himself. His hat was safely ensconced on his head and his handkerchief had been discreetly retired to his trouser pocket. As soon as Escott released Hope’s hand, Michael took his, and gripped it with what he hoped might pass for manly firmness.
“We’ll have to hurry,” Escott said, swiftly, obviously intent on interrupting Hope’s anticipated eulogy. “The guard will be calling ‘All Aboard’ at any moment, and we’re in the carriage next to the guard’s van, right at the back. It was hardly worth the trouble of coming all the way up here, but I knew you’d be rooted to the spot, staring at the engine like some mesmerized somniloquist, and I knew that you’d be sure to miss the train if I didn’t shepherd you aboard.” He glanced at Michael as he added: “These starry-eyed optimists are all the same, Laurel. Heads in the clouds. No practicality. You’ll join us, of course?”
“I only bought a second-class ticket,” Michael admitted, blushing deeply. “I’ll find a seat closer to the engine.”
“Nonsense!” said Escott. “We have a spare seat in our reserved carriage—Sir Geoffrey Chatham has been detained in London, and won’t be able to make the party at all. Signor Monticarlo and his daughter are there, and Lady Phythian arrived half an hour in advance, as usual, but there’s one seat to spare now. We can’t offer it to Carp, even if we wanted to, because he’ll be traveling with his somniloquist.”
“To be frank,” Hope put in, “you’d be doing us a favor—raising the intellectual average, so to speak. I say nothing against Monticarlo, mind; he’s a clever fellow, in his way, and his English is good when he plucks up the courage to use it, but he’s not a great conversationalist. Lady Phythian, on the other hand, is an utter wet blanket—always treats Escott and myself as if we were a pair of naughty boys squabbling over our toys. It’s a long way to York, and even a steam locomotive can’t do the trip in the blink of an eye. Besides, I’ve promised to indoctrinate you in the philosophy of progress, and there’s no better place to start than a railway carriage.”
“And I can provide you with the necessary intellectual balance,” Escott said, “to make sure that you’re not blinded by the glare of Hope’s rose-tinted spectacles. But we have to hurry, Hope, or we’ll never get back to the carriage in time.”
Michael was still hesitant, unsure as to what the rules of etiquette required or permitted him to say in response to the unexpected invitation.
“I can make sure you sit next to the lovely Carmela, if you like,” Hope said. “She’s said to be very artistic, and she makes up for the fact that she’s reluctant to risk her English by smiling a lot.”
Michael blushed yet again, this time in pure confusion. He had no idea whether Hope was simply trying to be kind, or whether he really did want the option of having someone else other than Escott to listen to him while he rode his favorite hobby-horse, but the one thing he did know was that he definitely did not want to arrive at Langstrade Hall in close company with a smiling Carmela Monticarlo, amid a drizzle of suggestive remarks about how well they had got on during the four-and-a-half-hour train journey and the subsequent ride in a hired diligence.
“Hope’s right, for once in his life,” Escott put in, his voice full of urgency. “If we’re to have any decent conversation on the journey, we really do need a decent substitute for Chatham. Oblige us, please.”
“But I only have a second-class ticket!” Michael protested, feebly, as Hope and Escott each took one of his arms and began to hustle him along the platform toward the rear of the train. “Won’t I get into trouble if the guard catches me in a first-class compartment?”
“Not at all,” Hope assured him, accelerating his pace. “The entire compartment’s reserved; the seat’s booked and paid for. Lord Langstrade would never forgive us if we allowed one of his guests to travel second-class while we had a seat to spare.”
“Even a painter,” Escott added, a trifle mischievously, as he lengthened his stride in order to keep pace with the scurrying optimist, “who’s only been invited to immortalize his Folly. I’ll wager that you’d rather be painting Miss Cecilia’s portrait!”
Michael couldn’t help noticing that this off-hand remark provoked a sharp glance of disapproval from Quentin Hope. He suffered a momentary stab of panic as he wondered whether the renowned optimist might be entertaining hopes in regard to Lord Langstrade’s daughter.
It was not impossible, Michael supposed, that Hope might take advantage of the weekend to ask Langstrade for Cecilia’s hand—and what Langstrade’s response might be was anybody’s guess, given that he had obviously inherited his father’s legendary eccentricity. Who else but a Langstrade, after all, would have invited a little-known portrait-painter all the way to the wilds of Yorkshire to paint a mock-Medieval Keep in the heart of a Maze, designed according to a plan that had supposedly been drawn up by Dedalus himself?
“Isn’t Gregory Marlstone traveling on the train?” Michael asked, although he cursed himself silently as soon as the words had spilled from his mouth.
