Hello!
Here is Part 2 of this very long short story.
You will need to read Part 1 here to make sense of it all.
I hope you enjoy it.
Part 2
The journey had been Francis’s idea and she had noticed the unusual vim and vigour her great nephew had approached the myriad tasks that involved ensuring an octogenarian misanthrope could travel to Scotland. Alone.
At first the trip had seemed so far away, so distant that she had acquiesced on the basis that none of Francis’ ideas had ever come to fruition up to that point. And, she did admit to herself that seeing the old Estate, probably for a final time did hold a certain degree of excitement for her.
She sighed, “Scotland to see Tibby, in a second class carriage. Thank you Francis.” She was not sure what was worse, second class travel or the awful Tibby McVitie. Tibby and her honest country ways. Ruddy cheeked and surely shod. Tibby. Always Tibby.
She had never liked the McVities. Too earnest and open minded for her liking. Dangerous attributes.
Her Uncle Peter had married Tibby’s Aunt, Dulcie McVitie in 1908. Uncle Peter was a marvellous man, full of vim and vigour. Owned The Border and Lothian Railway Company. Terrible business sense though as he placed inordinate trust in the goodness of mankind. Most unlike the D’aubissons.
In 1898, he put the Company up as collateral for investing in the burgeoning railways of Argentina, The Southern Patagonian Steam Company to be precise, confident that the growing beef trade with Europe would allow him to quickly recoup his investment and make a substantial return. Alas it was not to be. The Argentinean railway ran a total length of seven hundred and twenty yards before the finances disappeared. Peter was forced to sell the Border and Lothian to repay his debtors, which as it turned out were the very people who sought his investment in Argentina in the first place. Capitalism at its finest.
The marriage to a McVitie and access to their biscuit wealth was thus a means of repairing the D’aubisson family name and fortune.
Uncle Peter died at Ypres in the Great War. Strayed into no-man’s land and was shot by a sniper. A British one. Ironically, the sniper was a footplate man for The Border and Lothian Railway.
According to Father, Peter should have chosen a girl who did not consider kindness to strangers a virtue. As he had written in his letter to The Times in the winter of 1919, “We must retain a distance from others and not succumb to their own fanciful ideas. The D’aubissons have always stood apart and sought out nobody but their own for comfort and solace. There is a danger in intermingling races and classes as we see only to easily these days with widening the franchise.” Eunice was sure that Father was the wisest man she had ever known.
Francis did not want to open up the debate about the ticket classification once again. He needed the thirty two pounds saved on the price of a first class ticket to meet the last minute revisions to his caliper design.
The taxi pulled into Kings Cross Station, “Twenty Eight pounds.” The cabby said.
“Pardon?” Eunice replied.
“Twenty eight pounds.” The metre flickered unequivocally. Francis rummaged theatrically in his pockets for change to pay the taxi fare, laboriously sifted coins and handed them over to the Cabbie counting out the amount as he went.
“But the distance from Kensington can be no more than five miles.”
“No mistake.”
“Francis, this man is a robber and a charlatan. Socialist too I’ll be bound. To think of the sacrifices the D’aubisson’s have made down the centuries for this country only to allow secondary modern oiks like you to embezzle what remains of our fortune. I shall report you to the relevant authorities.”
“Come on Aunt Eunice, there is no point arguing,” He handed several handfuls of coins to the driver who failed to spot that he had been short changed by thirty seven pence.
Francis decamped from the taxi and helped his bellicose matriarch exit the cab in as regal a fashion as possible. After she was safely on the pavement, he struggled to lift two battered, tan leather suitcases from the cab.
The taxi pulled away with the driver gesticulating at a group of Asian tourists nervously making their way over a zebra crossing towards the station.
Francis spotted a five and a two pence piece coins on the pavement. He set the cases down, picked up the coins and trousered them. If his calculations were correct that took him to £42.78 for the year. His third largest source of income after Welfare and Eunice’s purse.
The old woman walked toward the station entrance. There was a discernible limp in her right leg.
“Are you struggling with the luggage Francis?”
“They’re a little bulky.”
“Nonsense! Too many desserts my boy and never too keen on Lacrosse, the sporting home of the D’aubissons.”
The low grey sky and traffic noise gave a claustrophobic feel to the station entrance. A newspaper vendor bellowed, “Tory Sleaze latest – MP forced to stand down.”
