29. The Road to Retford – The Road to Retford
THE ROAD TO RETFORD
CHARLOTTE AND EDWARD
THE ROAD TO RETFORD
The Following Morning
We left Ashbourne Park at nine o’clock.
I had not, technically, planned this. I had merely observed that nine o’clock was the most sensible hour for a departure of approximately five hours’ duration, if one wished to arrive at one’s destination before the light had entirely gone, and had mentioned it to Edward in passing.
Edward had raised an eyebrow and said “of course,” and then kissed me in a manner that made me forget, briefly, what I had been calculating.
We remembered eventually.
The family assembled on the front steps to see us off, in the same configuration as the previous afternoon but with the particular warmth of people who have stayed up too late and are not sorry for it.
Papa held Mama’s hand and was perfectly composed, which meant he was not. Eleanor stood at the front, conspicuously without her notebook, which, from Eleanor, was the highest tribute she was capable of paying. Grandmama Marguerite was satisfied and serene. Grandpapa was simply smiling.
The aunts were weeping collectively. Aunt Caroline appeared to have been at it since breakfast. Aunt Margaret was making notes about optimal road conditions north of Derby. Aunt Mary caught my eye as I approached the carriage and gave me a single, brief, perfectly dry nod that meant well done.
I hugged them all. I hugged Eleanor twice.
She pressed something into my hands as I turned to go—a small notebook, new, with a green ribbon threaded through the pages. “For Retford,” she said. “In case you find yourself in need of a system.”
I laughed and felt something suspiciously warm behind my eyes. “Thank you, Eleanor.”
“I am having your room,” she announced.
“You are absolutely not.”
The carriage door closed on her grin.
Edward was already inside. He had survived, by my count, thirty-seven family members, a five-hour wedding celebration, a wedding night, and a second round of family farewell that had lasted the better part of an hour, and was finding all of it rather more pleasant than he had any right to expect.
He put his arm around me without being asked.
The carriage moved forward.
I looked back through the rear window as the drive curved away—Papa with his arm around Mama, the aunts with their handkerchiefs, Eleanor already half-turned back toward the house, no doubt to begin inventorying my room. Grandpapa lifted one hand in farewell.
Then the lime trees closed behind us, and they were gone.
I held the green-ribboned notebook in my lap and did not open it.
We crossed from Derbyshire into Nottinghamshire, perhaps two hours after setting out.
The landscape shifted almost imperceptibly—the same late Summer fields, the same pale morning light, the same low hedgerows separating one world from another. But I knew we had crossed, and something in the knowing made the fields feel different. Edward’s county, now. Our county.
“It is rather strange,” I said.
“What is?”
I looked at the window. “We have just crossed into Nottinghamshire. Retford is perhaps three hours hence. And Ashford Hall,” I calculated—“is perhaps an hour in the other direction. So we are, at this moment, roughly equidistant between your father’s house and your own.”
Edward considered this. “Neighbours, in a sense.”
“Very much so. Which means that when I imagined removing to the north and being very far from everyone, I was being”—I paused—“slightly dramatic. Ashbourne is five hours. Ashford Hall is one. We are not far from any of them.”
“Does that comfort you?”
“More than I expected.” I turned to look at him. “I had prepared for something more definitive. A clean separation. The old life ending, the new one beginning, a clear line between them. Instead, it turns out I am simply—” I searched for the word. “Expanding.”
Edward lifted my hand and pressed his lips to my knuckles. “The same world,” he said, “rather than a new one.”
“Exactly.” I settled closer. “I find I am reconciled to that.”
We saw Ashford Hall’s gates perhaps an hour later.
I nearly missed them. The carriage was moving at a good pace, and the gateposts were set well back from the road behind a stand of copper beeches that had turned early with the season, amber and gold against the pale sky.
But there was the lodge cottage, neat and tidy, smoke rising from the chimney.
There were the iron gates. And beyond them, the carriage drive curved away into the trees and was gone.
“There,” I said.
Edward leaned across to look. “Ashford Hall.”
“Where you and your father grew up.” I watched it pass—a flash of gates, the warm brick of the lodge, the beginning of the drive, and then the beeches swallowed everything, and it was gone. “Where you climbed trees to avoid Grandmama’s attempts to improve your social calendar.”
“I was eighteen.”
“And yet the trees remain.” I turned away from the window. “Do you want to stop?”
He was quiet for a moment, genuinely considering it. Then: “No. We shall visit properly when we are settled. A cup of tea grabbed off a carriage journey is not a visit.”
“Agreed.” I took his hand. “Take me to Retford.”
Edward smiled—the full one, the rare one, the one I was apparently the only person on earth who could produce with any reliability. He lifted my hand and pressed his lips to my knuckles, very correctly, very deliberately, like a man who intends to keep doing exactly this for a very long time.
“As my lady commands,” he said.
We reached Retford as the afternoon light turned golden.
The carriage wheels crunched on freshly raked gravel.
An avenue of elm trees lined the approach, their leaves just beginning to turn, and beyond them the house rose against the pale sky—stone, symmetrical, a little severe in its proportions.
Nothing like the warm ramble of Ashbourne Park.
Nothing like the mellow brick of Ashford Hall.
Its own thing entirely.
I looked at it carefully, the way I looked at everything that required understanding.
“It wants roses,” I said. “On the east wall. Climbing roses. And the drive would be improved considerably by an additional curve near the gate—at present the house appears rather abruptly.”
Edward looked at me sideways. “We have been arrived for approximately forty seconds.”
“I have been observing from the window for the last quarter mile.” I considered the facade. “The proportions of the house are excellent. The grounds are well-maintained but not well-imagined. There is considerable scope for improvement.”
“There is,” he said, with the warmth of a man who has just realised something he is very glad of. “I was rather hoping you might think so.”
The carriage stopped.
The door opened.
I stepped down onto the gravel of Retford and looked up at the house in the September light. Stone and silence and a sky going gold at the edges. My home. The word still felt new, still wanted examining.
Edward came to stand beside me.
I opened the green-ribboned notebook to the first fresh page.
And began to make notes.