of it, especially company outings such as you would be managing. He’ll be seeking any reasonto persuade the board of directors to call it off. So we need it to go well, you see. So well it’s irresistible, to the board if not to Sir Alton himself.”
“I see.”
Perhaps she did. No doubt she understood there would be no need for an excursions manager if there were no excursions scheme. Here came a tram in the opposite, wrong direction. John considered it. He and Miss Dobson could cross the Esplanade and take it, and he could see her to Sarah Elliot’s, where he had arranged a room for her. That would take longer than to drop her at the hotel, but he could still make his half-hour deadline with Lillian. He’d told her thirty minutes so he could easily exceed her expectations.
Taking this tram would be a decision, however. A manager could afford room and board at Sarah Elliot’s. A hotel laundress, say, much less so.
“Did you try the lock?” he said. “Back there in the stationmaster’s, on the window?”
“Did I . . . ?” Miss Dobson lifted her chin a touch, insulted. “Just what do you take me for?”
Eye to eye, they both made grabs for their hats in defense against a sudden, violent gust from the sea. John was laughing. He touched Miss Dobson’s back, urging her to hurry across the Esplanade. They needed to catch this tram.
• • •
Such a sky. The widest she’d ever seen. Even more than the long bow of the shoreline and the eternal spread of the sea, it was the sky Betsey could not fold into her understanding, the cliffs and hillocks of the land overturned, sculpted into the stony clouds and softened with the promise of light. She almost laughed with the exhilaration of it, how something so unfamiliar could feel like a part of her, call to her from a place deep inside. Had it been like this at Blackpool, all those years ago? If she couldn’t recall that, no wonder she’d conflated her father’s hazy figure with that stranger’s.
Her gawking caused a gap in the tram queue; Mr. Jones touched her arm to move her forward.
Thief’s cage got her dubious inspection from the tram conductor, but with Mr. Jones at her side, nothing came of it but a mild directive to “take it up top.” Resigned to Mr. Jones’s guardianship for now, she added the fare he paid to the list of debts she would settle this summer, provided she had a job. Despite his burst of good humor, she wasn’t taking that for granted, especially since she believed she’d glimpsed the Swan Park Hotel opposite the tram’s current direction.
She felt like a pebble under a pillow, a hair in an iced cake, her worry a bit of nastiness at odds with all the holiday-making around her, day-trippers debating whether the German band played rain or shine, a young couple with their heads together, shuffling through a set of postcards. Mr. Jones beside her, in his Norfolk, impatient to return to his sweetheart.
Through music-laden wind, the tram broke the sea of promenaders. Betsey folded back the cage cover. Could Thief smell the change, the absence of London’s dense and practical air, sense the wideness of the sky? She fingered the latch of the cage, tempted.
She, Thief, and Mr. Jones rode with the sea at their backs. Below, along the Esplanade, a row of shops and eateries nestled against the cliffs, and terraced above was Idensea itself, the weathered brick of the original village a frayed strand amongst furrows of dark gables and fresh, deep reds. Mr. Jones pointed ahead. “The Sultan’s Road is there. Open next month.”
Betsey squinted. The Sultan’s Road was plain and clear, being enormous, but she could not make sense of it immediately, a Sphinx of a structure, part fanciful palace and stage-scenery mountain range, part utilitarian tracks—impossible to follow, given the peculiar fashion in which it emerged and disappeared.
“A switchback?” But she knew the guess was wrong.
“Pleasure railway. Not a thing
“I see.”
Perhaps she did. No doubt she understood there would be no need for an excursions manager if there were no excursions scheme. Here came a tram in the opposite, wrong direction. John considered it. He and Miss Dobson could cross the Esplanade and take it, and he could see her to Sarah Elliot’s, where he had arranged a room for her. That would take longer than to drop her at the hotel, but he could still make his half-hour deadline with Lillian. He’d told her thirty minutes so he could easily exceed her expectations.
Taking this tram would be a decision, however. A manager could afford room and board at Sarah Elliot’s. A hotel laundress, say, much less so.
“Did you try the lock?” he said. “Back there in the stationmaster’s, on the window?”
“Did I . . . ?” Miss Dobson lifted her chin a touch, insulted. “Just what do you take me for?”
Eye to eye, they both made grabs for their hats in defense against a sudden, violent gust from the sea. John was laughing. He touched Miss Dobson’s back, urging her to hurry across the Esplanade. They needed to catch this tram.
• • •
Such a sky. The widest she’d ever seen. Even more than the long bow of the shoreline and the eternal spread of the sea, it was the sky Betsey could not fold into her understanding, the cliffs and hillocks of the land overturned, sculpted into the stony clouds and softened with the promise of light. She almost laughed with the exhilaration of it, how something so unfamiliar could feel like a part of her, call to her from a place deep inside. Had it been like this at Blackpool, all those years ago? If she couldn’t recall that, no wonder she’d conflated her father’s hazy figure with that stranger’s.
Her gawking caused a gap in the tram queue; Mr. Jones touched her arm to move her forward.
Thief’s cage got her dubious inspection from the tram conductor, but with Mr. Jones at her side, nothing came of it but a mild directive to “take it up top.” Resigned to Mr. Jones’s guardianship for now, she added the fare he paid to the list of debts she would settle this summer, provided she had a job. Despite his burst of good humor, she wasn’t taking that for granted, especially since she believed she’d glimpsed the Swan Park Hotel opposite the tram’s current direction.
She felt like a pebble under a pillow, a hair in an iced cake, her worry a bit of nastiness at odds with all the holiday-making around her, day-trippers debating whether the German band played rain or shine, a young couple with their heads together, shuffling through a set of postcards. Mr. Jones beside her, in his Norfolk, impatient to return to his sweetheart.
Through music-laden wind, the tram broke the sea of promenaders. Betsey folded back the cage cover. Could Thief smell the change, the absence of London’s dense and practical air, sense the wideness of the sky? She fingered the latch of the cage, tempted.
She, Thief, and Mr. Jones rode with the sea at their backs. Below, along the Esplanade, a row of shops and eateries nestled against the cliffs, and terraced above was Idensea itself, the weathered brick of the original village a frayed strand amongst furrows of dark gables and fresh, deep reds. Mr. Jones pointed ahead. “The Sultan’s Road is there. Open next month.”
Betsey squinted. The Sultan’s Road was plain and clear, being enormous, but she could not make sense of it immediately, a Sphinx of a structure, part fanciful palace and stage-scenery mountain range, part utilitarian tracks—impossible to follow, given the peculiar fashion in which it emerged and disappeared.
“A switchback?” But she knew the guess was wrong.
“Pleasure railway. Not a thing
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