Britannia's Amazon: The Dawlish Chronicles Volume 5 April - August 1882 by Antoine Vanner

Author:Antoine Vanner [Vanner, Antoine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Old Salt Press LLC
Published: 2016-10-31T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

She needed a station platform that would be all but empty just as the train was about to depart and, as it was a stopping service, she should find several opportunities. Both ladies in the compartment alighted at Surbiton, and nobody entered, but sufficient passengers had left the train to make it possible that Livitski and his man might have mingled between them to watch her compartment, then board the train again as it departed. As it drew away Florence took a small hand-mirror from her reticule.

The Esher stop came ten minutes later. She lowered the sash window but did not get out. Passengers were disembarking, a dozen or more. She cupped her left hand around the mirror and rested it on the window’s still, concealing it as much as possible and angling it so that she could see along the side of the train towards the locomotive. The passengers were dispersing but a head and shoulders were leaning from a window two coaches ahead and looking back. She could not be sure if was Livitski but she had to assume it was. The station master’s whistle shrilled and the train lurched into motion again.

The next station was Weybridge – no opportunity there either, but once again her mirror indicated that somebody was leaning out and looking back as the alighting passengers moved away down the platform. She was beginning to feel panic now. The stratagem of leaving the train at some station and getting another back towards London would be compromised if another lady should enter the compartment – as must happen at some stop – and make use of the mirror difficult. The next station, Woking, would be a busy one, a junction, where more than one unaccompanied lady might be expected to board.

The train slowed and as it drew in she saw that the platform was thronged. She again lowered the window and stood, trying to look as if she was scanning the crowd for a familiar face, yet still keeping her head and shoulders inside. Her mirror was again in surreptitious use but with so many disembarking and embarking it was impossible to discern any one figure looking back from a window. A lady with three young children approached and reached for the door.

“This compartment’s reserved, ma’am,” Florence was waving an open hand in a gesture of denial. “An old lady and her nurse will be getting on at the next station. She’s quite ill and …”

The woman turned away to seek a place further along the carriage.

The crowd was dispersing. No sign of Livitski or his servant on the platform and the train was about to leave. The mirror revealed a single figure leaning from a window ahead – she could not be sure that it was the same window, or if it was whom she feared, but she had to assume the worst. The whistle blasted and the train lurched. Florence knew that this was her opportunity. A last glance in the glass told that the figure was still leaning out but it was unlikely that he would expect her next action.

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