Yorkshire England some time after the general strike of 1926.
I stood idly on the weed strewn platform with the blustery wind ruffling my thin summer suit, as it rattled the locked waiting room door and rustled the lush cow parsley on the now neglected station garden and I watched the little train which brought me chuff busily away up the steep sided valley as I fretted and wondered why Brabbinger my chauffeur was not there to pick me up in the Rolls Royce.
Old Ted the toothless ex stationmaster looked out from the old station house across the road wearing shirt and braces where once he stood resplendent in dark serge and gold braid as he waved away the London train but today times were hard, the station was now but a halt and he eked out an existence opening and closing the level crossing gates for the occasional one coach Railmotor or rare train of coal wagons from nearby colliery.
"Bit blustery Mr 'Ardhaker sir," he shouted, "You could wait in by here sir if you was minded to."
"No, I thank you, Mr Cardle," I said, "My man is informed."
"Very good sir," he said.
Curtains twitched upstairs, Molly, Cardle's eldest looked out, poor Molly, such a sweet girl when I knew her, fresh plucked and working at mill when I sampled her, but fat as a pig now, and working flat on her back all the hours of the day and night to put a crust in her brother and sisters mouths. Cardle knew, even then he knew and he spent on the horses what she earned in trinkets on her back but the general strike killed our valley, our steam mills lay idle and when the mines reopened our trade was gone and the miners stayed home and drank away their troubles while their wives went to work the streets of Leeds of an evening, coming home on the midnight train the whore's express instead of working our looms.
But that was not my problem, not any more, I had reached the end of my tether, had given up the unequal struggle and sold my shares in the family firm to group of London businessmen, idiots to a man I believed, sold out for a tenth of what they were once worth and I now waited to face Clarissa.
My beautiful but flawed darling, so graceful, elegant, charming but cold, icily cold, frigid, she knew I married her for her money, she didn't love me and neither did I love her, and while I spent Sunday night through Saturday morning working in Leeds or London, going down on sleeping car train of a Sunday and back of a Saturday on the Pullman so it was just the Saturday night when we lay lovelessly back to back in our loveless bed.
She was always so, she had a substantial dowry, we needed the money, her father believed she was a fragile soul unsuited to a full marriage and thus from number of suitors he chose me for her husband as he believed I was a sodomite, lord knows why, there was hardly a mill girl I hadn't shafted when I worked in the office as a lad, back before my father gave up the struggle and passed on and so propelled me into trying to keep his crumbling business empire afloat and give men who as youths had fought in the Great War a chance to feed their families despite the strikes and economic depression,
But it was done now, all was sold and if she didn't like living in a four bed house in Leeds with only a cook and two servants then she could damned well join the convent, because that was all that was left, yes her dowry of a hundred thousand pounds was gone, just one house that was all we owned, a fortnight was all we had to vacate the gothic monstrosity of Barnestone Hall.
I telephoned Mrs Boyd at the post office to say I would be on the two fifteen from Leeds, and she assured me she would send word for Brabbinger to collect me, yet five minutes I had been waiting and there was no Rolls nor anything to be seen.
"You sure Mr 'Ardhaker," Cardle asked wheezily as Molly waved at me from the upstairs window.
"Yes thank you Mr Cardle and it's Hardacre, Hard Acre," I said.
"Very good Mr 'Ardhaker sir." he said and I so nearly threw my hat on the floor and stamped upon it I was so frustrated, damnit if Molly's little sister had been abroad surely I should sampled her without a second thought, but Molly, uddered like a cow and bellied like one two I could no more stiffen my member to sample her than fly to the moon.
"I think I shall walk," I said icily, "Good day!" and crunching the gravel beneath my patent leather shoe's soles I set to walk through the village and up to the Hall one last time.
The serried rows of houses looked unaccustomedly clean, pristine almost, shorn of their cloak of smoke and their dusting of smoke dust now the Mill had fallen silent and the coal mine worked only one shaft on one shift and that half manned.
Serried ranks, a serried rank of workess men queued outside the Miner's Arms waiting for Ted Harrods the Landlord to open up, each in their clean freshly laundered white shirts, dark trousers and flat caps, a uniform dress if ever there was one, jobless lads, lads thrown on the scrap heap, spending the kiddies charity money on ale, what a waste.
I walked on, I knew eyes were upon me, I expect they was wondering why I was about, I had a position do you see, respected by all, or so I thought.
Serried ranks of houses, some beside the roadway with nothing but enough space for a push bike for a path but some with steep front gardens reaching up to the street as it climbed while they sat beside the canal, some like twenty six and eight with the bedrooms level with the road it so steep was the rise.
There was a little Morris car, outside number twenty eight I fancied, all in black, like our estate run about, hard topped, and four seats not two and a dickie like the old ones, it took my eye, debt collector no doubt, I thought, yet there were curtains at the window of twenty eight and patterned not just cheesecloth, and yet it was number twenty eight that he was outside, definitely.
It came apparent that the driver's seat was occupied though with facing away from me the car hid him except his arm which was upon the window ledge.
All I had to do was remember the number of the estate car and I should have behaved otherwise but I failed to recognised it and sprang upon the rogue as if he were a debt collector or debt collectors man.
"State your business!" I said.
"Whup," the rogue said, a familiar rogue indeed.
"Brabbinger," I gasped, "What is the meaning of this?"
"Ah, oh, ee," he said using every vowel but making no sense at all, "Tis the missus." he said.
"What missus, have you married surreptitiously," I asked.
"Ah, no, I," he blustered.
"So, take me home!" I ordered. and I swung round to the other side and squeezed through the door to join him in the cramped interior, "Drive man!" I ordered my humour now moving from black to inflamed.
"But," he said.
"I left word," I said, "Two fifteen from Leeds," I explained, "Even the London and North Eastern Railway can get here in under the round hour from Leeds!"
"But the missus sir," he said, his tunic undone and his collar and hatless he looked a complete slop - about and a disgrace.
"Just drive damn you," I insisted and he pushed the self starter and it just ground uselessly.
"Wind it man," I said, "Use the handle."
He honked the horn, I though it most odd, and he stared anxiously at number twenty eight.
"What exactly is the problem?" I asked, "What is this?" I added as a man buttoning his shirt opened the door and another was there behind him.
"I say," I said straightening, "You there!" and he slammed the door.
"The missus," Brabbinger explained.
"It's a damned brothel!" I said, "Out with it!" I snapped, "There's a damned brothel in Barnestone!"
"No!" Brabbinger tried desperately to lie, but the horror of the situation was too much, it might be but two weeks more that we owned the row of houses but a brothel!
I threw the gate wide and I stormed down the cinder path, between neatly tended grasses, and banged the door, "Open up!" I ordered, "Open up for your Land Lord's inspection!"
A woman squealed, a man chided her, "What?" a fellow asked as he opened the door, "Well if it ain't the man!" he said sarcastically.
"I am the Land Lord," I reminded him, "Mr Weighton, is it not," I said recognising the fellow.
"It's Bond!" he said, "Jimmy Bond!"
"Right," I said, "Right, oh yes, I know you," I agreed.
"You know my missus," he said, "And me sister," he said.
"What?" I asked, "Yes of course."
