1894

5. To Paddington

Major Banning picked up Dr. Wright’s vaccine box from the table and put it in a small black satchel. Then he and I made our respectful farewells, and he led me down a flight of stairs to a side port, where a carriage waited. The door, I noted, carried the royal crest and the letters “VR.” The driver whipped up the horses, and we set off at a great clip.

Windsor Town lay a little over twenty miles across the river and to the west, and it was well known that the fastest way to get there was to take the Great Western from Paddington Station, which lay a brisk half hour drive down High Holborn and Oxford Street. And here came a surprise. We didn’t angle around the Marble Arch into Edgeware Road. We cut through Hyde Park. In fact, a gatekeeper opened the bars as soon as he saw the carriage approaching. It had all been prearranged, of course. Ordinary people would be arrested if they had tried the same shortcut* but she could get away with it without asking anybody. I sensed the power of that remarkable woman, and I was simultaneously annoyed and exhilarated.

In a way I was just as happy not to pass by the Arch. It marked the spot where in other days regicides and other high miscreants were publicly hanged. If I fouled up on the Project and the prince died at my hands, would I be hanged as a regicide? I shivered.

Major Banning looked over at me. “Cold?”

“Nervous,” I said.

“Understandable.” He peered out his window. “We’re coming in to the station.”

I looked at my watch. “When’s the next train?”

“We have a special. Steam’s up, and it’s waiting.”

Of course. And all other trains—mail, goods, express, local—would have to puff idly on lay-byes while her majesty’s special made the wild dash to Windsor Town.

In a way, all this rush and bustle was quite silly. Whether we reached Windsor today, yesterday, or tomorrow, it wouldn’t have the slightest effect on the pending scenario. The critical moment, for better or worse, had already occurred long ago.

The workmen at Paddington Station claim, with justifiable pride, that their station is the grimiest in London, hence in the world. Glass skylights over the tracks are cleaned periodically, but without much effect. A few days of chuffing locomotives suffice to undo the cleanups. The smoke even obliterates the words “Paddington” painted in large black letters on pilasters in the trackside walls. It is well to know where you are without reference to the printed word.

So it was another surprise to find the queen’s special train in a newly scrubbed and white-washed shed, shut off from the curious by iron gates and armed guards. We were hardly aboard when the guards pulled the gates open and the train began to jerk forward.

We found our seats, the major set his bag down, let out a long windy sigh, and pulled out a cigar. But then he frowned and put it away again.

I looked at him questioningly.

He shrugged. “I keep forgetting. She can’t stand tobacco. She can even smell the traces on the fabrics and woodwork.”