The road from Pickering wound north through miles of broad, open moorland. Once clear of the town’s limits, Roger floored the accelerator and let the beast within the motor car he’d built himself come into its own. The roar thrummed through his feet and his fingers; the noonday sun warmed every exposed inch of his face, and the wind, scented with an earthy mixture of gorse and sheep, scoured it clean. He kept up the speed, flying down the road as smoothly as through the air, until he reached the bowl-like valley in which was nestled the village of Linwood Hollow. Here, he pulled to a stop at the side of the road and got out to survey the lay of the land.

The ground fell away at his feet here, sharply down to the valley. One step further, and he’d be flying free — he had to remind himself that such a step would never be followed by another. Linwood Hall was perched on the opposite ridge, a jumble of grey stone walls pockmarked with tall, narrow windows. French doors had been punched into the ground floor some time in the last century; they gave onto a broad terrace cantilevering over the cliff. The tall tower, the Camelot of Roger’s childhood, rose up from the middle of the house, while the uneven, crumbling wall of the courtyard swept out along the ridge to a short tower whose stone footing extended halfway down the cliff side. That short tower was where Father had his study; its one window winked at Roger now from across the valley. Caught between them, the stone houses of the village sent up lazy wisps of smoke from crooked chimneys over clay-shingled roofs dotted with clumps of black moss.

“There’s the inn,” he said, pointing to the largest of the village buildings. “The Collier’s Arms. You can just see the sign over its door from here — a pair of pickaxes crossed under a lantern. Linwood has never had anything to do with coal mining, but I expect no one cares as long as the taps don’t run dry.” He glanced back into the car. “It isn’t Mayfair, but you don’t mind, do you?”

He was speaking to Iris Morgan, the girl who would have been his fiancée if the news of Father’s passing hadn’t put such a damper on his plans to propose. She was a dainty little thing, and in her natural state it might have been said that she was plain; but Iris was never quite in her natural state. Under her cloche hat, her hair was fashionably bobbed and woven through with an artful finger curl, and her dress, though sober for the occasion, was of a smart and elegant cut. She was a bright, modern creature — cosmopolitan London to her core and as far as one could get from the muddy trenches Roger refused to remember. And if she was out of place in rural Yorkshire, that was only until Linwood Hollow caught up with the world. Modernity came for everything sooner or later.

Standing up in the car, Iris balanced herself with an arm on his shoulder and looked out over the valley. Did she see it as he did, Roger wondered. She must see the sheep dotting the hillsides, at least, and the wisps of smoke wafting up from the chimneys as the village housewives prepared their family’s dinners. She wouldn’t recognise the smell of a peat fire, but there it was, redolent of the cosy, homely gatherings he’d always imagined as a child.

“Darling,” Iris drawled, “where’s the church? How will you hold a funeral service without a church?”

Roger directed her attention to the yews growing at the base of the cliff under Linwood Hall. “The only church here is an old ruin, right about there. No, you can’t see it from here. Nobody uses it. I told you, didn’t I, that Father’s got no use for religion? Well, the villagers haven’t either. And Father never wanted a grand send-off with all the fripperies and trappings you’d expect — it’s not as if he’d be around to enjoy it, he always said. We’ll let everyone circulate a while and talk about what a capital fellow he was, but only because they want to, not because Father would have cared. And then we’ll slot him into one of the crypts in the mausoleum.”

The family mausoleum was embedded into the cliffside, halfway down from Linwood Hall and halfway up from the ruined church. From here, its arched entrance looked like a black wormhole in the cheek of the cliff.

“How grim you’re looking,” Iris exclaimed. “Is everything quite all right?”

Roger quickly threw on a cheerful smile. “Nothing’s the matter,” he said, vaulting back into the car. “Linwood Hall may look like a mediaeval ruin, but don’t be fooled. Father had it wired for electricity as soon as it was feasible. There’s a telephone in his study, and radiators in all the rooms, so I think you’ll find we’re all as modern as they come. Father knew what was important, and that was to always look forwards — never back.” He paused to consider the ever-evolving pile of stone that was Linwood Hall, and the moors beyond it, as open as a fresh sheet of vellum stretched across a draughting table. Then he said, “There’s plenty of time. Come on; it’s been months, and I want to make sure the old Jenny hasn’t rusted to bits.”

The “Jenny” was a Curtiss JN-4 aeroplane. Roger hadn’t touched it since that unfortunate business with Sopwith Aviation last September, but now was as good a time as any to put the past behind and look to the future. Eyes firmly forwards, Roger stabbed his finger at the ignition button — not for him the hand-cranks of other models — and the motor car gave a powerful leap back onto the road, leaving nothing but a cloud of dust behind.

Next Chapter: Caroline