Chapter One: The Little Platform
A/N: Hi readers I am so excited to share this new story with you. I had the plan for 'The Golden Crown' nearly a year ago but like many of my stories it sat in my computer whilst others took over. Then one rare quiet day I resurrected it and wrote like the wind eventually writing over 28,000 words in just over a month. Here's the first chapter please review and as always enjoy.
Love C.J.
"Vic Vic!" came the shout down the platform. Victoria hadn't stepped off the train before she heard her brother's voice. She was the only person getting off her train at that little sleepy village station and beside Victoria, her brother Henry and a rather bored looking porter there was no one on the platform. The train swept away and the pair were left alone.
"How has your term been?" Victoria asked Henry.
"Ok better than last,"
"That's not hard," Victoria said sarcastically. Henry's first term at school had gone poorly quiet and shy Henry had not mixed in with his peers. He had been picked on and bullied by some of the older pupils.
"How about you?" he asked "how was your term?"
"Ok I had some rotten exams just before we broke up hope I've done ok."
"I'm sure you have," Henry said "you're good particularly in English." At least that was what he meant to say in fact the last word was yawned out.
"Long night?" Victoria asked smiling at her brother.
"Sort of," Henry replied "I had an odd dream last night I kept dreaming of a lion, it was strong and silent the kind of lion you wouldn't cross."
"I don't think I would cross I lion anyway."
"No I wouldn't," Henry said "but this wasn't a ferocious lion it was like it knew me and oh bother I can't explain."
"Were you reading the jungle book?"
"No not last night."
"Well you do love that book maybe it sort of weaves itself into your mind."
"Maybe," Henry said dismissively.
"What's up?" Victoria asked.
"Nothing," Henry said quietly "I think our train is due in a couple of minutes maybe we should go grab our bags."
"I've got mine," Victoria said "how about you?"
"They're in the waiting room." The two grabbed Henry's bags as sat on them on the platform for about five minutes before the train came. To see them one would have thought it was the end of the school holidays rather than the beginning they both had a resigned and bored looks on their faces and they looked very smart with Victoria's long dark hair braided back and Henry's school cap sat jerkily upon his head.
"Have you brought any books?" Henry asked his sister "we are going to be bored."
"Yes," she responded "I have a couple of Dickens and Hardy books plus a Jane Austen one for school."
"Oh," Henry said uninterested "none of those sounded particularly interesting."
"And," Victoria added "Peter Pan."
"Fantastic," Henry said enthusiastically.
"I love that book."
"I know," Victoria smiled.
"Thanks Vic that should keep me occupied for a good week."
Victoria looked at her watch "Frome is the next stop I think we should be there in about twenty minutes." Victoria turned to her brother who was letting out a short snore. Victoria smiled and opened the first of the books she had to read over the holidays.
Twenty two minutes later exactly the bell rung on Frome platform, a sleepy and messy haired Henry stood yawning next to his sister. Like the platform they had met on Frome was a quiet country station. Only in this case as well as the station master stood in the waiting room there were two other people.
A tall woman stood at the end of the platform, she wore a large dress that belonged more in the 19th century century than the 20th. A low brimmed blue hat with a large set of blood red cherries. She looked at the station in front of her as though it was a smell that she disliked. In her left hand she held a tall umbrella like a staff although she did not lean upon it.
The person beside her could not be more different, a sandy haired man stood next to a bicycle. He wore untidy pair of trousers and a checked shirt waving at the children brightly. Both Victoria and Henry wanted nothing more than to run up their father and hug him. However the women stood beside him was Victoria and Henry's great aunt who paid their school fees and thus the children where forced for the first two weeks of every summer holiday to spend it in their great aunt's large house in Somerset. The children had been told their entire life by any relatives of their mothers what a mistake they were.
Their mother Rosemary Wheelen-Holmes had when she was been born been given everything she could ask for: money, toys and house she was even given the title lady when she was just six. But she was not given love and at twenty one she fell in love with a the postmaster's son Benjamin Smith. The pair had run away and gotten married, their story made the most perfect kind of story that fit into those romantic novels that grown ups often like to read. But the children needed to be schooled and the only person that would speak to the family was Rosemary's Aunt Ursula who offered to pay the children's school fees if they spent the first two weeks of each summer holiday with her. It was for this reason that Henry and Victoria had been in such glum moods. For most people if the weather is good the first few weeks of the holidays are the most exciting. For Henry as Victoria they where the most dull.
Their Aunt was a lady who had been brought up when children should be seen and not heard and despite her large house no games or sports matches where encouraged. The weeks where usually spent reading and playing puzzles during the day and eating tea with their aunt in the large dinning room in the evening in silence followed by an early bedtime. Victoria questioned why her aunt had them over. She didn't seem to enjoy it and neither did they.
The scene at the railway station was resolved with the children leaving their large trunks with their father before climbing into the new car their aunt owned, Henry managed to give their father a smile and a wave over his shoulder before climbing into the car Victoria however dare not and to her eternal shame remained poker faced.
It smelt rather funny was Victoria's first thought of the new car. She sat beside her great aunt with Henry squashed against the car door on her other side. Both pushed and shoved the other to gain a little more space but daren't say a thing incase their great aunt told them off. When you entered Heather-bridge (that was the name of Great Aunt Ursula's home) you couldn't help but be impressed. Even Victoria and Henry where and they had seen the house plenty of times before. The entrance hall was in the Georgian style high and white and Henry was always reminded of one of those ancient Roman villas you read about in books except much colder.