Lady Edwina at Clapham

Flash fiction inspired by the prompt: "The last train out of the city only runs if you can name your greatest regret."

All of Edwina’s life, things had been seen to by others. Beginning with her parents, whose fortune she inherited upon their deaths, her youth was a parade of servants on hand to attend her every need. Coddled and swaddled, pampered and spoiled, she passed from rosy-cheeked innocence to young adulthood without a care.

After her nurseries and schoolrooms, the glittering lights and sparkling champagne of high society dazzled her. When she took tea with Lord Albert Forsythe at the Astonbury Hotel, it was as if the world around her first sprang to life. While the pair were routinely separated as dictated by social custom, their home life was warmer than Eddie had imagined was possible.

After a blissfully short time, her propensity for solitude proved useful when the officer’s transport bearing Albie to the front was shot down. Widowhood wasn’t simply lonely: it was an all-consuming darkness that tormented her from the moment her eyes opened until she disappeared behind the tablets and tisanes her now larger fortune could fund.

Instead of the joy she had expected, Eddie was tortured by her loss and retreated back into herself. Months became years, then decades, as the world revolved around her broken heart until she reached an appropriate age for widowhood and matured into a bitter, miserly woman.

The first invitation was delivered on a silver tray by one of the young and faceless, white-gloved footmen. Septuagenarian widows were not routinely invited to anything except to insulate the sides of the dance floor from an evening’s chill; Lady Edwina had no intention of gussying herself up for anyone.

Throwing the cream colored envelope in the fire unopened, she rang for someone to fill the tub so she could have a soak. She had ordered all the mirrors removed and hadn’t properly looked herself in the face since word of Albie’s death; however, the ravages of time that pulled her flesh ever closer to the earth to which it would someday return were evident as she sat in the fragrant water.

The following day, another arrived on her tray and received the same treatment. After three days of the same, she ordered no further delivered to her room.

Anxious by the upset, she was dressed into her warmest woolens and taking a stroll along the heath when the precious stillness was pierced by horse’s hooves. The messenger sought the mistress of the house and, wanting to put an end to the matter, Eddie accepted it “on the lady’s behalf.”

Back in her boudoir, warmed by a fire lain and lit for her, she slit open the envelope, surprised to find it wasn’t an invitation to a ball, nor a plea for patronage. The author hadn’t addressed the envelope, but she instantly recognized Albie’s handwriting.

Beyond stating his regret how long it took to finalize arrangements, Albert promised a reunion via standing reservation on the last train departing from Clapham. All Eddie needed to do was make her way to the station and she could join him on the other end.

In an instant, decades of intransigence melted away as Eddie set herself to preparations. She ordered the manor into mothballs and the household staff dissolved within the week. After years of moving at a snail’s pace, suddenly everything was harried.

Stepping from the Bentley, Edwina could see the train was already at the platform and saw the trunks her staff had delivered hours before. Unused to tending to her own affairs, she realized she had no idea how to claim the ticket Albert reserved.

Clutching her travel case, she hurried towards a man emerging from the clouds of steam billowing in the darkness of the crisp evening.

“Lady Forsythe, I presume.” Startled by his prescience and struggling to catch her breath, she nodded. “Welcome aboard the last train from Clapham.”

“Have you held the train for me?”

“The train will not depart until you are ready, my lady.”

Confused, but loathe to admit it to a conductor, she smiled as he helped her up the stairs. The train was long, easily explaining why hers was the only occupied compartment. Grateful not to have to make small talk with strangers, she sat and stared expectantly at the platform until the conductor returned.

“Before we can leave the station, there is the simple matter of payment.”

“My reservation was previously arranged.”

“Indeed; however, only you can settle the account.” Eddie reached for her purse but he stopped her. “You’ll have no need of currency.”

“How can I pay for my passage if not in pound sterling?”

“Money has no value on this train. In order to depart the station, you must name your greatest regret.”

“What kind of foolishness is this? Are you even a train conductor or some itinerant philosopher who has stolen a uniform?”

“This is the Last Train, madam. Your passage into the next life, a place you can only enter unburdened. As soon as you understand the nature of your regret, speak the words aloud and we will be on our way.”

“What about the other passengers?”

“Yours is the only seat on this train.” Stunned into silence, the conductor gave her a clipped nod as he closed the compartment door.

For the first time in her life, solitude was no comfort.

As though she were on the tracks with the engine bearing down on her, Eddie’s life flashed before her eyes: she was innocent, pure. She lived her live as a model of faith and decorum. Her fortune went to defending against the erosion of traditional morals and values—what was there to regret in that?

She wasn’t perfect, by any means, but her transgressions were minor. Still in her eagerness to be on her way, she atoned for each time she’d criticized harshly or spread gossip. Her memory was sharp, poking at her with each of her smallest failings, but acknowledging them one by one had no effect on the train’s movement.

Surely, her years of mourning Albie would count for something?

Frustrated, she stuck her head into the corridor. Irritated by the lack of service, she gathered her purse and traveling case intent on disembarking. This had clearly been some sort of trick and Lady Edwina Forsythe had no intention of playing the fool.

“Not ready after all?” The conductor’s voice startled her and her travel case slipped to the ground with a thunk.

“I don’t understand what game you are playing, but I have no intention of seeing it through. Torturing an old woman, you ought to be ashamed of yourself! I’ve spent the last hour reflecting on each of the moments I wish had been different, but this confounded machine hasn’t budged. Lord Albert would be dismayed by this ghastly treatment.”

The conductor simply smiled, “By all means, step down onto the platform and we will hold your reservation for when you are ready to make the trip. If I may, should you decline to travel onward from here, where will you go?”

Edwina scoffed.

“You’ve dismissed your staff and shuttered your home. The chauffer who brought you has returned to his people, released from your service. Who will come to fetch you from the station?”

As her eyes began to sting, Eddie rushed back to her compartment to hide from the shameful realization. Instead of seeing the deserted platform through the window, she saw the faces of hundreds of men and women among the shadows and swirls of steam.

They were faces of those who raised and fed, clothed and bathed her. She never bothered to know their names or learn their histories, she had simply expected them to be there to serve her. There were scores whom she had looked past, believing that the Lady Edwina Forsythe mattered more than they.

The first tear escaped—soon followed by innumerable of its fellows—as she stared, agape in the knowledge that all the time she’d spent mourning her solitude, she had been ignoring the signs of company all around her. She’d considered herself apart from the world, now bracingly aware of how foolish the notion had been.

The conductor gently set her travel case inside her compartment.

“You knew all along, didn’t you?”

“It is my job, my lady.”

“And them?” she gestured to the window.

“Take as long as you need.” The conductor bowed and slid the compartment door closed.

One by one, she met the eyes of each shadow until all were remembered. With a final glance at the crowd outside on the platform, she whispered, “I regret my ignorance of others; I regret not showing love to those who showed love to me.”

As another flood of tears sprang from her eyes, she was startled by the train’s whistle. Looking at the platform, she saw the faces begin to disappear into the night—no longer strangers but friends—as the train began to inch forward and all she knew faded into the distance.

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