With the train now puffing to a halt a solitary carriage door opened. The figure that emerged was splendidly majestic, for with his portly build and immaculately trimmed goatee beard, Charles Wallace resembled the late King Edward VII. But instead of the homburgs Edward VII had favoured he was wearing a stylish grey trilby set at a jaunty angle. His suit was grey too, his waistcoat criss-crossed by a heavy silver chain. In one kid-gloved hand he carried a silver-topped walking cane and in the other a half-smoked cigar.

‘Welcome back to Yorkshire, Grandfather,’ Paul said, striding to meet him.

‘Wonderful to be here, my boy.’

As the porter began speedily removing brass-cornered travelling cases from the train onto a trolley, Charles passed his half-smoked cigar into the receptive hand of the aged figure seated on the bench and gave his American-born grandchild a warm handshake and a pat on the back that was almost a hug.

Then, not troubling to retrieve the cigar, he walked with Paul out of the station and towards the waiting Lanchester.

His beetling eyebrows rose slightly. ‘What’s this? Has Arthur finally said goodbye to his Rolls?’

‘Last year. The Lanchester is a wonderful-looking car, though, don’t you think?’

‘It is. Where is its chauffeur?’

‘You’re looking at him.’

As the porter loaded the luggage, Paul saluted and opened the front passenger door.

Charles chuckled and stepped into the car.

‘Good as you might be at it, chauffeuring is never going to be part of your future, Paul. And it’s your future, particularly your financial future, that I’ve crossed the Atlantic in order to discuss.’

Certain his grandfather was about to announce he was financing him through college, Paul gritted his teeth. He’d managed to delay the ticklish subject of Oxford for two years by making himself useful to his aunt and Will in the nursery garden. Now it seemed as if all delay was over.

‘I didn’t intend getting into such a heavy subject so quickly, Grandfather,’ he said as he settled himself behind the wheel. ‘But if you’re talking about Oxford, it’s only fair to tell you I don’t want to go. Academia bores me.’ He gunned the engine into life. ‘Like Aunt Vicky, I like to be out in the open air. I don’t want this to come as too much of a shock, but I want to become a rose-breeder. It’s something Aunt Vicky and Will Patchett have been trying their hands at for a few years now and it’s something I’d like to go at whole hog.’

He eased the Lanchester away from the station, waiting for his grandfather’s wrath to fall on him in full flood.

It didn’t do so.

‘Interesting,’ was all his grandfather said and then, after a little pause, ‘It never occurred to you that I might have plans for you to step into my shoes on Wall Street?’

‘At the bank?’ Paul was so disconcerted he nearly drove the Lanchester into a ditch. Hurriedly righting the wheel, he said, ‘Good grief, no! I’d be no use whatsoever in a bank!’