The Jeep was his cue to keep going. As he approached the house, he wondered which of the many doors he was supposed to enter through. One was quite a bit grander than the others, so he leaned the bicycle against the wall next to it and pulled a rope. The sound of a bell rang on the other side, echoing through what sounded like a vast chamber.

He half expected a tuxedoed butler to answer, if the movies were to be believed. Ideally with a tray of sweet tea. But he’d discovered that the Brits liked their tea hot with cream, not iced with sugar. He probably missed that more than anything.

Sweet tea coursed through the veins of every Virginian.

Instead, a middle-aged woman appeared, dressed in an olive-green dress that downplayed her likely connection to this fine estate.

“Yes, sir?” she said. She squinted against the sun that was setting behind Tom, and he shifted to the right to block it for her.

“I’m Private First Class Thomas Powell. I’ve brought a message for Colonel Sink.”

She nodded and opened the door wider, motioning for him to come in.

If the outside was impressive, the inside was beyond description. And indeed, it was as vast as he’d imagined.

Everywhere he looked, the opulence of history dripped down Tudor-style walls. Though it occurred to Tom that they were likely original Tudor. Not replicas. Dark panels were adorned with portraits of men dead for centuries, their eyes seeming to leer at him as he followed the woman down the hall.

The closest thing he’d seen to this was in Richmond, forty miles from his home. Fifteen years ago, two businessmen had purchased a fifteenth-century manor called Agecroft Hall, dismantled it piece by piece, and shipped it across the Atlantic to be rebuilt on the eastern banks of the James River. He’d seen the pictures in the newspaper and his mother read the story to him as they both marveled at the feat. But forty miles might as well have been four thousand, too far away to go without one of the new automobiles that were coming to market. And though they’d eventually purchased one, it was not until last year when some ladies at church chartered a bus to make a day trip that he and his mother finally got to see it for themselves. A festival full of period reenactors immersed them in the bygone time and whetted both of their appetites to see England for themselves one day.

Now, to be in the halls of an even more vast estate, sitting on its original land, was an experience that left him awestruck. His mother would be beside herself.

He hoped in a peaceful world, she could come here too.

Tom followed the woman as she continued through the manor. Their footsteps echoed just as the bell had, despite lavish tapestries hanging from the tallest ceilings he’d ever seen.