Then he glanced at Mr. Oldridge, who gave him a conspiratorial smile. For all his absentmindedness and preoccupation with matters botanical, he had managed to discern the rightness of this particular match.
The earl turned to his wife. “Well, Louisa?” he murmured.
“Well done, Ned,” she said under her breath. “Very well done, indeed, my dear.”
Yes, it was well done, Lord Hargate thought. One bachelor son safely shackled. Only two more to go.
Afterword
ON 2 May 1825, royal assent was received for “An Act for making and maintaining a Railway or Tramroad, from the Cromford Canal, at or near to Cromford, in the parish of Wirksworth, in the county of Derby, to the Peak Forest Canal, at or near to Whaley, (otherwise Yardsley-cum-Whaley) in the county palatine of Chester.”
Among the hundred and sixteen members of the Cromford and High Peak Railway Company was a woman, the Dowager Viscountess Anson.
The railway, which opened in 1830, was considered one of the most remarkable and daring building feats of the age.
Joseph Priestley, author of Historical Account of the Navigable Rivers, Canals, and Railways of Great Britain (first published in 1831), called it a “grand scheme, for passing such a mountainous tract of country.”