Edward floored the 1920’s Mercedes faster down the country road. In a blur the car flew through the rural countryside of Southern England. The usual driver of the Harrington Family’s car, old Tom, sat in the unfamiliar passenger seat with one hand holding his hat in place with the other clutching the side of the Mercedes with dare life. 

[i]“Mister Harrington, please can you slow down,[/i]” old Tom yelled over the noise of the engine and wind. Edward turned his attention away from the road and flashed the older man a smile.

[b]“Are you telling me that you haven’t taken this beauty for a true spin?”[/b] 

[i]“Jesus! Keep your eyes on the road!”[/i] Tom yelled in terror. Edward laughed as he swerved past a horse and carriage with an angry driver cursing them as they flew past. Tom had been a fixture in his Family’s staff for as long as he remembered, bordering on twenty years. Now well into his fifties, he had entered the service of his Father following the purchase of their first car at the turn of the century. 

The Mercedes skidded off the road into the driveway of the Harrington’s Estate. The gravel road leading to the Grand estate no excuse for Edward to push the limits of his Father’s new car even further. As he approached the Grand Mansion he slammed the car to a skidding halt outside the front entrance. Edward turned to his passenger and patted the old servant on the knee.

[b]“You still alive Tom?[/b]” He laughed seeing the colour drained from the old man’s cheeks and his hat long gone from his head.

The young man jumped out of the car and made his way to the trunk of the car and picked up his case. He hadn’t allowed a servant to carry his belongings for nearly ten years, just because he was returning home he wasn’t planning on starting that habit. He climbed the stairs with a spring in his step.  

 The footman, who hadn’t expected his arrival for another hour, dishevelled and flustered rushed to open the door for the young master. Even being the Estate of his Father’s and had spent the first thirteen years of his life running through these halls, Edward felt very much the stranger. As soon as he was of age, his Father sent him off to Eton, followed by four years at Oxford. A tradition among the male members of their Family, that according to Father, stretched back hundreds of years. What wasn’t tradition was the four and a half year war that followed his time at college. 

The war, though laying wreck to England, his Father liked to lament on the ruin it had done to his own Family. His second oldest died at the Battle of the Somme ten kms from the front by an artillery shell. His oldest, a member of Parliament caught the Spanish Flu and passed a mere two months following the conclusion of the great war. At the despair of Richard Harrington, the 6th Earl of Kent, his title and inheritance was destined to his remaining son Edward. 

The footman had now scurried off in search of the Family as Edward placed his suitcase on the polished marble floor and removed the riding cap to reveal a head of medium length brown hair.