Tea with Jam & Dread

“We’re going to die! We’re all going to die!” my best friend screamed, as she threw her hands up to cover her eyes.

“Do restrain yourself, Bernadette,” my grandmother said, from the back seat. “Lily is in perfect control.”

I was anything but in perfect control. In fact, I agreed with Bernie. The end was nigh. I clenched my teeth with as much force as I was clenching the steering wheel. I would have also liked to cover my eyes, but that would not have been a good idea. Instead, I focused and refocused as I tried to trace the fading lines on the road in front of me, but with the rain and my own nerves, that wasn’t easy.

Vehicles of all sizes zipped around me, throwing up spray. Rain pounded the windshield, the wipers barely able to keep up.

“I’ve missed the exit. Again. I need you to read those signs for me,” I said to Bernie.

“Rerouting,” said the cheerful voice of the car’s GPS.

“They go by so fast,” Bernie said.

“What lane do I need to be in?” I asked.

I was trapped in three lanes of fast-moving traffic. Round and round the roundabout we went. Vehicles came from all directions. The exit signs had so many names on them, by the time I read them, I was already driving past. The GPS wasn’t helping all that much. I was expecting it to give up and shut down at any moment.

“Okay.” Bernie took a deep breath. “I’m back. Momentary overreaction as my life flashed before my eyes. We can do this.”

“I would hope so,” my grandmother, Rose Campbell, said, “I don’t intend to spend the rest of my life in this car. Like a modern version of the Flying Dutchman, doomed to forever circle a roundabout on the outskirts of Leeds, never making landfall at the next service center. Speaking of which, don’t take too much longer to get us out of here, love, I need to use the loo.”

“You want the A58. That’s coming up,” Bernie said, alternately consulting the car’s installed GPS and her own phone. “Stay in this lane until you pass the next exit, and then move to the left. The exit we want is the one after the next one.”

I maneuvered the car into the turn. A white panel van leaned on its horn as it passed me on the right.

“Ignore him,” Bernie said. “You’re doing fine. Okay, now move to the left.”

“There’s a whole line of cars coming up on my left.”

“They’ll let you in,” Bernie said confidently, as she twisted in her seat to look behind us. “Okay, maybe not that guy.”

I wasn’t so sure, but I pulled left. Miraculously once “that guy” had passed, the other approaching vehicles did slow down, and I slipped into the lane. I remembered to breathe. It wouldn’t help anyone if I passed out.

The lane exited, and I was, at last, free of the latest of the cursed roundabouts. It, I feared, would not be the last.

I was now on a highway. A nice normal highway with wide straight lanes and vehicles politely staying in their own lanes—most of them, anyway. According to the GPS, I had several miles to calm down before I had to get off the highway and enter another tumble with a three-lane roundabout with seven exits, each of those exits having numerous directional signs. It did not help that I was driving on the “wrong” side of the road.

“ ‘Let’s rent a car,’ ” I mumbled, as I slowly forced my fingers off the steering wheel and gave them a good stretch in an attempt to return some life to each digit. “ ‘It’ll be so much cheaper than taking taxis, and we’ll be able to get around to see the sights easier.’ ”

“All still true,” Bernie said. “Once we’re in the countryside, the driving will be so much easier.” She seemed to have recovered from her earlier vision of impending death.

I had to admit, although only to myself, that much of this had been my idea. Rent a car. See the area. Enjoy the freedom a personal vehicle offers. What an optimist was I.

Not only had I never been to England before—and thus, never driven on the “wrong” side of the road or even seen a multilane roundabout—but I don’t drive all that much in America. I’m from Manhattan. I’ve never even owned a car. When I need to get around Cape Cod, where I now live, I borrow my grandmother’s ancient Ford Focus to embark on the calm, low-traffic trip into town. I’d willingly agreed with Bernie when she suggested we save money by having only one driver registered on the rental agreement. Logically, that one person was me, as Bernie would be leaving us the day after tomorrow.

The rain continued to fall, the windshield wipers moved back and forth, back and forth.

“Stay awake, Lily,” Bernie said.

“Fear not,” I replied. “I am far too terrified to fall asleep.”

“I hope the rain lets up,” Rose said. “I’m sure they’re planning to have much of the party in the gardens.”

“I hope the rain lets up so we can see the view,” Bernie said. “Looks like some hills over there, but the clouds are so low it’s hard to tell.”

Swish. Swish.

“Exit coming up,” Bernie said. “Look for the sign to Halifax.”

“I see it,” I said.

Another terrifying game of round and round the roundabout, and at last we were free of highways and intercity traffic, heading off into the countryside.

“Are people allowed to park wherever they like?” I said, as I twisted the wheel into a sharp right, taking us into the lane for oncoming traffic to get out of the way of a line of cars unexpectedly parked every which way, half of them half on the sidewalk. I had been temporarily disoriented because the cars were facing us, as though I was going the wrong way on a one-way street.

“Isn’t that charming?” Bernie asked. “Look at those lovely old houses. I bet they’re hundreds of years old. Obviously built long before anyone needed a place to park the car.”

I dared a quick peek to one side. The houses were old, a long row of red and gray brick stretching from one street corner to another, thin and tall, dotted with chimney pots, colorful doors opening directly onto the sidewalk. No driveways, no garages, no place to put the car other than on the narrow street.

“Look,” Bernie said, “A pub. Our first English pub, Lily.”

“We saw pubs in Leeds,” I said. “On the way to get the car.”

“Yes, but that was a city. It’s different. That one looks as though it’s been at that spot for hundreds of years. All the neighborhood goes there. It’s what they call their ‘local.’ Oh my gosh. Look over there—sheep!”

“Sheep in Yorkshire,” Rose said. “What a notion.”

We’d been in Yorkshire for all of about an hour. I’d swear Rose’s accent was getting stronger with every mile we drove.

“Starting to see anything familiar, Rose?” I asked.

“Hard to say,” she replied. “So many things have changed and so much to remember. I’m sure I’ll start recognizing places when we get closer.”

“You’ve been back several times, though,” Bernie said, “right?”

“Back to Yorkshire, but not to Halifax. My parents moved to Holgate in the 1970s, after my father retired, to be closer to one of my sisters and her family. I haven’t been to Halifax for a very long time indeed.”

The GPS instructed me to take the next left. I did so, and we drove through more small towns with streets lined by row houses, open fields full of sheep, more than a few pubs. The rain began to slow, and some of the cloud cover lifted. We were climbing steadily, bouncing down a country road lined by rough drystone walls, dark with age. To my left, the ground fell sharply away. I was too scared to pull my eyes off the road in front of me to take a look.

Rose sucked in a breath.

Bernie half turned in her seat. “You okay, back there?”

“I’m okay, as you put it. And there it is. Behold Halifax.”

“Don’t look Lily,” Bernie said. “I’ll describe it. We’re up way high. The cloud cover is thinning, and I can see a long way down to the valley. Everything is so green. Houses built all up the sides of the hills, the city lies at the bottom. Church steeples and what look like old factories and warehouses. Bridges and train tracks. I bet it looks fabulous in the sunshine.”

“It does,” Rose said, very softly. “It does.”

“Turn right,” Bernie said. “According to the GPS and my phone, we’re almost there.”

“We are,” Rose said. Excitement crept into her voice. “Hazel’s family lived in that farmhouse. They had three sons. She wasn’t needed on the farm, so she worked at Thornecroft.”

“Farm looks prosperous enough,” Bernie said.

It did. Large stone house, barn and outbuildings built around a courtyard. The sheep didn’t bother to look up as we passed.

“Funny how it all starts coming back,” Rose said. “I traveled many times down this road going to the shops in Halifax or to catch a train to visit one of my sisters. Hazel and I were friends at first, but then we had a falling out, so I wasn’t invited to tea at the farm any longer.”

“What did you fall out about?” Bernie asked.

“I don’t remember. Goes to show, doesn’t it? It must have been dreadfully important at the time, and now, I don’t even remember. The McAllisters lived there.” She indicated a substantial two-story house set well back from the road. “Doctor McAllister, he was. They dined quite regularly at Thornecroft, as I recall. He was nice enough—good-looking, everyone thought. His wife was a mouse of a woman in public, but she had a horrible reputation below stairs. These days, they’d say he bullied her and she took it out on the servants.”

“Here we are,” I said at the same time the GPS announced that we had arrived at our destination. “Thornecroft Castle House and Hotel.”