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Henry looked around uncomfortably as the officer continued his praises. The man could certainly talk a mile a minute. He finally tapped his watch and explained.  "We should be heading out. I think we need to be getting to our accomodation before it gets too dark to see."

Ellie nodded in agreement.  "Yes, we should be on our way." She turned to grab her bag and realized that the whole time Henry had been avoiding touching her.  He had taken her bag with him as he had traveled ahead. Her sweater which was strong on the handle of the suitcase was wrapped around his arm.  Ellie wondered if things were going to get awkward on their way to Stanford Hall.

After the taxi had been secured to take them outside of Lutterworth, Henry noticed that Ellie was starting to grow restless in her seat.  Henry leaned towards her and grabbed her shoulder. He moved himself closer to her to ask. "Are there places that you remember from your childhood?  Can you point out places that you know so I can know them too if I get lost?"

Ellie tried to smile, but it didn't touch her eyes.  "It's close. I'm so nervous because I haven't been there since I was a child.  The house is actually close to the River Avon. We could have come from Stanford on Avon, but Michael thought it would be more inconspicuous if we came from the other end.  The land stretches as far as the eye can see."

The taxi driver turned on his blinker there was a sign that there was a medical center down the road as they started going through a drive flanked on either side by sprightly trees.  The road in front of stem stretched up to an imposing black gate. Henry looked out the window with interest, "These trees are beautiful, you know, we don't have a lot of plants in the city, but they don't look like the ones that we have in our garden."

She continued to look out with a hand on her chin as she explained,  "I'm not sure what type of trees they are, but I remember my father telling me they were planted a long time ago.  They were to give privacy to the people traveling down this way and also if people wanted to talk unnoticed they could go behind the trees."

Her body was distinctly angled away from his and in a little ball of anxiety.  A couple days before, he would have moved closer to start to soothe her tired muscles because he understood the anxiety of being away from home for a long time.  She had his deepish wishes come to life. It was tempting to get closer to her than he already was, but Henry held back.

The wrought iron gates had someone standing who opened them as the taxi approached.  There was a circular drive that the taxi drove around before stopping in front of the grand manor.  Ellie cracked open her door before getting out quickly, her eyes were reddened. Henry got out after her before assessing the seventeenth century manor with awe.  The center of the house was situated a little further back as two arms jutted forwards as if to greet them. The huge manor was several stories tall with different sized chimneys jutting out from the roof as a little flag was perched on top.  The house was perfectly symmetrical as if the architect had taken half a design and then decided it was good enough for the whole. The front face of the whole house was built from an almost concrete looking grey brick where the sides were with a more traditional reddish brick.  Henry had to admit, it wasn't as beautiful as his own penthouse manor back at the Wong Building, but it still had its own charm. The land around the house was verdant and vibrant, just as Ellie had recounted to him on the way there.

To his more critical eye he could see the cracks in the plaster and in the beautiful windows around the house.  Upkeep here, was sorely lacking. He saw something dart out of view and turning his head he could see that there were a couple of small rabbits who were bolt enough to come close to the drive to find the tender shoots that had escaped the first frost.

Ellie still seemed shell-shocked so Henry didn't want to disturb her.  He waited until his hands were numb before touching her. She jumped and looked from him to the exhaust pipe of the still running taxi.  Ellie got out her cash and paid the driver. Both of them watched as the taxi accelerated down the drive back to civilization. She turned to Henry as he said, "Are you ready to go inside?"

Her thoughts starting to clear up, she acknowledged that she was so they walked up the stairway together with their bags.  Ellie knocked on the front door before ringing the doorbell twice. The electronic jingle echoed in the house as it was a popular children's christmas song.  Ellie mouthed the words as they waited for the door to open. Henry leaned over to Ellie, "Did you call in advance to tell the staff that we're on our way? Do they know that we are due to arrive right now?"

Ellie craned her head to see if she could see shadows in any of the windows of people moving inside.  She turned back and saw that the man who had opened the gate was nowhere to be seen. Her eyebrows raised.  "They should know. I sent an email and texted that we're here. They have our flight and train details, but you know looking around we can see that the whole place hasn't been managed very well since my father passed on.  It's a shame really. It's such a beautiful house. There was so much activity that involved the local community when I was younger, but if you look I doubt anyone from the village has been up here in a long time."