David Dickinson - Death Called to the Bar

‘I just think,’ said Edward, panting slightly from his exertions, ‘that I’ll put some distance between us in case those fellows turn around and come after us. I don’t think they will, and we’re faster than they are in any case, but I’d feel happier all the same.’

Sarah gazed at her young man with new respect. Edward the Silent had turned into Edward the Conqueror.

‘And there’s another thing,’ said Powerscourt, who was still trying to decide if Jeremiah Puncknowle was friend or foe, ‘I have to go to these solicitors in the next few days about this missing Maxfield person. The one Dauntsey left twenty thousand pounds to in his will.’ Powerscourt had told Lady Lucy and Johnny about the missing Maxfield before. ‘The police haven’t found any trace of him ,nothing at all. Chief Inspector Beecham thinks he’s probably dead. But they’ve checked the records at Somerset House, and there’s no record of him there either. He seems to have disappeared.’

‘Perhaps he’s gone abroad,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘Do you think Alex Dauntsey gave him the money to buy him out of trouble?’

‘God knows,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Just as easy to say he was paying off a blackmailer.’

‘What happens if he’s locked up?’ said Johnny Fitzgerald cheerfully. ‘Debtors’ prison, lunatic asylum, that sort of place. Have the police checked those out?’

‘They have, Johnny,’ said Powerscourt with a sigh, ‘but what happens if he’s joined up to a different form of institution altogether? Suppose some earlier Maxfield has died and left our Maxfield his title. He’s not Maxfield any more, he’s Lord Kilkenny or something like that. Our Maxfield has now vanished clean away.’

‘Wouldn’t somebody remember?’ asked Lady Lucy.

‘Not necessarily,’ said Powerscourt with a grin. ‘I look forward to seeing the Chief Inspector’s face when I ask him to check this one out. He may be very intelligent, our Jack Beecham, but like all policemen he’s taken a very heavy dose of loyalty to all the institutions of the state he’s called to protect.’

Twenty minutes later Edward and Sarah had escaped from the buildings of Oxford altogether. They had passed Magdalen with its tower and its deer park, the punt still flying along at a rapid pace as Edward made sure that the Oxford-enders weren’t following them. Now a kind of open country with rather damp-looking fields and suspicious cows was around them. Edward steered the punt carefully into the shade of a weeping willow on the bank and clambered forward to sit opposite Sarah in the main section of the boat.

‘Are you hungry, Edward?’ asked Sarah, checking that her picnic basket was still there, feeling quite important as the person in charge of the catering.

‘Starving,’ said Edward happily and he proceeded to devour seven sandwiches in rapid succession, favouring the ham and the tomato over the egg. Sarah, not used to living with young males, was astonished at the amount he put away. When the demolition of the sandwiches had slowed down, she decided to ask her questions. It was so peaceful out here, nobody could mind being asked a few questions about themselves.

‘Edward,’ she began hesitantly.

‘Sarah,’ said Edward, polishing an apple on the sleeve of his shirt.

‘Can I ask you a great favour?’ the girl went on.

‘You ask whatever you like, Sarah,’ replied Edward, inspecting his freshly polished apple as if it were a diamond of some sort.

‘It’s just I promised when I said we were coming to Oxford today.’

Edward suspected at once that this must have something to do with Sarah’s mother. He waited. Sarah was looking rather helplessly into the water. It was clear here and you could see right to the bottom.

‘Will you come and meet my mother, Edward? She’s very keen to meet you.’

Edward began eating his apple. ‘If you want me to come and meet your mother, of course I will. What sort of person is your mother?’

Sarah wondered if she could buy time by not explaining the likely turn of events to Edward. But she thought that wouldn’t be fair.

‘She’s curious, my mother, Edward, very curious. And I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but she’s quite ill. The doctors think she may have only a couple of years to live. And she’s in quite a lot of pain. As if,’ a bitter note crept into Sarah’s voice at this point, ‘it wasn’t bad enough my father having that stroke and dying two years ago. Two years and four months today.’

Edward wondered if he should put an arm round her for comfort.

‘My poor Sarah,’ he said, laying off his demolition of the apple for the moment, ‘I thought from what you said that your mother wasn’t very well, but I didn’t know about your father. I’m so sorry. Were you close to him?’

Sarah managed a little smile. ‘I was the last child, Edward, I was a girl, I was quick when I was little, very quick. I adored him. And I knew he adored me. I suspect, although he would never have said so, that I was his favourite.’

‘What did he die of? He can’t have been very old.’

‘He had a stroke and never recovered. The doctors couldn’t do anything about it. He’d been a teacher in the primary school up the road for years and years. It was so sweet, the teachers were so fond of him that they brought the older children to his funeral. All these lovely little children singing those sad hymns, it was so moving.’

Sarah suddenly realized that far from teasing out of Edward the facts of his parentage, she had merely given him her own. But she felt she hadn’t given him proper warning of his likely reception.

‘My mother, Edward,’ Sarah hesitated. Two enormous cows had plodded over to the side of the river and were inspecting them both.

‘Are these cows bothering you?’ said Edward suddenly, ‘We could move on if you like.’

Sarah shook her head. ‘Cows don’t bother me,’ she said. ‘Anyway my mother will want to ask you a whole lot of questions about yourself and your parents and where you went to school and what you want to become later on.’

‘Will she indeed?’ said Edward. Sarah noticed he was growing rather tense. ‘Will you be there all the time, Sarah? You won’t go off to bake some scones or make the tea or something and leave me at your mother’s mercy?’

‘Not if you don’t want me to, Edward. Do you think you will be able to cope?’

‘Do you mean will I be able to speak, Sarah? God knows. I got so worried about ordering those tickets at Paddington this morning, I’d been practising for days. I’ll get worried about meeting your mother too.’

‘What will you say about your parents, Edward?’ Sarah had been dying to ask this question herself for a long time now. She hoped Edward wouldn’t mind, not here on the River Cherwell with a couple of cows for company and the spires of Oxford dreaming behind them.

There was a pause. Sarah didn’t know if Edward had been struck dumb at the prospect of her mother or if he didn’t know what to say. He flung the core of his apple angrily into the field and picked out another one.

‘Sorry about that,’ he said, moodily. Sarah kept silent. She felt sure that whatever Edward’s answer was going to be, assuming one ever came, it would tell her a lot about the nature of his character and, perhaps, about his problems with speaking.

Edward drew his knees up to his chin and wrapped his arms around his legs. Sarah wondered if he was going to meditate.

‘My p-p-parents are dead,’ he said finally. ‘They were killed in an accident along with my elder sister and my little b-b-brother.’ There was no attempt to keep the anger out of his voice.

‘How did it happen, Edward?’ said Sarah. ‘I’m so sorry, it’s so terrible losing parents.’ So very terrible, she realized, that even the thought of it had brought on the stammer which Edward struggled so hard to keep to at bay.