Emma Page - In the Event of My Death

Barry Fielding was the last of Bernard Dalton’s stray chicks; he was a year younger than Verity. Bernard had died twelve months after making himself responsible for Barry’s welfare. Barry was a tall, spindly lad, serious and studious. He was in the sixth form, working hard to gain a place at university, where he hoped to read medicine.

He and Verity were very close, they had been closer than a good many siblings since they were first introduced to each other seven years ago. They were now both wards of the same brace of guardians: Bernard Dalton’s widow, Grace – whom Verity always addressed as Aunt Grace – and Grace’s solicitor, son of the man, dead now for three years, who had been Bernard’s solicitor. Barry had begun by addressing his benefactors as Mr and Mrs Dalton but had gradually fallen into using the same terms as Verity; no one had ever offered any objection.

Barry no longer had any relatives of his own. His mother had died when he was six years old. His father had been one of Bernard Dalton’s employees, an ambitious and hard-working young man from a Cannonbridge council estate; he had looked after Barry with the help of neighbours. When Bernard Dalton retired, he sold the business and Fielding was one of a number of men who decided not to continue with the new employer but to make use of the generous severance money on offer, to set up in business on their own.

Things went well enough with Fielding for a year or two, until boom gave way to recession. He struggled along with mounting difficulty. He was a man who bottled things up, kept his worries to himself; he grew increasingly depressed.

One Saturday morning in the summer holidays when Barry was away at a school camp, Fielding drove down to the little resort on the north coast of Cornwall where he had spent his honeymoon. He booked in at a small bed and breakfast establishment. On Sunday morning he rose early and went out for a swim. He never came back.

He had left his clothes and towel neatly folded on the beach; there was no note. His body was washed up a few days later. There was only a small insurance policy on his life, written in trust for his son’s benefit, taken out at the time Fielding set up in business on his own. The inquest returned a verdict of death from drowning, with insufficient evidence to show the state of mind of the deceased.

At the time Bernard Dalton took over responsibility for Barry, Verity Thorburn had already been in his care for two years; he had sent her to the boarding school his daughter Esther had attended. Verity had been spending her school holidays with Esther and James, whose schoolboy sons were also home from boarding school.

Verity was far from happy at the Milroys’, though she did her best not to show it. Esther strove to be kind but the age gap between Verity and the boys was too great to be easily bridged. And Verity had remained for a considerable time in a withdrawn state, able to bear little in the way of teasing or boisterous games, liable to rush off to her room to give way to fits of silent weeping when a chance word or snatch of music touched some chord of memory. The only person to perceive the depth of her unhappiness was Nina Dalton. She couldn’t take Verity in the holidays herself as she was often out all day, endlessly busy.

But when Barry arrived on the scene, Nina put forward the idea that both youngsters might spend their holidays at Elmhurst, the Dalton family home, near Cannonbridge. Bernard and Grace readily agreed and the plan proved very successful. A strong friendship developed between the two orphans, working wonders for them both. They had the freedom of the grounds. The gardener, Gosling, an amiable man, made friends with them and his wife was endlessly kind.

Now, as they sat in the tea room, Barry talked of how his training was coming along for the sponsored half marathon. He was an ardent fundraiser for the new hospice, heading the sixth form committee at his school, masterminding the boys’ efforts.

Verity asked if he had done anything yet about Aunt Grace’s birthday present. It would be Grace Dalton’s seventieth birthday on Saturday, 7th March. Grace was set on holding a family gathering at Elmhurst that weekend; she had always greatly enjoyed such occasions. She had been in poor health for the past two years but her doctor believed the little celebration would do her good, provided care and moderation were exercised.

‘I’ve found a book I think she’ll like,’ Barry said. He’d come across it in an antiquarian bookseller’s: a photographic history of Cannonbridge, from the turn of the century to the late ‘thirties; it was handsomely bound, in excellent condition. ‘There are several photographs of the grammar school,’ he added. ‘Her father’s in one of them.’ Grace was Cannonbridge born and bred; her father had been senior history master at the grammar school.

‘She’ll love that,’ Verity responded with conviction. She was giving a watercolour of Elmhurst she had painted herself. ‘I’ll give you a lift over there that weekend,’ she added as they stood up from the tea table. She had her own little car, bought six months ago from money she’d come into on her eighteenth birthday, a legacy of no great size, from her great uncle.

They walked across to where Barry had left his bicycle; he had to get back to school. ‘The birthday weekend could easily be cancelled,’ Barry pointed out. ‘If Aunt Grace isn’t well enough.’

‘She’ll be well enough,’ Verity retorted. ‘She’ll live to be a hundred, heart or no heart, she’s as tough as old boots.’ Her face took on a brooding look. ‘There she is, sitting on all that money,’ she suddenly burst out. ‘Why should an old woman, no blood relation of mine, someone who just happened to marry my great uncle, have control over what I do?’

Barry mounted his bicycle. ‘She’s only doing her duty, doing what Uncle Bernard wanted.’ He gave her a straight look. ‘She’s been very good to both of us,’ he reminded her. ‘She’s always treated us fairly and kindly. And she doesn’t take decisions about us on her own, everything has to be agreed between her and Mr Purvis.’

Ah yes, Mr Purvis, Verity thought. Her expression lightened as she waved Barry off. She’d been forgetting Mr Purvis, the Dalton solicitor. She set off briskly for her little flat, in a surge of renewed optimism.

CHAPTER 5

Elmhurst, home of the Dalton family for over a century, stood in extensive grounds, sixty acres and more, on the outskirts of a village close to Cannonbridge. Over the last thirty years, developers had turned hungry eyes on the Elmhurst land, rapidly becoming a prime site as the town advanced steadily nearer. More than one entrepreneur, with plans for a high-class development in mind, had approached the local authority to discover its views. Planning permission would undoubtedly be granted and would be welcomed locally.

Bernard Dalton had received a number of offers. The figures mentioned rose as time went by, occasionally making spectacular leaps. But Bernard had never for one moment contemplated selling, and his widow was of precisely the same mind.

Grace Dalton had been a spinster of forty-six when she married Bernard. She had worked for the firm since leaving secretarial college; she had been Bernard’s personal assistant for several years. She had never had a boyfriend but kept house for her widowed schoolmaster father until his death, two years before her marriage.

Bernard had consulted neither his son nor his daughter when he contemplated remarrying; he would have been astonished at such a suggestion. Nor would his children have dared to voice any contrary opinion they might have felt.

The second marriage had been highly successful. Grace had continued to play a significant part in the affairs of the firm until Bernard’s retirement. She had also served as a magistrate and parish councillor and had taken an increasing interest in charitable work. But she had been forced to give up these activities after being laid low two years ago by a serious heart condition, complicated by other health factors. She had made a fairly good recovery but had suffered a setback the previous autumn. She had been strongly advised to take things very easily indeed in future, and was conscientiously obeying orders. ‘With care, she could live another two or three years,’ her doctor had recently told Matthew Dalton. ‘But, there again, she could go at any time.’