by Val Wood
‘Open the door, Maria, and I’ll tell you.’ He grinned. Knowing her name would fool her; she’d be curious, as all women were.
The key turned and the door opened a crack and he put his foot in. ‘It’s Charles I want. Is he there?’
There was a whispered conversation behind the door and impatiently he pushed it open and went in.
‘Don’t pretend you’re not here, Charles. I know very well that you are.’ He pushed past Maria, through the small lobby and into the parlour where Charles was standing in his shirtsleeves with his collar undone.
‘Wh-what are you doing here, Father?’ Charles spluttered. ‘How did—’
‘How did I know where you lived?’ His father gave a grim laugh. ‘I’ve always known. Ever since you first moved in. But don’t worry, I’ve never told your mother or your wife. It’s just as well I did know, for otherwise you’d be in a great deal of trouble. You haven’t been in the bank for nearly a week – don’t think I don’t know – and there’s been a telegram waiting for your attention.’
‘I’ve been busy,’ Charles spluttered. ‘I’ve been going over the estate accounts; you’ve no idea how much there is to do.’
‘Haven’t I?’ his father said acidly. ‘Really! Well, I’m afraid they’ll have to take a back seat for the moment.’ He looked around the room as if searching for evidence of the hard work, but the place was tidy and neat, without anything out of place.
‘The telegram,’ he said, ‘if you’re in the least interested, is from the headmaster of your son’s school, and presumably he hasn’t got your address either as he sent it care of the bank. I opened it as no one knew where you were, only to read that your son, my grandson, has run away!’
‘What! When? How …’ Charles looked from his father to Maria, who had clutched her hands to her mouth in dismay and was murmuring something that sounded like a prayer.
‘I don’t know the detail, but I sent a return telegram saying you were away, but that I’d let you know immediately, and one to his mother in your name to tell her.’
‘You shouldn’t have done that!’ Charles blurted out. ‘You know how hysterical women can be! He’s probably only hiding somewhere on the heath waiting to be rescued.’
‘Oh, of course.’ His father’s voice was full of sarcasm. ‘So that’s all right then, is it? Doesn’t matter if he’s cold and wet and probably with total strangers! You’re a fool, Charles, you just don’t think. Anyway, I’ve been in touch with the Hampstead police and if, as you say, that’s where he’s hiding, he’ll be found!’ His lips curled. ‘But I wouldn’t put money on it,’ he snarled. ‘And I hope you’ll be prepared to answer questions if he’s found dead from exposure or worse.’
‘This is his mother’s fault,’ Charles shouted. ‘He’ll be heading for Yorkshire. She put it into his head that he’d be unhappy and would be better at another school, and that will be why he’s run away. He’ll have imagined that he’s not happy there and decided to go home.’
His father gazed at him steadily. ‘And does he have money for the train fare?’ he asked. ‘Does he even know the way home?’ He shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t think so. But I leave the problem at your door, Charles.’ He put his hat back on his head and walked out of the room. ‘Let me know the consequences.’
Charles picked up the glass he’d been drinking from and smashed it on the floor. ‘Damn and blast it. He’ll get a leathering when I find him!’
‘Oh, no!’ Maria moaned. ‘You must not hurt him; he is only a little boy, isn’t he? He will be frightened.’
Charles buttoned up his shirt. ‘I’ll have to go up to the school and find out what’s happened,’ he muttered. ‘Father has probably got it wrong, dithering old buffoon.’
‘But he said the ’eadmaster send the telegram and he told him that you are away.’
‘I’ve just got back, haven’t I?’ Charles muttered and slipped on his boots. ‘Fetch me my coat, overcoat and hat, quickly; don’t just stand there dithering.’
‘You want me to come with you?’ Maria stopped on her dash towards the stairs.
‘No! What good will that do, for heaven’s sake? Give the school staff something else to chew over? I know what they’re like. They might have different faces but they’re all moulded from the same clay, believe me.’
Maria nodded and went upstairs to collect what he had asked for, but she had no idea what he was talking about.
Beatrix will get a piece of my mind when I see her; I’ll catch the first train tomorrow. She will have planted the idea of running away in his head. I’ll remind her that he’s under my control now and if I wish I can remove him from her altogether. That’s what that conniving woman, what was her name – Norton, that’s it – that’s what her husband did. Divorced her and took the children. He paid her back all right. Writing books about him that were obviously untrue.
‘Maria,’ he bellowed. ‘Hurry up, woman.’
He whistled for a cab once he was on the main road but several went by already carrying passengers. He could have gone to the mews for the carriage but by the time he’d found the groom and he’d hitched up he could be halfway to Hampstead if only one of these blasted drivers would stop. Eventually one did, and he told him that he’d pay him double if he would get him there quickly.
He saw the cabbie’s lips move, and guessed what he was saying. That’s what they all say. There was a lot of traffic and Charles reckoned it would be an hour at least before they reached the school on the heath.
He rehearsed what he would say to the headmaster; he’d give him a lash of his tongue for not keeping small boys safe. A sudden image of Laurence’s merry smile came to him and he quickly pushed it away. He hadn’t been like that at seven, when he was sent to the school; he’d been scared of his own shadow, and he pushed that away too. He’d had to learn to stand up for himself very quickly.
It was a different headmaster, of course, but they were all from the same mould; he’d be another old buffer, handy with the cane and the use of dark cupboards.
He asked the driver to wait; told him that he’d be at least half an hour. ‘But wait,’ he snapped. ‘Don’t leave.’
‘I’m not likely to, am I, guv? Not when I ain’t been paid. This is my job,’ he muttered as Charles headed towards the door and hammered on it. ‘Waiting on rich fellas to cough up what they owe.’
A middle-aged woman answered the door and took him straight to the headmaster’s study when he gave her his name. A dark-haired man a few years older than Charles was sitting writing at his desk; he rose and murmured his name, which Charles didn’t register, and invited him to take a seat. He hadn’t met him previously, having seen the matron and teachers from the junior school and told them he didn’t wish to see the head of school as he was a former pupil and knew the school’s history.
But he was taken aback; he’d been expecting a much older man, someone more like his own father, grey-haired and forbidding, and that was who he was ready to do battle with; he was prepared to impress him, to show him he should be honoured by his visit, for he was going to tell him that he ran the family bank and owned a Yorkshire estate.
But this man put out his hand and apologized profusely that they hadn’t realized that Laurence was unhappy enough to run away. ‘If only he had told us,’ he said. ‘Matron usually spots if any of the new boys are homesick, but Laurence must have hidden it well. I realize that you are often away on business, and I understand from the comments that were recorded in Laurence’s file that his mother is unwell and not able to travel to see him?’ His eyebrows rose a little. ‘I, erm, met Laurence’s grandparents towards the end of the half-term holiday, when they came to visit him. They didn’t mention that their daughter – your wife – was frail, but said that she was very concerned about Laurence. They took him out for the afternoon and he seemed much more cheerful on his return.’
Charles was furious; the Fawcetts had no right to take him out without his knowledge. I might have agreed, of cou
rse, but they should have asked. This is Beatrix’s doing, he fumed. Trying to interfere. Well, I won’t have it. It’s her fault that he’s run away, mollycoddling him and making decisions that were not for her to make, and she has no right.
‘Do you know who I am?’ he exclaimed, standing up and almost knocking the chair over.
‘Why yes.’ The headmaster also rose, and when he was standing upright Charles realized that he was a good head taller than he was. ‘Of course I do.’ His eyes fixed firmly on Charles. ‘But perhaps you didn’t catch my name, although it is of course on the prospectus. Andrew Robinson-Gough. My brother Stephen was in your year.’
Charles flinched and felt the blood drain from his face. He would never forget that name.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
They had never been friends: Stephen Robinson-Gough had been a few months younger than him; an advantage, to Charles’s mind, as he always preferred to dominate the younger boys in his year. But Stephen RG was never cowed by bullies as some of the others were.
He had enjoyed a steady family background, knew the difference between right and wrong, and was known to be an excellent scholar, as his older brother was too. He had few friends and didn’t seem to mind that – he chose them carefully, and kept them – but the only time Charles had invited him and a few other students to stay at an estate in Yorkshire, which rumour had it he was in line to inherit, he had said yes.
And it was after this visit that Charles Dawley had been on the tip of expulsion from the school after being reported to the then headmaster over an incident where a local man was almost killed.
Charles’s great-uncle had invited him to stay one weekend in early summer and suggested that perhaps some of his school friends might like to come along too. Charles jumped at the chance to show off his future inheritance and took the half-dozen fourteen- and fifteen-year-old schoolboys on a tour of the estate.
The weather was unusually hot and Uncle Nev had warned Charles not to go near the cattle, as there were some with calves that they would instinctively protect if they thought they were under threat. But Charles was bored with the countryside and suggested that they take a shortcut through the meadow and go through the woodland to the estuary just a mile or so away.
‘Not a good idea, Dawley,’ Stephen had said. ‘We’d be better going down the drive. The cows will be resting in this heat. If we disturb them they might panic, and there are a couple of men working down at the bottom end.’
‘Farmer Stephen!’ Charles had laughed belligerently. ‘Do you know about cattle?’
‘Not much, only what my grandfather has told me. He’s a farmer and he’s always said to be careful amongst cattle, especially if they have calves.’
Charles had shrugged. He wasn’t going to be told anything by an insolent young braggart like Stephen RG. He climbed the fence into the meadow and called to the others. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Unless you’re scared of a few cows like our friend here. Everybody knows that cows are docile.’
He gave a whoop and some of the cows lumbered up from where they were sheltering beneath a clump of trees and stood staring at them. Charles strolled towards them and some of his companions climbed over the fence too; Charles hollered again and the others joined in whistling and shouting. The cows shifted, moving away from them, and the two men working on the bottom fence looked up.
‘No, stop,’ Stephen called. ‘Don’t.’
But Charles just laughed and began to run towards the cattle, waving his arms. The others followed, apart from Stephen and one other.
It was a sheer accident, he thought now as he stood staring back at Stephen’s brother. It wasn’t my fault. We were just having a bit of fun. Besides, the men ought to have got out of the way. They saw that the cows were stampeding and should have climbed over the fence; they just didn’t move quickly enough. One was elderly; too old to be at work, really, and apparently incapable of climbing the fence, but the other man heaved him over and he crashed down on the other side. But it all happened so quickly that the younger man was trapped himself, and that was how he came to be trampled upon.
It might have blown over, Charles considered, if it hadn’t been for tell-tale Stephen and his friend whose name he had forgotten, running hell for leather back to the house and alerting Uncle Nev, who, old as he was even then, had apparently run to the back of the house and shouted out for as many men as possible to come and bring planks of wood to use as stretchers to carry the injured up to the house; and Stephen it was who had spilled out what had happened, not only to Neville Dawley, but to his own father when he got home, who in turn told the then headmaster, who had seriously considered expulsion, not only of Charles but of some of the others too.
‘Stephen!’ he said nonchalantly. ‘Was he in my year? Yes, of course he was. What’s he doing these days?’
‘Law,’ the headmaster said briefly. ‘But what about your son, Dawley? The police are out looking for him and we have notified the railway station in case he’s decided to try to get home. It doesn’t look good, either for the school’s reputation or yours, but especially not for Laurence. We have his best interest at heart, and I will tell you now that we are very concerned.’
‘And do you think I am not?’ Charles said aggressively. ‘I am extremely worried. With the best of intentions I left him in your care and you have failed him.’
He saw that his remark had hit home and felt vindicated.
He asked the cabbie to take him to King’s Cross railway station and then wait for him again. He walked swiftly into the station and looked around for a policeman; there were generally some about and he found one by the ticket office talking to a porter, and told him about Laurence.
‘We’ve already been informed, sir,’ he was told, ‘and the message has been passed down the line. If the little fella is travelling by rail, we’ll find him.’
Charles nodded. ‘He’ll be in school uniform, I should think. Knickerbockers and red stockings.’
‘Blimey,’ the porter muttered grimly. ‘There’s no wonder he’s run off if he has to wear that sort o’ get-up.’
Charles didn’t answer but turned away. The last train north had left so there was nothing to do but go home and plan for the next day.
‘I’ll catch the earliest train in the morning,’ he told Maria. ‘There will be at least two changes but it can’t be helped. It has to be done.’
He sat for a while, planning and scheming, and came to a decision. ‘What I’ll do, if he’s managed to get back to Yorkshire, is bring him straight back here. I won’t tell the school immediately, I’ll let them stew for a day or two, just to teach them to take more care of other people’s children.’
‘You will bring him here? To this house – to my house?’ Maria interrupted. ‘But I can’t – I don’t know what to do with children. You should leave him with his mama for a few days. She will be very worried.’
He stared at her. ‘I don’t really care if she’s worried. She has no jurisdiction over him; no authority,’ he explained, in case she didn’t understand.
‘But, she is his madre,’ she maintained. ‘She will know what is best to do. He will have been frightened if he has been alone.’
‘Hey! This is my son we are talking about. Don’t you know that English law says that a child over seven belongs to the father, not the mother?’
‘But …’ she faltered. ‘She has given birth to her children, looked after them; the father only provides the seed to make them grow.’
He stood up. ‘Don’t argue with me! I’m telling you that in English law the children belong to the father, not the mother.’
‘Then this is stupid country,’ she pronounced. ‘Why would the father want to take the child from its mother?’
He leaned towards her and took hold of her firmly by her chin. ‘Because, my dear, he can! And what’s more, women can’t own property either, so think carefully, Maria, about what I am saying: for this is not your house, but mine, and I’m telling you that I w
ill bring Laurence here once I find him.’
But Charles was not likely to find him if he was leaving the search until the following morning, for Laurie was already in Doncaster and fast asleep under a blanket in a corner of the stationmaster’s parlour.
He was blessed with a good memory and had recalled that when he and his father had travelled to London they had changed trains at Doncaster. The most difficult part of his journey towards home was finding his way to King’s Cross from Hampstead, for he didn’t know London very well, even though he had made occasional visits with his mother, sister and brother to his grandparents’ house. His grandfather was a fund of information on all kinds of subjects, and had books and maps which were very useful for a young boy with an enquiring mind.
After coming off the heath following an organized run, he had slipped out of sight of his companions. He had told only one of his friends in confidence that he was planning on travelling home at some time, but hadn’t said when. That day had seemed most appropriate; it was a bright blue-sky day, and during their lunch break his form had been told they would go for a run on the heath that afternoon, and to change into their sports kit of knee-length breeches, white shirt, grey wool jumper and grey socks and not the dreaded red stockings. The perfect disguise, he thought gleefully, and as he left the dining hall for the dormitory to change had slipped two bread rolls into his pockets.
Keeping to the back of the pack, he’d run towards the cover of trees and watched as the rest kept on running, then about-turned and set off downhill into Hampstead village.
He hopped on a horse omnibus as it was pulling away and then jumped off again when it turned a corner, for the one thing he had forgotten was money and he had not a penny with which to pay the fare. A boy a few years older than him was coming towards him and Laurie stopped to ask if this was the way to King’s Cross railway station.