Edward Kane, Advocate in A Promise is a Promise: Chapter 1

Edinburgh, Capital of Scotland. 1851“Is it me, or is it particularly chilly today, Mr Horse?”

Edward Kane, Advocate in A Promise is a Promise:

Edward Kane, Advocate was sitting at the table, as breakfast was being prepared by his manservant, Mr Horse.

Horse pointed toward the window, and the snow piled up on the windowsill outside. He answered in his Cockney brogue. “It’s these old win-durs, Mr K. Well past their prime. I think the landlady must have got them off Noah and his ark, sir.”

Kane sighed: “I don’t suppose you could have a word with her. The landlady, I mean, Mr Horse?”

Kane noted the expression on Horse’s face. The rent had not been paid for three weeks: “Perhaps not, Mr Horse, perhaps not.”

Horse went over to the open fireplace and lifted an enormous frying pan from the flames. Two fat sausages sizzled in the pan. Horse carried the pan over to the dining table. He scooped the sausages onto the plate before Kane: “There you go, sir. Get them down you.” He pointed to the teapot on the table: “And the tea is nice and mashed now, sir and I’ll get the toast on. The milk is still good, Mr K - I left it on the windowsill overnight. It froze, but I broke it with a stick, sir.”

Kane poured himself a cup of tea and some icy fragments from the milk jug as Mr Horse sat holding a long, two-pronged fork, toasting a thick slice of bread.

Kane took a sip of the tea. His eyebrows shot up: “Well, Mr Horse, the strength of your tea is undiminished this morning. I wager that we could possibly cut it into slices.”

Horse beamed: “Thank you, sir.”

Mr Horse, a veteran of the Battle of Waterloo, was a man of many skills. His tea-making was a particular source of pride to him. “Strong on the inside is strong on the outside...” he would say. His military abilities came in useful for facilitating the affairs of a young, impecunious Advocate like Edward Kane. Cooking, washing, ironing, the cleaning of boots (and where necessary, “the cleaning of clocks”, as Mr Horse would have it) were among his duties. Importantly, Mr Horse was the Keeper of the Purse Strings. No mean feat, where there was often nothing in that purse.

“There you go, Mr K,” Horse came over and dropped the toast onto the side-plate, “get a bit of butter on that and you’d never know that that bread was two days old...”

Horse sat down on his stool by the fire, and drank from his old tin mug: “So, Mr K - what does the day hold for you today, sir?”

“Much of the same, Mr Horse, much of the same. I shall dress in wig and gown and I shall parade up and down Parliament Hall until some needy individual hails me - like a common cab in the street.”

Horse drank the rest of his own tea, tilting his old metal mug towards the ceiling as he finished it, then a long, satisfied sigh: “Aaaaah. I got a feeling Mr K, that today is the day. Today is the day that some big, juicy dripping roast of a case will just fall into your lap...”

Kane laughed: “The metaphor is messy Mr Horse - but I applaud the sentiment...”

“And in the meantime, Mr K, I’ll see what I can do to plug that window frame sir. Talk about a draught? You could fly a bloomin’ kite in here.”

*****

The great Parliament Hall in Edinburgh was virtually empty today. No work in his work box, it struck Kane that he had a head full of learning and a larder full of nothing. Dressed in wig and gown, he took a solitary stroll along the Hall. No life today in that great space. He stood again by the fire and mused: Mr Horse predicted a day of success, well, Mr Horse, I regret to inform you...

But at that point, Kane became aware that a young lad with a shock of red hair, possibly aged eleven, had dashed into Parliament Hall. The lad looked around the Hall and fixed his eyes on Kane - then ran over: “’Scuse me sir, I’m looking for an Advocate...”

Kane smiled: “Of course, which one?”

The lad was out of breath. “I don’t rightly know sir...”

“Then your task becomes more difficult...”

“I got a letter here sir. In my bag somewhere...”

The messenger boy rummaged, produced an envelope and handed it to Kane.

There was a blank space where a name should have been, with the word “Advocate” written underneath.

Kane handed the letter back: “Given the form of the letter, my young buck, I should think that any Advocate could accept these instructions.”

The lad breathed a sigh of relief: “Thank you, sir. Thank you. This is my first day on the job, you see. Now - where do you think I can find an Advocate, sir?”

It struck Kane that since he (Kane) was standing in the middle of Parliament Hall, next to The Advocates Library, and dressed in full wig and gown, that the lad before him might not have finished dux of his school.

“I am an Advocate, young sir.”

The boy looked even more relieved: “Then I’ll leave the letter with you, sir.”

And after the lad had written down Kane’s surname (after several aborted attempts, and with a surprising degree of variation, given there were only four letters available), breathless, he ran off to the next task.

Kane took the letter into the Advocates Library and studied its contents. Insufficient information, he thought. Best that the lawyers instructing him be told this. Kane took out his watch from his waistcoat pocket. Fifteen minutes past two. The address of the law agents? Just around the corner.

*****

As Kane was climbing the narrow stair on his way up to the offices of solicitors Messrs McAllister and McAdam, all that he could hear was shouting. A woman’s voice. Not young. And obviously not happy.

When Kane reached the first floor landing, he was confronted with the sight of an elderly lady - in the act of assaulting a small ginger-headed boy.