Mrs Flawse smiled contentedly. She foresaw a comfortable future. 'And in the meantime you will see to it that the Hall is modernized?' she said. And again Mr Flawse nodded.

'In that case I shall stay,' said Mrs Flawse graciously. This time there was the flicker of a smile on Mr Flawse's face but it died instantly. There was no point in giving his game away. He would buy time by affecting submission.

That afternoon Mrs Flawse sat down and wrote to Jessica. It was less a letter than an inventory of her possessions to be forwarded by road haulage to Flawse Hall. When she had finished she gave the letter to Mr Dodd to post in Black Pock-rington. It was still unposted that night when she went up to bed. In the kitchen Mr Flawse boiled a kettle and steamed the envelope open and read its contents.

'You can post it,' he told Mr Dodd as he resealed the envelope. 'The auld trout has taken the bait. It just remains to play her.'

And so for the next few months he did. The amenities of Flawse Hall remained unimproved. The central heating firm was always coming next week and never did. The electricity remained in abeyance and the Post Office refused to connect the telephone except at a cost that even Mrs Flawse found prohibitive. There were hitches everywhere. The arrival of her private possessions was delayed by the inability of the furniture removal van to negotiate the bridge at the bottom of the valley and the refusal of the removal men to carry boxes and trunks half a mile uphill. In the end they unloaded the van and went away, leaving it to Mrs Flawse and Mr Dodd to bring the pieces up one by one, a slow process made slower by Mr Dodd's other multifarious occupations. It was late spring by the time every knick-knack and gewgaw from 12 Sandicott Crescent had been installed in the drawing-room where they competed in vain with the antique plunder of the Empire. Worst of all Mrs Flawse's Rover was dispatched by rail, and thanks to Mr Dodd's intervention with the stationmaster, in which transaction money passed hands, was rerouted back to East Pursley by way of Glasgow, and delivered to Lockhart and Jessica mechanically inoperable and with a label attached saying 'Addressee unknown'. Without her car Mrs Flawse was lost. She could accompany Mr Dodd in the dog-cart as far as Black Pockrington, but no one in Pockrington had a telephone and farther he refused to go.

After three months of discomfort, uncertainty, and procrastination on Mr Flawse's part in the matter of the will, she had had enough. Mrs Flawse delivered her ultimatum.

'You will either do the things you promised to do or I will leave,' she said.

'But, ma'am, I have done my best,' said Mr Flawse. 'The matter is in hand and,,,'

'It were better it were afoot,' said Mrs Flawse who had adapted her speech to that of her husband. 'I mean what I say. Mr Bullstrode, the solicitor, must draw up your will in my favour or I will up sticks and return to where I am appreciated.'

'Where there's a will there's a way,' said the old man, musing on the possible permutations implied in the maxim and thinking of Schopenhauer. 'As the great Carlyle said… ,'

'And that's another thing. I'll have no more sermonizing. I have heard enough of Mr Carlyle to last me a lifetime. He may be the great man you say he was but enough's as good as a feast and I've had my fill of Heroes and Hero Worship.'

'And is that your last word?' asked Mr Flawse hopefully.

'Yes,' said Mrs Flawse, and contradicted herself, 'I have endured your company and the inconveniences of this house long enough. Mr Bullstrode will put in an appearance within the week or I shall make myself absent.'

'Then Mr Bullstrode will be here tomorrow,' said Mr Flawse. 'I give you my word.'

'He'd better be,' said Mrs Flawse and flounced out of the room leaving the old man to regret that he had ever urged her to read Samuel Smiles on Self Help.

That night Mr Dodd was dispatched with a sealed envelope bearing the Flawse crest, a moss trooper pendant, imprinted in wax on the back. It contained precise instructions as to the contents of Mr Flawse's new will, and when Mrs Flawse came down to breakfast next morning it was to learn that for once her husband had lived up to his word.

'There you are, ma'am,' said Mr Flawse, handing her Mr Bullstrode's reply, 'he will be here this afternoon to draw up the will.'

'And just as well,' said Mrs Flawse. 'I meant what I said,'

'And I mean every word I say, ma'am. The will shall be drawn and I have summoned Lockhart to be present next week when it is to be read.'

'I can see no good reason why he should be present until after your death,' said Mrs Flawse, 'That's the usual time for reading wills,'

'Not this will, ma'am,' said Mr Flawse. 'Forewarned is forearmed as the old saying has it. And the boy needs a spur to his flank.'

He retired to his sanctum leaving Mrs Flawse to puzzle this riddle, and that afternoon Mr Bullstrode arrived at the bridge over The Cut and was admitted by Mr Dodd. For the next three hours there came the sound of muted voices from the study, but though she listened at the keyhole Mrs Flawse could gain nothing from the conversation. She was back in the drawing-room when the solicitor came to pay his respects before leaving.

'One question before you go, Mr Bullstrode,' she said. 'I would like your assurance that I am the chief beneficiary of my husband's will.'

'You may rest assured on that point, Mrs Flawse. You are indeed the chief beneficiary. Let me go further, the conditions of Mr Flawse's new will leave his entire estate to you until your death.'

Mrs Flawse sighed with relief. It had been an uphill battle but she had won the first round. All that remained was to insist on modern conveniences being installed in the house. She was sick to death of using the earth closet.

Lockhart and Jessica were sick, period. The Curse, as Jessica had been brought up to call it, blighted what little physical bond there was between them. Lockhart steadfastly refused to impose his unworthy person on his bleeding angel and, even when not bleeding, his angel refused to insist on her right as his wife to be imposed upon. But if they lived in a state of sexual stalemate, their love grew in the fertile soil of their frustration. In short, they adored one another and loathed the world in which they found themselves. Lockhart no longer spent his days at Sandicott & Partner in Wheedle Street. Mr Treyer, forced to decide whether to implement his threat to resign if Lockhart didn't leave, a decision thrust upon him by Mr Dodd who hadn't delivered his letter to Mrs Flawse, finally resorted to more subtle tactics and paid Lockhart his full salary plus a bonus to stay away from the office before he brought ruin to the business by killing a Tax Inspector or alienating all their clients. Lockhart accepted this arrangement without regret. What he had seen of Mr Treyer, VAT men, the contradictions between income and income tax and the wiles and ways of both tax collectors and tax evaders, only confirmed his view that the modern world was a sordid and corrupt place. Brought up by his grandfather to believe what he was told and to tell what he believed, the transition to a world in which the opposites held true had had a traumatic effect.

Left fully paid to his own devices Lockhart had remained at home and learnt to drive.

'It will help to kill time,' he told Jessica, and had promptly done his best to kill two driving instructors and a great many other road users. More accustomed to the ways of horses and buggies than to the sudden surges and stops of motor cars, Lockhart's driving consisted of putting his foot flat down on the accelerator before letting out the clutch and then putting his foot flat down on the brake before smashing into whatever stood in his path. The effect of this repeated sequence had been to leave his instructors speechless with panic and in no position to communicate an alternative procedure to their pupil. Having wrecked the front ends of three Driving School cars and the back ends of two parked cars plus a lamp-post, Lockhart had found it difficult to get anyone to instruct him.