'I see no reason why the Captain shouldn't marry us,' he said finally. Mrs Sandicott thrilled at the notion. It combined speed and no time for second thoughts with an eccentricity that was almost aristocratic. She could boast about it to her friends.

'Then I'll see the Captain about it in the morning,' said Mr Flawse, and it was left to Mrs Sandicott to break the news to the young couple.

She found them on the boat-deck whispering together. For a moment she stood and listened. They so seldom spoke in her presence that she was curious to know what they did say to one another in her absence. What she heard was both reassuring and disturbing.

'Oh, Lockhart.'

'Oh, Jessica.'

'You're so wonderful.'

'So are you.^'

'You really do mean that?'

'Of course I do.'

'Oh, Lockhart.^!

'Oh, Jessica.'

Under the gleaming moon and the glittering eye of Mrs Sandicott they clasped one another in their arms and Lockhart tried to think what to do next. Jessica supplied the answer.

'Kiss me, darling.'

'Where?' said Lockhart.

'Here?' said Jessica and offered him her lips.

'There?' said Lockhart. 'Are you sure?'

In the shadow of the lifeboat Mrs Sandicott stiffened. What she had just heard but couldn't see was without doubt nauseating. Either her future son-in-law was mentally deficient or her daughter was sexually more sophisticated, and in Mrs Sand-icott's opinion positively perverse, than she had ever dreamt-Mrs Sandicott cursed those damned nuns. Lockhart's next remark confirmed her fears.

'Isn't it a bit sticky?'

'Oh, darling, you're so romantic,' said Jessica, 'you really are.'

Mrs Sandicott wasn't. She emerged from the shadows and bore down on them. 'That's quite enough of that,' she said as they staggered apart. 'When you're married you can do whatever you like but no daughter of mine is going to indulge in obscene acts on the boat-deck of a liner. Besides, someone might see you.'

Jessica and Lockhart stared at her in amazement. It was Jessica who spoke first.

'When we're married? You really did say that, mummy?'

'I said exactly that,' said Mrs Sandicott. 'Lockhart's grandfather and I have decided that you should…'

She was interrupted by Lockhart who, with a gesture of chivalry that so endeared him to Jessica, knelt at his future mother-in-law's feet and reached out towards her. Mrs Sandicott recoiled abruptly. Lockhart's posture combined with Jessica's recent suggestion was more than she could stomach.

'Don't you dare touch me,^! she squawked and backed away. Lockhart hastened to his feet.

'I only meant…" he began but Mrs Sandicott didn't want to know.

'Never mind that now. It's time you both went to bed,' she said firmly. 'We can discuss arrangements for the wedding in the morning."

'Oh, mummy…'

'And don't call me "mummy",' said Mrs Sandicott. 'After what I've just heard I'm not at all sure I am your mother.'

She and Jessica left Lockhart standing bemused on the boat-deck. He was going to get married to the most beautiful girl in the world. For a moment he looked round for a gun to fire to announce his happiness but there was nothing. In the end he unhooked a lifebelt from the rail and hurled it high over the side into the water and gave a shout of joyful triumph. Then he too went down to his cabin oblivious of the fact that he had just alerted the bridge to the presence of 'Man Overboard' and that in the wake of the liner the lifebelt bobbed frantically and its warning beacon glowed.

As the engines went full astern and a boat was lowered, Lockhart sat on the edge of his bunk listening to his grandfather's instructions. He was to marry Jessica Sandicott, he was to live in Sandicott Crescent, East Pursley, and start work at Sandicott & Partner.

'That's marvellous,' he said when Mr Flawse finished, I couldn't have wished for anything better.'

'I could,' said Mr Flawse, struggling into his nightgown. 'I've got to marry the bitch to get rid of you.'

'The bitch?' said Lockhart. 'But I thought…,'

'The mother, you dunderhead,' said Mr Flawse and knelt on the floor. 'Oh Lord, Thou knowest that I have been afflicted for ninety years by the carnal necessities of women,' he cried. 'Make these my final years beneficent with the peace that passes all understanding and by Thy great mercy lead me in the paths of righteousness to the father of this my bastard grandson, that I may yet flog the swine within an inch of his life. Amen.'

On this cheerful note he got into bed and left Lockhart to undress in the darkness, wondering what the carnal necessities of women were.

Next morning the Captain of the Ludlow Castle, who had spent half the night searching for the Man Overboard and the other half ordering the crew to check the occupants of all cabins to ascertain if anyone had indeed fallen over the side, was confronted by the apparition of Mr Flawse dressed in a morning suit and grey topper.

'Married? You want me to marry you?' said the Captain when Mr Flawse had made known his request.

'I want you to conduct the ceremony,' said Mr Flawse. 'I have neither the desire to marry you nor you to marry me. Truth be told, I don't want to marry the damned woman either, but needs must when the devil drives.'

The Captain eyed him uncertainly. Mr Flawse's language, like his costume, not to mention his advanced age, argued a senility that called for the services of the ship's doctor rather than his own.

'Are you sure you know your own mind on this matter?'- he asked when Mr Flawse had further explained that not only was the marriage to be between himself and Mrs Sandicott but between his grandson and Mrs Sandicott's daughter. Mr Flawse bristled. 'I know my own mind, sir, rather better than it would. appear you know your own duty. As Master of this vessel you are empowered by law to conduct marriages and funerals. Is that not so?'

The Captain conceded that it was, with the private reservation that in Mr Flawse's case his wedding and burial at sea were likely to follow rather too closely for comfort.

'But wouldn't it be better if you were to wait until we reach Capetown?' he asked. 'Shipboard romances tend to be very transitory affairs in my experience.'

'In your experience,' said Mr Flawse, 'I dare say they do. In mine they don't. By the time you reach four-score years and ten any romance is in the nature of things bound to be a transitory affair.'-

'I see that,' said the Captain. 'And how does Mrs Sandicott feel about the matter?'

'She wants me to make an honest woman of her. An impossible task in my opinion but so be it,' said Mr Flawse. 'That's what she wants and that's what she will get.'-

Further argument merely resulted in Mr Flawse losing his temper and the Captain submitting. 'If the old fool wants the wedding,' he told the Purser later, 'I'm damned if I can stop him. For all I know he'll institute an action under Maritime Law if I refuse.'

And so it was as the ship sailed towards the Cape of Good Hope that Lockhart Flawse and Jessica Sandicott became Mr and Mrs Flawse while Mrs Sandicott achieved her long ambition of marrying a very rich old man with but a short time to live. Mr Flawse for his part consoled himself with the thought that whatever disadvantages the ex-Mrs Sandicott might display as a wife, he had rid himself once and for all of a bastard grandson while acquiring a housekeeper who need never be paid and would never be able to give notice. As if to emphasize this latter point he refused to leave the ship while she lay in Capetown, and it was left to Jessica and Lockhart to spend their honeymoon chastely climbing Table Mountain and admiring one another from the top. When the ship set out on the return voyage only their names and their cabins had changed. Mrs Sandicott found herself closeted with old Mr Flawse and prey to those sexual excesses which had previously been reserved for his former housekeepers and of late for his imagination. And in her old cabin Jessica and Lockhart lay in one another's arms as ignorant of any further purpose in their marriage as their singular upbringings had left them. For another eleven days the ship sailed north and by the time the two married couples disembarked at Southampton, it could be said that, apart from old Mr Flawse, whose excesses had taken some toll of his strength and who had to be carried down the gangway in a wheelchair, they were all entering upon a new life.