"And there would be nothing personal in its intention?" "Do I appear a rogue?"

"No," she smiled, "you do not," and because he made her smile she did not think it a puzzling answer to her question. "Your fish…" She meant that his fish was cold, uneaten, although he still held a knife and fork as he had from the beginning.

"My fish does not matter. My fish is dead, but we are alive. We are gamblers in the noble sense. We believe all eternity awaits us. And am I wrong in supposing that you could pack a church in crates and

Oscar and Lucinda

transport it by cart? It is like the stairs at the library. It is what they call prefabricated. It comes in pieces. It has nuts and bolts and so on."

"Or by ship?"

"You could transport an entire cathedral and assemble it across the mountains. Can you imagine a glass cathedral?"

She could. She saw its steeples, domes, its flying buttresses, motes of dust, shafts of light. "Mr Hopkins, we are mad to think of it."

"Not mad, I pray not mad. But the sheer joy of contemplating it is hard to contain." She thought: I cannot separate love from glass; I must be just a little mad. He said: "I think it is this feeling that you are tempted to call madness, but there is a more accurate description. . but I will embarrass you…"

"You need not protect me."

"I embarrass myself. However., it is ecstasy we are feeling." She nodded, smiling, her eyes swimming. "But also mad."

"No, no, no." He banged his fist on the table. The cutlery jumped. The gentleman with the chapbook stood up and left. He said something, more than three words, less then twenty, but it does not matter what it was and did not matter at the time.

"And you," Lucinda said, "would it be amusing for you to assist me in this endeavour?"

"I am a practical man," said Oscar, giggling.

She paused, not knowing if he meant it ironically or literally. "But perhaps you might assist me none the less."

"With pleasure," said Oscar, who, now he had part of what he had coveted, was guilty and uneasy, as if he had stolen something from her.

"Can you imagine Hasset's face?"

The face she meant to conjure up was astonished, gawp-mouthed, sad to have been excluded from the manufacture of such a miracle. But the face Oscar saw was a man whose love has been rekindled. That was the risk inherent in the venture.

"But it is you, dear lady," Oscar said, "who must see his face. For it is you, surely, who must deliver it to him."

"Oh, no."

"But surely. ."he protested, his heart already lightening.

"Oh, no, I cannot leave the works."

"You would not…"

"It is quite impossible," she said sternly. "They are only just recovering from my last absence."

Oscar in Love

"Then I shall," cried Oscar, "on your behalf." *

Lucinda did not understand the source of his jubilation. She frowned, wondering if the balloon of their dream was not about to be pricked.

"It is approached by sea," she said. She remembered, although she had no wish to, his behaviour in the storm aboard the Leviathan.

"Then I shall go by land," he grinned, and clasped his hands contentedly and dropped "But, Mr Hopkins, I do not think you

understand."

He thought: It is difficult, yes, and dangerous. It is a bet against the odds, but if I am the adventurer then the odds, surely, must be swinging in my favour.

His smiling face made Lucinda fear for him. He was so frail, and white. He brought his fingers together and flexed them underneath his pointed chin. He could not imagine-she knew he could not-what this countryside was like. He used soft words like brook and lane and copse. He could not imagine its saw-toothed savagery.

"I will be your messenger."

"Mr Hopkins, please, no."

"You think it outside my scope?" asked Oscar. He was not offended, and the reason he was not offended was that there was no room in his soul for such a thing. His body was awash with all those chemicals he had hitherto found only at the racetrack.

"Say it," he said. "You think it beyond my scope."

"There is no shame in that," she said, and reached across to pat his sleeve.

"There is no truth in it either," he said jubilantly, feeling a caress in the pat. "I wager you I can do it. You may nominate the date."

His face was very pale yet also very bright. The skin was taut, the eyes were glistening and fixed on hers. She thought it best to take her

hand away. "Mr Hopkins, I like you too much to encourage you to injury."

"But I must."

"Come, please, this is madness now.,"

"I must," he said quietly. "It would mean a great deal to me." It was then she knew that he loved her. "You are doing this for me?"

It was not a question he wished to be asked. He felt his own silence humming in his ears. He would not look at her. "Yes," he said.

"Do you think I wish you dead?" "I am too happy to wish for death," he said. "I have no intention

Oscar and Lucinda

of becoming dead. Mr Judd, for instance-and I know you do not care for him…"

"Care for him?"

"But I take him as an example. Mr Judd makes journeys like this all the time. I am prepared to wager you I can have the glass church in Boat Harbour by, say, Good Friday." He had no basis for this date. He plucked it from the air. It felt appropriate. He had no idea how long the church might take to manufacture. This aspect of his wager, the financial part, was of no interest to him,

"And what can you bet?" she asked.

He saw heir face change as she spoke. Her eyes became sleepy-lidded, and her lower lip pouted.

'Ten guineas.". .-<.>.;.•:.;:•-•> K-. •-;.•-.-,,., .'..-.••• .-•••;••:?•. -••.-•

"It is not enough." ',•->:••..•*'•.*. > — ./>, ..-,•,:. <. ;'

"What is enough?". — "-d — ^ .-.'«-. v••>-.;-••. She opened her mouth and closed it. It was so quiet in the dining room Oscar heard the noise of the skin of her lips as they separated.

He placed his hands palm down on the table. "What is enough?" he repeated.

"Your inheritance," said Lucinda quietly. She had not bet in two weeks but she had never, in all her life, made a bet like the one she was about to make with Oscar Hopkins.

"My father may live until he's one hundred. He is not a rich man, anyway."

"It makes no difference."

"And you would bet?": *

"The same."

"The same amount?"

"The same. My inheritance."

"You already have it."

"Yes." •-,.(•:..',•-. — "Your works.":

"Yes. Everything."

"You wager all that?" ' ' <

"Yes."

"Then you are mad," said Oscar. "You are mad, not I. For heaven's sake." He scratched his head and looked around the dining room, surprised to find it empty. He felt himself the subject of her passion and yet (she loves Hasset) did not understand it.

"Five weeks," he said, "without even a game of penny poker, and now this."

Orphans

Lucinda smiled at him. She felt light. She would have him taken care of. She would employ the best tracker, an explorer, a surveyor. They would carry him safely, and they would bring him back. He would win. She would lose. She would give him all the armour she had hitherto used to keep herself safe. She was mad. She was pleased to be mad. She loved him. She would be looked after.