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.
Chapter seven
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.
"I just don't understand it,! he told Jessica. 'With a horse you climb into the saddle and away she goes. You don't keep bumping into things. A horse has got more sense.'
'Perhaps if you listened to what the instructors say you'd get on better, darling. I mean they must know what you ought to do.'
'According to the last one,' said Lockhart, 'what I ought to do is have my bloody head examined and I wasn't even bleeding. He was the one with the fractured skull.'
'Yes, dear, but you had just knocked down the lamp-post. You know you had.'
'I don't know anything of the sort,' said Lockhart indignantly. 'The car knocked it down. All I did was to take my foot off the clutch. It wasn't my fault the car shot off the road like a scalded cat.'-
In the end, by paying one of the instructors danger money and allowing him to sit in the back seat with a crash helmet and two safety belts, Lockhart had got the hang of driving. The fact that the instructor had insisted on Lockhart providing his own vehicle had led him to buy a Land-Rover. It had been the instructor who installed a governor on the accelerator and together they had practised on an abandoned airfield where there were few obstacles and no other cars. Even in these unobstructed circumstances Lockhart had managed to puncture two hangars in ten places by driving straight through their corrugated walls at forty miles an hour and it was testimony to the Land-Rover that it took so well.