Mr Bullstrode put down the will and looked at Mrs Flawse. 'Will you so sign?' he asked, but Mrs Flawse was in a flux of emotions. The old man had lived up to his word after all. He had left her his entire estate. Coming so shortly after being compared to a vulture this act of generosity had thrown her calculating compass off course. She needed time to think. It was denied her.
'Sign, ma'am,' said Mr Flawse, 'or the will becomes null and void in so far as it appertains to you.'
Mrs Flawse took the pen and signed and her signature was witnessed by the two tenant farmers.
'Continue, Mr Bullstrode,- said the old man almost gaily and Mr Bullstrode took up the will again.
'To my grandson Lockhart Flawse I leave nothing except my name until and unless he shall have produced in physical form the person of his natural father which father shall be proved to the satisfaction of my executor Mr Bullstrode or his successors to be the actual and admitted and undoubted father of the said Lockhart and shall have signed an affidavit to that effect which affidavit having been signed he shall be flogged by the said Lockhart to within an inch of his life. In the event of these aforestated conditions in regard to the proof of his paternity having been met the terms of the will in respect of my wife Cynthia Flawse as stated above her freely given signature shall and will become automatically null and void and the estate property chattels land and possessions pass in toto to my grandson Lockhart Flawse to do with whatsoever he chooses. To my servant Donald Robson Dodd I leave the use of my house and provender meat drink dogs and horse for as long as he shall live and they survive.'
Mr Bullstrode stopped and old Mr Flawse stepping up to the table picked up the pen. 'Am I in sound mind?' he asked Dr Magrew.
'Yes,' said the doctor, 'I attest that you are in sound mind/
'Hear that,' said Mr Flawse to the two tenant farmers who nodded accordingly. 'You will witness that I am in sound mind when I sign this will.'
There was a sudden scream from Mrs Flawse. 'Sound mind? You're as mad as a hatter. You've cheated me. You said you would leave everything to me and now you've added a clause saying that I forfeit all right to inherit if… if… if that illegitimate creature finds his father.'
But Mr Flawse ignored her outburst and signed the will. 'Away with you, woman,' he said, handing the pen to one of the farmers, 'I kept my word and you'll keep mine or lose every penny I've left you.'
Mrs Flawse eyed the axe lying on the long table and then sat down defeated. She had been hoodwinked. 'There's nothing to say that I have to stay here while you are still alive. I shall leave first thing tomorrow.'
Mr Flawse laughed. 'Ma'am,' he said, 'you have signed a contract to remain here for the rest of your life or redress me for the loss of your presence to the tune of five thousand pounds a year.'
'I have done nothing of the sort,' screamed Mrs Flawse. 'I signed-'
But Mr Bullstrode handed her the will. 'You will find the clause on page one,' he said.
Mrs Flawse gaped at him incredulously and then followed his finger down the page. 'But you didn't read that out,' she said as the words swam before her eyes. 'You didn't read out "In the event of my wife Cynthia Flawse leaving…" Oh my God!' And she sank back into her chair. The clause was there in black on white.
'And now that the thing is signed, sealed and delivered,' said Mr Flawse as Bullstrode folded the extraordinary document and slipped it into his briefcase, 'let us drink a health to Death.'
'To Death?' said Jessica, still bemused by the bizarre romance of the scene.
Mr Flawse patted her radiant cheek fondly. 'To Death, my dear, the only thing we have in common,' he said, 'and the great leveller! Mr Dodd, the decanter of Northumbrian whisky.'
Mr Dodd disappeared through the door. 'I didn't know they made whisky in Northumberland,' said Jessica warming to the old man, 'I thought it was Scotch.'
'There are many things you don't know and Northumbrian whisky's among them. It used to be distilled in these parts by the gallon but Dodd's the only man with a still left. You see these walls? Ten feet thick. There used to be a saying hereabouts, "Six for the Scots and four for the Excise men." And it would be a canny man who would find the entrance but Dodd knows.'
In proof of this remark Mr Dodd reappeared with a decanter of whisky and a tray of glasses. When the glasses were all filled Mr Flawse rose and the others followed. Only Mrs Flawse remained seated.
'I refuse to drink to Death,' she muttered stubbornly. 'It's a wicked toast.'
'Aye, ma'am, and it's a wicked world,' said Mr Flawse, 'but you'll drink all the same. It's your only hope.'
Mrs Flawse got unsteadily to her feet and regarded him with loathing.
'To the Great Certainty,' said Mr Flawse and his voice rang among the battle-flags and armour.
Later after a lunch served in the dining-room Lockhart and Jessica walked across Flawse Fell. The afternoon sunlight shone down on the coarse grass and a few sheep stirred as they climbed Flawse Rigg.
'Oh, Lockhart, I wouldn't have missed today for all the world,' said Jessica when they reached the top. 'Your grandfather is the darlingest old man.'
It was not a superlative Lockhart would have applied to his grandfather and Mrs Flawse, white-faced in her room, would have used its opposite. But neither voiced their opinion. Lockhart because Jessica was his beloved angel and her opinion was not to be disputed and Mrs Flawse because she had no one to voice it to. Meanwhile Mr Bullstrode and Dr Magrew sat on with Mr Flawse at the mahogany table sipping port and engaged in that philosophical disputation to which their common background made them prone.
'I did not approve your toast to Death,' said Dr Magrew. 'It goes against my Hippocratic oath and besides it's a contradiction in terms to drink to the health of that which by its very nature cannot be called healthy.'
'Are you not confusing health with life?' said Mr Bullstrode. 'And by life I mean the vital element. Now the law of nature has it that every living thing shall die. That, sir, I think you will not deny.'
'I cannot,' said Dr Magrew, 'it is the truth. On the other hand I would question your right to call a dying man healthy. In all my experience as a practitioner of medicine I cannot recall being present at the deathbed of a healthy man.'
Mr Flawse rapped his glass to gain attention and the decanter. 'I think we are ignoring the factor of unnatural death,' he said refilling his glass. 'You doubtless know the conundrum of the fly and the locomotive. A perfectly healthy fly is travelling at twenty miles an hour in exactly the opposite direction to a locomotive travelling at sixty. The locomotive and the fly collide and the fly is instantaneously dead but in dying it stopped travelling forward at twenty miles per hour and reversed its motion at sixty. Now, sir, if the fly stopped and began reverse progress is it not also true that for it to do so the locomotive must also have stopped if for but the millionth of a second of the fly's stopping, and more germane to our argument is it not true that the fly died healthy?'
Mr Bullstrode poured himself more port and considered the problem but it was the doctor who took up the cudgels. 'If the locomotive stopped for a millionth of a second and about that, being no engineer. I cannot speak and must take your word for it, then it is also true that for that millionth of a second the fly was in an extremely unhealthy state. We have but to extend time in proportion to the life-expectancy of a fly to see that this is so. A fly's natural term of life is, I believe, limited to a single day, whereas the human term is three-score years and ten, present company excepted. In short a fly can look forward to approximately eighty-six thousand four hundred seconds of conscious existence whereas the human being can count on two billion one hundred and seven million five hundred and twenty seconds between birth and death. I leave it to you to discern the difference in lifetime of one millionth of a second for the fly and its equivalent length in a human's. At short notice I calculate the latter to be of the order of magnitude of five and a half minutes. Certainly sufficient time in which to diagnose the patient as being unhealthy.'