The Throwback

Chapter three

Imagination played a large part in the love that blossomed between Lockhart and Jessica. Having plunged they sported like water babies in the swimming pool or frolicked at deck tennis and as each day passed, and the ship steamed slowly south into equatorial waters, their passion grew inarticulately. Not entirely inarticulately but when they spoke during the day their words were matter-of-fact. It was only at night, when the older generation danced the quickstep to the ship's band and they were left alone to stare down at the white water swirling from the ship's side and invest one another with those qualities their different upbringings had extolled, that they spoke their feelings. Even then it was by way of other people and other places that they told one another what they felt. Lockhart talked of Mr Dodd and how at night he and the gamekeeper would sit at the settle in the stone-flagged kitchen with the black iron range glowing between them while the wind howled in the chimney outside and Mr Dodd's pipes wailed inside. And of how he and Mr Dodd would herd the sheep or stalk game in the wooded valley known as Slimeburn where Mr Dodd dug coal from a drift mine that had first been worked in 1805. Finally there were the fishing expeditions on the great reservoir fringed with pine that stood a mile from Flawse Hall. Jessica saw it all so clearly through a mist of Mazo de la Roche and Bronte and every romantic novel she had ever read. Lockhart was the young gallant come to sweep her off her feet and carry her from the boredom of her life in East Pursley and away from her mother's cynicism to the ever-ever land of Flawse Hall on Flawse Fell close under Flawse Rigg where the wind blew fierce and the snow lay thick outside but all within was warm with old wood and dogs and the swirl of Mr Dodd's Northumbrian pipes and old Mr Flawse sitting at the oval mahogany dining-table disputing by candlelight questions of great moment with his two friends, Dr Magrew and Mr Bullstrode. In the tapestry woven from Lockhart's words she created a picture of a past which she dearly longed to make her future.

Lockhart's mind worked more practically. To him Jessica was an angel of radiant beauty for whom he would lay down, if not his own life, at least that of anything which moved within range of his most powerful rifle.

But while the young people were only implicitly in love, the old were more outspoken. Mr Flawse, having baited the trap for another housekeeper, waited for Mrs Sandicott's response. It came later than he had expected. Mrs Sandicott was not a woman to be hustled and she had calculated with care. Of one thing she was certain. If Mr Flawse wanted Jessica for his daughter-in-law he must take her mother for his wife. She broached the subject with due care and by way of the mention of property.

'If Jessica were to marry,' she said one evening after dinner, 'I would be without a home.'

Mr Flawse signalled his delight at the news by ordering another brandy. 'How so, ma'am?' he inquired.

'Because my poor dear late husband left all twelve houses in Sandicott Crescent, including our own, to our daughter and I would never live with the young married couple.'

Mr Flawse sympathized. He had lived long enough with Lockhart to know the hazards of sharing a house with the brute. 'There is always Flawse Hall, ma'am. You would be very welcome there.'

'As what? A temporary guest or were you thinking of a more permanent arrangement?'

Mr Flawse hesitated. There was an inflexion in Mrs Sandicott's voice which suggested that the permanent arrangement he had in mind might not be at all to her liking. 'There need be nothing temporary about your being a guest, ma'am. You could stay as long as you liked.'

Mrs Sandicott's eyes glinted with suburban steel. 'And what precisely would the neighbours make of that, Mr Flawse?'

Mr Flawse nesitated again. The fact that his nearest neighbours were six miles off at Black Pockrington, and that he didn't give a tuppenny damn what they thought, presented a prospect that had lost him too many housekeepers already and was unlikely to appeal to Mrs Sandicott.

'I think they would understand,' he prevaricated. But Mrs Sandicott was not to be fobbed off with understandings. 'I have my reputation to think of,' she said. 'I would never consent to staying alone in a house with a man without there being some legal status to my being there.'

'Legal status, ma'am?' said Mr Flawse and took a swig of brandy to steady his nerves. The bloody woman was proposing to him.

'I think you know what I mean,' said Mrs Sandicott.

Mr Flawse said nothing. The ultimatum was too clear.

'And so if the young couple are to be married,' she continued remorselessly, 'and I repeat "if", then I think we should consider our own futures.'

Mr Flawse did and found it an uncertain one. Mrs Sandicott was not a wholly unattractive woman. Already in his dozing fantasies he had stripped her naked and found her plump body very much to his taste. On the other hand wives had disadvantages. They tended to be domineering and while a domineering housekeeper could be sacked a wife couldn't, and Mrs Sandicott for all her deference seemed to be a strong-minded woman. To spend the rest of his life with a strong-minded woman was more than he had bargained for, but if it meant getting the bastard Lockhart off his hands it might be worth the risk. Besides there was always the isolation of Flawse Hall to tame the strongest-minded woman and he would have an ally in Mr Dodd. Yes, definitely an ally in Mr Dodd and Mr Dodd was not without resource. And finally if he couldn't sack a wife nor could the wife leave like a housekeeper. Mr Flawse smiled into his brandy and nodded.

'Mrs Sandicott,' he said with unaccustomed familiarity, 'am I right in supposing that it would not come averse to you to change you name to Mrs Flawse?'

Mrs Sandicott beamed her assent. 'It would make me very happy, Mr Flawse,' she said, and took his mottled hand.

'Then allow me to make you happy, ma'am,' said the old man, with the private thought that once he'd got her up to Flawse Hall she'd get her fill of happiness one way or another. As if to celebrate this forthcoming union of the two families the ship's band struck up a foxtrot. When it had finished Mr Flawse returned to more practical matters.

'I must warn you that Lockhart will need employment,' he said. 'I had always intended to keep him to manage the estate he will one day inherit but if your daughter has twelve houses…'

Mrs Sandicott came to his rescue. 'The houses are all let and at rents fixed by the Rent Tribunal on long leases,' she said, 'but dear Lockhart could always join my late husband's firm. I understand he is clever with figures.'

'He has had an excellent grounding in arithmetic. I have no hesitation in saying so.'

'Then he should do very well at Sandicott & Partner, Chartered Accountants and Tax Consultants,' said Mrs Sandicott.

Mr Flawse congratulated himself on his foresight. 'Then that is settled,' he said. 'There remains simply the question of the wedding.'

'Weddings,' said Mrs Sandicott, emphasizing the plural. 'I had always hoped that Jessica would have a church wedding.'

Mr Flawse shook his head. 'At my age, ma'am, there would be something incongruous about a church wedding to be so closely followed by a funeral. I would prefer a more cheerful venue. Mind you, I disapprove of registry offices.'

'Oh so do I,' Mrs Sandicott agreed, 'they are so unromantic.'

But there was nothing unromantic about the old man's reluctance to see Lockhart married in a registry office. It had dawned on him that without a birth certificate it might be impossible to marry the swine off at all. And besides there was still the fact of his illegitimacy to be concealed.

'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.