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717Joe Skinner would likely have been alive today. The whole pattern would have been changed and she would not have now lost her daughter . . . But then she had to ask herself, would she ever have had a daughter?But now it was as if she had never possessed a daughter. Amy had gone. The thing she had dreaded had come upon her . . .She was brought out of her dismal thinking by the sound of Douglas's voice. He seemed to have been speaking for some time.'What did you say, my dear?' she said.'I said, with good nursing and care and a different atmosphere, Victoria could have a long spell before her. But long or short there will still be Henrietta. Oh yes, there will still be Henrietta.'She could not tell by his tone if he was glad or sorry there would still be Henrietta. But now into her cold being crept a little warmth at the thought. Yes, there would still be Henrietta, for no matter how far she advanced she would still have to be cared for . . . and moulded.Yes, there was still Henrietta. God, she supposed, had a way of dealing out compensations.

Joseph smiled at Henrietta. She was standing in front of him, her hands spelling out her words and her voice high and fuddled, yet in part clearly articulate. She was saying, 'I can come on my own. I don't need to be fetched.' And to this he answered, 'All right; but I like to fetch you.' Dear! dear! How easy it was to lie. He now turned and smiled at Douglas and Bridget, who were standing a little to the side; and she, taking up a position so that she could face Henrietta, spelt out on her hands, 'Joseph is a busy man; he has to work.'The big heavily-built woman, whose beauty had seemed to fade as her body had developed and who was now thirty-eight years old, flung her arms in the air and made a motion with one foot as if she were stamp-722ing it, and, her voice now coming as a gabble, she cried, 'Know ... I know . . . I'm not an ... infant . .

, child . . . nor a . , . girl. He has been . . . working for . . . years . . . years , . . years.'Just as suddenly as she had flung up her arms so she now flopped them down by her side, her head drooped and she swung round and walked out of the hall and up the stairs.'She'll be all right,' Bridget said as though assuring Joseph, although Douglas, walking towards the door with Joseph, said, 'She wears one out; she's so demanding. I suppose, though, I'm lucky; I'm out of the way most of the day. But I know that when she's up at the house she never gives you a minute. I can understand Amy's attitude.*'And I, dear, can understand Henrietta's.' They both turned and looked at Bridget, and she, nodding at them, added, 'She's so frustrated by this affliction, it's understandable.*'Well, all I can say, dear,' replied Douglas, 'is she should be used to it now; but how you've put up with it all these years I'll never know. But then'-he stepped back and put his arm around her shoulders-'there's lots 723of things I'll never know about you, I being a simple man.''Yes, poor soul, and I pity your simplicity too.'Douglas laughed, then said, That's funny. You know the hymn with that line in it "Pity my simplicity", I always sang "Pity my simple city" when in church, and the servants did too.'Joseph looked from one to the other, thinking now, as he had done so often before, how amazing it was that after all these years they were still in love. There was Douglas at sixty-six and Bridget at sixtythree, and they always seemed to act like young lovers. Why didn't Amy take after her mother, or her father? These two loved, and yet they each gave the other their freedom. Bridget still saw to her business, and Douglas still chipped away at his stone; and that was big business now, too, although nothing like Bridget's. And he was part of that. Or was he?It had taken him fully six years to put the house, garden, and farm back to what Douglas felt it should be, and he had gained a lot of experience during those six years, so 724much so that Bridget, seeing another branch to her little empire, had acquired an estate and land agency and let him run it. He had enjoyed that. Oh, yes, he had grabbed at it. At the time he did not realize it was a form of escape from the house and . . . other things.When Bridget said, 'Wrap up well,'

Douglas put in, 'Never mind wrapping up well; he doesn't need that in the car. By the way, how are you finding it?''Wonderful.''Better than the Austin two-seater?''Oh yes, miles ahead, and more comfortable.''Yes'-Douglas nodded-'I found that too when I changed over.''Mind how you drive. You're a bit reckless, you know. Amy was on the phone yesterday and she said you scared her. Thirty miles an hour! That's far too fast. Now be careful.''Very well, ma'am.' He touched his forelock, and Bridget immediately slapped him on the arm.'Are you going straight home?''Yes, but on my way I'll stop at Gateshead

725and look at that property. It's a very fine house, you know, with four acres. That's unusual in that quarter of the town. It had been attached to a farm at one time, I suppose.''Well, give my love to Amy and the children,' said Bridget, 'and we'll see you all on Christmas Eve, weather permitting. But if it's snowing I'm not coming by car.''Trains have been known to slip off the rails.'As Douglas closed the door against the bitter wind Bridget shivered for a moment before she said, 'Have you noticed any change in Joseph?''Change? What do you mean?''Just what I say, dear, change.' They were near the drawing-room now and she added, 'There are times when I see him going back into the boy he used to be.''Well, you had better tell him, dear, and he'll be pleased about that, being thirty-nine now. That's what he is, isn't he, thirty-nine?''If you're not exactly blind I think you close your eyes to a lot, Douglas Filmore.''Yes, you're right, Mrs Filmore, I think I do, and it makes for happier living. Come and sit down.'

726Once seated, he said, Til tell you what does worry me, though, and it's Etta's obsession with him. If it wasn't for Amy's firmness in saying she can only stay there a week at a time, you wouldn't get her away.'*Yes, I think you're right, dear, but what I find odd is that she doesn't like Amy.''You think it's odd?' Douglas drew his brows together as he spoke. 'My dear, I think it's you who are blind in that direction, because from the very first Amy has always made it plain she doesn't care for poor . . . Cousin Henrietta. Perhaps it was the way Henrietta, finding a new brother, or halfbrother or whatever, tried to monopolise him.' He laughed as he added, 'And our dear Amy didn't want an opponent in that line, did she, if you remember? That was always her aim, and still is, I think.' He now lay back on the couch before saying musingly, 'He must get a little tired of it all.'But Bridget did not lie back beside him as she usually did, she bounced to the edge of the couch, saying, 'Douglas! What do you mean?''Just what I say, dear. He must get a bit tired, because our daughter, you must admit, 727has eaten him up since first she set eyes on him, and she had never known any opposition until Henrietta came on the scene; and then of course the six children, and she's always been jealous of them, one after the other, their clamouring for his attention; and mind, I think he's enjoyed that sort of monopolizing.''Are you meaning to say, Douglas Filmore, or do you know what you are saying? You're inferring that Amy's love has tired him, or is tiring him as much as Henrietta's.'He looked at her for a long time before he gave her an answer: *I didn't actually think of it in that way, but as you put it so plainly, yes, I think it might. You see, you and I love each other. We know we can't love each other more than we do, it's impossible, we're never happy when we're apart, yet you give me my freedom and I give you yours. We both have a hobby, as it were. Our businesses are our hobbies. If I had wanted to paw over you and hold your hand for twenty-four hours a day you, being who you are, would have tired of me , ,

.''Don't talk so . . .' She rose to her feet

728and went towards the fire and looked down on it for a moment, before turning towards him again and, her gaze soft on him, she said, 'How is it you are always so right?''Oh'-he preened himself-'I suppose it's because, as Ron up at the house would say, "I'm a clever bugger." ''Be serious, dear, please

. . . because this is a serious business, one we seemingly can do nothing about. For instance, I can't go to my daughter and in any kind of a motherly way say, stop loving your husband so much.''We are not talking about love, dear; we are talking about possession.''Possession?9'Yes, possession. There are people who cannot live unless they possess something or someone. With some it's money. Lots and lots of money and the power it gives them. With others it's a person. I think that's the worst kind when it's applied to a human being.''Oh, don't say that, dear. Now I've got something to worry about.''Oh, well, you should have started worrying about this when Lily lived in the Lodge and worked in the kitchen here, and the two

729children were scampering through the wood together, never separated . . . It's too late to start worrying about them now. But come on, sit down. I want to possess you.'She pulled a prim face and tried to stop herself from laughing, and when she was encircled by his arms, their faces only inches apart, she said, 'You're the one to talk about possession.'He had parked his car in the nearest garage to the house, about five minutes walk away. When he had last looked at the house three days ago, he found a number of boys playing in the deserted garden, and after walking around the house he had come back to find one of them sitting in the driving seat. The boy did not scamper away on his appearance, but peppered him with questions; and when later he had reached home he found a name chalked on the back of the car. Tommy Trotter, it said; and this had caused Ron Yarrow to laugh and say, 'I used to play that; there's a game called Tommy Trotter.' Well, he didn't want any more Tommy Trotters on the back of his new car; hence his leaving it in the safety of the garage.

730But after leaving the garage he found he had to thread his way carefully through a number of side streets, for there was a thin drizzle of rain falling and this on top of the already slush-covered streets, made for careful walking. He had turned up what he imagined to be a short-cut, a plaque on the wall naming it Downey's Passage. He had noticed it before when he had been driving the car slowly, looking for Bradford Villa.One side of the broad passage was a blank stone wall which, he assumed, would be the back of the scrapyard he had just passed. Opposite were two or three shops: the first was a second-hand clothes shop; the second had opaque windows, a bill in one of them stating the premises to be the office of a printing company; the next single shop window brought him to a halt and there, across the top of the window in large-lettered print, was the word 'Agency'. Well, as he was a land and estate agent himself, he stopped, then read with amazement a section headed: 'Lodging-house keepers', and underneath this a long list of names and addresses. Under the heading 'Dressmakers' was another list. But what brought his eyes wide were the731words printed in large letters: LUNATIC

ASYLUM-PRIVATE, and printed underneath:William Garbutt, Proprietor;W. Marsh Taylor, M. A., Medical Supt,Dunstan Lodge, Dunstan.Well! Well! He had seen everything now. And there were more; the window was stacked full of them. And finally he read the statement which said the owners of the shop were Land Agents; and underneath this, 'Enquire Within'.So they were Land Agents, too, were they? As one would expect, many businesses were advertised in the newspapers, but he had never seen so many

'stacked' in a shop window. This would amuse Bridget. Oh yes.The next premises were obviously an offlicence, or outdoor beer shop, as such were usually called, and this business, in comparison with the rest in the short street, appeared spruce. It had bottled spirits, including whisky, brandy and gin arranged as the centrepiece to an array of wines in one window, with bottles of beer from pint size to ani 732enormous decorative flagon in the smaller window beyond the entrance door. He thought that the shop might be out of the way for the sale of such commodities, but then realized that at certain times the area would be alive with workers of one kind or another. Then there was the scrapyard behind that wall opposite.Beyond the shop the passage turned right, but then petered out between the boundary wall of the shop premises and, opposite, a field edged by a railing. For a moment he wondered if this was the fence of the grounds belonging to the house he was on his way to visit with the intention of buying; but as he wasn't sure, he thought he'd better not cross it. Anyway, he didn't want to get up to his knees in mud, and hearing shouting and running back in the passage, he decided to retrace his steps.He was turning the beer shop corner again when he was met head-on by what seemed to be a swarm of youngsters. He was bowled over and just as his head hit the pavement a bottle burst near his shoulder and he was splattered with broken glass, and for a mo-I733ment a voice in his head yelled, I've been shot again.He slowly became aware of voices all around him, one exclaiming, 'Bloody maniacs! kids these days. They've scattered. Aye. If I could get a hold of one I'd scud his arse for him meself . . . Are you all right, mister?''Help him up.'He put his hands out now to push the helpers away, but it was as he went to place his feet once again firmly on the pavement that he groaned aloud and would have fallen, but for a woman's arms that were thrust out to support him.'Can you limp, I mean hop?' This was from another woman. He didn't answer her, but with the aid of a man on one side, the woman on the other, he hopped into the shop, then leant against the counter while one of the women, lifting the flap up, said, 'You'll have to go in sidewards, sir; there's not room for two. And you Billy, get in first and give him a hand through.'It seemed a long way from the counter to the room where he finally dropped down into a chair, and as he lay back and his head 734began to swim he heard the man's voice say, 'It's a wonder that broken bottle didn't cut him to bits . .

. Are you all right, sir?'He forced himself to open his eyes; then he said, 'I ... I feel a bit dizzy. Could I have a drink of water?''No, not water'-a woman's voice came to him-'it's no good. It's a strong cup of tea he needs.''What about a drop of the hard?''Don't be daft, Billy, that's the worst thing you can give anybody with shock/'It's never shocked me.''Shut up! It could be serious; he's hit his head.''D'you think we should get a doctor, Mother?''I don't know, lass. One thing, he can't stand; wherever he's for, he's got to be taken there.'He was in that dream state again: he was in his grandfather's bedroom and the old man was yelling about having his head knocked against the wall, and Bright, on the other side of the bed was smiling. Bright had been dead these five years. He missed Bright. He had become like a father to him and he