The Throwback

And so leaning on the guard rail staring down at the white foam in the moonlight Lockhart expressed his new feelings in images he knew best. He longed to spend the rest of his life shooting things and laying them at Jessica Sandicott's feet. With this exalted notion of love Lockhart went down to the cabin where old Mr Flawse, clad in a red fla

If Mrs Sandicott's expectations had been aroused by Lockhart's appearance at di

'I want porridge,' he told the headwaiter who hovered nervously, 'and none of your half-boiled mush. Oats, man, oats.'

'Yes, sir, and what to follow?'

'A double ration of eggs and bacon. And find some kidneys,' said Mr Flawse to the prognostic delight of Mrs Sandicott, who knew all there was to know about cholesterol. 'And by double I mean double. Four eggs and a dozen rashers. Then toast and marmalade and two large pots of tea. And the same goes for the boy.'

The waiter hurried away with this lethal order and Mr Flawse looked over his glasses at Mrs Sandicott and Jessica.

'Your daughter, ma'am?' he inquired.

'My only daughter,' murmured Mrs Sandicott.

'My compliments to you,' said Mr Flawse without making it clear whether he was praising Mrs Sandicott for her daughter's beauty or her singularity. Mrs Sandicott blushed her acknowledgement. Mr Flawse's old-world ma

'Sheeps' eyes,' he muttered aloud to himself to the confusion of the hovering waiter, who apologized for their not being on the menu.

'And who said they were?' snapped Mr Flawse and dismissed the man with a wave of a mottled hand.

Mrs Sandicott absorbed all these details of behaviour and calculated Mr Flawse to be exactly the man she had been waiting for, a nonagenarian with an enormous estate, and therefore an enormous bank account, and an appetite for just those items on the menu best suited to kill him off almost immediately. It was therefore with no affectation of gratitude that she accepted his offer of a stroll round the deck after breakfast. Mr Flawse dismissed Lockhart and Jessica to go and play deck quoits, and presently he and Mrs Sandicott were lapping the promenade deck at a pace that took her breath away. By the time they had covered the old man's statutory two miles, Mrs Sandicott's breath had been taken away for other reasons. Mr Flawse was not a man to mince his words.

'Let me make myself plain,' he said u

Mrs Sandicott adjusted the blanket round her knees and said with some show of delicacy that she supposed so.

'I am so, ma'am,' said Mr Flawse, 'I know it and you know it. In truth we both know it. Now, I am an old man and at my age I ca

Mrs Sandicott took it and denied it simultaneously. 'You're quite remarkably fit for your time of life, Mr Flawse,' she said encouragingly.

'That's as may be, but the Great Certainty looms,' said Mr Flawse, 'and 'tis equally certain that my grandson is a nincompoop who will in a short time, being my only heir, be a rich nincompoop.'

He allowed Mrs Sandicott to savour the prospect for a moment or two. 'And being a nincompoop he needs a wife who has her head screwed on the right way.'

He paused again and it was on the tip of Mrs Sandicott's tongue to remark that Jessica's head, if screwed on at all, had been screwed on against the thread, but she restrained her words.

'I suppose you could say that,' she said. 'I can and I do,' continued Mr Flawse. 'It has ever been a Flawse trait, ma'am, in choosing our womenfolk, to take cognizance of their mothers, and I have no hesitation in saying that you have a shrewd head for business, Mrs Sandicott, ma'am.'

'It's very kind of you to say so. Mr Flawse,' Mrs Sandicott simpered, 'and since my poor husband died I have had to be the breadwi

'Exactly,' said Mr Flawse. 'I have a nose for these things and it would be a comfort to know that my grandson was in good hands." He stopped. Mrs Sandicott waited expectantly.

'And what hands did you have in mind, Mr Flawse?' she asked finally, but Mr Flawse had decided the time had come to feign sleep. With his nose above the blanket and his eyes closed he snored softly. He had baited the trap. There was no point in watching over it and presently Mrs Sandicott stole quietly away with mixed feelings. On the one hand she had not come on the cruise to find a husband for her daughter; she had come to avoid one. On the other, if Mr Flawse's words meant anything he was looking for a wife for his grandson. For one wild moment Mrs Sandicott considered Lockhart for herself and instantly rejected him. It was Jessica or no one, and the loss of Jessica would mean the loss of the rent of the twelve houses in Sandicott Crescent. If only the old fool had proposed to her she would have seen things in a different light.

'Two birds with one stone,' she murmured to herself at the thought of a double killing. It was worth calculating about. And so, as the two young lovers gambolled on the sun-deck, Mrs Sandicott ensconced herself in a corner of the First Class Lounge and calculated. Through the window she could keep an eye on the blanketed figure of Mr Flawse recumbent in the deckchair. Every now and again his knees twitched. Mr Flawse had given way to those sexual excesses of the imagination which were the bane of his non-conformist conscience, and for the first time Mrs Sandicott figured in them largely.