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"Hold on, Esther, hold on. Talking of legality. You can have the things and the house, but when it comes to the children I've got a say there, and the law isn't so rigid that it's going to say that I haven't. Gail is mine."

"Oh yes," she put in quickly; "Gail is yours, it doesn't matter about the other two. Well, we'll see who Gail belongs to. I'm seeing my solicitors tomorrow with regard to a separation."

"Good, good," he said now; 'that suits me. But don't think you're going to separate me from the children because you're not. "

"You propose to take them to prison with you? Because if my father's injuries prove to be as extensive as they suspect, you're not going to get off lightly 1' The look on her face, her voice, her manner, all told him that she prayed he wouldn't get off lightly. He felt shaken and suddenly frightened. He looked at her for a moment longer, then went out of the room, along the corridor and, knocking on Gail's door, he waited. When there was no answer he opened it, but the room was empty. Very tidy, unlived in, it looked as if it had never known Gail.

Within seconds he was back in the bedroom.

"Where's Gail?"

Esther had her back to him as she replied, "She's staying with friends."

"Which friends?" He was bawling now.

She was standing in front of the mirror putting her hat on as she said,

"I'm not going to tell you." Then swinging round and arching her body towards him, she ground from between her teeth, "And if it's left to me you'll never see her again."

She now whipped up her coat from a chair and made for the door, and when she was abreast of him she said in a thin, bitter whisper, "You've taken everything I value from me; don't try to take Gail. I'm warning you."

He watched her walking firmly across the landing and down the stairs; then he leant against _the stanchion of the door and closed his eyes.

He was like that when a hand came on his arm and Gran O'Toole turned him about and led him into her room;

and there she pressed him down into a chair as she said brokenly,

"Where've you been? I've nearly been out of me namu.

He screwed up his eyes and placed his fingertips on them. Then after a moment he looked up into her face and asked, "Of my many friends who do you think came forward to support me?"

She shook her head, then said, "Tom Vosey? Mr. Nolan?" When he still continued to stare at her she went on, "Mr. Ferndale of the timber yard?" She paused, waiting, then said with slight impatience, "Then who?"

Nobody. "

Nobody? "

"I had to get in touch with Peter Thompson, the solicitor, you know, and he bailed me out, but he didn't ask me home. But you can't blame him for that, I suppose, for he'd be under the impression I'd come straight back here."

Well, where did you go? "

To Janet's. "

Janet's? " She sat down slowly and joined her hands in her lap and repeated, " Janet's? She was here yesterday and never said a word and knew we were worrying. "

You might have been worrying. Gran. "

No matter, no matter, she should have told us. "

I asked her not to. "

"But why Janet's?"

I felt I couldn't face Esther right away and I had to go somewhere to calm down. If I'd gone into one of the hotels it would have felt like sitting on a hilltop, I'd have been exposed to everybody. No, it suddenly came to me that the only place I could go and be safe would be Janet's. "

Some seconds elapsed before she said, "And what are you going to do now?"

Wait; that's all I can do. "

She now started to nip at one finger after the other as she said, "I was on the landing, I heard what you said about not letting Gail be involved, but don't you realise that's your only hope of getting off lightly. If you tell them what he was up to, they won't touch you, not for trying to defend your daughter, they won't, but it you let things go along the line that the papers are indicating then I'm afraid you'll be in for it."

the Court. As it is this is going to have a bad enough effect on her, but if she has to stand up there and say what happened, she'll never get over it. She's in the Galahad state of life and a sponge for impressions, and in that Court she'll soak up all the dirt they'll bring up, real and imagined, because no one's going to believe that I was only with Betty Ray that once. " He leant || forward now and gripped his grandmother's hands.

"You believe me, Gran, when I say this, don't you? I was only with her that t once on the day of the office party. I was tight and mad if you

| like. Once it was over I knew I'd been mad; I also knew that I wouldn't repeat the madness. I swear to you that it was only that once." He waited, looking into her worried wrinkled face, and when she didn't speak he asked, "How could all this have come out of one mistake in a man's life?" When still she said nothing, he muttered thickly,

"I'm bitter, Gran, bitter, because I I'm having to pay for that old bastard's misdeeds; and Gail's having to pay, and Esther's having to pay, the lot of us are having to pay"

"Be quiet I Be quiet I' Her voice came at him low and sharp.

"It's no use throwing blame right and left now, you've got to face up to something. Harry. As you say, it was only once, but once was enough.

Now look here, lad. You're the only thing in life I've got to live for; I've never said this to you afore but everybody could drown as long as you could swim. But I'm going to tell you this to your face.

It wasn't what the old fellow's done that's caused this, it was just that once you had with that girl, that's what caused it. He's an old swine and you couldn't hate him more than I do, but it was you and that girl that brought this present situation about, and you've got to face that fact. "

"Aw, Gran, hold your hand. Don't you go to the other side; I couldn't bear it. "

She was on her feet now holding him by the shoulders, glaring down into his distressed face.

"I'm not going to the other side, I'm with you whether you're in the right or wrong, but I want you to see this thing clearly. Don't apportion blame, but at the same time don't carry the whole can yourself. When you're brought up you tell them exactly why you lathered into

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11. ^,1 lica^i _'you did that. I went with her yesterday to see him.

Lad, you all but murdered him. I doubt if he'll ever be his self again. Looking at him I couldn't believe that yours was the hand that had inflicted such punishment on him. It wasn't like you; you must have gone clean mad. "

He moved away from her hands and went to the dressing table, and he leant his body over it as he said, "Yes, I must have gone mad, but it was coming. I'd reached the end of my tether. From the night he came in and stopped my mouth with that directorship I've never known, a minute's peace or self respect. He's played me like a puppet for weeks now; every time he's looked at me that hate has oozed out of him, and it got that way I couldn't bear to face him in case I lashed out. It had to come, it was bound to come; the only thing I'm'sorry for is that Gail was involved." He turned to her.

"Do you know where she is.

Gran? "

"No lad; Esther wouldn't tell me. And she's right there, because she knew I'd pass it on to you."

He went to her again and took her hands and said, "Will you try to explain the whole thing to her when she comes back? You're the only one that can put it over; she'd listen to you."

"I don't suppose I'll be here when she conics back, lad."

His face stretched.

"Where you going?"

"I'm not sure yet, but there's one thing certain, when you're gone there'll be no place here for me."

"Now don't be silly, Esther's not like that; this is your home."

"As long as it was your home it was mine. And I'm quite sure Esther would be willing for me to stay, but I wouldn't want to stay."

"Grani' He pressed her hands tightly.

"Stay, please. I want Gail to have someone to rely on, someone sensible. Well, what I mean is not biased, somebody who can see the two sides. Gail thinks the world of you, she'll listen to you. Stay, please, at least for a while."

She bobbed her head slowly.

"Well, don't concern yourself about that.

Just leave it, I'll see how things go. That is, until I know what is going to happen to you. " Her face now dropped BOOK TWO

ROBBIE DUNN

"There, Mam, do you like it?"

"Yes, it's a nice chest."

"Lor I Mam. It's not just a chest, it's a Georgian piece."

"I'll take your word for it." Janet Dunn smiled fondly at her son.

"Look at the frieze." Robbie ran his finger around the ornamentation below the top of the drawers; then swiftly pressing a button at the top of the lower section of the tallboy, he said excitedly, "And a shelf.

Look, a sliding shelf."

"Yes, that's nobby," said Janet; 'very unusual. "

"I'll say it's unusual. I'll bet you a shilling I've got a find here.

Just look at those handles. Original, or I'm a Dutchman. And I'm not, am I? " He poked his face towards her and grinned, and she laughed and pushed him none too gently in the chest. Then she said, " Fancy people parting with things like that. Why do they do it? "

"Because they're daft. But mind, in a way I was sorry when I took these. There was the old girl staring at me and her daughter talking away at her.

"You can't take that old thing into a new house. Mother, it just won't fit in. Anyway, there isn't room for it." And you know what? She had the nerve to put her hand out for the money, but I turned a blind eye an' handed the fifteen quid to the old girl. I would have made it sixteen, aye and more, believe me, Mam. " He lowered his voice to almost a whisper.

"I would have made it twenty-five to get that piece, but whatever I'd made it that madam would have had her hands on it within a minute. God, an' they call us mean." He stared at Janet, and Janet stared back at him, and then they both laughed together.

door that led into the shop and, standing there, she said, "The window looks lovely but why don't you put more in it."

"Put more in it?" He raised his black eyebrows at her.

"Can't you get it into your head that this is a classy shop, little and goo'd. It's not the market, Mam; I'm not having this place chock-a-bloc with rubbish."

"No, I didn't mean that, but you've only got that sofa table and that other one. What do you call it?"

Pembroke. "

"Well, that one, and that little couch ..."

'. Hepplewhite period settee, Mrs. Dunn. "

Hepplewhite period settee. " She bowed her head towards him.

"Well, that doesn't seem much to get anyone inside."

"You'd be surprised. There's tricks in every trade as you know, and in this one there's dozens, and that's one of them."

"He patted her shoulder.

"I know what I'm up to, Mrs. Dunn;

the last two years or so 'we been as good as a University education to me. "

Janet looked at him, pride in her dark eyes, and shaking her head slowly, she said, "I can't understand how you remember all the names and periods."

"Oh, any fool can do that, it's buying the pieces that's the thing, knowing what to buy, where to look. For instance, who would have thought I would have come across that gem'--he thumbed over his shoulder towards the workroom--'at Bog's End. And it in such good condition." His voice dropping, he said, "That old girl loved that chest. She mightn't have known its value but she loved it. And you know, Mrs. Dunn." He grinned at her now.

"I love folks what loves furniture."

"How, much are you going to ask for it?" asked Janet practically.

"Fifty."

"No, Robbie!"

"Why not?" His chin poked forward.

"Put that in a shop in Newcastle and you wouldn't get it under seventy-five. And run it up to London and then the sky could be the limit. I'm getting fifty for that." He wagged his finger at her.

"I'll mark it up fifty-five an' I'll get fifty."

j^>-> yi-ill lihur. auyunc rounu There will want itr sue sounded sceptical, and he answered roughly, "No, Main, nobody around here'll want it, but they come down from Brampton Hill, don't they, an' from Newcastle. And I bet you what you like if I stuck it in the window the morrow I'd have a few hawks after it. It's genuine, it's old, it's got the stamp on it, an' those fellows know what they're after. And boy, so do I."

"All right, all right," she said calmly. She looked fully at him now and her voice dropped to a soft note as she added, "You're a good boy, Robbie."

He blinked rapidly at what was high praise from her, then with an upward thrust of his chin that tossed his lank hair back from his brow he said, "I'm only startin'," to which she nodded endorsement.

He had turned from her, but quickly looking at her again, he said,

"It's close on six, I'll be shutting up. Let's take a run over and look at the house."

"What, again? But we were there yesterday."

"Well, we can go the day an' all, can't we? I'll tell Sid I'm locking up; he can go out the back."

As they drove through the town they were both silent. Five minutes later they were on the main road running into the country with the fells rolling away on both sides of them, until, turning into a lane, they came upon a slag heap that looked like a huge carbuncle blotting the landscape, and beyond it reared a disused mine shaft and workings.

For another five minutes the road wound slowly uphill terminating in a narrow lane. They crossed a wooden bridge, under which a burn gurgled, then went through a wide aperture in a tangled hedge. And there it was, the wreck of a house.

But when Robbie alighted from the car he stood gazing up at it as if at a mansion; then turning to Janet, he said, "I was thinking in the night, we'll strip the ceiling in the hall and expose all those beams and soak them with boiled oil."

"But they're all worm-eaten," "Well'--he nudged her--'don't people pay for worm holes?"