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lawyer.’
    â€˜And don’t forget my bump of Amativeness. It is unique, according to Ethel Smight. You may feel it. Feel my bump of Amativeness.’
    â€˜Where is mine, I wonder?’ said Helen.
    Tom ran his fingers through Helen’s fair curls and one thing began to lead to another. They were suddenly disturbed by the sound of the key in the door and the return of Hetty from her sister’s. They giggled like children.
    â€˜Later, oh amative husband,’ said Helen.

The Mission
    Tom and Helen Ansell had gone to visit Mr Smight at the suggestion of Helen’s mother. A week before the séance the couple had been having tea with Mrs Scott at the Highbury house, an occasional Sunday ritual. Although Tom no longer regarded his mother-in-law as a dragon-lady, which was his view of her before the marriage, and although he had even caused her to break into a smile once or twice, he didn’t enjoy these occasions much. Mrs Scott would quiz him about Scott, Lye & Mackenzie, in which she still felt a proprietorial interest, or she’d comment on Helen’s appetite – which was either too feeble or too eager – as a roundabout way of establishing whether there might soon be a happy announcement.
    This time, though, it was obvious that there was something more on her mind than the law or babies. They’d hardly made a start on the anchovy toast and the ham sandwiches before Mrs Scott said, ‘Helen, do you remember your Aunt Julia?’
    â€˜Of course I do.’
    â€˜You were always her favourite when you were little.’
    â€˜It is many years since I saw her.’
    â€˜She particularly mentioned you in her last letter. She hopes that married life suits you. She never married, you know, although she was the oldest of us.’
    As Mrs Scott talked about her family, with an uneaten ham sandwich in her hand, she was looking not at her daughter but at Tom, who asked himself where this conversation was heading. Helen sometimes mentioned her aunt Julia Howlett in a fond but distant way.
    â€˜Married life suits us very well, mother,’ said Helen.
    â€˜Your aunt will be glad to hear it when I next write to her. She was wondering when she might see the happy couple.’
    â€˜Aunt Julia lives in Durham, doesn’t she?’
    â€˜Yes. They have a fine cathedral there, I believe.’
    â€˜I don’t think we have any plans to travel so far north at the moment,’ said Tom, sensing that Mrs Scott had an axe to grind and that it would shortly emerge from its hiding place.
    As a sign of her seriousness Mrs Scott replaced the ham sandwich, untouched, on the plate. She said, ‘To be honest, my dears, I was wondering whether you could make plans to travel so far north. There is a railway line from London. I don’t think the city of Durham is inside the polar regions.’
    There was a pause. Tom was still recovering from Mrs Scott’s attempt at making a joke when Helen said, ‘Mother, why don’t you tell us what’s on your mind? It has been plain ever since you mentioned Aunt Julia that there’s something bothering you.’
    â€˜Why yes, there is.’
    â€˜What is it?’
    â€˜I do not know whether it is because your aunt is unmarried but she never seems to have acquired – how shall I put this? – she has never acquired an inoculation against men.’
    â€˜What do you mean?’
    â€˜I mean that poor Julia never learned to close her ears to half – no, to three quarters – of what men are saying. Their stuff and nonsense if you’ll forgive me, Thomas. The poor thing has always had an open heart. An open heart and an open purse.’
    Ah, thought Tom, here it comes. Money has been mentioned.
    â€˜There was a missionary preacher a few years ago who was raising subscriptions for the unfortunate natives in some part of Africa, and your Aunt Julia was more than generous in giving him money,’