HOUSEKEEPING

Louise was an excellent housekeeper. She had made it her career. The only house she hadn't managed to keep was the first one she had gone to as a naive young bride. This was all because she had married for love. Hah! She would never make that mistake again.He had been beautiful, with soft dark hair, liquid brown eyes, a young and sculpted body; but he had soon become tiresome and dull in a rented cottage on a farm labourers wage. When she left, bored by cows, tractors and chaff in his hair she swore she would never fall into the trap of love again.

With just a suitcase and a hard head, Louise set out to buy herself some security with the only commodity she possessed. Herself. She discovered she had enough attractions to catch her second husband within a year of her divorce. He was much older and wealthier than her first and within two years he was gone, a victim of his dodgy heart. Louise was left with a fat bank account and a house in the country but she had no intention  of settling down,

Husband number three came complete with an apartment in London and a villa in Tuscany. Too bad a water-sking accident deprived himof his life at the peak of his success. He never got to enjoy the satisfaction of watching his adored wife bask in the fruits of his labour. Louise now had all she had dreamed and schemed for, but she felt the need for more.

Husband number four was a very bad choice although it took her a year to discover it. The money that he appeared to have became more and more elusive as she began to track it down, finally disappearing completely in a puff of magicians smoke. As punishment she rescued his heavily mortgaged home and evicted him.

Husband number five was a peach. She came close to loving him and felt no need to hurry him on his way. They enjoyed their combined wealth. They holidayed in Tuscany in her house and also in France, in his chateau. Her apartment in London was their overnight stop when visiting theatres and galleries and his country house was their main home.

The country house was the best of the collection. Ivy-clad red brick, twisting Tudor chimneys, long passages, quirky little rooms with steps up and down in unlikely places. It's twenty three rooms were crammed with 400 years of  collections, dusty artefacts and paintings. However, there was a worm in this golden apple. His daughter lived there.

At first Louise seriously contemplated not marrying him because of Emma, but as she studied her, trying to get her measure, she decided Emma was never going to be a threat. Small, quiet, introspective, with dull brown hair and even duller clothes; Emma was just another slightly dusty artefact that came with the house. Louise dismissed her from her mind and went to her wedding, satisfied.

They lived together peacefully. He persued his love, collecting art and Louise counted her houses and money. Occasionally Louise would come across Emma quietly dusting or silently walking through her beloved home but she was never any trouble. In fact, Louise barely noticed she was there. It was all working out beautifully. It took her a year of imperceptible influence to persuade him to change his will, but he eventually agreed to leave what he owned to his wife providing she did the same in his favour. Louise hesitated before agreeing. Losing her grip on her wealth even in death was difficult to contemplate. Knowing that no husband had ever outlived her was the only reason that she was able to finally agree.

Louise was genuinely heartbroken when he died, quietly and neatly, in his bed. He had been a good husband but the remote possiblity of her dying before him and the lure of total possession was too strong to resist. Her sobs brought Emma to the threashold of her father's room and her quick wits immediately took in the detail surrounding the deathbed. Never able to ignore anything out of place, Emma tidied the room around her father's body and persuaded a distruaght Louise to lie down in the nearest gueat room. Emma kept herself busy by tidying the study and making tea for the still sobbing Louise.

Louise grimaced at the tang of tea left to brew too long. "Here, let me." Emma kindly added sugar from the cut glass bowl. "Sweet tea is good for shock. I did first aid at school a long time agao. Now try that." Emma chattered on with inconsequential nonsense as she encouraged |Louise to drink all her tea. After a second cup she was feeling much more relaxed and agreed to take the sleeping pills Emma had thoughtfully brought with her from the other bedroom. Emma watched for a while and then quietly began to tidy up again. The china and glass was scrupulously washed and the dregs of the tea and remaining sugar were dumped in the dyke that ran along the bottom of the orchard.

Emma checked her beloved house. Father; tidy and peaceful. Louise; a little messier but she would be gone soon. Study; the wills neatly in their place. Kitchen; as neat and sterile as an operating theatre. She walked over to to the livingroom door, took a deep breath to brace herself and then banged the point of her elbow hard against the doorframe. With the requisite pain and tears in her voice, Emma finally called the doctor.

Two weeks later and Emma ushered the family solicitor out of her house. As she had already known, he had informed her that the wills of Father and Loise left everything to her should they both die. As Father had died of natural causes [and who would have thought that his heart was in such bad shape? Not even his doctor had known!] and Louise had died of an excess of grief and sleeping pills; she was now wealthy and propertied.

Emma sat quietly n the study once she was alone. Louise had been very clever and would have remained unsuspected by everyone had it not been for Emma's passion for tidying. It was the small, ancient volume of Remedies and Physicks misplaced on a shelf that had alerted her. Emma herself believed in a tidier solution to life's little problems. Whenever her Father had been stressed in the past, she had made him chamomile tea; but she also sprinkled it into his meals as a further help. Applying that theory to Louise in her distress was easy, white powder dissolves in strong tea and hides well in sugar. Emma decided, as she sat, that she would soon sell all the other properties. This was the only house she had ever wanted and as Louise had discovered much too late; Emma was an excellent housekeeper too.