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fine talk and snippy attitude will have to confront the reality of a situation.”
    â€œJust like you did, Daddy,” Canny said, trying to make his voice sound soothing, “forty years ago. Hard landing, rude awakening, sobering experience. I know. I’m ready. If the luck really does run low, I’ll be able to tell all right—and I’ll take whatever action seems warranted. Trust me.”
    â€œTrust you! How...?” The old man’s voice gave out under the strain. His ravaged face was tormented, as much by anger as distress. Canny rose to his feet and poured a glass of water from the decanter on the bedside table. His father tried to refuse it, but that was sheer stubbornness, and Canny eventually persuaded him to sip it.
    â€œHow can you trust me?” he said, softly. “I can see the difficulty, Daddy—and I know you’re right. All my life, I’ve had the family gift to draw on. It’s always been there, and I’ve taken it for granted while I’ve felt free to doubt it, scoff at it, resent it, kick against its discipline, throw tantrums about its sillier rules. But now the crunch will come. If the records are right, the luck will fade away to dormancy—unless and until I renew it, by following the rules. I know all that, Daddy—everything I need to know. I really will try to learn from your experience as well as my own. If things do go sour, I’ll be as desperate to get things back on track as you were.”
    His father had settled back on the pillows, and had closed his eyes momentarily—but not because he was relaxing. Lord Credesdale was fighting his pain, fighting his anxiety—rebelling, like any true Yorkshireman, against whatever presented itself for resistance. As soon as Canny finished and sat down again, he rallied.
    â€œ If ,” he echoed, contemptuously. “Always if . After all this time, all you’ve seen and been, it’s still if . Trust me, you say—but you won’t trust me , will you? You won’t take my word, or my advice.”
    The old man tried to raise his hand in order to point an accusing finger, but he couldn’t do it. Canny took the hand in his own, startled by its frailty. The skin seemed slack and dry, lying upon the bone like ill-secured wrapping-paper. He couldn’t remember having held his father’s hand since he was a child, and he had no clear memory of how it had felt, but he knew that it must have been solid and strong, with a grip as firm as a carpenter’s vice. His father had been a tyrant then, a thunderous man of whom even Bentley walked slightly in fear, and more than slightly in awe. Now, he was a shell about to be shed by a monstrous molting crab. It was terrible—more horrible in confrontation than any mere diminution of the family lucky streak could possibly be.
    â€œI believe you, Daddy,” Canny told him, squeezing the fragile hand as hard as he dared. “I always did. It’s just that...sometimes I have trouble admitting it to myself. It doesn’t mean that I won’t take care of things. You did. You tested it to the limit—but in the end, you took care of things. I know you haven’t always thought as much of me as you wanted to, but am I really such a disappointment to you that think I won’t take care of things? I have Mummy to look after, and the estate, and everything else. I know how much it all adds up to. There’s no if about that. I’ll do my best, Daddy. I’ll take care of things.”
    That speech seemed to have the desired effect. It couldn’t do much to calm the physical pain, but it did seem to set the old man’s mind at rest, just a little. Canny knew that it was what his father had wanted to hear, had needed to hear. While Lord Credesdale composed himself, Canny glanced around the bedroom, taking note of the extent to which his father had reclaimed it since his last return from hospital. His