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 Brian Lund

HOUSING IN THE
UNITED KINGDOM
Whose Crisis?
Housing in the United Kingdom
 Brian Lund

Housing in the
United Kingdom
Whose Crisis?
Brian Lund
Manchester Metropolitan University
Manchester, UK

ISBN 978-3-030-04127-4 ISBN 978-3-030-04128-1 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04128-1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019930831

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
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The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
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 Preface

Crisis narratives saturate the UK housing literature with ‘generation

rent’ usually touted as the major symptom and boosting housing sup-
ply the favoured remedy. Yet, this so-called crisis is not problematic for
everyone which partially explains why it exists. There have been gains
for established owner-occupiers, private landlords, landowners, banks,
building companies and the ‘exchange professionals’ operating the sys-
tem. Indeed, the state has benefited from rising house prices with rev-
enues from Land Duty Stamp Tax increasing from £4.9 billion in
2003/2004 to £11.7 billion in 2016/2017. Moreover, the victims of the
deteriorating housing situation are not only the younger ‘jilted genera-
tion’. There are different crises detectable through analysis of variables
such as class, gender, age, ethnicity and place. This book attempts to
explore the nature and scope of these housing crises.
Chapter 1 sets out media, academic and political narratives on the
current housing problem and outlines its impact according to age, class,
gender, ethnicity and location. Chapter 2 explores the ‘slow-burning
fuses’—deeply rooted in socio-economic cleavages—that have ignited
into the present crises. Chapter 3 examines pathways into and through
homeownership and offers a more detailed assessment of the disparities

v
vi   Preface

in access to decent homes. Chapter 4 scrutinises housing crises accord-

ing to their spatial dimensions: globalisation; variations in housing
conditions in the four ‘home nations’ and regional, district and neigh-
bourhood differences in England.
In the UK housing output is determined by interactions between
local and central government that regulate the housing market so
Chapter 5 explores the technical and political dimensions of the central/
local relations involved in determining housing requirements. Chapter 6
is concerned with the existing stock condition and its use—a neglected
issue. It examines empty homes, non-decent houses, fuel efficiency,
under-occupancy, etc., and explores ways that stock condition and
use can be improved. Chapter 7 scrutinises contemporary constraints
on housing supply and the numerous suggestions on how such barri-
ers might be overcome. The final chapter argues that the housing crises
have been framed through political party use of the voting system and
that they have now spread too far to be contained by concentrating on
the median voter in marginal constituencies.
Unfortunately, exploring housing outcomes according to factors such
as age, ethnicity, class, gender and place is bedevilled by a data short-
age on these variables—a testimony to the power relationships involved
in housing distribution. None the less, responsibility for any errors and
misinterpretations remains mine.

Manchester, UK Brian Lund

December 2018
 Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to a number of people who have contributed to the

publication of this book. I am greatly indebted to the staff of Palgrave
Macmillan and the anonymous referees for their help. My more per-
sonal gratitude is to Sukey, Rachel, Daniel, Carly, Bethany, Max and
Dan for their support and encouragement.

vii
 Contents

1 The Housing Crisis 1

Homeownership 3
‘Rabbit Hutches’ 5
Homelessness 7
Economic Determinism 8
But Is There a Housing Crisis? 9
Whose Crisis? 12
Social Justice 13
Housing Crises 18
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland 25
Tenure 25
Conclusion 28
References 30

2 The Slow-Burning Fuses 41

Building Industry Capacity 42
Private Landlordism 44
Housing Financialisation 49
The Demise of Council Housing 51

ix
x   Contents

Housing Associations 54
Stigmatising ‘Social’ Housing 59
Investment in the Existing Housing Stock 61
Demographic Change 62
Planning 65
Conclusion 70
References 71

3 Housing Crises 81
Owner-Occupation: Acquiring; Managing; Using and
Transferring 81
Class 90
Land 103
Ethnic Minorities 108
Conclusion 111
References 112

4 Location, Location, Location 123

Globalisation 123
United Kingdom Devolution 127
Scotland 127
Wales 131
Northern Ireland 132
England: Regional, Local Authority and Neighbourhood
Dimensions: London 134
Other English Regions 140
Area-Based Housing Policies 148
Conclusion 150
References 152

5 Future Housing Requirements 161

Need, Demand and the Market 161
Local Plans 164
Promise and Delivery 172
Scotland 176
Wales 178
 Contents   xi

Northern Ireland 179

Conclusion 180
References 182

6 Making Better Use of the Existing Housing Stock 187

Empty Homes 188
Home Improvement 191
Energy Efficiency 192
Decent Homes 194
New Home Energy Efficiency 197
Fuel Poverty 197
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland 199
Maximising Space Use 203
Tenure Change 205
Conclusion 210
References 211

7 Increasing New House Supply 217

New Towns and Villages 218
Green Belts 221
Land Owners and Land Release 225
Brownfield Sites 226
Demand-Side Subsidies 228
Supply-Side Incentives 233
Direct Labour Organisations 239
The Residential Construction Industry 240
Powerhouses and Engines 245
Conclusion 248
References 249

8 Conclusion: The Politics of Change 259

Housing Politics 259
The 2016 European Union Referendum 260
The 2017 General Election 264
Tenure Voting Patterns in the 2017 General Election 265
Helping the ‘Jams’ 271
xii   Contents

Boosting Housing Supply 274

The Resource Constraint 277
The Consequences of Failure 283
References 284

References 293

Index 351
 List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Homeowner proportion by age: England 2003/2004

and 2015/2016 (Sources Department for Communities
and Local Government [DCLG] [2017a]; Office for
National Statistics [ONS] [2003]) 4
Fig. 2.1 New houses by tenure: UK 1968–2017 (Source MHCLG
[2018a]) 58
Fig. 2.2 Population growth per annum and annual increase in new
dwellings: UK 1960–2017 (selected time intervals)
(Notes In the 1960s and 1970s slum clearance reduced
the dwelling stock, but, although some of the demolished
dwellings might have been capable of improvement, most
were grossly unfit for human habitation; New dwelling
supply was supplemented by conversions) (Sources ONS
[2017b]; MHCLG [2018a]) 62
Fig. 2.3 Population change: UK 1981–2016 (000s): net migration
and births minus deaths (selected time intervals)
(Note The 1981/1991 and 1992–1999 figures are annual
averages) (Sources Beaumont [2011]; ONS [2017a, b]) 63

xiii
 List of Tables

Table 3.1 Gross weekly income: household reference person

and partner by tenure, 2016/2017 (%) 98
Table 3.2 Tenure: households with dependent children
2008/2009 (%) 108
Table 3.3 Tenure: households with dependent children
2015/2016 (%) 108
Table 3.4 Tenure by ethnicity 109
Table 3.5 Poverty: households with children 2015/2016: before and
after housing costs (ethnicity) 110
Table 3.6 Ethnic minority housing conditions 111
Table 4.1 Child poverty: per cent below relative poverty line before
and after housing costs 2015/2016 129
Table 4.2 Variations within London 138
Table 4.3 Regional variations in housing outcomes 140
Table 4.4 Variations in housing outcomes: Oldham
and Cheshire East 141
Table 4.5 Variations in housing outcomes: Solihull and Walsall 143
Table 4.6 Variations in housing outcomes: Wokingham and Slough 144

xv
xvi   List of Tables

Table 4.7 Variations in housing outcomes: Northumberland

and Middlesbrough 147
Table 6.1 Energy efficiency ratings by housing tenure
1996–2016 (England) 193
Table 6.2 Non-decent homes: England 2006–2016 (%) 195
Table 6.3 Local reference rents: £s per week (three rooms, 2018) 208
 1
The Housing Crisis

The media, think tanks, political debate and academia are replete with
‘housing crisis’ accounts. Press headlines proclaim ‘UK facing its big-
gest housing shortfall on record’ (Independent 2018) and ‘The Tories are
failing to fix Britain’s housing crisis’ (Sun 2018). ‘Think tanks’ declare
that a ‘Capitalist revolution in housebuilding is necessary’ (Adam Smith
Institute 2018) and analyse issues such as ‘How the broken land market
drives our housing crisis’ (New Economics Foundation 2018) and ‘The
future fiscal cost of ‘Generation Rent’’ (Resolution Foundation 2018).
Academics offer ‘Radical Solutions to the UK Housing Crisis’ (Bowie
2017) and Dorling (2014) has proclaimed a ‘Great Housing Disaster’.
An examination of housing crisis references by MPs revealed a nine-
fold increase between 2006 and 2015 (Hudson 2015). Prime Minister,
Theresa May, backed the crisis account declaring ‘Our broken housing
market is one of the greatest barriers to progress in Britain today’ (May
2017).
Fatalism has accompanied these narratives. Pundits claim that hous-
ing is now the ‘classic wicked problem’; deeply entrenched, complex and

© The Author(s) 2019 1

B. Lund, Housing in the United Kingdom,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04128-1_1
2    
B. Lund

unpredictable (Taylor 2015). Resignation to events seems to have per-

meated the top civil service. Appearing before the Select Committee on
Public Accounts, the Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Housing,
Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), when asked if she
agreed that housing crisis will ever be resolved, replied:

It will continue as it has done for decades. I agree, and that will show
itself primarily in affordability and, in some places, in homelessness. I am
simply being honest with you. (Dawes 2017)

Politicians stress that the housing problem is deeply embedded. Sajid

Javid, when Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local
Government, said ‘for decades the pace of house building has been slug-
gish at best’ (Javid 2017a) and Chancellor of the Exchequer, Phillip
Hammond, asserting ‘there is no magic bullet’ to rectify the housing
problem (Hammond, quoted in Daily Mail 2017).
Crisis stories usually spotlight the post-2004 homeownership decline
as the emergency hallmark with boosting new house construction the
favoured remedy. Yet, the current crisis has deep-seated roots, located
in long-established cleavages in UK society based on class, age, gender,
ethnicity and place. There are diverse housing crises and overcoming
them requires more than a step change in housing supply.
Until 2016, the electorate seems to have accepted the ‘wicked prob-
lem’ story, tolerating high prices, lower space standards, exorbitant rents,
declining homeownership and homelessness, as if resigned to the idea
that there was no alternative to the inevitable outcomes generated by mar-
ket forces. Crisis victims must wait patiently until the market solved the
problem. However, as the housing situation deteriorated, its generational
dimension became more pronounced and the class, gender, ethnicity and
place cleavages embedded in the crisis intensified. The 2016 European
Union referendum and the 2017 General Election demonstrated a chang-
ing public mood. In Greek, crisis—κρίσιc—means both a ‘turning point’
and a ‘judgement’. The electorate delivered a verdict on Conservative
Party housing policies: the housing crisis had become a political crisis.
 1 The Housing Crisis    
3

Homeownership
The press focuses on homeownership decline as the main housing crisis
dimension. The Daily Mirror (2016) stated that the ‘UK housing crisis
was now a ‘‘national emergency’’ as number of homeowners plummets
to a 30-year low’ and the Daily Mail (2018) announced ‘The end of
the home-owning dream’. The homeownership rate in England fell from
68.7% in 2004 to 65.2% in 2010. This trend persuaded post-2010
Conservative-led governments to introduce measures to try to stim-
ulate owner-occupation such as Help to Buy loans, a 3% extra Land
Stamp Duty Tax levy on second homes and a reduction in tax conces-
sions for private landlords. Nonetheless, the owner-occupier propor-
tion in England continued to decline, reaching 62.6% in 2016/2017
(MHCLG 2018a).
In a new attempt to boost owner-occupation, Teresa May’s govern-
ment exempted homes costing less than £300,000 from Land Stamp
Duty Tax (LSDT) if bought by first-time buyers, thereby giving them
a further advantage over private landlords in the housing market. This
measure, combined with the long-term impact of earlier initiatives,
may increase the homeowner rate but, as Corlett and Judge (2017, p. 6)
claim: ‘Even in a best-case scenario millennials will not achieve the same
homeownership levels the baby boomers enjoy’. Indeed, some com-
mentators allege that homeownership is now a ‘fetish’ or a ‘cult’ (Posen
2013). It is an idealistic aspiration and ‘generation rent’ must be satis-
fied with renting. The Guardian (2016) announced ‘Home ownership
is unrealistic’ and Sean O’Grady (2016), writing in the Independent,
declared, ‘Newsflash, young people: owning your own home isn’t a
human right — your sense of entitlement won’t solve this’. In the New
Statesman, Julia Rampen (2016) said ‘The property-owning democracy
is dead, so build one for renters instead’.
The overall owner-occupation figure masks marked changes in home-
ownership rates according to age, with owner-occupation increasing
in retired households but falling amongst working households (see
Fig. 1.1).
4    
B. Lund

90
80
70
60
50
2003/4
40
2015/6
30
20
10
0
16-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65+

Fig. 1.1 Homeowner proportion by age: England 2003/2004 and 2015/2016

(Sources Department for Communities and Local Government [DCLG] [2017a];
Office for National Statistics [ONS] [2003])

One reason for the homeownership decline amongst younger people

has been the increase in house prices relative to incomes. Cribb et al.
(2018a) plotted the average UK house price and the average net income
growth for those aged 25–34, revealing that between 1995/1996 and
2015/2016 net income grew by 21% whereas house prices increased by
156%. They state:

…in 2015–16 almost 90% of 25-to 34-year-olds faced average regional

house prices of at least four times their income, compared with less than
half twenty years earlier. At the same time, 38% faced a house-price-to-
income ratio of over 10, compared with just 9% twenty years ago. (Cribb
et al. 2018a, p. 1)

The house price hike pushed mortgage payments as a proportion of

first-time buyers’ mean take-home pay from 19.0% in 1996 to 33%
in 2017, ranging from 20.5% in the North to 64.9% in London
(Nationwide 2018), despite the reductions in mortgage interest rates
after 2009. Raising a deposit became a significant homeownership bar-
rier. In response to 2000s credit boom, alleged to be responsible for the
post-2008 recession, the deposit necessary to become a homeowner
 1 The Housing Crisis    
5

increased. In 2006, the average first-time buyer deposit across the

UK was £15,168, but, in 2017, it was £33,899. In London, the aver-
age deposit needed by new entrants to the owner-occupation market
increased from £26,701 in 2006 to £106,357 in 2017 (Shaw 2017).
According to research by Hamptons International Estate Agent, a sin-
gle first-time buyer in London needed to save for 17 years to find 15%
deposit and 10.5 years in England and Wales (Jones 2018). Wood and
Clarke (2018, p. 3) state:

Hypothetically, it would currently take a 27-30 year old first time buyer
around 18 years to save for a deposit if they relied solely on savings from
their own disposable income. This is up from 3 years two decades ago.

To improve annual affordability 60% of first-time buyers now opt for

mortgages lasting more than 25 years with the per cent of new mort-
gages lasting 30 years increasing from 12.6% in 2006 to 36.2% in 2016
and the proportion with terms 35 year plus jumping from 3.8 to 16.5%
(Resolution Foundation 2018).

‘Rabbit Hutches’
Less space is being obtained for higher prices. As Williams (2009, p. 1)
states ‘the general currency for housing statistics, planning practice and
house sales is the number of bedrooms’. Although, in England, bed-
room numbers and the house proportion relative to flats in new-build
homes has increased since 2009/2010, the dwellings built post-2005
consist of 44% flats and 54% with two or less bedrooms compared
to 18% flats and 37% with two or less bedrooms for dwellings built
before 2005 (Wilson et al. 2018). UK figures on housing space price
per square metre are sparse but new UK houses are expensive ‘rabbit
hutches’ compared to their continental equivalents. In 2014 the average
size UK new home size was 87 m2 compared to 109.2 (Germany); 137
(Denmark); 112.8 (France); 96 (Austria) and 82.2 (Portugal) (Jones
2017). €200,000 bought 119 m2 in Spain, 94 m2 in Belgium, 97 m2 in
Germany and 39 m2 in the UK (Deloitte 2016).
6    
B. Lund

A rough and ready calculation of new house size in relationship to

occupancy placed UK houses at the 12th lowest in a 16 country list,
above only Hong Kong, Russia, Italy and China (Shrinkthatfootprint
2018). Central guidance on space standards—introduced in 2015 and
officially known as the ‘nationally described space standard’—gives local
authorities the option to set minimum sizes for new homes. Although
37 m2 is now the minimum legal standard in London for a new-build
one person flat, under the ‘permitted development’ system, developers
who convert offices into homes do not have to meet minimum floor
area standards and the smallest studio flats in a London office block
conversion were a ‘dog kennel’ 16 m2 (Guardian 2017a).
Many family houses have been converted into flats. Considering all
dwellings—existing and new—Williams (2009) comments:

In terms of dwelling size, the UK has the 5th smallest homes in Europe,
87 m2….. However, it has the 4th (joint) highest number of rooms (4.7).
Hence, the UK has, on average, the third smallest average room sizes
(18.5 m2)…. If one compares UK house sizes with countries such as the
USA (average dwelling size 215 m2) and Australia (average dwelling size
227.6 m2) an even more contrasting picture emerges. (Williams 2009,
p. 3, emphasis original)

For the majority of working-age households in England, floor space per

person has been flat or has fallen since the mid-1990s and, for private
renters in London, space per person declined by a quarter between 1996
and 2012 (Belfield et al. 2015). Tunstall (2015), having examined hous-
ing space distribution over time, concluded that housing space inequal-
ity declined from the 1920s to the 1980s but then increased, and, by
2011, space inequality was back to 1950s levels. By 2014 the average
family home had shrunk by two square metres since 2004 and it was
estimated that 150,000 children had seen their bedrooms partitioned
in an attempt to create extra bedrooms (Liverpool Victoria Insurance
2014).
The English Housing Survey measures overcrowding by the ‘bed-
room standard’ but its low sample size, leading to overcrowding figures
being presented as three year moving averages and its 54.4% response
 1 The Housing Crisis    
7

rate raises questions on whether the survey includes ‘difficult to reach’

households. Nevertheless, the figures reveal that the per cent households
deemed overcrowded in England increased from 2.3 in 2000/2001 to 3
in 2016/2017 (note that the ‘bedroom standard’ relates to number of
rooms not overall space per person). The per cent of households over-
crowded in the private landlord sector increased from 3.5 to 5.1 and, in
the social sector, from 5.1 to 6.6 (MHCLG 2018a).

Homelessness
The homeless ‘headline’ figures—acceptances as homeless by local
authorities and households in temporary accommodation—are gener-
ated through the operations of the 1977 Housing (Homeless Persons)
Act as amended by 1985, 1996, 2002, and 2017 legislation. The statis-
tics reflect how local authorities, influenced by government guidance,
apply the law. Homelessness acceptances and households in tempo-
rary accommodation increased rapidly in the 2000s and New Labour
introduced a prevention strategy involving ‘housing options’ interviews
prior to the formal homeless acceptance process. The result was a rapid
decline in homelessness acceptances in England from 135,590 in 2003
to 41,780 in 2009 (Stephens et al. 2018). The coalition government
intensified the prevention strategy but, in 2018, 79,880 households
containing 123,130 children were living in temporary accommoda-
tion (MHCLG 2018b). According to the official count—almost cer-
tainly a significant undercount—in 2017 there were 4751 rough
sleepers on a given night—up 15% on 2016 and more than double
the 2010 figure (MHCLG 2018b). Although public and media atti-
tudes to homelessness are dominated by the ‘individualism’ model—
‘people see the causes of large-scale social problems such as poverty,
crime and homelessness through a lens that looks at individual charac-
ters and situations’ (Crisis 2018, p. 62)—social economic factors per-
meate homelessness outcomes. Shelter (2018) has revealed that 55%
of families living in temporary accommodation were working and
Fitzpatrick (2017) states:
8    
B. Lund

Our research indicates that a mixed-ethnicity lone mother who was poor
as a child, renting at age 26, who has experienced unemployment, has
a predicted probability of homelessness of 71.2% by age 30. Contrast
this with a white male university graduate from a relatively affluent back-
ground in the rural south of England, living with his parents at age 26,
where it is a mere 0.6% by the same age, and you’ll see that we aren’t all
equally vulnerable to homelessness.

Economic Determinism
Economic determinism underpins these housing crisis symptoms and
the tepid policy responses to them. ‘Globalisation’—allegedly beyond
political control by national governments—is often viewed as the con-
trolling variable. Aubrey (2016, p. 1), for example, states:

Over the last 40 years, these regions (with high Brexit votes) have expe-
rienced a dramatic pace of change, driven largely by globalisation. These
changes have disrupted people’s work patterns and livelihoods, sometimes
generating a catastrophic fall in hope for the future…. Wage growth has
been muted, but the cost of housing has continued to rise.

The globalisation thesis is linked to neoliberalism, a doctrine that

views competition as the crucial dimension in economic relationships.
Buying and selling rewards merit and penalises inefficiency and mar-
kets—the driving force of economic progress—will be destroyed by
state intervention. Economic fundamentalism also permeates Marxist
political economy. Contemporary Marxist political economy takes its
cue from Engels’ claim that working class exploitation occurs when the
capitalist purloins all the value created by workers in the production
process, thereby making social reform via consumption initiatives futile
in a capitalist economy. Social reform measures merely displace hous-
ing problems to different places (Engels 1872). Globalisation and cap-
italism are interlinked in Marxist working class exploitation accounts
with, at best, social reform resulting only in a more ‘humane’ capital-
ism, controlling the worst outcomes but prolonging housing shortages
(DeFazio 2014).
 1 The Housing Crisis    
9

But Is There a Housing Crisis?

Oxford Dictionaries (2017a) defines a crisis as ‘an unsustainable situa-
tion with immediate action required, a turning point, when a new pol-
icy paradigm is necessary’. Do the increase in house prices, the decline
in new house construction and the fall in homeownership constitute
such a crisis? There are dissenting voices.

House Prices and Consumer Spending

One dimension to housing crisis denial is the assertion that enlarged

housing wealth promotes economic growth because an asset gain-
ing in value encourages homeowners to consume, taking equity from
their properties to spend on consumer goods. Indeed, an article in the
Financial Times (Leahy 2018) recommended boosting the housing
market to help the UK’s ailing retail sector. The house price inflation
promotes economic expansion theory has been supported by empirical
evidence. Aizenman et al. (2016), having examined 19 countries from
1975 to 2013, found that house price hikes are positively associated
with economic growth. However, of course, the association may not be
causal and there is an argument that house price increases impede long-
term growth by directing investment away from manufacturing.

The Politics of Housing Wealth

Then there is the political dimension to homeownership wealth. Many

newspapers promote house price rises as desirable with Munro (2018,
p. 1085) detecting ‘the powerful influence of industry insiders in creat-
ing the discourse of the housing market news, and how price rises are
positioned as both beneficial and the “natural order”’. The Daily Express
is particularly enthusiastic, running headlines such as ‘Prices Up By
£10,000’ (Daily Express 2017) and ‘Giant rebound in house prices sees
biggest rise in six months’ (Daily Express 2018). Indeed, the owner-
occupied electorate reacts badly to reductions in their housing wealth.
Historically, house prices have supplied negative or positive backdrops to
10    
B. Lund

election campaigns. Thatcher won in 1987 when house prices were ris-
ing rapidly. Area variations in house price adjustments helped Major win
in 1992 (Dorling et al. 1999) and New Labour prevailed in the 1997
General Election against a backdrop of house price decline under the
Conservatives. New Labour won in 2001 and 2005 when prices were
rising but lost in 2010 following a price slump. In the 2017 General
Election, the Conservative Party enhanced its lead over Labour amongst
outright owners, the most likely beneficiaries from rising house prices.

Renting: Not Such a Bad Thing?

Another housing crisis denial relates to homeownership decline. In

2009 John Healey, Labour’s Housing Minister, noting the fall in own-
er-occupation, said ‘I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing’, adding:

So we need new choices in tenure…. That means increasing the diversity

of tenures, it means allowing people to move more easily between ten-
ures and it means putting them on a more equal footing with home own-
ership, as they are in other European countries. (Healey, quoted in the
Independent 2009)

Germany, with a substantial private rented sector at about 58% of the

housing stock, has become a model for an efficient housing market. It
is argued that this long-term, plentiful private rented housing supply,
with modest state intervention in controlling rents, not only enhances
labour mobility but prevents a Gadarene rush into the owner-occupied
market and generates a political majority in favour of stable house
prices (Eichler 2016). Until recently, Germany has been very success-
ful in controlling house price volatility with prices stable in the 2000s
before accelerating post-2010 to reach an 8% increase in 2017 (Global
Property Guide 2018).

A Supply Dearth?

Some housing crisis narratives accept that house price inflation is a

problem but attribute the price hikes to credit availability, not to supply
 1 The Housing Crisis    
11

deficiency. For example, the Bow Group of Conservatives MPs claimed:

‘Building more houses, despite being the solution most widely touted,
is not the answer to the UK housing crisis … building more houses will
not have a downward effect on prices’ (Valentine 2015, p. 4). A sim-
ilar position is taken by Spiers (2018), former Chief Executive of the
Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), who adds the social hous-
ing dearth to the housing crisis causation mix.
Oxford Economics (2016) explored the reasons for the rise in house
prices from 1996 to 2006, claiming ‘Rising earnings and falling interest
rates, rather than insufficient supply, drove the boom in house prices
between 1996 and 2006’ (Oxford Economics 2016, p. 8). Mulheirn’s
detailed examination of the issue (Mulheirn 2018) discovered no evi-
dence that supply limitations had influenced overall housing affordabil-
ity (even in London) and reached the conclusion:

Rather than one housing crisis caused by ‘decades of undersupply’, then,

we in fact face two distinct housing crises: deteriorating affordability for
some due to adverse trends in their incomes, and high prices caused by
financial conditions. (Mulheirn 2018, p. 13)

Ryan-Collins (2018) attributed the lion’s share of the blame for rising
house prices to financial institution infatuation with property as an
investment vehicle. In supporting his case he points to the ‘debt shift’
in the 1990s, when the financial institutions moved their lending away
from investment in production to domestic and commercial real estate
purchase. Certainly pumping money into real estate has been a signifi-
cant contributor to house price inflation but, in the 1930s, credit avail-
ability helped to stimulate production. This did not happen in the UK
from the 2000s indicating that supply constraints have had a major role
in escalating house prices. For example, in 2005/2006, new housing
construction was 3.1 per 1000 population in the UK, 13.2 in Ireland,
14 in Spain and 6.8 in the United States (Alderman 2010; Delft
University of Technology 2011). Alistair Darling (2011, p. 114), New
Labour’s Chancellor during the ‘global financial crisis’, said: ‘Ironically,
the spectacular failure of successive British governments to deliver
increased housebuilding proved to be a blessing for the housing market,
which did not fall anywhere near as much as people feared’.
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jealous yearning affection, which gives all and demands all. With his
children far from him, his life had been lonely, and he had known
many desolate hours, when he would have given half his wealth for
sympathy and love.
“I shall find both in Octavia,” he thought, his noble face brightening. “I
shall not wrong my children in marrying her. My son will be my heir.
My daughter’s fortune will not be imperilled by my second marriage.
Neva is sixteen, and in two years more will come home. How can I
do better for her than to give her a beautiful mother, young enough to
win her confidence, old enough to be her guide? Octavia would love
my girl, and would be her best chaperon in society, to which Neva
must be by and by introduced. I should find in Octavia then a mother
for my daughter, and a gentle loving wife and companion for myself.
But will she accept me?”
He put the question to the test that very evening. He found the
handsome widow alone in her parlor, the gray companion being for
once absent, and he told her his love with a tremulous ardor and
passion that it would have been the glory of a good woman to have
evoked from a nature so grand as Sir Harold’s.
The fascinating widow blushed and smiled assent, and her black-
tressed head drooped to his shoulder, and Sir Harold clasped her in
his arms as his betrothed wife.
With a lover’s impetuosity he begged her to marry him at an early
day. She hesitated coyly, as if for months she had not been striving
and praying for this hour, and then was won to consent to marry him
a month thence.
“I am alone in the world, and have no one to consult,” she sighed. “I
have an old aunt, a perfect miser, who lives in Bloomsbury Square,
in London. She will permit me to be married from her house, as I was
before. The marriage will have to be very quiet, for she is averse to
display and expense. However, what she saves will come to me
some day, so I need not complain. I shall want to keep Artress with
me, Sir Harold. I can see that you don’t like her, but she has been a
faithful friend to me in all my troubles, and I cannot abandon her
when prosperity smiles so splendidly upon me. I may keep her, may I
not?”
Thus appealed to, Sir Harold smothered his dislike of the gray
companion, and consented that she should become an inmate of his
house.
Mrs. Hathaway proceeded to explain the causes of her
friendlessness. She was an orphan, and had early married the
Honorable Charles Hathaway, the younger son of a Viscount, who
had died five years before. The Honorable Charles had been a
dissipated spendthrift, and had left his wife the meagre income of
some three hundred pounds a year. Her elegant clothing was, for the
most part, relics of better days. As to the expensive style in which
she lived, keeping a companion and maid, no one knew, save herself
and one other, how she managed to support it. Her name and
reputation were unblemished, and the most censorious tongue had
nothing to say against her.
And yet she was none the less an unscrupulous, unprincipled
adventuress.
This was the woman, the noble, gallant baronet proposed to take to
his bosom as his wife, to endow with his name and wealth, to make
the mother and guide of his pure young daughter. Would the
sacrifice of the generous, unsuspected lover be permitted?
It was permitted. A month later their modest bridal train swept
beneath the portals of St. George’s Church, Hanover Square. The
bride, radiant in pearl-colored moire, with point lace overdress, wore
a magnificent parure of diamonds, presented to her by Sir Harold.
The baronet looked the picture of happiness. The miserly aunt of
Mrs. Hathaway, a skinny old lady in a low-necked and short-sleeved
dress of pink silk, that, by its unsuitability, made her seem absolutely
hideous, attended by a male friend, who gave away the bride, was
prominent among the group that surrounded the altar.
Sir Harold’s son and heir was in India, and his daughter had not
been summoned from her boarding-school in Paris. The baronet’s
tender father soul yearned for his daughter’s presence at his second
marriage; but Lady Wynde had urged that Neva’s studies should not
be interrupted, and had begged, as a personal favor, that her
meeting with her young step-daughter might be delayed until her
ladyship had become used to her new position. She professed to be
timid and shrinking in regard to the meeting with Neva, and Sir
Harold, in his passionate love for Octavia, put aside his own wishes,
yielding to her request. But he had written to his daughter,
announcing his intended second marriage, and had received in reply
a tender, loving letter full of earnest prayers for his happiness, and
expressing the kindest feelings toward the expected step-mother.
The words were spoken that made the strangely assorted pair one
flesh. As the bride arose from her knees the wife of a wealthy
baronet, the wearer of a title, the handsome face was lighted by a
triumphant glow, her black eyes emitted a singular, exultant gleam,
and a conscious triumph pervaded her manner.
She had played the first part of a daring game—and she had won!
As she passed into the vestry to sign the marriage register, leaning
proudly upon the arm of her newly made husband, and followed by
her few attending personal friends, a man who had witnessed the
ceremony from behind a clustered pillar in the church, stole out into
the square, his face lighted by a lurid smile, his eyes emitting the
same peculiar, exultant gleam as the bride’s had done.
This man was the tall, fair-haired gentleman, with waxed mustaches,
sinister eyes and cynical smile, who, nearly three months before,
had witnessed from the pier head at Brighton the rescue of Mrs.
Hathaway from the sea by Sir Harold Wynde. And now this man
muttered:
“The game prospers. Octavia is Lady Wynde. The first act is played.
The next act requires more time, deliberation, caution. Every move
must be considered carefully. We are bound to win the entire game.”
 CHAPTER II.
A DECISIVE MOVE COMMANDED.

Sir Harold and Lady Wynde ate their wedding breakfast in

Bloomsbury Square, at the house of Lady Wynde’s miserly aunt,
Mrs. Hyde. A few of the baronet’s choice friends were present. The
absence of Sir Harold’s daughter was not especially remarked save
by the father, who longed with an anxious longing to see her face
smiling upon him, and to hear her young voice whispering
congratulations upon his second marriage. Neva had been
especially near and dear to him. Her mother had died in her
babyhood, and he had been both father and mother to his girl. He
had early sent his son to school, but Neva he had kept with him until,
a year before, his first wife’s relatives had urged him to send her to a
“finishing school” at Paris, and he had reluctantly yielded. Not even
his passionate love for his bride could overcome or lessen the
fatherly love and tenderness of years.
Immediately after the breakfast the newly married pair proceeded to
Canterbury by special train. The gray companion and Lady Wynde’s
maid traveled in another compartment of the same coach. The
Hawkhurst carriage was in waiting for the bridal pair at the station.
Sir Harold assisted his wife into it, addressed a few kindly words to
the old coachman on the box, and entered the vehicle. The gray
companion and the maid entered a dog-cart, also in waiting.
Hawkhurst was several miles distant, but the country between it and
Canterbury was a charming one, and Lady Wynde found sufficient
enjoyment in looking at the handsome seats, the trim hedges, and
thrifty hop-gardens, and in wondering if Hawkhurst would realize her
expectations. She found indeed more enjoyment in her own
speculations than in the society of her husband.
About five o’clock of the afternoon, the bridal pair came in sight of
the ancestral home of the Wynde’s. The top of the low barouche was
lowered and Sir Harold pointed out her future home to his bride with
pardonable pride, and she surveyed it with eager eyes.
It was, as we have said, a magnificent estate, divided into numerous
farms of goodly size. The home grounds of Hawkhurst proper,
including the fields, pastures, meadows, parks, woods, plantations
and gardens, comprised about four hundred acres. The mansion
stood upon a ridge of ground some half a mile wide, and was seen
from several points at a distance of three or four miles. It was a
grand old building of gray stone, with a long facade, and was three
stories in height. Its turrets and chimneys were noted for their
picturesqueness. Its carved stone porches, its quaint wide windows,
its steep roof, from which pert dormer-windows, saucily projected,
were remarkable for their beauty or oddity. Despite its age, and its air
of grandeur and stateliness, there was a home-like look about the
great mansion that Lady Wynde did not fail to perceive at the first
glance.
The house was flanked on either side by glass pineries, grape
houses, hothouses, greenhouses and similar buildings. Further to
the left of the dwelling, beyond the sunny gardens, was the great
park, intersected with walks and drives, having a lake somewhere in
the umbrageous depths, and herds of fallow-deer browsing on its
herbage. In the rear of the house, built in the form of a quadrangle,
of gray stone, were the handsome stables and offices of various
descriptions. The mansion with its dependencies covered a great
deal of ground, and presented an imposing appearance.
The house was approached by a shaded drive a half mile or more in
length, which traversed a smooth green lawn dotted here and there
with trees. A pair of bronze gates, protected and attended by a
picturesque gray stone lodge, gave ingress to the grounds.
These gates swung open at the approach of Sir Harold Wynde and
his bride, and the gate-keeper and his family came out bowing and
smiling, to welcome home the future lady of Hawkhurst. Lady Wynde
returned their greetings with graceful condescension, and then, as
the carriage entered the drive, she fixed her eager eyes upon the
long gray facade of the mansion, and said:
“It is beautiful—magnificent! You never did justice to its grandeurs,
Harold, in describing Hawkhurst. It is strange that a house so large,
and of such architectural pretension, should have such a bright and
sunny appearance. The sunlight must flood every room in that
glorious front. I should like to live all my days at Hawkhurst!”
“Your dower house will be as pleasant a home as this although not
so pretentious,” said Sir Harold, smiling gravely. “It is probable that
you being twenty years my junior, will survive me, Octavia, and
therefore I have settled upon you for your life use in your possible
widowhood one of my prettiest places, and one which has served for
many generations as the residence of the dowager widows of our
family.”
The glow on Lady Wynde’s face faded a little, and her lips slightly
compressed themselves, as they were wont to do when she was ill
pleased.
“I have never asked you about your property, Harold,” she remarked,
“but your wife need be restrained from doing so by no sense of
delicacy. I suppose your property is entailed?”
“Hawkhurst is entailed, but it will fall to the female line in case of the
dying out of heirs male,” replied the baronet, not marking his bride’s
scarcely suppressed eagerness. “It has belonged to our family from
time immemorial, and was a royal grant to one of our ancestors who
saved his monarch’s life at risk of his own. Thus, at my death,
Hawkhurst will go, with the title, to my son. If George should die,
without issue, Hawkhurst—without the title, which is a separate affair
—will go to my daughter.”
“A weighty inheritance for a girl,” remarked Lady Wynde. “And—and
if she should die without issue?”
“The estate would go to distant cousins of mine.”
Lady Wynde started. This was evidently an unexpected reply, and
she could not repress her looks of disappointment.
“I—I should think your wife would come before your cousins,” she
murmured.
“How little you know about law, Octavia,” said the baronet, with a
grave, gentle smile. “The property must go to those of our blood. If
our union is blessed with children, the eldest of them would inherit
Hawkhurst before my cousins. But although the law has proclaimed
us one flesh, yet it does not allow you to become the heir of my
entailed property. It is singular even that a daughter is permitted to
inherit before male cousins, but there was a clause in the royal deed
of gift of Hawkhurst to my ancestors that gave the property to
females in the direct line, in default of male heirs, but there has
never been a female proprietor of the estate. I hope there never may
be. I should hate to have the old name die out of the old place. But
here we are at the house. Welcome home, my beautiful wife!”
The carriage stopped in the porch, and Sir Harold alighted and
assisted out his bride. He drew her arm through his and led her up
the lofty flight of stone steps, and in at the arched and open door-
way. The servants were assembled to welcome home their lady, and
the baronet uttered the necessary words of introduction and
conducted his bride to the drawing-room.
This was an immensely long apartment, with nine wide windows on
its eastern side looking out upon gardens and park. Sculptured
arches, supported by slender columns of alabaster, relieved the long
vista, and curtains depending from them were capable of dividing the
grand room into three handsome ones. The drawing-room was
furnished in modern style, and was all gayety, brightness and beauty.
The furniture, of daintiest satin-wood, was upholstered in pale blue
silk. The carpet, of softest gray hue, was bordered with blue.
“It is very lovely,” commented the bride. “And that is a conservatory
at the end? I shall be very happy here, Harold.”
“I hope so,” was the earnest response. “But let me take you up to
your own rooms, Octavia. They have been newly furnished for your
occupancy.”
He gave her his arm and conducted her out into the wide hall, with
its tesselated floor, up the wide marble staircase, to a suit of rooms
directly over the drawing-room.
This suit comprised sitting-room, bedroom, dressing-room and bath-
room. Their upholstery was of a vivid crimson hue. A faultless taste
had guided the selection of the various adornments, and Lady
Wynde’s eyes kindled with appreciation as she marked the
costliness and beauty of everything around her.
“Your trunks have arrived in the wagon, Octavia,” said her husband,
well pleased with her commendations. “Mrs. Artress and your maid,
who came on in the dog-cart, have also arrived. Dinner has been
ordered at seven. I will leave you to dress. And, by the way, should
you have need of me, my dressing-room adjoins your own.”
He went out. Lady Wynde rang for her maid and her gray
companion, and dressed for dinner. When her toilet was made, the
baronet’s bride dismissed her maid and came out into her warm-
hued sitting room, where Mrs. Artress sat by a window looking out
into the leafy shadows of the park.
“Well?” said the beauty interrogatively. “What do you think? Have I
not been successful?”
“So far, yes,” said the grim, ashen-faced companion, raising her light,
hay-colored eyes in a meaning expression. “But the end is not yet.
The game, you know, is only fairly begun.”
“Yes, I know,” said the bride thoughtfully. “But it is well begun. But
hush, Artress. Here comes my happy bridegroom!”
There was a mocking smile on her lips as she bade Sir Harold enter.
The wedded pair had a few minutes’ conversation in the sitting-room,
her ladyship’s companion sitting in the deep window seat mute as a
shadow, and they then descended to the drawing-room. Mrs. Artress
meekly followed. She remained near Lady Wynde, in attendance
upon her until after dinner, and then went up to her own room, which
was in convenient proximity to the apartments of Lady Wynde.
The bride and bridegroom were left to themselves.
The former played a little upon the grand piano, and then
approached her husband, sitting down beside him upon the same
sofa. His noble face beamed love upon her. But her countenance
grew hard with speculative thoughts.
“Let me see,” said she, speaking with well-assumed lightness. “What
were we talking about when we arrived, Harold? Oh, about your
property! So, this dear old Hawkhurst will belong to George? And
what will Neva have?”
“Her mother’s fortune, and several estates which are not entailed.
Neva will be a very rich woman without Hawkhurst. You also,
Octavia, will be handsomely provided for, without detriment to my
children.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” said Lady Wynde. “But if the estates are not
entailed which you intend to give to Neva, you must leave them to
her by will. Have—have you made your will?”
“Yes; but since I have contracted a new marriage, I shall have to
make a new will. I shall attend to that at my leisure.”
Lady Wynde became thoughtful, but did not press the subject. She
excused her questionings on the plea of interest in her husband’s
children, and Sir Harold gave no thought to them.
The days went by; the weeks and months followed. Neva Wynde
had not been summoned home, her step-mother finding plenty of
excuses for deferring the return of her step-daughter. Perhaps she
feared that a pair of keen young eyes, unvailed by glamor, would see
how morally hideous she was—how base and scheming, and
unworthy of her husband.
Sir Harold’s infatuation with his wife deepened as the time wore on.
His love for her became a species of worship. All that she did was
good in his eyes.
Lady Wynde went into society, visited the first county families, and
received them at Hawkhurst. She gave a ball, dancing and dinner
parties, “tea-fights,” and fetes champetres, without number. She
promoted festivities of every sort, and became one of the most
popular ladies in the county. She was a leader of fashion too, and
withal was so gracious, so circumspect, so full of delicate flattery to
every one, that even venomous tongued gossip had naught but good
to say of her. Her position at Hawkhurst was thus firmly established,
and she might be called a happy woman.
As the months went on, an air of expectancy began to be apparent in
her manner. The gray companion shared it, moving with a
suppressed eagerness and nervousness, as if waiting for something.
And that which she waited for came at last.
It was one February evening, more than a year after the bride’s
coming home to Hawkhurst. Outside the night was wild. Within Lady
Wynde’s dressing-room the fire glowed behind its silvered bars, and
its rays danced in bright gleams upon the crimson furniture. The
lamps burned with mellow radiance. In the centre of the room stood
the lady of Hawkhurst. She had dismissed her maid, and was
surveying her reflection in a full-length mirror with a complacent
smile.
She was attired in a long robe of crimson silk, and wore her ruby
ornaments. Her neck and arms were bare. Her liquid black eyes
were full of light; her face was aglow.
In the midst of her self-admiration, her gray companion entered
abruptly, bearing in her hand a letter. Lady Wynde turned toward her
with a startled look.
“What have you there, Artress?” she demanded.
“A letter addressed to me,” was the reply. “I have read it. I have a
question to ask you, Octavia, before I show the letter to you. Sir
Harold Wynde adores you. He loads you with gifts. He lays his heart
under your feet. You are his world, his life, his very soul. And now I
want to ask you—do you love him?”
The ashen eyes shot a piercing glance into the handsome brunette
face, but the black eyes met hers boldly and the full lips curled in a
contemptuous smile.
“Love him?” repeated Lady Wynde. “You know I do not. Love him?
You know that I love another even as Sir Harold loves me! Love him?
Bah!”
The gray woman smiled a strange mirthless smile.
“It is well,” she said. “Now read the letter. The message has come at
last!”
Lady Wynde seized the letter eagerly. It contained only these words,
without date or signature:
“The time has come to get rid of him! Now!”
 CHAPTER III.
A FATEFUL MOVE DECIDED UPON.

Notwithstanding that the sinister message, contained in the single

line of the mysterious missive brought to Lady Wynde by her gray
companion, had been long expected, it brought with it none the less
a shock when it came.
The paper fluttered slowly from the unloosed fingers of the baronet’s
wife to the floor, and into the liquid black eyes stole a look half of
horror and half of eagerness. Unconsciously her voice repeated the
words of the message, in a hoarse whisper:
“It is time to get rid of him. Now!”
Lady Wynde shuddered at the sound of her own voice, and she
stared at her gray companion, her eyes full of shrinking and terror.
Those ashen orbs returned her stare with one that was bold, evil,
and encouraging.
“I—I haven’t the courage I thought, Artress,” faltered her ladyship. “It
is a terrible thing to do!”
“You love Sir Harold, after all?” taunted the companion, as she
picked up the sinister slip of paper and burned it.
“No, no, but he trusts me; he loves me. There was a time, Artress,
when I could not have harmed a dog that licked my hand or fawned
upon me. And now—but I am not so bad as you think. I am base,
unscrupulous, manœuvring, I know. My marriage was but part of a
wicked plan, the fruit of a conspiracy against Sir Harold Wynde, but I
shrink from the crowning evil we have planned. To play the viper and
sting the hand that has warmed me—to wound to the core the heart
that beats so fondly and proudly for me—to—to cut short the noble,
beneficent, happy life of Sir Harold—oh, I cannot! I cannot!”
Her ladyship swept forward impetuously toward the hearth and knelt
down before a quaint crimson-cushioned chair, crossing her arms
upon it, and laying her head on her bare white arms. The firelight
played upon the ruddy waves of her long robe, upon the gems at her
throat and wrists, upon her picturesquely dishevelled hair, and upon
her stormy, handsome face. She stared into the fire with her great
black terrified eyes, as if seeking in those dancing flames some
mystic meaning.
Her gray companion flitted across the floor to her side like an evil
shadow.
“How very tragic you are, my lady,” she said, with a sneer. “It almost
seems as if you were doing a scene out of a melodrama. No one can
force you to any step against your will. You can do whatever you
please. Sir Harold dotes upon you, and you can continue his
seemingly affectionate wife, can receive his caresses, can preside
over his household, and can soothe his declining years. He is not yet
fifty-eight years old, vigorous and healthy, and, as he comes of a
long-lived race, he will live to be ninety, I doubt not. You will, should
you survive him, then be seventy. You can play the tender step-
mother to his children. His daughter is sure to dislike you, and she
may cause her father to distrust you. All this will no doubt be
pleasant to you—”
“Hush, hush!” breathed Lady Wynde, with a tempestuous look in her
eyes. “Let me alone, Artress. You always stir up the demon within
me. Forty years of a dull, staid, respectable existence, when I might
be a queen of society in London, might be married to one I have
loved for years! Forty years! Why, one year seems to me an eternity.
It seems a lifetime since I was married to Sir Harold. I—I will act
upon the letter.”
The gray companion smiled.
“I was sure you would,” she said.
“But Sir Harold has not made a new will since our marriage,” urged
Lady Wynde. “By our marriage settlements, I am to have the use of
the dower house, Wynde Heights, during my lifetime, and a life
income of four thousand pounds a year. At my death, both house
and income revert to the family of Wynde. I have nothing absolutely
my own, nothing left to me by will to do with as I please. Craven
expected that I would have the dowry of a princess, I suppose, out of
Sir Harold’s splendid property.”
“It is not too late to acquire it,” said the companion, significantly. “Sir
Harold is clay in your hands. You can mould him to any shape you
will. He has no child here to counteract your influence. He has
money and estates which he intends to leave by will to his daughter
Neva. If you are clever, you can divert into your own coffers all of
Miss Wynde’s property that is not settled upon her already from her
mother’s estate. It will do no harm to delay acting upon the message
for a day or two, since something of so much importance remains to
be transacted.”
“I am thankful for even a day’s respite,” murmured Lady Wynde. “I
have been eager to receive the message, intending to act upon it
promptly. But I am not all bad, Artress, and I shrink from the
consummation of our plans. If Sir Harold would only die naturally! If
something would only occur to remove him from my path!”
She breathed heavily as she arose, shook out the folds of her dress,
and moved toward the door.
“The phial I had when we came here I found was broken yesterday,”
said Artress. “I shall have to go up to London to-morrow for more of
that fluid, so that there must be a day’s delay in any case. We must
be very cautious, for people will wonder at the sudden death of one
so hale and strong, and should suspicion arise, it must find no
foundation to build upon.”
Lady Wynde nodded assent, and opened the door and went out with
a weary step. She descended the broad staircase, crossed the great
hall, and entered the drawing-room.
Sir Harold was seated near the fire, in a thoughtful reverie, but arose
at her entrance with a beaming face and a tender smile.
“It’s a wild night, Octavia,” he said. “Come forward to the fire my
darling. How pale you are! And you are shivering with the cold.”
He gently forced her into the easy-chair he had vacated, bent over
her with lover-like devotion, patting her head softly with his hand.
“You look unhappy, dear,” resumed the baronet, after a pause. “Is
there anything you want—a ball, jewels, a trip to the Continent? You
know my purse is yours, and I am ready to go where you may wish
to lead.”
“You are very good!” said Lady Wynde, her black eyes fixed in a
gaze upon the fire, and again she shivered. “I—I am not worthy of all
your kindness, Harold. Hark! There is the dinner-bell. Thank fortune
for the interruption, for I believe I was growing really sentimental!”
She forced a laugh as she arose and took her husband’s arm, and
was conducted to the dining-room, but there was something in her
laughter that jarred upon Sir Harold, although the unpleasant
impression it produced upon him was evanescent.
At the dinner Lady Wynde was herself again, bright and fascinating,
only now and then, in some pause of the conversation, there came
again into her eyes that horrified stare which they had worn up stairs,
and which testified how her soul shrank from the awful crime she
contemplated.
After dinner the pair returned to the drawing-room. Sir Harold drew a
sofa toward the corner of the hearth and sat down upon it, calling his
wife to him. She obeyed, taking a seat beside him. Her face was all
brightness at this moment, and Sir Harold forgot his late anxieties
about her.
“I believe I am the happiest man in the world, Octavia,” he said
thoughtfully, caressing one of her jewelled hands he had lifted from
her knee, “but my cup of joy lacks a drop or two of sweetness still.
You are all the world to me, my wife, and yet I want something
more.”
“What is it you want, Harold?”
“I have been thinking about my children,” said the baronet. “It is over
a month since I heard from George, and he does not intend to leave
India this year, although I have urged him to sell his commission and
come home. The boy has a passion for a military life, and he went
out to India against my better judgment. I cannot have George home
again this year, but there is Neva near me. I long to see her,
Octavia.”
“You are the most devoted of fathers,” laughed Lady Wynde. “We
have been married but little over a year, and yet you have made two
trips alone to Paris to see Neva. She must be a very paragon of
daughters to cause her father to forget his bride.”
Sir Harold’s fair cheeks flushed a little.
“You forget,” he said, “that Neva was my especial charge from the
hour of her mother’s death till I sent her to that Paris school. My love
for you, Octavia, cannot lessen my love for her. I begin to think that I
have done wrong in not bringing you two together before. I had a
most pathetic letter from Neva before the holidays, begging to be
allowed to come home, but at your request, Octavia, I denied her
natural entreaty and compelled her to remain at her school. Even
Madame Da-Caret, the head of the establishment, thought it singular
that Miss Wynde should, alone of all the English pupils, spend her
holidays at the deserted institution. And now to-day I received a
letter from Neva asking if she was to come home for the Easter
holidays. I am afraid I have not rightly treated my motherless child,
Octavia. She has never seen you; never been at home since you
became mistress here. I fear that the poor child will think her exile
due to your influence, to speak frankly, dear, and that she will regard
you with dislike and bitterness, instead of the trust and confidence I
want her to feel in you. You are both so dear to me that I shall be
unhappy if you do not love each other.”
“There is time enough to form the acquaintance after Neva leaves
school,” said Lady Wynde. “She is but a child yet.”
“She is seventeen years old, Octavia. I have decided to have her
home at Easter, and I hope you will take some pains to win her trust
and affection. She will meet you half-way, dear.”
“I am not fond of bread-and-butter school-girls,” said Lady Wynde,
half frowning. “The neighborhood will be agape to see how I play the
role of step-mother. And, to own the truth, Harold, I have no fancy to
be called mother by a tall, overgrown girl, with her hair hanging down
her back in two braids, and her dresses reaching to her ankles. I
shall feel as old as Methuselah.”
Sir Harold sighed, and a grave shadow settled down upon his square
massive brows.
“I hope that Neva will win her way to your heart, Octavia,” he
remarked gently. “I thought it would look better if my daughter were
to call her father’s wife by the endearing name of mother, but teach
her to call you what you will. I have faith in your goodness of heart,
my wife.”
“Perhaps I am a little jealous of her,” returned Lady Wynde, with a
forced smile. “You fairly idolize her—”
“Have I not made her second to you?” interposed the baronet. “Has
she not been banished from her home to please you since you
entered it? When I think of her dull, dreary holidays in her school—
holidays! the name was a mockery—my soul yearns for my child.
Jealous of her, Octavia? What further proofs do you need that I
prefer my wife in all things above my child?”
“Why,” said Lady Wynde tremulously, a hectic flush burning on either
cheek, “look at the magnificent fortune she will have! While, if you
should die I have only the pitiful income of four thousand pounds a
year.”
“Pitiful, Octavia!”
“Yes, it is pitiful, compared to Neva’s. You have estates which you
can convey away absolutely by will. Why should you not make me
independently rich, with property that I can sell if I choose? What you
leave to me is to be mine for life. What you leave to Neva is hers
absolutely. This is monstrous, hateful, unjust!”
The baronet regarded his wife in amazement.
“You were satisfied with your marriage settlements when they were
drawn up, Octavia,” he said.
“I was not satisfied even then, but I had no male relatives to speak to
you about the matter, and it would have been indelicate for me to
have said what I thought. But I hoped you would make things right in
a will, as you can easily do. It is not right that such a distinction
should be made between a daughter and a wife!”
“I am surprised at you, Octavia,” declared the baronet. “Neva inherits
her mother’s fortune with something from me, but I cannot undertake
to alter my intentions in regard to her. The provisions that were made
for my mother are the same as those that have been made for you,
and she found them ample. I can promise you nothing more; but,
Octavia,” and he smiled faintly, “I have no intention of dying soon,
and while I live your income need not to be limited to any certain
sum. Let no jealousy of my Neva warp your noble nature, Octavia. I
shall love you all the better if you love her.”
“Then you decline to make a new will, with further provision for me?”
demanded the wife, her eyes downcast, the hectic spot burning
fiercely on both cheeks.
“You surprise me, Octavia. Why are you so persistent about a
subject of which I never dreamed you even thought? I do decline to
make further provision for you, but not because I do not love and
appreciate you, for I do both. So long as there is no issue to our
marriage, the sum settled on you is ample for your own wants. If
Providence sends us children, they will be provided for separately.
We will let the discussion end here, Octavia, with the understanding
that Neva will spend her Easter at Hawkhurst.”
Lady Wynde compressed her lips and looked sullen, but, as Sir
Harold suggested, the discussion was dropped. The baronet was
troubled, and disappointed in the wife he had believed faultless. The
first shadow of their married life, the first suspicion of distrust of Lady
Wynde in her husband’s mind had come at last, and they were hard
to bear. Lady Wynde went to the piano and executed a dashing
fantasia, all storm and violence, expressive of her mental condition.
Sir Harold moved back from the fire and took up a book, but his
grave, saddened face, his steady, intent gaze, and anxious mouth,
showed that he was not reading, and that his thoughts were
sorrowful.
When Lady Wynde had become tired of music, she went up to her
rooms without a word to her husband. She entered her sitting-room,
made beautiful by her husband’s taste, and going to the fire, knelt
down before it on the hearth-rug. Artress and her maid were neither
of them to be seen, and the baronet’s wife communed in solitude
with her own deformed soul.
The winds tore through the trees in the park and on the lawn with a
melancholy soughing, and the sound came to the ears of the
kneeling woman. Her room was warm and bright with firelight,
lamplight, and the glowing hue of crimson furniture. Every luxury was
gathered within those walls dedicated to her use. Silken couches
and fauteuils, portfolios of choice engravings, rare bronzes on the
low marble mantel-piece, exquisite statuettes on carved brackets,
albums of scenes in every hand done in water-colors, a beautiful
cottage piano, and a hundred other articles made the room a very
temple of comfort and beauty, yet in the spot where only loving
thoughts of her husband should have had place she dared to harbor
thoughts of crime! And that crime the most hideous that can be
named—the crime of murder!
While she was kneeling there, the gray companion stole in softly and
silently.
Lady Wynde slowly turned her head, recognized the intruder, and
stared again with wide eyes into the flames.
“You look like a tragedy queen,” said Artress, with a soft laugh like
the gurgling of waters. “You look as if you cast away all your
scruples, and were ready to carry out the game.”
“I am,” said Lady Wynde, in a hard, suppressed voice.
“I thought you would come to it. Will Sir Harold make a new will?”
“No; he absolutely refuses.”
“Well, four thousand pounds a year need not be despised. And
perhaps,” added Artress significantly, “we can make the sum larger.
Am I to go to town to-morrow?”
“Yes, by the morning train. Go to Craven, and tell him the phial he
gave you is broken and the contents spilled, and ask him for more of
the—the preparation. I will find occasion to administer it. I have
worked myself up to the necessary point, and would not scruple at
any crime so long as I need not fear discovery. You will be back
before dinner,” added Lady Wynde, her brunette complexion turning
as gray as that of her companion, “and to-morrow night at this time I
shall be a widow!”