Lord and the holy woman 1 Edition

• Published in: Herald (Glasgow, Scotland)
• Main Author: Murray, Isobel
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: Glasgow (UK) Gannett Media Corp 26.08.2000
• Subjects: Spark, Muriel; Wolf, Hildegard

The game proper begins when [Hildegard Wolf] is consulted by a patient who claims to be Lord Lucan. Alarm bells immediately sound for her, as she already has a man called Walker, a self-proclaimed [Lucan], on her books, "suave, casually dressed, rich, manicured, simply awful". The book embraces a new variation on the old Scottish theme of the double. Collusion seems likely, but which is the real Lord Lucan, and what do the two want? Blackmail is part of it; they threaten Hildegard with exposure but is one or both of them mad? Never a dull moment, as we would expect. But we might be slightly surprised at the wider social picture Dame Muriel offers, and the repeated theme of change and levelling down, in both class and money terms, implicitly seen as change for the better in the long run. After the murder, Lucan's friends obstructed the police and abetted his getaway almost automatically, and have supported him ever since. They neither liked nor respected him, but were "faithful in the class- conscious sense". Other "friends" are changing. Alfred Twickenham aided Lucan on the night of the murder, but "collective moods change". Then, Lucan was the centre of the affair: but now the young nanny has replaced him. Twickenham's ex-wife at last remembers Lucan was a very great bore, and his daughter sees him in retrospect as a ghastly snob, as well as a brutal murderer. A former friend wonders, "What species was Lucan? He was bad-tempered to a degree that was outside of human, and was something else."