A figure was suddenly there, dashing into his headlights’ glare, dark and human and seeming to wave.Īndrew trod on his brakes. It was blue gloaming, and he had just switched his headlights on. Andrew had reached the curious dip in the road where, as he always said to himself, things went different. His research assistant, not having the least idea where he was, had simply told Mrs. Hope was in a committee meeting, she simply gave up.Īndrew Hope was driving in the general direction of Melstone that evening, returning from a site connected with his research. So when she had worked her way through the intricate University switchboard system and arrived at the History Department, and then to a person who described herself as a research assistant, who told her that Dr. Besides, she was waiting for the doctor and didn’t want to be on the phone when she should be answering the door. She therefore disapproved of the daughter’s son, Andrew Hope, also. Partly, she did not take the old man’s illness seriously but mostly, she did not approve of the old man’s daughter for marrying a Hope (and then dying of it). But the truth is, she did not try very hard. So, when he realized he was on his deathbed, Jocelyn commanded his housekeeper, Mrs. If you climbed to the top of Mel Tump, the hill beyond the house, you could see the University where Andrew taught as a dark blue clot on the edge of the great blue-green plain, only half an hour’s drive away. He knew Andrew could reach him very quickly.

But it had been old Jocelyn’s intention to pass the field-of-care on in the proper way, personally. The house, Melstone House, was a simple matter of making a Will. WHEN JOCELYN BRANDON DIED-AT A GREAT OLD AGE, as magicians tend to do-he left his house and his field-of-care to his grandson, Andrew Brandon Hope.

Enchanted Glass by Diana Wynne Jones