Peruse her biography:

Part I: Fün Untersee
Part II: Mind-Bombing Berlin
Part III: Dung Beetles in the Eagle's Nest
Part IV: Suisse to Spidgy:
Part V: The Firey End

The Big Finish
Part V: The Fiery End

Emily took to punting in the Thames, using the same pole that she enjoyed using in her frequent afternoon "vaults".

Emily settled into a comfortable, if sausage-scarce, routine in Spidgy Park. She had come to an uneasy truce with Great Britain. The British had left Ireland, and she appreciated what they'd done to defeat Germany. Though occasionally her old rancor would surface: "The only good thing I can say for the Nazis is that they did me the favour of finally destroying the dung heap. On the whole, I believe the English are a much more palatable without an empire." (Speculations)

In 1947, India gained its independence from Britain. Chesley sent a congratulatory note to Gandhi, whom she remembered well from South Africa: "Good job kicking them out your country, Mohatma. Sorry I never got back to India to see if your technique had improved. Who knows though? Keep stretching!" (1)

She continued to write, more out of habit than inspiration. Her last two books are filled with questions of family; she wondered if she would ever understand the nature of her heredity, or how she had never, in all her "encounters" conceived a child.(2) The old gravedigger in Dingle had clearly been trying to say that her "uncle", Michael Flannigan, was no true relation at all. But that did not ring true. So in early April, 1948, she went into London to hire a genealogist to do some further research.

On the return train, she ran into Hilda Matheson, the renowned lesbian and one-time secretary to Lady Nancy Astor. Matheson had mellowed in her old age, and chatted amiably with Emily. It seemed that Matheson had developed a grand passion for cricket, and she was heading to the opening match of a new Ashes series between Australia and England later that month. She invited Emily to join her. Emily agreed to go, even if, Emily as confided in her journal: "the old dyke just likes to see me in a suit." But soon she and "Hildy" (as Emily called Hilda), were traipsed around England, watching the Australian team cut a swath through all of English cricket-dom. (3)

At the first match, Hildy volunteered to explain the rules to Emily. She recorded her answer in her journal: "I've gone through life completely baffled by the rules of cricket and I am happy to muddle through the rest of my allotted time in a similar haze." Indeed, Emily was shocked to discover that cricket was such a popular sport, even played in Norway. In her journal she remarked: "I find it hard to believe that a sensible people such as the Norwegians would even play cricket."

It is a little-known fact that in the late 1870s, there was an attempt to train monkeys to play the position of "silly mid-on" and "silly mid-off" so that humans would not be hurt. Unfortunately, the little chimps were never able to get the hang of batting.

But for all her criticisms, there was something relaxing, meditative, even spiritual about the game. Matheson was mad for it. For her own part, Emily simply enjoyed "watching a bunch of fellows make complete arses of themselves." Emily also liked making fun of the unlucky bastards playing ""silly mid-off" and "silly mid-on". The purpose of all this mid-on and -offing was to win the coveted Ashes.(4) During one game, Emily idly suggested to Hildy, that, "wouldn't it be fun if they all worked so hard to win me? Ah, but those days are over."

I am gob-smacked. It seems as though the old gravedigger was both wrong and right. I am related, by blood, to Michael Flannigan, and through my mother as I suspected. But it seems as though . . . oh, this is just too difficult to believe, but I hold the patent application and Uncle's notes in my hand. Could he have been so far ahead of his time that it was possible for him to actually . . . but wait. Is that the sound of sirens?

Scholars will never be sure what Emily was going to write next, or indeed, what the patent application and notes described, for they were consumed in the same fire that ended her life. The rest of the story is documented by the Spidgy Shopper (afternoon edition), October 29, 1948:

Spidgy - An elderly woman dressed in a tweed suit saved 10 orphans from certain death this morning when she heroically pole-vaulted to the second floor of their orphanage, where the children were trapped.

"I saw the whole thing," Margaret Mugglin told the Shopper. "How such an old biddy could manage that jump. Well ... I get sick just finking of it, I do. She could have broken somefing!"

To the terrified children, the woman appeared as an angel.

"She was all glowing like, and she had this, you know, aura. It was somefing it was! There was, like, this music. Efeareal music. And then she made a rope out of our sheets and we climbed down, like," said Billy Figgerton, 12.

She was helping the last child - Figgerton -- escape, when the ceiling collapsed. The last words he heard from the heroine were: "wa, wa?"

Emily Chutney Chesley, 93, of 42 Spidge Lane, was declared dead when nothing of her body could be found but ashes.

For a woman of such grand passions, it seemed fitting that she should meet her untimely end in a fire. There was no obituary for her and Chesley was unmourned by anyone except for Hildy Matheson, who collected a handful of ashes and placed them inside the famous cricket trophy on her next pilgrimage to Lords.

The End

--"Scholarship" by The Squire

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Notes:

(1) This reunion was never to be. Gandhi was assassinated in early 1948. [back]

(2) This topic is discussed in Dr. Maximillian Tundra's unfinished 1998 medico-literary tract: Ovary Ovation: Auto-Didactic Generation in Emily Chesley. [back]

(3) Later known as "The Invincibles" the Aussies won every match and broke a number of records, including being the side to score more than 400 to win a Test match. Whatever it means, it's a feat only matched once since then.[back]

(4) The first time the English lost to the Australians, a mock obituary ran in the Sporting Times: "in affectionate remembrance of English cricket. The body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia." The next English team to tour Australia was presented an urn containing the ashes of a bail.[back]