‘Olive Mannering!’ Godfrey let out.
‘Oh, you know her?’
‘Granddaughter of my friend the poet,’ Godfrey said.
‘The lights, Godfrey,’ said Mrs Pettigrew in a tired tone.
He shot the car forward.
‘“Wealthy ex-stockbroker …”‘ Mrs Pettigrew read out. ‘She knows what she’s doing, all right. “Miss Mannering … film extra and B.B.C. actress … now given up her flat in Tite Street, Chelsea …”‘ The jig-saw began to piece itself together in Mrs Pettigrew’s mind.
As heart is said to speak unto heart, Mrs Pettigrew looked at Olive’s photograph and understood where Godfrey had been wont to go on those afternoons when he had parked his car outside the bombed building.
‘Of course, Godfrey, this will be a blow to you,’ she said.
He thought: God, she knows everything. He went up to his solicitor’s offices like a lamb, while Mrs Pettigrew waited in the car below. He did not even attempt to circumvent her wishes, as he had half-hoped to do when finally forced to the alteration of his will. He did not now even think of the idea he had previously dabbled with, of confiding the facts to his lawyer. Mabel Pettigrew knew everything. She could tell Charmian everything. He instructed a new will to be drawn up leaving the minimum required by law to his son, and the bulk to Mrs Pettigrew, and even most of Charmian’s share, should she outlive him, in trust for Mrs Pettigrew.
‘Now,’ said the solicitor. ‘This might take some time to prepare, of course.’
‘It must be done right away,’ said Godfrey.
‘Would you not like some time, Mr Colston, to think it over? Mrs Pettigrew is your housekeeper?’
‘It must be done right away,’ said Godfrey. ‘No delay, if you please.’
‘Disgusting,’ said Godfrey later that evening to Charmian. ‘A man going on eighty marrying a girl of twenty-four. Absolutely disgusting. And he’s deaf as a post.’
‘Godfrey,’ she said, ‘I am going to the nursing home on Sunday morning. I have made arrangements with the doctor and the bank. Universal Aunts are coming tomorrow to pack my things. Janet Sidebottome will accompany me. I do not wish to put you out, Godfrey. It might distress you to take me yourself. I am afraid I simply can’t stand these anonymous telephone calls any longer. They will bring me speedily to my grave. I must be protected from the sight of the telephone. I have spoken to Lettie, and she approves my decision. Mrs Pettigrew thinks, too, it will be the best course — don’t you, Mabel? Everyone is agreed. I must say, I feel most sad. However, it had to be eventually. You yourself have often said —’
‘But you don’t mind the telephone calls!’ he shouted. ‘You don’t care about them at all.’
‘Oh yes, I do, I do. I can’t put up with them any longer.’
‘She does mind them,’ said Mrs Pettigrew.
‘But you don’t need to answer the phone,’ he shouted.
‘Oh but every time the telephone rings I feel it must be
‘She feels so bad about the telephone,’ said Mrs Pettigrew.
He knew he could not refute their words.
THIRTEEN
‘What surprised me, I must confess,’ Alec Warner said to Miss Taylor, ‘was that, for a moment or two, I felt positively jealous. Olive, of course, was a friendly type of girl, and most conscientious in giving me all the information she could gather. I shall miss her. But the curious thing was this pang, this envy of Ronald, my first reaction to the news. Not that Olive, at any time, would have been my type.’
‘Did you make a note of your reaction?’
‘Oh, I made a note.’
‘I bet he did,’ thought Miss Taylor.
‘Oh, I made a note. I always record these surprise deviations from my High Churchmanship.’
His ‘High Churchmanship’ was a figure of speech he had adopted from Jean Taylor when, at some buoyant time past, she had applied it to him, merely on account of the two occasions when he had darkened the doors of a church, to observe, with awe and curiosity, a vicar of his acquaintance conducting the service of evensong all by himself in the empty building — Alec’s awe and curiosity being directed exclusively towards the human specimen with his prayer book and splendid persistence in vital habits.
‘Granny Green has gone,’ said Miss Taylor.
‘Ah yes, I noticed a stranger occupying her bed. Now what was Granny Green?’
‘Arterio-sclerosis. It affected her heart in the end.’
‘Yes, well, it is said we are all as old as our arteries. Did she make a good death?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You were asleep at the time,’ he said.
‘No, I was awake. There was a certain amount of fuss.’
‘She didn’t have a peaceful end?’
‘No, not peaceful for us.’
‘I always like to know,’ he said, ‘whether a death is a good one or bad one. Do keep a look-out.’
