Godfrey in this pose.
Charmian’s impression of Godfrey’s brightness and health, when she saw him from her window, became more pronounced when he was shown into her room.
‘Cheerful place,’ he said, looking round.
‘Come and sit down, Godfrey. Guy Leet has just gone. I’m afraid I’m rather tired.’
‘Yes, I saw him leaving.’
‘Yes, poor soul. It was kind of him to visit me. He has such difficulty getting about.’
‘So different,’ said Godfrey, leaning back in his chair like a satisfied man, and stretching his legs apart, ‘from the way he got about in the summer of 1902 in the villa on Lake Geneva, up to 1907 at his flat in Hyde Park Gate, in Scotland and Biarritz and Torquay and then in the Dolomites when you were taken ill. Then nineteen years later when he was living in Ebury Street, up to the time of—’
‘I should like a cigarette,’ said Charmian.
‘What?’ said Godfrey.
‘Give me a cigarette, Godfrey, or I shall ring and ask the nurse to fetch one.’
‘Look here, Charmian, you’d better stay off cigarettes. I mean —’I would like to smoke a cigarette before I die. As to Guy Leet— you yourself, Godfrey, have hardly any room to talk. You yourself. Lisa Brooke. Wendy Loos. Eleanor —’The little rotter,’ said Godfrey. ‘Well, just look what he’s come to and only seventy-five. Bent double over two sticks.’
‘Jean Taylor must have talked,’ she said. She stretched out her hand and said, ‘A cigarette, Godfrey.’ He gave her one and lit it.
‘I’m getting rid of Mrs Pettigrew,’ he said. ‘A most domineering bitch. Always upsetting Mrs Anthony.’
Charmian inhaled her cigarette. ‘Any other news?’ she said.
‘Alec Warner,’ he said, ‘is losing control of his faculties. He came to see me this morning and wanted me to take my pulse and temperature. I ordered him out of the house.’
Charmian began to laugh, and could not stop, and eventually had to be put to bed, while Godfrey was taken away and given a soft-boiled egg with thin bread and butter, and sent off home.
At eight o’clock they had finished supper. Mrs Pettigrew said, ‘If he isn’t home by nine I’d better ring the police. He might have had an accident. That car, it isn’t safe. He’s a menace on the road.’
‘I shouldn’t worry,’ said Eric, reflecting that, after all, the new will was not signed.
‘Oh, I always worry about him,’ she said. ‘That’s what I mean when I say that I’m entitled to …’
Godfrey drove more carefully than usual. Having satisfied himself that Warner’s information was accurate he felt that life was worth taking care of. Not that one had doubted Warner’s information. Poor Charmian. At any rate, she had no call, now, to be uppish and righteous. Not that she really had been priggish; but she had always assumed that air of purity which made one feel such a swine. Poor Charmian; it was very catty of Taylor to gossip about her after all these years. Still, Taylor had done a good turn without knowing it …
Here he was at home. A long drive for an old man.
Godfrey came in with his glasses in his hand, rubbing his eyes.
‘Where on earth have you been?’ said Mrs Pettigrew. ‘Eric is here to see you.’
‘Oh, good evening, Eric,’ said Godfrey. ‘Have a drink.’
‘I’ve got one,’ said Eric.
‘I’m keeping quite well, thank you,’ said Godfrey, raising his voice.
‘Oh, really?’ said Eric.
‘Eric wishes to speak to you, Godfrey.’
‘Mrs Pettigrew and I are in this together, Father.’
‘In what?’
‘The question of the new will. And in the meantime, I expect to be remunerated according to the situation.’
‘You’re growing a paunch,’ said Godfrey. ‘I haven’t got a paunch.’
‘Otherwise we shall really have to present Mother with the facts.’
‘Be reasonable, Godfrey,’ said Mrs Pettigrew.
‘Get to hell out of my house, Eric,’ said Godfrey. ‘I give you ten minutes or I call the police.’
‘I think we’re a little tired,’ said Mrs Pettigrew, ‘aren’t we?’
‘And you leave tomorrow morning,’ he said to her.
The door bell rang.
‘Who can that be?’ said Mrs Pettigrew. ‘Did you forget to leave the car lights on, Godfrey?’
Godfrey ignored the bell. ‘You can’t tell Charmian anything,’ he said, ‘that she doesn’t know already.’
‘What did you say?’ said Mrs Pettigrew.
The door bell rang again.
Godfrey left them and went to open it. Two men stood on the doorstep.
