Chapter Seven
‘Mr Godfrey Brown’ meant nothing in his appointment book, and when he asked his secretary she said the man telephoning had insisted that he consult Mr Wilfred Angell. None of the other partners would do. The caller, she said, had not a well educated voice, but he had said it was a personal matter and would explain it to Mr Angell when they met. The appointment was for 3 p.m. on the next Tuesday, which would be five weeks to the day since their return from Paris. He made a note on his pad for Selbury, his clerk, to vet his visitor first. One got such cranks.
However, at 3.10, Selbury put his head round the door. ‘ Mr Angell, Mr Godfrey Brown says it’s a personal matter and he won’t talk to me. He’s – not much class, to say the least, but he seems quite normal. I’d say he was genuine.’
So Mr Godfrey Brown was shown in – a vital, sharp-eyed, handsome, small man in a sober blue suit and holding a peaked cap. Angell, with his memory for faces, recognized him immediately.
‘Aren’t you Lady Vosper’s chauffeur?’
‘Yes sir.’
‘Has Lady Vosper sent you? Did she—’
‘No, sir. She don’t know I’m here.’
‘Is she ill? Is she ill again?’
‘No. Well, she’s not what you’d call in the pink, but she’s not ill. She’s out for tea and bridge. I just took her to the Werners, see. I knew she was going, that’s why I rung up and came to see you.’
Angell pointed to the worn old black horse-hair reserved for clients. ‘ Well, sit down.’
The young man sat down. There was silence. Angell put on his library spectacles and picked up his pen. ‘ Your name is Godfrey Brown?’
‘Yes, sir. But you don’t want to put that down. I just came to see you about something worrying me, as you might say. Seeing as you’re Lady Vosper’s lawyer.’
Angell’s eyes strayed over the top of his spectacles. It was a sunny day. The sun showed up the dust on the piled law books. The moment passed.
‘It’s like this, Mr Angell, Lady Vosper, she got a daughter, see. D’you know her, eh?’
‘I have met her.’
‘Well, she comes in and out of the flat all the time, comes to see her mother, like—’
‘Wouldn’t it be as well to start at the beginning?’
‘That’s the beginning all right. You see—’
‘How long have you been with Lady Vosper, Mr Brown?’
‘Oh, near on a year. She’s been O.K. to me. She’ll be able to drive herself again next week but I don’t reckon she reckons to get rid of me … Mind if I have a fag?’
‘No …’ As Godfrey looked around, Angell pushed forward a box on the desk. Confronted with a man of Godfrey’s class he would not normally have been accommodating, but this man’s employer gave him some importance.
‘Don’t often smoke, you know. Not me to smoke. But now and then, just now and then.’ Godfrey blew twin streams down his nose like the exhausts of a sports car starting from cold.
‘You keep in training, I suppose.’
‘Yes. I keep in training. I’m a boxer. Didn’t know you’d know.’
‘Lady Vosper mentioned it.’ She had more than mentioned it, had bragged to him about her little tough fighter at the wedding party. Something at the time in her voice. One could never tell with middle-aged women where their fancy would stray. Or how far. With a sick woman one knew even less.
‘It’s Lady V’s – Lady Vosper’s daughter that’s the trouble. She’s in and out of the flat couple of times a week; and she comes down to Merrick House now and then. Her husband don’t often come – only seen him a few times – Lady Vosper and him don’t get on. But Mrs McNaughton comes a lot. And things are going …’
‘What d’you mean, going? What things?’
‘Things in the house. It’s like she’s nicking them. When she comes down to Merrick House, and once every couple of weeks or so at Wilton Crescent, something goes. Little things, not big. It gets on your wick. Before you know, Lady V’ll be thinking I’ve nicked ’em.’
Angell tapped his spectacles on the blotter. He eased off the top button of his trousers and swayed gently in his swivel chair. Underneath the young man’s deference he detected an arrogance. Yet it was an engaging arrogance. One wondered at the muscular little body hidden in the conventional blue suit. A boxer. The exchanging of harsh blows upon eyes and nose and flesh. For money. For sport. As a way of living. It was something from another planet. Angell would have found more in common with a Chinaman.
‘And Lady Vosper? Are you saying that she does not notice?’
‘Lady Vosper, she’s one on her own. She’s not the sort to count over what’s hers. But first time I did mention it, like, you know, just casual; I said, look, your daughter, etc. But she shuts me up like a match box. It’s a dicey point between us, her daughter, so I lay off. But couple of days later she says to me, Mrs McNaughton took the silver for cleaning. After that it will be put in the bank. Too valuable, she says, to leave around.’
‘Well, that’s very reasonable.’
‘And what about the other things? Pot figures off the mantelpiece, round little pictures in black frames off of the walls?’
‘Always small things?’
‘What’ll go in a shopping bag.’
Angell regarded the young man thoughtfully. ‘And why have you come to me, Brown?’
‘Well, it don’t seem right. I’ll get the stick. I know it’ll be that way.’
‘I think I have to ask you at this stage whether you are consulting me as a client or asking my advice as a friend of the family?’
Godfrey narrowed his long eyelashes to the smoke. ‘Well, I thought you being her lawyer …’
‘I’m not the family solicitor.’ He had to say it this time. ‘I have acted for Lady Vosper on occasion.’
‘Well … that’s it, then. So I came to ask you what to do.’
‘It seems to me it’s my advice as a friend of the family that there’s absolutely nothing to prevent a mother giving presents to her daughter.’
‘But half the things she don’t know, that’s for certain. One day I hear her asking this woman that does for her in the country, this Mrs Forms, she says where is this miniature and Mrs Forms don’t know because she hasn’t noticed that it’s gone, see. But before you know it she’ll get the fault, or Joe Forms. Or Mrs Hodder that comes in in London. Or me. Most likely me.’
‘Why?’
‘Why me? Because I came without a reference. The others, they been with her years and years. And that’d just suit Mir – Mrs McNaughton.’
‘Do they know you have come to see me?’
‘Who?’
‘The other servants.’
‘Nah. No. They’d never say nothing. It’s not their way.’
Angell made a note on his pad. Brown. What sort of a liar is he? The old trick: complain someone else is stealing things when you’re stealing them yourself?
‘And you think by coming to me that it is a safeguard in case you are accused?’
‘Yes, yes, that’s right.’
‘What gave you the idea of coming to me?’
‘Well, I think Mr Angell’s a lawyer, maybe he can speak to her, tell her it’s not fair. If she wants to give her daughter things, she should do it straight, not let her pinch off with them under her arm!’
Angell was examining the situation that was offered to him and wondering if he might turn it to advantage. He added another note. May be speaking the truth. When one considers all the circumstances, it’s quite possible that Mrs McNaughton might seek to secure … But still question his motives in coming to me.
‘How is Lady Vosper? Her health, I mean.’
‘Oh, so-so. Like I said.’
‘Has it deteriorated of recent months? I mean has it got worse?’
‘Pardon? Well, she never been right since her visit to that Clinic. It done her harm, that Clinic.’
‘In what way is she ill?’
‘Well, there’s
headaches. And she tries to fetch up and can’t. Like being sea-sick on an empty stomach, she says. Then she got no energy – just lying on this couch all day.’
‘You wait on her personally?’
‘Me? More than I look after her car. Like a bl – like a nursemaid.’
‘Is she always like this?’
‘Always?’ Godfrey screwed out his cigarette, looked at the box and then overcame the temptation. ‘Not always. Sometimes she’s O.K. I just said I just took her out to bridge.’
‘Does the doctor say what is wrong with her?’
‘Not to me he don’t. All she tells me is it’s her kidneys.’
They stared at each other through the smoke signal that Godfrey’s butt end was sending up. Angell picked up his pen, wrote: If he is telling the truth about daughter, it is clear that she has few doubts about her mother’s illness. But Brown … He drew a pin man on the pad with little round balloons for hands. He was not convinced about this visit. It smelt of some subterfuge, yet what subterfuge could there be?
‘If I speak to Lady Vosper about this, Brown, she will know you have been to see me, and it will make her angry. My advice to you is to go back and think no more of the matter. If at some future date there is trouble between yourself and Lady Vosper, you may mention this visit to her and I will confirm that you came. But I’m afraid it is no safeguard.’
‘Why not?’
‘You see I have only your word for what is happening and that would not stand up in a court of law.’
‘Well, it is happening I can tell you—’
‘No doubt, no doubt. I believe what you say. I was about to add that if it was of any encouragement to you, you could keep in touch with me on this matter.’
Godfrey stared and then blinked to hide the look in his eyes. ‘You mean – me come here again?’
‘Well, if you wish. It is entirely as you wish.’
‘You mean, tell you when it happens again?’
‘That or anything else that arises. Lady Vosper’s continuing health is of concern to all her friends, but she doesn’t welcome inquiries. I should be glad to know.’
‘Yes. Yes, sure. I’ll do that,’ Godfrey said.
Another silence fell. It was the third of the interview, and during it much was left unsaid. They were like two chess-players making moves which seemed to fit the pattern of the other’s play but which did not actually belong to the same board.
Angell at length spoke. ‘If you feel you want to see me, ring my secretary before you come. I am very busy and can seldom see people at short notice.’
‘You mean if—’
‘I mean if there were any sudden change in Lady Vosper’s condition or in the circumstances of her household.’
‘Sure. Yes, sure,’ Godfrey said for the second time and got up.
He looked as if he might offer his hand, but Angell nodded and pressed the bell. Miss Lock came to show Godfrey out.
Godfrey went, his mind active but puzzled. He had been prepared to call on Angell with a succession of excuses – or complaints – or at the worst even threats. Somehow, some way, he wanted to continue an association with him. He was prepared to ad-lib, to play it as the chips fell, but to press on somehow. But it seemed that the way forward – if only a little way – was open. He had been invited to call again.
That evening on arriving home Angell surprised his wife practising the clarinet. A month ago he had seen one advertised in an auction at Puttick’s in Blenheim Street, and had sent his clerk round to put in a bid. He had got it very inexpensively, and though it was not a good instrument it would do.
He shook his head as he listened. It would do more than handsomely for Pearl who so far was no player and he suspected never would be.
When he went in she was just putting the clarinet away, and she looked up in surprise, through the curtain of her hair. He got a twinge, which he supposed was because she instantly and poignantly reminded him of Anna. It was rare these days for the resemblance to strike him, because Pearl’s face had come to replace Anna’s, and usually he had to make an effort to recall his long-lost first love.
She had settled down quickly after one or two early mistakes, and he was glad to recognize and appreciate her sense of money. Morning and evening meals were always on time and the house was well kept. He dined out less than he used to and often came home to dinner before going back to his club to play bridge, thus saving some of the extra cost of her being here; though her meals did not always suit him. More than once there had been a lack of substance, a lack of good meat and too much emphasis on fruit and vegetables, but so far he had not criticized her openly. This could come when they were more at home with each other.
For they were not yet at ease in each other’s presence. She had irritating moods, and he wished he could understand them. She was always very straightforward while all the time his own mind sought forarrières pensées that did not in her case exist. Now and again he would decide that she was stupid, yet she was capable of coming to sharp decisions which showed that her mind could work as quickly as his. Many things, of course, would have to change before he was entirely satisfied with her. He had gone into the marriage with calculation and with pride. Already he found some of his calculations wrong and some of his pride recoiling on himself. For the first time in his life he was dealing with a young woman, and the act of marriage had put her on nearly equal terms.
He knew that by ordinary standards the marriage he had entered into was ludicrous. Most people, he considered, married solely to copulate, and they only discovered later whether any sort of civilized living together was feasible. He, with Pearl’s somewhat withdrawn co-operation, had reversed the order.
But he wished sometimes that she was not so physically decorative. Tonight was one of the bad nights. She was wearing a sleeveless frock, and the part of her inner arm from elbow to armpit constantly drew his glances. It was pure and soft and faintly shadowed and not quite so round as the rest of her arm. It fascinated him. He thought it would have some slightly odorous, scented, womanly smell. In the end she looked down and said: ‘Is there something wrong?’
‘No, no, not at all. But I think that is a nice frock,’
‘You’ve seen it before. I wore it to that first concert at the Wigmore Hall.’
‘Did you? I’d forgotten.’
‘Wilfred, I’ve been wondering …’
‘What is it?’
‘While I was dusting all the frames of the pictures today, I wondered if we could have a few less about the house. It’s not the dusting I mind, but they seem – on top of each other. You can’t see one for looking at the next one.’
Angell cut another slice off the breast of the chicken and put it on his plate.
‘The trained eye is not affected. They give me great pleasure to look at.’ He withdrew his glance from her inner arm. ‘ They should you.’
‘Oh, I like them – or most of them. But I should like them even better if they were hung up in turn, say. Perhaps half of them, for a month at a time.’
‘I already have plenty to make a succession. You’ve seen the boxroom.’
She sighed. ‘It’s difficult having so many. But couldn’t you – no, I suppose not.’
‘What were you going to say?’
‘I thought perhaps you might sell some. Wouldn’t it make you like the others better?’
‘Not at all,’ Angell said. ‘There’s the pride of personal possession. There’s the special pleasure of looking at them constantly and getting to know them detail by detail. In time you will come to understand this – this pride of possession.’ His voice was rather peculiar and he recognized it himself. He cleared his throat. ‘More chicken, my dear?’
Pearl glanced at him in slight surprise. Since her marriage, terms of even mild affection had been lacking. She had also come to expect that her husband was always too interested in food to realize what was on her plate.’
‘No, thanks. Have you finished? I’ll get the puddi
ng.’ Before she rose she put both hands up to fix her hair, and this lifted her breasts and exposed both under-arms to his gaze. When she had gone out into the kitchen he shifted in his chair and took a piece of bread to chew between courses. He realized that this faint sickness – a sickness of desire – had attacked him before. But each time it was slightly worse. He realized that it would pass by tomorrow and rationally there was no reason why it should ever return. But in some way his aesthetic sense was awakening a physical sense. And there was another impulse at work that worried him, though perhaps it went too deep for rational examination. He had used some phrase just now to her. ‘Personal possession’ – that was it. Personal possession had always been one of the dominating motives in his life. He went to art galleries and museums, but only – or almost only – to compare what was in them with what he owned or might come to own himself. A tiny Picasso scarcely bigger than a postcard gave him more pleasure because it was on his wall than did Les Demoiselles d’Avignon in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. A single William Kent chair, gilt on mahogany and decorated with dolphins, although in such frail condition that one could no longer sit on it, was more exciting in No. 26 Cadogan Mews than an entire Chippendale suite in Harewood House.
And now he possessed something new – something quite different from anything he had ever owned before. Was pride of possession beginning to work here too? And in so working, was it stimulating – or disguising itself as – the sexual impulse?
After dinner he would not so much as pick up the evening paper – whenever Pearl read a newspaper it was left as if she had been reading it on a windy promenade – so he sat for a while with a new book on French furniture, trying to concentrate. Pearl was busy in the kitchen and stupidly stayed there so long he felt affronted. But this was partly his own fault: he had never suggested they get any permanent maid – they had a woman six mornings a week – if he wanted more of her company in the evenings he supposed he would have to be prepared for it.
Angell, Pearl and Little God Page 13