Читать книгу A Fortnight by the Sea - Emma Page - Страница 8

CHAPTER 3

Miss Tillard had raised herself against the pillows when Theresa ushered Godfrey into the bedroom. ‘I feel a little better already,’ Elinor said with an air of thankfulness. ‘I don’t know if it’s just the effect of Dr Nightingale’s manner.’ She smiled faintly. ‘He’s rather bracing.’

Theresa went along to the kitchen to make the coffee. ‘I’m worried about her,’ Miss Tillard said with an anxious look.

‘I’m sure you’ve no need to be.’ Godfrey patted her hand. ‘She always appears very content.’

Miss Tillard put up a thin hand and touched her hair, once so long, so thick and dark, now sparse, almost totally white. She sighed and shook her head. ‘It isn’t the present I’m thinking about, it’s the future. Theresa’s future.’ She shot a direct look at Godfrey. ‘My own future may not extend all that far.’

‘You mustn’t talk like that. You’ll be up and about in no time at all.’

‘I haven’t been fair to Theresa,’ Miss Tillard said as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘I’ve been a very selfish woman. Whether I die this year or in ten years’ time, what is to become of her when I’m gone?’

Godfrey frowned. ‘Surely I understood from you that you’ve made provision for Theresa?’

Elinor made an impatient movement of her head. ‘I added a codicil to my will ten or twelve years ago,’ she said with contempt. ‘I’ve left her some money.’

Godfrey had never actually seen a copy of the will but he believed that he had a pretty good idea of its contents. Miss Tillard was fond of asking his advice, there were a number of matters in which she allowed him to handle affairs directly but certain nooks and crannies of her financial concerns she kept to herself.

‘A thousand pounds,’ Elinor said now, mentioning the figure to him for the first time, uttering the words with scorn. ‘It seemed a substantial sum at the time. It isn’t worth much today.’

‘It strikes me as very fair,’ Godfrey said mildly. It occurred to him with bitter amusement that in a month or two a thousand pounds might strike him as a princely sum. For a moment he entertained a wild notion of opening his mouth and saying, ‘I am very probably on the verge of bankruptcy,’ and allowing events to move on from there. But he merely passed a hand across his mouth as if obliterating all traces of the unspoken words. ‘I’m sure Theresa wouldn’t expect more,’ he added.

‘She has no friends in England,’ Elinor said fiercely.

‘Oh, come now!’ Godfrey’s tone held reproof. There’s myself, Pauline—’

‘And none in Africa.’ Elinor’s expressive look appeared to attach little importance to the warmth of the Barratt family’s feeling for Theresa. ‘Where would she go? What would she do?’

‘I really think we can forget the question of Theresa’s future for the present,’ Godfrey said soothingly. ‘We’ll discuss it thoroughly when you’re quite better.’ He put a hand into his breast pocket and drew out some papers. ‘By the way, I need your signature—’ Elinor listened with an abstracted air as he explained, she gave a brusque nod when he had finished.

‘I could simply increase the legacy.’ She frowned down at the bedspread. Godfrey picked up a magazine from the top of a rosewood chest and laid it in front of Miss Tillard. ‘Or I could cancel the legacy,’ she added. ‘Leave her the bungalow and a small income for life.’ She took the pen Godfrey held out, glanced at the papers he placed on the firm surface of the magazine. ‘Or I could make it a decent income and cut down on the bequests to the girls.’ She wrote her signature to each paper in turn in the place where Godfrey’s finger indicated. ‘Both the girls are well enough provided for,’ she said in a musing tone as if she were simply speaking her thoughts aloud and had forgotten that there was anyone else in the room.

Godfrey gathered up the papers and returned them to his pocket. There was a faint rattle of a tray outside the door, a light knock and Theresa came in with the coffee.

‘If I might ask you something,’ she said quietly to Godfrey a few minutes later. ‘You mentioned over the phone that Mrs Barratt might be calling in later on. I wonder – if she thought of coming this afternoon – if she would mind if I went off to Chilford while she was here to sit with Miss Tillard. I’d like to go in on the bus to have the doctor’s prescription made up. I wouldn’t really care to leave Miss Tillard on her own just yet.’

‘Nonsense!’ Elinor said loudly. ‘I’ll be perfectly all right on my own. Pauline wouldn’t find it in the least convenient to come over on a Saturday afternoon at this time of the year.’

‘Of course she’ll come over,’ Godfrey said. ‘She would have come with me this morning except that Theresa felt that two visitors at once might be too tiring for you.’

‘I won’t hear of her coming,’ Elinor said resolutely. ‘I don’t in the least mind being left by myself.’

‘I shall settle the matter,’ Godfrey said, ‘by going into Chilford myself and getting the prescription made up. It won’t take me any time at all in the car.’

‘That’s a much better idea,’ Elinor said. ‘And then Pauline can come to see me just when it suits her.’

Godfrey held out his hand. ‘I’ll take the prescription now. Before I forget it.’

Elinor looked on as the paper was handed over. A trace of reluctance surely in Theresa’s movements. Elinor felt a pang of remorse. Theresa had in all probability been looking forward to the little outing to Chilford, a brief escape from the tedium of her duties. She must be given a whole day off the very moment Elinor was recovered.

Anxiety about Theresa’s future began to thrust at her again. I can’t let it slide, she thought, it must be settled.

‘The boys will be home from school on Tuesday.’ Godfrey had not yet finished his coffee. ‘If you’re feeling strong enough by then they’ll come over to see you.’

‘I shall look forward to that,’ Elinor murmured. She continued to nod and smile as Godfrey talked about the boys and their summer camp. It isn’t really right and proper to discuss the question of Theresa’s legacy with Godfrey, she thought suddenly. He is almost an interested party, in fact he definitely is an interested party – married to Pauline, father of the two boys, all beneficiaries under the present arrangement. It was putting him in an impossible position to ask for his advice. Even supposing he was willing to discuss it again at present.

No, the thing was – she saw it quite clearly now – to say nothing more about it to Godfrey but to talk it over with Henry Whittall; Henry would give her impersonal professional advice.

‘You might give Henry a ring,’ she said with a casual air as Godfrey set down his cup and stood up to go. ‘Ask him to call in and have a word with me. It’s all right,’ she added reassuringly, seeing the look on Godfrey’s face, ‘I’m not going to wear myself out talking to him for hours about my affairs, or anything foolish like that. But there are one or two little things – if he would just look in for a moment some time during the next few days, no desperate hurry, then we could fix a time for later on, when I’m well again, to go into things properly. In the meantime, he could be looking up one or two details for me.’

‘Very well then,’ Godfrey said without enthusiasm. ‘I’ll phone him.’ Henry Whittall was a clerk in the firm of Chilford solicitors who handled Miss Tillard’s affairs. He was a local man, a bachelor, a couple of years younger than Godfrey; he had known the Tillard girls since they were all youngsters growing up in Chilford; he lived now on his own in a cottage a mile or so from Oakfield. His firm also counted the Barratt family among its clients, so Godfrey had known Whittall for a number of years on a business level; in his more privileged boyhood his path had crossed Henry’s only on those occasions when young Whittall had been sent up to Oakfield with a legal paper to be signed by Godfrey’s father.

Godfrey stooped now and kissed Elinor lightly on the cheek. ‘Look after yourself,’ he said. ‘I’ll call in about four o’clock with the medicine.’

He was halfway down the slope leading from the bungalow when he glanced over to his left, at the road coming from the village and saw, a couple of hundred yards away, a toiling figure weighed down on each side by a shopping bag. Henry Whittall, he recognized the figure at once; no other adult male in this region plodded along on Saturday mornings with his week’s fodder slung about him. I’ll catch him at the crossroads, Godfrey thought, save me a phone call. The sight of Henry aroused in him no emotion of any kind. Either you wanted to speak to Whittall on business or you did not want to speak to Whittall on business and apart from those two concepts Henry really had no existence in Godfrey’s mind, or for that matter, in the minds of very many other people.

Godfrey reached the intersection and stood waiting by the grassy bank. When Henry was within earshot he called out pleasantly, ‘Good morning, Whittall, I’d like a word with you.’ Henry gave a single nod in reply. ‘I’ve just been to see Miss Tillard,’ Godfrey said when Henry had reached him and set his burdens down.

I wouldn’t mind in the least if Barratt called me Whittall in the friendly way that men do when they’re on an equal footing, Henry thought with suppressed anger, but he always speaks to me as if I were a servant. He listened with an air of scholarly concentration to Godfrey’s account of Miss Tillard’s latest illness, her wish to see him. He didn’t look Godfrey in the eye but kept his head inclined at a polite, impersonal angle, his gaze fixed on the creamy florets of a luxuriant weed in the hedgerow. A very tidy sum to leave, Miss Tillard.

‘Certainly I’ll call at the bungalow,’ he said as soon as Godfrey had finished. ‘I can look in during the next day or two.’

‘That should suit very well.’

‘I trust Mrs Barratt is in good health? And the boys?’ Henry said as Godfrey showed signs of setting off again for Oakfield. He made up his mind sometimes to refer to Godfrey’s wife by her Christian name when he was talking to her husband. He had after all called her Pauline when they knew each other as children. But when it came to the point his nerve always failed. In conversation with the lady herself he had since her marriage grown quite skilful in avoiding calling her anything at all.

‘Very well, thank you.’ Godfrey added a few remarks about the busy season and end of term and then suddenly said, ‘Oh yes, you knew the Lockwoods, didn’t you? My wife’s arranging with them to come and stay with us very soon. I dare say you’ll see them about the village.’ It would never cross his mind, Henry thought with savagery, to ask me up to Oakfield for a meal while they’re here.

He stopped and grasped the handles of his shopping bags, he spoke in an expressionless voice. ‘I was at school with Stephen Lockwood.’ A fact he was likely to remember when most of the other facts of his existence had dwindled into hazy recollection. He found it difficult to realize that he would shortly see Marion again. It was some years since he had caught a glimpse of her going by in a car on one of her brief visits to the area. It was more than sixteen years since he had spoken to her. He wouldn’t mention her name now, wouldn’t by any word of his own evoke her image to hover like an airy ghost in the brilliant sunlight, he hugged the memory of her to him, away from casual tongues.

‘By the way.’ Godfrey held up a warning finger. ‘Don’t say anything to Miss Tillard about the Lockwoods, not about their visit, that is. It isn’t definitely settled, in fact my wife is ringing them up about it this evening. I wouldn’t like Miss Tillard to be disappointed in case they can’t come. Or if they don’t come for some time.’

‘No, I won’t mention it.’

‘I’m pretty certain they will come, though,’ Godfrey said in a flat tone. The last thing he wanted just now was for Stephen Lockwood – reasonably successful, securely placed – to go poking and prying into his business, asking shrewd questions about the future of the firm; he would probably want to go into Chilford with him and prowl round the workshop. Oh – that’ll be all right, he remembered suddenly, the men will be on holiday from the end of next week. He closed his eyes briefly against the notion that as far as Barratt’s was concerned the holiday might be a permanent one. ‘July the twenty-fourth,’ he said aloud, forgetting for a moment that he was standing a yard or two away from Whittall. ‘I was just thinking,’ he added, recollecting himself, ‘that Barratt’s will be closed for three weeks from the twenty-fourth. It would be pleasant if my wife could arrange for the Lockwoods to come at that time.’

The twenty-fourth, Henry repeated in his mind a few minutes later as he trudged round yet another curve in the road. He had three weeks’ holiday still owing. Might take a week or two soon, he pondered; things were fairly slack at the office. By the time he set the shopping bags down on his doorstep he had reached a decision.