The Complete Short Stories of Evelyn Waugh - Evelyn Waugh [118]
That was how he left me, but it was not the last of him. That evening I was called to the telephone to speak to a Mr. Long. Familiar tones, jaunty once more, greeted me. “That you, Plant? Atwater here. Excuse the alias, won’t you. I say, I hope you didn’t take offence at the way I went off today. I’ve been thinking, and I see you were perfectly right. May I come round for another yarn?”
“No.”
“Tomorrow, then?”
“No.”
“Well, when shall I come?”
“I’m afraid I can’t see you.”
“No, I quite understand, old man. I’d feel the same myself. It’s only this. In the circumstances I’d like to accept your very sporting offer to pay for those flowers. I’ll call round for the money if you like or will you send it?”
“I’ll send it.”
“Care of the Holborn Post Office finds me. Fifteen bob, they cost.”
“You said ten this afternoon.”
“Did I? I meant fifteen.”
“I will send you ten shillings. Good-bye.”
“Good scout,” said Atwater.
So I put a note in an envelope and sent it to the man who killed my father.
VI
Time dragged; April, May, the beginning of June. I left my club and visited my Uncle Andrew for an uneasy week; then back to the club. I took the manuscript of Murder at Mountrichard Castle to the seaside, to an hotel where I once spent three months in great contentment writing The Frightened Footman: they gave me the best suite, at this time of year, for five guineas a week. The forlorn, out-of-season atmosphere was just as I knew it—the shuttered ballroom, the gusts of rain on the roof of the “sun lounge,” the black esplanade, the crocodiles of private-school boys on their way to football, the fanatical bathers hissing like ostlers as they limped over the shingle into the breakers; the visitors’ high church, the visitors’ low church, and the church of the residents—all empty. Everything was as it had been three years before, but in a week I was back in London with nothing written. It was no good until I got things settled, I told myself; but “getting things settled” merely meant waiting until the house was sold and the lawyers had finished with the will. I took furnished rooms in Ebury Street and waited there, my thoughts more and more turning towards the country and the need of a house there, a permanent home of my own possession. I began to study the house-agents’ advertisements on the back page of The Times. Finally I notified two or three firms of my needs, and was soon amply supplied with specifications and orders-to-view.
During this time I received a call from young Mr. Godley of Goodchild and Godley. There was nothing at all artistic about young Mr. Godley. He looked and spoke like a motor salesman; his galleries were his “shop” and their contents “stuff” and “things.” He would have seemed at ease, if we had met casually, but the long preamble of small talk—references to mutual acquaintances, holiday resorts abroad, sport, politics, a “first-class man for job lots of wine”—suggested uncertainty; he was trying to decide how to take me. Finally he came to the point.
“Your father used to do a certain amount of work for us, you know.”
“I know.”
“Restorations mostly. Occasionally he used to make a facsimile for a client who was selling a picture to America and wanted one to take its place. That kind of work.”
“Often they were his own compositions.”
“Well, yes, I believe a few of them were. What we call in the trade ‘pastiche,’ you know.”
“I saw some of them,” I said.
“He was wonderfully gifted.”
“Wonderfully.”
A pause. Mr. Godley twiddled his Old Harrovian tie. “His work with us was highly confidential.”
“Of course.”
“I was wondering—our firm was, whether you had been through his papers yet. I mean, did he keep any records of his work or anything of the kind?”
“I’m afraid I haven’t been through his things yet. I should think it quite likely.