Angell, Pearl and Little God

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  Contents

  Winston Graham

  Dedication

  BOOK ONE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  BOOK TWO

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Winston Graham

  Angell, Pearl and Little God

  Winston Mawdsley Graham OBE was an English novelist, best known for the series of historical novels about the Poldarks. Graham was born in Manchester in 1908, but moved to Perranporth, Cornwall when he was seventeen. His first novel, The House with the Stained Glass Windows was published in 1933. His first ‘Poldark’ novel, Ross Poldark, was published in 1945, and was followed by eleven further titles, the last of which, Bella Poldark, came out in 2002. The novels were set in Cornwall, especially in and around Perranporth, where Graham spent much of his life, and were made into a BBC television series in the 1970s. It was so successful that vicars moved or cancelled church services rather than try to hold them when Poldark was showing.

  Aside from the Poldark series, Graham’s most successful work was Marnie, a thriller which was filmed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1964. Hitchcock had originally hoped that Grace Kelly would return to films to play the lead and she had agreed in principle, but the plan failed when the principality of Monaco realised that the heroine was a thief and sexually repressed. The leads were eventually taken by Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery. Five of Graham’s other books were filmed, including The Walking Stick, Night Without Stars and Take My Life. Graham wrote a history of the Spanish Armadas and an historical novel, The Grove of Eagles, based in that period. He was also an accomplished writer of suspense novels. His autobiography, Memoirs of a Private Man, was published by Macmillan in 2003. He had completed work on it just weeks before he died. Graham was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and in 1983 was honoured with the OBE.

  Dedication

  For Mike

  BOOK ONE

  Chapter One

  ‘All right, you can get dressed now,’ Matthewson said.

  Angell put on his vest and pants, noticing almost without seeing a flaw in the silk of the pants as he flipped the elastic round his waist, leaned against the head of the couch to step into his trousers. A man is always at a disadvantage in such circumstances, feels himself ridiculous. One is always tensed up and at the same time on one’s dignity, as it were – fearing the terrible words, the sentence that will cut away the future from under one’s feet, and yet resenting being so much at someone’s mercy.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with you, Wilfred,’ Matthewson said abruptly. ‘Really nothing at all. I told you last year and there’s no change. For a man of your age you’re really in very good shape.’

  ‘These pains at my heart?’

  ‘Purely functional. Everyone gets pains somewhere, sometime. And if you’re worrying about what I told you last time, forget it.’

  ‘A murmur.’

  ‘A systolic murmur. So slight as to be barely detectable. Of absolutely no significance. Sorry I ever told you.’

  Angell put on his French silk shirt, buttoned it up the front, tucked it in. A slightly reluctant relief was seeping in – the reluctance of a fear to believe the best, an incredulity still in some part of his mind, the part that always refuses light. He stared down at Matthewson: a quiet-spoken sallow man, dried up, apparently tireless; great reputation as a diagnostician; did very well for himself with these handsome consulting rooms in Queen Anne Street, two hospital appointments, and a small discreet lucrative private practice among the great. A house overlooking the river near Cheyne Walk, a titled wife, two sons at Cambridge.

  ‘Of course, there’s the same old trouble, Wilfred: you’re far overweight. But I don’t suppose it’s any use my talking.’

  ‘I certainly don’t consider myself fat,’ Angell said. ‘With my height. And it’s healthy firm flesh, not flabby. Your diagnosis confirms it.’

  ‘Stand on those scales a minute.’

  ‘Nonsense.’ He was fastening his blue knitted tie. Merely being dressed again made one feel more in command of the situation. ‘My weight’s beside the point.’

  ‘Well, seventeen stone, I’ll be bound. If you’re worried about your heart give it less to do. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it but it’s no better for being over-loaded. Nor is any part of your system.’

  This was the old sore spot, but it was not the object of the consultation. The point was that Matthewson said there was absolutely nothing wrong. (Anyway he had found nothing wrong, muttered the Disturber, still not quite appeased.) Angell took a deep breath, and it was clear and unimpeded. He grew in stature as he did so. Somewhere, somewhere along the road now, and not so very far distant, the final anxiety was going to give way. Normality and peace of mind lurked, as yet just out of his reason’s grasp. He knew from past experience, for this was not a unique occurrence in his life, that in a few minutes it would all be different. The minutes of living would become important again. Take away the menace, and the sun and the stars become visible.

  ‘By the way, how’s Lady Vosper?’ he asked, chiefly to divert Matthewson, who he could see was about to return to the attack on his weight, with absurd suggestions of exercise and diet charts.

  ‘Who? Lady Vosper?’ Matthewson had peculiar eyes: they were of slightly different colour and never seemed quite to focus together. Sometimes one was reminded of putting sixpences in a fruit machine, when a lemon and an orange turn up.

  ‘You still attend her, don’t you? I haven’t seen her since January and I heard she was unwell.’

  ‘Yes – yes, that’s so.’

  Trained mind, surfacing from the weed-grown depths of the last few days, was alert enough to detect some nuance in the physician’s voice. The casual question producing the casual – unexpected – answer. But it could be important – important in that life that he was now preparing to resume.

  ‘D’you mean she’s seriously ill?’

  Question not liked. ‘Well, yes. She’s not well.’

  ‘How seriously?’

  ‘She’s not well.’

  ‘Dear me. I’m sorry.’

  He buttoned his check waistcoat. Then he bent to tie his shoes. This he would have been glad if Matthewson had not been watching; it was the only activity where his weight did cause an appearance of strain. The consulting room was over-warm, conditioned for human beings in undress, with their defences awry.

  He said carefully: ‘You know of course that we
are professionally concerned in Flora Vosper’s affairs – chiefly through Mumford, my partner.’

  ‘Oh. No, I didn’t.’

  ‘And, of course, as you know I am her friend too. It’s a matter of both professional and social concern to me if she is – if she is ill.’

  Angell waited, but Matthewson did not speak. Instead he went to his desk, picked up his pen and began to write.

  ‘She’s quite young.’ Angell straightened up, puffing out his lips. ‘Much younger than her stepson, the present viscount. The old man was a great marrier.’

  ‘I never knew him.’ Matthewson pulled across a new sheet. My records no doubt, Angell thought. Over fifteen years. Not much to complain of there. Three or four false alarms of which, thank God, this was the latest. Little in doctor’s bills. All told they’d broken about even so far. He’d done two wills for Matthewson, conveyed a house, made covenants for his two sons. It had cost Matthewson more.

  ‘Talking of marrying,’ the doctor said. ‘You never thought of getting married yourself, I suppose?’

  ‘Not for twenty-five years. Why should I? Women only complicate one’s life.’

  ‘They add something too.’

  One thought of the Hon. Belinda Matthewson, thin-nosed and greying, and wondered what she added. And a poor bridge player, too.

  ‘I’m not the marrying type, John.

  ‘Never met the right girl, I suppose. Sometimes one doesn’t. Who are you going to leave all your money to?’

  ‘No one, I trust for a long time, if you know your business! Anyway, I’m not a rich man.’

  Matthewson smiled and put down his pen. ‘Go on. Tell that to your more gullible friends.’

  ‘I spend all I have in the sale rooms!’

  ‘Well, possessions, then. I suppose you’ve got a nephew.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘To leave your possessions to when the time comes. Still, it’s not quite the same as a wife or son.’

  Eric. A weak-kneed young man who’d been to Lancing and some red-brick university and was now struggling to make a living in electronics. Sooner a cat’s home. The whole subject brought up again the disagreeable landscape of thoughts and emotions which he had just been preparing to ignore and forget. He said, turning away from that scene, pursuing the other, the more impersonal topic: ‘Old Viscount Vosper had too many wives. It’s already made enough trouble for his estate, and the present Lord Vosper is sitting in Geneva on what he can salvage. If anything should happen to Flora Vosper …’

  Matthewson swivelled in his chair, fingertips together. ‘Oh, you can have too much of a good thing. I agree. Marriage is habit-forming. But d’you remember old Leo Marzel at the Club, the ex-Indian judge. He’d been a great womanizer in his time, but he used to say to me: ‘D’you know, John, I’ve enjoyed women. The one mistake I made was never to marry one. I realize it now, when it’s too late.’

  ‘Are you suggesting it will soon be too late for me?’

  ‘Not at all. But you’re forty-seven and—’

  ‘Forty-six.’

  ‘Well, whichever it is. My records say –’

  ‘Your records are wrong. I was born—’

  ‘Well, whichever it is, it was only an observation on my part that married life has its compensations. You’re your own master, Wilfred, and must live your life as you think best. D’you want a diet chart?’

  ‘Of course not. How much do I owe you? Five guineas, is it?’

  ‘Six.’

  ‘Even for cash?’

  ‘You know that’s less than my normal fee.’ The physician smiled up at Angell, eyes never quite hitting the jackpot. ‘ You are an old rascal, Wilfred. Who are your friends, apart from me? I’ve known you all these years, and yet …’

  ‘I’ve friends. Enough. I’m self-contained. No use for endless prattle. That’s why women don’t attract me.’

  ‘Don’t they at all? I mean, at all?’

  There was an inquisitive look on the doctor’s face, slightly embarrassed, Angell thought, as if he knew he shouldn’t have put the question. In fact perhaps he was the only man with a right to put it, but one resented it all the same – and also took interested note of the embarrassment. How did a man practise quite brilliantly for twenty-five years and yet still retain a sort of pudeur?

  Angell said: ‘I fell in love when I was twenty-odd. It was a ridiculous piece of nonsense, and of course it didn’t work out. Since then with every year I become less and less interested. It astonishes me perpetually, the amount of time and energy and money and thought and sheer preoccupation that many men lavish on their love affairs. It’s such a waste, such a pouring away of vital humours on something that must be futile in the end.’

  ‘What isn’t?’ Matthewson said, turning the cap of his pen round and round.

  ‘Well, indeed. But even in the short term. My furniture and paintings …’

  ‘Last longer than love? But what sort of companionship do they provide in later life? … However, perhaps you’re lucky to be able to choose. Sex is such an integral part of the human soma – to say nothing of the psyche – that few are able to escape its claims entirely. Thanks.’ The six shillings had been paid in shillings and sixpences and Matthewson carefully counted them. As a deliberate affront, Angell thought.

  He said: ‘Well, I have. But don’t let it worry you, John. I lead a very full life, as you know. I have one of the most thriving practices in London. I live well, eat well, sleep well. I am universally respected – and in some quarters admired. My opinion is sought not only on legal matters but on questions of art. I am on the governing board of three large charitable organizations. I am always starting something new, going into some new line. I am just as much abreast of modern life as you are. If—’

  ‘Oh, I know, I know. Peace be on you. But d’you know, you came to me for a consultation, so anything relevant to your general life is relevant to your general health … You come to me with pains at your heart which I find have no organic cause. Now broadly speaking – well, how can I put this? – broadly speaking an “ outward-caring” man is less likely to suffer from functional pain than an “ inward-caring” one. An unmarried man with no family ties of any sort is probably more likely to be more concerned – to have more time and attention to be concerned – with his own symptoms than a man with a wife and family to look after.’

  ‘So you pretend to think—’

  ‘It’s a very complex subject, Wilfred. Not one I can pontificate on, I assure you. But it seems that the human creature – at least the human creature of today – needs a certain degree of worry to keep itself balanced and healthy. There are states caused by over-anxiety and states caused by under-anxiety. Between lies a large, variable norm.’

  Angell smoothed his hair in the mirror. It was still plentiful, grew strongly, almost luxuriantly, with only a little greying at the sides. It was a strong face, he felt, the nose straight and aristocratic, the chin slightly cleft: altogether a distinguished reflection. Although one was not conceited, there was no point in denying the plain facts.

  ‘In somewhat cruder terms,’ Matthewson said, ‘ I’m really telling you to think less about yourself. Whether you take my advice – and how you take it – is entirely for you to choose.’

  Angell wasn’t quite ready to leave yet. Through the mirror he could see the other putting away the pound notes he had received. They wouldn’t go on his income tax, he suspected.

  ‘How is your wife?’

  ‘Belinda? Pretty well. You must come in sometime. I’ll arrange an evening of bridge.’

  ‘Thank you. That’s a pleasant little John Piper collage you have there.’

  ‘Oh? Yes. Belinda gave it me for Christmas.’

  ‘Where did she get it – at a gallery? There was an exhibition, I remember.’

  ‘D’you know, I never asked. Being a present …’

  ‘You haven’t the right approach to collecting, John. But this you never did have. I suppose for me collecting is lik
e a second profession.’

  ‘Or even an alternative religion?’

  Angell smiled. ‘Quite so.’ He continued to stare at the picture, his mind not on the picture. ‘What is the matter with Lady Vosper? Is it the dread complaint?’

  ‘No …’

  ‘If it’s serious my partner, Mumford, will have to know.’

  Matthewson got up. ‘She’s been in the Clinic for a couple of weeks. It’s a nephritic condition. Normally one can do a lot nowadays for that sort of thing …’

  ‘But in her case?’

  ‘No, not in the circumstances of her general health. A transplant is simply not on.’

  ‘D’you mean she’s not likely to live long?’

  Matthewson stared at Angell broodingly. ‘ I tell you this in confidence, of course … Naturally she doesn’t know. Her daughter has been told.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m very sorry. A great character, Flora Vosper.’ With new calculations at work, Angell stood a little apart from himself, contemplating the sympathy that he could give to one less happily circumstanced. He could observe but he did not wish to alter the dichotomy in his own nature, the shrinking away from sickness even in another, and the well-balanced calculations as to what that sickness could mean.

  ‘Do you put a term on it?’

  ‘On her life? Why should one attempt to? Six to twelve months perhaps. It depends less on what we can do than on how quickly her system succumbs. She’s an unpredictable creature, but of course her way of life does not help.’

  There was a taxi passing as he came out but Angell did not raise his hand. Feeling so much better already; pains at the heart gone as if touched by a miracle healer; energy returning. The final traces of anxiety, of disbelief, were only dregs in the mind, washing away. New interests and old caught at his arm, moving him away from the old dreads.

  He caught a 59 bus down Wigmore Street to Piccadilly, and then a 19 up Shaftesbury Avenue. A roundabout route, but it cost no more than a taxi-driver would have expected as a tip and barely a thank-you for it. Besides it gave him time to think.