'I'm not very good, Beatrice.'
'Oh, we shan't mind that.
As long as you can play.
I've no patience with people who won't learn.
What on earth can one do with them between tea and dinner in the winter, and after dinner?
One can't just sit and talk.'
I wondered why.
However, it was simpler not to say anything.
'It's quite amusing now Roger is a reasonable age,' she went on, 'because he brings his friends to stay, and we have really good fun.
You ought to have been with us last Christmas.
We had charades.
My dear, it was the greatest fun.
Giles was in his element.
He adores dressing up, you know, and after a glass or two of champagne he's the funniest thing you've ever seen.
We often say he's missed his vocation and ought to have been on the stage.'
I thought of Giles, and his large moon face, his horn spectacles.
I felt the sight of him being funny after champagne would embarrass me.
'He and another man, a great friend of ours, Dickie Marsh, dressed up as women and sang a duet.
What exactly it had to do with the word in the charade nobody knew, but it did not matter.
We all roared.'
I smiled politely.
'Fancy, how funny,' I said.
I saw them all rocking from side to side in Beatrice's drawing-room.
All these friends who knew one another so well.
Roger would look like Giles.
Beatrice was laughing again at the memory.
'Poor Giles,' she said. 'I shall never forget his face when Dick squirted the soda syphon down his back. We were all in fits.'
I had an uneasy feeling we might be asked to spend the approaching Christmas with Beatrice.
Perhaps I could have influenza.
'Of course our acting was never very ambitious,' she said. 'It was just a lot of fun amongst ourselves.
At Manderley now, there is scope for a really fine show.
I remember a pageant they had there, some years ago.
People from London came down to do it.
Of course that type of thing needs terrific organisation.'
'Yes,' I said.
She was silent for a while, and drove without speaking.
'How is Maxim?' she said, after a moment.
'Very well, thanks,' I said.
'Quite cheerful and happy?'
'Oh, yes.
Yes, rather.'
A narrow village street engaged her attention.
I wondered whether I should tell her about Mrs Danvers.
About the man Favell.
I did not want her to make a blunder though, and perhaps tell Maxim.
'Beatrice,' I said, deciding upon it, 'have you ever heard of someone called Favell?
Jack Favell?'
'Jack Favell,' she repeated.
'Yes, I do know the name.
Wait a minute.