Dear Trustee (5 page)

It took a little longer to walk to her mother’s place than she had expected, and when she arrived in the street, she discovered, to her annoyance, that all the houses looked very much alike, and that she had not made a note of the number.

Most of the houses had several doorbells, with the names of the flat occupants printed or written above them. So Cecile was obliged to go into each doorway and study these in turn. By the sixth attempt she was becoming hot and anxious, but she picked out her mother’s name at last and was so much relieved that she did not even notice that a car had drawn up at the curb immediately outside the door.

She had actually stretched out her finger to press the bell, when someone said coldly and drily behind her, “Good morning, Cecile. What are you doing here?”

And, with the sensation of being caught in the very act of lifting down the forbidden jam-pot, she turned to face Gregory Picton. “Why—why, what are
you
doing here?” she stammered.

“I asked that question of you first,” he reminded her relentlessly.

“Very well then—” she tilted up her chin—“I have come to see my mother, as no doubt you guessed for yourself.”

“I particularly asked you not to do that, Cecile, until I had had a chance to talk to you.”

“Oh the contrary,” she retorted, with some return of her usual spirit, “you merely stated it as your lordly wish that I should keep away until you decreed the proper time. You made no attempt to find out
my
wishes, although it was
my
mother who was concerned. I saw no special reason, therefore, why my inclination should be set aside for yours.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, though without visible signs of regret, “if I put it tactlessly. But I spoke with good reason. Will you please, Cecile, wait until after our talk this evening before deciding to see your mother?”

“No,” replied Cecile flatly. “And, anyway, I
have
seen her already. I saw her at the theatre yesterday afternoon, and I went home with her afterwards.”

For a moment she was frightened by the quick anger which flashed into his face and almost as much so by the chilly self-control which immediately subdued it.

“Then there is no point in arguing further,” he said coldly. “We will leave any further discussion to this evening.”

And, turning away, he went back to his car, and drove off without so much as a backward glance.

Still trembling from the encounter, and still quite unable to imagine why he had materialized on her mother’s doorstep at precisely the wrong moment, Cecile pressed the bell and, after a few moments, the door clicked open, evidently operated by some mechanism overhead.

As she ran up the stairs, she told herself she felt triumphant and elated. But she could not quite suppress the reflection that if she had waited just thirty-six hours longer perhaps both loyalty
and
good sense might have been satisfied.

A delicious scent of coffee met her as she entered
the flat, and her mother called out from the kitchen, “Is that you, Cecile? I thought you would be here sooner.”

“I forgot the number and took longer than I expected to find the place.” Cecile came to the kitchen door, to smile at her mother, who was standing by the stove, looking very young and attractive in a blue flowered house-dress. “Does it matter much?”

“Not really. Except that I’m expecting another visitor, and I wanted you to be the first.”

“Well, I am the first.” Cecile took the tray and carried it into the other room. “Who else is coming?”

“Gregory Picton,” said her mother, a trifle too carelessly.

“
O
-oh? So that was why I met him on the doorstep. I’m afraid he went away again, Laurie.”

“He did?” Her mother frowned. “How vexing! He telephoned to ask if he could come and see me this morning. That’s really why I rang you. I wanted you to hear whatever he had to say to me—and for him to see that you don’t want to brush me off, as everyone else had done for years.”

“He knows that already,” Cecile said quietly, which in some odd way seemed to reassure her mother. “But I wonder why he wanted to come and see you?” she added, after a moment.

“In order to tell me to keep away from you, I suppose.”

“Oh, no! He couldn’t be so absurd and officious!”

“Why not?”

“Weil, it seems so—so—excessive.”

Her mother laughed, but without amusement.

“Gregory Picton doesn’t like me,” she said flatly. “He’ll do everything he can to set you against me. And I expect he’ll succeed in the end.”

She flung herself down in a chair and stared out of the window, looking, to Cecile’s distress, indescribably tired and defeated.

“He won’t do anything of the sort!” Cecile came and knelt by her mother’s chair and put an arm round her. “Don’t look like that, darling. Neither Gregory Picton nor anyone else is going to separate us. I promise you.”

“Oh, Cecile—you don’t
know
.”
Laurie gave a quick sigh, but she absently returned Cecile’s kiss.

“What don’t I know?”

“Almost everything about this hard arid horrid wicked world,” her mother replied, with a slight laugh.

“Oh, Mother! Laurie, I mean, I’m not quite such an innocent!” Cecile was slightly annoyed. “I know what I want, and mostly I know how to get it. Think of yesterday, for instance. I didn’t stop at much when I was determined to see you, within an hour of hearing of your existence.”

“Oh, Cecile,” her mother threw her arms round her, “be even half as determined to go on seeing me, will you?”

“Of course—of course,” Cecile vowed. And at that moment she felt quite calm and courageous about her interview with Gregory Picton that evening.

Presently her mother said
something
about a lunch appointment, and it was evidently time to go. This time, however, she bade Cecile quite an affectionate goodbye and told her she might come again when she liked. So that Cecile left the flat happier and more reassured, and went to her appointment with Maurice Deeping in good spirits.

Over lunch he asked her when she was going to see her other trustees, at which Cecile looked surprised and said, “I don’t know. I don’t have to do anything about Aunt Josephine, I suppose.”

“But what about my Uncle Algernon?”

“I hadn’t thought about him,” Cecile confessed.

“Well, think about him now,” Maurice suggested. “How about letting me drive you down to see him tomorrow? We could lunch somewhere on the way.”

The idea appealed immensely to Cecile, particularly as it would give her more or less a day in Maurice’s company. So she agreed immediately, and kept that thought cheeringly in the background of her mind as her rather frightening interview with Gregory Picton drew nearer.

With the obscure but perfectly sound idea that she would be better able to handle the situation if she knew she was looking her best, she took the utmost pains with her appearance that evening. And it was a quite lovely, self-possessed looking girl, in youthfully elegant black, who came forward to greet Gregory Picton when he arrived to collect her.

“Hello,” he greeted her in a manner which seemed to take no account of the way they had parted that morning. “You’re looking quite stunning, Cecile. I hope I haven’t kept you waiting.”

“Oh, no. I had only just come down.”

He took her out to his waiting car and, without much conversation between them, they drove to the Savoy. As they entered the Grill Room, Cecile was aware—rather pleasurably aware—that people looked after them with interest. It was the first time she had ever walked into a public place in company with someone celebrated.

Not until they were seated at a pleasantly secluded table, and their delicious-sounding meal had been ordered, did he look across the table at her and say, “Well, Cecile, I suppose we can’t avoid a frank discussion much longer.”

“About my mother, you mean?” She spoke quickly and resentfully.

“Among other things,” he agreed drily. And she dropped her glance and remained mutinously silent.

“Cecile,” he said abruptly, “look up.”

She was startled into doing so immediately, and found him watching her in a half-amused, half-exasperated manner. “Why did you look so sulky and resentful?”

“You have tried to set me against her,” she exclaimed accusingly.

“No, Cecile, that isn’t true. All I wanted was to have some time in which to give you an idea of the background. To warn you not to start on a degree of intimacy from which it might be difficult to retreat.”

“And suppose I don’t
want
to retreat from any degree of intimacy?” Cecile retorted angrily.

“I thought you might when you knew the facts.”

“The facts?” Cecile looked scornful. But the waiter came to change their dishes just then, and during the enforced silence she had time to feel disquiet as well as anger.

“What did you mean?” she asked, when they were alone again. “I know my parents didn’t get on, and that she left him—and me—many years ago. But there must have been two sides to the dispute. I know, better than most, that my father was not the easiest man to live with. Life at home was dull and melancholy enough for me. To anyone of her disposition it must have been insupportable.”

“But don’t you think the dullness and melancholy may well have dated from the time when your father’s affections and pride were crushed by the desertion of his wife?”

“I can’t say about that. No one can know—or decide who was more to blame,” Cecile said firmly. “I only know that she is my mother, and that a very harsh judgment has kept her from me until now.”

“She chose that, my dear. It was not enforced upon her.”

“You can’t be sure of that.” She looked shaken. “That’
s
my father’s side of the story.”

“Do you think he would have lied about it?”

“N-no. Not that.” Cecile was convinced of her father’s integrity, in this as in anything else. “But he couldn’t be expected to give an unbiased account. He must have felt very bitter.”

“I suppose he did. But I do know, Cecile, that your mother went away, of her own free will and stayed away. I don’t know, any more than anyone else, what would have happened if she had tried to come back. I only know that the attempt was never made, and that was why your father let you suppose your mother had died.”

There was a rather long silence. Then she said huskily, “I accept that, if it is my father’s account of things. But no mere recital of facts can give more than the bare bones of the situation. I don’t blame her for making no attempt to come back—to see me again. Who can say what considerations kept her away? Pride, or fear, or the conviction that she had gone too far ever to turn back. You’re used to being Counsel for the Prosecution. But I’m not. I’m just her daughter. And I am entitled to make excuses for her.”

“My dear,” said Gregory Picton, and his voice was oddly gentle, “you shall make what excuses you like for her. But I must, in fairness to your father, tell you that he did not force her away or keep her away. He merely gave you a very final interpretation of her permanent absence.”

“But you told me, Mr. Carisbrooke told me too, that he preferred us to remain apart always. That—that he thought her an unsuitable companion for me,” Cecile reminded him unhappily.

“Well,” Gregory Picton made a slight face, “that’s a different story. I wish I didn’t have to tell you so much. But perhaps I have to give you all the facts in order to justify my insis—” He stopped, changed the word, and said, “My suggestion that you should see as little as possible of your mother.”

“You were going to say ‘insistence’, weren’t you?” Cecile looked him in the eye. “It isn’t any good, you know. I have no intention of letting anyone insist, any more, about what I do or do not do in connection with my mother. And I may as well tell you here and now that I intend to live with my mother. She needs someone to share her flat with her, and I’ve arranged that I shall do so.”

“But you can’t do that without the agreement of the trustees,” he retorted sharply.

“Are you sure?” Cecile sounded much more self-possessed than she felt. “I should have to ask Mr. Carisbrooke about that.”

“Cecile, don’t speak in that tone of voice! You sound like her. Hard and uncaring.”

The distaste in his voice and, even more, the dismay, struck her like a physical blow, and she blinked her long lashes and looked taken aback.

“I—I didn’t mean to sound hard or uncaring. But you haven’t told me anything yet which makes me feel I should turn my back on my mother. If she left my father—and me—I’ve no doubt it was very wrong of her. But perhaps also she was terribly sorry later, and there was no way back. If she wants me to go and live with her, I shall go and live with her.”

“Not,” said Gregory Picton quietly, “so long as I have anything to say about it.”

They stared at each other across the table, like enemies, and with some detached part of her mind Cecile thought, “How can anyone so handsome look so bleak and ruthless?”

Then she heard herself say, again with more quiet self-possession than she would have thought possible, “I’m not the only one who is being hard about this, Mr. Picton. If you want to convince me that my mother is an unsuitable person for me to be with, you will have to find better reasons than you have given me so far.”