Authors: Mary Burchell
CHAPTER IV
I
t said something for Cecile’s self-control that she did not exclaim, “Felicity Waring? Oh, do tell me about her.”
But she had already taken the measure of Uncle Algernon and was certain that any direct request for information would be met by clam-like reserve. So, instead, she said reflectively, “I think I met her last night. She had just come home from the States. But I didn’t know she was your great-niece.”
“She wouldn’t be wearing a label to that effect,” replied Uncle Algernon disagreeably, because at this particular moment he wished to be the one imparting information, not receiving it. Though strictly on his own terms. “Where did you meet her?” he asked grudgingly.
“At the theatre.”
“So you’ve been running round to plays, as another way of wasting your time, eh?” Uncle Algernon shot a critical glance at his nephew.
“Not at all. I went with Gregory Picton,” stated Cecile crisply, before Maurice could reply for himself.
“You did?” Uncle Algernon’s eyes gleamed afresh. “And he was with you when you met Felicity?”
“He made the introduction.”
“Well, well.” Uncle Algernon seemed prepared to take immense vicarious pleasure in the meeting. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” said Cecile, who thought he deserved that, after the nasty way he had spoken to Maurice.
“What do you mean—nothing?” Uncle Algernon gave her a cross but incredibly knowing glance. “They spoke to each other, I suppose, didn’t they?”
“Oh, yes. They seemed rather surprised to see each other. But then she explained about having just come back from America, and he remarked that it was quite by chance that we happened to be at the same theatre.”
“Did she believe that?” The old man chuckled.
“I don’t know why she shouldn’t,” Cecile said calmly. “It was the truth. It was only at the last minute that we decided to go. After the first act was over.”
“Oh.” Uncle Algernon seemed rather disappointed about this. And he added, on principle, “Shocking waste of money, paying for seats and seeing only half the play.”
“We saw two-thirds of it,” Cecile stated exactly. “And we didn’t pay for seats, anyway. We were invited into the actor-manager’s box. And Felicity was there.”
“Just like that?” Uncle Algernon began to cheer up. “Was Gregory very much taken aback at seeing her?”
“If so, he hid it remarkably well,” replied Cecile. But she remembered in that moment the half nervous way Lady Lucas’s hand had closed on hers, as she told Gregory that Felicity was in the box.
At this point, Uncle Algernon slid further down in his chair, rather like a disgruntled child, and looked aggrieved.
“No one ever tells the old man anything,” he muttered. “They just leave him to find out for himself. And then they expect him to be pleasant and leave them all his money.”
“Nonsense,” said Cecile, kindly but briskly—which had the effect of making him sit up again. “What you really mean is that you would like me to tell you some malicious gossip about Gregory and your great-niece, so that the next time you see either of them you can show you know more than they know themselves, and enjoy their discomfiture.”
“Cecile—” murmured Maurice, in a warning sort of way.
But the old man turned on him angrily.
“You leave her alone. She has some real spirit and doesn’t mind speaking out. And she’s right too—though her grammar is poor. I do enjoy finding out about people and showing that I know as much as they do, even though I’m sitting here in a chair, leading a miserable dull life, with no one to care whether I live or die, except for getting my money. And why shouldn’t I?”
“I don’t know,” said Cecile mildly. “Except that you won’t make yourself very popular that way.”
“I don’t want to be popular. I like being unpopular.”
“Well, that simplifies things, anyway.” And Cecile laughed. It was a pretty laugh. Gay and full of real amusement, and it seemed to shatter the dull formality of the room into a thousand sparkling fragments.
For a moment Uncle Algernon looked at her in surprise. Then he grinned back at her, with a sort of malicious good humour.
“I like you,” he remarked.
“Do you? I think I like you,” Cecile replied candidly. “At least you are not the slightest bit like anyone else.”
Uncle Algernon looked enormously gratified.
“But,” Cecile went on, “I don’t hold any brief for your snooping into other people’s affairs, for the sheer pleasure of showing you can find things out, even when you are sitting here.”
“Now you’re being too bright,” he growled, giving her a more wary look. “I like you best when you’re amusing and laugh. I don’t want you, or anyone else, lecturing me.”
“You prefer to do the lecturing yourself, don’t you?” Cecile flashed a smile at him.
“That’s right.” He grinned again at that, and then said unexpectedly, “I might leave
you
some money, if you come down here sometimes and talk to me.”
“I shall come down sometimes, in any case,” Cecile told him, “but I don’t want your money for that.”
“Nonsense.” He seemed quite nettled at the idea that she should be independent of his whims. “Of course you do. Everyone wants money. Why shouldn’t you want some of mine?”
“I’m not entitled to it, for one thing,” Cecile said. “You have relations of your own.”
Uncle Algernon said. “Tcha!” again, with impressive emphasis. “You’re my ward, aren’t you?”
“Not exactly.” Cecile was becoming quite good at the distinction between a guardian and a trustee. “You’re a trustee, on my behalf, of an almost non-existent estate. I don’t think that constitutes much of a claim on my part.”
“Well, if you haven’t much estate, you’ll need money, won’t you?” Uncle Algernon pointed out triumphantly. “How are you going to get it?”
“Work, of course. Like millions of other people,” Cecile said cheerfully. “I learned typing and shorthand when I was at finishing school. We all had to do something practical, as well as the frills. And I have two good languages and a smattering of another. With a refresher course of some sort, I don’t think I’
ll
have much trouble getting some sort of secretarial job.”
“She’s a girl after my own heart,” remarked Uncle Algernon to Maurice. “You’d better marry her. She’d make a man of you.”
“Thanks.” Maurice pressed his lips together and looked annoyed, as though he were taking all this too seriously
,
Cecile could not help thinking.
“But I
’ll
manage my own affairs, if you don’t mind.”
“You can’t,” retorted Uncle Algernon. “You aren’t a manager by nature. She is. She knows what she wants and she goes straight for it, which is more than you’ll ever do.”
Then, while Maurice looked glum, he turned back to Cecile and said, “If you’ll ring that bell, you can have some tea. Mrs. Frinton makes good teas. Not that I can eat anything much, myself,” he added, and shook his head in gloomy self pity.
“I expect you can, if you have congenial company,” replied Cecile, in her most bracing tone. But she rang the bell, and presently a maid appeared, wheeling in a tea-trolley, which looked well laden.
Over tea he made several other unkind remarks to Maurice, who struggled manfully to remain good-tempered and amiable under what was, obviously, familiar behaviour. And he made only one more reference to his position as Cecile’s trustee, and that was to say he hoped she wouldn’t bother him with too much business. Then, very soon after tea was over, he told them it was time they were going.
“I have to have a rest before dinner,” he stated firmly. “Doctor’s orders. But come again soon.” This was addressed exclusively to Cecile. “And find out what you can about my great-niece and Gregory Picton.”
“I’ll come again soon,” Cecile promised. But on the second point she did not commit herself before saying goodbye.
They were seen off the premises by Mrs. Frinton, who looked as though she might count the teaspoons as soon as they were gone. And, as they drove away from the house, Cecile turned to Maurice and said, “Is he always like that?”
“Most times,” replied Maurice gloomily.
“But, Maurice, don’t you think it might be better to stand up to him a little? He seemed to like that with me.”
“Only because you are a girl—and a novelty.” Maurice seemed depressed. “Anyway, I can’t afford to take risks. And he knows it.”
“Of course he does. That’s what makes him so cantankerous. Like a naughty child who knows he has his parents half scared. Give him a back-answer occasionally and see what happens.”
“Then he’d go and alter his will.”
“So what? He would probably alter it back when he reflected on the enjoyable novelty of having you stand up to him.”
“Not he! He’d go and die before he could change it back again,” declared Maurice. “He’s that sort.”
“Well, he certainly seems cranky enough for anything.” Cecile laughed. Then she looked curiously at Maurice. “Tell me—do you know anything about this great-niece of his?”
“Felicity? Yes, of course. She is a sort of cousin of mine. Although I call him Uncle Algernon, the old man is my great-uncle too, you know. Felicity is the daughter of my aunt, and really rather a favourite of his.”
“And what,” asked Cecile, with rather elaborate carelessness, “was the story about her and Gregory Picton?”
“I don’t really know. It was while I was away up north. He acted for her over something to do with fraud in connection with her late father’s affairs, and it seems he got very friendly. According to Uncle Algernon, he ran after her like mad, but she wouldn’t have any of him. Kept him dangling, you know, just for the fun of showing she had the celebrated Gregory Picton on a string. She’s a bit like Uncle Algernon, really, now I come to think of it.”
“She sounds like it,” Cecile agreed with feeling. “And then? What happened after that?”
“Oh, she went off to the States, on some pleasure of her own. She can afford to—” a note of envy crept into Maurice’s voice—“she belongs to the wealthy side of the family.”
“Well, cheer up. She doesn’t look any the happier for that,” declared Cecile, remembering the faintly discontented line of Felicity’s well-cut mouth.
“Sorry.” Maurice grinned, and seemed to recover his spirits suddenly. “Uncle Algernon always has that effect upon me. But I must say you were a success. It would be rather fun if he ended by leaving
you
a packet, wouldn’t it?”
“It would be very embarrassing,” replied Cecile drily.
But Maurice laughed almost as unbelievingly as Uncle Algernon at that.
During the next few days, Cecile’s future began to take more definite shape. Mr. Carisbrooke summoned her to a further interview, and explained that, now the financial situation was clearer, it seemed there would be an income of about two hundred and fifty pounds a year available.
“in addition, of course, there will be the capital value of the house—if you are able to sell it,” said the cautious Mr. Carisbrooke. “There is also the small cottage adjoining, which, I understand, used to be a gardener’s cottage, but is now empty.”
“Yes. That will do for Florrie and Stella—the two elderly maids—” began Cecile.
“It will reduce the value of the house and grounds when they go up for sale,” interrupted Mr. Carisbrooke quickly.
“I can’t help that. They have to live somewhere, don’t they?” Cecile was firm about that. “They wouldn’t know what to do if we simply gave them notice. They’re over sixty, both of them, and they were with us for over twenty years. If they have the cottage and a hundred and fifty a year between them—”
“My dear Miss Bernardine! that is three-fifths of your income,” cried the scandalized Mr. Carisbrooke.
“Three-fifths of my unearned income,” Cecile corrected, with a smile. “I’m going to get a job very soon, Mr. Carisbrooke. Don’t worry about that.”
“At present you are living expensively at an hotel,” began Mr. Carisbrooke.
“Soon I am going to live, less expensively, with my mother,” retorted Cecile good-humouredly.
There was a slight silence. Then Mr. Carisbrooke coughed and said, “M’yes. I had heard about that. I am surprised that Mr. Picton agreed.”
“I think he was too.” Cecile smiled slightly. “But we had a long talk about—about the unhappy affair of his sister, Mr. Carisbrooke. It’s all been such a mystery, and so fiercely taboo as a subject for so long, that I think he was surprised to find there could be another viewpoint on it.”
“And
can
there be another viewpoint on it, Miss Bernardine?” enquired the solicitor drily.
“Well—yes. I think there can. I’m not going to pretend my mother was blameless, and I hold no brief for anyone who uses another woman’s husband to further her own ambition. But why should
she
be assumed to have been the driving force in that unhappy affair? From all accounts, he was a forceful, charming man, well able to get his own way and know his own mind. Why shouldn’t
he
have been active on his own behalf, without much prompting from her?”
Mr. Carisbrooke gave Cecile a long, reflective look, and for a moment he did not speak. Then he said slowly, “It’s odd you should say that. Picton said something the same to me in this very office, only yesterday.”
“You mean he made excuses for my mother?” She flushed with the extraordinary sensation of surprise and joy which swept over her at the thought that Gregory’s deeply rooted and bitter resentment might be softening.
“No. He didn’t go as far as that.” Mr. Carisbrooke smiled thinly. “But he said, ‘I always took it for granted that Hugh—’ that was the name of the brother-in-law, Hugh Minniver—‘that Hugh was urged on to his divorce by Laurie Cavendish. But, suppose that were not so, Carisbrooke,’ he said. ‘Suppose that were not so. It does alter the picture rather.”
“He—he said that?” Cecile bit her lip because it trembled suddenly. “That was generous of him! Because it must have been difficult for him, after all these years, even to try to reassess the facts.”
“I think, Miss Bernardine,” Mr. Carisbrooke gave that dry smile again, “that perhaps you reassessed the facts for him.”
“Well, perhaps.” Cecile smiled in her turn. “But it is true, you know, that
none
of us knows, really, how much the husband acted of his own free will, and how much because of anything that—that Laurie did.”