Dear Trustee

by Mary Burchell

  She watched while he found a porter—seemingly without difficulty—and presently all her luggage was collected and wheeled away to Gregory’s waiting car.

  “It’s wonderful having a trustee, after all!” she thought, as she relaxed beside Gregory in the front seat of the car. And irrepressibly she gave a happy little laugh, which made him glance at her questioningly as they drove slowly out of the station. “Glad to be back?” he enquired.

  “Why, yes; I think I am. But it wasn’t quite that.”

  “What then?” he pressed, with real curiosity.

  “Oh, it’s difficult to say. Do you always look after people so charmingly?”

  “Was I being specially charming?”

  “I thought so. I don’t remember ever having had anyone meet me and make a fuss of me before. And suddenly I thought—” she flashed him a smile of something like friendly capitulation—“that perhaps it is rather fun to have a trustee, after all.”

  To her surprise, he actually flushed slightly, and for once there was no trace of mockery in his voice or manner as he said, “Is it, my dear? I’m very glad, if that is how it strikes you. Though why so small an attention should mean so much, I just don’t know. Now where do you want me to drive you?”

  She hesitated just for a second. Then she said, “Oh—home, please,” and gave him an anxious little glance. “To—to Laurie’s place. She is expecting me.”

  “Very well.” He made no objection. Though he added, “Perhaps it was selfish of me to hope to have you on your first evening. But can we make a date for one evening soon?”

  “Why, of course. But, if you want it, I suppose it could be this evening, really.” All at once, the prospect was extraordinarily attractive. “Laurie will be going to the theatre, and, if you’d like to come back—or,” she hesitated, “would you care to come up with me now and—and have a drink?”

  “How would that strike Laurie?”

  “I don’t know,” said Cecile frankly, and they were both silent for a short space.

  Then he said, “Suppose I bring up your luggage, instead of leaving it all for the porter. Then we can see what my reception is.”

  The door of her mother’s flat stood open, and in the doorway was Laurie, waiting for her. For the first time, there was a happy, welcoming smile upon her face, and she actually held out her arms to Cecile.

  “Welcome home, darling!”

  “Oh, Mother!—Laurie, I mean—” Cecile rushed into her arms and hugged her rapturously—“how wonderful to be welcomed like this. I’m so happy to be here. And please, dear, don’t mind, but Gregory is bringing up the luggage. And be nice to him, because he’s trying very hard to be friendly too. He met me at the station and drove me here in his car. And he wants to take me out this evening. It’s all a sort of—of olive branch, Mother. Please, please don’t reject it, will you?”

  As this eager speech was poured out, Cecile saw a good many varied emotions chase each other across her mother’s face. But the final one was a sort of amused acceptance.

  “I have not had so many olive branches waved at me that I can afford to reject one,” she said a trifle drily. But she kissed Cecile and added, “I’ll be nice to him, as you say, if he means so much to you.”

  In the end, the meeting between the two protagonists was strangely without drama. They had not, Cecile supposed, met for many years. But, as Laurie held out her hand and said, “How do you do? Thank you for looking after Cecile so well,” she might have been any mother welcoming the escort of any daughter.

  “It was a pleasure. For which Cecile has already thanked me too much. Where would you like me to put these things?”

  “In the end room. Cecile, show Mr. Picton the way.” Laurie turned back towards the sitting room, and then glanced over her shoulder to ask, with an admirably casual air, “Will you stay and have a drink?”

  Again there was that infinitesimal pause, while Cecile tried feverishly to remember if drinking with your enemy had the same significance as breaking bread with him.

  Then Gregory said, “Thank you. But if Cecile and you want some time to yourselves, don’t mind telling me to go.”

  “No, no. That’s all right. I have to go to the theatre in less than an hour anyway, and I understand you are taking Cecile out this evening. Please stay and have a drink.”

  Cecile did not know that her own smile had a strained quality until Gregory said quietly to her, “Don’t look so anxious. I’m staying. Now where is the room you are to show me?”

  “Oh—” She released her pent-up breath in a great gasp of relief, and joyfully ran on ahead of him to show the way to her room.

  “So this is to be your room?” He set down the bags and looked round consideringly.

  “Yes. It’s pretty, isn’t it?” She saw for herself that Laurie had added some personal touches in her absence, which had changed an impersonal guest room into a room which might well belong to the daughter of the house.

  “It’s very nice,” he agreed. And unexpectedly he bent and lightly kissed her upturned face. “I hope you will be very happy in it.”

  “Oh—” She laughed and, to her surprise, returned the kiss, before she realized what she was doing. “I shall be, I’m sure. It's so lovely not to have a—a sort of perpetual strife going on any more.”

  He did not comment on that. Perhaps it surprised so positive a man as Gregory Picton to realize that he had been at least partially responsible for the strife which had spoiled her happiness.

  At any rate, when they both went into the sitting room to rejoin Laurie, he made a real effort, Cecile saw, to exert his considerable charm to make the interview an easy one.

  Laurie, too, had never been more charming and amusing, at least in Cecile’s knowledge of her. And, as she played her part of the worldly but by no means unsympathetic mother, Cecile saw exactly what Florrie had meant when she had said that Laurie had once been gay.

  “That is how she ought to be,” thought Cecile. “That is how she shall be in future.”

  At that moment the doorbell rang. And, as Laurie was in the middle of an amusing story about the current Lucas Manning play, she said, “See who that is, will you, Cecile?”

  Cecile went and pressed the lever which opened the street door. Then, opening the door of the flat, she went out on to the landing to await whoever was coming up. She supposed it would be a late tradesman—or possibly someone who had come to fetch her mother to the theatre.

  She had met none of Laurie's personal friends yet. But this might be one of them, she supposed, and interestedly she leaned over the banisters, and looked down the well of the staircase.

  As she did so, she was conscious of a shock which literally hurt. For the girl who was mounting the stairs, lightly but determinedly, was Felicity Waring.

  CHAPTER VI

  For a moment Cecile could not move. Her leaden feet seemed to hold her motionless, and she could only stare, in a sort of nightmare fascination, at the smooth, bent head of the girl who was mounting the stairs.

  Then suddenly the acuteness of the danger—the awareness that neither of the people in the flat behind her must see Felicity—galvanized her into action. She wrenched herself away from the banister and ran rapidly down the stairs, determined at all costs to prevent what could only be a disastrous scene of revelation.

  The girls met on the lower landing, wordless and wide-eyed; Felicity in that moment almost as taken aback as Cecile, who was evidently the last person she had expected to see.

  “What are you doing here?” It was Cecile who found her voice first, and though she spoke in little more than a whisper, her tone carried the sharpness of a hiss.

  “That’s my business.” Though put out, Felicity made an effort to recover herself.

  “It’s my business too.” Cecile stood in her path. “You were coming to see Laurie—to see my mother—weren’t you? You thought she would be alone, and you wanted to tell her you had those miserable letters.”

  “Perhaps.” F
elicity had taken the measure of the situation more thoroughly now, and her tone was faintly insolent.

  “She is not to know about them—any more than Gregory.” Cecile said fiercely. “I suppose you saw his car outside and thought this was the moment for making the most trouble?”

  “Gregory?” Felicity fell back a step, and it was obvious, even to the agitated Cecile, that Gregory’s presence was news to Felicity. And not specially welcome news, at that. “No, I didn’t see his car. I wouldn’t know his present-day car, anyway. But you say he is up there now.” She glanced upwards to the open door of the flat. “Why?”

  “He brought me home from the station, and stayed for a drink. And you’re not going up there now. Not if I have to—to throw you out myself.”

  “I don’t want to go up if he is there,” was the somewhat unexpected reply. “I’ll come another time.” And Felicity turned to go.

  “You’re not to come back any time!” In her anger and fright Cecile caught the other girl by the arm. But Felicity shook her off impatiently. And at that moment Laurie came out on to the upper landing and looked down the well of the stairs.

  “Cecile, what is it? Is something wrong?”

  Both girls looked up. But it was Cecile who spoke, with ice-cold calm and determination.

  “It’s all right, Laurie. Someone mistook the number, and I was explaining.” Then she turned back to Felicity and said, in a tense little whisper, “Go. And don’t you dare to come here again without speaking to me first.”

  Rather to her surprise, Felicity turned without another word, and ran down the stairs to the street door. Laurie had already gone back into the flat above, and slowly, with a strange sense of exhaustion impossible to identify, Cecile mounted the upper flight of stairs once more.

  For a moment, at the top of the stairs, she leaned against the wall and shut her eyes.

  She was deadly frightened, and she was alone in her fear. Over almost anything else she could have consulted Gregory and left him to deal with the problem. She realized that now. That was what a trustee was for. At least, the kind of trustee that Gregory was. But in this she could not appeal to him. He was the last person who must know.

  She could not even confide in Laurie. For Laurie must be protected from the knowledge of her danger, just as Gregory must be kept from knowing the proof of her guilt.

  As she re-entered the flat her mother was pouring out another glass of sherry, and Gregory was standing by the window, leaning negligently against the side of it, as though he were very much at home in the place. That at least was something, Cecile thought. And she managed to smile across at him.

  “You were such a long time”—Laurie looked up—“I thought something was wrong.”

  “No. It was nothing, I had—there was some difficulty in understanding what she wanted at first. We were talking at cross-purposes. She wanted quite a different house.”

  “But you ironed things out in the end?” That was Gregory, casual in his remark, but looking at her—or so it seemed to Cecile’s nervous fancy—with curious attention.

  “Oh, yes.”

  “You’re pale, darling,” her mother said at that moment. “Are you tired?”

  “No, no. Not at all.” Cecile forced herself to smile again. “I had quite a restful journey, really.”

  “Well, don’t keep her out too late this evening.” Laurie turned to Gregory and spoke as though Cecile had been her loving concern for years. Then she glanced at the clock.

  “Heavens, is that the time? I must go. I’m late already.”

  “But you don’t come in until the second act,” Cecile said.

  “I understudy Selma in the first act, though, and I have to be on call.”

  “Don’t worry. I have my car here, and I’ll run you down to the theatre,” Gregory offered.

  “Will you really? Thank you so much. It’s always so difficult to get hold of a taxi at this time in the evening.”

  “That will give me time to change and be ready by the time you come back,” Cecile said, well pleased with the arrangement.

  And when she saw her mother and Gregory leave the flat together five minutes later, she tried to tell herself that their apparently amiable attitude made up for the terrible fright which Felicity had given her.

  It was not true, of course. The two things really had no relation to each other. And, as soon as she was alone, Cecile felt her courage and her spirits sag. For a few moments she stood quite still in the middle of the room, her hands pressed to her eyes, as though she would literally shut out the recollection of that terrifying picture of Felicity mounting the stairs.

  The telephone bell rang sharply. And because every fresh sound seemed to carry a possible menace now, Cecile’s heart was beating hard as she picked up the receiver.

  “Yes?” she said, sharply and anxiously. “Who is it?”

  “Cecile, is that you?” replied Maurice Deeping’s voice. “It doesn’t sound like you, somehow.”

  “Maurice!” Her voice expressed all the pleasure and relief she felt. “How nice! Yes, of course this is Cecile. I arrived back from the north only a few hours ago. How delightful of you to ring the very first evening.”

  “Well, of course I did. Is there any chance of seeing you tonight?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I’ve already promised to go out with Gregory Picton. But—another evening soon. Tell me, how is the new job going?”

  “Like most other jobs. Up and down. Bearable only because one has to earn a living somehow.” But he laughed. “How were things in the old home?”

  “Oh, all right, thank you. Everything is more or less settled, so far as my part is concerned. It was quite—enjoyable.” Suddenly she recalled the journey up, and the unpleasant encounter which had spoiled it and over-shadowed everything since.

  “Some fly in the ointment?” Maurice was quick to recognize the change in her tone. “Are the trustees being tiresome again?”

  “No, no. Very co-operative, on the whole. It’s just—” She hesitated, for the impulse had come to her to tell Maurice—so safely removed from all this—something of her worry. Not exactly to confide in him. But to share something of her heavy burden of knowledge. “Maurice, do you know Felicity really well?”

  “Know her well? Of course I do. She’s my cousin. Didn’t I tell you?”

  “Yes, yes. I didn’t mean socially or in the family sense." Cecile hesitated again, moistened her unexpectedly dry lips with the tip of her tongue, and then went on, “Would you say that you knew her well as a person—knew the real Felicity?”

  “Possibly. What is this? A new form of quiz?”

  “Oh, no. I had a—a rather disagreeable encounter with her. It worried me. And I thought, as you knew her well—Maurice, is she a very unscrupulous sort of person?”

  There was a slight silence, but whether of surprise or consideration, Cecile could not decide. Then he said, “She could be, I think—yes. She is ruthless where her own wishes are concerned. I suppose that amounts to much the same thing. Does that answer your question?”

  “Y-yes. I think it does.”

  “Satisfactorily?”

  “Not really, no. She—she knows something about Laurie. She could make a lot of trouble by telling—people. I’m frightened in case she does.”

  “She won’t, unless it’s specifically to her own advantage.” Maurice was unexpectedly reassuring about that. “She isn’t a mischief-maker for the sake of being one, if you know what I mean. But if it were to her advantage to speak, I don’t think any finer feelings would hold her back.”

  “I don’t think it could be to her advantage at all,” Cecile said doubtfully.

  “Then she won’t do it. That’s my guess.”

  “And yet—she was coming here to see Laurie, in the belief that I was still away. I only just stopped her, less than an hour ago.”

  “It’s all a bit confusing. Could you be a little more specific?” Maurice said. “Or shall we wait until we meet?”

&nb
sp; “No, no!” Cecile so desperately wanted some reassurance now, this very moment, that she had to go on. “I’d like to tell you now. Maurice, Felicity has found some letters—by some strange, horrible coincidence—which reflect very badly on Laurie. I asked her to destroy them, but she refused, saying they might be useful sometime. We parted before I could press her further and I went north. When I came back today, almost the first thing that happened was that I found her coming to see Laurie. Why?”

  “To tell her she has these letters, I suppose.”

  “Yes. Of course. But what good could that do Felicity?”

  “I suppose,” Maurice said slowly, “it could demonstrate to your mother that Felicity had a powerful weapon of persuasion, if she ever wanted Laurie to do something—or take up some special attitude.”

  “But what could she want Laurie to do?”

  “You tell me,” replied Maurice with a slight laugh. “I don’t know the situation well enough to say. Something in connection with you, I’d say. She wanted Laurie to influence you in some way, perhaps.”

  “It sounds so improbable.”

  “Life is improbable,” replied Maurice glumly.

  “I have so little to do with her, really, Maurice. With Felicity, I mean. Where do our paths cross? What have we got in common?”

  “You have Gregory Picton in common,” replied Maurice, half facetiously.

  And suddenly Cecile saw the pieces of the puzzle fall into place. “Yes,” she said slowly. “We have Gregory in common. Perhaps that’s it.”

  “You sound serious!”

  “I was just—thinking.” Cecile choked back any expression of the thoughts which suddenly crowded in.

  “Well, thank you, Maurice,” she managed to say, in an artificially cheerful manner. “You’ve helped me a lot, and I’ll try to piece it all together later tonight, when I have time to think it over. Maybe I’m worrying unnecessarily. Anyway, I feel much better for having talked to you.”

  “My dear girl, I’m very glad.” Maurice sounded gratified. “Why don’t you let me drive you down to Uncle Algernon’s at the weekend? He’d be glad to see you. And Felicity will be staying there. You could have it out with her then, if you think candour might be a good weapon at this stage.”