Dear Trustee

by Mary Burchell

  CHAPTER VIII

  For perhaps five seconds there was complete silence in the room. Then Cecile said quietly, “You can’t do such a thing, you know. You couldn’t be so absolutely horrible. It would injure me and my mother, it’s true. But think what it would do to you."

  Felicity looked oddly shaken for a moment. But then she hardened her mouth—and perhaps her heart.

  “I wouldn’t want to do it,” she admitted candidly. “But don’t imagine that any inner reluctance would actually prevent me from carrying out my threat. More than anything else in the world I want Gregory back. I give you fair warning—I’m not going to stop at anything to bring that about.”

  “But it isn’t possible to do things that way! You can’t command anyone’s love or respect. You must surely know that. You can’t plot to obtain it either. You can only earn it. And whether or not you make Gregory love you again doesn’t depend on me. It depends on you.”

  “Your absence from the field would be the first step towards it,” retorted Felicity calmly. “I can’t afford to have a formidable rival at this moment. And we are rivals, just as Uncle Algernon said. I choose to see my rival out of the way. Then—I say it quite objectively—I’m confident that I can get Gregory back.”

  Cecile was silent, thinking of the calm and final way Gregory had said that Felicity was no longer anything special in his life. But it was impossible to say anything about that without evoking an even more dangerous degree of jealousy.

  “Besides,” thought Cecile, “she wouldn’t believe me. And for that at least I don’t think I could blame her.”

  She gave a deep sigh and turned back to the other girl. “What do you expect me to do?” she enquired, with a helpless little gesture of her hands.

  “It’s simple enough. There was a time, not so long ago, when you were at loggerheads with Gregory. I’ve heard it from Uncle Algernon and I’ve seen something of it myself. You talk of getting on better with him now. Well, you must reverse that. See that you do not get on better with him.”

  “I can’t do that!” cried Cecile in sharp protest. “We’ve become so—so friendly and happy. I can’t deliberately spoil it all.” Felicity did not answer, but her expression grew even harder. “I can’t just pick quarrels with him,” Cecile continued. “Besides—” the conviction was born in on her and she spoke it aloud—“nowadays he would insist on making them up again. We understand each other so much better. It’s a perfectly normal and happy ward-trustee relationship. I can’t just break it up to order.”

  “Then you must freeze him out—choke him off—however you like to put it,” replied Felicity calmly. “Anyone can do that.”

  But Cecile did not think she could. For, as she stood there, there passed rapidly before her mental vision half a dozen pictures of Gregory as she had come to know him. Teasing her, kissing her, making himself pleasant to Laurie for her sake.

  She did not see how it was humanly possible that she should reject all that. Suddenly it had become the most precious thing in life.

  Except—a lump came into her throat—dared she rank it as more precious than Laurie’s precarious, new-found happiness, which this cold-eyed girl could smash with one blow?

  And, in any case, if Gregory once read those letters—saw for himself, in horrid detail, how Laurie had pushed Hugh Minniver towards the action which ended in Anne’s death—could anything ever be dear and warm and normal between them again?

  She became aware that Felicity was watching her closely, and she tried to grasp every detail of the situation. Pushing back her hair with a distracted little gesture, she asked suddenly, “Why did you try to bring Laurie herself into this? Why did you think it would strengthen your hand to have her know the situation?”

  “I reckoned that she would use all her influence with you to see that the letters were suppressed at all costs. She would, too. Any woman would.”

  “No. As a matter of fact, you’re wrong there.” Cecile spoke coldly and positively. “Laurie is the defiant, quixotic type who would refuse to let me sacrifice my happiness for hers. You had better not talk to her about it. I probably have more regard for Laurie’s happiness than she has herself. It is with me that you’ll have to drive any bargain that is made.”

  Felicity narrowed her eyes for a moment. Then she said, “Well, perhaps you’re right. Now that the cards are on the table, there is no special need to bring your mother into it. At any rate at present.” Felicity was not going to yield any point permanently. “So it comes to this—What have you to say about it? Do I show Gregory the letters, or do you give me every reason to keep them to myself?”

  There was a long silence again, while Cecile felt like a small animal running round and round a trap and trying to find a non-existent way out.

  “I can’t promise you,” she said at last, “that I can make Gregory either dislike me or—or feel specially angry with me. I just don’t know how to make him do that—now.” In spite of herself her voice broke very slightly on the word “now.” “But I will undertake to see that he doesn’t—make love to me or—or think it would be welcome to me if he did. In that sense, I will cease to be your rival, if that’s what you want me to say. What you manage to make him do, so far as you are concerned, is up to you. There is nothing more I can say.”

  “It will do,” replied Felicity, in a tone of such triumphant satisfaction that Cecile suddenly wanted to fall upon her and beat her, with a primitive rage and despair that she had not known herself capable of feeling.

  “At least, it will do for the moment,” went on Felicity coolly. “So long as the coast is kept clear, I will keep those letters away from Gregory. You needn’t worry over that. I’ll play fair about that, if you play fair with me. But I warn you, if you try to double-cross me—to reject him with one hand and beckon him on with the other, I’ll use those letters without a qualm.”

  “I don’t doubt it.” Cecile was very pale, and she spoke with a cold scorn which made even Felicity wince. “Whatever we have not done in this conversation, at least we have made ourselves clear to each other.”

  “Well, that’s something!” Felicity gave a short laugh. And then, without another word, she turned and went out through the french windows into the garden again, while Cecile dropped down into the nearest chair and covered her face with her hands.

  “It doesn’t matter all that much to me,” she tried to tell herself. “It’s horrible to have even to discuss such a monstrous bargain. But it isn’t as though I were engaged to him and had to break that. It’s just that I—that I—Oh, Gregory, why did this have to happen, my dear? Just now. Just as everything was—was flowering so beautifully. Only I do love you—and yet I mustn’t love you. She has spoiled it all, even before I knew what had happened to me.” The tears came into her eyes, but she forced them back, for she heard footsteps approaching, and, a moment later, the door opened and Maurice came into the room.

  “Why, hello—all alone?” He looked round in some surprise. “Where’s Felicity?”

  “In the garden. We had our talk, Maurice, and it wasn’t exactly pleasant. Don’t ask me about it or I might burst into tears. I’ll get over it in a minute.”

  “I say, I’m sorry.” He came over and stood looking down at her kindly. “Is there anything I can do about it? Shall I go and speak to her?”

  “No. No.” Cecile was terrified at the idea of someone else knowing more of the miserable situation. “I’m all right—see.” She even smiled faintly at him. “Only I thought you had better know why I look a bit dismal.”

  “Dear girl—” he sat down on the arm of the chair and put his arm round her—“if you want a shoulder to cry upon, take mine.” She managed to smile again at that, but it was a terrible effort. For it was not his shoulder she wanted. It was Gregory’s.

  “It’s over now.” She gave a shaky little laugh. “Ought we to be going soon?”

  “Perhaps we should. For I don’t imagine you’ll want to stay to dinner, in the circumstances.”


  “Oh, no!” The very idea horrified her.

  “Well, the old man wants to see you before we depart. Would you like to go up now?”

  “Yes. All right. Are you coming?”

  “No. He wants to see you alone, for some reason. I think he’s had about enough of me today. And, to tell the truth,” Maurice grinned, “the feeling is mutual.”

  So Cecile went upstairs alone, to the big bedroom with the elaborately carved double doors. And here she found Uncle Algernon in bed, attired in elegantly striped silk pyjamas which would not have disgraced a successful film star.

  “Had a chat with Felicity?” he enquired, as she came and sat down by the bed.

  “Yes,” said Cecile briefly. “And I hear you want to have a chat with me too. But not on the same subject, I hope.” She looked at him uncompromisingly.

  “I don’t know what Felicity had to talk about. She never tells me anything.” He settled back among his pillows with an aggrieved air. “But then I don’t tell her much either,” he added, cheering up somewhat, “and she has no idea what I am going to say to you.”

  No?” Cecile smiled slightly. “What is it, then?”

  “I am going to make a new will on Monday and I’m going to put you in it.”

  “But I don’t want you to!” cried Cecile, rather put out. “I told you before. I haven’t any claim on you, since you have relations of your own. And if you leave me a lot of money—”

  “Who says it is a lot?” enquired Uncle Algernon disagreeably. “It may be only a hundred pounds, for all you know.”

  “Oh, well—if it’s just a sort of token of friendliness, that’s different,” Cecile conceded.

  “It isn’t a token of friendliness. I haven’t any friends,” Uncle Algernon was final about that, “and I don’t want any friends. If I leave anyone any money, it will be because I want them to go on doing what I want after I’m gone.”

  “That’s a bit difficult to arrange,” Cecile remarked practically. “What do you want me to do for my hundred pounds?”

  “It isn’t a hundred pounds, you silly girl. It’s fifty thousand pounds,” retorted Uncle Algernon smugly. “And what I want you to do is marry Maurice.”

  “Marry Maurice! You’re crazy,” Cecile cried. “And you’ve been talking to Felicity,” she added quickly, thinking that she scented some collusion here.

  “No, I haven’t. What had Felicity to say about Maurice?” enquired the old man, looking incredibly knowing and curious.

  “Nothing. I was thinking of something else. But, anyway, I think your idea is quite mad.”

  “On the contrary, it’s very sound. I want you to marry Maurice because I think you are the girl he needs for his wife.”

  “Why don’t you tell him that?” enquired Cecile drily.

  “I have.”

  “Did you tell him about the fifty thousand too?”

  "No. I don’t want him to marry you for your money. Any man would marry any girl for fifty thousand pounds,” declared Uncle Algernon uncharitably. “I want him to marry you for yourself. I told him you would make him the best wife in the world—that you’d make a man of him, and he’d be a fool if he let you slip through his fingers. That’s all.”

  “It seems quite a lot. What did he say to that?”

  “Told me to mind my own business.” Uncle Algernon pulled down the corners of his mouth disapprovingly.

  “Good for him!” observed Cecile. “I’m glad he answered you back at last.”

  “We’re getting off the subject,” said Uncle Algernon tartly. “I’m letting you know now that I’m putting it in my will that if you marry my nephew Maurice Deeping, you will inherit fifty thousand pounds. You don’t get it otherwise.”

  “If you do that you’ll make it absolutely impossible for me to marry him, even if I do want to,” Cecile pointed out good-humouredly.

  “Why?”

  “Because everyone would think I took him for the fifty thousand pounds, of course.”

  “Who cares?” Uncle Algernon sniffed. “And, anyway, they wouldn’t know. Because, by the time my will is read, you’ll be married to him anyway.”

  “How do you know?” said Cecile. “I thought you told us you weren’t going to trouble any of us much longer and were going to die next week or something.”

  “I’ve changed my mind,” replied Uncle Algernon crossly. “And, anyway, it’s very indelicate to talk like that. As though you wanted me to die next week.”

  “I don’t want you to die next week. You’re much too entertaining,” said Cecile, and, laughing, she bent over and kissed the old man on his withered cheek. “But nor do I want your fifty thousand pounds. Either to marry Maurice or for any other reason. You leave me a hundred pounds, if you like, just to show we were friends. That will do nicely.”

  “I’m not going to leave you a hundred pounds. I’m going to leave you fifty thousand,” retorted Uncle Algernon, in a great rage. “And you’re a stupid, ungrateful girl if you don’t marry Maurice.”

  “I’ll think it over,” Cecile promised lightly. “Though I wasn’t aiming to marry anyone just now.” Then she caught her breath on a sigh—but not for Maurice. “I must go now. Maurice is ready to drive me back to town.”

  Uncle Algernon sulked at this, and only melted very slightly even when Cecile kissed him goodbye.

  “I’ll come again soon, shall I?” She stood by the bed, smiling down at him.

  “It’s immaterial to me,” he retorted.

  “No, it isn’t. You like to see me—just as I like to see you,” Cecile told him. “I’ll come and tell you how I get on at the business college, and you shall tell me how you get on with your new will.”

  “You’re being very foolish about this,” Uncle Algernon assured her. “You don’t know which side your bread is buttered, young woman.”

  “Well, maybe that’s better than trying to hog everyone else’s butter,” retorted Cecile. A view so novel and astonishing to Uncle Algernon that she left him silently thinking that over when she finally departed.

  To her relief, she did not have to see Felicity again. She was nowhere around when they took their leave, and they drove away from Erriton Hall with no more than the wintry valedictions of the housekeeper to cheer them on their way.

  “What did Uncle Algernon want?” enquired Maurice curiously, as they drove through the country lanes. “Or is it a secret?”

  “Not so far as I’m concerned.” Cecile smiled. “He just wanted to talk about making a new will on Monday. But, to tell you the truth, I didn’t pay much attention to what he had to say about it. For I’m perfectly sure that whatever he does on Monday he will regret on Tuesday.”

  “Did he say anything about putting you in the will?”

  She saw Maurice could not take it all so lightly as she did. “Only on the lines of—if I were a good girl and did what he told me, I might hear of something to my advantage.” She laughed and shrugged carelessly. “I’m sure it didn’t mean a thing, Maurice.”

  He looked at her, half amused and half exasperated.

  “I believe you honestly don’t care,” he said. “Are you really quite indifferent to money, Cecile, and all the pleasant things it can buy?”

  “No, of course not. I’d be just as pleased as the next person if I were suddenly presented with a fortune,” Cecile declared. “But I would never spoil the present by worrying about what the future might or might not bring. And, though I don’t want to sound trite or unworldly, I know from my own experience that there can be a great deal of unhappiness in a well-to-do household. While most of the things I love—and want,” her lips trembled, in spite of herself, “have nothing to do with money.”

  “You’re a darling,” said Maurice unexpectedly. “And you make me feel a material-minded, over-anxious worm.”

  “Maurice dear! How unpleasant. And what a very inaccurate impression to have of yourself.”

  He laughed at that.

  “I mean that when you talk in that wh
olesome, objective way, I know that I mind too much about the material things, and let the urge to them rule my life. I don’t love money in the way Uncle Algernon does—just for the pleasure of counting it and making people wish they could get it from him. But I do love all the pleasant things it can buy.”

  “That’s just being human, I guess,” Cecile smiled at him.

  “All right. But you seem independent of that. I long for leisure and travel and a good car and a high standard of living. I see it all dangling there, in Uncle Algernon’s grasp—and I can’t be indifferent to the fact that he has it in his power to bestow it or withdraw it.”

  “Well—you’ve been a great deal nearer to the enticing prospect than I have,” Cecile conceded. “Perhaps that makes it harder to be indifferent. But don’t think of it so much, Maurice. Think of all the other things that matter.”

  “What, for instance?” Maurice asked skeptically.

  “Oh—I don’t know. Being well and young and having at least an adequate income, and possibly sharing all that with someone who makes life doubly rich just by their sheer presence. These are the things that can happen to anyone, any day—without any Uncle Algernon to say them yea or nay.”

  “It’s the last thing you listed which counts most, you know.” Maurice looked thoughtfully ahead. “The sharing it all with someone who makes life rich. Perhaps I’ve never put a sufficiently high value on that before.”