Dear Trustee

by Mary Burchell

  “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.”

  “I hoped I should not have to give them.” For an odd moment, she had the impression that he was distressed, beneath all that chilly calm. “But, if you insist, you shall have them.”

  He hesitated a moment, as though choosing his words. Then he said, in a curiously unemotional tone, “When your mother left home, there was another man involved.”

  “That isn’t entirely unexpected, and who are we to judge the circumstances?” interrupted Cecile quickly.

  “Wait a minute. The man was already married—”

  “And she went away with him?”

  “Not in the usual meaning of the term. She used him to further her stage aspirations. I don’t think there was every any real affair between them. I don’t think she was even fond of him. But he was mad about her, and she cashed in on the fact.”

  “Are you quoting my father still?” Cecile spoke scornfully.

  “No.”

  “Then how can you be so confident of your assertions?”

  “I had my own reasons for checking on the story later,” he retorted coldly. “It was a conscienceless business. She broke up this man’s marriage ruthlessly, in order to use his money and his influence for herself.”

  “And what about him?” exclaimed Cecile indignantly. “Has he nothing to answer for? Why should he be thought the innocent victim?”

  “He was not. The innocent victim was the man’s wife.”

  “O-oh.” Cecile bit her lip.

  “She adored her husband and she was the rather defenceless type. It was some while before she realized the position. Then she was suddenly faced with the fact that her husband was crazy about another woman. He demanded a divorce, in brutally frank terms. He said afterwards—though here you are entitled to your own view, of course—that the other woman, that your mother, drove him on.”

  “But you don’t know that!” exclaimed Cecile, pale and distressed.

  “No. I am only telling you the story as it was told to me. Anyway, the girl—the wife—was half mad with grief and shock. There was no one to whom she could turn or in whom she felt she could confide. She took what she thought was the way out—Or did she just make a mistake?” He stared in front of him, and suddenly Cecile saw that he was no longer quite aware of her. “We shall never know now. Anyway, she took an overdose of sleeping tablets.”

  “Oh, no—no! That can’t be the exact—the whole story!” Cecile was indescribably distressed. By the story itself, by her mother’s reported part in it and, in some odd way, by the quiet but passionate intensity of Gregory Picton’s manner.

  “Those were the facts.” His voice sounded hollow and toneless all at once.

  “But, as I said before, the bare facts of a story are not everything. You didn’t tell the story objectively—you gave it some sort of cruel bias. You were Counsel for the Prosecution again, and you told the story as though you wanted Laurie to be terribly to blame. As though it were a bitter, personal matter.”

  “It is a bitter, personal matter,” he said harshly. “The girl happened to be my sister.”

  CHAPTER III

  “Your sister?” Cecile’s voice dropped to a whisper, and she stared at Gregory Picton in indescribable dismay. “Your sister? Oh, how awful. But she must have been—I mean, it’s all so long ago—How old was she when this happened?”

  “She was twenty-three when she died,” he said slowly. “It was terribly young to die.”

  Cecile swallowed.

  “And you?” she asked, as though she could not help it. “How old were you?”

  “Just under twenty.”

  “She was much younger than her husband, I suppose?”

  “Oh, yes. That was partly why she adored him. And why she had no chance against an older, more sophisticated woman.”

  Cecile shut her eyes for a moment, and before her inner vision there rose the picture of her mother as she was now. Lovely still, but hard and unhappy and disillusioned.

  “I’m sorry,” she heard Gregory Picton say, and she opened her eyes and looked at him again through the tears which she felt she must not shed.

  “There was no way of telling the story gently.”

  “I know.” She put out her hand to him across the table, in the first friendly gesture she had felt like making to him. “You poor boy—you poor boy!”

  “Oh, Cecile—” He gave a surprised little laugh and took her hand. “Why be specially sorry for me?”

  “I’m sorry for you all,” she said simply. “But for anything like that to happen to you when you were so young ... It must have poisoned everything for a while ... killed all one’s—one’s joy.”

  “I suppose it did,” he agreed slowly. “I was very fond of her, you see. She was my only sister. And, oddly enough, I was very fond of him too. He was big and attractive and handsome, the natural centre of any circle. And he was very influential, of course,” he added drily.

  She bit her lip, knowing that he had used the last term advisedly, and that it contained oblique criticism of her mother. “Did this break him up too?” she enquired diffidently.

  “He went abroad almost immediately after the inquest. I never saw him again.”

  Nor did her mother, Cecile supposed. The man who was to have given her all she wanted, in exchange all she had thrown away, just went out of her life. No wonder she often looked bleak and disillusioned.

  Cecile drew a long sigh.

  “I’m not going to try to defend her,” she said at last. “It would be impertinent to do that to you, of all people. But because this has been forced upon us, as an issue between us, I have to mention the—the extenuating circumstances, if only to explain my own position.”

  He was rather discouragingly silent, but she forced herself to go on.

  “I do understand how you feel about your sister—please believe me. But try to understand how I feel about my mother, too. She did a dreadful thing, I know, but the result was beyond anything she could have foreseen.”

  “She took the risk of whatever followed in consequence of her action.”

  “Well, yes—of course. Insofar as any woman who takes away another woman’s man runs that risk. But she didn’t engineer the tragedy. It must have come as a crushing blow to her too.”

  “Are you asking me to pity your mother?” he enquired drily.

  “No,” Cecile said quietly. “I am asking you to understand that I have a right to pity her.”

  He stared down at the tablecloth without saying anything. And suddenly she leaned forward and spoke to him softly but urgently.

  “Gregory,” he looked up, startled by either her tone or her mode of address, “I’ve only just come into this story, remember. Until yesterday, I didn’t even know my mother was alive. Now I find her—a lonely, sad, disillusioned woman with a dreadful weight on her conscience. Do you really think I should be right to judge her ruthlessly and thrust her out of my life again?”

  “That wasn’t what I was going to suggest—entirely. I just don’t want you to go and live with her.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of what I have told you, of course.”

  “Do you think she’ll contaminate me, in some way?”

  “No. Not that. You’re that curious mixture of sense and innocence that can touch pitch and not be defiled, I suppose,” he replied unexpectedly.

  “I don’t know about that—” she brushed the idea aside, “but, m this case, there is
n’t any pitch to touch. I understand your not wanting to have anything to do with her, after what you have told me. But that’s between you and her. What exists between me and her is, by nature, one of the strongest human ties. If that draws me to her and makes me want to share her home, the only thing against it is that, fifteen or sixteen years ago, she did something very wrong, for which she may have been bitterly sorry ever since, for all I know.”

  “Are you so sure of her remorse?” he enquired skeptically.

  “Do you always assume guilt until innocence is proved?” she retorted, and she saw him look startled again.

  He was silent for quite a long time. Then, with what she thought to be something of an effort, he said, “You’re very set on this arrangement of going to live with her?”

  “Yes, I am. Perhaps if I had known everything in advance, I should not have plunged so impulsively,” Cecile admitted, with a frankness which made him smile faintly. “But I made the suggestion, and it meant a lot to her. If I withdrew the offer, after she knew I must have heard the old story, it would do something dreadful to her. I know it!”

  He was silent again, and Cecile had the impression that he did not mind much if it “did something dreadful to her.” And perhaps one could not blame him for that. So she did not hurry him. After a while he said, “I don’t say I like the arrangement, or that I think it a wise one. But I withdraw my personal opposition, if that is what you want me to say.”

  “Oh, thank you, Mr. Picton!”

  “I was Gregory when you were trying to get round me,” he reminded her, with that dry smile.

  She laughed and flushed slightly.

  “Do you want me to go on calling you that?”

  He looked extremely amused for a moment.

  “It has a pleasing sound,” he admitted. Then, apparently remembering his duties as a host, he summoned the waiter to bring a trolley of delectable sweets.

  “I’m sorry, Cecile. I’m afraid I haven’t given you a very enjoyable evening so far. But this talk was unavoidable. Choose something really good now, and let’s talk of something else.”

  She did as he bade her, though she wondered quite what they could discuss that would not be an anticlimax to the drama of their earlier conversation. Perhaps he thought that too, after a moment’s reflection, because he said, “What would you like to do now? It’s late for a show, I’m afraid, except the review at the Intime, which is very good, I understand. Would you like to dance, or go driving, or what?”

  She hesitated.

  “May I really choose? Even if it’s something you won’t specially enjoy yourself?”

  “How do you know what I enjoy?” he countered amusedly. “The choice is entirely yours.”

  “Then,” she said quickly and rather breathlessly, “I should like to go once more to the Lucas Manning show, even though we shall miss the first act. She—she doesn’t come in until the second act. And I want to see her do that part again—knowing what I now know. Do you mind?”

  “Even if I did, Cecile, you should still have your wish,” he told her with a smile. “But, as it is, I can always bear to see consummate acting a second time.”

  “Oh, thank you! But I forgot—shall we be able to get seats? The place is booked out, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. But, unless Manning’s box is full, we can go in there. I know him quite well,” Gregory Picton explained.

  And so they finished their coffee quickly and drove the short distance to the theatre, to find that Sir Lucas’s secretary was only too willing to accommodate them.

  “I’m sure you can go in, Mr. Picton.” She smiled at the good-looking, celebrated Q.C. as though no one would think of opposing his wishes. “There’s only Lady Manning in the box. Oh, and a friend of hers who couldn’t get a seat at the last minute and asked her to help. There’ll be plenty of room.”

  “But we won’t intrude if Lady Manning has a friend there,” Cecile began.

  The secretary was cheerfully positive about their being welcome, however.

  “It’s just an acquaintance, really,” she explained, with a nice distinction. “Someone who arrived from the States only yesterday I believe. The curtain is just going down on the first act, so I’ll take you up now and make the explanations.”

  She wafted them up the short flight of stairs, and as they reached the door of the box, Lady Manning came out alone.

  “Oh—hello, Gregory!” She seemed slightly taken aback, Cecile thought in that first moment. “What are you doing here?”

  Gregory explained and introduced Cecile.

  “But if you like to have your friend to yourself, of course you must just say so.” He smiled at the charming, fair-haired girl who had won the desirable Sir Lucas almost without knowing how she had done it.

  “Oh, no, of course not!” She was still holding Cecile’s hand in a friendly clasp, and Cecile felt her fingers tighten for a moment. “It’s just that—the friend is Felicity Waring.”

  There was an infinitesimal pause before Gregory Picton said lightly, “Well, that’s all right. We ought to have quite a lot to talk about. I haven’t seen Felicity for—it must be almost a year. I didn’t know she had come back from the States.”

  “It was only yesterday,” Lady Manning explained. “But go in and have a talk with her. I have to go to Lucas for a few minutes.” And she nodded to them and went off, taking the secretary with her.

  “Who is Felicity Waring?” enquired Cecile in a whisper, as they turned towards the door of the box.

  “A one-time client of mine,” said Gregory uninformatively. And then they went into the box, and a dark, slender, infinitely elegant looking girl turned to look over her shoulder.

  “Why Greg!” she exclaimed, and Cecile heard—or thought she heard—both dismay and pleasure mingle with the surprise in her tone. “Where did you come from? And on the very day after my return to London, too.”

  “From the Savoy,” replied Gregory Picton literally. “And by pure chance, I assure you. May I introduce Cecile Bernardine, who is more or less my ward.”

  “Your ward?” There was no great degree of cordiality in the way she accepted the introduction, and she turned back almost immediately to Gregory. “I didn’t know you included the guardianship of young girls in your professional duties.”

  “I don’t,” said Gregory. “I am only a trustee.”

  “It’s more or less the same, isn’t it?”

  “No. But we won’t go into the technical difference now. Tell me what you are doing back in London?”

  “I got tired of the States. You don’t know how tired, Greg! I began to think of happier days here. I wondered,” she traced a pattern on the edge of the box with an immaculately manicured forefinger, “if I had made a mistake in ever going away. And I decided to come back. That’s all.”

  Privately, Cecile thought it was enough, if one said it in that reflective, significant tone. And she glanced surreptitiously at Gregory to see how he took this speech.

  He was looking away across the theatre, however, and after a few moments’ silence, he spoke about the play and asked how Felicity had enjoyed the first act. After that, conversation was desultory and quite impersonal, between the three of them, until Sydney Manning came back into the box.

  She slipped into her seat just as the lights were dimming. And Cecile no longer had attention for anything except what was happening on the stage, as she watched, with almost painful eagerness, for the entrance of the member of the cast who meant so much to her.

  When she had seen the play before, “Mrs. Edenham” had been merely one of a number of clever performers who helped to make a play memorable. Now Cecile watched her with a personal interest and pride in her performance. And also with a compassionate awareness of why it was that her mother gave every nuance of the part with wonderful point and understanding.

  “The raffish friend of the heroine’s mother,” was how Gregory Picton had described the role, and it was apt. An unhappy creature, with a suspected �
�past” and no illusions, even about herself. She made no bid for anyone’s sympathy, but to Cecile she was suddenly unbearably pathetic.

  As the curtain fell, she turned to Gregory and said, “Thank you.” But with a simple intensity which made Felicity Waring glance at her, again without favour.

  “That’s all right,” he assured her, and for a moment his eyes met hers in a glance of smiling understanding which set them apart from the other two in the box.

  It is surprising how completely a whole range of impressions can sometimes be conveyed without the use of words. In that moment when Gregory Picton smiled at her, Cecile knew that she would never again entirely dislike him—that, though he might remain in essence the ruthless Counsel for the Prosecution, he would also be the man who had inexplicably understood that she had to see her mother again in that role on just that evening.

  And, outside the part of her which recognized this link of understanding between her and Gregory, there was a cool, impersonal awareness that the elegant girl sitting beside her had noted that smile and been angry because of it.

  Afterwards they were invited backstage. But, without consulting Cecile, Gregory made their excuses, and she was not sorry for this. The complications which might have ensued were more than she felt able to tackle.

  And so goodbyes were said—unexpectedly casual ones between Gregory and Felicity Waring, Cecile noted—and Gregory escorted her out to the car once more.

  She had thought that on the way home she might have an opportunity to ask more about Felicity. But almost immediately he switched her mind on to other matters by enquiring, “How soon do you propose to start your new arrangement? Sharing a flat with your mother, I mean?”

  “As soon as it suits her, I suppose. And as soon as I have the agreement of the other trustees,” Cecile added conscientiously.

  At which, for the first time since she had known him, Gregory Picton laughed heartily.

  “You were not so submissive about my views,” he reminded her.