“I didn’t mind answering yours,” he told her, with a smile. “So I wouldn’t have insisted on the exact discharge of the bargain, you know.”
She heard him laugh softly and felt him kiss the tip of her ear lightly.
“You’re not engaged on some activity that your trustees ought to know about and forbid, are you?” he enquired, half amused, half serious.
“No, Gregory. Truly not!”
“Word of honour?” She knew he was still laughing, but the slight pressure of his arm was reassuring.
“Yes—word of honour—really!”
“Very well. But you just don’t want to tell me why Felicity came this evening or why you sent her away?”
“No. I don’t want to tell you.”
“We’ll leave it at that. He released her. But he looked at her quizzically as he added, “Next time you want to tell fibs, try them on one of the other trustees. I have had more practice than they have in detecting the truth and the lie.”
“I’m sure you have.” Cecile looked rather sober.
They drove on after that, and he talked of other things—amusingly and lightly, so that she was presently smiling again and talking too. But in the background of her mind lingered the horrid, inescapable fact that he knew now that there was something between herself and Felicity.
He timed things so well that they arrived back at the flat just as Laurie’s taxi, bringing her from the theatre, was drawing up outside the house. For a few moments they stood together on the pavement, exchanging goodnights. Then Gregory drove away, and Cecile and her mother mounted the stairs to the flat together.
Over tea and toast, Cecile told Laurie about her visit to Mrs. Picton. At which her mother looked reflective and said, “So he took you to see his mother? Is he fond of you, Cecile?”
“In a way, yes. I think he is.”
“In what way?” enquired Laurie, looking amused.
“Oh—I think he likes having me for a sort of ward, and he is indulgent, where he used to be strict. And he’s truly concerned about my welfare.”
“It sounds rather boring,” said Laurie with a slight yawn. “I didn’t mean quite that.”
“It isn’t a bit boring,” retorted Cecile, somewhat nettled.
“Well, if you’re not going to marry Gregory Picton in the next week or two—”
“Marry him, Mother—and in a week or two? Whatever gave you such an idea? It’s crazy!”
“So are lots of nice things,” replied Laurie, unmoved. “But if you have no definite plans for the immediate future, shall we say, I suppose you had better set about getting a job. What can you do?”
Cecile explained again about her idea of taking a refresher course in business training and seeking a post as a not too ambitious secretary or shorthand-typist.
“I suppose it’s practical,” Laurie conceded, “though it sounds dull to me. But if you really make the grade, I might get you a job with Sir Lucas. He has quite a big office staff at the theatre, because of his varied managerial interests.”
“I’d love that!” cried Cecile. “But I’d have to be something really good for that.”
“Well, Sir Lucas doesn’t suffer fools gladly, for all his good humour,” Laurie admitted. “It wouldn’t be a private secretary’s job in the full sense, you know. Miss Kitson is that, and nothing short of an earthquake is going to dislodge her.”
“I don’t want to dislodge her,” declared Cecile, rather shocked by these ideas of fierce competition. “But I’d like to work under her.”
Laurie looked amused again.
“You aren’t a bit like me,” she said musingly. “No overriding ambition. But perhaps that’s all to the good. I don’t think you’ll be difficult to settle, somehow. Where do you propose to go for your training course?”
Cecile, who had made some enquiries, explained that she had been highly recommended to a place quite near the flat, and that she intended to go along in the morning and see about enrolling there.
“Very well,” her mother said. “Don’t wake me too early in your enthusiasm.”
“Oh, no! Of course not. If you call out when you wake up, I’ll bring you your breakfast in bed.”
“Will you?” Laurie smiled at her indulgently. “Do you make good coffee? I don’t have anything but coffee and toast.”
“I’ll do my best,” Cecile promised. “Father always approved of my coffee.”
“Well, come! we may discover we have one thing in common, after all,” her mother replied ironically. “What are you going to do with yourself on Saturday, by the way? I always have a quiet morning and a very busy afternoon and evening then, so don’t count on my company.”
“No. I had thought of that. I’m going out to Erriton Hall for the day.”
“Where on earth is that?”
“It’s where Uncle Algernon—I mean Mr. Deeping—lives. He is the third trustee, you remember.”
“Oh, yes, I remember. Is Gregory Picton driving you out there?”
“No. Maurice—Mr. Deeping’s nephew—is taking me.”
Laurie looked at her reflectively again and she smiled suddenly. “Perhaps you take after me, after all,” she remarked. “Two admirers ready to run you round the country to meet their relatives isn’t bad.” Then she kissed Cecile goodnight and firmly sent her off to bed.
The next morning, after putting things to rights in the flat, and taking Laurie her coffee and toast, Cecile set off to make enquiries at the business-training college of her choice.
It proved to be one of those useful organizations which cater for almost all requirements. And after some discussion—and some unexpectedly searching tests—Cecile was told that, with a month’s intensive re-training, she should be suitably equipped to offer herself to the business world as a reasonably qualified employee.
During the next few days, Cecile made the discovery that life with Laurie was quite unusually pleasant. For, now that her mother had apparently decided to put a line under the past, and look resolutely to the future, she was a much happier, even gayer, creature than Cecile had ever supposed possible.
She laughed when Cecile recalled what Florrie and Stella had said of her, and remarked reminiscently, “I suppose I was gay then.”
“You still are, when you allow yourself to be,” Cecile told her.
“Yes? Well, it’s fun having you here,” was the frank reply. And Cecile, thinking how strange and charming it was to hear her mother use such a word, felt that she could not be thankful enough that she had insisted on this arrangement being made.
On Saturday, Maurice called for her about eleven o’clock, and, on coming upstairs to the flat, was introduced to Laurie, who gave a splendid repeat performance in her role of worldly but sympathetic mother.
“I say, your mother is a charmer!” he observed, as Cecile and he drove away from the flat, on the first stage of their journey to Uncle Algernon. “She looks like your sister, for one thing. And she’s a much warmer, more sympathetic person than she appears to be on the stage. Or than you led me to suppose, now I come to think of it.”
“She is like everyone else,” Cecile replied, with a satisfied smile. “She is a much nicer person as soon as she is happier. I love living with her.”
“So you were right.” Maurice glanced at her curiously, but admiringly. “And all the trustees were wrong.”
“Well, it was mostly Gregory and Mr. Carisbrooke, the solicitor,” Cecile admitted justly. “But they’ve capitulated handsomely now. So we won’t say any more about it. Tell me instead how Uncle Algernon is. And—and why Felicity is staying down there.”
“Oh, she always did, from time to time, you know. She used to be there for long spells when she was a kid and her people were abroad. A propos Felicity, did you work out your own private mystery to your satisfaction, and decide just why she had tried to call on your mother?”
“Oh—yes. I think I got to the bottom of it. I daresay I made too much of it when I spoke to you. I’ll have to speak t
o her sometime today rather sharply. That’s all.”
“It’s enough,” Maurice told her good-humouredly. “Felicity doesn’t take easily to sharp speaking. Unless, of course, she is doing it herself. But good luck.”
“Thanks,” Cecile said, and smiled vaguely.
They arrived rather earlier in the afternoon this time, and were immediately conducted to Uncle Algernon’s bedroom. He was not in the large, handsome four-poster bed, but sitting up in a chair, in a very magnificent dressing gown, looking more lined and shrunken than ever.
“I’m a very sick man,” he announced, with a sort of gloomy satisfaction in his own woes. “I shan’t be troubling any of you much longer.”
“Oh, nonsense, Uncle Algernon,” declared Maurice, a little mechanically. “And, in any case, you don’t trouble any of us.”
“Yes, I do,” retorted his uncle tartly. “That’s what I aim to do, and I flatter myself I have a considerable measure of success.”
This naturally had a somewhat blighting effect on the opening stages of the conversation. But Cecile drew up a chair near his and, taking his hand in her warm one, asked kindly what was the matter with him.
“Everything,” said Uncle Algernon. But he looked at her with a good deal of pleasure and added, “That’s a becoming dress. How are your plans for earning your own living, eh?”
Cecile gave him an amusing account of her visit to the business-training college, and explained that she would be starting work there on Monday.
“My great-niece Felicity is here, you know.” He shot a sharp glance at Cecile. “Your rival with Gregory Picton.”
“Uncle, that’s absurd! Cecile doesn’t even like Gregory Picton,” declared Maurice—rather officiously Cecile thought, until she remembered that he undoubtedly meant well, and was only slightly out-of-date with his facts.
“We get on quite well now,” she stated sedately. “But I assure you that neither Felicity nor I would regard each other as rivals.”
“No? Well, my information is different,” retorted Uncle Algernon, which naturally made Cecile intensely curious about his source of information.
But his next words drove everything else from her mind, for what he said was, “And what is this I hear about some letters being found?”
“L-letters?” stammered Cecile. “What letters?”
“I’m asking you,” observed Uncle Algernon with satisfaction.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, looking him straight in the eye. And it came to her that she was doing this much better than she had with Gregory. Or perhaps, as he had said, Gregory was better at detecting untruths than either of the other trustees.
At any rate, the old man stared back at her for a moment, as though he would put her out of countenance some way. Then he remarked, in a disgruntled sort of way, “She seems very cagey about telling anyone much. But Felicity has some letters that would blow the top off some story or other. She promised to show them to me sometime.” Cecile felt a lump of ice slide down her spine. “But she hasn’t done anything about it yet.”
“I expect she has made half of it up,” said Cecile as casually as she could. “And, anyway, you shouldn’t read other people’s letters.”
“Fiddlesticks,” replied Uncle Algernon, who was not going to be done out of a promising piece of scandal. Then he rang the bell for his manservant to help him downstairs to the drawing room for tea. Cecile and Maurice followed at a respectful distance.
When the old man was installed, with some ceremony and a great deal of grumbling, in his armchair downstairs, the familiar well-laden tea-trolley was wheeled into the room. And, at the same moment, Felicity made her appearance through the french windows from the garden.
She seemed momentarily taken aback at seeing Cecile. But she recovered a sort of insolent self-possession, and said, “Hello, Maurice. It’s a long time since I saw you.” And, to Cecile, “Hello. What brings you down here?”
“She has every right here. She is my ward,” observed Uncle Algernon, being argumentative on principle, though he gave Felicity a friendlier glance than any Cecile had seen him bestow upon Maurice.
“Oh yes, of course.” Felicity laughed slightly. “She has all sorts of useful trustees, hasn’t she?”
“Gregory Picton among them.” Uncle Algernon could hardly bring the name in fast enough. “I’ve just been telling her that you and she are rivals there. But she says I am quite wrong, and that she doesn’t even like Gregory.”
“I didn’t say that at all,” exclaimed Cecile quickly, while Felicity gave her a sidelong glance of acute dislike. “I said that I got on quite well with Gregory now, but that neither Felicity nor I would be so silly as to regard each other as rivals in any sense.”
“I’m glad you feel so sure of that,” returned Felicity contemptuously. And conversation naturally languished again.
“She says she doesn’t know anything about any letters, either,” remarked Uncle Algernon to no one in particular. And Cecile began to wonder why she had been so foolish as to come. To try to disentangle a delicate situation in this atmosphere was like playing with gunpowder and lighted matches.
Maurice unexpectedly came to the rescue at this point by asking Felicity about her American trip. And although she went into a good deal of detail which was not especially interesting to Cecile, at least this had the virtue of keeping Uncle Algernon from any more dangerous quips.
This, however, was not his idea of intelligent conversation. And, in spite of Cecile’s questions about his interesting ailments, and a certain amount of astringent sympathy on her part, he presently became either tired or bored and said he would go back to his room.
It was Maurice who offered to escort him there. And suddenly, with a tensing of all her nerves, Cecile realized that her scene with Felicity was very near.
There was silence for a few moments when the two men had gone. Then Cecile said, with all the quiet resolution she could muster:
“This is as good a chance as any for a frank talk, Felicity. Will you tell me now why you came to see Laurie the other day?”
The other girl sprawled gracefully in the chair opposite, apparently much more at ease than Cecile, and she curled her lip contemptuously as she replied.
“Don’t be so naive. I came to tell her I had her letters to Hugh Minniver, of course. Why else should I come?”
Cecile paled. Not because this was a surprise, but because, put in words, the fact had an incredibly ugly sound.
“I gathered that, of course,” she admitted quietly. “But what I don’t understand is why you should want to do it. What useful purpose could it serve, to shatter Laurie’s peace of mind with the knowledge that those letters exist?”
For a moment Felicity was silent, and Cecile had the impression that she was feeling her way—trying to decide how much she should say. Then a look of flinty determination came over her face and she asked harshly, “Do you want me to be completely frank?”
“Please. I don’t see what else could be any good now.”
“Very well, then. You were stupid when you told Uncle Algernon that you and I were not rivals where Gregory is concerned. Of course we are rivals. Gregory and I were very close in the days before I went away to America.”
“Well, yes. I realize that,” Cecile said, a little uncomfortably. “But you turned him down, didn’t you? And the whole thing was over by the time you went away.”
“One can make a mistake.” Felicity narrowed her eyes. “I made a mistake. I admit it. When I was away from him, I found out how much he meant to me. That’s why I came back—meaning to put the clock back and to take things up where we had dropped them. Almost the first evening after my return we met again. At first I thought he must have engineered it. Then I found it was a sheer coincidence. And—you were there.”
Cecile swallowed nervously, and suddenly found herself unable to look anywhere but into Felicity’s cold, inimical eyes.
“He is just my trustee,” she said
huskily. “You are being quite absurd.”
“Are you telling me that Gregory is nothing to you—or you to him?” asked Felicity ruthlessly.
“No. I’m not telling you anything,” Cecile said firmly. “It’s ridiculous that you should suppose I would. I’m not making any sort of statement about my relationship with Gregory. It has nothing whatever to do with the way he regards you. If he loved you once—” she was half scared by the look which came into Felicity’s face when she used that word “once”, but she went on resolutely, “and if you want to make him love you again, that’s up to you. I have absolutely nothing to do with it, and I refuse to be involved.”
"But you are involved,” replied Felicity, with bitter candour. “He’s more than half in love with you already.”
Cecile caught her breath, and then was completely still. For this, she knew all at once, was not just the jealous vapouring of a dangerous woman. It was the simple, deadly truth.
Felicity’s own intensity of feeling had taken her straight to the heart of the matter. She knew, with the furious certainty of the loser, who it was that had snatched the crown from her, however unwittingly.
“She’s right,” thought Cecile. “Oh, Gregory—she’s right.”
“Well,” said Felicity, in that moment. “What have you to say to that?”
“Nothing.” Cecile tilted up her chin defiantly. “You’re completely fogging the issue. What has all this to do with your going to Laurie and trying to make her wretched by dragging up her unhappy past?”
“Why—everything. Don’t you see?” Felicity stared at her in genuine surprise. “I told you those letters might have a use one day. They have it now. They are the only weapon I have which will stop you from taking Gregory away from me.”
“But—” Cecile stood up suddenly, unable to remain seated before the monstrous truth which was breaking upon her—“what are you saying? You can’t do such a thing. You can’t blackmail me into—into thrusting aside Gregory’s love, by threatening to show him the evidence of Laurie’s guilt.”
“You’re mistaken.” Felicity too had risen to her feet, and she spoke quite calmly, “I can do just that. If you don’t take your hands off Gregory, I’ll show him those letters—and then see how anxious he will be to have more to do with you and your mother. But, if you do as I ask, I’ll give you the letters on the day I marry Greg. You can burn them then or do anything else you like with them. They won’t have any value any longer.”
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