“I see,” said Cecile slowly. “I see.”
But what she really saw was that it was quite impossible now for her to risk telling Gregory the truth. Even if she won him to her side, she would have to reckon with a furious and frustrated Felicity, seeking for revenge. And, with Gregory contemptuously indifferent, it would not take her long to realize that the man to whom she must hand the letters was Theo Letterton.
CHAPTER X
“You look tired, darling,” Cecile heard her mother say. And with an effort she wrenched herself back from the melancholy task of bidding a silent farewell to Gregory in her own mind.
“Yes. It’s been a long day. And—and Uncle Algernon was rather trying.”
“In what way?” Laurie wanted to know.
“Oh, he offered to leave me fifty thousand pounds—”
“Cecile! What an unusual way of being trying.”
“—Provided I would marry his nephew. Maurice Deeping, you know—whom you met this morning.”
“He seemed a nice enough fellow. Particularly with fifty thousand pounds attached. But—he just isn’t the one you want, is he?”
“No.” Cecile knew that quite finally now, and did not hesitate about her reply. Maurice had been nice to know—he would always be an attractive friend. But, with or without fifty thousand pounds, he would never be her choice, even as an agreeable second best.
“I suppose it’s Gregory Picton?” Laurie sounded a little dissatisfied, but not as though she would raise opposition.
“Oh—I don’t know,” said Cecile helplessly. And then she kissed her mother goodnight and went away to bed, for she felt she had reached the limit of what she could endure.
Sunday was a strangely quiet and uneventful day, spent pleasantly enough with Laurie. In the afternoon Theo Letterton came and took them out for a drive, and once more—now alert to the position—Cecile was able to see how extraordinarily happy Laurie and he were in each other’s company.
“I didn’t need any further evidence, really. I made my decision last night,” Cecile told herself. But it seemed to her that Gregory was even more irrevocably lost to her.
The next day, before Laurie had really woken up, Cecile departed for the business-training college which was to turn her into a suitable applicant for a post in Sir Lucas Manning’s office.
It was, inevitably, curiously like going back to school. And the Cecile who typed conscientiously and made the humiliating discovery that shorthand speed is hard to acquire but fatally easy to lose, seemed an entirely different person from the Cecile who handled Uncle Algernon with humorous aplomb, or, still more, the Cecile who loved Gregory Picton but who had to send him away out of her life.
Several of the other students were friendly enough, but they seemed to Cecile so much younger than herself. Not in actual years, but in their depth of experience of life. They chattered of clothes and boys and film stars—but all in a very lighthearted, transitory manner, as befitted their age.
When one of them produced an excellent photograph of Sir Lucas Manning, someone else remarked that he probably looked much older than that in real life. And at this point Cecile made the error of speaking up.
“No, he doesn’t, really. I know him quite well.”
“You know him?” By the surprise and skepticism in their voices, Cecile knew that a gulf had opened between them. And later she was half amused and half chagrined to hear one of the girls say to another, “What do you suppose she meant by saying she knew Lucas Manning? It doesn’t sound very likely, does it?”
“No, of course not,” was the scornful reply. “She’s probably just asked him for his autograph at the stage door—and which of us hasn’t done that? Showing off, that was what she was doing.”
Cecile took care after that not to make any further reference to her private affairs. Not even when, towards the end of the week, Gregory made the newspaper headlines, with a brilliant defence of an unfortunate blind man who had accidently killed his wife in a fit of well-founded jealousy.
“He’s a wonderful-looking man, isn’t he?” The girl who had produced the Lucas Manning photograph sucked in her cheeks admiringly. “He’s usually the counsellor the prosecution. Cold and sort of deadly. But he must be wonderful defending.”
“It was a good speech.” Cecile allowed herself to remark that. “Did you read it?”
“Oh, no.” The other girl looked surprised. “Only the headlines, you know. But I think he looks wonderful in that photograph of him leaving Court.”
Cecile thought so too. But she managed to keep her thoughts to herself, and contented herself with a noncommittal smile.
There was a good deal of concentrated work to be done, and Cecile, who was not used to this kind of routine, found herself thoroughly tired by the end of each day. She was almost glad that Gregory (engrossed, no doubt, in his case) did not even telephone her during that first week.
In fact, the only evening engagement she allowed herself was a quiet dinner with Maurice on the Thursday. And even then she made him bring her home early.
It was very quiet in the flat when she returned, for Laurie was, of course, at the theatre. But Cecile never minded her own company and she quite enjoyed these evenings alone at home. Usually Laurie left some sort of note if she departed before Cecile appeared—as had been the case once or twice when she had stayed to do extra work at the college—and on this occasion too there was a message in Laurie’s unmistakable writing.
“Uncle Algernon rang up. If you get home before ten o’clock will you telephone him at Blackwater 7585.”
“What does he want, I wonder?” murmured Cecile, half amused, half apprehensive, as she picked up the receiver and gave the operator the number.
There was a certain amount of whirring and clicking. Then the thin, unfriendly tones of Uncle Algernon’s housekeeper replied, and when she heard who Cecile was, she said in a disapproving sort of way that she would see if Mr. Deeping would speak to her.
Apparently Mr. Deeping would, because almost immediately Uncle Algernon’s voice—surprisingly deepened and amplified on the telephone—said, “Is that you, Cecile?”
“Yes, Uncle Algernon.” She thought she might permit herself this friendly form of address.
“What are you doing on Saturday?”
Cecile did not even have to review her plans. “Nothing in particular,” she said. “Laurie will be at the theatre in the afternoon and evening, and I expect I shall have a quiet day.”
“Well, then, you’d better come down here.”
“Would you like me to?”
“I shouldn’t have asked you otherwise,” was the characteristically gracious reply.
“I suppose not.” Cecile could not help smiling across at her own reflection in the mirror opposite, as though she shared the joke with someone. Then she remembered Felicity and her expression changed. “Will Felicity still be there?” she enquired candidly.
“No. Why? Don’t you get on with her?”
“Not specially,” said Cecile drily. “But I’d like to come if I see only you. What train shall I catch? And can someone meet me at the station? It’s rather a long walk, isn’t it?”
“No need for that,” declared Uncle Algernon. “Gregory Picton is coming down to see me. You had better get him to give you a lift.”
“Gregory?” A sort of scared happiness sounded in her voice, and she saw the sudden flush and sparkle in the face reflected opposite her. “Why is he coming down? I mean—I didn’t know that he was in the habit of visiting you.”
“He isn’t. But we’re fellow-trustees, aren’t we?”
“Oh, yes. I’d forgotten. Is he coming to discuss my affairs?”
“Among other things—among other things,” replied Uncle Algernon, in a tone which reduced her affairs to paltry insignificance. “Ring up Gregory and make the arrangements. I’ll expect you both about three.”
“But—wait a moment—if he hasn’t made any sort of suggestion about it himself—”
> “There are the ‘pips’. Don’t waste money on idle conversation,” said Uncle Algernon, whose income would not have been appreciably altered if he had telephoned nightly to Buenos Aires. And then he rang off.
Cecile sat there for a moment or two longer, the receiver still in her hand.
She longed to snatch at this chance of making some contact with Gregory again. And yet, she knew, she should resist the temptation. She ought to send a postcard to Uncle Algernon, saying she had had to alter her plans. But the thought of some hours with Gregory—alone in the car—was something she simply could not reject.
After all, if she were careful and clever—
Cecile had dialled the number before she had finished enumerating to herself the reasons for doing so, and Gregory’s deep, faintly lazy voice said in her ear,
“Hello—St. James’s 42420.”
“Gregory! This is Cecile speaking.”
“Cecile, my dear—” the laziness was no longer evident, “how very good to hear from you. Forgive me for not ringing myself before now. I’ve been confoundedly busy on a case.”
“Yes, of course. I know. I read all about it in the papers. You did wonderfully, Gregory.”
“Well, I got my client off on a capital charge,” he agreed, and she knew he was smiling.
“I wish I could have been in court.”
“I’m glad you were not. It was a sad and harrowing case.”
“But I mean—I should have liked to hear you defend, instead of prosecute, for once.”
He laughed a good deal at that.
“So you shall, my darling, one of these days, when it is a suitable case,” he promised. And somehow he made it sound deliciously as though there would always be a close contact between them, so that she was silent for a moment, basking in the sunshine of a purely artificial contentment.
“Did you want to ask anything special, Cecile?”
“Oh, yes! Uncle Algernon telephoned to say you were going down there on Saturday. He suggested I should come too.”
“But of course! That’s a wonderful idea. And I tell you what we’ll do, Cecile. I’m going down to my mother’s place tomorrow evening. She has been pressing me to bring you down again. Get Laurie to lend you to us for once. You can stay the night, and I’ll drive you over to old Deeping’s place on the Saturday, without going back into London at all.”
“Oh, Gregory—” it sounded so beautiful that she could not keep the happiness out of her voice—“but I think—I mean, your mother won’t be expecting me—and it’s rather a long time to be away—and—”
“Nonsense! I’ll telephone to Mother, telling her to expect us both. I can guarantee that she’ll be delighted. And Laurie won’t mind your being away for one night, surely?”
It would be ridiculous to pretend that she would, of course. And there was nothing—absolutely nothing—which Cecile could oppose to the plan. Except that Felicity would be furious if she ever knew. And this was something one could not put into words.
“Is it arranged?” There was a sort of humorous impatience in Gregory’s voice.
“Yes, Gregory—it’s arranged!” She wondered if she sounded as wildly and guiltily happy as she looked in the mirror opposite. Apparently she did. For she heard him laugh and say:
“It’s a very harmless and unexciting outing, really. But we’ll love to have you.”
Then he arranged to call for her the following evening, and he rang off, without giving her an opportunity to think of any reason for altering her plans.
“Oh, I shouldn’t have agreed—but it’s wonderful!”
She walked about the flat, hugging herself in her joy, and talking aloud in her anxiety. “If Felicity knew—But then how should she know? And, anyway, I can’t just make a clean, unexplained break without causing the most searching comment and enquiry. I simply have to build up a way of—of rejecting him gradually—”
But she knew this particular form of rejection would be extraordinarily difficult to justify, if one were ever put to it.
Laurie completely approved of the plan, and seemed only too glad that Cecile was to have a break.
“You’ve worked hard this week, darling. It will do you good to get out into the country for a bit,” she declared. And, on the following evening, she even risked being a little late at the theatre, in order to welcome Gregory and tell him how glad she was that he and his mother should have Cecile for the night.
In the end, they drove down to the theatre first, dropped Laurie off at the stage door, and then continued on their journey. The soft sunshine and the clear evening sky accorded so perfectly with their mood of content that they talked rather little on the way down—simply enjoying the drive, with that happy, wordless communion of spirit which comes only to those who are very close together.
Nothing could have exceeded the warmth and kindliness of Mrs. Picton’s welcome. She kissed Cecile as she might have kissed her own Anne, and as she wafted her upstairs to the pretty guest-room, there was, Cecile thought, an air of suppressed satisfaction, and even excitement, about her which was singularly engaging and youthful.
“I’ve been so eager to have you here again, Cecile,” she said, “and you don’t know how pleased I was when Gregory telephoned to say he was bringing you.”
“Dear Mrs. Picton,” Cecile looked round the room, so pleasantly and personally prepared for her, “you are really too kind. You make me feel completely at home. And though I’ve been here only once before—”
“That doesn’t make the least difference,” Mrs. Picton assured her. “We understood each other from the beginning. Didn’t you feel that too?”
“Indeed, yes.” Cecile smiled at her, and wondered how one was ever to retreat from all this kindness and family acceptance.
“That’s why I can say to you—” a sparkling and slightly conspiratorial smile came over her hostess’s face, “that I have something to show you.”
“Really?” Cecile looked amused and slightly mystified.
“Yes. Come with me.”
Mrs. Picton led the way along the upstairs passage to Gregory’s room at the end. The door was open and the room was empty. She went no further than the doorway, but there she stood, with Cecile beside her, and said in a tone of deep satisfaction, “You see.”
Cecile looked in.
“Well—no. I’m afraid I don’t.”
“It’s gone,” said Mrs. Picton succinctly.
And then Cecile saw that indeed “it” had gone. Felicity no longer smiled coldly from the dressing-table.
“Oh!”
“Yes.” Mrs. Picton nodded in a satisfied manner. “He took it away last time he was here. I don’t know what he did with it, and of course,” she said wistfully, “one cannot ask. But he no longer likes to have her looking at him. A very good sign. Take your time, dear, and come down when you are ready. Dinner won’t be ready for another twenty minutes yet.”
Left alone in her own room, Cecile spent some minutes sitting on the window seat and gazing out into the very beautiful garden. But what she saw was the empty space in Gregory’s dressing-table—silent witness of the fact that, for good or ill, Felicity’s star had waned.
It was a delightful evening, with Gregory in a relaxed and amusing mood, and Mrs. Picton frankly happy to have them both there. She asked several things about Gregory’s recent case, with a depth of professional knowledge which made Cecile wish she knew more.
But at no time was she allowed to feel out of it, in any way. And when dinner was over, and Gregory went to his study to attend to some urgent letters, Mrs. Picton took her into the garden, and discoursed to her on her flowers and her plants, as though it went without saying that Cecile would be interested in whatever happened there.
And Cecile was.
“It’s so peaceful and lovely and gracious here,” Cecile exclaimed. “It’s as though one had always known the place.”
“Yes, yes. I knew you would fit in perfectly, from the first moment,” Gregory’s
mother replied. And it was the contented significance in her voice which brought Cecile back to the inescapable falseness of her position—and the knowledge that she simply could not go on sinking further and further into a position which Mrs. Picton would obviously like her to occupy, but which her bargain with Felicity absolutely precluded.
“It’s sweet of you to—to say it like that.” Cecile heard the nervousness in her own voice. “But, you know, you mustn’t—plan or—or count on anything. I mean—”
“I love planning,” replied her hostess, unmoved. “And, though I wouldn’t be so impertinent as to count on anything which was not within my own power to decide, even the least interfering of mothers is entitled to have her hopes, you know.”
“Mrs. Picton—” Cecile pressed her hands together in her agitation—“you mustn’t even hope. Really you mustn’t. There is nothing—there can’t be anything—” Her voice trailed away, and for a moment there was silence.
Then Mrs. Picton spoke. “Why not, my dear? Aren’t you fond of Gregory?”
“I think he is the dearest and most wonderful person on earth,” replied Cecile, because she simply had to say it to someone, and who better than his mother?
“Well,” Mrs. Picton gave a relieved little laugh, “I don’t know what we are worrying about, then.”
“It’s something I can’t explain—something which doesn’t concern my feelings for him or—or—anything like that. It’s—well, it’s something I can’t explain,” she repeated helplessly, already aware that she should never have embarked on this conversation.
Again there was a silence, a longer one this time. Then Mrs. Picton said quietly:
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