Dear Trustee

by Mary Burchell

  “Mother—?” For a moment Cecile thought Laurie must be acting—with the superb defiance of someone fighting with her back to the wall. Then she saw that the puzzlement was absolutely genuine.

  She gave another of those wordless little sounds and, leaning forward, she snatched up the letter which lay before Gregory.

  And then she saw that the small, neat, very feminine handwriting had no resemblance whatever to Laurie’s bold scrawl.

  She burst into tears at that point. Although she was in a public restaurant, she leaned her head on her hands and cried and cried.

  She knew vaguely that the others gathered round her, to shield her from observation. She knew that Gregory had his arm round her and that Theo had poured some wine and was trying to make her drink it. But the only thing which made a crystal-clear impression on her was her mother’s voice, saying coolly and with absolute authority,

  “Thank you, Miss Waring. I’ll take the rest of those letters. It was good of you to bring them. I see now they were written to a very old friend of mine—but not by me. Don’t let us keep you. I think Cecile isn’t very well, and I’m going to take her home now.”

  “I’m sorry,” Cecile was whispering to Gregory. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make a scene. I’ve been so frightened—so desperate. I thought—I thought—”

  “All right, my darling. Stop crying now.” His voice was infinitely tender. “We are all going back to the flat now, and you shall tell us what you like. There’s no need to cry or to be frightened any more. It’s all over. You’re safe—and so is Laurie. And I love you.”

  “I love you too,” she whispered. “I love you more than anything else in the whole wide world.”

  “Then nothing else matters, so far as I’m concerned. Look up, my beloved.”

  She looked up then—pale and hollow-eyed, so that her mother exclaimed aloud. But the hysterical tears were over.

  Fortunately they had been at a corner table, partly shielded by a bank of plants and flowers, and in fact only a few people seemed to have realized that the pale girl in the corner was not very well.

  “We can go now,” Theo Letterton said, with a blessed lack of fuss. And Cecile saw that the waiter was moving off with the bill, and also that there was no sign of Felicity.

  “Where is Felicity?” she asked, in a small, hoarse voice.

  “Gone,” said Gregory grimly.

  “And the—the letters?”

  “I have them here,” Laurie said, still in that tone of quiet authority. “Come, darling, we’re going home.”

  Tm sorry. I’ve spoilt everything.”

  “No, you haven’t. We had all finished anyway. And now what needs to be said can best be said at home.”

  Together they went out to Gregory’s car, by a side exit, so that they did not have to pass through the restaurant again. Cecile heard Gregory say quietly to the other man, “Come in front with me. I think it’s her mother that she wants just now.”

  So the two men went in front, and Cecile sat in the back, leaning against her mother, her heart most strangely at rest, although she could not yet understand at all what had happened.

  When they reached the flat, Gregory said, “Laurie, do you really want me in on this, or would you prefer me to take myself off?”

  “No. Please come up too. I think you, of all people, have a right to hear what is said.”

  “Thank you.”

  It was he who took Cecile's arm then, and she was glad of his support on the way upstairs, for she felt strangely weak and unstrung. But, once they were upstairs and seated in the pleasant room where she had first made her decision to come and live with her mother, she began to feel better.

  “Now—” it was Theo Letterton who looked round with a slight smile—“I don’t think I’m more curious than the next fellow, but if someone doesn’t explain soon exactly what has been happening, I think I’ll have a stroke.”

  “Pour some drinks, dear, and give me just five minutes to glance at these,” Laurie said. And, while Theo carried out her instructions, Laurie took the letters out of her bag and slowly read one of them—then another.

  “It’s enough,” she said, half to herself. “There’s no need to read any more—ever.”

  “Oh, Mother—” Cecile went over and knelt beside her—“they’re not yours, are they? They’re not yours?”

  “No, darling. Go and sit comfortably by Gregory, who is longing to have his arm round you, and I’ll try to explain to Theo, who has been very patient.”

  So Cecile went and sat by Gregory, in the circle of his arm, and Laurie, still holding the worn and faded letters in her hands, began to speak slowly, as though choosing her words with care.

  “The first part isn’t unknown to Cecile and to Gregory,” she said, “and I don’t know how much of it was known to you, Theo, Many years ago, when Cecile was a very small girl, I left my husband and my home, because I had stage ambitions. The man who had some interest in me and my work was called Hugh Minniver. But I must ask you all to take my word for it—there is nothing else to support it—that he was never my lover.”

  There was silence for a moment. Then Theo said,

  “I take your word for it, my dear, absolutely.”

  “And I,” Gregory added, tightening his arm round Cecile.

  “I did flirt with him, Theo. I did encourage his admiration, in order to make him use his influence on my behalf. It doesn’t sound nice, said in cold blood—but the truth has to be admitted at this point.”

  “It was a long time ago,” replied Theo philosophically. “Who am I to judge?”

  “Thank you, my dear.” Laurie smiled at him. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, she went on resolutely,

  “He was married—”

  “Oh!”

  “To Gregory’s sister, Anne.”

  “Good Lord!” Theo turned and looked at Gregory, who inclined his head but said nothing.

  “He pressed for a divorce—”

  “Because of you?” asked Theo sharply.

  “Everyone always thought so. I have always been afraid so. Until tonight.” She gripped the letters rather nervously in her thin hands. “His young wife was—horrified. Do you want to tell this part of the story, Gregory?”

  “No.” Gregory was rather pale. “I accept your version of it. Go on.”

  “She took an overdose of sleeping tablets—either by accident or design.”

  “My God!” Theo Letterton got up and began to walk about the room, rather agitatedly.

  “Most people who knew the interest he had taken in me and my career supposed it was I who had hounded him on to make the fatal demand of her.”

  “And—hadn’t you?” asked Gregory hoarsely.

  “No,” said Laurie, quite simply.

  “But, great heavens!” It was Gregory who was agitated now. “Why haven’t you said so before?”

  “To whom? And who would have believed me, if I had? You can’t go about insisting on refuting a charge that has never been made to you in words. I had no counsel for the defence—” Laurie smiled faintly—“until Cecile came along—”

  “Oh, Mother darling!”

  “And above all,” suddenly she was deadly serious again, “though I had never pressed Hugh in words to ask for a divorce, I had it on my conscience that I had done all I could to engage his interest and influence. How did I know it was not because of me that he had done it? On balance, I thought it probably was.” She stopped speaking, and for a few difficult seconds there was silence in the room.

  “And now?” said Theo Letterton at last. “What has brought this all up again?”

  “May I tell this bit?” asked Cecile timidly.

  “Yes, dear,” said her mother. While the slight pressure of Gregory’s arm seemed to tell her that she might do whatever she liked, now and any time.

  So, in a low voice, but quite clearly, Cecile told about Felicity’s discovery of the letters in Hugh Minniver’s desk, after his death.

  �
�I didn’t know he was dead,” said Laurie quietly. But there was in her voice no more than regret for a half-forgotten acquaintance, and suddenly Theo moved nearer to her again.

  “I did,” said Gregory. “Go on, Cecile.”

  “I can’t tell this bit without showing Felicity in a rather horrible light,” she said slowly. “But, after this evening, I suppose none of us have any illusions about her.”

  “None,” they agreed in chorus.

  “Very well, then. She told me she had these letters—that they were Laurie’s. She described them as being signed with an ‘L’ and it never entered my head, in the circumstances, that they could be anyone else’s. She said, Felicity said, that they carried irrefutable proof that the writer stopped at nothing to make Hugh Minniver get a divorce.”

  “Did you really think I would do that?” asked Laurie passingly.

  “I didn’t know.” Cecile threw her a remorseful glance. “I was so frightened—and she was so positive. She believed it herself, without any doubt.”

  “Yes. I saw she did this evening.”

  “There was something which she very much wanted me to do. She threatened to show the letters to Gregory—and possibly others, if I wouldn’t do what she wanted. I did try, but failed—”

  “What was it that she wanted you to do?” enquired Theo, curiously.

  “I—I can’t explain just now.”

  “All right. She tried to blackmail you, in fact? I wish,” said Theo, in regretful parenthesis, “that I’d wrung her neck, while she was still within reach.”

  “In a way—yes, it was blackmail, I suppose. But it didn’t produce the result she wanted, and she was furious and blamed me and—and carried out her threat to produce the letters.”

  “It must,” Gregory said slowly, and with a sort of grim enjoyment, “have been a most disagreeable shock to her when Laurie didn’t react rightly.”

  “Yes. She was so completely nonplussed that there was no resistance at all when I took the letters out of her hand,” agreed Laurie. “They are all here.”

  She looked down at them. And again for a few moments no one spoke. Then she said quietly,

  “I know who wrote them, I think. It’s possible that Gregory would guess too, if he looked carefully at them. But if it is the woman I think, then she is dead now. I knew she meant a great deal to Hugh—but I didn’t know how much. The whole thing was supposed to have been over by the time I came on the scene. But it concerns none of us now.”

  She looked across at Gregory, and he nodded wordlessly. “Then, if you all agree, I suggest that I burn these letters, without any of us reading any more of them. They are nothing to do with us now.”

  “Agreed,” said the two men, with one voice.

  “Oh, Mother—” Cecile held out her hand to Laurie—“I’m glad you’re the one to do that for the poor soul—whoever she was.”

  “I owe it to her.” Laurie spoke half to herself. “It’s as though she reached out from the grave to vindicate me. I shall know now, for the rest of my life, that whoever urged Hugh towards the decision which killed Anne, it was not I.”

  She stood up suddenly and pushed back her hair with both her hands, as though some tremendous revelation had burst upon her.

  “It was not I!” she repeated. “Oh, God—I can’t believe it! It was not I!”

  Then she covered her face with her hands and stood quite still. Until Theo came to her and took her in his arms. And for several seconds there was silence in the room, while to each one came the full realization of what those words meant.

  “I think,” said Gregory finally, getting to his feet, “that you two must have a great deal to say to each other which would make me—and even Cecile—in the way. I’m going to take her out with me now for a very short drive—”

  “Gregory, it’s so late!” protested Laurie.

  “No, no.” Gregory smiled at her. “It’s early, if you like to look at the clock the other way round. And I have a few things to say to Cecile which I think concern only us.” He turned to Cecile. “Are you coming, my sweet?”

  “Oh, yes!” Cecile sprang to her feet, the colour flooding back into her face, in the immensity of her relief and happiness.

  “Aren’t you tired, Cecile?” Her mother came to her and took her hand. “You looked so dreadful earlier in the evening.”

  “I had reason to! But that’s over now. Now I have every reason to feel wonderful.”

  “All right.” Laurie smiled at her. “Don’t keep her out too long, Gregory.”

  “I promise. And—” Gregory took Laurie’s hand and kissed it gravely—“forgive me. I’ll try to make it up to you in the future.”

  “You make it up to Cecile,” replied Laurie, with a gay laugh. But she leaned forward suddenly and kissed Gregory.

  “Go along, the pair of you,” said Theo Letterton, and, whether he knew it or not, Cecile noticed with amusement that an almost fatherly note had crept into his voice.

  She put her hand into Gregory’s and they went to the door together. Then she glanced back. But already Theo had Laurie in his arms, and they were both oblivious of anyone else.

  “They’ll be all right,” she said to Gregory as they went downstairs. And she knew that the responsibility which had rested on her so heavily during the last few weeks had been transferred to very much broader shoulders.

  “He will look after her,” Gregory agreed. “You’re going to have to find another worthy object for your tenderness and care, my darling.”

  “I’ve found it,” she said, and he kissed her before he handed her into the car.

  “Where are we going?” Cecile asked, but she didn’t really care, so long as Gregory was beside her.

  “I don’t know. Wherever I can find a quiet spot, where I can park and give all my attention to telling you how much I love you, I suppose.”

  Cecile hardly noticed where they were going. All roads were flooded with sunshine for her, although the stars twinkled overhead. But presently Gregory drew the car to a standstill, and she saw that they were on the bank of the canal which most Londoners never suspect they possess.

  Starlight rippled on the water, and a long barge moored nearby seemed to impart a quality of romance and even mystery to the scene.

  “Oh, Gregory, how beautiful! Are we still really in the heart of London?”

  “No,” he said gravely, “we are in a magic country all our own. No one can invade it—and it all belongs to us tonight.”

  Then he took her in his arms and kissed her softly over and over again.

  “You did mean what you said, earlier in the evening, didn’t you?” he asked, softly but anxiously. “When you said you loved me better than anything else in the world.”

  “Yes, of course. Didn’t you know that by instinct? You always vowed you did.”

  “A man likes even his finest instincts confirmed,” Gregory declared, and Cecile laughed and rubbed her cheek against his.

  “Tell me something,” she said, after a moment or two, and he turned his head and touched her cheek with his lips again. “Yes? What?”

  “What did Felicity do when her whole case fell to pieces this evening? I didn’t see—or even hear—what happened. I just kept on crying, in that stupid way. And then, when I looked up, she was gone. Like a bad dream.”

  “It wasn’t stupid of you to cry,” he said categorically. “And Felicity has gone—right out of your life—like a bad dream. I never saw anyone so completely dumbfounded as she was when she realized that her dagger had no point.”

  “Oh, Gregory!” Cecile gave a slight laugh, but she shivered too. “It was like a dagger-thrust, what she tried to do to Laurie. Cruel and unprovoked and—fatal, as she thought. She imagined she was going to bring disaster to each one of us.”

  “Yes.” He set his mouth grimly. “I didn’t know she could harbour so much malice as to be indifferent to the contempt she must inspire.”

  “I suppose,” Cecile said slowly, “it would have been worth
it to her, in a horrible way, if she could have broken up everything for all of us.”

  “I suppose so,” he agreed. “And when she realized that she had failed completely, in addition to the disappointment must have been the sudden realization of the figure she presented. She looked stunned—as though she didn’t even know what had hit her.”

  “Did she say anything?”

  “Nothing. She didn’t even protest when Laurie took the remaining letters out of her hands. We all—looked at her, I think. And she must have seen in our expressions how completely she had ruined herself, instead of us. I imagine she will find it convenient to return to the States quite soon.”

  “It served her right, of course,” Cecile said, “but—poor thing!” For out of the immensity of her own relief and happiness, she could even feel compassion for her bitter enemy.

  “Don’t waste your pity.” Gregory spoke drily. “Blackmail—even if no money is involved—is a pretty dirty thing.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “And now—before we leave this hateful subject for ever—I want you to tell me something.”

  “Yes?”

  “What was it Felicity tried to make you do, in exchange for her silence about the letters? You said it was something you tried to do but could not.”

  “Oh—” Cecile bit her lips, “do we have to go back over that?”

  “I’d like to.”

  “Well,” Cecile touched his hand in an almost embarrassed little caress, “she wanted me to send you away. To—to break up the love that was growing between us. I was to pretend that I—I was indifferent to you and didn’t want you to make love to me. I—couldn’t. That’s all.”

  “Oh, my darling!”

  “But that’s all over now, Gregory. Don’t think of it. Don’t ever think of it again,” she exclaimed.