Dear Trustee by Mary Burchell Read Free Book Online

set you against me. And I expect he’ll succeed in the end.”
    She flung herself down in a chair and stared out of the window, looking, to Cecile’s distress, indescribably tired and defeated.
    “He won’t do anything of the sort!” Cecile came and knelt by her mother’s chair and put an arm round her. “Don’t look like that, darling. Neither Gregory Picton nor anyone else is going to separate us. I promise you.”
    “Oh, Cecile—you don’t know .” Laurie gave a quick sigh, but she absently returned Cecile’s kiss.
    “What don’t I know?”
    “Almost everything about this hard arid horrid wicked world,” her mother replied, with a slight laugh.
    “Oh, Mother! Laurie, I mean, I’m not quite such an innocent!” Cecile was slightly annoyed. “I know what I want, and mostly I know how to get it. Think of yesterday, for instance. I didn’t stop at much when I was determined to see you, within an hour of hearing of your existence.”
    “Oh, Cecile,” her mother threw her arms round her, “be even half as determined to go on seeing me, will you?”
    “Of course—of course,” Cecile vowed. And at that moment she felt quite calm and courageous about her interview with Gregory Picton that evening.
    Presently her mother said something about a lunch appointment, and it was evidently time to go. This time, however, she bade Cecile quite an affectionate goodbye and told her she might come again when she liked. So that Cecile left the flat happier and more reassured, and went to her appointment with Maurice Deeping in good spirits.
    Over lunch he asked her when she was going to see her other trustees, at which Cecile looked surprised and said, “I don’t know. I don’t have to do anything about Aunt Josephine, I suppose.”
    “But what about my Uncle Algernon?”
    “I hadn’t thought about him,” Cecile confessed.
    “Well, think about him now,” Maurice suggested. “How about letting me drive you down to see him tomorrow? We could lunch somewhere on the way.”
    The idea appealed immensely to Cecile, particularly as it would give her more or less a day in Maurice’s company. So she agreed immediately, and kept that thought cheeringly in the background of her mind as her rather frightening interview with Gregory Picton drew nearer.
    With the obscure but perfectly sound idea that she would be better able to handle the situation if she knew she was looking her best, she took the utmost pains with her appearance that evening. And it was a quite lovely, self-possessed looking girl, in youthfully elegant black, who came forward to greet Gregory Picton when he arrived to collect her.
    “Hello,” he greeted her in a manner which seemed to take no account of the way they had parted that morning. “You’re looking quite stunning, Cecile. I hope I haven’t kept you waiting.”
    “Oh, no. I had only just come down.”
    He took her out to his waiting car and, without much conversation between them, they drove to the Savoy. As they entered the Grill Room, Cecile was aware—rather pleasurably aware—that people looked after them with interest. It was the first time she had ever walked into a public place in company with someone celebrated.
    Not until they were seated at a pleasantly secluded table, and their delicious-sounding meal had been ordered, did he look across the table at her and say, “Well, Cecile, I suppose we can’t avoid a frank discussion much longer.”
    “About my mother, you mean?” She spoke quickly and resentfully.
    “Among other things,” he agreed drily. And she dropped her glance and remained mutinously silent.
    “Cecile,” he said abruptly, “look up.”
    She was startled into doing so immediately, and found him watching her in a half-amused, half-exasperated manner. “Why did you look so sulky and resentful?”
    “You have tried to set me against her,” she exclaimed accusingly.
    “No, Cecile, that isn’t true. All I wanted was to have some time in which to give you an