Ordeal by Innocence

Chapter 16
"Do you mind if I stay on a bit, Dad?" asked Micky.

"No, of course not. I'm delighted. Is it all right with your firm?"

"Yes," said Micky. "I rang 'em up. I needn't be back until after the week-end. They've been very decent about it. Tina's staying over the week-end too," he said.

He went to the window, looked out, walked across the room with hands in his pockets, gazing up at the book-shelves. He spoke then in a jerky, awkward voice.

"You know, Dad, I do appreciate really all you've done for me. Just lately I've seen - well, I've seen how ungrateful I've always been."

"There's never been any question of gratitude," said Leo Argyle. "You are my son, Micky. I have always regarded you as such."

"An odd way of treating a son," said Micky. "You never bossed me about." Leo Argyle smiled, his remote, far-away smile.

"Do you really think that's the only function of a father?" he said. "To boss his children about?"

"No," said Micky, "no. I suppose it isn't." He went on, speaking in a rush. "I've been a damned fool," he said. "Yes. A damned fool. It's comic in a way. Do you know what I'd like to do, what I'm thinking of doing? Taking a job with an oil company out in the Persian Gulf. That was what Mother wanted to put me into to begin with - an oil company. But I wasn't having any then! Flung off on my own."

"You were at the age," said Leo, "when you wanted to choose for yourself, and you hated the idea of anything being chosen for you. You've always been rather like that, Micky. If we wanted to buy you a red sweater, you insisted you wanted a blue one, but all the time it was probably a red one you wanted."

"True enough," said Micky, with a short laugh. "I've been an unsatisfactory sort of creature always."

"Just young," said Leo. "Just kicking up your heels. Apprehensive of the bridle, of the saddle, of control. We all feel like that at one time in our lives, but we have to come to it in the end?"

"Yes, I suppose so," said Micky.

"I'm very glad," said Leo, "that you have got this idea for the future. I don't think, you know, that just working as a car salesman and demonstrator is quite good enough for you. It's all right, but it doesn't lead anywhere."

"I like cars," said Micky. "I like getting the best out of them. I can do a line of talk when I have to. Patter, patter, all the smarmy bits, but I don't enjoy the life, blast it. This is a job to do with motor transport, anyway. Controlling the servicing of cars. Quite an important job."

"You know," said Leo, "that at any time you might want to finance yourself, to buy yourself into any business you thought worth while, the money is there, available. You know about the Discretionary Trust. I am quite prepared to authorise any necessary sum provided always that the business details are passed and acceptable. We would get expert opinion on that. But the money is there, ready for you if you want it."

"Thanks, Dad, but I don't want to sponge on you."

"There's no question of sponging, Micky, it's your money. Definitely made over to you in common with the others. All I have is the power of appointment, the when and the how. But it's not my money and I'm not giving it to you. It's yours."

"It's Mother's money really," said Micky.

"The Trust was made several years ago," said Leo.

"I don't want any of it!" said Micky. "I don't want to touch it! I couldn't!

As things are, I couldn't."

He flushed suddenly as he met his father's eye. He said uncertainly: "I didn't -1 didn't quite mean to say that."

"Why can't you touch it?" said Leo. "We adopted you. That is, we took full responsibility for you, financial and otherwise. It was a business arrangement that you should be brought up as our son and properly provided for in life."

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"I want to stand on my own feet," Micky repeated.

"Yes. I see you do... Very well, then, Micky, but if you change your mind, remember the money is there, waiting."

"Thanks, Dad. It's good of you to understand. Or at least, not to understand, to let me have my way. I wish I could explain better. You see, I don't want to profit by -1 can't profit by - oh, dammit all, it's all too difficult to talk about."

There was a knock on the door which was almost more a bump.

"That's Philip, I expect," said Leo Argyle. "Will you open the door for him, Micky."

Micky went across to open the door, and Philip, working his invalid chair, propelled himself into the room.

He greeted them both with a cheerful grin.

"Are you very busy, sir?" he asked Leo. "If so, say so. I'll keep quiet and not interruptyou and just browse along the bookshelves."

"No," said Leo, "I have nothing to do this morning." "Gwenda not here?" asked Philip.

"She rang up to say she had a headache and couldn't come today," said Leo. His voice was expressionless.

"I see," said Philip.

Micky said: "Well, I shall go and dig out Tina. Make her go for a walk. That girl hates fresh air."

He left the room, walking with a light, springy step.

"Am I wrong," asked Philip, "or is there a change in Micky lately? Not scowling at the world as much as usual, is he?"

"He's growing up," said Leo. "It's taken rather a long time for him to do so."

"Well, he's chosen a curious time to cheer up," said Philip.

"Yesterday's session

with the police wasn't exactly encouraging, did you think so?"

Leo said quietly: "It's painful, of course, to have the whole case re- opened."

"A chap like Micky now," said Philip, working his way along the book- shelves, pulling out a volume or two in a desultory manner, "would you say he had much of a conscience?"

"That's an odd question, Philip."

"No, not really. I was just wondering about him. It's like being tone deaf. Some people can't really feel any pangs of guilt or remorse, or even regret for their actions. Jacko didn't."

"No," said Leo, "Jacko certainly didn't."

"And I wondered about Micky," said Philip. He paused, and then went on in a detached voice. "Do you mind if I ask you a question, sir? How much really do you know about the background of all this adopted family of yours?"

"Why do you want to know, Philip?"

"Just curiosity, I suppose. One always wonders, you know, how much there is in heredity."

Leo did not answer. Philip observed him with bright-eyed interest.

"Perhaps," he said, "I'm bothering you asking these questions."

"Well," said Leo, rising, "after all, why shouldn't you ask them? You're one of the family. They are at the moment, one can't disguise it, very pertinent questions to ask. But our family, as you put it, were not adopted in the usual regular sense of the term. Mary, your wife, was formally and legally adopted, but the others came to us in a much more informal manner. Jacko was an orphan and was handed over to us by

an old grandmother. She was killed in the blitz and he stayed with us. It was as simple as that. Micky was illegitimate. His mother was only interested in men. She wanted 100 down and got it. We've never known what happened to Tina's mother. She never wrote to the child, she never claimed her after the war, and it was quite impossible to trace her."

"And Hester?"

"Hester was illegitimate too. Her mother was a young Irish hospital nurse. She married an American G.I. shortly after Hester came to us. She begged us to keep the child. She did not propose to tell her husband anything about its birth. She went to the States with her husband at the end of the war and we've never heard any more from her."

"All tragic histories in a way," said Philip. "All poor unwanted little devils."

"Yes," said Leo. "That's what made Rachel feel so passionately about them all. She was determined to make them feel wanted, to give them a real home, be a real mother to them."

"It was a fine thing to do," said Philip.

"Only - only it can never work out exactly as she hoped it might," said Leo. "It was an article of faith with her that the blood tie didn't matter. But the blood tie does matter, you know. There is usually something in one's own children, some kink of temperament, some way of feeling that you recognise and can understand without having to put into words. You haven't got that tie with children you adopt. One has no instinctive knowledge of what goes on in their minds. You judge them, of course, by yourself, by your own thoughts and feelings, but it's wise to recognise that those thoughts and feelings may be very widely divergent from theirs."

"You understood that, I suppose, all along," said Philip.

"I warned Rachel about it," said Leo, "but of course she didn't believe it. Didn't want to believe it. She wanted them to be her own children."

"Tina's always the dark horse, to my mind," said Philip. "Perhaps it's the half of her that isn't white. Who was the father, do you know?"

"He was a seaman of some kind, I believe. Possibly a Lascar. The mother," added Leo dryly, "was unable to say."

"One doesn't know how she reacts to things, or what she thinks about. She says so little." Philip paused, and then shot out a question: "What does she know about this business that she isn't telling?"

He saw Leo Argyle's hand, that had been turning over papers, stop. There was a moment's pause, and then Leo said: "Why should you think she isn't telling everything she knows?"

"Come now, sir, it's pretty obvious, isn't it?"

"It's not obvious to me," said Leo.

She knows something," said Philip. "Something damaging, do you think, about some particular person?"

"I think, Philip, if you'll forgive me for saying so, that it is rather unwise to speculate about these things. One can easily imagine so much."

"Are you warning me off, sir?" "Is it really your business, Philip?"

"Meaning I'm not a policeman?"

"Yes, that's what I meant. Police have to do their duty. They have to enquire into things."

"And you don't want to enquire into them?" "Perhaps," said Leo, "I'm afraid of what I should find."

Philip's hand tightened excitedly in his chair. He said softly: "Perhaps you know who did it. Do you, sir?"

"No."

The abruptness and vigour of Leo's reply startled Philip.

"No," said Leo, bringing his hand down on the desk. He was suddenly no longer the frail, attenuated, withdrawn personality that Philip knew so well. "I don't know who did it! D'you hear? I don't know. I haven't the least idea. I don't -1 don't want to know."