"That's hardly fair, Gerald. If he can't rely on his own flesh and blood, why should he expect anyone else to come to his aid?"
"Come to his aid? That just about sums it up." Gerald's voice rose with every word. "Because that's exactly what you've been doing since the day he was born, which is perhaps the reason he is still unable to stand on his own two feet."
"Gerald," Mrs. Trentham said, removing a handkerchief from her sleeve. "I never thought—"
"In any case," the major replied, trying to restore some calm, "it's not as if my portfolio is all that impressive. As you and Mr. Attlee know only too well, all our capital is bound up in land and has been for generations."
"It's not the amount that matters," Mrs. Trentham chided him. "It's the principle."
"Couldn't agree with you more," said Gerald as he folded his napkin, rose from the breakfast table and left the room before his wife could utter another word.
Mrs. Trentham picked up her husband's morning paper and ran her finger down the names of those who had been awarded knighthoods in the birthday honors. Her shaking finger stopped at the T's.
During his summer vacation, according to Max Harris, Daniel Trumper had taken the Queen Mary to America. However, the private detective was quite unable to answer Mrs. Trentham's next question—why? All that Harris could be sure of was that Daniel's college still expected the young don back for the start of the new academic year.
During the weeks that Daniel was away in America Mrs. Trentham spent a considerable amount of time closeted with her solicitors in Lincoln's Inn Fields while they prepared a building application for her.
She had already sought out three architects, all of whom had recently qualified. She instructed them to prepare outline drawings for a block of flats to be built in Chelsea. The winner, she assured them, would be offered the commission while the other two would receive one hundred pounds each in compensation. All three happily agreed to her terms.
Some twelve weeks later, each presented his portfolio but only one of them had come up with what Mrs. Trentham was hoping for.
In the opinion of the senior partner of the law practice, the submission by the youngest of the three, Justin Talbot, would have made Battersea Power Station look like the Palace of Versailles. Mrs. Trentham did not divulge to her solicitor that she had been influenced in her selection by the fact that Mr. Talbot's uncle was a member of the Planning Committee of the London County Council.
Even if Talbot's uncle were to come to his nephew's aid, Mrs. Trentham remained unconcerned that a majority of the committee would accept such an outrageous offering. It resembled a bunker that even Hitler might have rejected. However, her lawyers suggested that she should state in her application that the primary purpose of the new building was to create some low-cost housing in the center of London to help students and single unemployed men who were in dire need of temporary accommodation. Second, any income derived from the flats would be placed in a charitable trust to help other families suffering from the same problem. Third, she should bring to the committee's attention the painstaking efforts that have been made to give a young, recently qualified architect his first break.
Mrs. Trentham didn't know whether to be delighted or appalled when the LCC granted its approval. After long deliberation over several weeks, they insisted on only a few minor modifications to young Talbot's original plans. She gave her architect immediate instructions to clear the bombed-out site so that the building could begin without delay.
The application to the LCC by Sir Charles Trumper for a new store to be erected in Chelsea Terrace came in for considerable national publicity, most of it favorable. However, Mrs. Trentham noted that in several articles written about the proposed new building, there was mention of a certain Mr. Martin Simpson who described himself as the president of the Save the Small Shops Federation—a body that objected to the whole concept of Trumper's. Mr. Simpson claimed it could only harm the little shopkeeper in the long run; their livelihoods were, after all, being put at risk. He went on to complain that what made it even more unfair was that none of the local shopkeepers had the means of taking on a man as powerful and wealthy as Sir Charles Trumper.
"Oh, yes, they have," Mrs. Trentham said over breakfast that morning.
"Have what?"
"Nothing important," she reassured her husband but later that day she supplied Harris with the financial wherewithal to allow Mr. Simpson to lodge an official objection to the Trumper scheme. Mrs. Trentham also agreed to cover any out-of-pocket costs Mr. Simpson might incur while carrying out his endeavors.
She began to follow the results of Mr. Simpson's efforts daily in the national press, even confiding to Harris that she would have been happy to pay the man a fee for the service he was rendering; but like so many activists the cause was all he seemed to care about.
Once the bulldozers had moved in on Mrs. Trentham's site and work had come to a standstill on Trumper's, she turned her attention back to Daniel and the problem of his inheritance.
Her lawyers had confirmed that there was no way of reversing the provisions in the will unless Daniel Trumper were voluntarily to resign all his rights. They even presented her with a form of words that would be necessary for him to sign in such circumstances, leaving Mrs. Trentham the daunting task of actually getting his signature affixed to the paper.
As Mrs. Trentham was unable to imagine any situation in which she and Daniel would ever meet she considered the whole exercise futile. However, she carefully locked the lawyer's draft in the bottom drawer of her desk in the drawing room along with all the other Trumper documents.
"How nice to see you again, madam," said Mr. Sneddles. "I cannot apologize too profusely over the length of time I have taken to complete your commission. I shall naturally charge you no more than the sum on which we originally agreed."
The bookseller was unable to see the expression on Mrs. Trentham's face as she had not yet removed her veil. She followed the old man past shelf after shelf of dust-covered books until they reached his little room at the back of the shop. There she was introduced to Dr. Halcombe who, like Sneddles, was wearing a heavy overcoat. She declined to take the offered chair when she noticed that it too was covered in a thin layer of dust.
The old man proudly pointed to eight boxes that lay on his desk. It took him nearly an hour to explain, with the occasional interjection from Dr. Halcombe, how they had catalogued her late father's entire library first alphabetically under authors, then by categories and finally with a separate cross-section under titles. A rough valuation of each book had also been penciled neatly in the bottom right-hand corner of every card.
Mrs. Trentham was surprisingly patient with Mr. Sneddles, occasionally asking questions in whose answer she had no interest, while allowing him to indulge in a long and complicated explanation as to how he had occupied his time during the past five years.
"You have done a quite remarkable job, Mr. Sneddles," she said after he flicked over the last card "Zola, Emile (1840–1902)." "I could not have asked for more."
"You are most kind, madam," said the old man bowing low, "but then you have always shown such a genuine concern in these matters. Your father could have found no more suitable person to be responsible for his life's work."
"Fifty guineas was the agreed fee, if I remember correctly," said Mrs. Trentham, removing a check from her handbag and passing it over to the owner of the bookshop.