The Stranger Came (32 page)

A
flush
like
guilt
went
through
her.

'Reputation
is
a
fragile
commodity,'
he
said.
'Made
over
years,
lost
in
days.’

There
was
nothing
she
could
offer
to
that.

'You
came
to
the
Trust
through
a
recommendation
from
Maitland.’

'Professor
Ure.
Yes.’

'Maitland
.’

His
insistence
on
the
name
troubled
her.
Such
informality
must
be
uncharacteristic.

'Mrs
Stewart
seems
satisfied
with
what
I
do,'
Sophie
said.
'I
think
we
get
on
well
together.’

Julian
Chambers
frowned.
It
is
as
if,
she
thought,
anything
I
say
is
only
an
interruption.

'When
the
Trust
began,
there
was
a
difficulty.
The
elder
Rintoul –
Lucy's
grandfather
that
is –
Lucy,
Mrs
Ure?
…
yes –
he
was
a
self-made
man,
and
self-taught
too,
but
his
prosperity
was
founded
on
patents;
he
was
a
brilliant
engineer.
By
contrast,
Charles
Gregory
was
a
surgeon,
and
a
very
distinguished
one.
Different
professions
and
so
different
objects
in
their
philanthropy.
Logically,
separate
trusts
would
have
been
the
simplest
answer.
But
they
were
friends.
They
wanted
their
names
to
be
linked.
As
it
was
drawn
up
at
first,
their
charitable
purposes
were
stated
disjunctively
and
the
problems
that
error
created
might
well
have
seen
the
Trust
extinguished
before
it
was
properly
started.’

He
looked
at
her
as
if
to
say,
You
see?
But,
of
course,
she
did
not.

'A
direction
of
that
kind
can
become
void
for
uncertainty
since
it
would
allow
trustees
to
favour
one
object
to
the
exclusion
of
the
other
–
assuming
that
is
they
are
truly
alternative,
and
certainly
Gregory's
medical
philanthropy
and
Rintoul's
desire
to
encourage
industrial
innovation
were.
Hardly
could
be
more
obviously
so.’

Not
being
a
fool,
she
had
begun
to
follow;
but
what
she could
not
see
was
why
he
should
be
explaining
all
this
for
her
benefit.

'That
was
corrected – the
disjunction – and
both
objects became
and
have
remained
legitimate
concerns
of
the
Trust.
The
coming
of
the
National
Health
Service,
however,
wasn't
something
Gregory
had
foreseen.
The
Trust
invoked
the
cy pres
principle
and
the
Inner
House
of
the
Court
of
Session
found
for
us.
That
let
us
go
on,
you
see,
in
the
spirit
of
what
Gregory
intended,
to
meet
situations
of
which
he
had
no
cognisance.
We
took
a
very
early
interest
in
the
hospice
movement.
As
the
years
pass,
I
begin
to
think
of
it
as
the
best
part
of
our
work.’

He
paused
and
drew
his
lips
together
as
if
annoyed
with
himself
over
an
indiscretion;
and
that
made
her
realise.
Being
old
is
what
he's
thinking
about.
Being
ill
and
old
and
needing
help
in
learning
how
to
die.

'By
its
very
nature,
Rintoul's
desire
to
further
innovation
meant
movement
in
the
objects
of
benefaction.’
He
made
a
face,
involuntarily
it
seemed,
as
if
the
idea
of
necessarily
implied
change
was
distasteful.
'Like
Mr
Terence's
thesis
there,
computers
for
the
blind,
the
talking
terminal,
what
pleasure
it
would
have
given
those
two
friends
to
find
the
really
rather
ill-matched
objects
of
their
philanthropy
coming
together
in
that
way.’

There
was
a
pause
which
went
on
until
she
ventured,
'It's
very
interesting,'
and
understood
from
the
blankness
of
his
stare
that
this
was
not
the
point.

'I
am
anxious,'
he
said,
'that
you
should
feel
what
the
Trust
is,
not
something
dead
but
a
responsibility
going
on through
time.
The
benefits
of
a
private
trust
accrue
only
to
individuals,
who
die
and
the
trust
with
them.
The
trust
which
benefits
the
public,
however,
need
have
no
set
time
of
ending.
To
go
on
indefinitely,
that's
a
kind
of
immortality
by
actio popularis
.
You
don't
think
that's
too
fanciful?'
The
word
applied
to
anything
he
might
say
amused
her.

She
shook
her
head,
smiling.

'To
my
mind,
it
resembles
the
condition
of
marriage.
Marriage
begins
with
a
contract
–
its
intentions,
deriving
from
a
preceding
situation,
are
framed
at
that
moment
of
ceremony
–
but
time
passes.
There's
the
test.
When
changes
come,
the
marriage
has
to
cope.
If
it
does,
time,
you
may
say,
enriches
it.
The
relationship
simply
goes
beyond,
bursts
the
boundaries,
of
those
original
intentions;
but
not
of
the
contract,
the
ceremony,
which
has
taken
account
of
all
that
possibility
of
growing,
to
the
end
of
time
and
beyond.
Yes
.’
He
lapsed
into
some
private
thought
of
his
own,
then,
returning,
shot
her
a
sharp
glance.
'I
am
speaking
of
the
ceremony,
the
contract,
of
a
Christian
marriage.’