‘Because you have special qualifications. The appeal of your youth and sex.’
‘Sex? Oh, I see.’
‘One comes always back to sex, does one not? You have failed with the girl. It does not follow that you would fail with her brother. What you have just told me (what the girl Carol told you) shows very clearly the one menace to Mrs Boynton’s autocracy. The eldest son, Lennox, defied her in the force of his young manhood. He played truant from home, went to local dances. The desire of a man for a mate was stronger than the hypnotic spell. But the old woman was quite aware of the power of sex. (She will have seen something of it in her career.) She dealt with it very cleverly—brought a pretty but penniless girl into the house—encouraged a marriage. And so acquired yet another slave.’
Sarah shook her head.
‘I don’t think young Mrs Boynton is a slave.’
Gerard agreed.
‘No, perhaps not. I think that, because she was a quiet, docile young girl, old Mrs Boynton underestimated her force of will and character. Nadine Boynton was too young and inexperienced at the time to appreciate the true position. She appreciates it now, but it is too late.’
‘Do you think she has given up hope?’
Dr Gerard shook his head doubtfully.
‘If she has plans no one would know about them. There are, you know, certain possibilities where Cope is concerned. Man is a naturally jealous animal—and jealousy is a strong force. Lennox Boynton might still be roused from the inertia in which he is sinking.’
‘And you think’—Sarah purposely made her tone very business-like and professional—‘that there’s a chance I might be able to do something about Raymond?’
‘I do.’
Sarah sighed.
‘I suppose I might have tried. Oh, well, it’s too late now, anyway. And—and I don’t like the idea.’
Gerard looked amused.
‘That is because you are English! The English have a complex about sex. They think it is “not quite nice”.’
Sarah’s indignant response failed to move him.
‘Yes, yes; I know you are very modern—that you use freely in public the most unpleasant words you can find in the dictionary—that you are professional and entirely uninhibited! Tout de même, I repeat, you have the same facial characteristics as your mother and your grandmother. You are still the blushing English Miss although you do not blush!’
‘I never heard such rubbish!’
Dr Gerard, a twinkle in his eye, and quite unperturbed, added: ‘And it makes you very charming.’
This time Sarah was speechless.
Dr Gerard hastily raised his hat. ‘I take my leave,’ he said, ‘before you have time to begin to say all that you think.’ He escaped into the hotel.
Sarah followed him more slowly.
There was a good deal of activity going on. Several cars loaded with luggage were in the process of departing. Lennox and Nadine Boynton and Mr Cope were standing by a big saloon car superintending arrangements. A fat dragoman was standing talking to Carol with quite unintelligible fluency.
Sarah passed them and went into the hotel.
Mrs Boynton, wrapped in a thick coat, was sitting in a chair, waiting to depart. Looking at her, a queer revulsion of feeling swept over Sarah. She had felt that Mrs Boynton was a sinister figure, an incarnation of evil malignancy.
Now, suddenly, she saw the old woman as a pathetic ineffectual figure. To be born with such a lust for power, such a desire for dominion—and to achieve only a petty domestic tyranny! If only her children could see her as Sarah saw her that minute—an object of pity—a stupid, malignant, pathetic, posturing old woman. On an impulse Sarah went up to her.
‘Goodbye, Mrs Boynton,’ she said. ‘I hope you’ll have a nice trip.’
The old lady looked at her. Malignancy struggled with outrage in those eyes.
‘You’ve wan