Customer Reviews

The Trustees

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Wealthy artist Alexander Laing dies,leaving his considerable estate to his two children, 18 year old Helena, who is about to begin a course at Art school, and 16 year old Paul, a sensitive, artistic boy who is as yet, indecisive about his future. Alexander has also left a beautiful, large country house with twenty thousand pounds a year for its upkeep, to his former wife Marion, with the understanding that it will be kept as a home for the children.

The will appoints two trustees to manage the inheritance, old friend Oliver Pocock, a charming gay, and solicitor Geoffrey Montacute, a pompous, boring yet terribly honest man who could be trusted to manage and invest the money for the benefit of Helena and Paul.

Marion is a greedy, grasping woman for whom almost any amount of money is never enough so plots ways to get control of the childrens money. She embarks on a plan of seduction to ensnare the dull Geoffrey, virginal in his forties and still living with his bitter, semi-invalided mother. He makes it almost too easy for her, never having enjoyed the attentions of any women, and now to have this glamorous, exotic creature seem to desire his company above all, makes him an easy target to manipulate.

Helena is finding that having more money than her fellow students is proving to be difficult as some are using her for what she can provide rather than for herself.

Marion takes Geoffreys advice about transferring Paul to a better school where he soon becomes confused about his sexuality and becomes a very unhappy young man.

It's a light, quick read with an interesting twist to the comeuppance of several of the characters.