“And that we have to keep her in ignorance as long as possible,” he emphasized. “It isn’t the first time I’ve played poker with Anne,” he added grimly. “I’ve usually held better cards before, but,” his gay smile flashed out suddenly, “this time I have a very good partner.”
“I think,” Sydney said after reflection, “that one thing is certain. You simply must take Hugh, as Headmaster, into your confidence. He can make arrangements and take precautions which are quite beyond my province. And, in any case, it is his right to know anything quite so unusual in the domestic set-up of any boy under his care.”
Lucas Manning frowned over this at first, but eventually gave way.
“Very well. And if he’s coming here to join Anne and her brother, I suppose this is as good a time as any to make his acquaintance.”
Sydney, who had been hoping to make a graceful escape before then, hesitated over that.
“Have you any objection?” he asked, rather peremptorily.
“Only that I have no special wish to meet her again,” Sydney said drily. “Particularly in front of Hugh.”
“Oh—I’d forgotten.” A little to her amusement, he looked almost boyishly contrite. “We’ll go if you like.”
But before she could elect for noble resolution or cowardly retreat, the decision was made for her. The door opened once more and Marcia and Hugh came into the room.
At first they noticed only the two people they had come to meet. Then, as they stood there exchanging first greetings, Marcia’s glance wandered round the room, coming to rest with obvious pleasure on Lucas Manning, and with something less than pleasure on Sydney.
It was Lucas Manning who took the initiative. Rising, he bowed to Marcia and smiled with a cordiality which evidently surprised and gratified her. She touched Hugh’s arm and murmured something to him. Then, obviously excusing themselves to their companions, she and Hugh came across the room.
Instinctively steeling herself for a disagreeable encounter, Sydney too rose to her feet, and tried not to appear as much on the defensive as she felt. But it was quite remarkable how Marcia contrived to look almost as though Sydney were not there, as she presented her fiancé to her celebrated neighbor.
Lucas Manning, however, was a match for ten Marcias. He could not have been more charming, but he included Sydney in everything and made it clear that she was very much his chosen companion. So much so that Sydney received a cool, speculative glance from Hugh which secretly agitated her, though she could hardly have said why.
“Won’t you join us?” Marcia suggested, making a virtue of necessity so far as Sydney was concerned. “We’re just going to have tea with our head boy”; she was already rather possessive about everything to do with Fernhurst, “and his very charming sister. I know they would love to meet you.”
“Thank you, we should like to,” Lucas said. “But, as a matter of fact, I know the very charming sister rather well already.”
“Then you must certainly join us!” Marcia was evidently enchanted, and Sydney guessed that she was already seeing in this chance encounter in Ancester the successful development of an interesting neighborly connection that had inexplicably failed her in London.
Lucas Manning and Marcia were already making a move to rejoin the others and, on impulse, Sydney put a detaining hand on Hugh’s arm. He looked so surprised that she blushed, but she managed to whisper urgently: “Please don’t mention the Manning boys on any account. I’ll explain later.”
Hugh preserved an admirably calm expression over this. Perhaps he remembered that it was not Sydney’s habit to make a point of unimportant things. At any rate, after a second’s pause, he said quietly, “Very well.”
Then they joined Carstairs and his sister and there was a great re-arranging of seats and hollow expressions of pleasure.
No one, thought Sydney, with less than Marcia’s amount of self-complacence, could have been unaware of the chilly undercurrents. But all she could see was that Lucas Manning was one of her party and, to all appearances, the centre of it.
Without hesitation he took on Marcia and Anne, and, to a lesser extent, young Carstairs. With a skill little short of virtuosity, he directed the conversation, and generally dazzled Marcia while seeing to it that never once did Anne seize the conversational initiative.
Inevitably, Sydney and Hugh were left somewhat to chat to one another. And because they could not indefinitely talk about school matters, there came the moment when, after a short pause, he said as naturally as possible, “How are the family, Sydney?”
“They—they’re all very well, thank you,” she said a little breathlessly. “My stepmother is wonderful with the boys, and I think my father is happier than he has been for years.”
“Don’t you do yourself rather less than justice there?” Hugh smiled slightly. “I think he was happy when you kept house for him, too.”
“Oh, but that’s different. He was still feeling the loss of my mother badly, and everything was so uncertain and—and—” It was difficult to go on, remembering how much Hugh had had to do with the uncertainty of that period.
“Yes, I see.” Hugh was much better at this than she was. “But he was a lucky man to have such a good daughter, Sydney. I hope he appreciates the sacrifices you made.”
“Th-there were not so many,” muttered Sydney unhappily.
“But pretty hard to make,” he said with unexpected gentleness.
“Oh, Hugh,” she said very softly. And then, half to herself, “It was harder than anything else I shall ever have to do. And, in the end, quite pointless.”
“Don’t,” he said quietly, and there was more pain in his voice than was proper in any happily engaged man.
“I must go, I’m afraid.” It was Anne, glancing sharply at her watch, who suddenly broke up the party at this point when Sydney would most willingly have prolonged it. But she thought that Hugh, too, rose with something like relief, disturbed perhaps to realize how deeply they had looked into the uncovered past.
Anne was driving back to town and actually had the effrontery to offer Lucas Manning a lift. Smilingly he explained that he had his own car, and, after a round of excessively cordial goodbyes, Anne went off with her brother, whom she was to drop at the school gates.
It then turned out that Hugh was going to London the following day, and he and Lucas Manning arranged to meet then.
Hugh and Marcia were going on to friends in the town, it seemed, and Lucas Manning appeared to take it for granted that Sydney would go with him. She was so thankful to find there was no risk of her having to accept a lift from Hugh and Marcia that, without question, she meekly stepped into his car when he held open the door for her, and not until he had started the car did she say, “Where are we going?”
“To the school.”
“Oh—thank you very much. But you don’t really have to take me back, you know. There’s a very good bus service.”
“Never mind the bus service. We don’t send our good friends by bus,” he told her with a smile. “And, in any case, I’m coming with you. Lulworth has no objection to my looking in to see the boys. I asked him just now.”
Presently they came to the gates of the Prep., where Sydney said it would be better for him to pay his first visit as Alistair’s bedtime was an early one.
“You’re coming in too, aren’t you?” he said. So she accompanied him into the house and, after a few introductory words with Prep. Matron, into the dining-room where two dozen little boys were imbibing great quantities of milk and crunching buttered biscuits with great gusto.
Alistair greeted them affably but without surprise, seeming to think it quite normal that his uncle appear unexpectedly in the Prep, at supper time.
“Am I going home?” he asked, but seemed quite pleased when he was told that he was to stay on at school for the time being. And then, “Am I coming to stay with you?” he enquired.
“I expect so.” His uncle smiled and ruffled his hair affectionately.
“And with my aun
t?” Alistair looked approvingly at Sydney.
“I’m not your aunt, Alistair,” Sydney explained, faintly embarrassed. While the little boy sitting next to Alistair pushed him in friendly reproof and said, “It’s Matron, silly!” and then went into shocked giggles at the thought of anyone so exalted being demoted to the lowly status of a mere aunt.
“Well, could Matron come and stay with you too?” suggested Alistair, unmoved by his social gaffe. “I think it would be nice.”
“So do I, old man,” agreed his uncle, a trifle frivolously Sydney thought. “But one can’t always manage these things.”
Whereat Assistant Matron bustled forward and said we must finish up our milk now and not talk so much.
Obediently Alistair buried half his face in his mug, and by the time he came up for air his uncle said he thought they must be going.
“Goodbye,” said Alistair without sentiment, and he waved a fat hand at them benignly.
“I adore him,” said Sydney when they were outside again, though she very seldom permitted herself such excessive expressions about the boys.
“He seems to return the compliment,” Lucas Manning replied with a smile. “He seemed very determined to acquire you as an aunt.”
“Oh—that.” Sydney laughed and colored slightly. “I—I think children often take sudden fancies like that.”
“It seemed rather well thought out to me,” returned Alistair’s uncle, but she did not quite like to ask him what he meant by that.
They went to Park House then, and into the Rec. where Sydney guessed they would find Edward at this hour. The match and string game was in full swing, but ceased immediately on their entry for the advent of a stranger had more effect on the eleven-year-olds than on the unselfconscious contemporaries of Alistair.
“Hello, Uncle,” said Edward, going very red with mingled pride and shame, as is the wont of small boys when relatives appear among their school friends.
“Hello, Edward,” said Lucas Manning, and looked a bit selfconscious too.
Curtis, however, saved the situation.
“Oh, sir,” he said, “are you Manning’s uncle that acts?”
“Yes,” admitted Lucas Manning.
“And can you sing, sir, as well?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“So that you’ve never been in opera?”
“No. I can’t say I have. Does that reduce my stock very much?” enquired the famous actor-manager, smiling.
“Well, you can’t help it, sir,” said Curtis broadmindedly. “But I want to be in opera when I grow up. I can sing already but I can’t act yet.”
“He can act the goat,” put in Edward, which sally was greeted uproariously by his fellows as a great stroke of wit. But Curtis refused to be deflected.
“You see, sir, what I really wanted to know was—do you take pupils, for acting, I mean?”
“Not very often.” Lucas Manning smiled down at him. “But if you come and see me when you’re sixteen, we’ll talk about it again.”
“Oh, sir, thank you!” Curtis danced about with rapture and nearly lost his spectacles. “And, sir, can I have your autograph, please? Can I have it twice because my sister has a crush on you, sir, and would like it too? You know how silly girls are.”
As man to man, Lucas Manning murmured that indeed he did. But he sat down obligingly and drew out his fountain pen. At this there was a great rush for bits of paper and he was engulfed in a tide of pushing, panting little boys. During all of this, however, he contrived to keep Edward near him, and Sydney noticed how kindly and intimately he smiled and spoke to the child.
“He’s rather a darling,” she thought. “At least, where these boys are concerned.”
Presently all were more or less satisfied and he managed to extricate himself and rejoin Sydney who was standing near the door, watching all this with amusement and interest. Edward, now quite at ease and obviously feeling that the visit was fully justified, said goodbye.
“Have you still any free time?” Lucas Manning asked, as he and Sydney withdrew.
“Why—yes. I’m not on duty this evening and don’t have to put in an appearance until dinner time, which isn’t for an hour or so. Why? Did you want to see anyone else?”
“No, of course not,” he said. “I thought we might drive out a short way and you could tell me what is the situation between you and Marcia.”
“Oh—” she laughed rather doubtfully. “Do you really want to hear about that?”
“Of course. After this afternoon I am mildly interested in Marcia as a type.”
“In Marcia?” She was piqued and could not quite help showing the fact.
“Mildly,” he emphasized, and gave her that quick flashing smile that made her think once more that there was a touch of devil in him. “In you I am already profoundly interested. Not as a type,” he added, and held open the door of his car once more.
So, a little reluctantly at first, and then even with a touch of humor, which came the more easily because the Marcia incident seemed much less important when shared with a sympathetic companion, she told how Marcia had visited Park House, and made it the occasion for indicating that she expected Sydney to fade gracefully out of the picture.
“In fact, she knows her position is unsafe, so long as you are around,” was Lucas Manning’s summing up of the incident.
“Oh, I don’t know about that! I—I don’t think one must assume such a thing,” Sydney exclaimed, rather agitatedly. “The overriding fact is that Hugh did ask her to marry him, and not so very many weeks ago, either.”
“But only because he thought you beyond his reach.”
“We don’t know that!”
“We can, however, make an intelligent guess at it,” Lucas Manning countered, smiling.
“But on no grounds whatever except—except wishful thinking.”
“You don’t really think that, do you?” His smile deepened as he looked ahead into the darkness.
“Why—why, yes. What else should I think?” she asked rather timidly.
He did not reply at once, but when he did, he spoke slowly, as though on this occasion at least he meant every word seriously.
“You might think, my dear, that your Hugh is no fool, and that no one but a fool would prefer Marcia to you. Why do you suppose he looks at you the way he does? Why, if he were not committed to Marcia in face of the whole school, he would be done with her tomorrow!”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“YOU can’t be serious!” Sydney turned in her seat so that she was half facing him and fixed an astonished, almost an agitated, gaze on Lucas Manning. “You’re just saying that because you want to please me.”
“Not at all,” he assured her, with that half-mocking, but not unkindly glance. “I do want to please you, of course, but I should not choose that way of doing it. The fact is that you’re involved in what is called an interesting triangle drama and—”
“Oh, stop being so professional about it!” she cried, in sudden nervous pain and irritation. “This isn’t just a question of moving a few people about cleverly on a stage. We’re real—we’re real!” And, to her own mortification, she caught her breath on a sob.
Abruptly he drew the car to a standstill by the side of the road, and turned with his arm along the back of the seat.
“I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t mean to tease you. I know you’re real. Touchingly and unusually real, compared with most people. I wasn’t thinking of my words. Do forgive me.”
There was an almost boyishly sincere note in his voice, and it half amused Sydney, as well as touched her.
“It’s all right,” she said much more gently. “I think I’m nervy and touchy after a difficult afternoon. Please forget it. And truly I do want to know what you think. I—I do value your opinion.”
He laughed a little at that and made a face.
“Don’t value it too highly,” he said, “or you will make me nervous. But one thing is certain. Whether one looks at a situation persona
lly or academically there’s nothing to be gained by being unrealistic about it.”
“That—that’s what I’ve been telling myself for the last few weeks.”
He looked at her kindly, but a trifle ironically.
“And I think you have made the mistake of falling over backwards to see things in an unfavorable light, just in case you should be deluding yourself by taking too optimistic a view.”
“Do you think so?” She bit her lip doubtfully.
He nodded briefly.
“If you really want my opinion—”
“Oh, I do,” she exclaimed, so quickly that he smiled.
“Well, then I think Hugh became engaged to his Marcia regarding her as a very good second-best. A second-best who would fill his social needs admirably and his emotional needs adequately. No,” he said with a smile, as Sydney made a movement of protest, “don’t judge him too harshly on that. Many men marry for less.”
“I know. But—but Hugh—”
“Even Hugh,” Lucas Manning assured her, with an air of good-humored cynicism. “He is a very likeable and intelligent fellow, I grant you. But he is not a superman. Anyway, he made his perfectly understandable choice and advertised it to all his new associates by producing his fiancée on the day of his arrival here. Perhaps he even wanted to close the way back for himself. Sometimes we do, you know. It makes us feel safer.”
Sydney started very slightly.
“He said something of the sort himself,” she murmured.
“When?”
“That first evening—when we spoke to each other alone for the first time. He’d been seeing Marcia off at the main gate and—and I walked back with him. I remember he said, ‘There’s never a way back’.”
“Poor devil,” Lucas Manning said with a shrug. “I suppose he was just beginning to wonder why he had locked the door with his own hand leaving the only person that mattered on the wrong side of it.”
“Oh, you don’t know this!” Sydney exclaimed. “You’re only guessing.”
“But it’s rather a good guess,” her companion replied. “Probably the nearest to the truth that we’re likely to get without a signed confession from Lulworth himself. As I was telling you, when he looked at you this afternoon—”
Yours to Command Page 8
