Yours to Command

by Mary Burchell

  On the Tuesday afternoon when, the holiday over, Sydney and the boys were preparing to depart to Paddington once more to rejoin the London group for Fernhurst, she discovered at the last minute that Lucas proposed to come too.

  “You mean you’re coming to see us off?”

  “Certainly. Particularly as I wasn’t able to meet you.”

  “It isn’t necessary, you know.”

  “But most enjoyable,” he retorted with a smile.

  “If you really think so.” She laughed. “But,” she dropped her voice, “Anne may choose to see her brother off too.”

  “No. She spoke of driving him down to the school. It’s all right.”

  So Sydney and the boys had the distinction of arriving at the station in company with someone who was not only pointed out as “Manning’s uncle that acts”, but whose autograph was then eagerly sought.

  “Oh, sir,” cried Curtis, rapidly insinuating himself into the front row, “I don’t want your autograph because I’ve got it already. But you remember you sort of promised to come down for our half-term play?”

  “Did I?” said Lucas Manning sceptically.

  “Well, sir, I suggested you should and you didn’t exactly say ‘no’, which is like a sort of promise, isn’t it, sir?”

  “Could be construed as such by an optimist,” the actor-manager conceded.

  “Well, sir, the play’s been put off until the end of term. That’s why you didn’t hear from me. But I thought, sir, if you could come down in, say, about three weeks’ time, you could give us your opinion about some of the things that aren’t working out too well.”

  “I see. What’s the play?”

  “It isn’t just one play, sir—It’s all right, sir. There’s no need to groan like that. What I mean is that it’s scenes from plays. Some of the older boys are doing some Greek things and awful rot like that. But we’re doing the scene in Midsummer Night’s Dream where the workmen decide to do a play for the Duke.”

  “And what are you?” enquired Lucas Manning. “Bottom?”

  “Oh, no, sir!” said Curtis, shocked by this instance of mental miscasting. “I’m not heavy enough for Bottom. I’m Quince. He’s the one who—”

  “Yes, I know,” said Lucas Manning, glancing at the station clock.

  “Well, would you come and give us a hand, sir? I know Shakespeare isn’t exactly your line, but—”

  “All you boys in the train,” shouted Mr. Corbin at this juncture.

  “Oh, sir, please do come,” cried Curtis, taking no notice of Mr. Corbin.

  “I don’t think—” began Lucas Manning.

  “In!” said Mr. Quinn in a tone which somehow dominated all the chatter and noise.

  Everyone rushed for the doors, even Curtis, though he somehow contrived to twist his head round to run with an imploring gaze still fixed on Manning’s uncle that acted.

  “All right,” called Lucas Manning, relenting. “Settle some time with Edward and he can let me know. But give me some notice. I do other things besides producing Shakespeare.” Then he turned to Sydney who was shepherding in the last of the small boys.

  “Good-bye, my dear.” He spoke in a quiet, almost intimate tone. “Let me hear from you—about the boys and about yourself. And thank you for everything.”

  “Thank you for a wonderful week-end,” Sydney said. And then, since Mr. Quinn’s compelling glance included even her in its irresistible command, she hastily shook hands with Lucas and got into the train.

  Back at Fernhurst, Sydney found that the familiar routine claimed her immediately. That is to say, it claimed all her surface attention and rigidly defined her day-to-day actions. But while she checked stores, issued linen, administered first aid and discussed general administration with Mrs. Dingley, another part of her continually occupied itself with the events and the implications of the half-term week-end.

  Until this term had opened with the shattering reappearance of Hugh, she had, almost without knowing it, been subordinating her personal affairs to her work. It was an inevitable reaction from the bitter experience of her broken engagement. There was so much she wanted to forget in her private life, and in her work she was happy.

  Hugh’s coming had already changed this. She was no longer simply the busy, conscientious matron of Park House. She was Sydney Dayne once more, with a terribly personal life of her own, in which hopes and fears, anxieties and joys, again began to play their part.

  Now, after the experiences of the week-end, this personal life had immeasurably widened and become more absorbing. However firmly she had refused Lucas Manning’s offer, the fact remained that it had been made. An attractive, sought after, relatively famous man had thought well enough of her to ask her to share his life.

  The offer might not have been couched in the terms of highest romance, but it had certainly been based on real affection and appreciation. After that, no one, not the most modest or disillusioned of girls, could feel anything but happy and gratified. A sort of inner confidence, which had been largely destroyed by the break with Hugh, now blossomed afresh in Sydney’s heart, and she knew that, slowly, her sense of proportion was readjusting itself.

  Hugh was still the most important person in the world to her. But no longer did every thought, decision, or event centre upon him.

  Thus it was that, a few days after her return, she sought an interview with him in the most matter-of-fact way, feeling that he should know the further development in the affairs of Edward and Alistair.

  At one time she would have shivered excitedly at the very thought of speaking to him alone, and she would have consulted herself earnestly to see whether her real motive for seeking the interview was a personal one, and, still more, whether he might guess that this was so.

  Now she merely telephoned to his house and, since Hugh himself replied instead of his secretary, said, “This is Sydney speaking. Could I come over some time today and have a word with you about the Manning children? There was a further development during the week-end and I think you should know it.”

  “Why, yes, of course.” Curiously enough, he too sounded more relaxed, less artificially correct. Or was it that he simply responded automatically to her easier approach? “This afternoon. Any time after three-thirty.”

  As Sydney rang off, Mrs. Dingley came into the room and said, “Oh, were you telephoning cook about that shocking porridge this morning?”

  “No, indeed! I shouldn’t dare to phone her,” declared Sydney, which made Mrs. Dingley laugh.

  “No, I was phoning the Head, as a matter of fact. I wanted to speak to him about the Manning children.”

  She supposed resignedly that she would now have to give Mrs. Dingley some sort of information about Edward and Alistair. But fortunately the mention of Hugh sent Mrs. Dingley off on another tack.

  “Oh, yes, I meant to ask you what you thought. It isn’t my business, of course,” said Mrs. Dingley, obviously meaning that this would, nevertheless, not prevent her from talking about it, “but I wonder why he has postponed his wedding.”

  “Postponed—? Has he?” Sydney spoke very calmly, though her heart gave the most peculiar little leap at Mrs. Dingley’s words.

  “Oh, you hadn’t heard about it?”

  “No.”

  “Hm—pity. I thought you might know something since they’re both friends of yours.”

  Sydney forbore to correct this odd description of Marcia.

  “Do you mean,” she said very, very casually, “that there’s been some—some trouble?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Mrs. Dingley hastened to assure her. “I don’t really know anything but the fact that the wedding is postponed. It was to have been next month, I believe.”

  “Was it?” Sydney spoke almost in a whisper, like someone who had escaped disaster by a hair’s breadth.

  “Yes. But he told George over the week-end—we saw something of him since neither he nor we went away—that they had decided to postpone it until the summer. Possibl
y until the summer holidays. I wondered why,” said Mrs. Dingley, with simple and unashamed curiosity.

  “I have no idea.”

  “It could be just a matter of personal convenience, of course.”

  “Of course,” agreed Sydney. Though secretly she thought she could imagine no consideration of convenience which would induce Marcia to delay putting her seal on Hugh as her husband.

  “Or perhaps they want to go abroad for a longish honeymoon.”

  “Perhaps,” said Sydney briefly, because the thought of Hugh and Marcia on a honeymoon together was not something she wanted to discuss.

  “Well, if I hear anything more, I’ll tell you,” Mrs. Dingley said generously, thus making it almost obligatory for Sydney to reply that she would reciprocate with any news that came her way.

  That afternoon Sydney walked over to Hugh’s house.

  Hugh received her pleasantly, but quite officially.

  “Now, tell me about the Manning children.” He leaned back in his chair and looked exactly like a headmaster interviewing a school matron. No more, no less. “There was no real crisis, I hope.”

  “Not exactly. But, on the train going up to London, Carstairs heard one of the boys addressing Edward as ‘Manning’. He chose that moment, of all moments, to start making enquiries.”

  “Awkward,” commented Hugh, pressing his lips together rather hard.

  “Yes, it was,” Sydney agreed, and she went on to describe briefly how she had dealt with the situation, and how she had then tackled Carstairs later on the subject.

  “Good,” Hugh said with obvious approval. “So at least you avoided an undesirable meeting at Paddington.”

  “Yes. And when I arrived with the children at Mr. Manning’s apartment I was able to tell him what had happened, and to prepare him for anything that might develop after that.”

  “I think you did excellently, Sydney. I don’t see that there was anything else you could have done, and it’s out of your hands now. The rest is Manning’s pigeon.”

  “Oh, but that isn’t all,” Sydney assured him, slightly taken aback at his assumption that she had merely handed over the boys and taken her departure. “During the weekend I undertook to tell Edward that his mother was alive but not available at present. And Mr. Manning decided to have it out with Anne.”

  “With Anne?”

  “The mother of the boys.” Sydney flushed at her slip. “Young Carstairs’ sister, you know.”

  “Oh, yes, of course. I suppose Carstairs was bound to tell her of his discovery in any case.”

  “That’s what we thought.”

  “You seem to have engaged in quite a lot of consultation over it.” He looked half amused, but not entirely pleased.

  “Well, you see—”

  “Yes, I know. You’re very old friends,” he agreed a trifle impatiently. “Well, what was the result of the two heart-to-heart talks?”

  “Edward took it very well, and after a few questions and mild protests, accepted the position as it is. With regard to the other conversation, I—I understand the boys’ mother expressed a wish to see them. But I don’t think anything definite was settled.”

  “I see.” Hugh made a note on the pad beside him. “I’d better get in touch with Manning and find out what he expects us to do if she turns up here and demands to see them. Was that all?”

  “Yes—I think so.” She rose to go. But, as she did so, there was the sound of a bright, pleasant voice speaking to one of the maids in the hall. And a moment later Marcia came into the room.

  She stopped dead, a little too dramatically, on seeing Sydney and her fiancé alone together. Then she said, “Hello, Hugh,” and went over to plant a .cool kiss on his cheek, but in such a manner that Sydney felt they should somehow be explaining why it was that they had been here together at all.

  Perhaps even Hugh had some reflection of this absurd feeling, because he said, rather unnecessarily, “Sydney has been telling me the latest developments about the Manning boys. They went to London under her care at the week-end.”

  Marcia laughed slightly. It was quite a soft laugh, but Sydney knew suddenly that she was hotly angry. So angry that her usual good sense was more than a little clouded.

  “And stayed under her care for most of the week-end, I take it,” she said contemptuously.

  “I don’t know what you mean by that, quite.” It was Hugh who spoke, coolly, before Sydney could. “Sydney handed the boys over to their uncle’s care and then, I presume, went off to enjoy her own week-end.”

  “Then what was she doing in Lucas Manning’s flat at one-thirty in the morning?” retorted Marcia furiously.

  “One o’clock,” corrected Sydney very coldly. “And, though it really isn’t necessary for me to explain myself to you, I was there, as I told you, because his housekeeper had to go out and he had to go to the theatre. The children could hardly be left there alone.”

  “That’s your story, and you’re sticking to it, I suppose,” returned Marcia scornfully.

  “Just a moment.” Hugh’s tones were icy, but whether on account of Marcia or herself, Sydney was not sure. “I can’t have you bickering like this in my study. If Sydney says she was in Manning’s flat to look after his wards, she was. She is, I understand, an old friend of his and—”

  “She’s nothing of the sort,” Marcia cut in angrily. “That’s just a story she told when he and she were caught together at the Crown on that Sunday afternoon.”

  “I won’t have such an expression used to Sydney,” Hugh said quietly. “She is perfectly entitled to have tea with a friend at the Crown or anywhere else. It isn’t the slightest business of yours or mine or anyone else. Furthermore, I don’t think you are in a position to know anything about her length of friendship with Manning.”

  “Oh, yes, I am.” Marcia shot a rather triumphantly spiteful little glance at Sydney. “I kept in touch with Anne Carstairs after that Sunday afternoon. I liked her, and we met in town once or twice. After I found Sydney in Manning’s flat on Saturday night, I telephoned Anne and asked her what she knew. She said Manning had a very bad reputation with women—”

  “That simply isn’t true.” Sydney spoke in a cold, small, voice.

  “—And that though Sydney paraded as an old friend of his on that Sunday afternoon,” Marcia went on ruthlessly, “She had just admitted to Anne’s brother that she never knew Manning at all until the beginning of this term, when he brought his two boys to school.”

  “But I assure you—” began Sydney.

  “All right, Sydney.” Hugh silenced her, quietly but peremptorily, then he turned back to Marcia. “I don’t care a damn, my dear, how long Manning has, or has not, known Sydney. The fact is that I have known her for years and am perfectly satisfied that she would do nothing questionable or objectionable. Your own good sense should tell you the same. There’s no point in continuing this discussion which should never have been begun.”

  “Hugh—” Sydney felt the tears come into her eyes with the intensity of her feelings.

  “Do you mean, then”—Marcia was angry and incredulous — “that you take Sydney’s word against mine?”

  “In this case, most certainly,” Hugh replied drily. “Sydney is dealing with facts, you with assumptions. Rather unwarrantable one in the circumstances, my dear.”

  “You’re not suggesting that I invented this whole thing?” Marcia was so angry that, Sydney saw with fascinated eyes, she was actually fidgeting nervously with her engagement ring.

  “No, of course not. But I’m afraid you wanted, for some reason, to think badly of Sydney and when you found her in an awkward predicament, you not only drew an uncharitable conclusion, but, quite unpardonably, broadcast it.”

  “Are you presuming to lecture me, Hugh, on my conduct?” Marcia looked as though she could hardly believe her ears.

  “No, of course not. Sydney,” he turned abruptly to her, “I’m sorry this happened. Please forget about it as soon as possible. And thank you for y
our report on the Manning children. I won’t keep you any longer.”

  It was a dismissal, kind but complete, and she had no choice but to murmur “Thank you” and go.

  But she knew that she left behind her the makings of a first-class emotional scene. As she walked down the steps from the Head’s house and across the grounds in the April sunshine, she wondered, with a wildly beating heart, if Hugh and Marcia were even now facing the break-up of their engagement, or staging a reconciliation scene that would bind them even closer.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  SYDNEY returned to her duties at Park House trying to tell herself that the scene in Hugh’s study had no real significance; that all engaged couples had their ups and downs, as she herself knew only too well.

  But, although she argued very sensibly that a reconciliation had most likely taken place as soon as her departure had removed the cause of dispute, she could not forget Hugh had sided so unhesitatingly with herself and so obviously deeply resented any attempt of Marcia’s to discredit her.

  In any case, of course, a man of Hugh’s fairness and integrity would want to see justice done, but would he, she wondered, have defended anyone else quite so sharply?

  The rest of the day passed uneventfully, and if any crisis had taken place at the Headmaster’s house, no echo of it found its way to Park House. Which, as Sydney drily assured herself, was only natural. Hugh was not likely to broadcast his private problems to the rest of the school.

  All the same, she felt that if anything drastic had happened (she went no further in defining to herself what she meant by that), she would surely have heard something about it.

  Not only that day, but the next and the next, passed without any disturbance of the familiar routine. But on the Sunday evening, just before evening chapel, Mrs. Dingley came to Sydney’s room.

  “Do you mind if I come in for a minute, Matron?” she said, pausing in the doorway.

  “Of course not!” Sydney jumped up from the chair where she had been relaxing with an interesting library book. “I was just thinking of getting ready for chapel, anyway. Come and sit down. Has anything happened to any of the boys?”