Yours to Command

by Mary Burchell

  Lucas’s hard phrase “cold-hearted prig” unexpectedly came back to her. It did not apply, she assured herself. Of course, of course it did not really apply! But she would have thought very much more of Hugh at this moment, if he had abandoned any discussion of either the Manning children or his own broken engagement and caught her in his arms and kissed her.

  Only, if he had, she was not quite sure what she would have done. For the second time that day Sydney made a shattering discovery about herself, and she was still feeling dazed by it when she heard Hugh’s voice going on, “Anyway, please don’t reproach yourself for anything which happened between me and Marcia. Our—arrangement was by mutual consent and was, I think, inevitable anyway. What I really wanted to speak about, though with some reluctance, was the little Manning boy’s very odd statement. I don’t want—”

  “I thought,” Sydney interrupted, lifting her chin rather haughtily, “that you’d cleared me on that score.”

  “I have cleared you in my own mind of anything Anne Carstairs might choose to say,” Hugh corrected drily. “In other words, I don’t think, and never did think, that you were involved in any disreputable behavior. But there is also a question of discretion, Sydney, where any members of a school staff are concerned. What, exactly, did you manage to do which prompted the child to say anything so unfortunate?”

  “But you know!” she protested, suppressing her irritation with difficulty. “I told you about my being there at the flat that night when Marcia came. It was unavoidable, but—”

  “No, I don’t mean just that.” Hugh interrupted her quietly but with authority. “The child seemed used to seeing you about the place constantly. He used the expression ‘living’ there. He spoke so confidently about your taking the place of his mother that one could only suppose either you, or Manning, had said something about the possibility of—”

  “How dare you!” exclaimed Sydney, flushing angrily.

  “My dear girl, there’s no need to take offence. If you’re going to marry Manning—”

  “But I’m not,” cried Sydney, all her anger and distress over the scene she had witnessed giving emphasis to that. “What on earth made you think such a thing!”

  “Your own attitude mostly,” returned Hugh rather curtly. “You seem to have spent almost the whole of half-term week-end at his place. You make the boys your very special concern—”

  “But you asked me to,” she interrupted with some heat, “I was supposed to take them personally, in my capacity as matron, and hand them over to Lucas Manning.”

  “But you were not required, in your capacity as matron, to go on supervising their week-end in their uncle’s flat,” retorted Hugh impatiently. “Nor were you called on to baby-sit until the small hours of the morning, nor advise Manning on his family complications and generally hold his hand in this semi-public manner. All this is your own business, so long as it doesn’t become a subject of comment. But, even allowing for a certain amount of bad luck, you do seem to have behaved with an astonishing lack of discretion.”

  For a moment Sydney was silent. Not because she was impressed with the weight of Hugh’s arguments. But because she was thinking in a dazed way—“And I thought he wanted to marry me! I thought he threw over Marcia because he loved me.”

  Aloud she said at last, “I’m sorry if it looks that way to you. I’m afraid I didn’t think much further than the fact that Lucas Manning was a friend of mine, and that he needed some help with his two boys who happened to be among my favorite charges. I suppose these things are largely a point of view. I hadn’t quite realized how you felt about it.”

  He got up then from behind his desk with a smile, and came round to stand by her chair looking down at her.

  “Perhaps I should have started by saying more of how I felt about it,” he said. “Perhaps I should even have confessed that there was an element of jealousy in my feelings—”

  “Oh, no—please don’t,” she exclaimed, a sort of panic prompting her to stop him before he could go any further on what was, she knew now, an utterly hopeless path.

  But he went on undeterred.

  “I had to say something first about what had happened, Sydney. I had to know what your real feelings were for Manning, and I had to emphasize the importance of almost rigid discretion, not only in a school matron but—in the wife of a headmaster.”

  He paused, perhaps to allow the implication of his words to sink in. But she remained dumb, and after a moment he took her hand rather gently and said, “Don’t you see what that means, Sydney? Don’t you know what I’m trying to say?”

  “I’m—terribly sorry,” she almost whispered at last. “But you—you were much too long saying it.”

  He frowned and straightened up again, though his hand remained round hers.

  “Please don’t be angry.” She saw that he suspected her of some utterly frivolous reaction. “And please try not to be hurt. I don’t think it would have been any good, whatever way you said it. But I meant my words quite literally. You can’t reassure hurt people by well reasoned arguments. And if you want to reprove a girl and say you love her on the same occasion, the love must come before the reproof, Hugh.”

  “But, Sydney, you’re just playing with words!” He was aghast, she saw, at the way she was taking things. “You can’t refuse a man’s love because he offers it less eloquently than you would like.”

  “It’s not a question of eloquence, my dear. You’re a good man, and a fine man—and one day you’ll make a wonderful husband for someone. But, to me, all that explanation and enquiry first just made the rest rather meaningless.”

  “It wasn’t meaningless!” he exclaimed. “I meant every word I said.”

  It was difficult convincing him that further argument was useless. He thought at first that she was angry, or affronted by something he had unwittingly said. But presently her quiet, friendly, almost melancholy insistence had its effect upon him. He drew back from her, and with a relief which was not very far from tears, she stood up and prepared to go.

  “I’m so very sorry, Hugh. It’s all been a muddle, and I’m just as much to blame as you for any mistiming or failure to catch the magic moment. I’ll be leaving Fernhurst at the end of the term. It will be much the best thing for both of us. But please don’t think there is any trace of resentment about our parting.”

  He let her go then, taking his defeat as gracefully as a man can in those circumstances, and for the second time that day, Sydney left the Headmaster’s house after a scene of crisis.

  At the bottom of the steps she paused to look at a pale moon rising in the early night sky, and to reflect on the strange fact that she had at last given in her notice to leave Fernhurst. Not, as she had feared might be the case, because she had come to love Hugh too much, but because she could not love him enough.

  It was not Hugh who mattered in her life. She knew that now, as she stood almost where Lucas and Anne had stood less than an hour ago. That was the scene which had opened her eyes to everything of real importance in her life. It was Lucas whom she loved, and here he had stood and kissed Anne Carstairs.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  SLOWLY Sydney walked back across the grounds once more in the direction of Park House. But before she could reach the sanctuary of her own quarters, she ran into Mrs. Dingley, who said, “Oh, Matron, I wish you’d look in at the Rec. Lucas Manning is there rehearsing Curtis and his gang for the end of term play. I don’t want to spoil the atmosphere by suggesting one of the masters should go in, but I suppose school authority should be slightly represented on such an occasion. You seem a nice compromise, if you don’t mind being described that way, and as you actually know Mr. Manning—” She finished the sentence with an expressive smile instead of words.

  Reluctantly, yet with a sort of eagerness, Sydney went into the Rec., hoping that Lucas would not take too much notice of her. For if he came and spoke to her in his easy friendly way, how was she to hide the distress and criticism which she felt?
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  She need not have been afraid of causing any stir by her entrance, however. No one noticed her. For everyone, from Lucas himself to the stolid child who was dumbly representing Wall at the moment, was deeply absorbed in the progress of the rehearsal.

  Sydney stood near the door, unobserved, amused and interested in spite of herself, for Lucas was not taking this business as an amusing stunt. He was paying the boys the compliments of treating them with all seriousness and respect. His language was simplified, of course, to suit his hearers, but otherwise this could have been a rehearsal in his own theatre.

  Never once did the famous actor-manager smile at the expense of his youthful cast, or assume an air of adult superiority. He appealed to all that was sensible and talented in the boys, and they responded accordingly.

  Presently Sydney sat down on a chair near the door so that she should not draw attention to herself and break the spell of the moment, and she allowed her interest to focus on the man who seemed suddenly to have blotted out almost everything else in her view of things.

  Even as he handled these youngsters she was dazzled afresh by his charm and his genius. She had, incredible though it now appeared to her, been taking him for granted. Now she saw him again as others must see him. One could not mistake the master-hand, and once or twice when he played a few lines to illustrate his meaning, the effect was electrifying.

  “He is a great actor, of course,” Sydney thought. “Not just an extremely accomplished one, as he once said. And oh, he is such a darling with those boys! And the way he smiles—and the way he moves.”

  By now she could separate the fascinating stage figure from the man who had, without her even knowing it, made her love him. The two identities were merged in the dearest and most wonderful person she was ever likely to know.

  And this was the man she had rejected.

  “I must have been mad,” Sydney thought, watching every expression of that dark, vivid face. “Even though he offered me no more than affection and respect and the chance of mothering the two boys, how could I have refused?"

  She had been blinded, of course, by the illusion of her great love for Hugh. Devotion dies hard and painfully. And because the thought of him had still hurt so much, she had imagined that her love for him was the same. It had taken that hateful scene between Anne and Lucas to show her how wrong she was. And then Hugh himself had completed the cure, with that quiet well-reasoned homily when what she had needed was an outburst of passion and tenderness.

  The sort of outburst one could expect from Lucas, she supposed watching him with fresh love and insight. Where Hugh would always act from reason and good judgment, Lucas would act impulsively and generously. Sometimes Hugh would be right and Lucas wrong and ill-judged in his actions, of course. But she knew now which attitude warmed her heart.

  “Oh, sir,” Curtis was saying at that moment—“don’t you think Bottom should get up at this point and walk up and down? He’s so awfully made up with himself, sir, he wouldn’t be able to sit still. If he put his hands behind his back, sir, and walked up stage like this”—Curtis tramped a few considering steps up and down the floor of the Rec., and then came to a full stop and said, rather disapprovingly, “Oh, hello. Matron.”

  “Hello, Curtis. Don’t mind me. Just go on. I’m thrilled,” Sydney told him gravely. And Curtis, turning his back on her once more, tramped back towards Lucas, well pleased to dismiss women in general, and Matron in particular, from a man’s world.

  Lucas glanced over Curtis’s head, however, and flashed her his most brilliant and winning smile. A smile which suddenly stabbed her to the heart, because it could mean very little after that scene with Anne.

  “I think perhaps you’re right, Curtis,” he said in a reflective tone, thus filling Curtis’s cup of joy to overflowing. “Let’s try it that way.”

  And so they ran through the scene again, and Lucas pronounced himself satisfied for that evening.

  “I’m staying down here for tomorrow at any rate,” he told them. “We’ll get in another rehearsal sometime tomorrow. Now go along, all of you. I suppose we’ve disrupted the school timetable about as far as we should, haven’t we, Matron?”

  Several little boys turned a disapproving glance on Matron in imitation of Curtis, now promoted to their mental, spiritual and physical leader. But they relaxed and smiled happily when she said.

  “Oh, I’m sure it’s all right. The boys don’t often get the chance of a lesson like this. No one would have wished them to lose such an opportunity. But I expect they’re all ready for supper now.”

  With a certain amount of whooping and scuffling, and many sincere cries of, “Thank you, sir, it was lovely!” most of them made for the door. Curtis stayed behind for a moment to consult Lucas as man to man about arrangements for the next day. Then he too went off and only Edward remained, standing beside his uncle and glancing a trifle anxiously from him to Sydney.

  “What is it, Edward?” Lucas put his hand on the child’s shoulder in a gesture of unsentimental affection.

  “It’s about—this afternoon, Uncle.”

  Sydney felt her breath begin to come quickly, and her heart skipped an uncomfortable beat or two.

  “Yes?” said Lucas encouragingly.

  “You won’t be angry with Alistair, will you, Uncle? He’s a bit young, you know,” Edward explained earnestly, “and he still thinks he can get what he wants by yelling at the top of his voice.”

  “In this particular case, he seems to have succeeded,” Lucas replied drily. “But it’s all right. I’m not angry with him. Was that all you wanted to say?”

  “Not quite.” Edward glanced a little self-consciously at Sydney. “I wanted to say too that—that I think it’s a good idea of Alistair’s. About Matron, I mean.” Sydney made a quick movement of her hand, as though to stop him, but Edward went on determinedly. “Then we could live with you both in the holidays, and we needn’t ever go to—to”—he hesitated for a way of describing the disturbing visitor of that afternoon—“our own mother,” he concluded politely.

  There was a moment’s silence, during which Sydney felt herself go scarlet and then white. Then Lucas said quietly, “I’ll see what I can do, Edward. Anyway, I’m glad to know how you feel. Now go along and have supper.”

  “Oh, thank you, Uncle!” Edward seemed to think the affair was as good as settled, and hurried off in the wake of the others.

  For quite a few seconds there was silence. Then Lucas said, without moving towards her, “It seems that the boys have put the case more forcefully than I did.”

  “But then they were actually speaking for themselves, weren’t they?” she said softly. “You didn’t speak for yourself, Lucas. You only spoke for them.”

  "Didn’t I—speak for myself?" He ran a hand through his dark hair, with a faintly perplexed air, and came slowly over to stand looking down at her.

  “No. You—told me what a wonderful thing it would be for the boys—and that you liked me—and that I could simplify a tangled situation.”

  “Did you want me to say any more, Sydney?”

  She glanced up, almost startled by his tone, and then glanced down again.

  “I—I didn’t want you to say anything you didn’t feel,” she told him quickly. “I knew that in a way, you loved Anne—”

  “You knew what?” He took her by the shoulders then and made her look up at him, so that she could see he was a little angry as well as amused. “Don’t you put the responsibility of my silence on me! I knew you loved your confounded Hugh. That was the trouble.”

  “But I didn’t,” she cried. “I mean—I thought I did, but—Oh, Lucas, there’s so much to explain!”

  “Never mind about the explanations,” he said, catching her suddenly against him. “You’ve said the only thing that matters.” And, even as she thought that was something Hugh would never have exclaimed, he kissed her as he had never kissed even the loveliest of his leading ladies, and said, “I love you, my darling, and love you and lo
ve you. It’s true you’d make a wonderful mother for the boys and I’m glad of it. But that’s a secondary matter. The really important thing is that you’re the girl I want for my wife.”

  “But, Lucas”—she could not altogether forget that scene in front of Hugh’s house—“I saw—”

  “I’ve wanted you ever since you lectured me on my spineless attitude towards Anne,” he went on, without waiting for her full interruption. “But whenever I got anywhere near telling you what I felt, you dragged Hugh’s excellences before me. I know just how Alistair felt this afternoon when he thought the wrong woman was being forced upon him. There’ve been times in the last few weeks when I too have wanted to stand up and demand you in the same stentorian tones.”

  “But, darling—” She had to call him that when he looked at her with such amused tenderness, and instinctively she put up her hand against his rather thin, dark cheek. “You did tell me that you once loved Anne very much. You never said more of me than that you liked me.”

  “But, if you remember,” he countered, turning his head for a moment to kiss the hand which caressed his cheek, “you rated me soundly for my weakness over Anne. And, having scolded me like a ten-year-old, you bade me get over her. Which I very properly did. Or rather, I ruthlessly examined my own feelings, and found that I was just mouthing half-sentimental, half-cynical phrases as though it were the third act of a play, instead of my own life.”

  “You never told me any of that,” she reminded him a little reproachfully.

  “You kept your secret about Hugh pretty well,” he returned. “You never told me you had got over him.”

  “But I didn’t know,” she said with a sigh. “I didn’t know until this afternoon.”

  “This afternoon? You were defending him very handsomely this afternoon,” Lucas reminded her.