The second collection of 3 great novels by Mary Burchell

by Burchell, Mary

  "Then that settles it," she said at last, and her voice sounded flat and without much expression.

  She was not looking at him and didn't see the look of extreme pain that crossed his face. She only thought how steady his voice sounded as he said, "I'm glad you see it like that."

  She knew he didn't care in the remotest degree what anyone said about him in court or anywhere else. But she

  Take Me With You J 73

  cared. She couldn't let people think him a contemptible rogue.

  And at last she saw that her hands were tied as securely as his.

  Slowly she began to gather together the papers on her desk.

  "I think perhaps I'd better ^o home now."

  "Yes. Yes, it's getting late, isn't it?"

  However much he might long to comfort her in her distress, he was the last person on earth who must do so. He had closed the gate between them now, and it must remain shut.

  "I... I'm just coming. But don't wait for me. It's better not to."

  He knew that was true. And he had lingered only because it seemed impossible that they could part on this inconclusive and undramatic note.

  But it was best that way. Heroics could only hurt both of them. And after a moment he said, "Good night."

  "Good night, Lucas."

  Still she didn't look at him, pretending instead to be busy with the things on her desk.

  She heard his footsteps as he walked away from her along the room. Then the door opened and shut again. And he was gone.

  Later that evening, after everyone else had gone to bed, Mrs. Dagram and Leoni sat together. Mrs. Dagram broke the silence.

  "Come over and sit by the fire, Leoni. I had a letter from my sister today and she was asking about you."

  "From matron?" Against her will almost, Leoni was interested and crossing the room, she stood by the fire, warming her hands and looking down at Mrs. Dagram. She was vaguely scared of any interest in herself at the moment, but the very thought of matron—the one constant and familiar figure throughout her whole life—had something stable and soothing about it.

  "She wanted to know whether I thought you'd settled down all right." Mrs. Dagram threaded her needle and went on with her work. "And whether you were happy."

  There was a short silence.

  "IVe settled down—perfectly,'' Leoni said.

  "Yes. I thought I could tell her that at least.'*

  "What else did you think of telling her?"

  "What do you want me to tell her, Leoni?"

  Leoni sat down on the rug and stared into the fire.

  "About being happy, you mean?"

  "Yes."Mrs. Dagram glanced at her.

  There was another short silence. Then Leoni said, "Do you think people are often—happy, anyway?"

  "Yes," Mrs. Dagram replied, "I do. Quite often and very happy. You think so, too. Only at the moment you personally are feeling unhappy, and are making a generalization to fit your case."

  Leoni laughed. She would not have thought a moment ago that it would be possible to laugh—certainly not to want to laugh.

  "Yes, of course, you're right." She looked up at Mrs. Dagram. "I—I'd tell you about it, only—"

  "You don't have to unless you want to. Or unless you think there's something I can do for you."

  "I don't think," Leoni said slowly, "that it's a case for anyone doing anything, and—" she hesitated, then drew a deep breath "—and I shall get over it. There's nothing wrong involved."

  Mrs. Dagram smiled slightly—perhaps at Leoni's somewhat transparent effort to reassure h^r.

  "I didn't suppose there was," she said a little dryly.

  "Why not? ^'

  "Because I'm a good judge of character."

  "Oh." Leoni^was gratified, and a faint warmth which had nothing to do with the fire stole over her. "But that doesn't settle what you're going to say to matron, does it? I think you'd better—"She stopped.

  "Wny don't you go down there for the weekend, Leoni? She 'd like that and perhaps you would, too.''

  "Why—yes," Leoni said, as though surprised at the discovery. "Yes, I—I should. Do you think it could be managed?"

  "Of course it could. Tomorrow's Friday. I'll phone for you, if you like. You can't very well have a long distance call from the office. And then you can go straight from town on Saturday afternoon. How would you like that?"

  Leoni smiled, "Very much/' she said, and wondered why.

  Partly, of course, because she was fond of matron. Partly that she knew instinctively she would be welcome there. But mostly because the orphanage suddenly seemed queerly like home. After the storm and crisis through which she had gone, she wanted something secure, something familiar to the point of dullness if necessary, but at any rate something she had known all her life.

  "ril see about it," Mrs. Dagram said. **Go along to bed now. It's getting late."

  So Leoni kissed her good night and went to bed, where she slept soundly and dreamlessly all night.

  She woke to a momentary sickening sense of loss, but she thrust that fiercely into the background of her thoughts, forcing herself to consider details of her weekend visit, so that she should have something to think about that had nothing whatever to do with Lucas.

  It was a busy day at the office, and she was glad of it. By the time she returned home the simple arrangements for her visit had been completed.

  "You'll be very welcome, Leoni," Mrs Dagram told her. "I think my sister was really pleased with the idea. She'll expect you any time tomorrow afternoon, and she hopes you '11 stay over until Sunday evening."

  "You aren't going back to the orphanage for good, are you?" exclaimed Pauline with rather flattering anxiety.

  "No, of course not. Just until Sunday evening, as your mother says."

  "Oh!" Pauline was plainly puzzled. "Why?"

  "Oh, it's just—just like going home for the weekend, you know."

  "I don't see how going to an orphanage can be like going home," Pauline insisted.

  No, thought Leoni, nor could she. And yet it was a bit like that.

  She was not quite sure whether the sensation with which she left the office on Saturday was relief or a sort of pleasurable excitement. At least the weekend before her would contain no dramatic sensations, no agonizing doubts, no insoluble difficulties. Nothing in the familiar routine

  J 76 Take Me With You

  could be very different from what she had known nearly all her life.

  It was not really late in the afternoon when she arrived at the familiar station, and the cool, pale March sunshine was still imparting a certain brightness to the main street of the town as she walked along it and turned down the road to the orphanage.

  The front door was open and, putting down her case in the hall, she went straight to matron's room.

  It was empty, however, matron evidently being busy on one of the thouand-and-one duties that were apt to claim her on Saturday afternoons. So, smiling a little, Leoni went to the big room on the ground floor where past experience and present pandemonium told her that the youngest of all were having their Saturday afternoon playtime.

  They were delighted to see her, the children swarming over her like eager little sauirrels the moment she sat down. The bolder spirits and those who remembered her well clutched at her and asked her questions, wanted to show her things, while the more timid ones and the very recent comers touched her, felt her coat and her handbag and her gloves, silently thrusting strange little personal treasures under her notice.

  I was like this once, thought Leoni. I was just like this. They're q^uite happy only they want to belong. They want the undivided attention of someone from the outside world, even if it's just for a few minutes. I was like that when I wanted Lucas to take me with him. I wanted to be his. And, oh, I still do!

  And while her throat ached at the very thought of him, she smiled and answered questions and listened to a dozen stories that were being poured into her ears.

  She was still there
when matron came in half an hour later.

  "Why, Leoni, they haven't let you get your hat and coat off."

  Laughing, Leoni stood up, gently disentangling herself from a forest of arms and legs.

  "I didn't think they'd remember me so well, or have so much to say," she admitted.

  "They've always plenty to say," declared the amused nurse in charge of them, as Leoni went off with matron.

  It was Feally rather fun, being a visitor in the place. Having tea with matron in her room, discovering that one of the staff bedrooms was hers for the night, reahzing that, to the children at least, she had an aura of glamor now because she came from the world outside. They didn 't know it was that, of course. They only knew that they wanted to speak to her and capture her attention.

  Later that evening she talked about it to matron. *'It's funny to come back and inspire the feeling instead of experiencing it.*'

  I know. Matron leaned back thoughtfully in her comfortable, shabby armchair. "They all feel it in some degree. You felt it particularly strongly, I think. That's why I was glad when Mr. Vandeem took such an interest in you and wanted to give you a really good preparation for life. I'd like to see you marry well, Leoni. I don't mean make a big social match, or anything far-fetched like that. But I hope you'll marry happily and have a solid and comfortable home of your own. You 'd appreciate it more than most."

  Leoni stared into the fire and thought of Lucas. Then, because she had to say something, she said, "I can't quite imagine having a home of my own.''

  *'No. I daresay not. You were so young when you came here—much the youngest child we ever had."

  "Was I?" Leoni looked up and smiled with interest.

  "Oh, yes. We didn't really take absolute babies, even in those days. But I was very friendly with the sister in the hospital where you were born, and somehow I managed to get the regulations stretched a bit to include you."

  "Oh, matron, that was nice of you! Why did you?"

  "Well...." Matron evidently looked back over the years and considered that. "It was a very sad case, and I was younger then—a little more sentimental perhaps and kinder."

  "You couldn't be kinder than you are now," Leoni asserted stoutly. "But what did you mean? Why was it a sad case? My mother died when I was bom, didn't she?"

  "No. A week or two afterward. There was no real reason why she should have, except that she just didn't want to go on. She was a poor pretty little creature. Very like you except that she hadn 't got your essential toughness."

  Leoni listened in silent astonishment, hardly knowing

  which was more surprising—this suddenly evoked picture of her mother, or matron's candid opinion of herself as pretty but "essentially tough."

  "And—what about my father?*' Leoni asked at last.

  "Oh, he was a scoundrel," matron said, without any beating about the bush. "Perhaps you get your toughness from him," she added with a grim little smile.

  "I wouldn't like to think so."

  "No," matron agreed. "Nor would I. I wouldn't like to think there was anything of him in you."

  "I suppose—" Leoni hesitated "—I suppose they weren't married, were they?"

  "No. But she didn't know that until after you were bom."

  "Didn't know-"

  "It was only then that she found out he was already married to some other woman, and that she herself wasn't married to him at all."

  "Oh, poor little thing! Poor mother, I mean," Leoni amended hastily, though it was difficult to think of this long-dead girl as in any way connected with her, really. "Hadn't she had any suspicions before?"

  "I don't know. I came into the case very late, of course. Not long before she died. The sister seemed to know more about it, and I think she didn't exactly view it as a happy marriage, even before it turned out to be no marriage at all."

  "I see. And then—he just deserted her?"

  "Something like that. Anyway, he went back to the other woman. She was quite young, too, but more his own sort, I imagine."

  "I suppose—in a way—it's odd that I never asked about it all before?'' Leoni said slowly.

  "No." Matron smiled at her. "You didn't ask questions because your own life seemed complete in its way and, anyway, you didn't feel you ought to question me when you were actually here."

  "I suppose that's true," Leoni admitted, smiling slightly too. "But I'm glad to know now. Though there isn't really very much to know, is there?"

  "Not very much," matron agreed. "It's just as well. Everything for you is in the future, Leoni. You don't need to

  Take Me With You J 79

  worry about the past. It's all gone long ago and has no connection with you now."

  Leoni nodded, but she stared back into the fire rather soberly. She was not very anxious to look into the future that Matron visualized as being so rich and full. To her it seemed strangely empty, for it would not hold Lucas.

  Why, there's hardly anyone or anything left, Leoni thought. Then she remembered Julia and the Dagrams— and Norman—and told herself that she was both foolish and ungrateful.

  "What are you thinking of so hard, Leoni?" matron asked. She had; a much more direct and uncompromising method of approach than her sister.

  "Oh, I— For a moment Leoni was confused. Then she said the first thing which came into her head, as though her thoughts had still been running on their conversation. "Tell me, is my name my mother's name—or my father's?"

  "Your mother's. She wanted it so."

  "And what was his name?" She didn't really want to know, but it was something to say.

  "I've completely forgotten." Matron had evidently dismissed him and his name from her mind long ago, as being of no worth whatever.

  "Oh."

  "I daresay I could look up the records and find out for you if you really want to know. '

  "Oh, no."

  Matron looked at her thoughtfully. Then she smiled suddenly.

  "It's funny, I've forgotten his name but I remember the woman's name perfectly.''

  "What woman's?"

  "Why, the other wife. The wife, I suppose I should say."

  "But surely it was the same as his."

  "No. At least, it's her stage name I remember. She was a young actress. Quite unknown then, but she did very well afterward. I expect that's why I remember the name—seeing it again in the papers.''

  With a ridiculous and illogical certainty that every moment of drama through which she had lived was about to be eclipsed now, Leoni raised her head and looked straight at matron.

  "What was her name?"

  And without even the mildest sense of surprise she heard matron say, "Sophie Rayter."

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Once matron had said the name, there was quite a long silence, while Leoni continued to look at her as though the words had not really conveyed much to her. Then at last she pushed back her hair with a slight, nervous movement.

  "I can't understand it," she said, half to herself.

  "Why, Leoni—*' Matron's brisk smile was the one she usually reserved for her less bright charges "—it's quite simple. It's not even a very unusual story. Don't you see? He was married to this young actress—that Sophie Rayter—but no doubt they were a good deal apart. He met your mother, who was obviously a good, respectable little thing—the kind one married, to use what was probably his own rather cynical phraseology. He went through a form of marriage with her, and then gradually found himself more tied up than he had meant to be. Probably it was just about this time that the actress wife began to make a really good thing of her profession. From the little I know of him, he wouldn't find much difficulty in slipping away from responsibilities that conflicted with his interests. He just told your mother the truth—which was that she hadn't got any real claim on him unless she cared to make the sort of struggle she was incapable of making—and then he cleared out."

  "And she—Sophie Rayter—what did she do about it?"

  Matron looked astonished. "I haven't the
least idea, Leoni. I hadn't any concern with that side of the story. She was only a name to me—as I said, I wouldn't even remember it if I hadn't happened to see it rather often in the papers afterward. I can't even remember how I came to hear her name. I daresay your mother told the story more or less

  completely to my friend who was the sister in the hospital, and she probably told it in much the same form to me.

  "Then you didn't know that auntie—that Mr. Dagram*s aunt—is dresser to Sophie Rayter?''

  Again matron looked surprised. "The tiresome old lady who lives with my sister? No, I can't say I did."

  "And you—you don't know if Sophie Rayter divorced my father because of this story?''

  "Why, no, Leoni. I told you—I don't really know anything about her side of the story. Anyway—"

  "What happened to my father?"

  "I don't know, Leoni. Except that he had to pay toward your maintenance here, and did so until you were about— oh, let me see—about twelve, I suppose. Then he—"

  "Then he was alive when I was twelve?" Leoni asked that with such sharp eagerness that matron looked taken aback.

  "Certainly. But you haven't any real interest in him, have you? Any sort of hankering to see him? Because—"

  "Heavens, no! Of course not."

  "Hm, that's just as well. Because when you were about twelve he seems to have cleared off out of the country, and nothing has ever been heard of him since."

  "But he was still alive when I was twelve," repeated Leoni persistently, half to herself again. "He might even have been married still to Sophie Rayter."

  "Well, yes—I suppose he might," matron agreed, in a dry tone that showed she thought the conversation was taking rather an absurd and inexplicable turn. "But, does that really matter?"

  "Yes," Leoni said. "Yes, it matters more than I can possibly say. It would explain all sorts of things. You see, when I was about ten—that's two years before, matron-Sophie Rayter went through a form of marriage with someone else and—"

  "Then I suppose she must have got a divorce."

  "No. It isn t certain. She was desperately anxious to keep this second marriage quiet, but she never gave a really adequate reason for wanting to do so."