Matron had taken out some small underpants.
"Not Semple's," she said grimly, "patches chafe him." She threaded a needle, and continued, "Poor little Tom."
It was patent that to Matron the subject was an intriguing one. She wasted no time in getting into it. "A tricky situation," she said shrewdly, "and one that only time will solve."
No one encouraged her—perhaps the Profesor sensed Geraldine's reluctance and respected it—but Matron needed no encouragement.
"Of course he still belongs to his father. His father may or may not turn up. Again time will tell. Then he may or may not want him. A five-year-old is different from a squealing baby. Some men don't discover a paternal instinct until then. Likely, too, the father is a wisehead. Nine or ten years do not take long in passing, and he'd have someone to help him financially then. Tom looks smart, he is smart, even a fool would see he would have possibilities, eventually be an asset."
The underpants finished, Matron took out a singlet.
"On the other hand the father might not be located. That means Tom would be a state ward, and could be boarded out but not adopted. Adoption would require the parent's permission. And I'm afraid nothing but the complete thing would suit our H.M."
Still unenthusiastic silence, but still Matron kept talking.
"Then, of course, there is the last problem. If the boy was forfeited and adoption was available, could Mr. Manning be considered? He is not married." Another silence, then Matron added, "Yet."
She sewed a moment.
"And that, I think, is the crux of the whole matter. Will Miss Cynthia Trenning agree to a ready-made family? Personally, I am of the opinion that she would not be keen on any type of family. However, it is time, as I remarked before, that must solve it all."
Geraldine got up and switched on the hot-water jug. She did not want tea, but at least it was something to do.
Cynthia Trenning, she thought, for a mother to Thomas? —No, she could not accept her—not after Mrs. Betts.
As she put in the tea, as she rummaged for the biscuits, she thought of Cynthia not as a mother to Tom but as a wife to Damien. She wondered why she had not thought of it before. There must have been some consideration on their part, Cynthia's and Manning's, for the women to have been house guests so long.
And soon they were to be guests again, Matron announced briskly. Cora had told Hilda and Hilda had told. . . . At that juncture Matron looked rather apologetically at the Professor.
"It's all right," he assured her, "even in the sciences they gossiped."
"Did they now?"
"Yes, why otherwise would they have slanted Archimedes' Principle always on the fact that he discovered it in his bath?"
"The only fact," Gerry confessed, trying to change the subject, "that I ever remembered."
"The only fact," mourned the Professor, "that most of the boys remember."
Matron took a biscuit and began again. She was not to be diverted by mere science.
"Yes, they're coming back in the spring. There's some talk of them taking Colonel Hastings's cottage. Of course, it would only be a temporary measure—"
"You mean while the Colonel is abroad?"
"I meant—until they were married."
For a while there was only the crackle of the fire. Gerry stared down on it, the Professor glanced at Gerry, Matron snipped off a thread.
. . . So Manning's cautious words last night had had only one basis, and it had not been the problem of Thomas at all, it had been Cynthia and the question of her attitude towards a ready-made son.
A cold dislike against Damien Manning took possession of Geraldine. In its way it was more potent than the hot anger that had assailed her when she had turned on him last night and flung the words that she did.
To be quite fair she knew she should judge the situation more reasonably. -
No prospective husband with any consideration for his prospective wife could rush in on such delicate ground without her absolute approval, entire co-operation, complete agreement. That was only to be expected, and yet .. .
And yet there had been something so confident, so heartening in his, "No, I'll never give him up," this morning. It had been so confident and so heartening that she had believed it. She had not thought to add that stipulation, "Unless Cynthia says."
It seemed utterly unfair, verging on criminal to Gerry, that a child should wait on the balance, that it all depended on a human's selfish whim.
Yet that was not quite true and she knew it. Tom could not be adopted until he was adoptable, Manning could not apply unless he was eligible, and then when he was eligible, then .. .
Then Cynthia Trenning could refuse him It was her right to refuse him. Gerry, in all fairness, could find in her no real criticism against Cynthia. People were made differently and probably she had never even met Tom.
But against Damien she could see the inwardly. Undoubtedly he had been anxious about the boy, but it had been a poor, scratch-deep anxiety. The only real problem had been his own intimate problem, the problem of Cynthia and what, or what not, she would agree to accept.
Well, that too was right, conceded Gerry unwillingly. Love, of all things, was the most important.
. . . And yet, she thought with pity, did not love extend beyond two people? Could not its wide arms reach out to include someone else?
The deceit of Manning's concern for Thomas assailed Gerry. She sat by the fire, the tea untasted, and presently she heard the sound of a car mounting the steep road from the inlet.
"That will be Mr. Manning," said Matron excitedly. She got up from her seat and went out to the verandah and screwed up her eyes.
Presently she came back. "No Tom," she said.
"Well," put in the Professor cheerfully, "we didn't expect him, did we? These things take time, as I have been trying to tell you, Geraldine, my dear." He was looking at his daughter a little searchingly. He had been watching her changes of expression. What had she been thinking? What was she thinking now?
The Matron looked at Geraldine, too, but fondly.
"Life never works out," she said with a sigh. "Now, if the future Mrs. H.M. could be you, Gerry, everything would be rosy. I've never seen anyone who was such a `natural' with children. That other one is only a natural with her dog."
"Come now," reproved the Professor sternly, "they didn't go that far in science, not even in Archimedes."
Matron laughed cosily. "It's amazing how far you can go by a fire between friends. I suppose I'd better see to the dormitories now, or"—curiously—"will you be ringing to hear what happened, Geraldine?"
"I won't be ringing," said Geraldine. To herself she added, "And I won't be going across."
She got up presently and went up to help Matron. Later she came back to the fire again, and later she went to bed.
Damien Manning stood long at the window waiting.
At first he had been tempted to walk over; then perversely he had left it to her to make the initial advance. After all, it was she who owed that service. She owed him the courtesy of an apology. That "You might have stopped me saying what I did" this morning had only edged around apology. She had been rude and vindictive last night, and it needed more than that.
He had hurried up from Sydney, and all the way he had pictured her—perhaps waiting at the Breffny turn-off, at the Galdang gates at least, running up the hill, her acorn hair flying, to hear about Tom.
. . . How much did she care about Tom, he wondered. Not even enough to ask what had happened to him? Had that scene last night been only "manufactured" to let off her own spleen against the man who she still believed had usurped her father's position? How much, indeed, did her father matter? Had only his promotion mattered, only this house?
He remembered their first encounter here, rapt eyes, her absorption.
"Will you surrender?" she had chanted, and her eyes had been only on the house.
He stood at the window, watching, waiting.
A dozen times he picke
d up the house phone, but a dozen times he put it down again.
Coming out from Marlborough he had relived that breathless moment between them when Thomas Betts had said what he did, and suddenly, to Damien, the whole thing had been startlingly clear.
He had believed it was the same with Geraldine—perhaps she had not been so sharply aware of it as he was—but he had believed it had been there.
He had been a fool. Nothing had been present but the
burning desire for Galdang. There was nothing but Galdang in her little obsessed heart.
"Will you surrender? Will you surrender?" But her Barbary that was Galdang would never surrender. Not while he was master here.
He went to the cabinet and poured himself a drink. He was standing with it in his hand when her light went off.
CHAPTER XIII
IT was odd, thought Gerry, as the days grew into weeks and the weeks added up to comprise a season, how a situation can grow, and spread, and then one day it is a wall.
There was a wall between her and Damien Manning. It took the form of a polite detachment, but none the less it was a wall. She had first been aware of its confines the morning after that evening when Matron had joined them by the fire; she had felt the tension that had arisen between them; she had known the barrier that was mutual dislike and distrust.
Although it had seemed right to Geraldine that she did not hurry over to hear about Tom, when Manning did not come to inform her immediately, that was wrong.
Now she was sure that at no time had Thomas mattered, really mattered, to Damien. The whole crux of the affair had been Cynthia Trenning, and Cynthia alone. It was all as Matron had said.
Fortunately, the way things are in a boarding-school, Gerry had no need to inquire about young Master Betts. Cora told Hilda and Hilda told the Matron, or Mr. Manning told the Professor—and they both told her.
So between them all Gerry knew all about Thomas without asking, so she did not ask, and the barrier that was half shyness, half resentment at first, grew into the wall.
Tom, she learned, had been relinquished to the care of Child Welfare. Pending the locating of his father he had ,been put into a home.
"But a nice home, mind you." Cora, reported Hilda, had been quite emphatic on that point. Mr. Manning had taken him there himself.
Tom had accepted it all very well, taking it for granted it was only temporary. When Mr. Manning got everything shipshape he would be back where he belonged.
"Where he belonged." Where was that? wondered Gefry. Tom had decided for himself it was at Galdang with Mr. Manning, but would that be acceptable once Cynthia was there?
Fortunately, Geraldine was kept busy. Too busy to brood on things, too busy to fret for Tom.
The cold season had restricted her pre-prep's outdoor pastimes. There were as many grey and black circles now as the blue and gold ones, which meant that the emphasis was on the counting boards and finger-painting and that the boys were often confined to four walls.
On the whole she managed well with her little prisoners, even treading beyond her territory into Mr. Farwell's and introducing a few lessons.
One evening the house phone went and she answered it. "Kindergarten Mistress?"
"Yes, Headmaster." Only one person would address her like that.
"By chance a book came into my hands—one of your children must have dropped it."
"Yes?" What was all this?
"I was not aware that you were attempting to teach your class." Although the apparent emphasis was on the word "teach" there was a subtle inference in his description "attempting".
Geraldine froze.
When she did not answer he said sharply, "I am waiting, Miss Prosset."
For a moment she could not trust herself, then—"Waiting for what, Mr. Manning?"
"Your explanation as to why you have stepped out of your territory and encroached on Mr. Farwell's."
Now she was triumphant. "It was with Mr. Farwell's approval, permission and co-operation that I began preparing the boys for serious lessons."
"Since when," said Manning coldly, "has a junior assistant been placed before a head?"
This time the tinder that the Professor always asserted comprised his daughter's make-up was set alight.
"I am sorry," she said with deliberate impertinence, "I should have remembered how vital to you is your position of Principal."
"As vital to you as the Principal's home?"
She did not reply, but the hand holding the receiver was clenched and showed whitened knucklebones. When it was apparent that she had nothing to answer he went on.
"But this is beyond the point. I was questioning you about your change of programme. Have you a programme?"
"I—well, no—I mean—"
"What do you mean, Miss Prosset?"
She took a deep breath.
"With children, little children, it's all so different." Almost she could see his brows rising as he said, "Little
children? But you have been teaching them lessons." "Yes, I know, but—"
"We are getting nowhere, Miss Prosset. The question now to be answered is whether or not you work to a programme."
It I….
"Yes or no?"
"No."
"I see."
Gerry rushed into excuses. The mind of the child is so transient, she defended, the occupation of the child is so dependent upon the weather.
She knew she was defeating herself as far as her introduction of elementary reading, writing and numbers was concerned. If a child's mind was still in the transient stage, its occupation still ruled by whether a day would be filled in with blue or grey, obviously that child was not mature enough to be taught.
She read all this in his unhelpful silence as he heard out her rather confused explanation.
"I think we must see into this," he said with cutting disapproval. "There should be some method of work, some system. We shall examine it tomorrow afternoon."
She stood sullen and rebellious. After a moment she dared, "Tomorrow afternoon! Just when am I supposed to be free, Mr. Manning?"
"Free?" He uttered it, she thought, as though he had not heard of the word.
"I mean when am I released from duty—or supposed to be released?"
"But you know, surely."
"I believe so. Do you?"
"Yes, Miss Prosset. And I advise you to study your own contract. You remember signing a contract?"
"Yes."
"Then study it, madam." A pause, then, "Tomorrow afternoon at four."
When she heard the click of his phone, Gerry put down her own receiver. She ran upstairs, where, in the bottom of her cupboard, she remembered throwing the form he had just referred to as her contract. With trembling fingers she withdrew the typed sheet.
She saw her own signature beneath it, beneath that again the signature of a witness. She read above with suddenly interested eyes, she read things she had never bothered to read before.
A term's notice that she was leaving. .. . Had she really agreed to that?
Duty to commence at nine-thirty and to continue until the day's work was satisfactorily completed.
She threw down the form.
So Mr. Headmaster Manning, as ever, was correct.
At four-thirty the next day, the boys dismissed to play and to the supervision of a watchful Matron, Geraldine climbed the hill to the master house.
She remembered the last time she had been here; it had been the time he had told her that Tom was leaving. She remembered the words she had flung.
Later she had been sorry, had even found it in her to ask his pardon. But she hadn't, of course. Not after, through Matron's words, she had learned his real purpose in ridding himself of the boy.
If she had examined herself more closely she would have found that everything really had changed when Matron had spoken of Cynthia . . . not Cynthia in the presumed role of unwilling foster-mother, but Cynthia as Manning's wife. That had been the turning-point, but Gerry did—or
would—not discover it. She would never have admitted any
interest in Damien Manning other than his interest, or otherwise, in Tom.
And he was not interested. That had been proven. Two months had gone by, and now even Cora did not tell things to Hilda, nor the Professor report his progressive few words. In another month, thought Gerry bitterly, Tom will be forgotten—if he was ever remembered. If he was ever remembered by anyone but me.
She went into the big house, stopping a moment to gaze up at the battered saint, arms outstretched in benediction. It was beneath the saint she had come to an abrupt and painful pause that day he had forcibly ejected her. Six months ago it was now. Two terms and half a year had gone.
She went down the hall and tapped on the door. At a word from him she went in.
He did not rise. Instead, he waved her to a chair at the desk.
"You're late."
"My other work"—she said it too blandly—"was not satisfactorily completed."
"In future it will take second precedence to your Head's wishes."
"Yes—sir." Perhaps, thought Gerry, he would like me to salaam.
He looked at her sharply, saw only the bland young face and returned to the matter in hand.
"Perhaps I was a little severe with you yesterday, Miss Prosset. After all, although qualified, you are not a teacher."
"I am a teacher."
"I should think," he commented drily, "that a teacher would be one who has taught."
She flushed vividly. She had graduated quite favourably, and it was not her fault that she had never gone on with her career. It was totally unfair of him to goad her like this.
"You knew I was certificated but inexperienced when you availed yourself of me," she said angrily.
He looked at her in mild surprise as though her heated defence was quite unwarranted.
"Miss Prosset, I am trying to apologize. Must you always unleash those dogs?"
She calmed down, though it was with an effort.
He waited a while, then he pulled his chair closer.
"Contrary to what you think of me, I am still able to appreciate the uncertainty, in the handling of kindergarten children of a definite schedule. None the less, I believe a crude time-table should be drawn up, and, as far as circumstances permit, followed. I have jotted down a rough pattern, and I thought we could work it out together."
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