Philippa Carr - Time for Silence

She had our attention, even Annabelinda’s, whose concentration was apt to stray if the subject did not include her.

Andrée looked around the room at each of us in turn. She went on. “Has it occurred to you that people are hardly ever what they seem? We all have our secrets hidden away. If we brought them out…if we showed them…we would not be the people others believe us to be.”

“I daresay you are right,” Miss Carruthers said, “but perhaps it is more comfortable to go on as we are. More pleasant…making life run more smoothly.”

“But sometimes there are occasions when one wants to confess,” said Andrée. “To examine oneself, perhaps…to find out all sorts of things one did not know about oneself.”

“Confession is good for the soul,” said Miss Carruthers. “But perhaps it is better not to make a habit of it.”

“I was thinking of myself,” went on Andrée. “You are all so sorry for me. I lost my home…my parents. ‘What a terrible thing,’ you say. ‘Poor girl! What a tragedy she has gone through.’ But I did not love my home. For a long time I have wanted to get away from it…and my parents. I knew I would never be happy until I did. My father was a farmer…a deeply religious man. There was little laughter in our house. Laughter was a sin. I yearned to get away. I went to my aunt in England. She had married an Englishman. I was to help her when her husband died. It was as bad as being at home. I vowed I would never go back to her. Then you found me upset at Le Cerf. It was going back to her that I was so miserable about…not the death of my parents and the loss of the home I had wanted to leave. I never loved my parents. We had no tenderness from them. I was beginning to think I should never get away unless I ran away. I often contemplated it. And then suddenly…that explosion…the farm destroyed…it was gone. They were gone. And I am free.”

“Well,” said Annabelinda. “We shan’t be sorry for you anymore.”

“That is what I want. I feel free. I feel excited. A new life is opening for me.” She turned to me. “I have you to thank. I can’t tell you what your promise to help me means to me.”

“It is so little,” I said.

“I see that it means a great deal to Andrée,” put in Miss Carruthers. She turned to Andrée. “Well, my dear, you have been frank with us and I admire you for it. You have made me consider my own case.”

It occurred to me then how much she had changed. She was still in a measure the old formidable Miss Carruthers, but a new woman had emerged, the woman who was showing herself to be as vulnerable as the rest of us. She went on. “One cannot go on teaching forever. There comes a time when one has to stop, and then…what is to become of one? For me, there is my cousin, Mary—one might say the counterpart of Andrew’s Aunt Berthe. I was an only child. My father died when I was eight years old, my mother had died soon after my birth. Uncle Bertram, Mary’s father, was in comfortable circumstances. He was my mother’s brother. He helped a good deal. He took over my education, but he never let me forget it. He is dead now, but there is Cousin Mary to remind me of my debt. And you see, there is no one to whom I can go but Cousin Mary. Hers is the only home I have. Holidays, when I have to leave the school, are something I have always dreaded….”

I could not believe I was listening to Miss Carruthers, who had always been so unassailable.

“And now,” said Annabelinda, “you are going to her…and there could be no school for you to return to.”

“That is how life goes,” said Miss Carruthers. “We must needs accept what is meted out to us.”

I think she was already regretting her frankness. I felt a fondness for this new version of our severe mistress, which would have been impossible at school.

I started to tell them about myself.

“I have had a very happy childhood,” I said. “My father is a Member of Parliament. He is often away, and then, of course, when we are in London, he is busy at the Houses of Parliament; and when we are in the country, there is constituency business. My mother and I have been very close to each other all my life. She is the most understanding person I know.”

“How lucky you are!” said Andrée.

“I have always known it. I think she is a particularly wonderful person, because she suffered a terrible tragedy when she was young. Her father, of whom she was very fond, was shot dead when she was with him. He was on his way to the Houses of Parliament, and she was saying goodbye to him as he got into his carriage. She saw the man who did it, and it was her evidence that convicted him. He was an Irish terrorist, and it had something to do with Mr. Gladstone’s Home Rule Bill, which my grandfather was opposing. It took her a long time to get over it; she married and that went wrong. But eventually she and my father were married.”

“And lived happily ever after,” added Annabelinda.

“Well, they did,” I said. “They had always loved each other, but all those terrible things happened…not only to my mother but to my father, too. He was missing at one time. They thought he was dead. That’s quite a story.”

“Do tell us,” said Andrée.

“I don’t really know what it was all about. They don’t talk of it much. But it was when they thought he was dead that my mother married this other man. One day I think she will tell me more about it.”

“What an exciting time she must have had,” said Annabelinda.

“Excitement is not always a happy state, Annabelinda,” remarked Miss Carruthers. “You learn as you go through life that there are events which are exciting to anticipate, amusing and entertaining to relate after they have happened, but extremely uncomfortable when they are in progress.”

“Now it’s your turn,” said Andrée to Annabelinda.

“Oh, my mother is a beauty. She’s had an exciting life. She lived in Australia for a time. When she came back to England she married Sir Robert Denver. I’ve got a brother, too. He’s Robert, after my father. He’s nice but rather dull.”

“He’s not dull,” I protested. “He’s just…good.”

“Oh, well…”

“Why should good people be called dull?” I demanded hotly. “I think they are a whole lot nicer than selfish people…and more interesting. Robert is one of the nicest people I know.”

“And she knows so many,” mocked Annabelinda.

“You ought to be proud of him,” I said.

Annabelinda grinned. “Robert,” she said, “is very fond of Lucinda. That’s why she likes him so much.”

Before I could speak, Andrée said, “This is like a confessional. Why is it that we all have the urge to lay bare our souls tonight?”

“It’s rather fun,” said Annabelinda. She caught my eye and grinned at me. She had told us nothing about herself. Her secrets were too dangerous to be divulged.

“I know what it is,” said Miss Carruthers. “It is the uncertainty of our lives. We are waiting…listening to the waves. There is a wind blowing up. Shall we ever be able to get away? It is at such times that people feel the urge to reveal themselves…to show themselves to the world as they really are.”

I believed there was some truth in that, but Annabelinda would never reveal her weaknesses.

At that moment Edouard woke up and began to cry.

Andrée immediately soothed him, and Annabelinda said, “Marcus will have arranged something. It won’t be long now before we are home.”

We spent another night in that inn, and in the early morning of the following day we boarded a Channel ferry. At last we were on the way home. Marcus had made it possible.

I sat on deck in the semidarkness, holding Edouard on my lap. Andrée was beside me.

“I don’t know what we should have done without you,” I said to her. “I know so little about the needs of children.”

“You learn quickly,” she said. “It comes naturally to some of us. I don’t know what I could have done without you. When I think of how you have helped me…”

“We must all help each other at times like this,” I replied.

Annabelinda was close by with Marcus Merrivale and Miss Carruthers. I felt very comforted to watch them.

How silent it was! There was a coolish breeze sweeping over the sea. We were all tired but too keyed up to think of sleep.

When I shut my eyes I could see the remains of the cottage. I could see Marguerite’s appealing eyes. And I knew that was something I should never forget.

I looked across at Marcus Merrivale. His task was nearly over now. He would deposit us at my parents’ house and then report to Uncle Gerald. Mission accomplished!

I smiled. What a fine man he was. What a hero! Not once had I seen him in the least perturbed. He had accepted everything with something like jaunty nonchalance and a certain belief that he would be able to overcome all difficulties. And he had.

We shall see him again, I assured myself. My parents would want to thank him, and he was, after all, a friend of Uncle Gerald’s.

That thought gave me a certain, warm comfort.

And then in the dawn light, I saw the outline of the white cliffs.

We had come safely home.

THEY WERE THERE AT home to greet us when we arrived—my parents, Charles, Aunt Belinda and Uncle Robert—all, except Robert. My mother seized me and hugged me again and again. She seemed as though she must keep reassuring herself that I was really there.

Miss Carruthers stood a little apart with Andrée, who was holding the baby. My mother had given them a quick glance but she was too intent on me to take in immediately the fact that we had brought strangers with us.

My father stood by, awaiting his turn to embrace me. He was almost as emotional as my mother. Charles was dancing around. “Did you see any soldiers?” he asked.

It was a wonderful homecoming.

Marcus stood by, watching and smiling.

“How can we thank you enough?” my father was saying to him. “How grateful we are to my brother for arranging for you to bring them home…and especially to you.”

Aunt Belinda was talking excitedly and kissed Annabelinda and then me. Uncle Robert stood by, smiling benignly on us all. Dear Uncle Robert. He reminded me so much of his son, my own dear Robert.

“Where is Robert?” I asked.

“Robert joined the army immediately after war was declared,” my mother told me.

“He’s in training now,” added Aunt Belinda. “Somewhere on Salisbury Plain, I think.”

“I’m going to join when I’m old enough,” said Charles. Nobody took any notice of him.

My mother seemed suddenly aware that there were strangers present. Her eyes lingered on Andrée and the baby.

“I’ll tell you everything later,” I said to her. “This is Miss Carruthers, who has traveled with us from the school. She really doesn’t want to go down to the country just yet. If she could stay…”

“But of course you must stay, Miss Carruthers,” said my mother. “Lucinda has mentioned you in her letters. You must be exhausted after all this. I’ll have a room made ready.”

“And this is Mademoiselle Andrée Latour. We met while we were getting across France.”

“Welcome to England,” said my mother.

“She must stay here, too, Mama,” I said.

“Of course. Look. Here are some of the servants. They have all been so anxious about you. Mrs. Cherry…isn’t this wonderful?”

“It is indeed, ma’am,” replied Mrs. Cherry. “We are so glad you’ve come back safe and sound, Miss Lucinda.”

“We want two rooms made ready. Three perhaps…Major Merrivale…?”

“Thank you,” he said. “But I shall be reporting to Colonel Graham to let him know that all has gone according to plan.”

“But you’ll stay for a meal?”

“That would be delightful.”

My mother, in her usual way, was getting the practical details sorted out. I was longing to be alone with her. I could see she had the same thought in mind.

Aunt Belinda and Uncle Robert went off with Annabelinda and I went to my room. I had not been there long when my mother arrived.

As soon as she entered the room, she took me into her arms.

“We have been so worried,” she said. “I have scarcely slept since war was declared. And you out there…in Belgium of all places, with the Germans sweeping across the country. Oh, yes, we were sick with worry, your father and I…although he didn’t show it as much as I did. We can’t be grateful enough to your Uncle Gerald, who said he would get you out the best way. I wanted to come, but he said that was ridiculous and impossible. So he sent that charming major. What a pleasant man!”