Philippa Carr - Time for Silence

Secrets, I thought. Everywhere there were secrets.

I took the first opportunity of talking to Andrée.

“That man you were with…” I said.

She wrinkled her brows and looked puzzled.

“The man you were talking to when I came upon you in the forest.”

“Oh, you mean the one who was asking the way?”

“Yes. I just wondered if you’d seen him before?”

“No. Why should you think that?”

“Oh, it was something Edward said about your meeting a man in the forest.”

“Edward?”

“Yes, he said he’d seen a man.”

She flushed slightly. “Oh, he must have meant Tom Gilroy.”

“Isn’t he one of the male nurses?”

“Yes. The big strong one.”

“Oh, I know.”

“Well, we have been rather friendly, and we have met once or twice in the forest.”

“Oh, I see.” I smiled. It was natural that a girl like Andrée should have an admirer. But I was still shocked by the encounter with Carl Zimmerman. Then I began to think I might have been mistaken.

I had soon convinced myself that the stranger who had asked Andrée the way had merely looked like him. After all, the meeting had been over in a few minutes.

Nineteen-seventeen was coming to an end. It had been a momentous year. There had been a revolution in Russia, and the armistice between that country and Germany had released more German forces to be used on the Western Front. Nearer home, just before Christmas, Robert had been called before the medical board in London and pronounced fit for military service. The news depressed us considerably, though Robert took it philosophically.

“Couldn’t hang on much longer,” he said with a grimace.

“Oh, Robert,” I cried and clung to him.

I almost said that we should become engaged. If he had pressed me then, I should have said I would marry him. I kept telling myself that I loved him. He was far more perceptive than he pretended to be, and I believe he did not want to force me to a decision until I was absolutely sure.

Just after Christmas he came down to Marchlands and told us that he was going to do a course on Salisbury Plain and would be there for six weeks.

We were jubilant.

“Six weeks!” said my mother. “And the course does not start until mid-January. It’s a reprieve.”

“You’re very fond of Robert, aren’t you?” I said.

“My dear Lucinda, who could help being fond of Robert? He’s one of the nicest people I know.”

I felt that I was being gently nudged toward Robert, which made me feel I wanted to hold off. I could see what the future would be. The Denver estate would be my home, Aunt Belinda my mother-in-law, Annabelinda my sister-in-law.

I should be close to my own family, of course. I should see Marcus often. But perhaps he and Annabelinda would go off to foreign places—Bombay, Madras, Colombo. My life would be very little different from what it always had been.

My father came down to Marchlands for most weekends.

“He looks a little strained,” said my mother. “I do hate his being alone up there for most of the week.”

He and my mother went for walks in the forest. I think he had very few secrets from her and I sensed that they were both uneasy.

It was January. Robert was no longer at Marchlands, having left for the course.

“It doesn’t seem the same without him,” my mother said. “He is always so cheerful, so understanding. I think you miss him very much, Lucinda.”

“Yes, I do.”

“I have an idea. Why don’t you get away from Marchlands for a while? Why not go to London and be with your father? I worry about him up there on his own. You’d be company for him.”

It did seem a good idea, for I was missing Robert very much.

I was getting worried. There was no sign of an end to the war, and when the course was finished, Robert would have to go out there into danger. There would be less to remind me of him in London and I should see him when he came back from the course.

“I should miss Edward,” I said. “And I think he rather depends on me.”

“Perhaps he and Andrée could go up with you. Then you’d have plenty to do.”

“Andrée might not be so eager.”

“She seems to enjoy trips to London.”

“Yes. But now she is getting friendly with Tom Gilroy, I think.”

“Really? Nice man, Tom.”

“So I think and, apparently, so does she.”

“How did you know?”

“Edward rather betrayed it.”

“Edward?”

“He told me that they met a man in the forest. And Andrée told me it was Tom Gilroy.”

“Oh, I’m glad.”

“Why do people who are happily married want to arrange marriages for everyone else?”

“Because they want them to enjoy similar marital bliss, of course.”

We laughed.

“Sound out Andrée,” said my mother. “See what she says. She need not be there all the time if she’s so anxious to be with Tom.”

I did sound out Andrée. I was amazed at her response. Her eyes lit up.

“Oh, yes, I should like to go to London for a spell,” she said.

“I thought perhaps you might not…now…”

“It would be exciting for a while.”

“Do you think Edward would like it?”

“He’ll like it if we’re there, though he might have a few qualms at being parted from his new pony.”

“We shall come back most weekends.”

“Then there will be a reunion with his pony. He will love it.”

At dinner that night, my mother said to my father, “Lucinda is coming up to London for a while to look after you. She thinks you’re looking peaky.”

He smiled at me. “Thank you, Lucinda. Let’s go for a nice long walk tomorrow morning, and we’ll have a chat.”

I felt there was something significant about that remark and that there was some special reason why my parents wanted me to go to London, apart from the fact that they both thought a change of scene might stop my brooding over Robert’s departure for the Front.

I was right, as I learned in the forest the next morning.

It was an ideal day for walking. There was a brisk chill in the air, but a wintry sun could be seen between the clouds and the wind was less penetrating among the protective trees.

The forest was the natural place to walk. We had done so all our lives. There was a certain feeling of security there. One could talk without being overheard.

My father took my arm and said, “Lucinda, I want to talk to you very seriously. I have discussed this with your mother and we both think you might be able to help.”

“I?”

“Yes, listen. We are very distressed.”

“Distressed? Who?”

“I…and my friends. You know, don’t you, that I am involved in certain work?”

“I know there has always been something of a mystery…and that it was not concerned with your parliamentary life.”

He nodded. “There is no need for me to tell you that I am talking to you very confidentially.”

“I do understand that.”

“Lives could be at risk. There is no doubt of that. A careless word…you know how it is. You remember what happened at Milton Priory?”

I nodded.

“That was sabotage. It was due to a leak of special information that was in my possession.”

“I knew there was something mysterious about it and how upset you were.”

“It is not the only instance. I keep certain papers at the house in London. You see, my part in all this…is in a way unofficial.”

“I realized it was something like that, ever since Mama told me about the time when you were in Africa and were reported missing….”

“Well, even she doesn’t know all the details, but I want you to come up to London because I think you can be of help to me.”

“How can I do that?”

“There is nothing much, except to watch.”

“In the house, you mean?”

He nodded. “There are certain papers of mine which are being seen and copied…and passed on to the enemy.”

“Do you mean there is a spy in the house?”

“Well…there has been no break-in. It seems as though someone in the house…”

“One of the servants?”

“Perhaps. Or someone they are acquainted with…a friend…a visitor…a workman.”

“Looking at secret papers and passing them on to the enemy! I can’t believe it.”

“I am away for most of the day. It would not be impossible for someone to be let into the house…to get to my room.”

“What a terrible thing! Someone in the house…a traitor! I suppose someone has to go into your room to clean?”

“I have told Mrs. Cherry that I do not want anything disturbed there, and for that reason, I have asked her to clean the room herself. She has a special day for doing it, and for the last few weeks I have made sure that on that day there is nothing of importance in the room.”

“I see. So in your bureau important papers are normally locked away.”

“I make sure that they are.”

“And you have the key to the bureau?”

“Yes, and it never leaves me. Until a few months ago, I used to have a spare key in a drawer. Now the two keys are in my possession all the time. What I want is for you to be watchful. My study will be locked from the outside. Only I and Mrs. Cherry have keys. You will be in the house while I am away. You can be alert for anything you consider to be suspicious.”

“It’s very melodramatic.”

“We live in melodramatic times.”

“I do hope I am going to be of use to you.”

“Your mother is sure that you will be. But more of all this later…when we are there.”

It was with considerable excitement that I made my preparations to leave for London.

I LEFT MARCHLANDS WITH my father. Andrée, with Edward, was to come the following day. When I arrived at the house that I had known all my life, it seemed to have a somewhat sinister aspect. It harbored a spy!

My mother had been right about my coming to London. I was stimulated. I had not thought about Robert’s going to the Front for several hours.

I went straight to my old room. So familiar and yet…But of course it had not changed. There were the banisters through which I had watched guests arriving at my parents’ parties; there was the staircase at the top of which they had stood to receive guests; there was the dear old cubbyhole where I had shared secrets with Annabelinda, and where Charles had tried to listen to what we were talking about. But the old familiar places seemed to have become a little different. It was a house in which a spy was lurking.

A German spy! I thought. I wondered what he would look like.

But my father did not really think he was a member of the household. That seemed impossible. The staff was depleted now. Fewer servants were needed. Just enough, as my mother said, to keep the place ticking over. Some had gone to Marchlands, some had been called up to the army, others were doing war work of some nature.

“It’s different in wartime,” said my mother. “We only need a skeleton staff.”

That was what we had in London now.

I considered them all. There were the Cherrys, butler and housekeeper, who really had become custodians, there to make sure that everything was kept in order and that my father was looked after while he was in residence. They had been with us for years. I could not imagine them, under any circumstances, turning into spies. Mrs. Cherry was extremely patriotic and ready to tackle anyone who had a word to say about the old country. Mr. Cherry was a firm supporter of Mr. Lloyd George and talked knowledgeably about the Welsh Wizard. Mrs. Cherry looked up to Mr. Cherry. She was the loyal, adoring wife, accepting his superiority on all matters concerning the war while she herself remained controller of the household.

For the rest there was only the housemaid, parlormaid and tweeny: Alice, Meg and Carrie. Alice was fortyish and had been with us since she was twenty; Meg was eighteen or so and deeply involved with a young man who was somewhere in France; and Carrie was fifteen and simple.

“You take what you can get in wartime,” my mother had said of her.

I could not imagine any of them copying documents and conveying them to the enemy. I believed Carrie could not write; and when Alice corresponded with her sister in Devon it was a laborious business. She would sit at the table, holding a pen, which she regarded as though it were a dangerous implement, her tongue peeping out at the corner of her mouth while she showed the utmost concentration. As for Meg, she might have been more able, but she seemed to think of nothing but when her Jim was coming home and they would “get engaged.”