Time for Silence

There was great consternation in the house. At first Mrs. Cherry was quite indignant. The nurse had no right to stay away so long. She was lucky to have so much free time. She would soon discover that if she took a place somewhere else. But when evening came and she had not returned, Mrs. Cherry changed her attitude. She began to wonder whether Andrée had been murdered. When there was one murder connected with the house, you began to think there might be another. “We’re living in shocking times, Miss Lucinda. And where could she have got to?”

I spoke to my father.

“We must do something about Andrée,” I said. “They will start a rumor and it will spread in no time. We’ll have to think of something.”

My father agreed. “I’ll take up the matter,” he said. “By the way, we’ve got them all. Von Durrenstein himself. It’s our best bit of luck for a long time. They were in a house in Battersea, having some sort of conference. She led us right to them.”

“That was what was hoped would happen.”

“I’ve seen Bourdon. He’s been working hard underground ever since the start of this war. It’s a great triumph for him.”

“What will become of Andrée?”

“The fate of all trapped spies, I suppose. There may be a murder charge, too, against Reichter. They’re all accomplices, of course…all guilty. That will be sorted out. I doubt the public will ever hear the truth. Annabelinda’s murder will be one of those unsolved crimes.”

“Lots of people will be careful about viewing empty houses, I suppose.”

“Inevitably.”

“What are we going to tell the servants about Andrée?”

“I’ll consult with the powers. I agree, we should think of something to stop talk. We can’t have people just walking out of the house and never being heard of again.”

He very soon came up with the solution. Andrée had had a message from the French Embassy to communicate with them without delay. Her brother was dying and they had arranged for her to leave immediately. A message had been sent to my father explaining all this. There had been a little delay in his receiving it, but Andrée was now with her brother. We did not know when she would come back.

It was not very convincing, but after the first reaction of incredulity, the story was accepted. The fact that it was wartime, when the most extraordinary things could happen, was a help, and in a week or so Andrée’s disappearance ceased to be the main topic of conversation.

It was different with Edward.

“Where is Andrée?” he asked.

I told him she had gone to her home to see her brother.

“This is her home,” he insisted.

“Oh, no. She had a home before she came here.”

“Are we going there?”

“No. We shall stay here.”

“When is she coming back?”

I fell back on the old vague answer which had become a byword since Mr. Asquim’s famous statement: “We shall have to wait and see.”

But he continued to ask about her. He cried a little when he went to bed. “Want Andrée,” he said.

I would kiss and cuddle him, telling him stories until he slept. It amazed me that a woman who had been involved in the murder of his mother could have become so dear to him. He had seen Annabelinda only a few times and she had made no impression on him, apart from her hat; and yet he mourned Andrée.

I used to say to him, “Never mind. You have me…and all of them at Marchlands. You have Billy Boy there, and Mrs. Cherry and everyone here.”

“I know,” he said. “But I really want Andrée, too.”

I spent more time with him, but he continued to ask for her.

Victory

AS WE ADVANCED THROUGH the year, the aspect of the war began to change.

It was September and the great Allied attack had begun. There was a feeling of lightheartedness in the air, and with the passing of each day the news grew better.

We knew now that what we had been longing for over the last four years was about to happen.

Then came that November—darkish misty days, yet brighter than the days had been for years, made hopeful by the news.

If only Robert were home, how happy I could have been, but my fears were still with me. I longed to see him. I wanted to tell him how foolish I had been to hesitate, to have been swayed this way and that when I should have known full well that he was the one for me. How could I ever have doubted it? I was now obsessed by a terrible fear that he might not come back. They were still fighting out there. Oh, why would they not stop! Was it not now almost all over? How tragic it would be if anything happened to him now.

I prayed for him. I wanted the chance to tell him how much I loved him. These last years had made me realize that.

My father came home in a state of great excitement. Germany was in revolt. They had given in. The Kaiser had fled to Holland.

The Armistice was signed at eleven o’clock on the eleventh day of November. “The eleventh day of the eleventh month” as everyone was saying. A day to remember for the rest of our lives. The war was over.