Time for Silence

What next? was the question on everyone’s lips.

All through the night I could hear the rhythm of the waves as they rose and fell. Tomorrow, I kept saying to myself, I shall be home.

Marcus was in his usual high spirits. The following morning he went off to assess the situation and to make arrangements to get us out of France as quickly as possible.

He was gone some time, and when he returned, he found us all eagerly awaiting him in the parlor. He told us there were difficulties, but he hoped to sort them out before long. The fact was we could not leave immediately.

All through that day we waited, and by nightfall we were still at the inn.

The next day Marcus went off in the early morning again. He said he might be a while, but he was sure we should be able to sail the next day.

I was surprised to discover that people can get to know each other more thoroughly in such circumstances than in months of conventional living.

I was drawn toward Andrée, largely because she had taken to Edouard, and he to her. She appeared to have a knowledge of the needs of babies. When he cried or had a bout of indigestion, she knew how to soothe him. She would rub his stomach, talking to him as she did so. The snatches of French songs that she sang to him always seemed to amuse him.

It was evening. Marcus was still out trying to arrange for us to get on a ferry. We had had dinner and had gone up to the bedroom I shared with Annabelinda and Edouard, who was fast asleep at this time. Annabelinda, Andrée and Miss Carruthers had joined us there.

It was an attic room with a ceiling that sloped almost to the floor on one side, and there was a small window which looked out on the harbor.

We were talking in a rather desultory manner when suddenly the atmosphere changed and it became a time of revelation. I do not know how these things happen. It might have been because we were all uneasy and that gray sea outside seemed like a mighty barrier between us and England, reminding us of the difficulties, mocking us as it beat against the harbor walls, reminding us that we were far from home, that we might be caught up in this war and never cross that sea.

Perhaps I was too fanciful and the others were not thinking along similar lines, but the desire to get close to each other seemed to be with us all, to brush aside that façade we showed to the world and to reveal ourselves as we really were.

Andrée began it. She said, “I feel something of a fraud. It is not the tragedy I have made you think it is for me to be here. I have dreamed and longed to start a new life. I have hoped and prayed that it would come about. Perhaps I prayed too fervently. Perhaps if you believe that something will come to you, if you pray for it night and day, it comes…but not in the way you think…but in God’s way…and you have to pay for it.”

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.