Time for Silence

“You should have joined us in the drawing room,” I told her. “We did not get to bed until about an hour later. We just sat there talking and speculating as to what might have happened. We all thought then that it had been dropped by a Zeppelin.”

“Was it?”

“No. Apparently not. It was caused by something in the house…gas, they say.”

“How dreadful! I didn’t come down because it had awakened Edward. He was a bit fretful. I couldn’t leave him.”

“Yes. I guessed that. Was he frightened?”

“Just a bit. I soothed him and finally he got to sleep.”

“I expect we shall hear more about this explosion.”

“I’d like to take a look at it.”

“Perhaps when Edward is having his nap, we could ride over.”

We did. The police were at the scene. We rode as close as we could. It was a sight to shock…twisted girders, collapsed walls, piles of bricks…where once that rather lovely old house had stood.

“There’s little left of it,” said Andrée with a shiver.

“They’ll never sell it now.”

“It’s a complete ruin,” went on Andrée. “Have they any idea yet how it happened?”

“I expect they will soon find out. I wonder who the owners are?”

“Didn’t someone buy it recently?”

“I’m not sure whether it was sold or being prepared for a sale.”

“Well, whatever it was, that’s the end of it.”

We rode back no wiser.

Later we heard that the explosion was due to a leakage of gas.

My father arrived later that afternoon.

He went over to look at the Priory. He met some official there and, as a Member of Parliament, I suppose, was allowed to go over the remains of the house. It occurred to me that the man might be from one of the ministries, and my father, because the Priory was situated in his constituency, had come down to investigate the mystery.

I thought he looked distinctly worried.

Two of the men with whom he had been at the Priory came to dine with us. And at the dinner table it became clear that my father and his guests did not want to talk about the explosion.

However, the rest of us—my mother, Miss Carruthers, Dr. Edgerton and myself—could not easily dismiss the matter, which was uppermost in our droughts.

“Lucinda was very curious about the Priory when she saw how changed it was,” my mother was saying. “That was some time ago. We had all made up our minds that it must have been one of those horrible Zeppelins.”

“We can’t be sure that it was not,” said my father.

“Oh, no, Joel,” protested my mother. “Those things are so huge. They just seem to hang in the sky. Someone would have seen it.”

“It is just possible that it quickly dropped the bomb and got away.”

“But the explosion was so loud,” I said. “People nearby would go out to look. It couldn’t have got away so quickly without being seen.”

“Well then, perhaps it was not a Zeppelin.”

“I’ve just thought of something,” I said. “There’s no gas at Milton Priory. How could there be? Nobody ever put it in.”

“They must have been putting it in now,” replied my father.

“If they were, surely we should have known,” I said. “No, it wasn’t gas. It wasn’t dropped from the air. So what was it? What a mystery! No doubt we shall find out sooner or later. How I should love to know! It’s really very intriguing. I shan’t rest until I find out.”

“Well,” said my father, “in the words of our Prime Minister, we must ‘wait and see.’ ”

It was the following day. I had just finished my session with Miss Carruthers, and as I came out of the schoolroom I saw my mother on the stairs.

“Lucinda, I wanted to talk to you,” she said.

“Yes?”

“Come into my sitting room. I don’t want anyone to hear.”

I was eager to learn what she had to say, and when we reached her room she shut the door and, looking at me anxiously, said, “Sit down.”

I did so, very puzzled.

“Lucinda,” she began. “This is very important. It is also secret. But your father and I know you will be discreet; after all, you are no longer a child.”

I waited apprehensively as she paused, for she was staring ahead, frowning.

“I know you have been aware of the fact for a long time that your father is…well, something more than an ordinary Member of Parliament.”

“Yes…vaguely. He does go off sometimes, and I know you are a little anxious when he does, and there is, of course, the implication that no questions should be asked.”

“I wish he were not engaged in all this secrecy. I’m always afraid he will come to some harm. It could have ruined our lives in the beginning, when he was engaged in secret work and I thought he was dead. I married…” She shook her head. “If he had been here, it would have been so different.”

“I do know something about that.”

I guessed this preamble was because she was trying to make up her mind to tell me what all this was about.

“Your father is doing a wonderful job for the country,” she went on. “He has never taken Cabinet rank because of this work. It would not be possible for a minister to do what he is doing. So…he just sits in Parliament. Well, that is a Greenham tradition, and he had to follow it. But it’s all part of the same thing. It’s working for the country.”

“Yes, I know.”