Time for Silence (24 page)

I could not help but be a little put out. For so long I had looked forward to Marcus’s arrival, and now it was like an anticlimax.

Marcus could walk out into the garden and he used to like to sit there under the sycamore tree. I was very rarely there with him alone. If I did manage it, in a few minutes Annabelinda would be there.

I was not sure whether he resented this as I did. He gave no sign of doing so—but then he would not.

Annabelinda would chatter away, asking questions about the fighting in Gallipoli, and not listening to the answers. She said how wonderful it was to feel one was doing something toward the progress of victory, and how much she admired the brave men who were fighting for the cause. Then we would talk about that journey we had all made together; we would remember little incidents which had seemed far from funny at the time and now seemed quite hilarious.

Marcus frequently told us how delighted he was to be at Marchlands.

“I used to lie in my narrow hospital bed and wonder if I was ever going to get here,” he said. “The weeks went on and on and they would not let me go.”

“You have been very ill, Marcus,” I said.

“Oh, not really. It was just that stubborn doctor. The more eager I was to go, the more determined he seemed to be to keep me.”

“You are so brave,” said Annabelinda. “You make light of your wounds. And if you are glad to be here, we are twice as glad to have you in our clutches.”

“This is where I would rather be than anywhere else.”

“I am so pleased,” said Annabelinda, looking at him earnestly, “that they can’t take you away from us…not yet anyway. We shall insist on keeping you until this silly old war is over.”

“You are too good to me,” he told her.

“You will see how good I can be,” she said, her eyes full of promise.

Then one day I found him alone under the sycamore tree.

“This is wonderful,” he exclaimed. “I hardly ever see you alone.”

“You always seem quite happy.”

“I’m happier at this moment.”

“You always say the things people want to hear. Do you really mean them?”

He put his hand over mine. “Not always, but at this moment, yes.”

I laughed. “Flattery comes as easily to you as breathing.”

“Well, it pleases people…and what’s wrong with that?”

“But if you don’t mean it…”

“It serves a purpose. As I said, it pleases people. You would not want me to go around displeasing them, would you?”

“That’s very laudable, but in time, of course, people will realize you don’t mean what you say.”

“Only the wise ones…like you. Most lap it up. It’s what they want to hear, so why not give it to them? But I assure you, I will be absolutely truthful with you. You are so astute that it would be pointless to be otherwise. At this moment, I am happy to see you and to have you to myself, and to see that you are growing up into a very attractive young lady. You were so young when we first met.”

“I’m nearly two years older now.”

“About to reach the magic age. But don’t grow up too soon, will you?”

“I thought you were urging me to.”

“I want you to keep that bloom of innocence. Sweet sixteen, they say, don’t they? How right they are! Don’t learn about the wicked ways of the world too soon, will you?”

“I think I have learned quite a lot about them in the last two years.”

“But it hasn’t spoiled you. You still have that adorable innocence. You will soon be seventeen. When is your birthday?”

“In September. The first.”

“Almost three months away.”

“I wonder if you will still be here?”

“I am going to be. If necessary I shall malinger. I shall pull the wool over Dr. Egerton’s eyes and make him insist on my remaining here.”

“But surely you will have recovered by then?”

He shrugged his shoulders and touched his chest. “That bullet did something. The old leg might get back to something like normal. I believe they are not much concerned with that I don’t think it would qualify me to be here. But I have to take care of this other thing.”

“I am glad in a way that you won’t be able to go to the front.”

“You would mind very much if I did?”

“Of course. I thought a great deal about you when you were in Gallipoli.”

“I wish I’d known.”

“But you must have guessed. We were all thinking of you…you and Uncle Gerald.”

“It’s your thinking of
me
that interests me.”

We were silent for a few moments, then I said, “You know a great deal about me and my family. I know little about you and yours.”

“There is not a great deal to know. I have been in the army from the time I was eighteen. Destined for it, you know. It’s all tradition in my family.”

“Uncle Gerald did say something about your coming from an ancient family.”

“We all come from ancient families. Heaven knows how far our ancestors go back…to the days when they were all living in trees or caves perhaps.”

“The difference is that you know who your family was and what they were doing hundreds of years ago. You’re from one of those families who…”

“Came over with the Conqueror? That’s what you mean, is it? Oh, I daresay. There was always a lot of pride in the family…all that sort of thing.”

“Tradition,” I supplied.

“That’s it. The family has been doing certain things for centuries. We have to remember that and go on doing them. The second son always goes into the army. The first, of course, runs the estate. The third goes into politics, and if there is a fourth, the poor devil is destined for the Church. The idea in the past was to have the family represented in all the influential fields. Thus we played our part in governing the country. What was done in the sixteenth century must be done in the twentieth.”

“And do you all meekly obey?”

“There have been rebels. Last century one went into business. Unheard of! He made a fortune, bolstered up the crumbling ancestral home and set the family on its feet. But that did not stop them from thinking there was something shameful about his life.”

“Well, at least you have done your duty and haven’t become a black sheep.”

“But not an entirely white one either.”

“I should have thought they would be proud of you.”

“No. I should have become a field marshal, or at least a colonel by now. I haven’t a hope. Wars are the time for promotion. But I’m knocked out of it, as it were.”

“Won’t the family recognize that?”

“Oh, yes, but it doesn’t really count. I should at least have got a medal…preferably the Victoria Cross.”

“Poor Marcus! Perhaps it would have been better to have been born into an ordinary family like mine.”

“Yours is far from ordinary. Consider your mother. Turning her home into a hospital!”

“Do you feel restricted, having to conform to such high standards?” I asked.

“No. Because I don’t always. One gets accustomed to compromise. That is our secret motto. As long as it all looks well, that’s all that matters.”

“But you went into the army.”

“It suited me in a way. I was too reckless at eighteen to have any ambitions of my own.”

“And now…?”

“Oh, I shall be a good Merrivale to the end of my days. I shall stay in the army until I retire…then possibly settle on the estate. There’s a fine old house…not quite so imposing as the ancestral home, but it has been used by one of the younger sons through the ages. My uncle who lived there died recently and his son is living there now. I believe he has plans to move to one of the family’s smaller estates up north sometime. Then that house could be mine…when I retire from the army. I could settle down there and give my brother a hand with the estate. That life would suit me.”

“So you will do your duty to the family.”

“I shall marry and settle. I must marry before I am thirty.”

“Is that a family law?”

“It’s expected of us. Sons should have settled by the time they are thirty and begin to replenish the earth…or shall we say, the family. Time is running out for me. Do you know I am twenty-eight?”

“Is that really so?”

“Quite old, compared with you.”

“You will never be old.”

“Ah. Who is flattering now?”

“If it is the truth, it is not flattering, is it?”

“But you were saying this to please me.”

“I was merely saying what I think.”

“Oh, hello…there you are.” Annabelinda was coming toward us.

“Marcus,” she went on. “How long have you been sitting there? I’m not sure that you should. There’s quite a chill in the air.”

“Ah,” said Marcus. “The fair Annabelinda! Have you come to join us?”

“I have brought your jacket.” She put it around his shoulders. “I saw you from one of the windows and I thought you needed it.”

“How I love to be pampered!”

“I was looking for Lucinda, actually,” said Annabelinda. “Your mother was asking for you a little while ago. I thought you might be somewhere in the garden.”

“I’ll go and see what she wants,” I said. Marcus raised his eyebrows into an expression of resignation.

“Good-bye for now,” I added.

When I reached the house, I looked back. Annabelinda was sitting close to him on the seat and they were laughing together.

I found my mother.

“Did you want me?” I asked.

“Well, not especially, but now you’re here, you might take these towels along to Sister Burroughs.”

A few days later, after we had closed our books for the morning, Miss Carruthers said, “Lucinda, I have something to tell you. You will be the first to know.”

I waited expectantly.

“You are aware that your seventeenth birthday is coming up soon.”

“The first of September.”

“Exactly. You will then not really be in need of a governess.”

“Has my mother said anything about that?”

“No. But it is the case, is it not?”

“I suppose so. But I hope…well, my mother always said how useful you are in the hospital. She says she does not know what she would do without all her helpers.”

“The fact is I am going to be married.”

“Miss Carruthers!”

She glanced down, smiling. It was hard to imagine Miss Carruthers coy, but that was how she seemed at that moment.

“Dr. Egerton has asked me to marry him.”

“Congratulations! I am so pleased. He is such a nice man.”

“I think so,” said Miss Carruthers. “We got on well from the first, and now…he has asked me.”

I thought of what I had heard of Dr. Egerton. His wife had died six years before. He must be about forty. He had a son and daughter, both married and not living at home. I thought it sounded ideal. My first thought was, now she will never have to go to that cousin. How wonderful for her!

She clearly thought so, too.

“I have told David…Dr. Egerton…that I shall not leave my post until you are seventeen.”

“Oh, you must not think of me. I am as near seventeen as is necessary, and in any case, it will soon be the school holidays.”

“Dr. Egerton understands. We are going to make the announcement on your seventeenth birthday. We shall be married in October. If your mother will allow me to stay here until then.”

“But of course! I’m so surprised. I think it is wonderful. I am so pleased about it.”

I threw my arms around her and hugged her.

“Oh, Lucinda.” She laughed indulgently. “You are so exuberant. We have been through a great deal together, and I wanted you to be the first one to know. Now I shall tell your mother.”

“She will be so happy for you. And you can continue to help in the hospital. Won’t that be marvelous! Mrs. Egerton!” I added slowly, savoring it.

“You are quite ridiculous,” said Miss Carruthers happily. “But it does seem to have worked out very well.”

She looked different. There was a radiance about her. Was it due to the fact that she was in love, or was it the happiness which came from the knowledge that her future was secure? A governess’s life was so precarious.

I sat with her for a while and we talked about how she and Dr. Egerton had become good friends right from the beginning.

“Of course, we met now and then in the hospital,” she said. “And often we would walk in the garden. It grew from that.”

“I think it is wonderful,” I told her.

“And when you realize that if this terrible war had not come upon us…if we had not had to leave the school in such a hurry…if I had left with some of the other teachers…”

“But you did not. I remember you said you would not leave until all the English girls had got away.”

“And your mother was so good. It was a chain of events with chance playing a big part.”

“Doesn’t it show that things are not all bad? Something good can come out of the worst. Perhaps we should always remember that.”

“I think it is something I shall remember all my life,” said Miss Carruthers.

My mother was delighted to hear the news.

“I have thought a lot about Miss Carruthers,” she said. “I knew she would be wondering how much longer you would need her. I was going to ask her to stay on and help in the hospital. I suppose she will do that now, Dr. Egerton being so closely involved. This is the best thing that could have happened for them both. I’ve always thought Dr. Egerton is one of those men who needs a wife. He has been a little lost since Mary went. So I am very pleased about this, and Miss Carruthers is like a different person. She always had that concern about the future. So many governesses do. And we don’t have to worry about you, now that you are just on seventeen. And Charles is all right going to the rectory for lessons every day. Of course, we shall have to think about his going away to school one day, but we can shelve that for a while. I don’t want him to go away while we’re at war. I want you all at hand. I don’t like it when your father is in London, but at least he is here most weekends.”

About this time there was a subtle change in Marcus’s attitude toward me. At first I thought I had imagined it, but later it seemed more marked.

Annabelinda was constantly in his company, and I hardly ever saw him alone. I could not blame her for this entirely, although she contributed to it considerably.

If he went to sit on the seat under the sycamore tree, Annabelinda was always with him. At first I used to join them, until I had a distinct feeling that I was in the way. I must say that feeling was engendered by Annabelinda, never by him. He was as gracious and courtly as ever, except that I sensed a certain superficiality in his manner.