We Shall Not Sleep (40 page)

"Joseph?" he said in amazement. "Joseph Reavley! My dear fellow, come in." He stepped back, holding the door wide. The light shone on his pale hair and the subtle lines of his face. "What can I do for you? Is it acceptable to ask what you are doing home so soon before the end? I hope it is not bad news of your family?" Sudden deep concern shadowed his eyes.

"No, thank you." Joseph followed him inside. "We are all fine, so far as I know. But I have an urgent errand. I need to get to St. Giles as soon as I can, and then back to the station to London. It is very urgent indeed, and I need help." There was no time to waste in prevarication, and he would not have known how to do that anyway. "Can you drive me, please? Or if you can't, do you know someone who would?"

Thyer regarded him with concern. "Of course I will. Are you sure you are all right?"

"Yes." Then suddenly it occurred to him that Thyer might wonder if one of the Cambridge students he knew was in trouble. "It's not personal business at all," he added. "It's something I have to collect and get to London today."

Thyer nodded. "Would you like anything to eat first, or even to drink? You look as if you have been up all night."

"Yes, I daresay I do," Joseph agreed with a smile. "But I haven't time. Perhaps after."

"I'll get the keys and tell Connie. She'll be glad to hear that you at least are all right."

Thyer returned a few moments later, accompanied by his wife. As always, Connie was delighted to see Joseph, but she understood that it could be no more than hello and goodbye. She had made a quick sandwich for him and offered it to him now, wrapped in a piece of paper.

"Only bread and what I would like to call pate, but it's really meat paste," she apologized.

He thanked her and suddenly realized he was ravenously hungry.

She watched him, smiling, and handed him a glass of lemonade, knowing that anything hot to drink would take possibly more time than he was willing to afford.

Standing just inside the Masters House, looking at Connie, gave Joseph a startling sense of timelessness. She was still beautiful in her own warm, generous way. And there was still the restlessness in her eyes, although the edge of it had softened, and she looked toward Thyer more often than he remembered her doing before.

It was as if only months had passed since he had stood here in the summer of 1914, speaking of war and peace with such innocence. No one had imagined that the world could change so much in so short a time. The past they had known was gone forever. He knew that here in its fullness for the first time. In this quiet hallway looking into the quad where nothing changed, he realized the enormity of the change in everything else.

"Joseph?" Thyer asked. "Are you ready?"

"Yes ... thank you." Joseph gave the empty glass back to Connie and bid her goodbye. He followed Thyer across the first quad and then the second into the street to where the car was parked.

The drive to St. Giles was swift. Not once did Thyer ask him what the purpose was of his sudden and urgent journey; nor did they talk of those they knew who were dead. Instead he discussed politics, in particular the character of Lloyd George, and the new ideas of widening the political franchise to include all men, property owners or not, and even many women.

"Times are changing at an extraordinary pace," he said with a slight frown. "I hope we can keep up with them without too many casualties. The men coming home aren't going to recognize the land they left behind, and may possibly not like it entirely. Women have all kinds of jobs, and we need them to keep doing them. We can't now send them back to the kitchen." He shook his head slightly. "A great number of them will not marry because there is no one for them to have. They have no choice but to earn their own way. We cannot make that impossible for them."

Joseph did not reply.

“And very few places for servants. We've learned to do without them," Thyer went on. "Jack's as good as his master. We discovered that in the trenches. There are an awful lot of 'Jacks' to whom we owe our lives. I daresay you know that better than I do."

Joseph smiled and agreed. They were racing through the November countryside at a far higher speed than Joseph would have expected from the master. He had always thought of him as a trifle staid, a scholar with little action in him. Perhaps he had been wrong.

They passed the quiet fields of the farm where Charlie and Barshey Gee had grown up, then that of Snowy and Tucky Nunn. The blacksmith's forge was open, Plugger Arnold's father bent over the anvil. It was all desperately familiar, and Joseph would have given all he possessed if
the men he had known and loved could have come home again with him.

The street was quiet. There were half a dozen women in it, coats closed tight against the wind. The green was deserted, the duck pond flat and bright in the momentary sun.

They pulled up outside the house where Joseph had grown up, from which John and Alys Reavley had left that morning the world had changed, when Gavrilo Princip had fired a shot in Sarajevo that had ended history and begun the present.

"I won't be long," Joseph said briefly. "One day I'll tell you exactly what all this is about." He climbed out, walked a little shakily to the door, and knocked. He had already made up his mind that, if Hannah was not home, he would break in and leave her a note to explain what he had done.

He had raised his hand to knock again when the door opened. She stood inside. She looked so like their mother that for a moment Joseph was stunned, just as taken aback as she was. Then she threw herself into his arms and hugged him, and he held her hard and close.

"It's all right," he said, still holding her. "I've come for the treaty. We know who the Peacemaker is, and we have to prove it to Lloyd George, and then it will be over. I have dozens of things to tell you, but Matthew and Judith are waiting for me in London, and there's no time now."

She pulled back and stared at him. "Who is it?"

"Dermot Sandwell."

"The minister? It can't be!"

"Now you see why I have to prove it."

She did not argue. She could see the certainty in his face, and simply stood back and followed him through the house to the gunroom at the back. The door was locked, as it had been since 1914. He opened it, took down his father's old punt gun and broke it, then very carefully eased out the rolled-up piece of paper from inside the barrel.

"Has that been there all the time?" she asked in amazement.

"Yes. That's where Father hid it. We thought it the safest place, since they had searched the house during the funeral, remember?"

"You didn't tell me!"

"Safer for you not to know." He smiled briefly. "Give my love to Tom and Luke and Jenny. It'll all be over in a matter of days now. Then we can begin to build again and help the people who've been hurt more than they know how to bear."

"A ministry again?" There was light in her face.

"Yes. I'm going to marry Lizzie Blaine."

She smiled. "Good. Very good. I thought you might."

He kissed her quickly on the cheek, then put the treaty into the inside of his tunic and strode back to the car.

One day he would tell Aidan Thyer at least some of the truth, but not now. At the station he thanked him again, then went immediately to the platform to catch the next Cambridge-to-London train. The journey still held the vestige of a sense of escape, of which he was ashamed. He should not have suspected Thyer, and yet he had a definite sense of relief to be alone again, anonymous among the other uniforms scattered here and there. Around him were men on leave and men wounded, some too seriously to ever return to battle. It could be months, or even years, before the last stragglers returned. And of course so many would not.

When the train pulled into London, he alit. He paid for the extravagance of a taxi, which earned a few
black looks, since he was obviously able-bodied and apparently didn't need it.

The city looked weary, and even in the fitful sunlight there was a grayness to it. There were hardly any men in the streets except the old and the very young. There were women in all sorts of places that a couple of years ago would have been unthinkable: driving buses and lorries, even in police uniform. They looked busy, competent. The few who were fashionable had changed beyond recognition. The feminine glamour that was designed for idleness was utterly gone. Now beauty was subdued and extremely practical—short skirts, quiet colors.

The air seemed charged with emotion. A kind of expectancy lay behind the simplest exchange: a request for directions, the purchase of a newspaper. He felt a moment of terrible pity for them, a fear that nothing was going to live up to the dream of what peace would be like when it came at last.

Very soon, when armistice was announced, he expected the womenfolk to experience an almost unbearable excitement, anticipating welcoming home their men. Then, as they settled into a new life, they would have to rise to the challenge of redefining their roles as men and women, and their positions in society.

There was nothing in his life sweeter and more precious than the hope that Lizzie would be with him, sharing the work of rebuilding individual lives, communities again, helping people come to terms with change and loss.

The taxi stopped a block away from Calder Shearing s office, where Matthew had told him to go. He paid and got out, thanking the man, then turned and walked as swiftly as he could, grateful that the taxi had pulled away from the curb. He went to the entrance and was admitted as soon as he identified himself.

He was kept waiting in the outer room only moments before Matthew appeared, his face filled with relief. "Got it?" he asked.

"Of course. Is everyone here?"

"Yes. No trouble?"

"None at all.You?"

Matthew smiled. "Nothing that matters now."

"What happened?" Joseph demanded.

"Difficulty getting petrol," Matthew replied. "Once we were stopped by police, and I was terrified it was another attempt by the Peacemaker, but it was just because I was going too fast. Come upstairs and we'll show Shearing the treaty." He turned and led the way.

Inside Shearings office Judith, Lizzie, Mason, and Schenckendorff were already waiting. Calder Shearing stood behind his desk, his face dark and tense, his eyes bright.

Wordlessly, Joseph handed him the treaty between the kaiser of Germany and the king of England with which the Peacemaker had proposed to create an Anglo-German empire to dominate the world, and to achieve peace by betraying France and the Low Countries to Germany, with Britain taking back all the old empire, including the Americas.

Shearing read it, his face filling first with quiet, bitter amazement, and then with fury. He picked up his telephone and placed a call to No. 10, Downing Street. When he was finished he looked at them one by one. "Are you ready, gentlemen?" he asked, although his glance included Judith and Lizzie. "The prime minister will see us."

CHAPTER TWELVE

In deference to Schenckendorff s injured foot—which was still severely painful—they traveled in two cars. Alighting outside No. 10, Downing Street, they were shown in immediately.

David Lloyd George was not a tall man, but he had a dynamism of character and a music in his voice that commanded attention. His inner energy, even after the terrible years of struggle, filled and dominated the room. He looked from one to the other of them. His main interest fell first on Mason, then on Schenckendorff, but he did not fail to notice the women, especially Judith. He had never in his life failed to perceive the beauty of a woman, and far too seldom had he failed to enjoy it as fully as opportunity allowed.

"Well?" he asked Shearing. "This had better be quick, and it had better be damn good! Which of you is going to explain to me what the devil you are talking about?"

Shearing indicated Matthew. "Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Reavley, one of my men." He did not bother to introduce the others yet. They could be mentioned as their parts in the story arose.

Matthew stepped forward. "Sir—"

"Speak, man!" Lloyd George commanded, waving his hand to order the rest of them to sit—or as many of them as there were chairs for. "Forget the niceties. What is this tale of yours?"

Matthew began. "On the night of June 27, 1914, my father, John Reavley, telephoned me from St. Giles in Cambridgeshire to say that he had found a document that could change the history of the world, and shame Britain forever, if it were put into effect. He said he would bring it to me the following day."

Lloyd George blinked. "Twenty-seventh of June, 1914?"

"Yes, sir. My mother and father set out the next day, and were murdered on the way, in a car accident. That was, as you know, the same day as the assassination of the archduke and duchess in Sarajevo. After much difficulty and more tragic murders, my brother, Joseph, and I found where my father hid the document. We read it and replaced it where it was."

"Why in God's name—" After a glance at Shearing's face, Lloyd George stopped abruptly. "What was it, and why does it matter now?"

Wordlessly Joseph took the treaty out of his inner pocket and spread it on the table before the prime minister.

Lloyd George read it. The blood drained from his face, leaving it as white as his hair. "God Almighty!" he said in a shaking voice. He swallowed and looked up at Joseph, still standing in front of him. "You had this throughout the war?"

"Yes, sir. We had no idea who was behind it, only that he had great power and was willing to murder to put this plan into effect. He tried all through the war to bring about an Allied surrender so that this empire of his could still come about. We code-named him 'the Peacemaker' because we believed that the avoidance of war was his purpose, even if it meant robbing us of both freedom and honor to do so. We now know that he wishes to influence the terms of the armistice so that Germany can rise again quickly and rebuild its armies, and the plan still be carried through."

"Never!" Lloyd George said instantly. "We must find out who he is and hang him as a traitor."

Matthew resumed the story. "We have tried all through the war to do that, sir. Only now have we succeeded, and only because some of the men who believed in peace and were unaware of the true extent of the price he was prepared to pay for it have finally seen what he is, and are willing to come forward to unmask him, regardless of the cost to themselves."