Women of Courage (60 page)

‘Perfectly.’ Despite himself, Charles reached out casually for the telephone at the end of his desk and put the receiver to his ear. After a few moments’ silence, he put it down in disgust. ‘It seems you have planned well.’

‘I believe so. Now, if you will show me around the house and find me a room for the night, I need trouble you no more until the morning. If no harm comes to me, no one needs to be hurt.’

‘No one except Carson,’ Charles said. ‘And me too, I suppose.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘A little holiday, I think you said, didn’t you, Weichsaker? Carson and I would be taken away for a little holiday? Have you thought what Sir Edward will say when he is released and finds the whole country plunged into civil war because of a plot organised by a foreign power? He’ll turn the whole force of the UVF against you, and the British government will do the same with their forces! Then you’ll see a war far worse than anything that could happen in this small corner of the world. What good will that do you or anyone else?’

Werner smiled thinly. Franz, Karl-Otto and Adolf had already dug the two graves which were the solution to that problem. One for Charles, one for Carson. But it would hardly encourage Charles to mention them now.

‘That is a matter for politicians, not me,’ he said. ‘After all, holidays can be long or short, according to need and circumstances. In any case, I suppose that your wife and servants will be here tomorrow night to welcome your son home, even if you and Sir Edward Carson have to be detained a little longer.’

29

P
LAYING THE piano had given Deborah unusual pleasure. She was no great pianist, but she had always played, ever since she was a child. She liked romantic ballads and lullabies mostly, which she could sing in a clear, low contralto as she accompanied herself. The songs and soft chords gave her comfort. She had played the same tunes to Tom when he was at home, and tonight she shared them with Sarah, who sat quietly on a sofa in the drawing room, leafing through a newspaper and listening. Sometimes, when Deborah looked up, she saw a relaxed smile stray like a ghost across the thin, strained face in the firelight, and she thought, this will do us both good.

Not just the two of us either. Always, she was conscious the child growing inside her. This music is for my baby, too, thought. It will help him sleep and grow quietly inside me, safe, secure, knowing nothing of the dangers and troubles of world into which he will be born. I must shield him from that long as I can.

As long as I can . . . Once, towards the end of the evening Charles had looked in. With him was a tall thin man with startlingly pale blue eyes and a crippled hand. Charles introduced him as Werner von Weichsaker and said he would be staying the night. But neither had stayed to talk. Charles’s introduction had been curt, brief almost to the point of rudeness, and Deborah had guessed the man’s arrival had been an unwelcome extra burden to her husband’s many military duties. Charles looked unusually tense, she thought, his face pale, strained.

So tonight would not be the time to tell him of the baby.

For three days now she had put it off. Each day seemed to her like a reprieve, a last blessed hour of sunlight before the storm that had to come. She told herself that Charles was too busy, he was in the wrong mood. That Sarah was too weak to face the inevitable row. That she was being kind to her baby to let it grow in peace another day longer. She even told herself that she was being kind to Charles.

Soon the excuses would run out.

As she went to bed the rain had stopped. She opened her bedroom window and stood there in her nightdress for a moment, looking out into the darkness across the grounds. The clouds were passing and there was a patch of clear sky over the hills to the west where the moon shone down, surrounded by a sprinkling of stars. She could make out some of the trees of the park and the woods on the hills; the field where the cattle came down to the pond that they sometimes called a lake, where she had played at boats with Tom and where the poor children from Dublin had tried to catch ducks; the summerhouse near the oak in which Tom had built a tree-house; the woods with the little gothic pavilion and the ice-house and the badger setts and the tunnel under the road where she and Tom had played hide and seek long ago.

This is my home, she thought. Despite all its frustrations it is where I belong. When I tell Charles what I have done, I shall lose it all.

An owl hooted near the stables. Deborah shivered, closed the window, and climbed into bed. She blew out the candle and lay quietly, watching the small rosy shadows of the firelight flicker on the ceiling. She remembered how she had lain here longing for Rankin only two short months ago. Her lover whom she would never touch again.

Her doorknob clicked. The door opened slowly in the dark. A man came into her bedroom. Deborah gasped, and sat up, startled. ‘What — who’s that?’

‘Sssssh. It’s only me.’ The dark figure closed the door softly behind him.

‘Who?’

‘Charles.’

Charles?
She could hear the creak of the riding boots, so he was still fully dressed, in uniform. But Charles never comes into my room!

‘What do you want?’

Even as she said it she thought how unwelcoming, how harsh the words sounded. He must want something from me or he wouldn’t have come, and I should be glad of it. It is the source of all our problems that he never seems to need me, so I shouldn’t drive him away. Perhaps he even wants to make love — even now it might not be too late to persuade him that the child is really his.
Oh God I don’t want to I’m not in the mood it would be harsh and dry and tearing but if he wants to of course I must it’s my last chance . . .

‘Charles?’

‘I have to talk to you. Do you have a light?’

‘Yes. Here by the bed somewhere.’ She reached out, fumbled for matches, lit the candle. He came and sat on the chair between her and the window. She could see the profile of his face in candlelight — the proud hooked nose, thin high brow, smooth grey receding hair, hollow cheeks, more lined than usual. She could not see into the darkness of his eyes.

‘I have something dreadful to say.’

He knows
, she thought
.
How can he possibly have found out?

‘It’s about Tom.’

‘Oh!’ Not about me and Rankin then. But his voice sounded so grim, weary, bitter. ‘What has happened?’

‘He has . . . Deborah, I am very sorry to tell you this, but Tom is in serious trouble.’

‘What — at school, you mean? Has he done something wrong?’

‘No, not at school, Deborah. He’s not there.’

The voice was not just bitter, but frightened, she realized. ‘Charles, what’s happened?’

‘Don’t scream, woman. It’s very important that you don’t scream. Please control yourself.’

‘Will you please tell me what has happened to my son?’

She was sitting bolt upright in bed now, glaring at him.

‘He has been . . . kidnapped.’

‘What?’ It was beyond her comprehension. She was not sure where she was or what she was doing; she felt faint. He was holding her hand, a thing he never did.

‘Please, Deborah, don’t scream. It’s very important that you don’t scream. That man might hear you.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Desperately, she focussed all her energies on trying to understand what he was saying, to believe it was really happening. His voice was low, insistent, urgent.

‘Listen to me now. That man who is staying here, Werner von Weichsaker, he is one of them. He came to me tonight to tell me. His men have taken Tom from school and hidden him somewhere. They are German agents, you see. They want to capture Carson, perhaps kill him. And they want to force me to help them, so they have kidnapped Tom.’

It was too much to take in all at once. Floundering, she said: ‘How do you know they have Tom? They may be lying. Dr Duncan wouldn’t let him go, surely?’

‘He gave me this.’

Charles gave her a crumpled scrap of paper. She read it.

Father,

These men have caught me and shut me in where you can never find. Please do what they say or they will kill me. I am sorry.

Tom.

The tears came. She couldn’t help it, they were just there. Welling up inside her, misting her eyes, shaking her chest so that she sobbed. They were no use, she didn’t want them, they didn’t help. Fiercely, she said: ‘What are we going to do?’

He explained again, patiently, what Werner had said, what he wanted. This time she took some of it in. She said: ‘But why — how do they know all this?’

Charles did not answer at first. He had hoped to avoid this but it was impossible. It was bound to come out now. Anyway, Tom was her son as well as his; she had a right to know how his weakness had brought the boy into danger.

‘I’m afraid . . . I think Simon told them.’

‘Simon?’ Deborah had never liked the young man, but still. ‘Why? He’s one of your soldiers, isn’t he?’

‘Of course, but . . . it seems he has taken a dislike to me and been selling information to these Germans. It may even have been him who persuaded the headmaster to let the boy leave school. Dr Duncan would recognise Simon, wouldn’t he?’

‘Yes, I suppose so. He drove me there at the beginning of term. But why would Simon dislike you, Charles? You’ve always been kind to him, haven’t you?’

‘Yes, but . . . Deborah, I am very sorry about this, but . . .’ He hesitated. The words were there, in his throat, to tell her, explain why he had been so cold to her all these years.
I am afraid I have not behaved entirely properly with him
. . . Perhaps, if he said that, she would understand, accept him for the man he really was.

But he could not do it.

‘. . it seems the boy has been paid. I am afraid I am not always the best judge of men. And these Germans have used him.’

‘So — Simon has helped in this kidnap?’

‘I don’t know. I am not sure who is guarding him, but it may be that Simon has a hand in it. Anyway, we have a choice.’

‘What do you mean — a choice?’

The shock was too deep for tears. Deborah suddenly felt a surge of furious energy, a desire to hit someone or run far away and leave all this behind her. But she could do neither. Instead, she got abruptly out of bed, stepping carefully past Charles so as not to touch him. She took a dressing gown from her wardrobe, wrapped herself in it, and walked up and down by the dying fire.

‘We have to find Tom!’

‘I don’t think we can, my dear.’ In a grey, weary voice, Charles explained what Werner had told him. ‘So you see, there is a choice, though no one would wish to face it. If I do what they say, Tom will be released — probably — but Carson will be captured, possibly killed, and a wretched civil war will break out which will benefit Germany and kill hundreds, perhaps thousands, of soldiers; or we prevent all that and our son dies.’

She stared at him incredulously. ‘You can’t mean it, Charles! You don’t have any choice at all. You couldn’t risk Tom’s life!’

Bleakly, he said: ‘It is not only Tom’s life at risk, you see. I have a duty to all the other lives that may be lost as a result of this wicked scheme.’

‘A duty?’

‘Yes. Tom may have a similar responsibility one day, if he becomes an officer.’

‘But it’s his
life
, Charles! Anyway, I thought you were happy for a civil war to start.’

Charles sighed. ‘I have advised in favour of a considered military action, yes. But only if it has been agreed on by our leadership; not as a result of Carson being kidnapped, perhaps killed by the Germans. To support that would be treason, woman — don’t you realise that?’

Silence. It was so like Charles, she thought. No one else could be so cold, so logical and correct, in a horrendous situation like this. Perhaps that is how you learn to behave, as an army officer. But this is our son we’re talking about — how can he be so calm? I am married to a man I don’t understand at all.

‘So what do you intend to do?’

Charles leaned forward intently, his elbows on his knees. As though it was important to convince her of some academic point.

‘I think there may be a solution. A way of fighting back while minimising the risk, at least.’

She strode to the window frantically, staring out into the night. Hurrying low clouds had hidden the moon again and there was a spatter of rain, the rustle of wind among dark, shadowy trees. She pressed her hands against the glass.

‘Tom’s out there somewhere, Charles. We’ve got to get him back!’

‘Yes, of course — I’m trying to do that. But not at the price of betraying my conscience! Listen, Deborah, von Weichsaker says he has the house surrounded, but I don’t entirely believe him. He can’t have that many men, and they won’t know the grounds. So it might be possible for me to get away from the house and go down to the village and summon help. And if I could do that, I
would
have enough men to surround the house. Men who know this area very well indeed.’

She gazed at him helplessly. It all sounded futile to her. A boy’s game of soldiers. That was the world Charles lived in. ‘But how would that help Tom? If you do that, they will kill him. Tom says that in his note, doesn’t he?’

‘Yes, but nothing will happen to Tom until tomorrow night, he said. Only if he, von Weichsaker, doesn’t come back safe from the operation against Carson, then something will happen to Tom. Not before. That may prove to be their mistake. You see, if I can get to the village tonight, I can get Sergeant Cullen to organise a detail to arrest von Weichsaker and his men when they come here and try to get in the car with me at seven tomorrow morning. It might be dangerous for me, but it won’t hurt Tom. And then, if von Weichsaker sticks to what he says, nothing will happen to Tom until eight tomorrow evening, when Werner fails to turn up where they’re holding him. Which means we’ll have over twelve hours to look for that hiding place — and try to persuade von Weichsaker to tell us where it is. My guess is that when he realises he’s been beaten, he’ll understand there’s no point in killing an innocent boy.’