Night Over Water - Ken Follett [9]
Father said, “Bah!” and threw the picture down on a table. Mother said, “Percy, really,” in an aggrieved voice. They might have said more, but at that moment the door opened and Bates, the bad-tempered butler, said: “Luncheon is served, your ladyship.”
They left the morning room and crossed the hall to the small dining room. There would be overdone roast beef, as always on Sundays. Mother would have a salad: she never ate cooked food, believing that the heat destroyed the goodness.
Father said grace and they sat down. Bates offered Mother the smoked salmon. Smoked, pickled or otherwise preserved foods were all right, according to her theory.
“Of course, there’s only one thing to be done,” Mother said as she helped herself from the proffered plate. She spoke in the offhand tone of one who merely draws attention to the obvious. “We must all go and live in America until this silly war is over.”
There was a moment of shocked silence.
Margaret, horrified, burst out: “No!”
Mother said: “Now I think we’ve had quite enough squabbling for one day. Please let us have lunch in peace and harmony.”
“No!” Margaret said again. She was almost speechless with outrage. “You—you can’t do this. It’s—it’s ...” She wanted to rail and storm at them, to accuse them of treason and cowardice, to shout her contempt and defiance out loud; but the words would not come, and all she could say was: “It’s not fair!”
Even that was too much. Father said: “If you can’t hold your tongue you’d better leave us.”
Margaret put her napkin to her mouth to choke down a sob, pushed her chair back and stood up, and then fled the room.
They had been planning this for months, of course.
Percy came to Margaret’s room after lunch and told her the details. The house was to be closed up, the furniture covered with dust sheets and the servants dismissed. The estate would be left in the hands of Father’s business manager, who would collect the rents. The money would pile up in the bank: it could not be sent to America because of wartime exchange control rules. The horses would be sold, the blankets moth-balled, the silver locked away.
Elizabeth, Margaret and Percy were to pack one suitcase each: the rest of their belongings would be forwarded by a removal company. Father had booked tickets for all of them on the Pan American Clipper, and they were to leave on Wednesday.
Percy was wild with excitement. He had flown once or twice before, but the Clipper was different. The plane was huge, and very luxurious: the newspapers had been full of it when the service was inaugurated just a few weeks ago. The flight to New York took twenty-nine hours, and everyone went to bed in the night over the Atlantic Ocean.
It was disgustingly appropriate, Margaret thought, that they should depart in cosseted luxury when they were leaving their countrymen to deprivation, hardship and war.
Percy left to pack his case and Margaret lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling, bitterly disappointed, boiling with rage, crying with frustration, powerless to do anything about her fate.
She stayed in her room until bedtime.
On Monday morning, while she was still in bed, Mother came to her room. Margaret sat up and gave her a hostile stare. Mother sat at the dressing table and looked at Margaret in the mirror. “Please don’t make trouble with your father over this,” she said.
Margaret realized that her mother was nervous. In other circumstances this might have caused Margaret to soften her tone; but she was too upset to sympathize. “It’s so cowardly!” she burst out.
Mother paled. “We’re not being cowardly.”
“But to run away from your country when a war begins!”
“We have no choice. We have to go.”
Margaret was mystified. “Why?”
Mother turned from the mirror and looked directly at her. “Otherwise they will put your father in prison.”
Margaret was taken completely by