We Shall Not Sleep_ A Novel - Anne Perry [139]
“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