We Shall Not Sleep_ A Novel - Anne Perry [144]
“He is dead,” Schenckendorff said quietly. “I think perhaps that is a good thing.” He looked at Joseph as he was being helped into a chair by Lizzie and Matthew. “I hope you are not badly hurt. You are quite right: You angered him, because what you said is true. Great men use power as little as possible. It takes supreme humility to allow others to disagree and to make their own mistakes. The right to be wrong is worth dying to protect, because without it all our virtues are empty. What we have not paid for slips through our fingers, because we do not value it enough to do what is necessary to keep it.” He held out his hand to Joseph.
Joseph reached up to take it, and clasped it tightly.
Schenckendorff stood to attention and faced Lloyd George.
“I am at your service, sir,” he said stiffly.
Lloyd George was still standing, pale-faced. “Thank you,” he said simply. “You are a prisoner of war. You will be treated accordingly, and in time repatriated. I am mindful of how much we owe you, and it will not be forgotten.” He walked to the door and spoke to the man outside.
Minutes later Schenckendorff said goodbye to them. Matthew and Joseph saluted him. Two more men came to take the body of the Peacemaker.
“Heart attack,” the prime minister told them, even though it was patently untrue. No one argued or made the slightest movement to intervene as the men carried the body out. The door closed behind them, and those left in the room faced the prime minister.
Joseph’s head ached appallingly, but his vision had cleared. All he could think of was Judith, and how she would bear it when Mason was arrested. Since she was no blood relation of Mason’s, she might not even see him again. Were he in her place, and it was Lizzie who would be taken away to face trial and execution, he would not know how to endure it. And yet there was nothing he could do to help. Mason was as alone as if there were no one else in the building.
Mason stared at Lloyd George, waiting, his face white, eyes steady.
Lloyd George chewed his lip and very slowly shook his head. “This grieves me,” he said softly. “You were the bravest and the best of all our war correspondents. You went to every field of conflict. Your words framed the way we at home saw and felt the pain of our men, and their valor. Through your experience we have shared what our men endured, and the spirit they carried with them. You were the voice of those who could not and now never will speak for themselves.”
Mason swayed a little. Joseph held Judith’s arm to prevent her from going to him.
“We are weary of war,” Lloyd George went on. “We are heartsick, bereaved, and frightened of a future that is stranger and more complex and difficult than ever we have faced before. We do not need to know that one of the voices that comforted us and led us through our darkest hours was that of a traitor. I shall hide that—not for your sake, but for the sake of my country. You will never speak of it again. No one in this room will.” He looked from one to the other of them, and saw agreement in their silence.
“Your punishment,” he went on, addressing Mason, “is that you will leave these shores and never return. You are no longer an Englishman.”
Mason drew his breath in with a gasp, as if he had been struck a blow that took the breath from his body, but he did not complain.
Judith was clinging to Joseph so hard her fingers hurt his arm, but he was aware only of what Mason must be feeling: the absolute and final rejection. He would never again walk the moors and see the wind-riven skies, hear the curlews call, return to the cobbled streets and the familiar speech, take ale with his friends in the village pub.
The silence was thick with the knowledge of what it was to be alone.
Judith let go of Joseph’s arm and stepped forward. She touched Mason, and at last he looked at her. She had never seen greater pain.
“I’m coming with you,” she said, having made the decision without even questioning it.
“You can’t—”