She bowed her head coming through the door, and said:
“Good afternoon, Mr Custance.” It was, John noted, just half an hour after noon. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.”
“I hope I haven’t brought you away from your luncheon?”
She smiled. “It is no hardship these days, Mr Custance. You’ve come about Mary?”
“Yes. I should like to take her back with me.”
Miss Errington said: “Do have a seat.” She looked at him, calmly considerate. “You want to take her away? Why?”
This was the moment that made him feel the bitter weight of his secret knowledge. He must give no warning of what was to happen; Roger had insisted on that, and he agreed. It was as essential to their plans as to Wetting’s larger scheme of destruction that no news should get out.
And that necessity required that he should leave this tall, gentle woman, along with her charges, to die.
He said lamely: “It’s a family matter. A relative, passing through London. You understand…”
“You see, Mr Custance, we try to keep breaks of this kind to a minimum. You will appreciate that it’s very unsettling. It’s rather different at week-ends.”
“Yes. I do see that. It’s her—uncle, and he’s going abroad by air this evening.”
“Really? For long?”
More glibly, he continued: “He may be gone for some years. He was very anxious to see Mary before he went.”
“You could have brought him here, of course.” Miss Errington hesitated. “When would you be bringing her back?”
“I could bring her back this evening.”
“Well, in that case… I’ll go and ask someone to get her.” She walked over to the door, and opened it. She called into the corridor: “Helena? Would you ask Mary Custance to come along here, please? Her father has come to see her.” To John, she said: “If it’s only for the afternoon, she won’t want her things, will she?”
“No,” he said, “it doesn’t matter about them.”
Miss Errington sat down again. “I should tell you I’m very pleased with your daughter, Mr Custance. At her age, girls divide out—one sees something of what they are going to turn into. Mary has been coming along very well lately. I believe she might have a very fine academic future, if she wished.”
Academic future, John thought—to hold a tiny oasis against a desert world.
He said: “That’s very gratifying.”
Miss Errington smiled. “Although, probably, the point is itself academic. One doubts if the young men of her acquaintance will permit her to settle into so barren a life.”
“I see nothing barren in it, Miss Errington. Your own must be very full.”
She laughed. “It has turned out better than I thought it would! I’m beginning to look forward to my retirement.”
Mary came in, curtseyed briefly to Miss Errington, and ran over to John.
“Daddy! What’s happened?”
Miss Errington said: “Your father wishes to take you away for a few hours. Your uncle is passing through London, on his way abroad, and would like to see you.”
“Uncle David? Abroad?”
John said quickly: “It’s quite unexpected. I’ll explain everything to you on the way. Are you ready to come as you are?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Then I shan’t keep you,” Miss Errington said. “Can you have her back for eight o’clock, Mr Custance?”
“I shall try my best.”
She held her long delicate hand out. “Good-bye.”
John hesitated; his mind rebelled against taking her hand and leaving her with no inkling of what lay ahead. And yet he dared not tell her; nor, he thought, would she believe him if he did.
He said: “If I fail to bring Mary back by eight, it will be because I have learned that the whole of London is to be swallowed up in an earthquake. So if we don’t come back, I advise you to round up the girls and take them out into the country. At whatever inconvenience.”
Miss Errington looked at him with mild astonishment that he should descend into such absurd and tasteless clowning. Mary also was watching him in surprise.
The headmistress said: “Well, yes, but of course you will be back by eight,”
He said, miserably: “Yes, of course.”
As the car pulled out of the school grounds, Mary said:
“It isn’t Uncle David, is it?”
“No.”
“What is it, then, Daddy?”
“I can’t tell you yet. But we’re leaving London.”
“Today? Then I shan’t go back to school tonight?” He made no answer. “Is it something dreadful?”
“Dreadful enough. We’re going to live in the valley. Will you like that?”
She smiled. “I wouldn’t call it dreadful.”
“The dreadful part,” he said slowly, “will be for other people.”
They reached home soon after two. As they walked up the garden path, Ann opened the door for them. She looked tense and unhappy. John put an arm around her.
“Stage one completed without mishap. Everything’s going well, darling. Nothing to worry about. Roger and the others not here?”
“It’s his car. Cylinder block cracked, or something. He’s round at the garage, hurrying them up. They’re all coming over as soon as possible.”
“Has he any idea how long?” John asked sharply.
“Shouldn’t be more than an hour.”
Mary asked: “Are the Buckleys coming with us? What’s happening?”
Ann said: “Run up to your room, darling. I’ve packed your things for you, but I’ve left just a little space for anything which I’ve left out which you think is specially important. But you will have to be very discriminating. It’s only a very little space.”
“How long are we going for?”
Ann said: “A long time, perhaps. In fact, you might as well act as though we were never coming back.”
Mary looked at them for a moment. Then she said gravely:
“What about Davey’s things? Shall I look through those as well?”
“Yes, darling,” Ann said. “See if there’s anything important I’ve missed.”
When Mary had gone upstairs, Ann clung to her husband.
“John, it can’t be true!”
“Roger told you the whole story?”
“Yes. But they couldn’t do it. They couldn’t possibly.”
“Couldn’t they? I’ve just told Miss Errington I shall be bringing Mary back this evening. Knowing what I know, is there very much difference?”
Ann was silent. Then she said:
“Before all this is over … are we going to hate ourselves? Or are we just going to get used to things, so that we don’t realize what we’re turning into?”
John said: “I don’t know. I don’t know anything, except that we’ve got to save ourselves and save the children.”
“Save them for what?”
“We can work that out later. Things seem brutal now—leaving without saying a word to all the others who don’t know what’s going to happen—but we can’t help it. When we get to the valley, it will be different We shall have a chance of living decently again.”
“Decently?”
Things will be hard, but it may not be a bad life. It will be up to us what we make of it At least, we shall be our own masters. It will no longer be a matter of living on the sufferance of a State that cheats and bullies and swindles its citizens and, at last, when they become a burden, murders them.”
“No, I suppose not.”
“Bastards!” Roger said. “I paid them double for a rush job, and then had to hang around for three-quarters of an hour while they looked for their tools.”