Kissed a Sad Goodbye

Annabelle had gone and what she had done?
    All that remained was for him to decide how much loyalty he owed his father... and what vengeance Annabelle demanded.
     

CHAPTER 14
     
For the majority of families whose livelihood depended on river trade activity, the abandonment of the upstream docks was as unexpected and destructive as a natural catastrophe. It was their Great Fire. They could only watch and accept the consequences of a process which they had no part in initiating and little chance of controlling.
George Nicholson, from Dockland
     
     
     
    “You will not talk when I am speaking to you,” said Mr. Haliburton, his shaking hand raised to the chalkboard, his back still turned to the children, in the too-quiet voice Lewis had learned to recognize as a danger signal.
    It had been Irene, leaning over to whisper something to Lewis, whom Mr. Haliburton had heard while he was lecturing to them on the structure of the Houses of Parliament. Now Lewis gave her a warning look and held his breath, hoping the moment would pass.
    The shaking hand began to move again, and Lewis relaxed as much as was possible while in the same room with their new tutor. Chafing his freezing fingers together under the table, he tried not to think of Mr. Cuddy, tried not to remember the days when the four of them had sat round the schoolroom table arguing excitedly over a book they were reading or a point of history—because all that had changed on that June morning when Mr. Cuddy had gathered them together in the schoolroom as his annual holiday was to begin. As he’d asked them to sit down, Lewis had seen, to his surprise, that his tutor had tears in his eyes.
    “I cannot put this off any longer,” Mr. Cuddy had said then. “You all know that I’m going away, but I’m not going on holiday as I’ve told you, and I’m afraid that I won’t be coming back.”
    Irene recovered first. “Don’t be silly, Mr. Cuddy. Why ever wouldn’t you come back?”
    Mr. Cuddy had turned away from them, a slight, balding, familiar figure in spectacles and moth-eaten jacket, and Lewis had felt the first stirring of fear.
    “I have been torn this last year between what I saw as my duty to you, and what I felt was my duty to my country, and I’m afraid I have let myself be swayed by my desire to stay with you three children. But I have realized that you are not children any longer.” Mr. Cuddy turned back to them, his hands in his pockets, and Lewis knew he would be fingering the old watch he always kept there. “I have told you that I believe the Allies will shortly be invading Italy and the Mediterranean. Translators will be needed —”
    “Are you saying you’ve joined up?” asked William, with an expression of astonishment that was almost comical.
    “They refused me at the beginning of the war, but I speak Greek as well as rudimentary Italian and German, and it seems the army has come to see the advantages of that.” The light glinted from Mr. Cuddy’s spectacles as he nodded. “Yes, I have enlisted. And if this war goes on as it has, you boys will be doing the same before long.”
    “But you’re too old,” blurted Lewis, without thinking. Mr. Cuddy smiled. “I tried telling myself that. But for this it doesn’t matter. I won’t be fighting at the front, just trying to keep things running smoothly behind the scenes.”
    “But what about us?” Irene was frowning so hard that Lewis guessed she was holding back tears.
    “You will all be perfectly fine without me,” Mr. Cuddy had replied. “William will rebuild his father’s business when the war is over. Lewis, I think you can do anything you set your mind to, once you decide what that is. And Irene—our Irene is going to be prime minister, of course.” He lifted Irene’s chin gently with his forefinger, the first time Lewis remembered him touching any of them, then he had bid them a determined goodbye.
    They’d watched him from the window, tramping down the drive with his rucksack as if he were going on holiday after all, and Lewis had felt as if he’d awakened from a silly sort of bad dream and found it not to be a dream.
    In the autumn, Edwina had enrolled them in the village school, and while they were bored with their schoolwork, life at the Hall had gone on very much as before.
    At first, Lewis wouldn’t talk about Mr. Cuddy when William or Irene brought his name up, and when letters came from Italy, he pretended disinterest and refused to read them. But