Lucinda by Antonio Hope — Read

AS Sir Paget had suggested, we-we three Rillington men and Aunt Bertha-spent the Twelve Days, the ever-famous Twelve Days before the war, at Cragsfoot. On the public side of that period I need say nothing-or only just one thing. If we differed at all from the public at large in our feelings, it was in one point only. For us, under Sir Paget's lead, it was less a time of hope, fear, and suspense than of mere waiting. We other three took his word for what was going to happen; his certainty became ours-though, as I believe (it is a matter of belief only, for he never told me what he told Waldo on that walk of theirs on the afternoon of the wedding day-which was not the day of a wedding), his certainty was based not so much on actual information as on a sort of instinct which long and intimate familiarity with international affairs had given him. But, whatever was his rock of conviction, it never shook. Even Waldo did not question it. He accepted it-with all its implications, public and private.

Yes, and private. There his acceptance was not only absolute; it was final and-a thing which I found it difficult to understand-it was absolutely silent. He never referred to his project of pursuit-and of rescue, or revenge, or whatever else it had been going to be. He never mentioned Lucinda's name; we were at pains never to pronounce it in his presence. It was extraordinary self-control on the part of a man whom self-control could, on occasion, utterly forsake. So many people are not proof against gossiping even about their own fallen idols, though it would be generally admitted that silence is more gracious; pedestal-makers should be sure that they build on a sound foundation.