James Benn - The Rest Is Silence

“I heard Peter left?” I asked into the chilled atmosphere.

“Yes, and without a word to anyone,” Great Aunt Sylvia said. “Most impolite, unless we receive a note with the afternoon post.”

“He might have been called away suddenly,” I offered.

“There have been no telephone calls,” Meredith said. “He simply vanished this morning. All he left behind was an unfinished painting.”

I downed some coffee and excused myself, feeling an interloper, especially without Kaz to smooth things over. I found him, along with David, already making their way to the jeep.

“Ah, there you are Billy,” David said. “I couldn’t face them this morning, sorry to have almost left you behind.”

“I understand,” I said, feeling more sorry for David Martindale than ever before. Not the burns, but the loneliness amidst a house full of people.

At Greenway House, we delivered David to Colonel Harding’s office. He was nervous but eager, and we wished him luck. “Let’s find Peter,” I said.

No luck. Not in his office, according to the guard at the door. Same for his room. The officer of the day said he hadn’t signed in from his leave and still had a day left, so why should he be here?

Sensible guy.

We checked the mess hall and walked the corridors until we saw a name we recognized. Lieutenant James Siebert had his own office with a nameplate on the door. I knocked and entered, only to find it was a nice-sized broom closet. Kaz could barely follow me in.

“What can I do for you, Captain?” Siebert glanced at my rank, deciding on the level of politeness necessary for one rank above him. He got it about right.

“Have you seen Peter Wiley today?”

“Keep that kid away from me,” Siebert said. “He’s got a one-track mind, and I’ve got a mind to take another crack at him.” Siebert’s khakis were rumpled, and he looked like he might have shaved in the dark. Papers and binders were strewn across his desk and stacked up in the tiny room. He made me think of a monk in his cell.

“One-track in terms of getting on a ship?” I asked.

“Captain, it’s probably none of your business,” Siebert said. “So let’s not get into details. But if he says he needs perspective one more time, I’ll deck him again.”

“We all could use some perspective, Lieutenant,” I said.

“What I could use is another pair of hands and ten extra hours in the day,” Siebert said. “Will that be all, sir?”

It was. It was clear he didn’t like Peter, and that he hadn’t seen him. Neither meant much. We went to the mess and had coffee, then walked out to the jeep, where we found David.

“How did it go?” Kaz asked. Given the dark look on David’s face, the question wasn’t even necessary.

David said Harding had been gracious, but it had become obvious he was not up to the task. His eyesight was worse than he’d thought, and he couldn’t make out many of the photographs even with a magnifying glass. After that he sat in silence for the ride back, and we let him be.

“Best to get it over with,” he said as we approached the front door of Ashcroft House. “They’re probably in the morning room.” We dutifully followed.

“David, is it really too much to ask that you let someone know where you go off to?” Helen said as soon as he entered the room. She blushed, as if she hadn’t meant to say it out loud and had been thinking far worse. “I’m sorry,” she said, looking at the rest of us. “I was worried, that’s all.”

“My fault, really,” David said, taking Helen by the hand and leaning in for a kiss on the cheek. She leaned away and sat next to her sister. “I wanted it to be a pleasant surprise, but it turned out not to be.”

“We could have used a pleasant surprise around here, David,” Great Aunt Sylvia said. “Please do entertain us with what might have been.”

“You know I held little hope for any assignment with the RAF,” David said. “But Billy convinced his colonel to let me have a go at a photographic interpretation job. Would have been perfect, too, at a place called Greenway House, right across the river, where Peter is stationed.”

“Did you see him?” Meredith asked.

“No. I didn’t. Too busy with Colonel Harding,” David said. “Well, no matter. I washed out. Seems my one good eye is not as good as I thought. Couldn’t make out fine details. It’s very precise work, and I simply missed too much.”

“Tough luck,” Edgar said. “You’re sure about the RAF?”

“Fairly certain, yes,” David said, his eyes on Helen, who remained silent, her ankles crossed demurely, lips compressed as if she was working at keeping in another unseemly outburst.

“Perhaps another opportunity will come along,” Kaz said as he sat down. “It’s a matter of finding the right one.”

“Oh, come on, Piotr,” David said, loudly, his self-control at the breaking point. “It’s not like looking for the right flat. No one needs a one-eyed ex-pilot, certainly not one as grotesque as I am.”

“Self-pity does not become you, David,” Great Aunt Sylvia said. “It is not how this family behaves.”

“Quite right. My apologies to you all,” David said, taking a deep breath. “I must admit, I was taken aback by this business about my vision. I can read a newspaper as well as I used to, or at least I thought I could. But to find out that in fact I see more poorly now is a bit of a shock.”

“Quite understandable,” Meredith said. “Don’t you agree, Helen?”

“Of course,” Helen said. “And we shall have plenty to keep ourselves busy here, no matter what the RAF decides.”

“Here?” David said.

“Of course,” Meredith said. “Who else would Father have left Ashcroft to? There are so many things he left untended during his years in India. There will be much work to do, and Edgar will be busy writing his book, won’t you, dear?”

“Indeed I will,” Edgar piped up. “A monograph on life and death in the last moments of Hamlet . I have been researching it for years. I plan to begin as soon as the funeral is over. Baron, perhaps we could discuss the play later. I’d be interested in hearing your perspective.”

“Kaz,” I said, recalling that the old king’s wife had at least waited a couple of months before moving on to other endeavors, “what was that quote you wanted to ask Edgar about?”

“Oh yes, I had forgotten,” Kaz said. “ ‘He that dies pays all debts.’ Which play is it from?”

“ The Tempest ,” Edgar said instantly. “Act three, scene two. How did that one come up? Not a well-known line.”

Great Aunt Sylvia turned to look at Meredith. Was she thinking of Rupert Sutcliffe, and the debts his death had paid?

“Oh, it popped into my mind yesterday and I meant to ask you about it. I’d be quite interested in hearing about your work, Edgar,” Kaz said, wisely not mentioning the fact that we’d been discussing Tom Quick and his lust for revenge.

“My thesis is a bit esoteric,” Edgar began. “It’s about the last lines of Hamlet , when he says with his dying voice, ‘the rest is silence.’ Quite final on the subject of heaven and life after death. But in the 1623 Folio, there is a different final line. ‘The rest is silence. O, o, o, o.’ As if the poor lad had caught a glimpse of something grand, a thing beyond silence.”

“You plan to write an entire book about four os?” I asked.

“It may not mean much to the average person, especially in the midst of war, I admit,” Edgar said. “But to an Elizabethan scholar, it is very important. I believe this was Shakespeare’s own revision, his last statement on the emptiness that lies beyond the grave. Hamlet is suffused with guilt and death, perhaps reflecting the Bard’s own view of the world. But later in life, I think he saw a greater possibility-the potential for resurrection-and added those exclamations as an antidote to the finality of the preceding line.”