The lady stood silhouetted against the sunset, as if her copper torch radiated the sun itself. The passengers of the Olympic crammed onto the decks of the luxury liner as she edged her way into New York harbour, trying to get the best view possible of their entry into the New World. As the Statue of Liberty was spotted, a roar reverberated through the ship, starting with the steerage passengers and ending with Poppy and her friends on the first-class deck.
Then Aunt Dot’s theatrical voice rang out:
“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.”
Her recitation of the first stanza of the famous poem was rewarded by a round of applause. She soaked it up with pride. Poppy squeezed her aunt’s shoulder and sighed. What lay before them in this new city? What adventures might they have? She listened again to a second roar from steerage, this time not echoed by the upper-class decks. For them, she reminded herself, this was more than a three-month jaunt. It was to be the start of an entirely new life.
Rollo, standing next to Poppy, seemed to be thinking the same thing, as he muttered under his breath:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
“Good luck to the poor beggars,” he grumbled.
“Yes indeed,” said Poppy. “Good luck to them.”
Rollo grunted at this, then turned on his heel and walked away, his shoulders hunched and his head bowed.
What’s up with him? wondered Poppy. But before she could ponder her editor’s strange demeanour further, a glass of champagne was thrust into her hand, and she raised it along with Aunt Dot, Miss King, the Spencers, and Delilah.
“To the Lady Liberty!” cried Delilah.
“To Liberty!” they all replied.
The sun had set by the time the Olympic berthed on the southwest tip of Manhattan Island, which projected like an index finger into Hudson Bay. To the west was the squat digit of New Jersey, and to the east the Brooklyn thumb. But whatever their eventual destination, all passengers had to disembark in Manhattan. As it was nearly seven o’clock by the time the liner docked, the passengers needed to wait until morning for the customs officials to arrive. It was a minor annoyance, as most of the passengers were expecting to get off straightaway, but nothing could change the working hours of the United States Department of Immigration.
The next morning, the first- and second-class guests were requested to gather in their respective dining rooms, where they were treated to a buffet breakfast while they awaited processing by the US Immigration Service. The well-to-do passengers were afforded the honour of the immigration officials coming to them, while the third-class passengers had to alight from the ship, board a ferry, and be taken to Ellis Island. Poppy wondered what happened on the famous island, and had been disappointed to hear that she would not be going.
“Not unless they find a problem with you or your papers,” said Theodore Spencer, between puffs on his cigar. “And I doubt, Miz Denby, anyone will find a problem with you.” He winked at his son who, to Poppy’s mild annoyance, seemed to have taken a proprietorial air towards her since their adventure in the engine room.
Which reminded her: “Will that poor sailor… what was his name…?”
“Seaman Jones,” offered Toby.
“Has he got off the ship all right?”
Toby straightened his day suit jacket and brushed a stray hair from his trousers. “He has. They let him off last night – as a special case. I helped them get him to the ambulance. I’ll check in on him tomorrow. They’re taking him to my hospital. I got the captain to telegraph ahead and have given instructions to my team.”
“What actually happened there?” asked Delilah.
“We’re not really sure,” said Toby. “The man was a steward in third class. He also worked as a registration clerk, I believe. He wasn’t a mechanic, so there was no need for him to be in the engine room. The captain will no doubt have some questions for him when – if – he wakes up… before the return journey to Southampton.”
There was a flurry of activity as the team from the US Department of Immigration arrived to set up shop. The passengers were split into two groups: those with US citizenship and those without. Rollo and the Spencers were in one group, Poppy, Aunt Dot, Delilah, and Miss King in the other. Alongside them were also Carl Jung and the writer Dorothy Leigh Sayers.
The passengers were called forward, one at a time, as they appeared on the ship’s manifest – which was filled in by registration clerks upon their embarkation in Southampton. There were the usual details about age, gender, height, hair and eye colour, marital status, place of birth, and purpose of visit to the United States. In addition one had to declare whether or not one had $50 upon one’s person. Poppy did not, but Rollo had told her to just say yes, as he would provide her with the cash as an advance on her salary for the next three months. More puzzling, though, were the questions about whether or not she was a polygamist or an anarchist, and whether she intended to overthrow the government of the United States by violent means. Golly, thought Poppy, if I were any of those things, would I tell them?
There were further questions about physical and mental health, and then one that affected both Aunt Dot and Rollo: “Whether or not deformed or crippled – the nature, length and cause”.
When it came to Aunt Dot’s turn, she answered “no” – with a giggle – to the questions about polygamy, anarchy, and the violent overthrow of the United States government. However, when it came to the question about the reason for her being in a wheelchair, she began to wax lyrical about her activities as a suffragette in 1910 that led to clashes with the police, resulting in her paralysis. It was a story she was used to telling and she did it with aplomb, becoming more enthused as she realized people all over the dining room had stopped whatever they were doing to listen to her. When she was finished, she received a round of applause, and a “hear, hear!” from Amelia Spencer.
When the applause subsided, the immigration official, a gentleman in a brown suit who had placed his bowler hat on top of a small pile of manila folders, stopped writing and looked up at Aunt Dot.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, Miz Denby, but did you not say you are NOT an anarchist and have NO intention of taking part in any action to overthrow the government of the United States?”
“I have no need to correct you, sir; that is what I said.”
The man slowly screwed the lid back on his fountain pen and positioned it under the name Dorothy Denby on the ship’s manifest. Then he placed his hands on either side of his ink blotter and leaned across the table, looking directly into the eyes of his interviewee. “It concerns me, Miz Denby, that you have participated in violent actions of civil disobedience, have willingly clashed with law enforcement officers, and have attempted to undermine your own government. Why then should I not think it possible you may try to do the same thing here?”
Aunt Dot shook her blonde curls in disbelief. “Good heavens, man, what are you saying?”
The man grunted but did not answer. Instead he removed his bowler hat from the pile of files, then extracted one. He opened it on the table before him to reveal a dossier of newspaper clippings and official memoranda. From where Poppy was standing, it seemed to be a record of Aunt Dot’s career as a social activist.
But before he could interrogate her further, Theodore and Amelia Spencer arrived and stood on either side of Aunt Dot.
“Is there a problem here?” asked Theo.
The official looked up and recognized the Long Island senator. “No, Senator Spencer. I am just ensuring that no communists or anarchists threaten our country.”
“But Miz Denby here is neither a communist nor an anarchist.”
The man cleared his throat and ran two fingers along the inside of his collar.
“She is a self-confessed socialist,” said the man.
“That is hardly the same thing!” said Theo. “Miz Denby and my wife here have both proudly pursued the right of women to vote. That hardly makes them political undesirables, does it?”
The man continued trying to loosen his collar. He looked from Amelia to Aunt Dot. He was in a fix, thought Poppy: it was one thing to call a foreign national an anarchist, but another to say that of an American citizen and wife of a United States senator.
“Er, no sir,” said the man eventually, and stamped Aunt Dot’s certificate of entry to the United States.
She took it with a humph and a flounce. “Thank you, Theodore and Amelia. If you don’t mind – and if you’ve finished here yourselves – I would appreciate it if you accompanied me back to my cabin. I don’t want to get tossed overboard by any over-enthusiastic immigration official.” She glowered at the official, who looked suitably embarrassed.
“I’ll meet you on the pier, dear,” she said to Poppy and then left the dining room, clutching her papers, accompanied by Miss King and the Spencers.
The immigration official let out a deep sigh, unscrewed his pen, and checked the next name on the manifest. He visibly tensed. “Denby,” he said, as if announcing his own death warrant. “Miz Poppy Denby.”
However, to both Poppy and the official’s relief the interview was short and uneventful. Rollo had finished his interview too; as had the Spencer boys. Miles and Toby bid their farewells and asked if they might drop in on the ladies for a visit.
“Of course!” said Delilah. Poppy, however, did not want to encourage Toby any further. He clearly felt there was something to be pursued; she was suitably cautious. Oh yes, he was attractive, and she enjoyed his company, but it was a little too soon after Daniel. She didn’t want to get swept up into a holiday romance when things had not been properly settled at home. Nonetheless, she had no good reason to turn down a friendly visit, so she politely agreed.
After the Spencers had left, Delilah was called for her interview. Rollo took a seat beside Poppy and pulled out his pocket watch. It was ten o’clock, local time. “Let’s hope this doesn’t take too long,” he said.
“It shouldn’t,” said Poppy. “How did yours go? Probably just a formality for people born here, I imagine.”
Rollo gave a mirthless laugh. “Imagine being a dwarf.”
“Why should that matter?” asked Poppy.
Rollo crossed his short legs at the ankles and Poppy noted that they stuck over the edge of the chair like a child’s. She wondered, not for the first time, what it would be like to have a child-sized body in an adult world.
“Did you see that question on the manifest about being crippled or deformed? The one that got your aunt into such trouble?”
“Yes,” said Poppy. “But it wasn’t the fact that she was crippled that got her into trouble. It was the story she told about how it happened.”
Rollo grunted in agreement. “It was, yes, but if she had been born crippled or had ended up that way through illness it would have been very different.”
“Why?” asked Poppy.
“Have you heard of eugenics?”
“No.”
“It’s a scientific theory that a population can be purified and strengthened by stopping the weaker members from breeding.”
“Weaker members?” asked Poppy.
“Yes, such as dwarfs and people with other inherited illnesses and infirmities. As well as the insane and feebleminded. My country is trying to filter them out before they come here.”
“But surely they can’t turn you away from your own country!”
“They can’t, no,” agreed Rollo. “But if I were not an American citizen, and I was intending to live here permanently, like those poor beggars in steerage, they very well might.”
Rollo nodded to Dr Jung as he was leaving the dining room. “I’ll call on you next week, doctor.”
“I look forward to it, Mr Rolandson.”
“I’m going to ask Jung his opinion on it. About whether mental infirmity can be inherited.”
Poppy looked over to Delilah. “Well, at least she won’t have to worry about that. Delilah’s as fit as a fiddle, body and mind.”
But Delilah’s body language was tense and she was leaning over the desk and whispering furiously to the official. The official was red in the face and looking even more embarrassed than before.
“Oh dear, what’s going on there?”
“Let’s go see,” said Rollo and jumped off his chair.
He and Poppy sauntered over to the desk. “Is everything all right here?” asked Rollo. “Miz Marconi is staying with me for three months and she has sufficient money to sustain her. There shouldn’t be a problem.”
If Rollo expected his intervention to have the same impact as Senator Spencer’s, he was wrong. The official looked down on him with contempt.
“And who are you?”
Rollo straightened his shoulders and replied: “Rollo Rolandson, editor of The Daily Globe, London; temporary editor for The New York Times. Citizen of the United States. What is the problem here?”
The official pushed a dossier across the desk. It contained newspaper clippings featuring Delilah at various theatre openings, galas, and parties on the arms of different gentlemen. Among them Poppy spotted her most recent beau, Adam Lane, and a previous suitor, Alfie Dorchester.
Delilah looked near to tears. Poppy reached out and took her hand.
“He is suggesting I am – I am some kind of – p-prostitute,” whispered Delilah, then looked over her shoulder to see if anyone else was listening. They weren’t.
“Not a prostitute, miz. But we are concerned that your behaviour has not been of the highest moral standard. We believe you are guilty of moral turpitude,” he said, and flushed beetroot.
“Moral what?” asked Poppy.
“Turpitude,” said Rollo. “It’s another one of my country’s immigration criteria. We don’t want any naughty people corrupting the locals. Where did you get all this?” he asked the official. “It isn’t usual to have dossiers at first interviews like this. But you’ve had one for Miz Denby Snr and Miz Marconi here. It looks like you were prepared for this. Were you?”
The official pulled Delilah’s file back to him and slapped it shut. “We were sent information in advance, yes.”
“By whom?” asked Rollo.
“A concerned citizen.”
Rollo snorted. “A concerned citizen with access to London newspapers. Some of those clippings were from my paper, the Globe, which isn’t available here. Someone has gone to a lot of trouble –”
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” interrupted Poppy. “Do we really have to get into this? Miss Marconi and I are travelling with my aunt, Miss Dorothy Denby, and as you have already heard, she is a personal friend of Senator Spencer. Perhaps we can call him back to discuss Miss Marconi’s case too…”
The official paled and cleared his throat. “Erm, no. I don’t think that will be necessary. Welcome to the United States, Miz Marconi.” He stamped her entry permit and passed it to her.
Rollo glared at the official as Delilah gathered her things. “You have not heard the last of this,” he growled. And then to Poppy and Delilah: “Welcome to America, ladies.” He hooked his arms on either side.
Poppy and Delilah slipped theirs through, relieved that the awkward interview with the immigration official appeared to be over.
“Let me show you the town.”