FORTY-THREE
BEATRICE
Paris
Spring 1917
America was finally in the war.
While I’d been in the mountains at Chavaniac with architects and electricians, trying to restore Lafayette’s chateau, President Wilson went before Congress and finally said, The world must be made safe for democracy.
What eventful days were these!
By the time I returned to Paris, Willie—nearly falling in the entryway when his crutch caught on the stair—brought the newspapers to Emily’s house, and after I read President Wilson’s words, they echoed in my mind.
We desire no conquest, no dominion, no compensation. It is fearful to lead this great peaceful people into the most disastrous of all wars. But we shall dedicate everything we are and everything we have, knowing America is privileged to spend her blood for the principles that gave her birth.
I fished through my purse for a handkerchief to dab my misty eyes. That old flubdub mollycoddle somehow found precisely the right words, and I complained, “Damn Woodrow Wilson. I made it this far through the war without blubbering like a sentimental fool . . .”
I wept that American boys would soon die in trenches. I wept in anger that it had taken so long for us to save other boys from that fate. I wept too with thanksgiving, for this must bring an end to the savagery. For three long years I’d done everything a woman could do to convince a nation to take up arms. I’d begged funds, left my children, risked my life, harmed my health, and hectored an American president.
Now we had, at last, thrown down the gauntlet. “I believe this is the noblest thing we have ever done . . .”
Willie’s hand closed over my shoulder. “Victor didn’t die in vain.”
I clasped his hand, hoping that was true. Glad too to see my husband peeking past the shroud of morphine. “Beatrice, what say Saturday I take you to lunch? I’ve got a surprise.”
I readily agreed.
After a busy week of setting up a Paris office for the newly formed Lafayette Memorial Foundation, I joined my husband at the restaurant where I’d first suggested divorce. “We don’t have the best track record in this place,” I jested, and when I looked askance at the glass of liquor in his hand, he shrugged.
“It’s either liquor or the needle, and morphine makes me a drug-addled half-wit. So which would you prefer?”
I didn’t want to answer. He’d promised me a year of sobriety; he hadn’t made it six months. I’d never before seen him fail at anything he put his mind to, but was addiction his fault? “I’m sorry you’re not feeling better . . .”
“I’m not sure one can ever feel better after losing a leg.”
I nodded with sympathy, hoping he’d finally open up to me about it. “Are you ever going to tell me how you hurt it in the first place?”
“And ruin the romance?” he snapped.
I sighed, realizing that we had, both of us, always kept secrets, but not from each other. At least I hadn’t thought so. But he was never going to tell me the truth; in fact, he enjoyed keeping it from me. He was the only man I’d ever let see past all my masks to my naked soul—but now I wondered if I’d ever seen the real Willie at all. If, in the end, he was the better actor by far.
I sighed again, a dreadful headache descending. “What does the doctor say about your condition?”
Willie grimaced. “He says another trip this year will kill me.”
I breathed a sigh of relief that I hadn’t been the one to have to tell him. “I’ll explain to the boys. I’ll take back all the photos and newspaper articles about our work here.”
Willie frowned, trying to flag down the waiter to refill his glass. “You can’t return to New York without me.”
I wanted desperately to go home to my boys and hold them tight now that New York was likely to be a target of submarine warfare. I needed to go back for the sake of my work too. With America in the war, most charity efforts would go toward supporting the troops now, and in the aftermath of the war, no one would want to give to the Lafayette Memorial. I had a very narrow window during which I could secure an adequate endowment to keep Lafayette’s chateau open for generations to come.
Still, I didn’t want to abandon Willie. Guilt-ridden, I suggested, “We’ll get better care for you round the clock. I can have friends look in on you every day. The end of the war cannot be far off, and—”
“The Germans are trying to sink American ships now. There is no safe route, and your life is worth too much to be risked. You cannot possibly think of traveling alone.”
I softened at his protective, if illogical, drunken sentiment. “Willie, even in your younger days, you couldn’t have defended me from a torpedo.”
Willie waved again to the waiter. “In any case, your presence here is, for at least a few weeks, necessary.”
I imagined he was worried I’d leave the whole Chavaniac business in his hands, so I reassured him, “All the committees have been formed, with capable persons at the helm. The work at the castle itself is now under the supervision of Marie-Louise LeVerrier.” I had, reluctantly but with great fortitude, surrendered little Marthe into her care, and I didn’t want time to think better of it. “I’ve already stayed longer in France than I should have.”
Willie leaned back. “Won’t your special friend mind you going?”
“Emily will understand.”
“I meant Captain Furlaud.”
The candle on the white-cloth-covered table between us flickered as he studied my face for a reaction. And blood rushed past my ears as I tried to guess whether or not I’d be better off pretending ignorance or candidly admitting everything. What, after all, did I have to hide? Max was in the past, and I doubted Willie had lived our years of separation as a monk. “I don’t know that Captain Furlaud and I are friends at all anymore, much less special friends.”
“He got the Lafayettes to sell the chateau, didn’t he?”
I took umbrage that anyone else should get the credit. “He only arranged a meeting.”
Willie smirked. “Is that all he’s done for you?”
I didn’t bother to ask what he knew, or how. My husband had contacts and informants on every continent; I’d be naive to think he’d never ask them to spy on me. The only thing I wondered was how long he’d known about Furlaud. In any case, I refused to justify myself. In loyalty to Willie, I’d broken things off; I’d be damned if I paid a second price for it. “Captain Furlaud wouldn’t presume to tell me what to do or where to go. Whereas you presume too much.”
Willie thumped his empty glass on the table, perhaps hoping to catch the attention of our inattentive waiter. “You’re worried I’ll cause a scene, aren’t you? Fly into a jealous rage. Truthfully, I’m quite amused.” He did not look amused. “In fact, I feel sorry for the old chap.”
“Willie,” I warned.
“A banker, of all things.” He laughed in mockery. “You can toy with him if you like; you have my blessing. Because if a man like that thinks he has a chance, he doesn’t understand you at all. You’ll chew him up and spit him out and leave his heart bleeding on the floor.”
I glared. “Is that what you think I’ve done to you?”
Willie’s gaze dropped to his empty glass. “No. I haven’t a heart for you to chew up, which is why you married me in the first place.”
“That’s not why I married you.”
“Why the devil did you marry me, then?”
Because I loved him. Because he told me that if I married him, I could become someone new. But now I wanted desperately to be more than Mrs. William Astor Chanler. I almost said it aloud, but managed to keep it caged behind clenched teeth. “I don’t intend to sit here and trade insults.”
“I’m not insulting you, my dear, not at all. You’ve always lived a big life. Who knows? One day, maybe your life will be bigger than mine. I simply know that no matter how big it gets, there’ll never be room in it for a man who does nothing but move piles of money from one account to another.”
He does more than that, I wanted to say. Max was an officer, and a gentleman. Still, there wasn’t any point in defending him, because this was a childish conversation. “I don’t enjoy bickering in public.”
“Really? I’ve missed it,” Willie said, fiddling with his new prosthesis under the table as if it were giving him pain. “In all these months of inactivity due to the morphine, I’ve worked up a thirst for conflict, not to mention an actual thirst, if the damned waiter could be bothered to refill my glass.”
I turned to catch the attention of the headwaiter, who was facing away from our table. That’s when my husband’s artificial leg, with its sock and garter, sailed past me and struck the waiter in the middle of his back. I gasped as the poor man dropped and Willie’s prosthesis clattered to the floor. The whole restaurant hushed to a tinkle of forks dropping on plates and cups upon saucers. Then my husband shouted, “Do I have your attention now, sir?”
I was paralyzed with mortification as waiters rushed to help their felled companion, who, fortunately, was not hurt. Then Willie’s dark, drunken laughter was the last straw.
The last straw!
God knows, I’d tried to make this marriage work! I’d weathered years of his wanderlust, abandonment, and neglect. I’d forgiven and excused his failings as a father. I’d turned a blind eye to likely infidelities and refrained from prying into his secrets. I’d tried to care for him even when he wouldn’t let me. I’d been understanding about his addictions to alcohol and morphine. And I’d put up with casual cruelties. But in that moment I knew, deep down, his dark laughter wasn’t only at the expense of the poor waiter. He was laughing at me too.
I took my napkin and flung it on the table. Then I rose with all the dignity I could muster. “As it happens, I do prefer you as a drug-addled half-wit!”
I was done feeling sorry for him; if he could find the strength to hurl an artificial leg across a restaurant, then he didn’t need or deserve my pity. Certainly not my company or my marital devotion. I was sick to death of trying to make this work. I was determined to get on the first ship home I could find, but when I turned to go, Willie blocked me with his crutch. “We haven’t had our salad.”
“Don’t make me tell you where you can stuff your salad!”
“Come now, I told you that I had a surprise,” he said, taking a letter out of his breast pocket with the seal of the United States embassy on it. “A little gift for you.”
I returned to Emily’s apartment in a state of stupefaction and found her perched over the baby’s cradle. In a hushed tone so as not to wake the child, I murmured, “The American ambassador wants to send me north. I’ve been asked to do some work in the war zone of the British Army—near your husband’s chateau.”
As angry as I was at Willie, my skin prickled with excitement as I explained the mission. On the pretext of business for the Lafayette Fund, I was to go near the front, earn the confidence of the British officers, and report back a great many things about our new allies.
Willie had been doing this kind of thing for years, using his personal charm and his fortune to keep his thumb on the pulse of global politics, reporting back to his contacts at the highest echelons of government. Now he was giving me the opportunity to do the same. Even if it was just Willie’s way of keeping me from getting on a ship, could I refuse?
“I don’t suppose you’d like to come,” I teased Emily.
“I can’t,” she murmured distractedly.
“Of course not, you have the baby and—” She turned to me, and the look on her face stopped the words in my throat. “What’s wrong? Has Amaury been hurt?”
She shook her head. “He’s been chosen for a mission to the United States to coordinate French and American air forces. It’s been suggested that I go with him.”
“Wonderful!” It would do her good to see her family after nearly two years’ separation. More importantly, Emily knew precisely which captains of industry to press for help in equipping aviators and coordinating this new mode of warfare. Amaury’s command of English was excellent, but his wife’s connections would prove most valuable. New Money or not, she could open doors for a French delegation, to say nothing of the way she could shift public sentiment with the lantern slides of the destruction here in France that she’d been preparing.
How gratifying that after having both tried so hard to be useful, we were both now needed. How ironic that we should both be called upon in the same moment, flung in opposite directions. “Well, you must go, of course.” Alarmed to see her tremble, I quickly added, “They’ll send you by military ship. You won’t be as defenseless as on a passenger vessel.”
Her gaze dropped to her sleeping child, and I realized it wasn’t fear that made her tremble. “I can’t abandon Anna, and I couldn’t possibly take a four-month-old baby across the sea.”
No, she couldn’t. Quite apart from the risk of submarine warfare, there was the potential for illness in the company of so many travelers, against which infants had so little defense. I knew what a sacrifice it was to be parted from one’s children, even in the care of a trusted nurse. I was painfully tempted to tell her to refuse on the grounds of motherhood. That’s what everyone else would tell her. But she relied upon me to remind her that no father would be excused from duty. We had, from the start, believed ourselves just as capable as men, and she’d never forgive herself if motherhood took that belief away from her. “Emily, you mustn’t think you’re abandoning your child. You’re answering a call to make the world better for her.”
“Do you think that’s how Anna will remember it?”
Watching the babe curl her little pink fists under her chin, I thought of Marthe and how I’d left her behind at Chavaniac. “She won’t remember it at all,” I said, as much to convince myself as Emily. “She’s too young for it to leave the slightest impression.”
“What if . . .” Emily trailed off, as if calculating the odds. “Last spring when Amaury’s plane was hit by shrapnel, I realized that one day soon he might not be so lucky and my daughter would grow up without a father. I’ve reassured myself that she’d have me, but if we’re both lost at sea, she’ll have no one.”
“Anna would have her grandparents and her aunts, and of course she’d have me.”
Emily smiled gratefully. “But you are going close to the front lines . . .”
“Not too close, but it would comfort me to know, if the worst should happen, my children would have you, wouldn’t they?”
“Of course!” Emily wrapped her arms around herself in a torment of indecision. “Amaury’s mother has agreed to watch over the baby, but if I leave, what kind of mother will people say I am?”
“You’re a baroness. You don’t have to care what the little people say.”
She stifled a teary laugh, and I was glad to put her in better humor. “Emily, you aren’t sacrificing your child’s happiness to run off with a lover. Every courageous thing you do will bring Anna pride one day.”
The baby gave a wail of irritation, and Emily lifted her up, whispering, “I’m sorry, darling, I’m so sorry.”
Her regret was not, I knew, for awakening the child.
She’d made the decision to go, and so had I.