I don’t dare say much about the war. Somehow, the actual horror never got hold of me while I was at home, but here there is no escaping it. I can no longer think in terms of flags and parades and patriotism and glory. I just see mutilated bodies, destroyed homes, and wretchedness.
—Miss Alice Patton, ’10, to her sister, Mrs. Gilbert Thomas
September 1917
Grécourt, France
“Dead?” repeated Alice, horrified.
Fran turned the telegram around so they could all see the stark block capitals.
MOTHER DEAD TUESDAY STOP RETURN HOME SOONEST STOP AUNT M.
“That’s . . . blunt,” said Kate.
Fran gave a choked laugh. It was a horrible sound. “Auntie Mill won’t have wanted to spend the extra money to say passed away.”
Marie stuck her head around the doorframe. “There are children in the Orangerie,” she said, much as she might have said mice. “Many children.”
“Oh dear,” said Anne Dawlish. “That’s my carpentry class. Fran—”
Fran gave a terse nod. “The children are waiting. Go.”
Miss Baldwin followed, giving Fran’s hand a quick squeeze along the way.
Miss Ledbetter paused in the doorway. “When the old lords passed away, their bodies would lie in state in the castle chapel, all their loyal retainers passing by to pay homage—”
Kate looked at her incredulously.
“The children are waiting, Miss Ledbetter.” Anne Dawlish grabbed the older woman by the arm and tugged her away before she could start singing entirely apocryphal medieval funeral songs.
“I think that’s her way of showing sympathy,” murmured Emmie.
“We have a cook and a scullery maid,” said Fran unsteadily. “I don’t think they’ll be kneeling by my mother’s corpse with candles. Corpse. Mother. I can’t believe— She’s been poorly for so long—we thought her illness was . . . a sort of hobby.”
Kate and Emmie exchanged alarmed looks.
“Here.” Emmie grabbed up Fran’s coffee cup from the table. “Oh dear, I wish we had some sugar. Sugar is meant to be good for shock.”
“Sherry,” said Alice, turning with sudden decision for the door of the barrack. “What you need is sherry. I have some in my trunk. For medicinal purposes. If this isn’t a medicinal purpose, I don’t know what is.”
“No—no—” Fran waved her arms futilely at them both. “The last thing I need is spirits at eight in the morning! Or your whole sugar ration. And aren’t you supposed to be at the dispensary?”
Alice bit her lip, looking back over her shoulder as though unsure what to do. “Miss Mills and Dr. Pruyn have already gone. They won’t miss me for a bit. They’ll probably be glad I’m not there. I’m always dropping the bandages.”
“What can we do?” Kate asked quietly.
Fran put her hands to her temples. “A train. I’ll need to take the train to Paris. My aunt will need bucking up. They’ve kept house together since my father died. And there’ll be practical matters to be dealt with. How long do you think it will take to get passage out?”
“I think you need to wait six weeks before they let you go,” said Margaret Cooper. Emmie had forgotten she was there, she had been standing so quietly. “Someone mentioned it to me in Paris—I think it’s so they can make sure you’re not taking home unauthorized information from the war zone.”
“Six weeks? But the funeral . . . Oh heavens, what am I saying? I’ll miss the funeral either way. And Freddie—Freddie is over here too. Poor mother. We never imagined . . .”
“Maybe they’ll let you go sooner since it’s a bereavement,” suggested Liza.
Fran shook her head. “I doubt it. And if so, they shouldn’t. I could be faking it, for all they know. No, I’ll wait my time. Maybe they’ll let me see Freddie. . . .” She turned her head so they couldn’t see her lip wobble, saying in a falsely energetic voice, “He’s younger. He’ll need me.”
“Well, I think you should go at once,” said Maud, even though no one had asked her. “Come along, Liza. We’re meant to be stacking boxes.”
“Do you think we ought to send flowers?” Emmie heard Liza whisper as she followed Maud out the door.
“Where would we send flowers? To the second barrack from the left?”
“I just thought that we ought to do something. . . .” The door thumped shut, cutting off their voices.
Fran buried her head in her hands, choking on a laugh. “I can’t say I’ll miss them, but I’ll miss you. I’ll miss all of you. I’ll even miss that hideous Ford truck.”
“Only on a downgrade.” Kate reached out, not quite touching her. “I’m so sorry, Fran.”
“It comes to us all, I suppose.” Fran managed a crooked smile. “I’m sure my mother is feeling terribly vindicated.”
“I can go up to Paris with you until you sail,” offered Alice with sudden resolve. “I’ve got to run Dr. Pruyn and Miss Mills on their rounds, but then I’ll come back and go with you. We can catch an afternoon train from Noyon.”
“We’ll be down two chauffeurs that way.” Fran winced. “I mean, you’ll be down two chauffeurs. Won’t Mrs. Rutherford object?”
Alice hunched her shoulders. “You shouldn’t have to be alone in Paris while you wait out your six weeks.”
“Thank you. I won’t say no to that.” Fran blinked rapidly. “I need to tell Mrs. Rutherford. And I’ll need to pack. . . .”
“I’ll help you pack,” Emmie said quickly, feeling like she ought to do something. “You don’t need to worry about a thing; just let the rest of us take care of you.”
“I’m not an invalid,” Fran protested. “Mother was the invalid.”
“You’re the least invalid-ish person I know,” said Kate bracingly. To Emmie, she said, “We’re meant to be going to Courcelles. Remember?”
“I suppose we could go to Courcelles another day?” Emmie hated the idea of giving up Courcelles, but they couldn’t possibly leave Fran by herself, not after news like that.
“No,” said Fran quickly. “No, don’t put it off. The work is the important thing. I’ve held you up enough already—”
“I can go to Courcelles,” offered Margaret tentatively. “I was supposed to be driving Dr. Stringfellow, but she’s busy with Mrs. Rutherford.”
“That’s all right, then, isn’t it?” said Alice as it belatedly occurred to Emmie that if Margaret could go to Courcelles, she could equally well have stayed with Fran, and that both Emmie and Margaret would probably have preferred that.
But it was too late now. Kate was giving Fran a quick hard hug and telling her how much she’d be missed, and Margaret was buttoning up her uniform jacket and grabbing her hat, and Alice flitted off to the dispensary, and Emmie was left pressing coffee on Fran, who didn’t seem to want either coffee or sympathy, but only to be left alone.
Fran didn’t need Emmie’s help with packing. Alice’s belongings were scattered all over the room, a small mirror hanging crookedly over a makeshift dressing table, hats in a drift on the floor, a shawl trailing over the end of a cot, but Fran’s belongings were all neatly folded in her trunk in lieu of a wardrobe. It was the work of only a few moments to add her nightclothes and hairbrush.
“I’ll leave my blankets,” said Fran, looking around the room as though trying to memorize it. “I’m sure you can find a use for them.”
“Are you sure you won’t want them in Paris?” asked Emmie, and then realized how silly that sounded. “You’ll be going back to the Quai Voltaire until you sail? At least you’ll be able to get one of the rooms with a bed this time.”
“Yes,” said Fran bleakly. “Small blessings.”
Emmie tried to make it better by bustling around, plumping pillows and rustling blankets. “Would you like to lie down? Can I get you a cold compress?”
“I’ve been bereaved; I haven’t bumped my head. It’s all right, you don’t need to hold my hand. I have—I have some letters I should be writing.”
“Are you sure? I could—” The look on Fran’s face stopped her. It was a look of such uncomprehending misery that Emmie wanted to run to her and hug her, but that was clearly the last thing Fran wanted, so Emmie backed toward the door, saying, “I’ll just go help Maud and Liza with the boxes, shall I? I’ll be in the cellar if you need me. For anything. Anything at all.”
“Thank you,” said Fran distantly.
Through the bare windows, Emmie could see Fran sitting on her bed, not writing, not reading, not doing anything, just sitting. She looked the way Emmie’s schoolchildren did when they fell in the play yard, when they realized they’d been hurt but hadn’t quite started howling yet, that moment of stunned disbelief before the pain set in.
“Mademoiselle!” Emmie gave a guilty start as Marie bore down on her, launching into a detailed scold.
The other girls, they had been asking about their laundry. Did they not know that the laundry was available only on Sunday? Marie couldn’t be expected to do all things. And why hadn’t they finished the pot-au-feu she had made for them last night? Did they not appreciate her cooking? Did they know what it was to cook on a range beneath a canvas roof with such ingredients as she was given?
“I’m so sorry,” said Emmie, when she could get a word in edgewise. Marie had already threatened to quit twice in the ten days since they had arrived; the answer was usually to apologize and offer her more money, but Emmie was feeling too wretched to go through the regular routine. “Miss Englund—her mother just died. Everyone’s terribly upset.”
Marie was instantly in charge of the situation. A consommé, that was what was needed—she would wring the neck of a chicken at once.
“Oh, please don’t,” said Emmie, and immediately realized her mistake. “I’m sure it would be delicious, it’s just that we need the eggs for the children, if they ever do start laying eggs. I do hope they start laying eggs soon. But perhaps some coffee? You do make the best coffee.”
Maybe Fran might even want the coffee. Emmie wasn’t sure what else to do for her.
It was only ten o’clock. It felt terribly strange to be left at Grécourt while the others were out. They had been here ten days now, and, except for the mass, Emmie had spent every day “visiting,” making the rounds of villages with Kate, calling on each local mayor, looking in on families. Most days, they didn’t even make it back for lunch, dining on bread and cheese as the White truck bounced between ruts.
She really should have just gone with Kate. Fran didn’t want her. But it was too late now, so she would just have to make the best of it and try to find something useful to do in between checking in on Fran.
Emmie hurried down to the cellar, where Maud and Liza were bumping boxes around, sorting out goods to put on the truck for the inaugural journey of their traveling store.
“—today?” Liza was asking, her voice muffled by a large pile of linens.
“I don’t know. It depends what they—oh, Emmaline! We didn’t see you there.”
Maud made it sound like an accusation.
Emmie looked around the newly whitewashed room. The poilus had done a thorough job; she couldn’t see where the chicken wire or the rude German inscriptions had once been. “Fran is writing letters, so I thought I’d come and see if I could help you down here.”
“Yes, it’s too terrible about her mother. But at least she gets to go back to Paris. You don’t mind playing porter, do you? We’re just about ready to haul everything up to the truck.”
Emmie carried armloads of pots and kettles up the stairs to the truck, juggling rakes and scrubbing brushes, papers bristling with pins, spools of thread in serviceable blacks and browns, boxes of nails, shovels and trowels in all lengths and sizes, and even a consignment of axes, which Emmie held very, very carefully as she navigated the uneven treads.
“I never thought I’d turn peddler,” said Maud. “Lord, what they’d say at home if they could see us now!”
The truck backfired and finally started. Emmie waved farewell to them, watching as Liza narrowly avoided smashing one of the gates on her way out. She could hear Maud’s protest all the way over the moat.
Overhead, a plane wheezed by, and then another, circling each other, emitting puffs of smoke. Those little cotton-colored clouds looked so innocent until one remembered they were ammunition, meant to bring a plane down and end a man’s life. Another plane joined in, way up in the clouds, puffing away like anything. Forty puffs, like candy floss, and the high, whining sound of the motors overhead.
Dr. Stringfellow stuck her head out of the room where she was in conference with Dr. Rutherford. “Where’s Kate?”
“She went to Courcelles,” said Emmie, surprised that Dr. Stringfellow had forgotten. “Is something wrong?”
The doctor didn’t bother to answer. “When she gets back, send her in to us.”
Dr. Stringfellow’s head disappeared again before Emmie could ask why they wanted Kate. She hoped Kate wasn’t in trouble. She wasn’t sure why Kate would be in trouble. Unless it was something to do with . . .
But no, as long as the money was being paid, it shouldn’t matter where it was coming from.
They were laying the table for dinner, Emmie trying to remember not to set places for Fran and Alice, the table looking so much emptier with their chairs removed from it, when the White finally lurched over the moat.
Emmie left Anne Dawlish and Miss Baldwin laying out plates and ran out to greet them. “Oh, thank goodness you’re back. Did you have a puncture? You’ve missed Alice and Fran. They left an hour ago.”
“It’s Margaret,” Kate said without preamble, sliding down out of the White into a patch of mud. “She’s not well.”
Emmie hurried to the other side of the truck, where Margaret sat curled up on the bench, her elbows on her knees, her face in her hands, her thin back shaking.
Emmie looked back at Kate with concern. “Oh goodness, what happened? Is she ill? I can get the doctors—”
Kate lowered her voice, forcing Emmie to bend to hear her. “She’s been like this since Courcelles. She had a fit of hysterics, and then threw up by the side of the road, and she hasn’t spoken since.”
“That pot-au-feu did taste a little off last night. . . . Poor thing, I think I have some bicarbonate left.”
“It’s not the food. I think she’s having what the French would call a crise de nerfs.”
“An anxiety attack?” It sounded so much better, so much more elegant, in French, but the result was the same in either language. “What happened?”
“Courcelles,” said Kate simply.
“Miss Moran?” Dr. Stringfellow beckoned brusquely. “You’re needed.”
“They’ve been wanting to speak to you. I don’t know what about,” said Emmie. “You go. I’ll manage. Margaret? Your poor cold hands! Let’s get you inside and warmed up.”
It was hard getting Margaret out of the truck. She did little to help herself; well, she couldn’t, poor thing. She couldn’t seem to stop shaking, and it took Emmie wrapping an arm around her waist and guiding her step by step to get her back to the barrack, tripping over things and slipping in the damp grass as they bumbled along together like the participants in a three-legged race—if one of the participants was shaking with fever, that was.
“It’s all so useless.” Margaret leaned heavily against Emmie as Emmie tried to maneuver her through the door of the barrack without tripping on her own skirt. “What are we really doing here? We’ll never really be able to do anything.”
“Just one more step now—almost there.” Margaret’s arm around her neck was nearly choking her. “Let me feel your head—I don’t think you’re running a fever. You do seem awfully cold, though. Let’s get you wrapped up in some blankets. Fran left hers. . . .”
“Lucky Fran,” said Margaret violently, and Emmie stared at her in shock. Margaret made a quick, apologetic gesture. “I didn’t mean that. Only I did. It’s just—what are we doing here?”
“Why don’t you sit down.” Emmie guided Margaret to her cot. “Think how wonderful it was yesterday, all of us together and all the villagers so happy.”
“Happy?” Margaret stared up at Emmie, her pupils dilated. “I can hear that girl screaming.”
Emmie bit her lip. “I made a mistake. But the other children—”
“They weren’t like children at all! They were like ghosts. They’re all ghosts here. We’re living with ghosts. No, not ghosts, monsters. It’s hideous. It’s all hideous. Why are we here? We didn’t have to be here.”
She was shaking so hard Emmie could hear her teeth chattering. “Coffee,” said Emmie. “What you need is some hot coffee. . . .”
“No! I couldn’t. I’ll be ill.”
“No coffee, then,” said Emmie soothingly, wondering if she ought to try Alice’s sherry or if that would only make Margaret feel worse.
Margaret was talking again, in a small, hoarse voice. “I thought if I could be busy and useful, then it might not be so awful, but it just gets worse and worse and worse. It was all Beth’s idea, but then Beth didn’t come. I never wanted to be here, I shouldn’t be here. I’m not making anything better by being here, I’m just driving around in circles, recording horrors.”
“Remember the singing?” asked Emmie desperately. “Remember the canticles? Ils ne l’auront jamais, jamais, ce pays des preux, notre France. Wasn’t it tremendous? It made everyone feel so much better—”
“Did it?” Margaret made a choking sound. “We can’t sing everything better. I thought we could—I thought we could do what Mrs. Rutherford said—we could bring them hope!—it all sounded so easy—but the boy I saw today—he wasn’t human anymore. Do you know what they’d done to him? They took an explosive and made him hold it. And then they set it off. He lost his arm and half his face but he didn’t die. That’s the worst of it”—Margaret’s voice rose to a painful pitch, on the edge of hysteria—“he didn’t die.”
Emmie’s stomach twisted. “This was—this was in Courcelles?”
It was Emmie who had insisted they go to Courcelles. She should have been in Courcelles, not Margaret.
“I know it’s a war. You don’t need to tell me it’s a war. But these aren’t soldiers. These are just normal people. And there was no point to what they did to that poor boy. It wasn’t a battle. It was just cruel. They maimed him for the fun of it.”
“Maybe it was an accident. . . . Maybe they didn’t mean for it to happen.”
“They did,” said Margaret sharply. “That was what the villagers said. You didn’t see it. You didn’t see him. It was inhuman, Emmie. It was evil. I don’t want to be here. I don’t—I don’t want to be here anymore. I’m not cut out for it.”
Emmie sank down on the bed next to her, feeling the cot sag under her weight. “You don’t need to go back to Courcelles. You should never have been there. It was my idea. I’m sorry.”
Margaret leaned into Emmie, burying her head in Emmie’s chest. “If it were only Courcelles . . . It’s all of this. Everything since we arrived, all the widows and the wounded and the air raids and the constant banging of the guns. I can’t sleep at night without seeing those faces. Faces without noses, without chins, without ears—”
“You mean the ones in the hospital? But they’re making them better, they’re working wonders. . . .”
“Nightmares. They’re making walking nightmares. And those are soldiers. This boy— Oh, Emmie!”
“Shhhh,” said Emmie, cradling her as though she were one of Emmie’s little brothers, having a nightmare.
Margaret pulled away from her, staring up at her with haunted eyes. “He was only four when they did this to him, Emmie. Four. I’ll never be able to unsee that—I’ll remember it when I sleep. I’ll remember it when I die. Oh Lord, I’m going to be ill again.”
“Let me get you some water.” Emmie lurched to her feet.
Her hands were shaking as she poured water into a tumbler, slopping it over the sides. Only four. She remembered holding her brother Bobby at four. Bobby had always had nightmares and Nurse wasn’t the coddling sort. So Emmie had gone. She could remember the feel of that little body, the smell of his head, the trust. Only four.
Making a decision, Emmie reached into the bag she took with her on her rounds, with its meager supply of ambrine, headache powders—and sleeping drafts. She took out a twist of white paper, emptying the powder into the glass.
“I thought I could bear it,” Margaret said plaintively. “I really did.”
“I know it’s hard,” said Emmie. She held out the glass to Margaret, feeling like Lady Macbeth. But Macbeth murdered sleep and Emmie was trying to bring sleep, so it really wasn’t at all the same. At least, she hoped not.
Water darkened the blanket as Margaret tried to take the cup. “If Beth had been here . . . At least you and Kate have each other. It makes it easier to have someone. You need someone here.”
Emmie sat down next to Margaret, helping to guide the cup to her lips. “You’ll feel better after a sleep.”
“But I can’t sleep. . . . If I dream . . .”
“I’ll sit by you,” promised Emmie, aware that it was so little, so painfully little. Courcelles had been her task, her responsibility. She’d just—she’d wanted to feel like she was doing something for Fran. It had been irredeemably selfish. “I’ll sit by you, and if you feel a nightmare coming on, I’ll be here with you.”
“I wish—I wish I were brave . . . like you. . . .”
“You are brave,” Emmie said, stroking Margaret’s hair. “You’re brave to have come here at all. You’ll realize that. Once you’ve had a good sleep.”
“—can’t—sleep—” Margaret’s shivers were subsiding, her body relaxing into sleep.
Emmie hoped she hadn’t misjudged the dose. She hadn’t realized how thin Margaret had become, much thinner than when they’d set sail on the Rochambeau. She hadn’t realized a lot of things. Gently, Emmie tucked an extra blanket over Margaret, one of Fran’s blankets.
“She’s sleeping,” Emmie whispered as Kate came through the door. Not that she needed to whisper. With that much sedative, nothing short of a German invasion should wake Margaret now. “Are they waiting dinner for me? I don’t want to leave Margaret. I promised I’d stay by her.”
“No. They’ve all eaten.” Kate’s voice sounded funny. Emmie couldn’t see her face properly. Darkness had fallen, and Emmie hadn’t thought to light the lamp.
Emmie rose very carefully, trying not to jostle Margaret. “What is it? What’s happened? Why did they want to see you?”
“Mrs. Rutherford is resigning as director.”
Emmie caught her shin on the edge of her trunk, barely noticing the pain. “But . . . that’s impossible. Mrs. Rutherford is the Unit.”
“Not according to the committee.” Kate kept her voice low, glancing back over her shoulder. The walls of the barrack weren’t particularly thick. “Mrs. Rutherford is being forced to step down, effective immediately. They’re going to put it about that she’s resigning for health reasons.”
“I don’t understand.” Emmie realized she had her hand to her mouth, like the heroine in a melodrama. She forced herself to lower it. “I know Maud was trying—but why would the committee . . . ?”
Kate shook her head wearily. “Apparently there were some issues in the past—the committee wasn’t sure Mrs. Rutherford was entirely stable. I don’t know all of it. Dr. Stringfellow wasn’t exactly forthcoming. She’s the new director now.”
“Oh.” Dr. Stringfellow was certainly competent—frighteningly competent—but Mrs. Rutherford had a magic about her, a way of making things happen when you thought they could never happen at all. Passes, army camions . . . The Unit without Mrs. Rutherford was unthinkable. Emmie was suddenly, desperately afraid. “Is—is Mrs. Rutherford staying on at all?”
“She wanted to. But Dr. Stringfellow thought it would be too divisive. So she’s going to go to Paris for a month in case we need her, and then back to the States to raise money for the Unit.”
“But we do need her. We need her desperately.” Emmie’s mind was roiling. She could write her mother—her mother’s name had authority, there was no denying it—although whether her mother would decide to help or not was entirely uncertain.
“Don’t you think we can manage without her?” Kate’s voice had a funny note to it.
“I don’t want to manage without her.” She sounded like a child. Emmie made a conscious effort to gather her wits about her. “Why were they asking for you? Are they telling us all one by one?”
“No.” Kate sat down, very slowly, on her cot. “Mrs. Rutherford had certain conditions before she would agree to go.”
“Conditions?” Margaret was snoring now, little snorts and hums.
“She wants me to take Dr. Stringfellow’s place as assistant director.”
“But—” But Kate hadn’t even wanted to come. She had no background in social work. This hadn’t been her project to begin with. Emmie looked over at Kate, looking so small, so braced for battle, and abandoned everything she had been about to say. “Congratulations. I’m sure you’ll do a brilliant job.”
“Mrs. Rutherford didn’t ask me for my brilliance. She asked me because she thinks I can keep the accounts and keep the machinery she’s set up running. She doesn’t want the Unit broken up and sold for scrap to the Red Cross.”
“Is that what she said?” Emmie wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or offended on Kate’s behalf.
“In that many words. Dr. Stringfellow is too busy with the medical end of things to manage everything that needs to be managed—so they need someone practical to run the day-to-day. That’s all. I think she wants me because I don’t have a vision of my own.”
“Do you think we’ll be able to go on without her?”
Kate rose, pressing the wrinkles out of her skirt with her hands. “I’ll have to see that we do.”
“We’ll have to see that we do.” Impulsively, Emmie reached out and took her hand. “We’re all in this together.”
Except for Fran, who had left. And Alice, who had gone with her. And Margaret—Emmie glanced down at her blanket-wrapped form. Hopefully Margaret would feel better in the morning, as long as the sleeping powder didn’t give her a terrible headache.
Emmie decided not to mention any of that. “I’m sure you’ll be a wonderful assistant director.”
And she was. Mostly.
“Thank you.” Kate let go of Emmie’s hand. “We’ll see how long I last. I’m sure Maud will waste no time writing the committee about me.”