• 44 •

“THAT GIRL IS exhausting,” Constance said, kicking her feet up on Norma’s cot. “They’re all exhausting, now that I think of it.”

Everyone else was either at sewing or cooking class. Norma had stayed behind to hear what transpired with Beulah. As Norma was the only other soul in camp to know Beulah’s identity, Constance hardly had any choice but to talk to her about it. There was no one else to tell.

“If you hadn’t broken her nose, we could’ve put her out first thing this morning,” Norma said.

“I’m not going to put her out,” Constance said.

“You always go soft for girls with bad reputations,” Norma said.

“What is she to do? Her name’s been ruined, but she has to make a life for herself.”

“She can make a life without stealing a gun and shooting at a man,” Norma said. “They put people in jail for that sort of thing, or have you forgotten already?”

“She had a fright,” Constance said. “She didn’t expect to ever see him again. Apparently he’s the one who made sure that she stayed in the papers. She holds him responsible for all her notoriety.”

“As I recall, she had a hand in it herself,” Norma said.

“She was thirteen when it started. Try to imagine Fleurette when she was thirteen, going with a grown man like Henry Clay Beattie.”

“I don’t believe I will imagine that. Are we to go on pretending that she’s Roxanna Collins from Park Avenue?”

“We are, although she’s excused from duties until Nurse Cartwright releases her. I told the nurse to be generous. A few days in the infirmary won’t do any harm.”

“And you intend to just wait for Maude Miner to show up and sort it out.”

“I am not waiting for Maude Miner.” Constance couldn’t help but sound irked at that. Beulah managed to get under her skin with that talk of always waiting for some other party to decide what her life ought to be. She thought she might put the question of her future to Norma. “This camp of yours hasn’t given me any better ideas about what I might do during the war.”

“It isn’t my camp,” Norma said, “and there are a dozen things you could do tomorrow. You’re free to choose any of them. Most of us don’t have a choice. We’re only any good at one thing. Fleurette’s going to sew, whether she likes it or not, and I’ll be handling the Army’s pigeon program.”

Constance started to register her doubts about that last bit, but Norma plunged on. “You, on the other hand, could go into police or detective work, or find another jail in need of a matron, or run another camp like this one, or do any sort of work with troubled girls at hospitals and missions and the like. You could take up with a travelers’ league like that policewoman in Paterson.”

“Belle Headison,” Constance groaned. “Don’t put me in with her.”

“Don’t you see?” Norma said. “Belle Headison is probably only capable of doing one thing, which is why she’s doing it. You could do a dozen things, but you won’t. You’d rather sulk about an election that ended six months ago.”

Had it been six months? The wound was still fresh. Perhaps she understood how Beulah, six years after the fact, still wanted to rush at Freeman Bernstein with a gun.

“Your trouble is that nothing else is good enough. You would’ve worked for Sheriff Heath forever, if they appointed sheriffs for life.”

“I might have,” Constance admitted.

“If that’s the only job that meets your exacting standards, then you’re out of work for good. You had the shortest career I’ve ever heard of, and I only hope the memories are enough to last you a lifetime.”

“When do you suppose you’ll start running that pigeon division at the Army?” Constance asked, inspired by a sudden eagerness to pack Norma off to another camp.

“Private Hackbush tells me that his commander will be back for graduation, provided this camp isn’t shut down in disgrace before that. He’s going to hitch my cart to his automobile and drive it around as a demonstration. I’ll release what pigeons I have left and show what they can do.”

“I wouldn’t think Hack would be so eager to help, after the way you treated him in class,” Constance said.

“He wasn’t particularly inclined at first, but then I reminded him that he’d been sneaking out late at night with one of my sisters, and allowing the other sister to go firing off his guns in the woods, which nearly resulted in a man being killed. He was far more inclined to grant me a favor after that.”

THE NEXT FEW days passed quietly enough. Beulah stayed contentedly in the infirmary. She and Nurse Cartwright struck up quite a friendship: one afternoon, Constance had to run over to the infirmary to remind the nurse that she was late to her Thursday afternoon class on bandage-rolling. She and Beulah had been so deep in conversation that she’d entirely forgotten about the class.

Rumors continued to circulate about the mysterious gunshot heard at the end of Mrs. Ward’s performance. Those with experience on the stage were more likely to accept the explanation that a gun intended as a prop had misfired: some prop was always misfiring, breaking, or exploding at the theater. Calcium lights were still in use in small towns here and there, and it wasn’t uncommon for one of them to burst into flames in the middle of a performance.

Disaster, or the appearance of disaster, went part and parcel with the theater life.

Other girls weren’t so sure. Some suspected Mr. Bernstein of firing the gun. He was a German spy, went one rumor, come to extract military secrets from Hack and Clarence. Or perhaps Constance discovered the espionage plot and tried to shoot him, for the good of the country.

Another strain of rumor circulated about Beulah (still known as Roxie to the campers). Perhaps she was Freeman’s lover, or maybe he knew of a scandal concerning her. She could’ve tried and failed to shoot herself over some tragedy, which would explain the lengthy stay in the infirmary. No one had a good look at her that night, when her face was covered in blood, but her confinement lent credence to the idea that she had been on the receiving end of the bullet, perhaps in the ear, or just along the scalp. Enough to wound, but not to kill.

No one knew for sure, and that was fine with Constance. She kept the camp on a tight schedule, invented new chores, and pushed the girls through longer and more difficult calisthenics every morning and afternoon. If she could only exhaust them physically, she reasoned, they might sleep at night rather than stay awake gossiping.

It was three days before Constance had a reply from Maude Miner. Her message came in the form of a telegram, delivered by Clarence, who had by some miracle been able to secure a newspaper as well. The nearest newsstand was ten miles away: as he explained it, the telegram boy carried papers on his country routes to make a little pocket money.

Clarence brought both the telegram and newspaper to Constance in the mess hall one evening, just as supper was being cleared. Norma and Sarah were still lingering at the table. They crowded around eagerly for news.

She opened the telegram first.

ALREADY HEARING FROM PARENTS TOLD THEM NOT TO WORRY GIRLS ARE SAFE WAS ONLY SHOOTING BLANKS AND SO ON CAN’T GET TO CHEVY CHASE YET AS WAR DEPT EXPECTS ME TO PERSUADE MISS RANKIN CARRY ON AS BEFORE YRS MAUDE MINER

“What on earth has Miss Rankin got up to already?” Norma muttered, reaching for the paper.

Sarah, reading over her shoulder, gasped at the headlines. “Is there really to be a war resolution before Congress? I thought it wouldn’t happen until this summer.”

“The Germans thought otherwise,” Norma said. “They’ve been sinking our ships, while we’ve been here learning how to march in a straight line and cook dinner for the convalescent. I can’t believe we weren’t told.”

“It’s unlike the War Department to keep you in the dark,” Constance said. “Only I don’t see how Miss Miner and Miss Rankin figure into it.”

Norma, still reading, said, “Miss Rankin was just seated yesterday. No one gave any notice to the first woman elected to Congress, because the President marched right in and asked for the authority to go to war. They’ve been debating it since. Miss Rankin is opposed.”

“Did Montana know they’d elected a pacifist?” Constance asked. She’d been so consumed with her own misery since the election that she hadn’t paid much attention to the doings in Montana, where women had just recently won the right to vote and the right to run for office.

“They knew they elected a woman, and I suppose it’s the same thing as electing a pacifist,” Norma said.

“That’s not true,” Constance put in. “You’re not a pacifist. I don’t suppose Sarah is, either.”

“I don’t like to see anyone fighting,” Sarah said, “but we can’t stand by and let Europe go up in flames.”

“Well, it won’t do much for the cause of suffrage if she votes against the war,” Norma said. “She’ll set us back another decade on that front.”

“She’s not voting on behalf of the suffragists,” Constance said, “she’s voting on behalf of the people of Montana. Besides, she’ll be criticized no matter what she does. If she votes in favor, they’ll say that there’s no need to put a woman in office if she’s only going to vote as the men do. If she votes against war, they’ll say that women are too soft to make the difficult decisions.”

“I wonder why the War Department is sending in Miss Miner to try to persuade her,” Sarah said. “Surely they have enough votes regardless.”

“But they’d like a woman’s vote. If the only woman in Congress votes for war, every mother in this country will give up her son a little more easily,” Norma said.

Constance was sitting right next to Sarah and felt a little shiver go through her at the mention of giving up sons.

“I’ll ask Clarence to find some way to arrange for a paper every day this week,” Constance said.