A Star for Mrs. Blake (14 page)

Hammond said, “Very impressive,” but his smile barely hid his impatience. He’d had enough of knitting and crocheting. He allowed Wilhelmina to walk ahead and grabbed Lily’s arm. “What are we going to do?”

“Is General Perkins aware of her condition?”

“He never said anything to me. But that would explain the mix-up
in the records. She wouldn’t have gotten our communications if she was in an insane asylum. And the husband doesn’t seem like much help.”

“No wonder she never replied to Mrs. Blake’s letters.”

“Have you ever handled a mental case?”

“Lots of times,” Lily said. “I did a rotation on a psychiatric ward.”

“Good, because I think it best if we don’t make a point of this with Perkins.”

“Thomas, it’ll be on her medical record,” she said, surprised. “I’m sure he already knows.”

“He’s upset about the mix-up. No use stirring the pot.”

His handsome brows were knit, his expression tight.

“You don’t want him breathing down your neck, is that it?” Lily asked.

He nodded.

“In that case, let’s do our best to get her back with the group quietly and without incident.”

Outside the hotel the cab was waiting with the meter still whirling.

“Leave it to me to take care of Mrs. Russell,” Lily said decisively. “Come on, before we run out of money to pay the taxi.”

Wilhelmina slid into the backseat with Lily and took out her yarn. Hammond sat up front for the ride back to the Hotel Commodore.

“Don’t worry, dear, we’ll send for your bags,” Lily told her.

“Everything fine?” Hammond asked, turning around.

“Yes,” Lily answered brightly. “Mrs. Russell is about to show me her knitting.”

“Very good,” Hammond said, and exhaled with relief. He admired the way Lily had taken over and was confident now that she would hold up her end. He also couldn’t help noticing how pretty she looked in the back of the cab, with her face turned toward the window as the city passed, wisps of strawberry-blond escaping from beneath the nurse’s cap. He forced himself to turn around and stare at Fifth Avenue.

Having completed the murky and confusing journey from the dining room to the sidewalk to the taxi, Wilhelmina had settled herself in, engrossed now by the yellow bonnet she was making for the latest
grandchild. Every time her husband, Warren J. Russell, the famous architect of grand shingle-style homes along the coast of Maine, had her committed—the latest had been the seventh—she would start another project. The bonnet was part of a winter ensemble for the newborn daughter of their younger daughter, Wilhelmina watched her fingers automatically work the strands. What a memory they had.

On the morning of departure, each of several dozen parties lined up on the pier behind their liaison officer. On this special day all the pilgrims were dressed alike for the photographers, in army-issued white dresses with white hip-length capes and frog clips to hold them closed, as if it were graduation day at a convent school. The costumes had been delivered to their hotel rooms, and this morning on the bus they’d been handed fresh corsages. The display of unity was a magnificent distraction from the purpose of the trip, both for the pilgrims and for the hometown victims of the economic collapse that had gripped the country, who might not have been able to pay their rent, might even be dozing on a bench with a newspaper for a blanket, but who would read in that paper how well President Hoover was taking care of the war mothers and widows, and could go back to sleep with the assurance that he really did know the right course of action for the country.

The pilgrims were leaving from the same pier where, thirteen years before, thousands of American soldiers—maybe their own sons—had debarked to fight the war in Europe. Now it was seething with more than four hundred women, plus military personnel, porters, regular passengers, well-wishers, police officers, and the crew. High above it all loomed the steamship S.S.
Harding
, bigger than any boat Cora could have imagined, with a black hull as high as a New York apartment building—even the lifeboats looked bigger than any craft that ever docked at Stonington Harbor.

Just days ago, she had been standing on her porch, vitalized by clean ocean air, Linwood and his truck waiting below as if they were off to the farmers’ market in Blue Hill. Since then, she’d taken an all-day
train trip, made and lost a friend from Georgia, met her first Jewish person and befriended an Irishwoman, and rushed from one dizzying site to another—the Empire State Building, Broadway, Grant’s Tomb, the public library, Fifth Avenue, the Central Park Zoo—driven hard by Lieutenant Hammond and Nurse Lily according to an inflexible schedule that had to be checked off by the hour.

Everything moved too fast and New York City was dirty and full of itself, but Cora’s eyes had been opened by being in the heart of it, the movement and roar, the tallness of the amazing edifices, the sun at such an unfamiliar high remove, flat sidewalks that stretched to infinity, mysterious steam shooting up from the middle of the street, diamonds in shop windows, flags of affluence flying from department stores and banks, doormen dressed like English gentry, flowering trees and marble mansions.

How could she describe it all to Linwood? She’d read the postcard he’d sent to the hotel with a sinking feeling that already they were a world apart:

She imagined him thrashing through the weeds in the straw fedora with binoculars around his neck and felt a rush of affection, as well as a tug toward home. Maybe for another island girl the past few days in the greatest city in the world would have been enough to
last a lifetime, but Cora, inhabiting her mother’s adventurous spirit, could almost taste the sultry air of those Caribbean voyages aboard the
Lara Leigh
. The exhilaration her mother must have felt under sail from their little harbor was probably not unlike the thrill of leaving home for college. Cora vividly remembered the unsteadiness of searching for her room in the freshman dormitory and the pure joy of finally dumping her things on an anonymous mattress that would be hers. New York was just the beginning: they were about to take on the Atlantic Ocean and beyond.

The throng on the dock had grown with the arrival of more newsmen and photographers, pressing the white-coated pilgrims closer together, until all Cora could see was tops of heads and sky. She wondered how Sammy had put up with the army—you couldn’t get the boy to wear shoes, let alone march in a line. Last night she’d dreamed that she was assigned to Sammy’s company as a cook. He was showing her the ropes—but when she looked at the huge pots and lines of hungry men, Cora had that sorrowful feeling again, spiraling down. She told him she couldn’t do the job, and awoke to discover she was in tears. It had been so lovely to be with Sammy in the dream. Why hadn’t she taken on the work and stayed?

A deep vibrating blast from the liner’s foghorn seemed to fill her entire body. It was the cue for all the West Point liaison officers to draw their dress swords, hold them high above their heads, and lead their parties to the ship.

“Right this way! Pardon us! Stay close!” shouted Lieutenant Hammond, cutting through the multitude with Party A huddled behind him and Nurse Lily bringing up the rear. In the midst of this, Mrs. Seibert realized that she was missing her gloves.

“My gloves!” she cried. “I left them at the hotel!”

“Too hot for gloves,” said Katie.

“What if we have an occasion? What if we meet the president of France?”

“You can wear my gloves,” Wilhelmina offered.

Wilhelmina had been returned from Harlem, installed in the Hotel Commodore, and then almost immediately escorted to the
farewell banquet that night, which had given Katie, Cora, and Minnie no chance to get to know her, but to Hammond’s and Lily’s relief, she had been quite friendly, and the others welcomed her without a hitch. Unused to spontaneous generosity, Minnie was wary of the offer.

“Thank you, but you’ll need them,” she said.

“It’s all right,” Wilhelmina replied.

She peeled off her white cotton gloves to reveal another pair exactly like them underneath.

“Take these,” she insisted.

“That’s very nice of you,” Minnie said, not really understanding why her friend had two pairs. She had no intention of sticking her hands into someone else’s finger holes, but not to be rude, she stuffed them in her bag.

Just before entering the red-carpeted gangway they hit a bottleneck. Reporters crammed in closer, calling out for the attention of their hometown pilgrims.
“Mrs. Pizzorelli from Chicago?
Chicago Sun!
Over here!”
Photographers rudely stuck their tripods wherever they wished, forcing everyone to walk around them. Each group was stopped for a snapshot: from factory workers to Indians wearing blankets and smoking cigars, they were ordinary American women equalized by their loss, a range of shyness, sadness, confusion, pride, and astonishment on their faces as a band played and an honor guard saluted.

“Sorry,” Hammond told them. “Seems that we’re stuck in traffic.” He pivoted, checking his flock. “Everybody here?”

“All accounted for except Mrs. Olsen,” Lily reassured him.

“Where is she?”

“Already on board.”

“How do you know?” Hammond shouted over a particularly brash blast from the band.

Lily waited for the echo to dissolve from her ears. “She boarded at the VIP entry.”

“God help us,” Hammond said. “We can’t lose another one.”

“It’s all right—the steward promised me the boat won’t sail without her.”

“He was just being nice to you.”

“No, really,” Lily said earnestly. “He told me she’s a rich society woman.”

“How rich?”

“I don’t know, but she drove down from Boston in a limousine. Imagine the cost of the gas!”

Minnie, who had been standing close enough to overhear, immediately ducked back and told the group. “There’s news.”

Cora and Katie leaned close.

“We’re going to get a
very rich woman
.”

Katie said, “You mean the lady from Boston?”

“Cambridge. Her name is Genevieve Olsen,” Cora answered. “Her family owns a railroad.”

Minnie’s eyes opened wide. “Well, that explains it.”

“A blue blood amongst the savages,” Katie observed.

Cora jumped to Mrs. Olsen’s defense. “That’s not fair.”

“Why would someone like that bother with us?” Minnie wondered.

“Because she lost her son, just like we all did, and she believes in the Gold Star Mothers,” Cora replied stiffly. “She’s a patriot! We wouldn’t be standing here if she didn’t go down to Washington and shake a few trees.”

Katie looked thoughtful. “All the more reason to suspect.”

Wilhelmina had leaned in to the circle. “Suspect what?”

“That she’s bossy and wants her ways. I can tell ye, I’ve been employed in great houses on Beacon Hill where they have two or three servant girls, but even then you’re up at six with one afternoon off a week, no time to yourself a’tall while you’re in the house, and you have to fight tooth and nail just to be allowed to go to an evening’s mass—”

Wilhelmina interrupted: “Where will she sleep?”

The others exchanged uneasy glances. They were beginning to realize that Wilhelmina wasn’t shy about speaking whatever came into her head—which was often the same as what they had been thinking but were afraid to say. Sleeping arrangements were always one of the thornier issues to confront on the pilgrimages, and therefore skirted on both sides. On the train from Boston—with no assurance that the
army would agree—Cora and Katie had planned to room together, hoping Minnie would double up with Mrs. Russell, but when she was removed from Party A, that left Katie and Cora together with Minnie on the outs, which made Cora feel bad, since Minnie had been so candid in her letters, so they’d invited her to share a triple, and Minnie had been moved to tears by the gesture. But now there was Wilhelmina. And Mrs. Olsen. Would they make a pair? At the same time, because Hammond had been warned to expect discord and requests for transfer, he’d held off as long as possible distributing their assignments. But Cora Blake was tapping on his shoulder like a very determined woodpecker. The time had come.

“Lieutenant Hammond! Where does everybody sleep?”

“I’ve put Mrs. Seibert together with Mrs. McConnell—”

Minnie and Katie stared at each other with shock and mistrust. Historic disregard of the Jews for the Irish—and vice versa—rose between them like columns of steam from the manholes of New York. Katie thought it would have been easy to get along with Cora Blake moderating from the middle. But now—an Irish maid and a Jewish chicken farmer? Who could say?