The Major's Daughter (34 page)

“Simple enough,” Hermione said in a voice that had a slightly foreign lilt to it. “Bread with that?”

“Yes, sure.”

Off she went. Collie felt herself sag in the chair. It felt good to be out of the chilly spring air, good to have a place to sit. She hadn't known she had been chilled. She took off her gloves and used the moment to look around. She liked Wentworth's a good deal. It felt to be an authentic place, trying to be no more or less than what it was.

“A good place, isn't it?” Henry asked, reading her.

“I was just thinking that.”

“Funny that we ran into each other. The New York Opera is coming to Portland, and I wondered if we could go see it together. I was going to call you this afternoon to invite you.”

“That sounds lovely,” she said.

“It won't be for another month, but if you're interested I'll be sure to get tickets. Mother might want to go, too. We're not a big opera family, so I don't mean to give you that impression. But we try to support the arts when they journey north. Mother insists on it.”

Before Collie could say anything to that, Hermione returned with four bowls of stew loaded on her arms. She set one in front of each of them and continued on her way. “Coffee,” she said, reminding herself and them that she needed to bring them something else. She hurried around the dining room and it was impossible to ignore her.

“Good?” he asked when she had taken a sip of the stew broth.

“Very good. Very fresh, as you say.”

“Sometimes they use moose meat, but I can't tell the difference. The loggers swear moose makes a better stew. Amos will go out of his way to find a moose stew.”

“How is Amos?”

Henry smiled a rueful smile. Amos, she knew, would always remain a project. Henry's smile contained that knowledge. Amos would keep going, keep churning, until one day he ran into an obstacle, or another person more deadly and unpredictable than he was. Then he would die, or end up with his health ruined, his body broken, and he would haunt Berlin in a haze of alcohol. His epitaph was already written and waiting for him to fulfill it. She did not know how she understood that suddenly, but she did.

“He's up north with a survey team,” Henry said, spooning more stew into his mouth. At the same time Hermione returned with coffee and a bowl of brown bread. She put a plate holding a yellow thumb of butter onto the table beside it. She didn't ask if they were satisfied or required anything else. She had work to do and left as soon as she deposited the bread and coffee.

“Looking at land?”

“From a barstool, probably. Yes, that's the idea. He does better away from the office. His colorful nature needs a lot of air.”

She nodded.

“And you? What have you been doing?” he asked.

“The stew is very good,” she said, and meant it.

“I told you. We'll turn you into a logger yet.”

“I'm not doing much,” she said, returning to his question, “except requisitioning trucks and sending off gear. Things are coming to an end. My father thinks the camp will run through the summer, but it's hard to say. We're emptying things around the edges.”

“Will you be glad to have it over?”

“I suppose so. But it's been exciting, too. Lieutenant Peters says we will all miss the war when finally it is over, and I suspect he has a point.”

“And what will you do next if you don't marry me?”

He smiled. It annoyed her to have him throw that into the conversation, especially today. But she dared not rise to the bait, so she shrugged her shoulders. She wondered what he would say, what any of them would say, if they knew she contemplated running off with a German soldier to a place she had never visited with no assurance that they would not be shot for their troubles. It made her wonder if everyone, every last person in the saloon, didn't have a secret agenda that they kept close to their hearts. Even Henry, for all she knew, might be revealing only a small portion of his character to her. It made her feel peculiar to think it.

“You need to find a north-country girl,” she said. “I don't fit the job description.”

“You do, actually,” he said. “But I didn't mean to be glib about marriage. You make me nervous, Collie, and I'm not always at my best around you. I try to be. I want to be, but I suspect I try too hard. It's funny, too, because I am not like that with other women.”

“You've been very kind to me, Henry. I've counted on you while we've been here.”

“But you don't love me, do you?”

He smiled. He might have been asking about the weather from his expression. He knew the answer already, she realized, but he required himself to ask just in case. She looked at him carefully. She didn't want to hurt him, but she could no longer maintain the exercise of being with him.

“No, I don't love you, Henry,” she said as softly as she could.

“Do you think you could grow to love me? Isn't that what they ask in all the stories?”

“I don't dislike you, Henry. I'm fond of you. I don't have anything against you. Even that business with Amos . . . that's all forgotten. Let's not make this more uncomfortable than it needs to be. You may not believe it, but I tried to love you, Henry, but my heart isn't easily persuaded. My friend Estelle claims we all have a sun that we grow toward. She loves plants, so she thinks in those terms, but it's true.”

“And I'm not your sun?”

She didn't say anything.

“And the German soldier . . . he is your sun?”

She didn't say anything to that, either. Henry wiped his mouth with his napkin. He smiled and it was the same rueful smile he had possessed when he spoke about Amos.

“Well, the poor bastard, I feel sorry for him anyway. After this is finished, they're being sent off to London. It will be two years or more before they make it home. My father just gave me the report.”

She kept her eyes steady, although the news, delivered so offhandedly, shocked her. If August heard it he would be off to Canada the next day. He would not surrender to another two years of imprisonment and labor. Many of the men wouldn't.

“I knew that was a possibility,” she managed to say after another long moment. She put her spoon into her stew to cover herself.

“If you change your mind,” he said, “don't be shy about it.”

“Thank you, Henry.”

“Amos was right after all,” he said. “He always contended you had feelings for the German boy. I thought he was just saying it to be cruel.”

“I never meant to be cruel.”

He didn't say anything else, and when Hermione passed by again he asked her for the check.

Chapter Twenty-six

“I
t has been confirmed,” her father said beside the fireplace in Mrs. Hammond's boardinghouse. “I don't deny it, but Henry overstepped by saying anything. I needed the Brown Paper Company people to understand the men's position, and I probably said more than I should. But, yes, the prisoners will be transported to London aboard two ships. They won't be told until they are halfway across.”

“They will assume they are going home?” Collie asked, trying desperately to keep her voice level.

“They'll assume what they assume.”

“That's very cold of you to say it like that.”

Her father regarded her. He appeared tired, she realized. But a weight had also been lifted from his shoulders. They all saw the end of Camp Stark. It might be days, it might be weeks, but the ending advanced on them each hour just as the Allied forces broke off pieces of Germany and claimed them. There was a sense, almost, of school ending, a broad summer extending outward in its deliciousness. That weight had been lifted, but she understood she had brought him an additional burden.

“We're at war, Collie,” he said sternly. “These are men who fought against us. We have treated them humanely, which is more than I can say for their treatment of the Jews. They are being sent to clean up the devastation they wrought on a nation that is our ally. I have sympathy for these men, but only to a point. I know where my loyalty rests.”

Collie nodded. She could not press. He would intuit why she asked. He understood, furthermore, that it was a death sentence for many of the prisoners. It did no good to point that out to him. Who would know better the men's condition, their frailty? Weak and infirmed, they could not survive another two years of forced labor. The blow to their morale alone would be enough to kill many of them. All of that rested inside his orders. It was the weight of command.

The fire snapped once and a small puff of smoke escaped the draft. The fire was not needed. The afternoon had turned fine and warm, and now the fireplace lazily burned the last of a log end. In an hour the fire might be needed again, but for now it laid glimmering in the softening afternoon light.

Her father leaned forward in his easy chair. He had been reading the newspaper and it slipped from his lap. He caught it before it slid entirely off and repositioned it on his legs.

“Collie, I understand your concern. I do. But you were not supposed to have this information. Henry should not have told you that. The order might be overturned down the road. Didn't your mother always tell you not to climb a mountain until you come to it? It's like a great billiard game right now, with the balls rocketing every which way, slamming into each other. Sorry, that's a poor metaphor, but you get the idea. Nothing is certain for the time being.”

“But the order came in?”

“Yes,” he said, softening his voice so it would not pass to the sharp, owlish ears belonging to Mrs. Hammond, “but only as a point of information. It's not for public consumption, and the press knows nothing about it.”

“Can you imagine what it would feel like to believe you are on your way home and then suddenly to be told you are not going home after all but to a foreign country where you will again be regarded with suspicion and again be asked to work for slave wages?”

“Yes, it's regrettable. Staff is concerned the men will revolt.”

“Could you blame them if they did?”

He raised his handkerchief to his lips. He was a kind, decent man, she knew, but she could not help cornering him on these essential points. Still, it was wrong of her to do so; he could not countermand what came from above him. She must get hold of herself, she realized. Her mind passed to August. If he caught wind of these orders, he would leave. It was as simple as that. In his position, she would do the same thing. All of the men would.

“Listen, sweetheart, I'm sorry,” her father said. “I am. I know we've come to care about these men. I know you have feelings for the German boy. But these times are not like other times. You cannot judge things the same way. Besides, I have good news.”

“What news, Papa?”

“I have been transferred to Germany. It's nearly certain. As soon as the camp closes here, I'll be sent over. It looks like I will supervise a prisoner-of-war camp there, but for officers. It's all being worked out, but that's my next post.”

“Congratulations, Papa.”

“If you want to come with me . . . ,” he said, and said nothing else.

If you want to come with me,
she knew he wanted to say,
you might be able to see your German love in Europe.
That was his offer. In some way that wasn't quite clear, it was the balance he hoped to strike with her. She understood that. She looked at him carefully. She loved her father. His kindness, his soft, gentle demeanor, never meant more to her than it did in that moment. August had said the men respected him as commandant. Yes, he was a good, kind man working for the best interests of all concerned. It was not easy, but he did it as well as any man could do it.

She stood and went to him. She kissed his cheek.

“Thank you, Papa,” she said.

“Time makes everything right in the end.”

“I know, Papa.”

“It's a hard turn for the men, but they lost a war.”

“I understand.”

“Don't hate me for it.”

“I could never hate you, Papa. I hope you'll never hate me.”

She pushed away and went upstairs. She heard him turning the pages of the newspaper as she climbed the steps. She glanced once more at him and tried to commit the image to her memory, because, she feared, it would be a long time before she saw him again.

 • • • 

Estelle typed in the living room, close to the fireplace, so that the sound of the machine would not wake Hazel. She liked typing on the small table tucked close to the window where she could see the comings and goings outside, while still having the heat from the fireplace. She also enjoyed having the fireplace for a wastebasket; one mistake on the typescript and she simply pulled the paper from the platen, crushed it into a ball, then tossed it into the flames. She liked the finality of that. She wished all mistakes could be committed to a fire as simply as paper.

She glanced down at her notes and listened for Hazel. The child was an excellent sleeper, which was a mercy. She listened, too, for George; he would be home soon, banging and clanging, his step made stupid by drink, his keys a hum of metallic noise as he came through the door. She hoped he would not be too jolly. She had a deadline for early the next morning: the Ashtabula Board of Education had met on a bond proposal. The proposal had been floated as a remedy for a lack of space due to an increasing student population, but several of the board members had pointed out that with war expenses compounded by an unknown future, it was not the time for the town to borrow money. Estelle had several winning quotes and she looked for ways to fit them into the prose. It was like working at masonry, she felt, fitting things together, placing them just so before the mortar dried completely. Certainly it resembled masonry more than actual composition, she thought. Nevertheless, she found it rewarding work.

She was halfway through the article when George arrived, heralded by the slam of a car door and the small chimes of his keys. He was a great believer in locks, she reflected. He was never happier than when he was opening or closing something, securing it or breaking it free. A lesson about his personality rested in that understanding, but she wasn't sure she could name it satisfactorily. She forced herself to concentrate so that her fingers could be working the keys as he came through the door. She had learned that as a trick to keep him heading upstairs toward the bedroom.

But tonight it didn't work. He loomed in the doorway, a silly grin on his face, his right pocket pulled out like a rabbit ear extending from his hip. His scent came to her even from across the room: liquor and cigarettes, maybe perfume, maybe the heavy odor of laundry in need of change.

“Hey,” he said.

She looked up and smiled.

“It's Saturday night,” he said.

“So?”

“That's a night for . . . you know,” he said, coming slowly across the room to take a position with his back to the fire. “Saturday night . . .”

“You sweep a girl off her feet, George.”

He raised his eyebrows and smiled. She guessed he had been at the Duck.

“The deal's going through,” he said after a moment. “Put that in your paper. Put that in your
Bugle
,” he said, attempting a joke. “How do you like them potatoes?”

“Isn't the phrase ‘apples'?”

“I like ‘potatoes' better.”

“When you say ‘the deal,'” she said, trying to make herself speak rationally to him, “I assume you mean the golf course deal on the industrial property—”

“S'right,” he said, cutting her off.

“You should go to bed, George.”

“You can have anything in the world you want,” he said, marveling at the concept even as it crossed his lips. “Not yet, but soon. Anything.”

“I'm very grateful, George. You're a wonderful breadwinner.”

“Aren't I?” he said, rocking a little on his heels. “This road? Persimmon Drive? Ten houses. Around the golf course . . . thirty maybe. You do the math.”

“That's impressive,” she said.

He nodded. Then he changed subjects.

“How's the brat?”

“I wish you wouldn't call her that.”

“She is a brat. But she's our brat.”

“Still, it's not a good habit to get into. . . .”

“One more check of disapproval. I know a game we can play. It's Saturday night, so we can play games, can't we?”

“I have some work to do, George.”

“Of course you do . . . let's have one drink.”

“Maybe you've had enough.”

“You swill your share easy enough.”

“That's a fair point, George.”

He looked at her, apparently trying to focus. He was in rough shape. She worried that he might fall back on the fire.

“I'll get you a drink if you promise to sit down.”

“You have one, too.”

“Sure, I'll fix us both one. But you have to sit.”

“You never said how the brat was.”

“Hazel's fine,” Estelle said, standing and going to the portable bar they kept near the French doors leading out to a patio. “She's very sweet.”

“S'course she is.”

“You promised you'd sit if I fixed us cocktails.”

He nodded, then moved slowly to an easy chair. He collapsed a little as he sat down into it. He put his toes on the heels of his shoes and shot the shoes off toward the fire. They made a loud clumping sound. Estelle mixed two light drinks. She added extra soda in George's whiskey. She brought him the drink, half expecting him to be drowsy, but his eyes were open and his grin had returned.

“So we should play this game,” he said, “the one I proposed.”

“Okay, we'll play a game,” Estelle said, going back to her seat beside the typewriter. “How do you play?”

“It's easy. It's easy as Parcheesi,” he said, dumbly rhyming. “The whole thing is we try to go through an hour without you disapproving of me. How's that?”

“I don't disapprove of you, George.”

“Sure you do,” he said, and raised his glass. “That's no secret. You can't hide a thing like that. You married below yourself, Estelle.”

“George, this is ridiculous.”

“
Bshshhhh
,” he made a dismissive buzz with his lips. “The funny thing is, I'm going to make you rich, but you won't care a hang for it, will you? Money isn't the object, but I sure as hell don't know what the object is if it isn't money.”

“Maybe it's happiness.”

“Money will help make you happy, believe me. It's going to make Hazel happy, too.”