Page 93
Emmie nudged a duffel with her toe. “The driver said it was Hague trunks full of relief supplies—twenty-seven of them.”
“Hague trunks?” That was enough to give Kate the energy to lift her head. This was proper aid, under the aegis of the Hague Convention, not the usual amateur rubbish. “Glory be. We can replace what’s been soaked in the cellars. Thank heavens it’s Hague supplies and not more parcels from the Bangor Committee.”
An alumna from Maine had posted a doggerel verse in the alumnae magazine, urging everyone to empty their attics for the Smith Unit, and since then they’d been inundated with moth-eaten fur stoles, calico bonnets, and other items both unsuitable and unusable. Some of it, Anne had managed to convert to rags for the growing rag-rug industry she was fostering among the villagers, but much of it was simply absurd. Who needed someone’s great-grandmother’s nubia? Kate wasn’t even sure what a nubia was—whatever it was, her great-grandmothers hadn’t owned one. She’d had Alice sorting through the rubbish.
Which reminded her . . . Kate looked up at Emmie, who was trying to drag Dr. Clare’s duffels into a neat line where they wouldn’t impede Anne’s classes. “Do you know what’s bothering Alice? She looks like she’s been crying.”
“She’s missing Liza and Maud, I think,” said Emmie carefully, not meeting Kate’s eyes. “They’re the closest she had to friends here. And there’s the shelling. The shelling is getting on everyone’s nerves.”
“Except Florence,” said Kate, wondering what it was Emmie wasn’t telling her. “As far as I can tell, she’s completely nerveless. She even slept through that bombardment last night. Are you sure that’s all that’s wrong with Alice?”
Emmie considered for a moment. “Don’t say that I said anything, but she’s had some news from home.”
“No one’s died, have they?” Kate asked, alarmed. With Liza gone, they were down to two drivers, at least until the new girls arrived.
“No.” Emmie shook out her skirts, trying to decide how much to say. “Her sister is having a baby.”
“But isn’t that good news? I would think that was good news.”
Emmie sank down on the trunk next to Kate. “It would be, but Alice’s sister’s husband used to be Alice’s beau, and Alice feels it rather. She wants to be happy for them, but it’s hard. And now, with the baby—well, you see. It makes it all feel so much more final.”
Kate would have thought it would have been final from the moment of “I do” but refrained from pointing that out.
“She’s not thinking of leaving, is she?” If Alice left—they’d have to take Liza up on her offer to put off her canteen work and come back and drive for them.
“No, quite the contrary. She can’t bear to go home. I think that’s why she joined in the first place,” Emmie added, lowering her voice and looking over her shoulder, just in case Alice might enter. “So they wouldn’t know she minded.”
“We’ll just have to keep her too busy to fret. That shouldn’t be a problem once we finally get some essence—we’ll be short-handed until the new people finally get here.” Anne, Gwen Mills, Nell, Florence, Alice, and Julia had all signed back on; Kate had their contracts on her desk. “Oh, that reminds me. I need your contract.”
“About that . . .” Emmie traced circles in the dirt on the floor of the Orangerie with the toe of her boot. “I’ve been thinking and thinking and thinking about it, and I’m not sure I should.”
“Should what?” Kate was mentally shuffling schedules, only half listening.
“Renew my contract.” As Kate stared at her, Emmie said diffidently, “I’ve been thinking—maybe I should join the others in Paris. Maybe I would be more use doing canteen work.”
“But you would hate canteen work.” Kate couldn’t get her head around the idea of Emmie not renewing, couldn’t think why Emmie was even talking about it. “You’ve always said that wasn’t the point of the Unit.”
“It’s not the point of the Unit”—Emmie was twisting and twisting her hands—“but there’s nothing that says I need to stay with the Unit. The Unit can go on being the Unit, and I can go . . . serve soup.”
“But why on earth— This isn’t anything to do with Captain DeWitt, is it?”
Kate had seen them coming into the Orangerie together at the Christmas party, Emmie all pink-cheeked. Emmie had entirely refused to be drawn on the topic, not even when letters started arriving from Captain DeWitt on a practically daily basis.
“Why would he have anything to do with it?” asked Emmie, genuinely confused.
Kate wasn’t entirely sure herself, other than that it was something Emmie had been keeping to herself, and it was killing Kate that Emmie wasn’t talking about it. After all, who knew what Captain DeWitt’s intentions were? And Emmie could be so credulous. “All those letters he’s been sending you—he didn’t say anything about our position here, or the war . . . ?”
“You know all the letters are censored. So no one can say anything, really.”
“He sends awfully thick letters for someone who can’t say anything.” Kate wished she hadn’t said that; she’d meant to pretend she hadn’t noticed. But she couldn’t help seeing how thick they were, those missives.
Emmie didn’t seem to notice her blunder. “We write about books. And poetry. Just not Shakespeare. We haven’t descended to Shakespeare.” Emmie shook her head, as if trying to clear it. “It’s nothing to do with any of this.”
“Then why? I don’t understand.” The idea of Emmie’s leaving the Unit was unthinkable. Emmie had been there from the beginning; she was the Unit.
“Do you remember Dr. Stringfellow’s Santa notes?” When Kate looked at her blankly, Emmie went on determinedly, “Everyone else had something good that they did—Nell had her books and Anne had her carpentry and Maud had the store, and, oh, you know. But the only things there were to say about me were the things I got wrong—picking the wrong chickens and getting lost in the snow. . . .”
“But those were meant to be a joke.” Kate could barely remember now what had been said; it was all a blur of laughter and good fellowship. She did remember Nell making fun after. . . . “Didn’t she call you the angel of the barrack?”
