Emmie backed down the path, bent nearly double to stay level with Kate. “She seems very capable.”
“I know. Alice says she serves a good dinner.” They staggered through one of the doors of the Orangerie, setting down the stove. Kate straightened, flexing her gloved hands. “Maud’s been wanting her here for a long time.”
Emmie glanced over her shoulder. “That doesn’t mean—well, what it might mean. We’re here now, and there are so many projects in hand—they’re not likely to move the Unit back to Paris now or put us into canteen work.”
“I hope not. With the Brits coming—we’ll see what happens. You did do a lovely job with the Christmas parties, Emmie. Captain Linoleum was an inspiration.”
“That was really Nell’s idea.” Emmie didn’t mention that Nell had wanted to call him Captain Duckwalk and provide him with a British flag. “I just found the linoleum roll.”
“And presents for everyone.” Someone was calling Kate. She paused a moment to add, “I know you’ve worked so hard on this. Thank you.”
That was very much the assistant director speaking, not her old friend Kate. It felt like a consolation prize. She might have messed up everything else, but at least she planned a good party.
Emmie pushed the thought away. It was a good party. It was an excellent party, really. The old Orangerie had been made beautiful by the foresters, who had decked it with all the greenery they could find, nestling candles amid sprigs of holly, stringing boughs and garlands everywhere. The meal was a simple one: cold ham and turkey, hot creamed potatoes in massive piles, bread and real butter, and even plum pudding with brandy butter. They’d learned their lesson after the debacle of the tooth mugs. No soups, no multiple courses, nothing fancy, just a good, hearty buffet.
Alice brought her Victrola out and cranked it up—not, Emmie noticed, Caruso this time, but popular songs, songs that people sang along to. People raised their voices to talk over the music, adding to the holiday air.
Kate and Julia were in the center of a group of aviators, one of whom was a distant cousin of sorts—Emmie vaguely remembered Julia terrifying him when they were children. The engineers, who had seen some rough action at Cambrai the month before, were being made much of by Liza and Alice. Anne was discussing woodworking with a Canadian forester, and Ethel was expounding on medieval heresies to the Quakers.
Dr. Stringfellow was in the midst of a loud but largely amicable debate with a doctor from the hospital at Amiens （for some reason, Kate had requested they not invite the hospital staff from Nesle, and Emmie had been mystified but complied）， and Alfalfa Bill, one of the Red Cross drivers, had just produced a mandolin, when one of the canvas flaps they were using for doors opened and in walked the Brits.
“The redcoats are coming!” called Red Cross Dave, and promptly fell backward off his chair.
They weren’t red; they were khaki. There was a senior-looking sort of man, with a great many medals and an extremely ferocious mustache, and a younger man, with very carefully arranged hair. And then there was Captain DeWitt.
Who was promptly pigeonholed by Maud. “You didn’t tell us you were a lord. My friend says—”
The Victrola hiccupped. Captain DeWitt looked at Emmie over Maud’s head, telegraphing extreme distress. Suddenly the lights seemed much brighter, the room warmer, the music louder. Everything resumed at double the speed.
“If you’ll excuse me,” Emmie said to the Canadian she’d been speaking to. “Nell—is it time to send out the goat?”
With a nod, Nell whisked outside and reappeared with Zélie, who looked like an illustration from a children’s book in tiered skirts and ruffled pantalets, her goat following along behind her on a beribboned leash. They’d decked Zélie’s pet goat, Minerva, with white panniers with big red bows, filled with Ramses cigarettes, a surprise treat for their guests.
There was a mad dash for the goat, everyone exclaiming over the cigarettes, and Emmie seized the opportunity to rescue Captain DeWitt from Maud. “Cigarette? I’m afraid these are ill come by. We had a parcel misdelivered to us and couldn’t figure out who they were meant to be for, so we decided we’d just distribute them broadly and make up for it that way.”
“Robin Hood with tobacco?” suggested Captain DeWitt, raising a brow. He seemed particularly tall and thin and British in his dress uniform, looking as though he’d stepped out of a bandbox rather than comfortably splattered with mud and herding cows.