“Why fishing line?”
“Because we didn’t have yarn to waste. We wanted to make it all more special for them, not just handing each child a gift, but making, well, a bit of a production of it. We’ve made a sort of screen and labeled the gifts according to age, and each one will get a go with the fishing rod—”
Captain DeWitt was listening to her ramble on, listening as if every word meant something, and Emmie realized how silly it must all sound. The ruins of the outbuilding reproached her, falling ceilings and missing walls. There were men dying only a few miles away. And here she was, going on about toys and fishing line.
She looked hopelessly at him. “It all sounds very trivial, doesn’t it, in the midst of all this? But we just wanted to give them, oh, I don’t know. Something to make up for all those years without. Something . . . wonderful.”
“I think it sounds wonderful.” He was looking at her in a way that made her feel like she’d just come out of the gloom into strong sunlight. “I think you’re wonderful.”
“No, I’m not—oh goodness, you have no idea. I wish—” Emmie had to clamp her lips shut to keep it from all pouring out, Margaret and Courcelles and the snowstorm. All the mistakes she’d made, all the dangers she’d brought on them.
Very gently, Captain DeWitt asked, “Is something the matter?”
Any excuse, Kate had said. The British would take any excuse to evict them from the war zone.
Emmie blurted out, “Is it true that you’re taking over our zone from the French?”
Captain DeWitt sat back. She could feel him move away from her, sitting very still and straight. “Where did you hear that?”
“Here and there,” said Emmie vaguely, wishing she hadn’t said anything, that they could go back to talking about fishing line and how wonderful she was.
Captain DeWitt leaned his head back, staring up at the hard silver sky. “So much for secrecy. I’m sure the kaiser has it down on his calendar already.”
“Does that mean yes?”
“Possibly.”
That meant yes. Emmie stared down, folding and refolding her hands in her lap. She couldn’t seem to figure out what to do with her thumbs, of which she suddenly had ten. “They say you don’t believe in women in the war zone. The lot of you, I mean. Not you personally.”
Captain DeWitt waited a moment before speaking; she could feel him weighing his response. “As a rule, yes. If we have to rally around and protect you, we lose valuable time and resources.”
Which was just what Kate had been saying. Emmie looked at him with alarm. “But we don’t need you to rally around and protect us. We’re not those sort of women. Really, we’re not.”
Captain DeWitt raised a brow. “What sort of women are you?”
“Smith women,” said Emmie firmly. When that didn’t seem to make the desired impression, she translated for him, “We’re rather like Oxford women, I suppose, only without the accents.”
“Oxford has women’s colleges, yes,” Captain DeWitt said slowly. “My sister is in her final year at Somerville. But the university doesn’t award degrees to them.”
Emmie was horrified. “That’s barbaric! It’s positively medieval!”
That surprised Captain DeWitt into a laugh, a rich chuckle that cleared the shadows from his eyes and made him look years younger. “Says the colonial.”
“We haven’t thrown tea in the harbor for ages—but I have my degree and I have the right to vote. In New York, at least,” Emmie amended.
“That’s all very well,” said Captain DeWitt, laugh lines fanning out around his eyes as he looked down at her. “But not precisely applicable here. You can’t vote away an invading German army.”
Emmie perked up, struck by the idea. “Wouldn’t it be nice if one could? If we could just vote them away? If all the women of the world could vote, we’d have far fewer wars.”
“I’m not sure Madame Defarge would agree with that,” said Captain DeWitt drily. “Or Milady de Winter. I can’t tell you anything about what will happen here when the shift occurs—mostly because I don’t know.”
She noticed that he said when, not if. “Do you think we’ll be allowed to stay?”
“You know I can’t comment on that.”
Emmie looked up at him, her eyes meeting his. “That won’t stop me asking.”
“Do you mean to wear me down?” he asked, and somehow, he was holding both her hands in his.