We are, as you may have heard, now officially under the control of the Red Cross.
Ruth Barrett is an expert politician and, I believe, equal to the task of making the Red Cross think they’re in charge while going on doing exactly what she wants to do. I just wish I knew for sure that what she wants to do is what I would like her to do. . . . It is particularly annoying having to run an organization through other people. They persist in having opinions of their own and those are not always what one would want those opinions to be. I have hopes of Kate Moran, but she’s young yet, and wants steadying.
Give the girls my love and tell them I’ll be home as soon as I may. I miss you all terribly.
—Mrs. Ambrose Rutherford （née Betsy Hayes）， ’96, former director, to her husband, Ambrose Rutherford, Esq.
March 1918
Paris, France
“You look like you need a biscuit,” said Mrs. Rutherford.
Kate sat down gingerly on a silk-covered chair. Mrs. Rutherford was staying in a very grand house in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, the sort with ceilings higher than the heavens, windows that went on forever, and wall panels edged in gilt. Mrs. Rutherford’s battered suit with its sagging skirt and pouching pockets was decidedly incongruous next to all the ormolu and marquetry. “I think you’re confusing me with Liza.”
“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Rutherford, rummaging in a large box and pulling out a battered packet of DeWitt’s rich tea biscuits. “I couldn’t possibly confuse you with anyone.”
There was something reassuringly mundane about that crumpled pack of cookies. The same couldn’t be said of the Greek gods holding court on the painted ceiling. “This is quite the place.”
“It’s on loan from an acquaintance. Cheaper than staying at a hotel,” Mrs. Rutherford added, handing Kate a biscuit. “This way, I can contribute my hotel fees to the Unit.”
She’d been here in Paris, all this time, donating money, chivvying reporters. But she’d left them on their own on one day’s notice.
“Why did you let them make you go?” It wasn’t what Kate had come to ask, but now that the question was out, she couldn’t stop. “If you’re still here, doing all this—why didn’t you stay?”
Mrs. Rutherford hesitated over two identical biscuits. She finally picked one. “You know that I was asked to resign.”
“Yes, but did you really have to listen?” There they had been, blundering their way along, freezing in barracks, desperately needing someone to give them guidance, while Mrs. Rutherford had been here, in this palace that looked like something out of the court of Louis XIV. “Or did you just not want to be there anymore?”
“Oh, my dear,” said Mrs. Rutherford, which was somehow nearly as infuriating as the room itself. “Do you really think I would leave you all just when we’d finally arrived?”
“But you did.” Kate felt like a child. All those hard months, all the desperation and having to be resourceful, all the trying and trying and feeling like she was always failing, every small victory followed by a new setback, rushed in on her, making her feel light-headed and close to tears.
“I didn’t want to go. I wasn’t left much choice.” Mrs. Rutherford toyed with the handle of the coffeepot. Like the rest of the items in the room, it was a museum piece, whisper-thin Limoges, a world away from the thick red-and-white pottery of Grécourt. “I’ve had some . . . hiccups in my past.”
“Hiccups?” Kate frowned at their former director. Hiccups seemed unnecessarily frivolous.
“Peccadillos might be the better word.” Mrs. Rutherford looked up at Kate over the coffeepot. “Not everyone approves of women making their own way—and that includes some Smith women. My archaeological career has been a cause, in the past, for some raised brows.”
Kate’s cookie tasted like ash. “You were who you were when you founded the Unit. That didn’t stop anyone then.”
“You can’t put anything past a Smith woman,” said Mrs. Rutherford ruefully. “We train you all far too rigorously. More sloppy habits of mind might be a boon in certain circumstances. . . . You may have heard that I was caught in Greece during the Greco-Turkish War.”
Kate eyed Mrs. Rutherford warily. “I heard you were decorated by the queen of Greece for your bravery.”
“She’s a wonderful woman, Queen Olga. I was.” Mrs. Rutherford sat up a little straighter, folding her hands in her lap. She looked directly at Kate. “And then I spent six months in a sanatorium in Switzerland, recovering.”