There was something about the way she said it. “For your health?”
“I was . . . not myself. The things I had seen—well, I don’t need to tell you. It was deemed prudent that I undertake a rest cure.” Mrs. Rutherford’s back was very straight, but the corners of her mouth trembled slightly before she got herself back under perfect control.
Kate squirmed uncomfortably on her chair. “Surely, no one could hold that against you.”
“Not that alone, perhaps.” Mrs. Rutherford took a deep breath. “But there were other . . . incidents. After my daughter was born—I was not in the easiest state of mind. I forgot things. I forgot my daughter. I left her in a stationery shop in Northampton. I got her back again,” she added. “She was entirely unscathed. She had a lovely hour being cooed at by the staff in the shop. But it’s the sort of thing that gets around.”
“That hardly seems—” Kate began.
“Oh, there was more.” Mrs. Rutherford crunched down hard on a biscuit. “I thought I could get through it by just carrying on, by working my way through the fog. I was teaching a class at Smith. There were days I couldn’t get out of bed to come to class at all, and when I did—I cried all the time. I could never tell when it would come on; my students started bringing extra handkerchiefs to class. It became a great joke with the students—but they weren’t terribly amused when I went to administer the final examination and found I had left all the examination papers at home.”
“You were that professor?” Even Kate had heard the stories. It was a legend on campus, the batty classics professor, or possibly a botany professor, or maybe even a French professor.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Rutherford resignedly. “I was that professor. People talked, of course. There were requests that I resign.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Not that time. But that was different. That wasn’t the fate of two thousand innocent people.” Mrs. Rutherford drew in a deep breath. “That’s what you’re really asking me, isn’t it? Why I didn’t fight to stay. I didn’t fight to stay because I knew if I did, it would tear the Unit apart. Or at least discredit our mission beyond repair. I had never imagined anyone would dredge up all that. It had been so long. But once they did . . . who wants a mission run by a woman society has condemned as unstable? That’s what they were saying, you know. That I was mad, that I had always been mad, that I couldn’t be trusted to make decisions.”
It was hard to look at her, to hear the naked pain in her voice.
“Everything we had done, all of our plans—they were all in danger of being dismissed as the ravings of a lunatic mind. And who knows?” she added whimsically. “Perhaps they’re right. In ancient Greece, there was a fine line between inspiration and madness—the sacred prophets speak truth and then run mad. . . . Biscuit?”
“No, thank you,” said Kate. She was still holding the first one. It was gummy and slightly crumbly in her hand. “You aren’t trying to alarm me, are you?”
“Perhaps just a little. But you see the problem?”
Kate could only nod. There had been a time or two, she remembered guiltily, when she had wondered if Mrs. Rutherford, with her enthusiasms, her sweeping ideas, was entirely sane. Those whom the gods touched indeed.
“So, you see,” said Mrs. Rutherford. “I had no choice. The only thing I could do was ensure that I left the Unit in good hands.”
“Dr. Stringfellow?”
“No. I mean you. I fought for you, you know. I made it a condition of my going that you take on the baton. Under Ava, of course.”
“But why? We’d barely just arrived—I hadn’t even been sure about coming in the first place.”
“Because I’m a very good judge of character,” said Mrs. Rutherford complacently. “And because you made Madame find us all space at the hotel.”
“Anyone would have—”
“No, they wouldn’t. They’d have scattered to a dozen other hostelries and broken up the Unit before it even started.”
Kate opened her mouth to argue and then closed it again. It was true. But even if Mrs. Rutherford was right about that, she was wrong about the rest of it.
“I managed the hotel,” Kate said, feeling her voice catch. “But that may have been the only thing I did right. We barely made it through the winter—so many members of the Unit have resigned—and Mrs. Barrett seems to think we need improvements.”