“You made it through the winter. Barely or not, you did. You kept the Unit there and working. Did you think it was a foregone conclusion? It wasn’t.”
“But the resignations . . .”
Mrs. Rutherford waved that aside. “Maud Randolph and Ethel Ledbetter were going to resign after six months anyway. There was never any question of that. Where Maud goes, Liza goes; it’s an inalterable law of nature and nothing to do with you. And Margaret Cooper was on my head.” Mrs. Rutherford’s face sobered. “I should have seen from the beginning that she wasn’t up to the work. Ruth Barrett has suggested evaluating more stringently for both physical and mental fitness—and she’s right.”
“She’s come in and changed everything,” said Kate in a low voice. “Pianos and maids and new schedules. . . . I really did try to do my best for the Unit.”
“Did?” Mrs. Rutherford sat up very straight, peering at Kate as though Kate were a particularly knotty Greek inscription. “The Unit still needs you. It needs you and Ruth. Hear me out. Ruth Barrett may seem frivolous, but she’s a brilliant diplomat. She’ll do what’s needed to butter up the Brits and keep the Red Cross happy—without letting them eat us whole. But she doesn’t have the sheer, dogged determination to wrangle the Unit forward. That’s you. You’re the one who holds it all together.”
Kate thought of Emmie, who hadn’t quite yet tendered her resignation, but might. She thought of Julia, hiding from Dr. Stapleton. “I wouldn’t say that,” she said hoarsely. “I’ve upset more people . . .”
“You can’t let that bother you,” said Mrs. Rutherford. “Not if you want to get anything done. If you want to be loved, don’t take on responsibility. But you can’t do that, can you? I’ve seen you. Your natural tendency is to lead. And to lead is to upset people. That’s just what it is.”
“What if you hurt people you care about?”
“To love is to forgive. I should know—I’ve been forgiven more times than I can count. Ava, for one. But that’s not a story you need to hear.” Mrs. Rutherford looked at her with a sisterly sort of compassion. “It’s one of the great lessons I’ve learned over years of blundering gloriously. True friendship isn’t abstaining from hurting one another, but forgiving each other when you do.”
“You make it sound so simple,” said Kate helplessly.
“Do I? It’s really quite the opposite. We’re all such masses of contradictions—we can barely understand ourselves, much less anyone else. And the more we care about someone, the more we have the capacity to wound them.” Recalling herself to the present, Mrs. Rutherford smiled determinedly at Kate. “You can blame me, if you like. I put a great deal on you when I chose you. But it was because I knew you capable of it. And you’re still capable of it.”
Kate shook her head, wishing she could see herself as Mrs. Rutherford saw her. “I can’t even get Florence her chickens.”
“That,” said Mrs. Rutherford, “is something I can solve. Bruised spirits are beyond my control, but poultry I can provide. Where did I put that pencil . . .”
The audience was over. Mrs. Rutherford provided Kate with a slip of paper with yet another address on it, told her not to mope, and chivvied her firmly toward the door.
“Thank you for the biscuit,” said Kate. “And the address.”
Mrs. Rutherford looked at Kate thoughtfully. “Do you remember the story of the oxcart of the kings of Phrygia?”
It took Kate a moment to remember what she was talking about. “You mean . . . the Gordian knot?” Closing her eyes, she recited what she could remember. “It was impossibly knotted and no one could figure out how to untie it—so Alexander the Great came along and sliced it open.”
“In some versions of the story, he pulls out the linchpin of the oxcart to free the rope. But slicing has far more élan.” Mrs. Rutherford rested her hands on Kate’s shoulders, looking deeply into her eyes. “You, Miss Moran, have a remarkable capacity for slicing knots. Don’t be afraid to draw your sword. Now go away and get on with the work that needs to be done.”
Kate was left staring at the beautiful wooden panels of the door, thoroughly bemused. She’d forgotten Mrs. Rutherford’s force of character. Mesmerism had nothing on it. The oxcart of the kings of Phrygia indeed.
But . . . it certainly had worked so far, this cutting of knots. Everything they’d accomplished had come of ignoring the official channels through which they were meant to do things and just going ahead and doing them, aggravating Red Cross officials and inflicting French bureaucrats with permanent dyspepsia. Go away and get on with the work that needs to be done. It wasn’t a very elegant motto, but it was a functional one.