“That’s what we’ve been told, but they’ve been saying it constantly since you left, so we’ve just been going on pretty much as normal.”
Kate was shaking out her blankets, airing them after her long absence. “What does Captain Biscuit say?”
“His name is DeWitt.” Maybe it was because she knew Will was sensitive on the topic, maybe it was because she’d spent her whole life bearing the brunt of being her mother’s daughter, but it came out sharper than Emmie had intended. “And he doesn’t say anything. He can’t. You know that.”
“All right.” Kate smoothed down the topmost blanket. In the tone of one holding out an olive branch, she asked, “What else has happened since I left?”
“Well, you know it’s mostly been the planting.” Anything to keep Kate from digging into Will. Emmie found she deeply, deeply didn’t want to discuss Will with Kate. Because Kate would pick and pick and pick and Emmie didn’t think she could bear it. Emmie plunked down on her own bed, starting the complicated process of letting down her hair, which always wound up tangled around her pins. “We had the hardest time getting Canizy plowed—the French authorities were supposed to be doing it, but hadn’t, so I had to find the man in charge of the region, who turned out to be all the way across the river in Buney. He said he’d tractors, but no idea where to send them. I finally had to set up a sort of parlay at the old railroad crossing at Canizy—you know the spot—with the chef de tracteurs, the mayor, and all the women who own land, and we had to walk the fields, actually pace them out, with the owners pointing out marking stones or drawing lines in the dirt with their spades. You wouldn’t believe all the wrangling, but we finally got them all sorted out and the tractors in, and now they’re plowing away like anything. Florence has come to some sort of arrangement with the British to get it all harrowed next—did you even know there was such a thing as harrowing before we came here?”
“No,” said Kate. “Not at all. I thought vegetables came from the greengrocer.”
Emmie babbled on. “Nell and Anne are going great guns on their social centers—you’d never know Verlaines and Canizy. They’ve got climbing ropes and ladders for physical education—and even a cinema machine! You wouldn’t believe how popular it’s been. We’ve had Tommies wandering in pretending they were just passing by.”
Oh dear. She’d brought them back to the dangerous topic of Englishmen.
Emmie cast about for another neutral topic. “You’ll never imagine—Alice taught me to drive!”
“You’re driving?” Kate looked unflatteringly alarmed. “But you always said . . .”
“I know. But we can always use another driver. I’m only taking the wheel when there isn’t someone else.” Emmie caught herself before she could keep apologizing. There was nothing to apologize for. Why shouldn’t she drive? Will didn’t seem to see anything odd in her taking the wheel. He’d encouraged her in it. Emmie squared her shoulders. “It’s really not as hard as I thought it would be. Alice thinks I should go to Paris and get my license.”
“Hmm,” said Kate, and that single syllable hurt Emmie more than any number of words.
“We’ve been ridiculously busy since you left,” Emmie said stridently, wanting to show Kate what they’d done without her, what they could do. “Mrs. Barrett put us all on a new schedule, so we could take over the villages for the girls who aren’t here yet. I’ve had Douilly. It used to be Ethel’s, remember?”
Kate paused in drawing off her boots. “Yes, she wrote an article about it, didn’t she? All about the noble French peasant and the even nobler Smith woman.”
Emmie couldn’t help but bristle at Kate’s casual tone. “Well, she should have been working at it instead of writing about it. The conditions there are unthinkable. We’ve been delivering beds and mattresses for months, but there were children sleeping on floors.” It had broken Emmie’s heart to see them, covered with chilblains and sores.
“She certainly didn’t say that in her article,” said Kate slowly. “Or in her reports.”
“Are you sure?” It was the visitor’s job to report this sort of thing, to make sure appropriate medical care and supplies were delivered. The reports went to Kate, who then allocated whatever was needed. “She must have said something—put in for supplies—”