Kate shook her head wearily. “Apparently there were some issues in the past—the committee wasn’t sure Mrs. Rutherford was entirely stable. I don’t know all of it. Dr. Stringfellow wasn’t exactly forthcoming. She’s the new director now.”
“Oh.” Dr. Stringfellow was certainly competent—frighteningly competent—but Mrs. Rutherford had a magic about her, a way of making things happen when you thought they could never happen at all. Passes, army camions . . . The Unit without Mrs. Rutherford was unthinkable. Emmie was suddenly, desperately afraid. “Is—is Mrs. Rutherford staying on at all?”
“She wanted to. But Dr. Stringfellow thought it would be too divisive. So she’s going to go to Paris for a month in case we need her, and then back to the States to raise money for the Unit.”
“But we do need her. We need her desperately.” Emmie’s mind was roiling. She could write her mother—her mother’s name had authority, there was no denying it—although whether her mother would decide to help or not was entirely uncertain.
“Don’t you think we can manage without her?” Kate’s voice had a funny note to it.
“I don’t want to manage without her.” She sounded like a child. Emmie made a conscious effort to gather her wits about her. “Why were they asking for you? Are they telling us all one by one?”
“No.” Kate sat down, very slowly, on her cot. “Mrs. Rutherford had certain conditions before she would agree to go.”
“Conditions?” Margaret was snoring now, little snorts and hums.
“She wants me to take Dr. Stringfellow’s place as assistant director.”
“But—” But Kate hadn’t even wanted to come. She had no background in social work. This hadn’t been her project to begin with. Emmie looked over at Kate, looking so small, so braced for battle, and abandoned everything she had been about to say. “Congratulations. I’m sure you’ll do a brilliant job.”
“Mrs. Rutherford didn’t ask me for my brilliance. She asked me because she thinks I can keep the accounts and keep the machinery she’s set up running. She doesn’t want the Unit broken up and sold for scrap to the Red Cross.”
“Is that what she said?” Emmie wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or offended on Kate’s behalf.
“In that many words. Dr. Stringfellow is too busy with the medical end of things to manage everything that needs to be managed—so they need someone practical to run the day-to-day. That’s all. I think she wants me because I don’t have a vision of my own.”
“Do you think we’ll be able to go on without her?”
Kate rose, pressing the wrinkles out of her skirt with her hands. “I’ll have to see that we do.”
“We’ll have to see that we do.” Impulsively, Emmie reached out and took her hand. “We’re all in this together.”
Except for Fran, who had left. And Alice, who had gone with her. And Margaret—Emmie glanced down at her blanket-wrapped form. Hopefully Margaret would feel better in the morning, as long as the sleeping powder didn’t give her a terrible headache.
Emmie decided not to mention any of that. “I’m sure you’ll be a wonderful assistant director.”
And she was. Mostly.
“Thank you.” Kate let go of Emmie’s hand. “We’ll see how long I last. I’m sure Maud will waste no time writing the committee about me.”
Chapter Thirteen
We have been driving and driving and driving. Liza and I have become milkmen as well as peddlers. We spend half the day taking milk to girls with Boche babies and the other half taking the doctors on their rounds. I can’t tell you the misery of driving in the falling dark with the rain coming through the open truck and the wind howling like anything—and it’s only October! I don’t want to think what it will be like come Christmas. But maybe by then . . . we’ll see.
There’s no rest for anyone as we’re a depleted group. Mrs. Rutherford is gone for good. One girl had to leave as her mother died and another went with her to keep her company. Another girl had a breakdown—a real breakdown—and had to go to Paris for her nerves. The official line is that she’ll be back, but I wouldn’t put money on it. And our agriculturalist still hasn’t arrived. It’s really quite dire. We’ve got seventy-two chickens and not a one has laid an egg in the three weeks we’ve had them. One of the girls—the one in charge of the dairy!—mistook a cow for a bull simply because it had a ring through its nose.