Not that there was anything wrong with good, honest labor. But it made her feel as oversize and awkward as the time Auntie May had pretended to mistake one of her dancing slippers for a boat.
“Anne got a look-in too,” said Kate. “You waxed eloquent about the children not knowing how to play anymore.”
“Did I?” asked Anne, and Emmie bit her tongue to keep from pointing out it hadn’t been Anne; it had been Emmie. It shouldn’t matter, of course. What mattered was that it had been said. “I mostly remember swatting him out while I was trying to teach the five-to-eights.”
Kate raised her voice to be heard over the commentary. “‘Far from resenting the advice of ces dames Américaines, the people have already come to love them and look to them for guidance of every sort. After three years of bitter loneliness, suffering, and oppression at last someone is really taking a personal interest in them. No wonder they are grateful.’”
There was a moment of quiet as the words resonated around them.
“Mawkish rubbish,” said Julia, breaking the silence. “Did they pair it with a drawing of a draggle-haired infant?”
“Three draggle-haired children,” corrected Kate.
“Oh, don’t,” said Emmie, feeling a rush of guilt for her pettiness. What did it matter who did what, when this was the result? What if she was muscular? “I think it’s—he understood exactly. Everyone else just sees these poor people as being in the way of the war. But we’re here for them. Whatever we do or don’t do, that’s something, isn’t it?”
Kate set down the paper. “Yes,” she said, and for once, Emmie felt as though she understood, really, truly understood. They might have had different ways of getting at it, but Kate felt it too, why they were here. “More than something.”
“I should say so!” said Maud indignantly. “When I think of waking at six thirty to load up that blasted truck and getting soaked to the skin driving about in all weathers, I should think they should jolly well give us a medal!”
“Or at least some rain hats,” said Nell, grinning. “Mine’s got more holes in it than a cheese grater. It doesn’t so much keep the rain out as gently disperse it.”
“Just think of it as a hair wash,” said Kate, pushing back her chair, which heralded a general folding of napkins and brushing off of crumbs. “It saves time.”
“I’ll just tuck some soap underneath next time,” said Nell. “We can patent it when we get home and call it a time-saving device. What do you think, girls? Nature’s own shower.”
“Yes, with all funds to go to the Unit,” said Emmie gamely, trying to get in on the joke.
Maud rolled her eyes. “You’re all mad. I’m going to go set the tables in the Orangerie. Someone has to prepare for our guests.”
“I,” said Kate, “am going to tackle the Unit’s official correspondence. I’m weeks behind.”
“Weeks behind?” Maud looked pointedly at Kate. “That’s a fine face the Unit is putting to the world.”
“If you’d like to answer all the correspondence, be my guest,” said Kate, dropping her napkin onto the table. “You can tell Mrs. Patterson from Sheboygan why we haven’t received her parcel of twenty-five hand-knitted mufflers—and put in all the paperwork for renewing our permits with five separate agencies, none of which use the same form.”
“Don’t they?” asked Anne Dawlish with genuine interest. “Someone ought to suggest it to them.”
Maud folded her arms across her chest, staring at Kate. “We need a director who can properly represent the Unit—not someone who lets letters sit for a month.”
But she hadn’t, Emmie wanted to say. Night after night, after a full day of driving the truck, Kate sat hunched next to their tiny stove, trying to thaw out her hands and the ink, scratching out replies by the meager light of one lamp. Sometimes, Emmie would wake in the morning to find Kate with ink on her cheek, having fallen asleep on the letter she was trying to write.
“If Mrs. Rutherford were here,” said Kate, staring at Maud with palpable dislike, “she would handle all of this. But she’s not.”
And they all knew why.
Anne Dawlish checked the watch pinned to her breast. “Goodness, is that the time?”
“Tooth mugs!” sang out Nell, clunking dirty dishes together with reckless enthusiasm. “Everyone bring me your tooth mugs! We haven’t nearly enough bowls for the pumpkin soup, so we’re going to have to slop it into the mugs, and so much for style.”