Her roommate was sitting on her bed, surrounded by a welter of papers, a portable writing desk sitting on the coverlet beside her. But she wasn’t writing. She was just sitting there, her head bent.
“Emmie.” Kate’s voice sounded rusty. “Emmie, there’s something—I have to ask you—about these accounts—”
Emmie felt the world lurch around her as her stomach dropped down into her boots. She’d forgotten. With the captain and Miss Lewes and Liza, she’d forgotten about Kate and the accounts. About what Kate might find in the accounts.
“Kate, Miss Lewes is here!” Emmie dropped Miss Lewes’s carpetbag with a thud, effectively cutting off what Kate was about to say. They would talk later, Emmie promised herself. She would explain. She would. Somehow. And once she explained, Kate would understand it was all for the best. “I’ve told her she can room with us, since we’ve an extra bed since Margaret left. . . .”
Chapter Fifteen
We had thought we worked hard the rest of the week, but Sunday has become our most hectic day, because that’s the day when every man in the neighborhood comes to call. Last Sunday we had more than twenty men over for tea—French, British, and American, Quakers, engineers, cavalry, aviators, and civilians! This Sunday it was luncheon for twelve officers of the American engineers （roast beef, cauliflower cheese, and chocolate rice pudding—if you think it sounds good, it was） and a British Captain who wandered in for some reason or other and turned out to be the DeWitt of DeWitt’s biscuits! Our guest book is absolutely killing! You’d never believe the signatures we’ve collected. . . .
—Miss Alice Patton, ’10, to her sister, Mrs. Gilbert Thomas
November 1917
Grécourt, France
“Miss Lewes?” Kate’s muscles moved without conscious direction from her brain. Setting aside the paper she’d been holding, she rose from the bed, saying automatically, “Welcome to Grécourt. We didn’t expect you so soon.”
“My pass came through, so here I am! Is this my bed? Lovely.”
Emmie had fallen back behind the other woman, trying to make herself as small as possible.
A fund, Emmie had told her. A fund set up to pay living expenses and fees. Some of the girls were volunteering to pay their own way, to save the Unit expenses, but the money was there, part of the plan.
Not charity, Emmie had sworn. Impersonal funding donated by scores of Smith alumnae who wanted to do their bit but couldn’t go themselves. Money available to anyone.
A lie. All a lie. There was no fund. Everyone was paying her own way.
Everyone except Kate.
“That’s your washstand, Miss Lewes.” Kate felt thoroughly distracted, but the amenities had to be observed. Her voice sounded like it was coming from someone else, calm and normal, when she wanted to scream and howl. “The water tends to freeze overnight, but Marie’s son Yves brings us two cans of hot water every morning for washing.”
“Sounds like luxury,” said Miss Lewes, carpetbags underneath her cot. “Where can I keep my rabbits?”
“In the basse-cour, I would think. That’s where we keep our cows. Kate—” Emmie was wringing her hands like Lady Macbeth after a hard night of regicide, wringing and wringing them until Kate wanted to reach out and make her stop, just stop. “Kate, you should know—”
“Yes?” Every muscle in Kate’s body tensed. She both wanted to hear what Emmie had to say and was dreading it.
“Liza broke her collarbone,” Emmie blurted out.
“Her collarbone.”
“On the duckwalk, although Captain DeWitt says it isn’t really proper duckwalk, so maybe that’s why . . .”
Liza, duckwalk, broken bones—Kate’s brain felt like it had been stuffed with wool; nothing made any sense. “Captain DeWitt?”
“That Englishman we met at the hospital. He just happened to be passing by and gave Miss Lewes a lift.” Emmie was backing away, toward the door of the barrack. “Welcome again, Miss Lewes! I’ll tell the people in the Orangerie to ladle out an extra tooth mug of pumpkin soup for you. Unless you can have Liza’s—I’m not sure if she’ll be up to lunching. I’ll just go and check on her, shall I?”
With that, Emmie fled, letting the door bang shut behind her.
“A bit nervy, that one, isn’t she?” said Miss Lewes, looking after Emmie with interest from her perch on the cot. “Her eyes roll just like a colt I once knew.”