“Come now, I told you that I had a surprise,” he said, taking a letter out of his breast pocket with the seal of the United States embassy on it. “A little gift for you.”
* * *
—
I returned to Emily’s apartment in a state of stupefaction and found her perched over the baby’s cradle. In a hushed tone so as not to wake the child, I murmured, “The American ambassador wants to send me north. I’ve been asked to do some work in the war zone of the British Army—near your husband’s chateau.”
As angry as I was at Willie, my skin prickled with excitement as I explained the mission. On the pretext of business for the Lafayette Fund, I was to go near the front, earn the confidence of the British officers, and report back a great many things about our new allies.
Willie had been doing this kind of thing for years, using his personal charm and his fortune to keep his thumb on the pulse of global politics, reporting back to his contacts at the highest echelons of government. Now he was giving me the opportunity to do the same. Even if it was just Willie’s way of keeping me from getting on a ship, could I refuse?
“I don’t suppose you’d like to come,” I teased Emily.
“I can’t,” she murmured distractedly.
“Of course not, you have the baby and—” She turned to me, and the look on her face stopped the words in my throat. “What’s wrong? Has Amaury been hurt?”
She shook her head. “He’s been chosen for a mission to the United States to coordinate French and American air forces. It’s been suggested that I go with him.”
“Wonderful!” It would do her good to see her family after nearly two years’ separation. More importantly, Emily knew precisely which captains of industry to press for help in equipping aviators and coordinating this new mode of warfare. Amaury’s command of English was excellent, but his wife’s connections would prove most valuable. New Money or not, she could open doors for a French delegation, to say nothing of the way she could shift public sentiment with the lantern slides of the destruction here in France that she’d been preparing.
How gratifying that after having both tried so hard to be useful, we were both now needed. How ironic that we should both be called upon in the same moment, flung in opposite directions. “Well, you must go, of course.” Alarmed to see her tremble, I quickly added, “They’ll send you by military ship. You won’t be as defenseless as on a passenger vessel.”
Her gaze dropped to her sleeping child, and I realized it wasn’t fear that made her tremble. “I can’t abandon Anna, and I couldn’t possibly take a four-month-old baby across the sea.”
No, she couldn’t. Quite apart from the risk of submarine warfare, there was the potential for illness in the company of so many travelers, against which infants had so little defense. I knew what a sacrifice it was to be parted from one’s children, even in the care of a trusted nurse. I was painfully tempted to tell her to refuse on the grounds of motherhood. That’s what everyone else would tell her. But she relied upon me to remind her that no father would be excused from duty. We had, from the start, believed ourselves just as capable as men, and she’d never forgive herself if motherhood took that belief away from her. “Emily, you mustn’t think you’re abandoning your child. You’re answering a call to make the world better for her.”
“Do you think that’s how Anna will remember it?”
Watching the babe curl her little pink fists under her chin, I thought of Marthe and how I’d left her behind at Chavaniac. “She won’t remember it at all,” I said, as much to convince myself as Emily. “She’s too young for it to leave the slightest impression.”
“What if . . .” Emily trailed off, as if calculating the odds. “Last spring when Amaury’s plane was hit by shrapnel, I realized that one day soon he might not be so lucky and my daughter would grow up without a father. I’ve reassured myself that she’d have me, but if we’re both lost at sea, she’ll have no one.”
“Anna would have her grandparents and her aunts, and of course she’d have me.”
Emily smiled gratefully. “But you are going close to the front lines . . .”
“Not too close, but it would comfort me to know, if the worst should happen, my children would have you, wouldn’t they?”
“Of course!” Emily wrapped her arms around herself in a torment of indecision. “Amaury’s mother has agreed to watch over the baby, but if I leave, what kind of mother will people say I am?”