At intermission, the crowd jumped up, clapping. And I thought my sons might perish of excitement when Roosevelt came backstage, press agents in his wake. “Dee-lightful, Mrs. Chanler,” the former president said. “There aren’t enough plays for children that teach American history.”
“Quite so, sir,” I said, flattered but never flattened by the attentions of any man.
An awestruck Emily Sloane, however, babbled incoherently. To put her at ease, Roosevelt continued, “Lafayette’s career is a lesson in international morality, which is in short supply these days. You ladies are doing important work at the Lafayette Fund, and I’d like to help.”
Emily was so nervous that several pieces of paper slipped from her hands. While she fumbled to retrieve them, I said, “Marvelous, sir! I’ll be happy to put you on the committee of your choice.”
“Good. Put me to work.” Roosevelt gave a grin that was all teeth. “Say, I haven’t heard from Willie in ages. How is the old boy? I hear he’s going on a trip to Scotland for hunting hounds. Glad to know he’s back on his feet after that injury. Fall from a horse, was it?”
Furious that the former president knew more about my husband’s health and whereabouts than I did—not to mention being unable to explain the accident—I gave a practiced little laugh that could’ve meant anything. “You know Willie . . .”
Photographers drew near, flashlamps firing. “Speech, speech!”
The former president pointedly ignored this, turning to the adoring children gathered at his knee. “I want to thank you for your war relief work. I wish adults did as much as you.” He patted little heads and started to take his leave, then changed his mind. “There is something I wish to impress on you children. That is to never be neutral between right and wrong. Never oppress anybody, or allow anybody to be oppressed. Always stand for what you believe is right, and never flinch in the face of any odds.”
Never be neutral between right and wrong. There it was. The quote that would make the papers. Words aimed straight at his rival and my critics. Miss Sloane said we needed the attention of important political men—well, we had it now. So much for Mitzi Miller’s biting society column. This was going to make the national news above the fold.
In the main foyer—after receiving rounds of adulation and bouquets of flowers—as Miss Sloane and I walked the marble halls between rows of elegant hanging lanterns, she asked, “You knew Roosevelt was coming, didn’t you?”
“I only hoped. It’s why I cast Roosevelt’s grandnephew as one of the militiamen. I guessed the former president would be champing at the bit to vent his political spleen, so I gave him a stage upon which to do it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to disappoint you if I was wrong, and I wanted the pleasure of seeing your astonished expression if I was right.”
“Beatrice,” she said, “this is going to touch off a real discussion in this country about our neutrality policy . . . People underestimate you.”
I smiled. “Something we have in common.”
Just that moment, my sons came up the stairs, and Billy was beaming. “President Roosevelt shook my hand!”
“I saw that, darling,” I said, kissing the top of his head. “And I saw him whisper something to you too.”
Billy nodded. “He said: I hope you will grow up to be as great an American hero as your father and your cousin Victor.”
Billy actually gulped.
It’d been hard enough for him to walk in Lafayette’s shoes. To think my son must also live up to the reputation of an absent father’s long-ago battlefield exploits . . . and his cousin in the trenches, well, how could a stuttering boy imagine he might measure up? I never wanted my boys to believe that heroism was only about fighting. I wanted them to know bravery could be found in working to make a difference, whether on a stage or by risking themselves over a mine-laden sea. I wanted them to look for courage not just in their father’s example, but also . . . in mine.
I had other reasons, of course—the Lafayette Fund, the Chapmans, Miss Sloane—but it was this that decided me.
Damn the torpedoes; I was going back to France.
PART
TWO
ELEVEN
BEATRICE
Bordeaux
April 1915
Miss Sloane was green as pea soup.
Which may, in fact, have been what she heaved over the rail of the ship as we chugged into the French port. We’d taken an early booking on the SS Rochambeau—not as swift as the Lusitania, but when we weren’t zigzagging to avoid the kaiser’s submarines, it’d been full steam ahead. There’d been rough seas, but no torpedoes. Still, my traveling companion was in such a wretched state, I would’ve suspected morning sickness in any other girl.