The siren clanged, waking me from a deep sleep to the darkened cabin of my stateroom. Below me Rosie groaned, sitting up suddenly and hitting her head on my low-slung bunk. I dropped to the floor, feeling around in the dark for my shoes and Red Cross cape. I had long since stopped preparing for bed in the manner approved by Nanny – hair sedately braided, white nightgown demurely buttoned to the neck. I now went to bed partially dressed, and ready for what had become a habitual interruption of the night. In the familiarity of the drill, I had begun to forget that there was a real danger out there at sea --- that lurking beneath the Atlantic waves were the German U-boats.
Dutifully, we made our way through the darkened ship, the narrow hallways crowded with passengers making the similar trip, uniforms of all kinds interspersed with various civilian attire, all of us groggy with sleep. Rosie and I climbed up three sets of stairs to find our post at a lifeboat on the starboard side of the ship. Across the water I could dimly make out the outline of the ships that were our escort, equally dark and equally loud with squalling alarms. Out from the snug warmth of my bunk, the winds of the November night blew around me, my navy blue cape providing little relief from the wind. The whole Red Cross contingent was assigned to this life boat, and our chaperone, Miss Ford, was looking over her charges with an eagle eye, no less relentless than the one she had given us at the pier before boarding the ship in New York. Then, as now, she was a small, upright figure who was always impeccably attired, but unreachable as if behind a sheet of impenetrable glass. We seemed always to disappoint her expectations no matter how hard we might try. I was still trying, while Rosie had never even made the attempt.
“Miss Winthrop,” her voice cracked across the wailing siren and the North Atlantic wind. “Where is your hat?” I reached up, and felt my uncovered head, the red strands blowing uncontrollably. “You are not to appear on deck without it, no matter what the circumstances.”
“Yes, Miss Ford,” I replied meekly, accustomed to years of adults trying to correct my attire.
Her gimlet gaze now turned to Rosie leaning against the railing, ensconced in her cloak and shivering uncontrollably. “And Miss Bennett.” Her hand reached out and pulled open her cape revealing a red evening dress. “Words fail me.” But Rosie only closed her cape again and turned around, looking defiantly at the rolling Atlantic.
There was a sudden silence as the all-pervading claxon stopped, and we seemed caught in a silence of wind and wave. Too cold to speak, we passengers crept back into the ship to our staterooms, and some hope of warmth and sleep. Had it been a real alarm or just a drill? We would never be told, and would never know if one of those dark, lurking ships with their torpedoes had really been there or not, shadowing us on our way to France like large metal sharks. In some ways not knowing made it easier to pretend that they were not there at all.
Wordlessly, Rosie and I climbed back into our bunks, Rosie shedding the forbidden red dress for her nightgown, purposely not looking at me. I climbed back into the welcome warmth of my bed, turning on my side and pulling the covers up over my frozen ears.
The vibration of the ship’s engines permeated the cabin, and in my growing warmth I drowsily thought about my other Atlantic crossings. Those had always been taken in the warmth of summer; Mamma fashionably dressed lounging in her assigned deck chair while Arthur, James, Trixie and I roamed the first class section, Nanny keeping an unobtrusive eye on us. There had been a sense of freedom on board that we had not had at home in Chicago, especially for we two girls. The ship was finite, and there were many watchful eyes besides Nanny’s to keep an eye on our behavior. Now there was only one set of watchful eyes, those of Miss Ford. Rosie fiercely resented her, but I was reminded of Nanny, the ever present guardian of my youth, and I did not mind. I was used to orders and supervision. There was at least one thing about my past that was proving useful in the present.
I smiled slightly when I thought of Papa. He would be horrified that a Winthrop had been put in an inside cabin, and what is more had the second seating at dinner. He would have made the ship turn back before he accepted the second seating, and probably would have fired Mr. Carusi the moment he reached shore. Poor Mr. Carusi, who had hovered nervously over all the preparations for our trips to the continent. Not only did he have to please Mr. Arthur Winthrop but there was the shadow of my even more imperious grandfather, James Winthrop, a figure of great prominence in the Chicago business world, looming in the background.
In spite of the drills, the exacting Miss Ford, and the grayness of a winter Atlantic, I still felt a growing sense of exhilaration as every day the ship moved farther and farther away from home. In my case, the known – the life in the house on Ellis Avenue – was much more frightening than the unknown, even if it meant a German torpedo.
The house on Ellis Avenue. Home. I could see it so clearly in my mind’s eye, although Chicago was now a world away. Somehow I always saw it as it had been that afternoon I came home to face Papa – the yellow bricks dulled in the waning evening light, the house crouching on the corner massive and shielding.
It was James who had given me my final push. He had come home one day, slamming the front door in his haste, bounding up the stairs two at a time. He had rushed into the third floor playroom breathing hard. I had taken over our old playroom as my own, surrounding myself with the books which were both my education and my escape, and my desk where I lost myself writing about other people and other worlds. In addition, I had placed an old table in the middle of the room which had once been used for stretching curtains. On it I had mounted a map of Europe, and twice a day with the morning and evening papers in hand, I would mark the contending armies with multicolored pins. I had been doing this since the European war had begun in 1914, and was now even more assiduous than ever since the United States’ entry into the war in April. Papa would not have been pleased with this war-like interest in what should have been a gently raised young lady. But then he never came to the third floor, and I was safe in its old familiar walls.
Pins in hand, I looked up as James rushed into the room. I was startled. He looked like the man who had left for Plattsburg two years before --- bright, eager, filled with excitement, bringing the June sunshine in with him. Gone was the solemn, resigned man who walked out the door to his job in the family steel mill each morning, going from the rules of our father’s house, to the exacting control of our mill-owning grandfather. What would have been a joy for Arthur had been a heavy and difficult burden for James. He had hated everything involved with the making of steel.
I had been surprised two years before when he had momentarily found the courage for rebellion, only the second time I could remember. One of his friends had heard about the Plattsburg Movement, a volunteer society formed to train civilians for leadership in war. James was immediately on fire, insisting on taking a leave of absence from work to attend this three week military training camp for civilians in upstate Plattsburg, New York. I had silently applauded his revolt, seeing once again the boy who had read and dreamed about King Arthur and Charlemagne, but Papa was dead set against it. He remained so, always afraid that his life would change if he did not have a son to offer up on the altar of steel. Grandpapa had also been against it at first, but when he heard the volunteers were from the cream of New York and Chicago society he relented. The final push came when he found these young men were being called modern Minute Men. But while he would give James his leave of absence, he would give him no money for his food or uniforms which the volunteers had to provide. James happily emptied his bank account, and I stood by with my meager store of money to help if needed.
James had gloried in the training where he had met two Roosevelt offspring and the mayor of New York City. He had laughed when telling me it had been nicknamed the “Tired Business Man’s Camp” instead of just the Business Man’s Camp. But he had seemed anything but tired when he got home, glorying in the drill, the life in tents, and the physical exertion. Emma, our cook, had been most amused to hear that he had had kitchen duty,” kitchen police” he called it, and he had peeled a potato for her just to prove he could do it. The glow he exuded soon dimmed after his return home, to be replaced by the plodding business man once more.
But now the glow was back. “I’ve really done it”, James said while his hand beat a nervous tattoo on the table. “I leave for officer’s training camp next week. They were interested in me right away since I went to Plattsburg. I knew that was a good idea in spite of what Papa said. 1917 is my year. ”
I had thought the spark had been permanently extinguished, but here it was flaming into life once more. I looked longingly at my map. If only such an escape was possible for me.
I said only “Does Papa know?” Papa was deaset against our involvement in the war. He felt it was Europe’s problem and was furious with President Wilson for dragging us into it after he had been reelected in 1916 on the campaign promise that he would keep us out of Europe.
“I told him but ---“James shrugged. “He says it’s entirely unnecessary for me to go. So from his point of view I’m not going.”
“When you’re gone he’ll have to face it.”
James must have heard the longing in my voice for he looked at me searchingly for a moment and then said, “Val, you should get out of here too.”
“It’s not so easy for girls. What could I possibly do?”
James grinned, still riding high on his decision, “You’ll think of something, if I know you. It takes a war to set me free, but I’m out of jail now and I’m never going back.”
He gave me a jubilant hug, a resounding kiss, and was gone.
I looked around the playroom, a leftover from my childhood and my refuge from what my life had become, in fact had been ordained to be from the very beginning even though I had not realized it. Mamma was gone, and I was now chatelaine of her small empire, seeing to the running of the house and servants. And yet there was not much running to do. The rules were so established that the house ran mostly on its own – meals at the times which had been proscribed for years, the food that Papa liked, the cleaning on a set schedule. It was a big, beautiful house filled with all the luxury that money could buy, closing more tightly around me with every year that passed in a soft, relentless grasp. It had seemed to close around James as well, but he had set himself free. Now I would be the only one of the four of us left.
Three weeks later it was only Nanny and I who saw James off to training camp. Papa had refused to condone his “unnecessary gesture” by being present. The station had been full of bustle – of people going places to do important things. I longed to climb on the train with James and go out to meet the future. Instead, I returned home to dinner. Papa and I were alone now, taking our accustomed seats in the lavishly furnished dining room; turkey carpet glowing under the lamplight, dark furniture gleaming with polish, and the silver that Josie polished so assiduously bright as always. Where there used to be six, now there were only two. I was the last one left on this desert island with the shell of the man that now sat at the other end of the table. The meal was served promptly at six to a silent dining room. Papa liked the silence, and today I did not have the will to break it. Somehow, the old battles were not worth fighting any more.
I smiled ruefully to myself as I remembered my favorite little rebellion discovered right here at this table when I was about six. Papa always cleared his throat before an announcement or statement he thought important. At that sound all of us would turn to him as if controlled with invisible strings. He would wait patiently until all eyes were upon him, Arthur’s, James’, Trixie’s, Mamma’s, mine – then he would speak. I found that I could stare at the clock on the wall just over his head, and he would think I was looking at him. But I was not. Everyone else was, but not me. When I had shared my secret with my siblings one day after dinner, Trixie had looked puzzled, and then forthright as ever had said, “But why do it?” James, an uncertain eleven, had ignored me, careful as always of his male dignity, but Arthur, confident in his fourteen years, had grinned at me understanding my need. More than once after that, after Papa had cleared his throat, and before my eyes could find the clock, Arthur would give me a conspiratorial wink across the table.
Thinking of Arthur in the dark, I ran the fingers of my left hand over the scared ridges on my right. They were fainter now after so many years, although their cause was still engraved deeply on my memory. Was that when it all began to fall apart? On that single December day?
Arthur had been the golden child. Trixie, James and I, his younger siblings had known that always, but the magic of Arthur was that we did not mind at all. In fact we were just as admiring of him as were my parents and grandparents. He lightly wore the mantle of oldest son and grandson with all the hopes that entailed. For as long as I could remember, we all knew he was the one who was to follow in our grandfather’s and father’s footsteps, into the steel empire that Grandpapa had built and to which Papa went every day. On our regular Sunday visits to my grandparents, Arthur would enter with ease into conversations about the mill while James sat beside him just glad to sit quietly in Arthur’s shadow and dream his dreams.
But Arthur had served a purpose that the three of us had not realized until he was gone. He was the buffer between us and our parents. All of their parental ambition was centered on him, and with his infectious smile, good grades, and affable personality he was able to take all those hopes on his broad shoulders with ease. We were allowed to slip around the edges of family life, happy acolytes to the heir apparent.
It was years before I understood that Arthur had been the one accomplishment that Papa could offer up to his father. Papa had never been happy at the steel mill, and did not share the devotion or the aptitude for it that Grandpapa had. But Arthur was a different matter. He loved it, and would happily spend a Saturday at the mill with Grandpapa, returning to the family dinner table full of all he had seen and done. As for Mamma, Arthur fulfilled all her social ambitions. At sixteen, invitations had begun pouring in for him to attend all the best parties. I could see Mamma already planning a glittering social life ending in a society wedding that would dazzle Chicago.
But none of this changed him from the friendly, easy going older brother who was always ready to enter into our schemes, coming up to the playroom to help us enact a knight errant in a play Trixie and I were putting on, or going out into the back yard to throw a baseball with James talking easily about school and sports. Yet in a cruel twist of fate it was that easy- going nature that fatally entrapped him one cold December Saturday. One of the promised treats for Trixie and me over the Christmas vacation of 1902 had been an afternoon at the newly opened Iroquois Theater to see the comedy Mr. Bluebeard. Nanny was due to take us, but she had developed a bad chest cold, and had been in bed for most of the holidays, an unusual circumstance for her. A discussion had ensued at lunch that day over who would chaperone us, and my heart had sunk as I realized that nobody wanted the job. James had quietly slipped from the dining room before being recruited, and it was Arthur who finally agreed to the task, but with a joke and a smile that hid, with his usual grace, whatever may have been his true feelings. He stood and with a sweeping bow said, “I would love to escort these elegant ladies to the theater.” Trixie and I giggled, knowing that at seven and eight we were far from elegant or ladies, but loving his teasing manner.
John came around with the horses and carriage promptly at 1:00 for our trip to the newly opened theater, Arthur grandly showing us into the large forward-facing seat, while he took the smaller backward facing one. The entrance was crowded when we pulled to the theater as close to the front as John could get the carriage. Arthur climbed out first, and helped Trixie down the lowered steps. I could tell that she enjoyed being handed down by such a charming young man --- Arthur, as always, playing up to her by lifting her hand up high as he helped her down, a smile on his face. He turned to help me but I had already jumped to the ground on my own, and his smile turned to a grin.
“Come on you two scamps. Let’s go.”
We entered the theater, one on each side of Arthur, glancing up at the tall stone edifice as we entered, the crowd only increasing as we got inside. The inside hall had huge, wide staircases that went to the upper levels framed in ornate marble. They were filled with well-dressed families out for an afternoon of entertainment. Arthur steered us through a door onto the main floor, and I could see that Trixie was disappointed not to be ascending those stairs in her new white dress with the rose sash so that her splendor could be admired.
But those thoughts were banished as we entered the beautiful theater, balconies edged in gilt and the plush chairs glowing in the lights from the chandeliers. By the time we were seated in the orchestra section, not only were the seats full, but people were elbow to elbow standing in the back, and the aisles were full of people who, not having seats, were sitting on the floor. We were located on the aisle with Arthur in the outside seat so that he could stretch his long legs out into the open space. I knew Trixie and I would enjoy the show, but I was glad to hear Arthur’s rumbling laugh as the performance went on. It made me feel he was not counting his afternoon as a complete loss.
Suddenly as a dance number was in progress, I heard a sharp cracking sound like lightening, and then I smelled what I knew to be something burning. For a moment I thought it was all part of the afternoon’s performance, and could not figure out what the smell of fire had to do with the now quiet dancers on stage. Then Arthur was on his feet, taking us both firmly by the hand. We slid out into the aisle stepping over forms who had not yet understood what was happening. By now the music had stopped, the dancers had disappeared from the stage, and one of the actors was at the front of the stage urging us to remain calm and in our seats. No one paid any attention, including Arthur, who was fighting towards the side of the theater through the now panicking throng, his one hand still gripping mine and his other Trixie’s. The theater had suddenly become a mad house. Smoke was billowing from the stage filling the auditorium. Children were crying, men and women screaming, and the air was heating up quickly. It was beginning to be hard to breathe. I could not see where we were going, but Arthur pushed ahead, dragging us along behind him. He had repositioned us, me behind him holding on to his belt and Trixie behind me gripping her small hands around my waist. We were a family arrow with Arthur at the front fighting, fighting through the smoke and uproar towards the side of the theater. We struggled along a row of seats, Arthur pushing up the ones that were still down. I could vaguely see someone trying to walk on the backs of the seats, but he soon fell, landing behind us to the cries of those upon whom he had fallen.
Finally we came to the outside wall, and I heard someone yell above the noise of the frantic crowd and the crackling flames, “The fire exits are behind the curtains.” Arthur surged forward almost dragging Trixie and me off our feet. I felt Trixie.s hands begin to slip from around my waist, and I took one hand off of Arthur’s belt and grabbed her hands. I felt the brush of velvet, and then we came to a halt. Now more frightening that the flames and smoke, was the press of people pushing behind us. Trixie began to whimper, “They’re hurting me,” as she was crushed against me. I could see a door in front of us, and feel the surging mass of hundreds of panicked people behind. A man in front of Arthur was frantically fiddling with the lock to a door that must lead to the outside. The lock looked strange, and I could tell that the man in the panic of the moment had no idea how to open it. I heard Arthur scream one word to the man “Bascule” as he pushed forward reaching for the lock. The man large and in full panic, not understanding and thinking Arthur was pushing him aside, fought back and Arthur suddenly went down. His belt was wrenched out of my hand as he fell. With the weight of the crowd pushing behind us, Trixie and I were standing over his body before I could stop my forward motion.
On the floor he twisted under me and looked up. “Val,” he yelled. And I could barely hear him over the noise. “It’s a lever. Push down, push down hard.” I reached for the lock, pushing down with all my might, the heat from the metal burning into my palm with a searing pain. Frantically I kept pushing in spite of the pain, and suddenly I could feel the door move, then the rush of cold fresh air coming in to us. As I reached down for Arthur, we were pushed from behind, and Trixie and I were swept out into the cold afternoon air as the crowd followed us out, trampling over everything in its way.
He was gone and with him were gone 600 other people burned and trampled to death in that deadly inferno, some losing entire families in one afternoon. But for us only one person mattered, and that was our bright, shining Arthur --- Grandpapa’s boy who had known what kind of new European fastener, a Bascule lock, held those doors and had tried to tell us all. My hands would heal, but in my dreams I would reach again and again for Arthur, and magically he would rise and come with Trixie and me out into the cold December air. Then I would wake to the heart-wrenching knowledge that something precious had gone from our home, and that nothing would ever again be the same. And with the added realization, over the ensuing years, that three remaining Winthrop children could never make up for the loss of that one.
In the darkened cabin I suddenly felt that loss more severely than I had in years, Arthur’s smiling, handsome face rising before my eyes. If only he had lived….. I might leave the house on Ellis Avenue physically, but I was finding I could never leave all that had happened there.