It just could not be morning. There were stars I could see out the small barracks windows. And yet the sharp sound of a bugle had wakened me. That must have been First Call which Miss Farleigh said would be my signal to get out of bed, dress and hurry to build the fires.
I shifted on my cot, and looked around the bleak barracks, shadowy in the coming dawn. What a difference from the room that I had woken up in every day of my life, the Tower Room with its green rug, and pink and green flowered wall paper. That wallpaper had always suited Trixie more than it did me, Trixie with her curls, her gay infectious laugh and her complete enjoyment of life. Every morning we had awakened in that room to the same familiar routine.
“Trixie, Trixie,” I called, but she ignored me and snuggled down in the covers, pulling the quilt over her head.
It was not quite morning. I could tell by the cracks of light along the edges of the window shades. The dark green shades were down now, but when they were pulled up there would be cream colored ones underneath. Dark was good for the eyes Mamma always said. That is why we had them. As the room lightened I thought about the day ahead. I looked it over and over, examining it as one might a smooth stone, looking for any imperfection or mark. I did it every day, hoping for some bit of excitement that might lay waiting in the regime of the hours ahead. Today, as usual, I could think of nothing new that would happen between the morning tea and the last goodnight kiss from Nanny.
I flipped over on my side to watch Trixie who was finally waking up, and then we both turned and sat up as we heard Nanny at the door. I knew what would follow. It did every morning.
Nanny came into the room carrying the tea tray which she sat on the table, and then went over and pulled up the shades. We were served our tea and soda biscuit in bed while Nanny closed the windows and locked the far door of the bathroom as a sign to James, in the room beyond, that we were about to dress.
I had my own special routine too. I would always toss my bolster to Trixie who would arrange it on top of hers and recline against the downy pile while she drank her tea, dipping her biscuit into the warm liquid until it became fat and soggy, then throwing back her head and dropping it into her mouth. I always sat bolt upright, my back against the rail of the brass bed. The hard metal dug into my back. Uncomfortable as it was, it was somehow important to sit there that way. It seemed to balance out the comfort of the warm tea. For as long as I could remember I had felt the need to revolt against the overwhelming cushion of our lives. I thought if I did not fight against it, the opulence would swallow me, and I would be lost.
Next, I jumped out of bed and into my slippers and dressing gown, hearing Nanny’s words in my ears, “Remember, ladies always dress their feet first.”
I went to the big armchair, where Nanny had laid out my clothes. Slipping my arms out of the sleeves of my dressing gown, I balanced it on my shoulders and, thus shrouded from view, stepped out of my nightgown and into my union suit. Next came long, black stockings and high buttoned shoes. I hurried with the buttoning, and was in the bathroom to wash just as Trixie handed her empty cup to Nanny. The union suit prickled. How nice it would be if I could wear short-sleeved undershirts all winter, but Nanny would never consent to that.
I was back in the room in a twinkling, far ahead of Trixie by now. I finished dressing beside my chair, which I had chosen for its proximity to the tower windows and possible wintry draughts. I was strong, cold could not hurt me. I felt I needed to prove this every day in the midst of the cozy, encircling warmth of the pink and green room. It was a compulsion I could not explain, but drove me all the same. Trixie, however, felt no such need. She seemed to sink into the comfort of the room and Nanny. She would always take off her nightgown and stand where the blast of heat from the furnace could warm her naked body, inflating the union suit which she held suspended by the neck at arms’ length. When Trixie and the undergarment were thoroughly heated, she would climb into it, then collapse in the nearest chair while Nanny knelt to put on her shoes and stockings.
I now put on a flannel petticoat then over that a white petticoat with embroidered ruffles. Next I braided my hair, two big thick braids coming down to my waist. I fastened them with rubber bands tieing brown ribbon over the bands. Now I was ready for my brown every day dress.
Trixie was standing before the mirror while Nanny brushed her hair and tied it on either side with pink ribbons. I always stood well away from the mirror while I was doing my hair. I got no enjoyment out of looking at myself. I knew what beauty was. It was my younger sister, and I looked nothing like her. Mr. and Mrs. Leland, whose children were all grown up and gone, had met us getting into the carriage after dancing school last week and Mrs. Leland had exclaimed how pretty Trixie was. I also heard what Mr. Leland had said as the carriage door had shut. I was not supposed to, but his whisper had been very loud.
“Too bad,” he had said hoarsely, “that other one is so plain. And that red hair….”
“Nanny, is it important to be pretty?”
Nanny reached out and patted my shoulder reassuringly. “It isn’t what you look like that counts in this world. It’s what you do.”
“If you aren’t pretty, though,” Trixie put in quickly, “you’ll never get married.”
Nanny made a dismissive noise. “That might be just as well from what I see of marriage.”
“What do you see, Nanny?” I asked. “Wouldn’t you like to be married like Mamma and Papa?”
“No, I would not,” Nanny said. “Now hurry on down to breakfast. Your Papa won’t like it if you are late.”
I dutifully went down to breakfast, but all during the meal and afterwards during the day at school the conversation kept popping up in my mind.
Why would Nanny not want to be married? All girls were supposed to get married unless you ended up an old maid and that I knew, as did every girl, was a dreaded thing to be avoided at all costs. And yet …and yet Nanny was not married, and did not seem to want to be either.
My mind flew around this question and then landed on the poem I had discovered some months back in the library. I kept feeling that somehow it was connected with all this.
After school came German lessons, but if I hurried home there would be enough time to read the poem again, and then later with that clear in my mind, I would make Nanny tell me everything. I ran most of the way home, and rang the doorbell so hard that Josie was surprised.
“Goodness, Miss Val. Are you sick or something?”
“No only – has Trixie finished her German?”
“Not yet, but don’t go running away. It’ll be your turn next.”
“I know.” I dashed past Josie, past the closed door of the study, through the wide hall to the entrance to the coatroom and bathroom. Winthrop family etiquette required that coat, hat and overshoes be placed properly in the coatroom. Nanny’s requirements added a washing of the hands and smoothing of the hair. I wondered as I complied fully, and rapidly with all the requirements, if a list of the rules of this house would not make a huge book, as huge as the one I was heading for in the library.
I went straight to the lowest shelf, the last book in the corner and pulled out a profusely illustrated volume entitled “Fireside Encyclopedia of Poetry.” I turned quickly to the well-remembered page on which I found “The Bridge of Sighs” by Thomas Hood, and beside the poem a full page picture that now, as always, sent a shudder of dread through me.
It depicted a city at night – a dark, unfriendly city with unlighted windows and a single streetlamp burning dimly. Dark houses bordered a dark street. There was a bridge even darker than its surroundings, and in the foreground the limp figure of a beautiful young woman was being lifted from the water by two men. I was drawn into the picture, the library receding into that dark, unlighted world. What if I had been there? Of course I would never have been allowed out at night by myself, I could not even imagine it. But if I had been there, I would have saved her. I would have braved the dark and the cold to keep her from the water. I looked again at the white dress and long golden hair of the dead standing out against the somber background like a shouted warning.
“Mad from life’s history
Glad to death’s mystery
Swift to be hurl’d –
Anywhere, anywhere
Out of this world.”
Once I had shown the picture to Nanny and asked, “What happened to her?”
“She loved someone too much, I suppose. Such things women do. And then they are the ones who pay the price.”
That made no sense. What was the price, and what exactly was it paid for? I would get more out of Nanny tonight at bath time.
“Va-al! Where are you?” It was Trixie, through with her lesson and anxious to have Fraulein’s attention turned to someone else.
Hastily I closed the book and restored it to its place. “I’m coming.” I met Trixie at the library door.
“You’d better hurry,” said Trixie. “Fraulein is in an awful temper.”
“Did you know your lesson?”
“Well, some of it, but she needn’t be so cross.” And Trixie skipped away, her dark curls bobbing.
It was bedtime before my chance came to return to the subject that troubled me. I had had my bath, and Nanny was drawing Trixie’s, kneeling beside the tub to feel the water to be sure it was not too hot. Trixie was in the bedroom singing as she undressed. My bathrobe hugged about me, I perched on the edge of the tub.
“Nanny, why wouldn’t you want to be married like Mamma and Papa?”
Nanny looked up, her hand dangling in the water. “What a girl you are! If I were your mother I wouldn’t want to be married to your father, and if I were your father I wouldn’t want to be married to your mother.”
“But why? Aren’t they happy with each other?”
“How should I know? I’m only an old maid.”
“Are you an old maid because – because married people are never happy?”
Nanny shook her head and looked down into the water her mouth pursed. “I wouldn’t want to be married,” she said.
But I felt I was missing some adult thing in this conversation. “Then they aren’t ever happy --- married people, are they?”
“I’d be happy if I were married.” Trixie had slipped in unnoticed and stood naked before us.
“Get into the tub, you monkey,” scolded Nanny. “Perhaps you would be happy, but then ---“
Her voice trailed off, and I knew that she did not think that was really possible. To be married and happy. But why? But why?
Later, as I lay in bed, Nanny bent over to say goodnight.
“I’m not beautiful, am I?” I whispered so that Trixie could not hear.
“Handsome is as handsome does.”
“No, Nanny please tell me. Is my face beautiful?”
“Of course not now. You’re only a child.”
“Will it ever be?”
“How you talk!”
“Will it?” I persisted
“You look like your Papa. I suppose you always will.”
“James and Trixie look like Mamma, don’t they?”
“Somewhat.”
“I --- don’t.”
“But you have your mother’s eyes. They are greener all the time. Now, go to sleep and stop bothering about this nonsense.”
Nanny left and for the first time that day I felt a sense of relief. I almost gloried in my red hair, freckles and plainness. Beauty had to pay prices by getting married. But since I was not beautiful, I would have to be something else. But what would that be? Not an old maid, but something exciting. I would start thinking about it in earnest tomorrow. Exultantly, I flopped over on my side and snuggled into the pillow.
At nine I had thought there were unlimited choices, when in fact, as the years passed, I had found that there were none. But now that I had broken open my life by coming to France, I knew with a sudden burst of energy that I had better make the most of it. The tower room of my childhood was far behind me, as I threw back the wool blanket,wincing as my feet touched the icy floor. It was somewhat ludicrous that now that I had the harsh conditions I had manufactured as a child, I longed for the comforts of a warm bed, warm water, warm anything. France was struggling under one of its worst winters on record. We had heard that the offensive on the Somme had stopped as the temperatures had reached twenty below. I pulled on my work smock, and got my feet into shoes as quickly as possible. Then I poured water from a tall pitcher, washing hands and face with ice cold water. Then with stiff hands I pinned on the coif, touching the Red Cross insignia to be sure it was in the middle of my forehead. I smoothed the blankets on my cot, imitating Josie’s best bed making style, and with an envious glance at Rosie, rushed out and across the frozen mud to the canteen.
There was the kitchen just as we had left it the night before. It had not been a dream after all. There were the four great marmites that I had scrubbed until my hands were raw and bleeding. There was the large table stacked with loaves of bread, and a smaller table covered with a red cloth set for two. Miss Farleigh must have done that after we went to bed. Her note said that it was for the Commanding Officer and his assistant, the Officer in Charge of Flying, who would come to breakfast. I had wondered if they came to all their meals. I had enough eyes watching my incompetence, without adding two more sets.
I took the piece of paper out of my pocket to check my list again.
“Rise, five. Light fires, start marmites, make breakfast coffee. Six, call personnel (a fancy name for Rosie). Six thirty open door ----“
That was enough for the moment. I set about lighting the fires, first in the kitchen stove, and when that proved impossible, in the heating stove. That too was doomed to failure, the paper flickering out before it lighted the kindling. What was I going to do? The doors could not be opened at six-thirty to a Red Cross worker surrounded by used matches, facing four pots of winter-cold water. I looked outside to see if anyone was coming yet, and noticed a shack with a beautiful plume of white smoke billowing out of its chimney. A man was standing in the open doorway. A fire maker. He must be. I rapped on the window and beckoned, and with a surprised look, and then a smile, he came trotting over.
“Please, I’m so desperate. I can’t get these fires started, and I must have them going for breakfast. Will you show me?”
“Surest thing.”
As he arranged the paper, kindling and drafts, I watched him closely. I might have to ask for help once, but this would be my last.
‘You’re new here, ain’t you?”
“Yes, two of us just arrived here yesterday.”
“Un huh.” He looked me over slowly and assessingly and then smiled, a slow calculating smile. This would not do.
“And now the other please.” I said using the voice I had used when asking John to bring the car around. I was turning out that I was finding what Rosie had called my ‘lady of the manor voice’ to be quite useful. There was quiet, and then he bent quickly to the second stove.
After a long period of silence he finally said in a subdued voice, “You really did come to help Miss Farleigh, didn’t you?”
“I’m certainly going to try, and I can’t thank you enough for getting me started today. From now on I am sure I can do it myself.”
“I’ll be glad to help you again if you need it. You’re – oh I don’t know.” He turned to go and then stopped. “My name’s Fort and my partner’s name is August. We run the boiler house next door, and we are always glad to help Miss Farleigh and the Red Cross girls.”
The boiler house. How wonderfully hot that sounded. “You must have a stove.”
“Sure. We keep it going twenty-four hours a day.”
“Do you use the top --- I mean would you let me put a marmite on it?”
“Sure, we could do that. We don’t use it for no cooking.”
“You see one of the things that makes it so hard to keep up here is the lack of stove space to heat water. Now, if we could keep our extra marmite on your stove ---“
He paused a moment, thinking, “Nobody’s thought of that. Why not?”
“Will you help me carry the marmite over now?”
“Sure will.”
We each took a handle and together we carried the heavy can out the door, down the steps and into the shack, where we heaved it on to the stove.
“Thank you, Fort,” I said, my lady-of-the-manor voice still intact.
“Yes Ma’am.” He rushed to hold the door open for me and touched his hat as I went through, racing back to the kitchen looking at my instructions as I went.
“Light fires, start marmites.” That was done. “Make breakfast coffee.” That meant for five and I was to use the small pot, six tablespoons of coffee, five cups of water, bring to a boil and boil five minutes. By the time I had the pot on the hottest part of the stove, it was six and time to call Rosie. I thought of Emma in the kitchen, turning out one delicious meal after another and for the first time really thought about her measuring, pouring, and making everything come out on time, hot and delicious. My esteem for her rose enormously.
The lump on the cot had not stirred since I left. I shook it vigorously. Rosie rolled over and rubbed her eyes.
“Morning --- already?”
“Yes, although my stomach says noon. Hurry up so we can have breakfast.”
Back in the kitchen, I put milk on the stove to heat and set out bread and butter. The coffee boiled. I stoked both fires. I was beginning to get a rhythm. At six-fifteen exactly Miss Farleigh strode into the room and made an inspection of stoves, marmites, sink and tables before she stopped in the middle of the kitchen.
“Good morning Miss Winthrop. I was afraid you mightn’t be able to light the fires. They are burning very well.”
The praise was warming, but not really deserved. I took a deep breath. “I did have trouble though. But the man next door came in ----“
“The man next door?”
“From the little house where the smoke is. The boiler house.”
“You asked him to come in here?”
“Yes, Miss Farleigh.”
The Directrice’s lips tightened ominously. “Miss Winthrop, you have done the very thing we don’t want here. We are not here to get service from the military. We are here to give them service. We work for weeks to make them understand that and then one stupid….”
My heart sunk. Out of step and out of place as always. “I’m ..I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. I know how now. He was very polite and helpful.”
“Polite?” She looked at me searchingly. “Yes, I suppose he was --- to you. Just don’t let anything of that nature happen again.”
“But it already has.” I might as well tell it all and get it over with. “You see I wanted to get lots of hot water fast, and I thought of the stove over there where the smoke is and – the man said we could us it, so he helped me carry a marmite…..” My voice trailed off as her expression darkened.
“To the boiler house?”
I nodded in misery.
Instead of the burst of anger I was expecting, Miss Farleigh produced a smile. A very little, fleeting smile, but a smile none-the-less. It was followed by a long appraising look. “No, we can’t do it. It was a good idea, and would certainly help us, but we just can’t.”
Then Rosie burst into the room. She looked brisk and eager in a clean blue smock, her dark curls flowing over her shoulders, an artificial red rose in her hair.
Good morning, Miss Farleigh.” She was almost singing. “Val, I’m simply starv ---“
“Miss Bennett, where is your coif.”
“It’s hard to put on,” said Rosie sniffing at the coffee. “And anyway, it hides my hair.”
“And that’s exactly what it’s supposed to do. Go back and put it on at once. No flowers either. We are here to work.”
For an instant Rosie did not move, and then to my surprise she smiled sweetly and said, “All right, Miss Farleigh.”
When Rosie came back, her hair tucked safely under her coif, we sat down to breakfast. Café au lait, drunk from big bowls, chunks of French bread and canned American butter. It tasted better than any breakfast I had ever had. As we finished, Miss Farleigh glanced at her watch and cleared her throat.
“In five minutes, we shall open that door. The early shift from the hangers will come in for a cup of coffee and a sandwich. These men, except the two officers who eat their meals here, have already eaten in their own messes.” Miss Farleigh took a small breath, and continued with a speech she must have given many times before. “You are representatives of American womanhood, and you must strive to remain a symbol rather than a personality. It is fairer as well as safer that way. You will serve your country better by being as impersonal as possible, and you will find the uniform,” with a glance at Rosie, “all of it, an aid in attaining that goal.” I chanced a quick glance at Rosie as a small smile crossed her face. Her eyes met mine in a rare moment of total accord at this somewhat pompous speech. I doubt the goal of either one of us was to become a symbol of American womanhood, whatever that might be. I just wanted to get through one day without making a mistake.
Right on schedule the doors opened at six-thirty, and almost immediately the men began to come in. They were in fatigue uniforms, their overseas caps perched on their heads, the pilots and cadets in sheepskin-lined jackets.
Rosie, on her stool at the counter, poured coffee and offered sandwiches to the men along with a high-pitched conversation that left everyone laughing. The dull room was transformed as the men swarmed around the counter hoping for a word with her. Trixie had had that ability – the ability to make every day things seem fun and special.
And suddenly I realized that I was included in the bantering as one of the men said, “There’s another one over there.” The words sent a hot blush rising to my cheeks that I could not will away. Excitement stirred in me as I hurried this way and that meeting their glances, smiling and then turning away to let the blushes fade. Never in my entire life had anything like this ever happened. I thought of the cotillions and parties at home and would not have been anywhere but here. It was not so much the unaccustomed male attention that was exhilarating, but the feeling of belonging and purpose. I was meant to be here, and I had a job to do, and it did not matter how menial or insignificant it might seem to others.
Two men edged their way through the crowd and came behind the counter into the kitchen. The tall, slim one wore eagles on his shoulders; the smaller man at his side was a major.
“Do you always give your wild parties at this hour?” the colonel asked Miss Farleigh, smiling.
“Should I stop them?”
“My God, no.” the major said. “Let ‘em have a good time.”
“Miss Winthrop,” Miss Farleigh beckoned me over. “May I present your Commanding Officer, Colonel Gallatin, and Major Hardy, the Officer in Charge of Flying?”
The colonel was tall and thin and wore his uniform as if it were a second skin. His small mustache was neatly clipped, his short hair carefully combed, and as he sat down he placed a riding crop on the floor beside his chair. I was puzzled by his cavalry insignia. What was he doing at a flying base? In contrast to the colonel, the major did not even look like an officer. His hair was long enough to be mussed when he took off his hat, his jacket was unbuttoned, the belt trailing carelessly. He slouched as he walked, hands in his pockets, bare-headed, insignia not visible. He seemed almost to be flaunting his lack of military bearing.
“Congratulations,” the colonel was saying to Miss Farleigh. “The captain who brought in that squadron last night told me what a fine job you did feeding them.”
“That’s what we’re here for. If the girls hadn’t come just in the nick of time, I couldn’t possibly have done it. But now that I have hands, I want more equipment – cups, pans, a bigger stove, even dishrags. We’re short of everything.”
“Aren’t we all,” the major said. “It’s the American method. Start out on something and then try to figure out how to do it as we go along.”
“But this war came on so suddenly,” said Miss Farleigh.
“Suddenly,” the colonel looked at the major. “Not for us it didn’t. But we could do nothing about it until we were in the middle of it. And now they wonder why we can’t win the war in one day.”
“At least you won’t have to worry about Issoudun much longer, Colonel,” said the major.
“What do you mean?” asked Miss Farleigh turning to Colonel Gallatin.
“That I’m not going to be here much longer. In a month or two I’ll be gone. They’re moving me up, and Hardy here is taking my place.” With a sidelong glance at the major he continued, “and it’s no secret he will be glad of the change.”
“You bet I will,” said the major, “and I don’t mind telling you that when I move up I’ll be leaving the damndest headache in the AEF.”
“But why is it so difficult?” I had been following the conversation with interest, and the question just popped out of my mouth. Miss Farleigh frowned, but the major smiled over at me and answered.
“Do you know what these would-be aviators are? In the first place they aren’t men. They’re boys between the ages of nineteen and twenty-five. Most of them come from fancy prep schools and colleges. They’ve been raised with a golden spoon clamped firmly between their teeth. Each one is a star in his own mind, and he expects to do individual combat in an airplane with an eye on the press notices in his home town paper. When these boys come over here and meet the grim reality,” here he swept his arm to include the unformed base in its sea of mud, “they revolt. And I’m the one expected to make soldiers out of them.” The bitterness in his voice cut into the lively chatter around Rosie at the counter.
“But they seem very nice,” I said looking at the lively scene in the canteen.
“Perfectly charming. Our best young gentlemen. Until you require something of them that they don’t approve of. Push them around, and they resent you. I’ll be damned glad to pass this job on to someone else sooner rather than later.”
At a significant glance from Miss Farleigh I reached for a basket and went out to gather the empty cups. The crowd was thinning and it was possible, as I went around the tables to stop for a quick exchange, a laughing question and answer. Out of nowhere a new confidence had come to me. I would never be what Mamma and Nanny had trained me to be. I would never be a Chicago matron with that pink carpet that Trixie admired so much. But, I could do a job and perhaps even do it well. And, at the moment, that was all that mattered.
That afternoon I went outside to empty the garbage. It had to be sorted, cans in one barrel, paper in another, and waste food in a third. The three barrels were outside under the porch, and the cold air felt good after being inside all day. It also felt good to have a few moments alone after all the uproar of the canteen. I finished sorting, and leaned against the uprights that supported the porch. It was then I heard a distant sound of music. It couldn’t be. Not here. And yet it was music, growing louder, coming my way. Chopin. The funeral march played by an approaching band, and behind it at a snail’s pace a small truck, and behind the truck, men in uniform, marching slowly. The procession came nearer, nearer, splashing through the mud. On the truck was a flag draped coffin, and after it came faces, some I recognized from the canteen that morning. No one noticed me. They all seemed to be looking at nothing, marching along a muddy road as though neither the coffin nor their following it had any significance. I picked up my pail and went in.
“You saw?” Rosie asked, her face white.
I nodded.
“They say he was killed yesterday. We didn’t even know.”
But what if we had known? What if we had known the moment his plane started to fall or even the moment before? What could we have done? Nothing – nothing except watch. We could get up early and work all day. We could give these men things to eat and talk and smile with them. But when the moment came, they were alone as if we did not even exist. All we could do was to keep on serving and smiling at those that remained, at those who walked through the mud on that last journey of one of their own.