Mrs. Rutherford’s voice boomed out over the crowd. “Smith Unit, to me!”
The founder of their Unit was five feet tall in her buttoned boots, but there wasn’t anything else small about her. Her voice made the smokestacks shake. She was an archaeologist by profession, which was probably why, thought Kate, their uniforms looked suspiciously like the chosen attire of that much photographed archaeologist Amelia Peabody Emerson.
Mrs. Rutherford waved an umbrella in their general direction, using it as a prod to herd the slower women into the saloon. “Everyone here? Good.”
Kate knew there were only eighteen in the Unit, but the room felt very full of gray uniforms, with their symbolic touch of “French” blue. Some of the faces looked vaguely familiar, but hairstyles and clothing changed and features blurred over a decade’s distance.
Except one. One woman she would have known anywhere.
Kate stopped where she was, her hand on Emmie’s arm. “You didn’t tell me your cousin would be here.”
“Didn’t I?” said Emmie vaguely. “She’s a doctor now, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know.” The one in the pretty hat, Maud had said. It wasn’t pretty, that wasn’t the word for it. It was elegant. Julia couldn’t be anything but elegant if she tried. It was in her bones, her bearing. The fair hair that looked so drab on Emmie was golden on Julia; Julia had the same long bones but not the buck teeth. Put her in a toga and she’d fit right in on any cameo or group of classical statuary, perfectly carved of marble and just about as warm.
Kate had never been quite sure whether Julia deliberately set out to make her feel like a worm, or whether that was merely a by-product.
Julia, sitting next to Nick on the stairs in Newport, her golden head next to his. How do you like the latest charity case?
Kate tried to smile at her but succeeded only in producing a grimace.
On the plus side, Julia looked just about as delighted to see her as she was to see Julia. Those bluer-than-blue eyes narrowed. She looked like a cat who had discovered she’d been given tainted cream.
Kate could feel the boat moving beneath her and stilled a tiny flare of panic. Six months. She’d signed up for six months of this.
Mrs. Rutherford stepped into the center of the room, blotting out Julia’s perfect countenance. Instinctively, the women all fanned out around her, creating a circle, private conversations ceasing.
“Welcome, girls, welcome! Welcome to our floating home for the next fortnight as we set out on our grand endeavor.”
One of the girls started to clap, and then flushed when she realized no one else was doing the same.
Mrs. Rutherford smiled kindly at her. “Well may you applaud! You have all, by virtue of your very presence, signaled your courage and your kindness, your willingness to sacrifice your own convenience to the good of others.” Her voice dropped and she looked around the room, her eyes meeting those of each woman in turn. “There have been many who have asked me how I can leave my own children to the care of others while we travel abroad on our great work. But all is well with my children. There are other children with whom all is not well and they too are precious in the sight of God.”
It felt like sacrilege to breathe. Outside the room, the noises of the ship went on, but inside the saloon all was hushed expectancy.
“There are women and children in France who have been forgotten, women and children who need us. You ask me what we can do, and I tell you: everything. If they need food, we will help them plant it. If they need shelter, we will find the means to put it over their heads. We will build schools for their children and find beds for the weary. But most of all, the most valuable gift we bring is letting them know they have not been forgotten. As the men wage war, as the guns fire, we remember. We remember them. We remember they are not just statistics, so many left homeless, so many lost. They are people, like us, like our families. And we remember them.”
Kate could feel the words like an electric current running through her; she could feel herself standing straighter.
Mrs. Rutherford seemed to speak directly to each one of them. “You have it in you to make children smile again. You have it in you to mete out goodness to those who for the past three years have known only cruelty. Look inside yourself and know that you have it in you to make all the difference to those who have been abandoned by the world, who have lost their families, their homes, their hope. You are their hope.”
Nobody spoke. Nobody moved.
Mrs. Rutherford smiled at them, a crooked, sisterly smile. “I won’t mislead you. Our path is not without pitfalls. We are on probation, all of us. They doubt us—just as they once doubted that women were worthy of an education.”
An excited murmur ran around the room.
“The Red Cross didn’t believe we would be worth the bother. The American Fund for French Wounded has sponsored us—but only for a time. We must earn our welcome. It falls to us, to each and every one of us, to prove them wrong and show them that there is nothing that an American college girl cannot do.”
“Hear, hear!” cried the girl who had clapped, and this time no one reproved her.
Kate found herself alarmingly inclined to cheer. She knew it was all rhetoric—it was all rhetoric, wasn’t it? There hadn’t been a word of specifics in it—but she still felt like standing up and charging the barricades.
Inspiring, Maud had called their director. Well, she was right in that. Kate felt like the snake once the charmer had got through with it; it made her wary.
Emmie didn’t seem to have any such reserve. “Isn’t she wonderful?” she whispered.
On the other side of the room, Julia’s beautiful face was still and watchful.
“Now. Back to the practicalities,” said Mrs. Rutherford. “We are almost all present. Our agriculturalist, Miss Lewes, has responsibilities at the Department of Agriculture which will keep her through the fall; she will be joining us as soon as she can get away.”
“Agriculturalist?” echoed Liza.
“To help us with the chickens,” said Mrs. Rutherford briskly. “We have an addition to our group since we last met. Miss Moran, if you would make yourself known?”
Reluctantly, Kate stepped forward.
“Miss Moran is a member of the class of 1911. She is to be one of our chauffeurs. She is also an accomplished teacher of French.” Mrs. Rutherford looked blandly around the group. “I know there are those among you who could use some reacquaintance with the language. Miss Moran, if you would be so kind as to offer a daily French lesson during our time in transit, your efforts would be much appreciated.”
“Of course,” murmured Kate, since that was what one said, even though she would rather stab herself in the eye with a pocketknife than teach French to anyone ever again.
Emmie beamed as though she’d just done something rather clever.
“You know our doctors, of course. Dr. Ava Stringfellow”—a middle-aged woman with a strong-featured face and a pair of expressive eyebrows stood up and gave a half bow—“and Dr. Julia Pruyn. Please do try not to fall ill. Their services are not meant for us but for the people we go to serve.”
A couple of the women chuckled; Kate didn’t think Mrs. Rutherford had been joking.
“I have a little gift for you.” Reaching into one of her multitudinous pockets, Mrs. Rutherford drew out something that jangled and clanked. It resolved itself into a series of chains, each with a metal tag at the end of it.