by Rebecca Dean
“Blood friends, indeed!” Aunt Bessie had said, her china blue eyes flashing sparks. “If that is how Pamela Denby behaves toward someone she says is a blood friend, what depths of disloyalty will she sink to with her ordinary friends?”
Wallis had made no answer. Her imagination simply didn’t stretch that far.
Telling her mother and her aunt of her heartbreak had been a necessity in order for them to understand why she needed to leave Baltimore.
“And Cousin Corinne couldn’t be happier about my staying with her and Henry,” she said to her mother when at last she was safely in receipt of an invitation from Corinne. “Corinne says that Henry has very little free time—he’s just been appointed a lieutenant commander. It means she sees too little of him, and she says my company will be very welcome.”
“Your Uncle Sol will have to approve. I don’t think he’ll be difficult about it. I’ll make sure he views letting you stay with Corinne a kind of compensation for the debutante ball he denied you.”
Believing that Wallis was going to Florida for only a short visit, Sol made no demur about her making the trip. He had other, more important things on his mind. Ever since his mother had broken her hip, she had been in poor health, and now, though the rest of the family were not yet aware of it, she was failing fast. Sol, fifty years old and still unmarried, was devoted to her.
When she died, he was plunged into deep grief—grief Wallis fully shared. Her grandmother had played an important part in her life. As immovable as a rock in her views and her Episcopalian faith, she had brought Wallis up to be proud to be a Warfield, and the pride had given her a sense of self-worth. Without that self-worth, Wallis knew she would never have coped as she had with the financial and social difficulties she and her mother had always faced.
It was a large, well-attended funeral, as befitted one of the city’s great dowagers. Alice, who had never been fond of the mother-in-law who so disapproved of her, wore a shoulder-length black crepe veil. It served two functions. It reminded people that though she was now Free Rasin’s widow, she was also the widow of Teackle Warfield—and it successfully hid the fact that she was dry-eyed.
Wallis, dressed from head to toe in black, but minus a veil, didn’t remain dry-eyed. Knowing how strongly her grandmother would have disproved of an unseemly display of emotion, she managed to remain composed throughout the church service, but once it came to the burial, tears streamed down her face, dropping uncontrollably onto her black, kid-gloved hands.
Stiff and unbending as Grandma Warfield had been, she had always given time to Wallis, and her vivid stories of Warfield ancestors such as Robert de Warfield and King Powhatan had imbued Wallis with a feeling that was precious to her: the feeling that by being a Warfield she was someone special and different.
As she packed her trunk for the long train journey to Florida, she knew she was going to miss her grandmother. She also knew that her grandmother’s death was going to spare her any feelings of guilt she might have had at moving so far away from her.
Thanks to Uncle Sol, her train journey from Jacksonville onward was made in great style. Sol owned part of the railroad, and her ticket, given to her for free, was a first-class one.
The comfort was one she luxuriated in. Heartbroken over John Jasper she might be, but she wasn’t going to give in to that heartbreak. Thanks to Corinne she was embarking on a new beginning, and she was going to make the very best of it that she could.
Though not knowing about John Jasper, Corinne’s advice to her was welcomingly apt.
There’s no need for you to remain in black for your Grandmother Warfield at Pensacola, Wallis,
she had written.
On a naval air station such as this, social events are of prime importance, and it is essential that you bring all your pretty dresses. Single young women are in short supply, and so you are going to be spoiled for choice when it comes to beaux.
To be spoiled for choice for a beau was exactly what Wallis wanted. She opened the magazine she had bought on the station platform. Very soon John Jasper and his bride would no doubt be arriving in Baltimore. Knowing John Jasper as she did, she couldn’t imagine him settling down to married life anywhere else but his hometown, and, as Britain was a nation at war, there was no reason for either him or Pamela to want to stay there.
As outside her carriage window hills and bluffs gave way to the lush vegetation of the Deep South, she found herself doing what she had determined she was never going to do again. She found herself thinking of John Jasper and Pamela. When they returned to Baltimore, where would they live? The most obvious answer was Rosemont. John Jasper would love living at Rosemont.
Her chest constricted in a tight band of pain. When gossip about her got back to John Jasper and Pamela, she wanted it to be about what a whale of a time she was having in Florida—and nothing would convince them of that more surely than the news that she had become engaged.
The first-class compartment Uncle Sol had arranged for her gave her complete privacy, and, blinking back tears, she fanned out the newspapers and the magazine that she had bought to read on the journey.
All the headlines were of the war convulsing Europe—and of how imperative it was that America did not become involved in it. After reading a gruesome report of how the Germans were using a hideous gas to half-blind and panic the Allies and an even worse report of a battle for a small hill at Ypres that had resulted in 69,000 men being killed and 164,000 being wounded, she turned the page and was met with a headline about the Prince of Wales.
PRINCE EDWARD A DISPATCH RIDER AT THE FRONT
There was a picture of the prince alongside the article. He was in uniform and astride a powerful-looking motorbike. The accompanying text read:
Prince Edward, attached to the staff of Field Marshal Sir John French, Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force, is a familiar sight as he carries vital dispatches between British and French generals. The Prince, fluent in German, has also helped in the interrogation of prisoners and a week ago inspected Indian troops sent out to the front.
Once, in talking about Prince Edward, Pamela had stressed how very German Britain’s royal family were. “Nearly every aunt, uncle, and cousin Prince Edward has is German,” she had said. “Before her marriage, his mother was Princess May of Teck. Teck, in case you’re not aware Wally, is a German dukedom.”
A prickly feeling ran down Wallis’s spine. Dreadful as it was for every soldier fighting at the front, how much worse must it be for Prince Edward, when members of his close family were now also the hated enemy?
Taking a pair of nail scissors out of her traveling bag, she cut out the news item. Ever since she had been at Oldfields, Prince Edward had been her favorite pinup. She had never had romantic daydreams about him, though. Any such daydreams had always been about John Jasper. Real-life romantic hopes where Prince Edward was concerned had been Pamela’s department, not hers.
Carefully she put the cutting between the pages of her magazine and then put the magazine in her traveling bag. Any hopes Pamela might have had of becoming a royal bride were now well and truly over. She waited for a feeling of intense satisfaction. It didn’t come. What came was agonizing hurt and a sense of loss for the friend who had once been closer to her than a sister and was now a friend no more.
Three hours later she stepped off the train into balmy warmth and brilliant sunshine. The contrast, after the gray chill of Baltimore, was heavenly, and as she raised her face to the brassy blue bowl of the sky, Wallis felt a surge of such optimism it almost lifted her off her feet. Ahead of her lay all kinds of new experiences, and she wasn’t going to let heartache prevent her from embracing and enjoying every single one of them.
“Skinny! Skinny!”
Corinne’s nickname for her reverberated down the length of the station’s crowded platform. Through a sea of alighting passengers, Wallis headed in its direction as fast as the narrow skirt of her ankle-length traveling costume would allow.
&nbs
p; “Skinny!”
The sea parted and Corinne, voluptuous in a tightly fitting turquoise day dress and a hat laden with feathers of the same color crowning pompadour-styled golden hair, ran to meet her, her arms open wide.
“Oh, Skinny! Isn’t this peachy?” she exclaimed as they hugged and kissed. “I never thought that mean old Warfield uncle of yours would let you come. Is that your porter struggling with the two big trunks? I see you’ve taken me at my word and brought lots of pretty dresses with you. I can’t wait to show you the air station, Skinny. We’re goin’ to have such a good time together! You’ll be goin’ to a party every night of the week!”
A car and driver were waiting for them. With the help of the porter, the chauffeur stowed the luggage. As Wallis seated herself in the open-topped Ford next to Corinne, she gave a sigh that was almost a purr. For the first time in her life she was free of her morally strict Warfield relations. Corinne was a Montague—and all Montagues were pleasure loving and knew how to enjoy themselves. A party every night of the week was exactly what she needed to put the past—and John Jasper—very firmly behind her.
“Pensacola is a small town,” Corinne said as they sped through sun-baked streets lined with Spanish-style colonial houses. “All activity takes place on the air station—and there isn’t another station like it anywhere else in the country, though Henry says there soon will be.”
Wallis felt excitement spiral in her tummy. Flying was such a new thing, no one she knew had even seen an airplane or met an aviator, and here, at Pensacola, she was going to be surrounded by planes and aviators wherever she looked.
Streets and houses gave way to a single road, curving around a glorious palm-fringed landlocked bay.
“There are so many sandy beaches, I don’t think they’ve ever been counted,” Corinne said, pleased at the effect Pensacola was having on Wallis. “There are some cabanas on the beach nearest the base. If you like, we’ll go there for a swim later today.”
Wallis was just about to say she’d love to go for a swim when she saw something in the sky. In a fever of delight, she grabbed hold of Corinne’s arm. “Look, Corinne! Over there, on the right! Oh, my Lord! Is the aviator supposed to let the plane swoop and dive like that? Is he safe, or is he about to crash?”
Corinne gave a throaty gurgle of laughter. “No aviator is ever safe, Skinny. Flying is far too dangerous. That plane isn’t about to crash, though. It’s just the way planes move through the air.”
Wallis watched, entranced, as the plane flew closer. The fuselage, with its array of metal struts, was open, and the helmeted goggled figure at the controls was clearly visible.
It came nearer still, the noise of the engine deafening.
“Whoever the pilot is, he’s being very naughty!” Corinne shouted, as it became obvious he was going to fly directly over their speeding car.
Wallis didn’t think the pilot was being naughty. She thought he was being heart-stoppingly splendid. He came in over their heads, leaning away from his controls to look down at them. Then, with a wave and a brilliant smile, he zoomed away.
Wallis waved after him until he was a mere speck in the distance.
“Though it’s hard to tell when they are wearing helmets and goggles, I’m fairly sure that was Lieutenant Earl Winfield Spencer, the bad boy of the air station,” Corinne said when Wallis finally lowered her arm. “You can’t behave like that every time someone flies over your head, Skinny. Getting a reputation for being fast is a lot harder to do here than in Baltimore—but it is still possible. And attracting the attention of a lady-killer such as Win, before you’ve even set foot on the air station, is certainly the way to do it.”
There was amusement in her voice, not serious criticism, and Wallis said with a rush of deep affection, “If I’d been lucky enough to have a sister, I would have wanted her to be like you, Corinne.”
With one hand holding on to her hat, Corinne gave one of her husky laughs. “I guess that’s mutual, Skinny. Pensacola Air Station is just ahead of us. You’re goin’ to love living on it, honey. I just know you are.”
The air station hugged the bay, a bewildering conglomeration of long hangars, machine shops, and slipways.
“Those are derricks,” Corinne said as they passed giant-sized cranes. “They’re not very pretty, are they?”
They weren’t, but the residential area of the air station was. On either side of a hill that sloped gently toward the bay was a scattering of white-painted bungalows. The Ford drew up outside one that was slightly bigger than the others.
“This is home,” Corinne said as a maid hurried out to welcome them. “I hope you’re goin’ to be happy here, Skinny. Don’t worry about the constant noise of airplanes taking off and landing. You’ll soon get used to it.”
Wallis didn’t see how anyone could get used to such a roar, but she had no intention of letting it worry her.
As they stepped into an elegantly furnished sitting room, Corinne added, “There is only goin’ to be the three of us for dinner this evening. Henry thought you’d be too tired after your long rail journey to want to socialize. I told him no Montague is ever too tired to socialize, but he’s much older than I am, and when he gets an idea in his head it’s hard to move it. Tomorrow night—and every night afterward—will be a lot more lively.”
Though she had met Henry Mustin only a couple of times, Wallis liked him. He was in his midforties, an attractive man deeply suntanned from long hours spent in the open air either aboard ship—he was master of the battleship USS Mississippi—or, since his appointment to establish the air station at Pensacola, in the open fuselage of an airplane.
“It’s a treat to have you here, Wallis,” he said to her over dinner that evening. “Corinne loves it in Florida, but she misses her family. Your being here is going to be a great boost to her spirits.”
“It’s already a great boost to mine.”
Her depth of sincerity was obvious.
He smiled across at her, liking what he saw. She wasn’t a belle in the way Corinne, who was blond, blue-eyed, and voluptuously curvaceous, was. Like all Montagues, Wallis possessed a great sense of fun, but in looks she was too much a Warfield to be a head-turning beauty. Unless he was very much mistaken, she also possessed the fierce intelligence that was such a predominant characteristic of the Warfields. He wondered if she would be interested in knowing how and why the air station had come into being and rather thought she would.
As if reading his mind Wallis said, “Tell me about the air station, Henry. All I know is that it is the first of its kind.”
Gratified that his assumptions had been so correct, Henry lost interest in his beautifully cooked local lobster.
“It is—and it’s growing fast. When I was first posted here to help establish a center for naval flight operations, I had only six trained pilots, twenty-three enlisted men, seven seaplanes, some spare parts, and a few canvas hangars. Those numbers have already doubled and will soon, thanks to a very vigorous pilot training program, quadruple. My main task in coming here was to prove to the Navy that airplanes have a place in the fleet.”
“Was there doubt, then?”
“There was a lot of doubt—but not much of it now lingers.”
He eased himself back in his chair, his hands clasped across a hard-muscled belly. “You have to remember how new a thing flight is, Wallis. That airplanes could be used by the Navy simply wasn’t immediately obvious—and it wasn’t a Navy man who made the Navy see things differently. That was up to a civilian pilot, Eugene Ely.”
“And what did Eugene Ely do?” Wallis was now so interested in the conversation that, like Henry, she was no longer paying any attention to the food on her plate.
Henry grinned, the lines at the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Eugene landed his airplane aboard the USS Pennsylvania, which was, at the time, in the middle of San Francisco Bay. The Navy promptly built its first aircraft carrier, and before the year was out we had our first seaplane.”
C
orinne, who was interested only in the social side of Pensacola and not interested in anything else to do with it, yawned.
Wallis and Henry ignored her.
“So Pensacola is really a training station for seaplane pilots—and a bit of a training station for seaplanes as well.”
“You’ve got it in one, Wallis. With every few months we produce another first. A Pensacola pilot holds the first altitude record, and a Pensacola pilot was the first to be catapulted in an airplane from the deck of a ship.”
“And a Pensacola pilot died in the Navy’s first fatal air crash,” Corinne added drily.
Henry’s face tightened. “That, I am afraid, is also true. The pilots in training here are extremely courageous young men. Every day they are in the air is a day filled with danger.”
Corinne, realizing she had brought a somber tone to the conversation, tried to lighten things. “What Henry didn’t tell you, Skinny, is that Henry was the pilot who was catapulted from the ship.”
“Land sakes!”
Henry laughed, pleased at how startled and impressed she was. “The danger can’t be left to the young ones all the time, Wallis.” He refilled his wineglass. “I was in the cockpit of an AB-2 flying boat and the ship was the USS North Carolina. It was, to say the least, an interesting experience.”
Later that evening, just as she had gotten into bed, Corinne knocked on her bedroom door. “It’s only me, Skinny. Come to say good night,” she said, as she entered the room.
Swathed in a coffee-colored negligée lavishly trimmed with lace, she sat down on the edge of the bed. “You were a great hit with Henry tonight. Because I’m so much younger than Henry, all my friends are younger too, and they don’t go out of their way to pretend to be interested in what he’s saying in the way you did.”