Crossing the Horizon

by Laurie Notaro

  Elsie had her family around her: Kenneth, Margaret, and Janet had all arrived with their children and spouses, and Elsie marveled at how big their brood had become. As they watched the fireworks explode one by one, lighting up the sky in brilliant hues, the holiday became thrilling and unforgettable. Even Chim was enthralled with the explosions in the air, watching them carefully.

  Bluebell stood next to Elsie, and threaded her arm through her cousin’s. “Thank you for letting me come,” she said. “I’ll be so sad to leave. It is just like a fairy tale.”

  * * *

  When the festivities were finished, they headed back to Glenapp and gathered in front of the fire in the drawing room until dinner was called.

  “Tonight was a wonderful treat,” Margaret said. “Thank you, Elsie, for stepping in for Mother and making this holiday lovely.”

  “I certainly do wish we could all be together,” Elsie said. “I love Glenapp when the family is here. We should all take a vow to come together here every Christmas.”

  “I agree,” Kenneth said, standing near the hearth. “We came so close to losing Mother not very long ago.”

  “She’s going to be fine,” Margaret assured them. “She’s recovering well and I think Father is taking good care of her.”

  “I do miss her terribly,” Elsie said. “Our family does fit together very nicely, doesn’t it? We’re like a big puzzle. And we love our cousins!”

  She leaned over and gave Bluebell a big squeeze.

  “You’re lucky to have a real family,” Sophie said from the couch across from Elsie. “I believe my parents are in Italy, my sister in . . . oh, who knows? I haven’t heard from her in six months.”

  “To have you looking after Mother and Father as they advance in age is so fortunate, the way it turned out,” Margaret said, looking at Elsie.

  “I’m sorry,” Elsie said, looking puzzled. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Well,” Margaret said, startled by Elsie’s questioning, “just that you live at Seamore Place, and you’re there to oversee things when they need some . . . overseeing.”

  “Do you mean like a nursemaid, Margaret?” Elsie asked. “Do not misunderstand me. I love both Mother and Father very much, and they’ve been as generous with me as they have with any of us.”

  “Really?” Margaret said. “He’s given you an estate. He’s given you Carlock House—”

  “Margaret,” Kenneth called, and then gave her a look that said she should stop.

  “What are you talking about?” Elsie said. “Apparently everyone else is in on this but me. What about Carlock House?”

  Carlock House was a sizable country house several miles down from Glenapp Castle. Once a hunting lodge, it was a magnificent, stately white stone house overlooking the glen, and honestly, a much vaster estate than any of the rest of the Mackay children possessed. On it were several working farms, and property that went clear to the shore. Kenneth took a deep breath and gave Margaret a fierce look.

  “Father came to all of us and asked if we’d mind if he’d split off some of the Glenapp estate and give it to you, for your keeping,” Kenneth explained. “You know, for your future. None of us mind, so I believe after his return he shall present it to you.”

  “No doubt she’ll get Seamore Place, too,” Margaret mumbled.

  “What is this truly all about?” Elsie asked. “Tell me. I insist you tell me.”

  “He wants to see you settled,” Alexander, Margaret’s staunch husband, offered.

  “Can I decide when I’m settled?” Elsie asked. “Why is it that everyone in this room gets to proceed as they see fit, yet I have no say in my own matters?”

  “He only wants the best for you, Elsie,” Janet said quietly. “You are his favorite. And you are thirty-five, dear.”

  “Favorite? I am no such thing,” Elsie said, growing exasperated. “This conversation is laughable. I am not a child, as you happily pointed out, Janet, and I am quite satisfied with my life as it is without needing assistance to be ‘settled.’ ”

  “Oh, out with it!” Margaret finally said, nearly exploding. “You have everyone on the verge of nervous collapse with your ludicrous flying! Have you any idea what it’s doing to this family? We hold our breath every time you go up in an airplane, and now, with these absurd plans of yours with the one-eyed pilot—it’s too much. It really is too much, Elsie. It’s about time you stopped and thought about what it is that you’re doing, dear sister. He’s giving you Carlock House to be complete. To have something of your own so that you may abandon these preposterous pursuits of yours.”

  The room was tensely quiet for a while, with no one looking at each other. Kenneth cleared his throat and turned toward the hearth but remained silent.

  “Elsie,” Bluebell offered in a brave voice, “is a smashing good pilot. She really is one of the best, and I think that if she wants to try for—”

  “That’s sweet, dear,” Janet said softly with a slight smile. “But later, perhaps.”

  “A one-eyed pilot,” Alexander laughed under his breath, and then huffed.

  “Hinchliffe is the best pilot in all of Europe,” said a voice from the corner. It was Sophie, who had turned to leave the room in the midst of the squabble but stopped when it turned on Elsie. “I’ve met Captain Hinchliffe, and he is quite capable of handling any flying situation. The man helped shoot down the Red Baron. He’s a national hero! Do any of you not know your sister well enough to know that she would enlist no one but the very best in anything she did? Have you ever known Elsie to go halfway?”

  “So you are planning this awful venture,” Margaret said, shaking her head. “It will kill Mother. Kill her. What are you thinking?”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Sophie replied. “I meant that Elsie takes the utmost precautions in safety and never flies unless the conditions are optimal. She is not foolish. She does not take foolish chances.”

  “Foolish?” Alexander said, clapping his hands once for effect and attention. “This entire undertaking is foolish. And whether you are on that plane or not, Elsie, you have the life of your pilot in your hands. He flies at your behest, true?”

  “Captain Hinchliffe is fully capable of making up his own mind,” Elsie said unequivocally. “I am offended for him that you believe I have strong-armed the father of two to exact my bidding, Alexander. If there’s anyone who knows the risks, it is he. You yourself can ask the man who had his face, jaw, and leg shattered by German bullets, then got right back up in a plane the moment he was recovered. How can I, a helpless, naïve spinster who needs settling, wheedle a man like that?”

  “May we please bring the conversation down,” Janet said, trying to smooth things. “We’re together, it is Christmas. Let’s keep that in the forefront. Please.”

  No one said a word.

  “I hope Mother, Father, and Effie and Eugen are having as wonderful of a Christmas as we are,” Janet said with a forced smile.

  “In Egypt?” Margaret said, then scowled. “I can’t see that being very festive at all. So dry and sandy. Where on earth would you get a Christmas goose?”

  Before Elsie could say anything else, the dinner bell rang and Sophie gave her a glance. They all moved into the dining room as Elsie patted Bluebell on the back.

  * * *

  “Merry Christmas, Mabel,” Levine said, raising his glass toward hers.

  “Happy Hanukkah, Charlie,” she replied, clinking his glass.

  “I got you something,” he said.

  “That’s funny,” she replied. “I don’t see a Tiffany’s box in your hand.”

  “I didn’t get you a diamond,” he said as he laughed. “I got you something bigger.”

  “Two diamonds?” she guessed.

  “Nope,” he said, being very mysterious.

  “A fur?” she said, getting very excited. “Did you get me that fur at Kaufmann’s that’s made out of two hundred chinchillas? Did you? Did you? The salesgirl told me that Peggy Hopkins Joyce had her
eye on it.”

  “No, not the fur,” Levine answered. “Didn’t you grab one of hers before?”

  “Yes, and it was so much fun, I’d very much like to do it again,” Mabel squealed. “Never mind. I’ll design one myself out of four hundred chinchillas!”

  “Tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll show it to you tomorrow.”

  * * *

  The next day Charlie showed up in his Rolls and he and Mabel got in the car for her big surprise. He blindfolded her to make sure she wouldn’t be tipped off. They drove for an hour with Mabel getting impatient at times, trying to slide the blindfold down or look out from underneath it, but Charlie kept a watchful eye on her. Finally, they made the long turn down to Roosevelt Field and stopped right across from the American Girl hangar.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” he said as she tried to rip the scarf off of her head.

  He guided her out of the car, and just then a plane flew quite low, right overhead.

  “Where are we?” she asked. “That was a plane! Oh, Christ, Charlie, we’re not going to Cuba again, are we?”

  He said nothing as he walked her into the hangar and put his finger to his lips to signal to mechanic John Carisi to be quiet.

  “One . . . two . . . three!” he said as he pulled off the scarf.

  Mabel stood there, her eyes adjusting to the light, taking a couple of seconds to figure out what it was.

  Then suddenly she saw it and her jaw dropped.

  Before her was a Junkers W 33, a German aerodynamically and structurally advanced airliner specifically designed for long-distance flights.

  “Oh, Charlie, oh, Charlie, oh, Charlie!” Mabel screamed, her hands flying up to either side of her face as she jumped up and down.

  “It’s your own plane, Mibs,” he said. “Your very own. I used the money I got when I sued you. Isn’t she a beaut?”

  “Oh, she’s glorious!” Mabel exclaimed, running her hand up and down the metal fuselage: no more canvas- or fabric-covered planes. This was exquisite.

  “And it ain’t done yet,” Charlie informed her. “After Carisi makes it tip-top, we’re going to get it all painted up. Whaddya say? Huh?”

  “Can we paint it in gold?” she said excitedly. “Gold with maybe some silver. I wish they had diamond paint! I want it to sparkle in the sky like a fat diamond bird!”

  “Sure, sure, anything you want!” Levine said.

  “Didja hear?” Carisi asked. “Grayson took off again. Yesterday. They heard a couple of radio signals, but they’re overdue at Harbour Grace. Plane weighed eleven thousand pounds when it took off. You believe that?”

  “That broad is nuts,” Levine said, and laughed. “Roasted and salted. Stultz was right to ditch her.”

  “She had a gun with her, waving it over her head.” Carisi laughed and shook his head. “I read it in the paper! No way I’m getting on a plane with a crazy dame like that!”

  “Grayson took off?” Mabel said in a panic as she came around the corner, her face, rosy with jubilation moments ago, now pale and ashen. “Oh, that awful woman! That awful, mannish woman!”

  “She had a gun,” Levine informed her.

  “Oh,” Mabel said quietly. “I never thought of that.”

  * * *

  When Ruth returned to New York the day after Christmas, there was a sizable envelope waiting for her from Lyle.

  She decided to ignore it, not really wanting to read about how she needed to come home and be a good wife and start giving him children after her lecture tour was finished.

  Instead, she took off her shoes, turned on the heat in her tiny apartment, and dropped onto the sofa. She pulled the package of Faulkner’s Nosegay Shag Cigarettes out and lit one. They weren’t too bad; they kept her awake backstage and occupied her. For five thousand dollars, she thought, she could smoke a little. When she took her last drag from it, she put it out in the ashtray and got the envelope from the table.

  She could hear the traffic below, twelve stories down, through the closed windows. Car horns honked. A man yelled indistinctly. She stood at the table and opened the letter.

  Dear Ruth,

  If you are not coming back home, I want a divorce. I will file in a week if I do not hear from you. I ran into George and he told me about dinner at the White House and Admiral Byrd. If you do not come home, I will join his expedition to the South Pole.

  —Lyle

  Good Lord, Lyle, she thought. Whose pants are you wearing now? Because they are clearly too big for you.

  She put the letter back, turned on the light, then ran hot water for a long bath.

  She thought about Lyle’s letter and shook her head. She felt that she had closed the door to a room she no longer wanted to be in. It had become suffocating and stale.

  She had read on the train that Frances Grayson had taken off yet again from Roosevelt Field on Christmas Eve. This time she might make it, Ruth knew. If she did, Ruth was instantly out of the limelight. No one would want to pay to hear a lecture about a girl who almost made it if there was a new girl who did. Even if Grayson didn’t make it, there would be someone who would, and soon. It was truly a matter of time, as she knew that a German aviatrix, Thea Rasche, was preparing for a flight, as was the girl who looked just like Lindbergh. The lecture tour was fine and would give her a nice financial cushion, but it would be over soon, and eventually Nosegay Shag Cigarettes would want someone else to smoke their sticks, the cold cream people would want a fresh face, and Ruth would need to find something else to do. California, she felt, was the only answer. This part of her life was due to end quickly, and by closing the door she was free to start again.

  * * *

  By New Year’s Day, there was no sign of the Dawn, Frances Grayson, or any of her crew members on land or at sea. Search teams and ships were directed to the waters off Nova Scotia, but nothing was found.

  The New York Times reporter that Grayson had slipped her letter to now took it out of his pocket and tore it open. It was addressed to no one.

  Sometimes I wonder. Am I a little nobody? Or am I a great dynamic force—powerful—in that I have a God-given birthright and have all the power there is if only I will understand and use it? Sometimes I am torn . . .

  A year later, in January 1929, a boy walking along the shore at Salem Harbor found a bottle with a note inside, written in pencil on a yellow piece of paper that read:

  1928. We are freezing. Gas leaked and we are drifting off Grand Banks. Grayson.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  SPRING 1928

  Mabel Boll waiting for the weather.

  In the first week of March, Hinchliffe and Sinclair brought the Endeavour over to Cranwell during the night. With such a short lead time before their planned departure date, Hinchliffe was taking no chances of anyone discovering that the plane was now stowed at the RAF base and, in turn, tipping off the press.

  For the last two months the secrecy had held tight, and Hinchliffe and his mechanics completed the modifications to the Stinson undisturbed. The passenger seats were removed, the configuration of the specially made gas tanks documented and diagrammed. Access to the fuel tanks inside the wings was essential, as on the American Girl, so they could refuel while in the air. Elsie believed it was almost sadistic the number of times Hinchliffe took the plane up and made her fill the tanks as he swooped, spun, and flew in turbulence to ensure that she could administer the petrol under any conditions. They flew for twelve-hour periods straight, then extended it to sixteen-, twenty-, and finally, twenty-four-hour flights over the English countryside in continuous loops. With the dual controls, Hinchliffe could sleep for several hours while Elsie took over, and vice versa.

  Through the Air Ministry, Hinch had the utmost access to weather reports, charts, and possible courses, and had decided not to take a wireless on board. Nine times out of ten, it was impossible to get a transmission across to anybody, and the weight was costly. The technology was new and spotty. He pointed to expert navigator Brice Goldsborough’s attempt to se
ek help when the Dawn was in trouble; while his communications gave a vague idea of where the plane might have been when it crashed, the area was far too large for a detailed search, and the Dawn had yet to be found.

  But keeping the venture quiet had been a challenge after they moved the plane from Brooklands, and when the Endeavour was spotted flying over Cranwell’s surrounding villages on test flights, the newspapers showed up in dribbles at first. Hinchliffe gave conflicting reports or something so vague that it wasn’t even worth printing. They would fly east, then west, then south. India. Australia. Egypt, he would bluster. China. When pressed for more details, he would shrug. “It will all depend on the weather that day,” he would say. “Where the wind blows, or where the wind isn’t blowing, is where we’ll go. I can’t tell you where our destination is if I don’t know it myself.”

  Once the Endeavour was at Cranwell, the officials made it perfectly clear that they were unhappy about the arrangement, since such high strings had been pulled. The Endeavour had a window of seven days. Although Hinch had known the Cranwell crew for years, the deadline was set in stone. By March seventh, they had to be gone.

  The weather was miserable. Ice layered the runway, and snow fell for days. The sky was shrouded in steady, hopeless rain that became more ice. In this grey, dripping landscape, Hinchliffe had to figure out a way to take off, and it didn’t look promising.

  Twelve teams were now officially slotting their departures in March from all over Europe; Hinchliffe even heard Levine was in the race again with Mabel Boll, but with a Junkers plane. As far as he knew, no one was planning on departing as early as they were, or they weren’t saying so. If he and Elsie could get one good day, that was all they needed.

  Emilie, the girls, and his parents had been staying with him at the George, a hotel close by in Grantham, should they suddenly have a flight opportunity: it was important to him to be able to say good-bye. Sinclair was also staying at the George with his wife, Ro, and as far as everyone at the hotel and Cranwell knew, Sinclair was the one making the flight.