by Radha Vatsal
Everyone and everything seemed to take precedence over her. First, his work; then, Miss Lane; now, a girl they barely knew. It was too ridiculous.
Fortunately, they didn’t discuss Georgina any further, and the next morning, Mr. Weeks was back in form.
“It seems Mr. Edison’s man, Hutchison, has gone and hoisted himself by his own petard.” He sat in his study, enjoying a lazy Sunday, and chuckled. “It says here that he’s placed the blame for the E-2 explosion not on the fact that his batteries generated hydrogen but on the shoulders of the vessel’s commander, who he believes neglected to have the blowers going at full speed during the test.”
In an attempt to be productive, Kitty had started knitting a scarf, but she hadn’t made much progress.
“You see, the Board of Inquiry asked Hutchison whether he had ordered the discharge of the batteries on the day of the explosion,” her father said. “Edison’s man replied yes. They asked whether any other representative of the company had been present during the process, and he said no. Then they inquired whether he had informed Lieutenant Cooke, the commander, that the batteries discharged at different rates. And do you know what Mr. Hutchison answered? He said”—Mr. Weeks peered at the newspaper—“‘I would no longer think of giving such information to men like Lieutenant Cooke, who know their business, than I would of telling an engineer that he must keep water in his boilers while his fires are going.’”
“What does that mean?” Kitty put down her needles.
“It means that Edison’s man is accusing Lieutenant Cooke of incompetence. The navy will never stand for it. It’s one thing to make a mistake, even kill men for the sake of progress. It’s quite another for a civilian to blame one of the navy’s own for an error the civilian caused. However promising this new battery might be—and it seems to have promise—I’ll bet you this is the last we hear of it.”
“So that’s the end?” Kitty said. “Because of one man’s foolishness, we’ll turn our backs on an invention that in the long run could save sailors’ lives?”
Mr. Weeks shrugged. “That’s what I predict. I hope I’m wrong.”
The telephone rang, and Grace answered the line in the foyer. She looked into the study. “It’s a Miss Howell for you, Miss Kitty.”
Georgina sounded distraught. “I need your help, Miss Weeks. Miss Howe-Jones has discovered my whereabouts.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Kitty and Georgina decided to meet at a café that wasn’t far from the Sentinel and, as it turned out, Georgina’s boardinghouse. The place had tiled walls and was usually filled with workers from nearby offices, but it was quiet on a Sunday. Mr. Weeks held the door open, and Kitty went in first, shook hands with Georgina Howell, and then introduced Miss Howell to her father.
“I hope you don’t mind my coming along,” Mr. Weeks said, pulling back his chair. “My daughter told me about you. I was abandoned by my parents when I was an infant, so I understand your position.”
Kitty was still taken aback by how easily he said those words to a complete stranger, when it had taken him years to reveal the truth to her.
“Did you feel trapped?” Georgina said.
“All the time. I ran away when I was younger than you.”
A glimmer of hope came into Georgina’s eyes.
“I wanted to make my own way in the world,” Mr. Weeks said, “but I believe that your headmistress has plans for you.”
“She wants me to go to Bryn Mawr on a scholarship.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad.”
“It is for me. It’s not what I want.”
Julian Weeks raised his hand to catch the waitress’s attention and ordered three cups of coffee. “She’s been good to you generally?”
“I can’t complain.”
“Hmm. And you want to become a reporter, like my daughter, is that correct?”
“Yes.” Georgina nodded.
“We’ll help you out, Miss Howell. But you should finish the school year and part on good terms with your headmistress. Don’t make this about you being a runaway. You’ll ruin your prospects and her reputation in the process.”
A rattletrap of a car jolted down the street.
“My father will speak to Miss Howe-Jones,” Kitty said. “He’ll plead your case and offer to be your guarantor when you come to New York. But he can’t do it if you leave without her permission.”
Georgina’s lower lip trembled. “You don’t understand, do you? She makes her own rules. In Miss Howe-Jones’s world, she is the law.”
The rickety motor car pulled up outside the café, and the man from the gas station near Westfield climbed out.
Georgina gasped. “She’s here. I didn’t think she’d be so fast.”
Through the window, Kitty saw the gas station fellow open the back door, and Miss Howe-Jones emerged, brooch clasped to her neck, head held high. She looked up and down the street with disdain and made her stately way toward the restaurant.
“She’ll never let me leave.” Georgina stood.
“Please, Miss Howell, take a seat,” Kitty said. “We’ll talk to her together. The three of us.”
“You think you know everything. Well, you don’t!” Georgina sneered. “You don’t know what it’s like to be in my shoes, and you don’t know the first thing about Elspeth. Do you really believe that she died because of her somnambulism? She was awake, and she went to meet someone.”
“How do you know?” Kitty looked up at her in shock.
“I’m not here to argue.”
“You didn’t tell the police?”
“And get the Brights worked up into a lather over nothing?”
“Georgina, their daughter died,” Kitty said, aghast.
“There was no sign of foul play,” Georgina said. “She never told me who she would be meeting, and to be honest, Elspeth used her sleepwalking as a cover to do whatever she pleased.”
Miss Howe-Jones had her hand on the glass door to the restaurant. She pushed it open. “Georgina. Come with me.” Her words carried the ring of unmistakable authority. She threw a scornful glance at Kitty. “Shame on you, Miss Weeks. You knew she was here all along.”
Georgina didn’t reply but edged away, crossing the room to the door.
“Where do you think you’re going?” the headmistress said as the handful of other patrons turned to watch.
Julian Weeks tossed a few coins on the table, and he, Kitty, and Miss Howe-Jones followed the student onto the sidewalk.
Traffic streamed along in both directions, but the girl from Westfield Hall didn’t care; she looked for an opening and started to cross.
“Don’t be silly, Georgina.” The headmistress’s voice rose. “You’re all alone. You have nowhere to go.”
“Come back,” Kitty called. “We’ll help you.”
“Too late.” Georgina looked over her shoulder.
Too late. The words reverberated in Kitty’s mind days later. She had been too late. She had been too cautious. She hadn’t given Georgina enough encouragement. But what should she have said—that the life of the working girl was a bed of roses, that she would find a job, earn enough to be able to afford a decent place to sleep, that she would have been able to write whatever she wanted?
It was no excuse.
Georgina remained still, her head turned. Too late. She took a step into the traffic. Brakes screeched and horns blared as a speeding motorist mowed down the schoolgirl.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“That poor, unfortunate child.” With unsteady hands, Julian Weeks poured himself a measure of whiskey while Kitty huddled in the corner of the sofa. “I feel guilty. We let her down.”
They had spent half an hour at the scene, waiting for the police to arrive. Miss Howe-Jones wouldn’t speak to them or allow them to approach Georgina’s body. She stood guard over it, her arms
outstretched, protecting her student from the crowd of gawking onlookers. Kitty and her father gave their statements to a portly officer, and since there didn’t seem to be anything else they could do, they hailed a cab and drove away.
“What do you think Miss Howe-Jones will tell the girls at school?” Kitty said finally. She pictured the headmistress addressing a stunned assembly—girls in tears, teachers distraught.
“I don’t know… But Georgina’s death has hit her hard.”
“If I were her, I’d say that Georgina met with an accident on a trip to Manhattan to visit the doctor.”
“The poor girl seemed frozen in the middle of the street. We should never have allowed her to try to cross.”
“I wonder whether she did it on purpose,” Kitty said slowly. “It’s the way she walked into the traffic… She had asked me about my accident earlier. I didn’t make too much of it at the time, but now…”
“What are you suggesting, Capability?” Mr. Weeks drew himself up. “That she would rather kill herself than return to school?”
“Not necessarily kill—perhaps just shock Miss Howe-Jones into paying attention.”
“That’s most extreme.” He looked at Kitty. “If you want my attention, promise me that you will ask.”
Kitty managed a halfhearted smile. “I was struck by what Georgina said about Elspeth right before she left the restaurant—that Elspeth went out to meet someone.”
Julian Weeks banged down his glass. “Enough about Elspeth.”
“I have to finish,” Kitty said. “I have to find out what really happened.”
“For whose sake, Capability?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“For whose sake? Yours? I doubt the Brights want you poking about.”
Kitty could hear the pain in his voice.
“Two girls have died,” he went on. “What more has to happen for you to leave it alone? Do you want to wind up like them?”
“Of course I don’t.” Kitty put down her glass. “You’re right that two girls have died. I don’t want them to have died in vain. I don’t want Georgina’s death on my conscience.”
“You’re looking for a reason.” Each word carried the force of anger. “And sometimes, there isn’t a reason. Sometimes, accidents are just accidents. Sometimes, people—the best people, the most talented people—do unexpected things like walk in their sleep. You’re trying to make sense of a world that makes no sense most of the time. Some idiot in Sarajevo shot another idiot from a dynasty that probably shouldn’t exist any longer—and what happens? All of us, all of Europe, half of Asia, all of us are paying the price.”
“I can’t speak for the idiot in Sarajevo.” Kitty chose her words with care. She knew she was on the brink of something important. “But I can speak for myself, and I know what I want. I want to try to make sense of what’s happening around me. You may be able to manage by laughing at absurdity, but I can’t. Not yet.”
For once, her father was silenced.
“There’s one more thing I’d like to add,” Kitty said. “I’m sorry that I’ve been behaving like a spoiled child lately. You should go ahead with your plans with Miss Lane. I will adjust.”
“I hoped you would do more than just adjust,” he said. “I hoped you would be happy, not only for my sake but for your own.”
“That,” Kitty said, “will come. It may take some time.”
“Do you mean it?”
“I meant everything I said right now.”
• • •
Helena Busby was in no mood to be trifled with when Kitty reported for work the next day. “Imagine my surprise, Miss Weeks, to open this morning’s paper and find your name mentioned in connection with the vehicular collision death of a Westfield Hall girl, Georgina Howell.”
Kitty and Mr. Weeks had spent the rest of Sunday quietly at home, and she was caught off guard by the onslaught. “My father and I happened to be there, Miss Busby. When the police arrived, they wanted to speak to us. One of the City reporters—”
“I know how we make news, Miss Weeks. I wasn’t asking you for a tutorial.”
“Miss Howell wanted to become a reporter,” Kitty continued. “I told her she should finish school. She telephoned me at home, and my father accompanied me to meet her. We hoped to persuade her to return to Westfield Hall.”
“I see.” Miss Busby wrapped her arms around her thin chest. “You do understand that your behavior might have ramifications for the Page? Future interview subjects, when they hear your name, will put two and two together.”
“I didn’t push her under the car, madam.”
“You must understand this, Miss Weeks. Whenever any interview is complete, your involvement with the subject ends. That’s it. An interview is a window into someone else’s life. But then that window closes. No one will speak to us if they think that they might have to put up with your interference afterward.”
“It won’t happen again, Miss Busby.”
“I feel I’ve heard those words from you before, Miss Weeks. I’ve a good mind to deny you the opportunity to cover the Congressional Union’s meeting with the president.”
“You’ve made your decision? The Page will run a story?”
“It is our civic duty, yes.”
Civic duty had never before been a motivating factor for the editor. “If I don’t go, who will?”
“I’ve a good mind to do it myself. Jeannie Williams is hardly prepared.”
“Please, Miss Busby, it was an honest mistake.” Kitty couldn’t let this chance slip through her fingers.
“I certainly hope so.” The arms unfolded. “Mrs. Belmont did ask for you by name… Now go on and do your homework before I regret my decision.”
• • •
Phineas Mills bumped into Kitty as he stepped from the elevator. “Miss Weeks, just the person I was looking for.”
“Well, that’s a nice coincidence.” She was on her way to the morgue.
“I spoke to my contacts at the police department. They haven’t brought in any girls matching the description of the girl. The young ones are all beggars or”—he cleared his throat—“streetwalkers. Unless she’s putting on an act?”
Kitty had forgotten about her request to the news reporter. “Thank you, Mr. Mills.” No point in telling him that the girl had been found. And was dead now.
“So what is all this about? Can we have a cup of tea in the cafeteria?”
Kitty checked her watch. She had promised Miss Busby that she would behave. “I’m sorry, I have some work to do downstairs.”
“Maybe we could meet afterward?”
Kitty thought for a moment. “That’s not a bad idea.” There still remained one other individual she wanted to question with regard to Elspeth’s death, and she was afraid to face him alone. “If you can find out where the Brights’ dinner guest, Mr. Phillip Emerson, lives, we could go speak to him together.”
• • •
“Here you go.” Mr. Musser thumped a stack of papers in front of Kitty. “Mr. Woodrow Wilson and woman suffrage. I’m behind today, so can you read for yourself?”
“I feel much better, Mr. Musser. I’ll be fine.” The scores of articles seemed daunting, so Kitty began with the simplest task—arranging them in chronological order.
“I can tell you that Mr. Wilson doesn’t approve of women in public life.” Mr. Musser hovered over her. “He prefers them ornamental. Seen but not heard, except for behind closed doors. He’s a Southern gentleman after all.”
In that case, Kitty thought with amusement, he must have really enjoyed his stint on the faculty at women-only Bryn Mawr College. Mr. Wilson had taught there and at Wesleyan University, followed by Princeton University, where he served as president. He was said to detest newspaper women and women in business generally, and glancing at an early article, Kitty saw that h
e had once maintained that universal suffrage lay “at the foundation of every evil in this country.”
“Suffrage is not a national issue, so far,” he had said in 1911, the year before he was elected president of the United States. “It is a local issue for each state to settle for itself.”
Then, in 1915, on the eve of the suffrage referendum in New Jersey and on the day he announced his engagement to Mrs. Galt, he told reporters, “I intend to vote for woman suffrage in New Jersey because I believe that the time has come to extend that privilege and responsibility to women of the state, but I shall vote not as the leader of my party but only upon my private conviction as a citizen of New Jersey, called upon by the legislature of the state to express his convictions at the polls.”
The article went on to report that the president would not encourage the Susan B. Anthony amendment to the constitution and that he disapproved of any attempt to “fasten woman suffrage” on states, like the Democratic South, which weren’t ready to vote on it themselves.
Kitty looked for Mr. Musser. He was behind his desk. “The suffrage referendum in New Jersey lost, didn’t it?” she said.
“Oh yes, fräulein. By more than forty thousand votes. What do you think of Mr. Wilson so far?”
“I think he seems like a very cautious man”—Kitty kept headstrong Mrs. Belmont in mind—“and that I should be ready for fireworks.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The telephone in the foyer rang as Kitty returned home and was peeling off her gloves. “That’s all right, Grace.” She reached for the receiver. “I’ll take it.”
It was Phineas Mills. “I’ve found Mr. Emerson’s address. Can you meet me back at the Sentinel?”
Kitty peeked around the door into her father’s study. He was sitting with Miss Lane, and both looked pleased with themselves. He beckoned her in. She gestured for him to wait.