Tabitha did look, more interested than she had thought she would be. Gingerly, she touched the “skin” of one of the wings.
“Why, it is only a light canvas of some kind,” she exclaimed, “and seems entirely too-too flimsy! And what are these sticks and wires between the wings?”
“Those are called ‘struts,’ Miss Hale.” Carpenter’s instructor pointed to the two wings, one above the other. “The struts are actually quite effective at maintaining and strengthening the structural integrity of the aeroplane’s framework. The struts keep the airflow from bending or twisting the two sets of wings out of shape, thus breaking them.”
Tabitha ran her hand over the many parts of the plane to get a sense of their weight and stability. “But it all seems so fragile.”
Except the propeller. It seemed solid enough—as did the motor mounted just behind the propeller.
“Yes, the planes are lightweight but they are not necessarily fragile,” was Carpenter’s reply. He looked at Tabitha. “Would you care to sit in it?”
She looked up at the two open-air seats not far behind the engine. Her insides felt a little jiggly. “How would I get up there?”
“A step stool, m’lady,” Carpenter answered.
Minutes later, Tabitha was sitting on one of the seats, a steering wheel of sorts in front of her at chin level. She adjusted her skirts, hoping no other woman had been nearby to see how scandalously she’d shown ankle and calf while climbing up the steps and stepping over some of the taut wires to reach the seat. Carpenter surprised her by climbing onto the seat next to her.
“What are you doing?” Tabitha’s throat dried as she spoke.
“I thought I would start the engine and taxi up and down the field a few times.”
“You-you won’t try to go into the air?”
“Indeed not! No, I promised you. I would never lure you into sitting in the plane for the purpose of taking you flying against your will. I will not take you up until I have your permission.”
And that, Mr. Carpenter, I promise you will never have, Tabitha vowed in silence.
Carpenter handed Tabitha a scarf. “Please tie this about your head so that your hair is not mussed up by the breeze.”
Tabitha spread the scarf over her head, crossed it under her chin, and tied it at the back of her neck while Cliff and several other men pushed the plane backward and turned it so it was facing down the field. Two of them grabbed hold of the propeller on the nose of the machine and swung it over.
Carpenter made some adjustments with a hand throttle. The motor coughed, turned over, and caught. As if her insides were not giddy enough already, the roar of the engine—bolted only a short distance from her face—sent her stomach into spasms.
Then they were rolling along the grassy field, bumping over rocks and stuttering over dips and holes. The engine grumbled louder still until Tabitha felt that they were rocketing over the ground. She stared out her side of the machine and watched the pasture fly by . . . and she was seized by a wild, inexplicable desire.
All Mason would have to do is lift the nose of this plane for us to go up . . . up into the air, she realized.
He glanced at her and grinned—his expression shining with joy.
She grinned back and, acting on her unaccountable impulse, lifted her hand, pointing it upwards.
“Are you sure?” he shouted.
He was mad with glee, and Tabitha, still amazed, was, too.
“Yes!”
She glanced down again, mesmerized as the grass below the nose of the plane fell away. They were only feet from the earth, but she could feel the plane lifting. They glided smoothly into the air—and then they were higher than she had ever been in her life, perhaps one hundred feet from the ground!
In reduced size, the world below her was perfect, and all sounds but the drone of the engine and the air roaring past her disappeared. She stared about her, craning her head to see . . . everything!
It is magnificent, she marveled. And she was not afraid. She was at peace.
A wisp of cloud wrapped itself about the struts and Carpenter began a slow turn to the right. As he turned the wheel, the plane heeled over slightly and Tabitha’s view of the world below them was even clearer. The pasture came closer and the ground rose to meet them. And then they were racing along, level with the grass. The wheels settled and bumped and they were no longer in the air.
Tabitha was almost saddened when the plane slowed and Carpenter turned it back toward his friends.
Tabitha could not stop enthusing as Banks drove them back toward Palmer House. “It was the most beautiful thing I have ever experienced,” she admitted.
“And all we did was go up, make a turn and come back down,” Carpenter grinned. “I thought that was quite enough for your first time. Of course, as aeroplanes improve, we will be able to stay up much longer and go much higher.”
They sighed at the same time—and laughed that they had sighed simultaneously.
“I must admit that you surprised me, Tabs,” he said in a softer voice.
“Oh, but I surprised myself more, I assure you. I was so afraid—that is, until we were racing across the field and it felt that we almost were flying,” she replied. “And then I could not let the moment go. If we did not go up, I felt that something in me would have been so grieved.”
His hand found hers. “I understand. I do.”
They rode in comfortable silence until they reached Palmer House. As he helped her out, he said softly, “Will you take a turn with me through the yard, Tabitha?”
She placed her arm in his and they wandered among the trees and then along the side of the house where they admired the wealth of roses Mr. Wheatley had trained upon trellises.
Carpenter stopped under a particularly lovely arch where golden-pink climbing roses drooped from the stems and perfumed the air. The rose branches formed a dome above them, surrounding them with a crown of buds and blossoms.
Carpenter faced her with an earnest, determined look in his eyes.
“I love and admire you, Tabitha. I have admired you since that moment in the hospital when I saw you first—when you pointed your finger at me and demanded that I give Shan-Rose to you.”
They both laughed, but softly. “I was a bit overwrought, I admit,” Tabitha confessed.
“Let me see. I believe your first words to me were, ‘That is not your baby!’”
“Well, she was not,” Tabitha sniffed. “There you sat, a complete stranger, a Chinese babe stuffed inside your overcoat, her little head poking out of it, her eyes big as saucers. Admit it, Mr. Carpenter! It was not proper, and she was not your child.”
“Ah, but you do not give me due credit, my sweet one,” Carpenter murmured, pulling her a little closer. “After all, it was snowing and the air was freezing when I found Shan-Rose, and she had no blanket to cover her little body. So I put her inside my coat to save her. I saved her and I saved Mrs. Thoresen.”
“Oh, Mason! How foolish of me to bring up such silly social mores when you did—you did save Shan-Rose and Miss Rose!”
She turned her face up to him. “You saved us from heartbreak upon heartbreak. I can never thank you enough.”
Something flickered across his face and his eyes softened. “Then will you thank me now, Tabitha? Will you make my happiness complete? Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
“Oh, Mason . . .” Tabitha stared into his eyes, sinking into them, getting lost in the love she saw there, forgetting the arguments she had rehearsed so many times.
“You know I love you, Tabs, do you not?” he insisted.
“Yes.” Her reply was less than a breath. Her heart pounded in her throat.
“And do you not love me, my darling? Say you do!”
“Yes,” she murmured. “Oh, yes.”
“And, oh, Tabs! Do you not dream of making a home with me? A family? What beautiful children we will have, Tabitha! Beautiful, emerald-eyed, flaming-haired daughters and sons. Please say �
�yes’! Will you marry me?”
A great whooshing rushed through Tabitha’s veins and into her ears; the words “a family” clanged alarms in her head—and sent her heart skidding toward a precipice.
“I—No. Oh, no. Please, let me go.” Tabitha pushed on Carpenter’s arms, pushed until he released her and she stumbled backward, her emotions crashing around her.
“What is it? Did I say something wrong?” Carpenter reached to support her, to keep her from falling. Alarm of his own tinged his questions. “What is it?”
“Oh, no. I-I should have said something sooner. I should not have let this go on, I should have—” Tabitha held her hand over her eyes. “I . . . Mason . . . Mr. Carpenter . . .”
“What is it, Tabs?” Concern etched his face.
She let her hand drop away from her face. “I must tell you the truth, Mr. Carpenter. Should have told you sooner. I cannot have children.” She said the words, but she could not look him in the eye.
He stuttered, stunned by her revelation. “But-but are you certain? How . . . how can you be certain?”
Tabitha slowly shook her head. Because, from the age of fifteen until I was twenty-nine, I laid with hundreds of men—perhaps more—and I never once conceived a child. Because I had an abortion. Because I killed my own unborn child.
“You deserve so much better than me, Mr. Carpenter,” she whispered. “I cannot give you a family. Yes, of this I am certain. Please forgive me. I did not know you desired children so much, and it never occurred to me . . . I am nearly thirty-three and you are, what? Five or more years older than I am?”
“Why, we are not too old, Tabitha! We are not!” he pleaded. “I have waited so long for you!”
“It is not our age, Mason.” Tabitha’s words sounded far away to her own ears. “It is me. I am unable to conceive. It would not be fair to enter into marriage with you when I cannot give you the family you desire.”
Tabitha drew on all her old arguments, the many reasons she had painstakingly formulated and memorized to contradict the possibility of their marrying. “Too many obstacles are against us. I have a past that, should it ever come out, would ruin your good standing in Denver society. You deserve a wife who can come to you . . . pure and chaste. And I cannot give you a family.”
She drew herself up. “Besides, I-I have pledged myself to nursing. Please forgive me. I should not have led you on.”
She turned and walked away, stumbled up the front steps into the house. Somehow she navigated the two staircases and found her room.
Joy and Rose, standing together in the great room, noted Tabitha’s entrance. They were both surprised when, a few minutes later, a knock sounded on the front door. Rose answered it herself.
“Why, Mr. Carpenter! When we saw Tabitha come in, we supposed you had gone—”
She caught sight of his anguished expression. “Oh! What is it, my dear boy?”
He took her hand. “Mrs. Thoresen. Please, may we talk? Privately?”
She nodded and led him into the parlor.
Thirty minutes later the door to the parlor opened and Carpenter walked out the front door on unsteady legs. A moment later, Rose returned to the great room.
“What is it, Mama?” Joy went to her mother.
Tears trickled down Rose’s cheeks, but she shook her head. “I cannot speak of it, Joy. It would violate Tabitha’s confidence.”
Rose sobbed once and Joy reached for her. “I think I understand, Mama,” Joy whispered. “Let us pray for them.”
For two weeks Tabitha kept herself so busy that she did not have time to think about Carpenter or dwell on her aching heart. She then began her new position at the hospital and threw herself into her work, taking on longer hours, extra shifts, and difficult patients.
She spent her days immersed in the demanding labor of nursing. When she returned to Palmer House she would seek out mindless work—scrubbing floors or bathrooms, doing laundry for the other women. By night she would fall into bed too exhausted to think, too worn to do anything but sleep.
And then one afternoon she returned home from her shift and found a letter waiting for her. She knew it was from Carpenter. Hadn’t she received enough of his letters over her years at school to know his handwriting?
Tabitha climbed to the third floor and closed her bedroom door behind her. The envelope trembled in her hand and, finally, tears began to fall.
What can I do? I love him, I do! But what can I do? We cannot marry.
And there was the rub.
Will this letter say he still wants to marry me? she wondered. Will he try to change my mind? I must harden my heart against him, against all his arguments.
Fearful of what she would find inside, Tabitha slid her thumb under the envelope’s seal and unfolded the pages she withdrew from within.
Nothing could have prepared her for what she read.
August 1, 1914
My dearest Tabitha,
I have spent the past weeks praying and seeking God’s face. He has shown me places in my heart where I have been shortsighted and presumptuous.
For years I have felt that we would be together, that I only needed to allow you to follow your heart and first train to be a nurse. When you finished your training, I (in my shortsightedness) believed we would marry. I believed that you would be willing to oversee a local volunteer nursing program or something along those lines—a place of service and ministry that would still allow us to marry and have a family.
I gave no thought as to whether or not we could have a family and I, in my presumption, never broached the subject with you. I did not wish to pressure you while you were in school—but I presumed so much! It is I who should have spoken of these things much sooner. I am so sorry.
After you left me, I spoke to Mrs. Thoresen. She did not give up your confidences, my darling. No, she steadfastly refused all questions but one: She confirmed what you told me, that you cannot bear children. I do not know why or how you know this, only that what you told me is true.
This fact breaks my heart for both of us, and I cannot help but recall my thoughtless words and how they must have deeply wounded you. Please forgive me for the pain I have caused.
I have asked the Lord to show me what I should do now that we have parted. Parted? The word tears at my soul, for I do not wish to be parted from you.
But now I understand, now I see clearly: I understand your call to nursing and why you have bent your entire self toward that calling. Now I acknowledge that I must respect your decision, as grievously as it strikes my very soul.
Tabitha found that she was weeping, and the tears that fell from her cheeks splashed over the penned words on the paper. His next words stunned her.
My dearest, you have surely heard the news. Austria-Hungary has declared war on Serbia, Great Britain’s ally. Germany has sided with Austria-Hungary. Now the world expects Great Britain—and all the countries of the British Empire—to declare war against Germany and the Austro-Hungarians within the week. Because nations will honor their alliances and treaties, war will shortly engulf all of Europe.
I pray America can avoid the fracas. Consensus assures us that a conflict in Europe will be a short one. I hope and pray it is, but can anyone say with certainty how effortless or contracted this struggle may prove to be—or who will prevail?
Tabitha, I am writing to tell you that I have decided to follow Cliff St. Alban to England. He assures me that the British will welcome my help in training new pilots. Cliff has the sense that aeroplanes will change the way wars are fought. I do not know, but perhaps I can be a help and forget myself and my own concerns as I serve.
My darling, I want you to know that my feelings for you are unchanged. I will return to Denver when the war is over, not so many days or months from now. When I do, I will seek you out. Perhaps, by God’s grace, he will make a way for us. Until then,
I am always your servant,
Mason Carpenter
Tabitha read and reread his letter, shaking
her head and whispering, “No. No!” Her tears smeared the ink in places, and she could not bear for his words to be marred, so she folded the precious papers away and wept into her pillow.
I must stop him, she realized. I must change his mind. Going to war cannot be God’s will for him!
As exhausted as she was, Tabitha scarcely slept that night. In the morning, as soon as breakfast was over, Tabitha telephoned Carpenter’s home. She was breaking every rule of etiquette and custom, but she did not care. She was determined to argue against his decision, to dissuade him from entering the war—even if England was an island and lay hundreds of miles from where the fighting would take place.
When a voice on the other end picked up, Tabitha recognized it. “Banks? Is that you?”
“Ah. Yes, Miss Hale. It is good to hear your voice.”
But Tabitha could hear the sadness underpinning his greeting. “Has he left? Is he already gone?”
Banks coughed a tiny, polite cough. “Yes, miss. Mr. Carpenter left three nights ago.”
“But-but I only received his letter today!”
Frustration shaded his response. “Yes, miss. I was instructed to post the letter after he departed.”
I am too late, she realized. He knew I would try to stop him.
Still reeling, she managed to whisper her thanks and hang up.
Only days later, on August 4, the newspapers trumpeted the headlines:
Great Britain Declares War.
~~**~~
Chapter 17
The following months were agony for Tabitha. She spent her days in a fog of work, much of it accomplished automatically, without conscious thought.
In November, two weeks before Thanksgiving, Tabitha received a second letter from Carpenter. It was postmarked from a hamlet in England whose name she did not recognize. She tore into the envelope, hungry for news—eager to know he was safe. The letter began formally and, as Tabitha devoured his words, it grew more so. By the time she finished it, she was terrified.
Sunday, October 11, 1914
Tabitha Page 18