“Mrs. Roosevelt was watching for us from the window of Miss Ethel’s room, and by the time we alighted she was standing in the doorway to welcome us. We were all covered with ice, but the President in his black riding jacket with fur collar and pockets, and broad-brim black hat, looked for all the world like the pictures of Santa Claus. Mrs. Roosevelt made us come in and gave us a julep, which was the first drop of liquor any of us had during the entire ride.
“I was stiff the following day, and did not feel like getting up. But I was out of the house at the usual time, and reported to the President at ten. I could not refrain from stopping at my club and showing myself in passing, for I knew that everyone there would be expecting us to be laid up for days. It was a ride of a hundred and four miles.”
We sat there then, in the crowded, fashionable restaurant, and I didn’t say anything for a minute or so. I was thinking about American Presidents. Nothing original, but only that they come in many varieties. And that possibly the earlier vintages had something the newer ones don’t seem to know about. Anyway, if it was true that here in 1912 the causes of the Great War were still small, still manageable, could still be altered and the war actually prevented . . . maybe this tall, pleasant, competent, and honorable man, and the two Presidents he served, might just possibly be able to manage it.
Archie said, “It’s nearly ten-thirty. We must leave now if we are to join the party on the Mauretania.”
24
DOWN SEVENTH AVENUE THEN, in our cab, chain-driven at maybe twenty miles an hour. West on Fourteenth Street toward the Hudson River; then the three of us sat frozen in midsentence, midlaugh, by the most thrilling, evocative, literally hair-raising sound—felt on the arms and back of the neck—that I know, the oh, so deep growl of a ship’s horn. It went on, jumbling the very molecules of the air, and on, and on, and was never ever going to stop, so low, so deep, pervading your bones. Then it did stop but not in my brain and nerves, and we turned onto West Street, moving along directly beside the smooth flat river and its docks. And in that moment, very suddenly, up there ahead just a few docks further on we saw them rising above everything else, lighted by searchlights below—the four tremendous stacks of the Mauretania, painted Cunard Line red, black-banded around their tops, the glorious shining white superstructure below them. Now the deep ship’s horn again, then finally stopping, to leave nothing in mind or emotion but its own mental echo and the thrilling actuality of those four astonishing stacks against the night. The great growling horn sounded again almost immediately, and I wanted nothing more of the world than to sail out on this waiting ship.
We rolled to a slow coasting stop at the curb, behind a dozen other unloading cabs and cars, and stepped out into an oasis of light, noise, chatter, laughter, and shouts; an oasis surrounded by an apparently dark and deserted lower Manhattan. All but the prow of the ship—astoundingly almost touching the sidewalk, and lettered with the magic name Mauretania—all but that and the four great stacks rising above everything else was hidden now by the huge, ugly, shedlike wooden dock, its shingled roof a story above our heads. Beyond it, at the other empty side, lay the Hudson, the moon tipping the ripples with yellow glints. A magic moment for me, and maybe for the Jotta Girl, because as we stood waiting, Archie leaning into the cab to pay the driver, she slipped her arm under mine.
From the curbside cabs and cars, people were stepping out: some confidently, others cautiously, looking around worriedly, afraid the ship might suddenly leave. But most were almost boisterous, one party, six of them in a single cab, all in evening dress, shouting drunk.
Some had luggage strapped to racks unfolded behind their cars or cabs, or roped onto the flat railed roofs. Others had none, visitors or experienced travelers who’d sent theirs aboard during the day.
A cop at the curb stood gesturing cabs away as soon as they’d unloaded, and as ours turned out into West Street again, a large gray limousine, one inch shorter than a freight car, came rolling silently in behind it. The cop’s hand went respectfully to his cap visor, and a pair of derby-hatted reporters—I was sure they were reporters—came running, and a third trotted along beside the car.
Archie, Jotta Girl, and I stood watching as the limousine stopped glitteringly under a curbside streetlamp. In the open front seat, a chauffeur in a peaked cap and a footman in silk topper, both in dark green uniform. The footman was down, out on the walk before the car had fully stopped, walking along beside the rear door, reaching for its big nickeled handle. He opened the door as the chauffeur set his brake, a long ratcheting sound, then jumped down and walked back past the limousine to an open-bodied snub-nosed truck labeled Ludlock’s Express Company, which had pulled in behind. Now the footman had the car door open, one of the reporters leaning down to smile and nod at the people inside.
They got out daintily, two women helped at the elbows by the footman, the younger one first, silk ankle reaching for the wide running board, hardly needing to duck, the car roof was so high. An older woman stepping carefully out behind, given token help by the chauffeur. The younger woman stood glancing around, looking marvelous, and the Jotta Girl very softly said, “Wow.”
Her coat was long and dark—blue or black, I couldn’t tell—with an ermine collar. She held an ermine muff, and wore a dark hat, a kind of turban, on each side of which lay a scarlet wing, an actual bird’s wing; spectacular. The reporter beside her said something, she half turned to reply, and the light of the curbside street-lamp moved across a winking, diamond-studded strand around her neck and touched a big oval lavaliere suspended from it, which burst into light like a tiny fireworks display. “Real,” said the Jotta Girl beside me. “Really real . . .” The woman’s profile had come into the light and I saw she was—well, while you wouldn’t say beautiful, you certainly wouldn’t say merely pretty. Distinctive, maybe; like absolutely no one else. You saw that she knew exactly who she was, and that it was someone important who always had been. The older woman, dressed plainly but not in uniform, though you saw she was a servant, had walked back to the express truck, up on the bed of which the driver stood dragging trunks to the open tailgate, chauffeur and footman heaving them down to the walk by their strap handles.
The cop had sauntered over, an iron filing to a magnet, and the lady gave him a pleasant but not-too-large smile. “They won’t be too long,” she said, and the cop quickly touched the peak of his cap again, and lay down on the walk to lick her shoes—well, he didn’t but he wanted to.
I’d drifted closer to the curb, very curious, the Jotta Girl right along with me, Archie hanging back, unwilling to eavesdrop. Pretending to look out into the street, watching for someone who hadn’t yet arrived, we heard the reporter—he had pad and pencil out now—say, “And may I tell our readers that you enjoyed your stay here?”
“Of course! As always. I do love America.” She turned to check the unloading; the trunks, eight of them so far, were stacking up on the walk.
“And do you still feel the suffragettes will win the vote?”
“Of course they will win. Here and in England. As of course they should.”
“And you are . . . a socialist still?”
“Yes, certainly I am a socialist. And expect to remain one.”
“And you stayed at—was it the Ritz-Carlton Hotel?”
“Yes indeed, as why should I not?” She looked back to the truck. “John? Rudy? Alice? They are all here? You’ll see them safely aboard.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said the maid, and the lady walked on toward the steps leading down to the Mauretania’s side. To the reporter who stood staring after her, I said, “Who is it?”