After leaving Dottie’s flat, Michael and I went to a fish and chips shop and then to Trafalgar Square to eat. As always, the square was covered in pigeons, all waiting for one of us to drop a crumb. Michael was unperturbed by pigeons hopping on his shoes, but I stomped my feet to get them away from me.
“Well, what did you think?” I asked.
“I agree with Dottie. You are ‘quite a looker,’ but you’re prettier than Gene Tierney. And that were the truth.”
“Thanks, Tyrone. That’s quite a compliment coming from someone who is better looking than Clark Gable and Cary Grant put together. But what did you think about Dottie?”
“Did you see the thickness of her glasses?” Michael asked. “They looked like shot glasses.”
“I meant what did you think about her working at Montclair as a servant?”
“There wasn’t all that much that was new for me. Don’t forget, my grandparents were servants,” Michael said, pulling tiny pieces off of his chips and throwing them to the pigeons. “On rainy days, James and I loved running up and down the backstairs. One time, Dad said, ‘Try going up and down those stairs carrying a bucket of coal because that’s what the servants had to do.’ It was as if a light went on in my head. For the first time, I noticed how the stone was worn in the middle of the steps from all of the times the servants had gone up and down, answering servants’ bells or hauling hot water for the master’s bath. After that, I’d think about all those servants who did that because they had to — people like Dottie and my grandparents.”
Some of what Dottie had shared was also familiar to me. I had plucked my share of chickens, and I had hauled buckets of coal up from the cellar to keep the kitchen fire going. Our family got all of our coal from my uncle’s bootleg hole near the cemetery. When Uncle Bill dumped a load in our backyard, my father would string up lights for a “coal-cracking party.” All the kids had their own hammers to break the coal into pieces small enough to fit into our stove. By the time we finished, the tips of our fingers were raw from handling the jagged pieces of anthracite, but the next day we would be treated to an ice cream cone at Walsh’s.
“It’s amazing to me how loyal the servants were, when they were basically second-class citizens. Your Dad told me his father was so angry when he found out your parents were getting married. It was as if he had betrayed the Laceys by presuming to marry into the family.”
“Loyalty is usually a good thing,” Michael said. “There are times, such as war, when it is what binds a people together, allowing them to do collectively what they could not possibly do individually. But it can also mean that someone, such as my grandfather, would never question anything that was asked of him by ‘his betters,’ and it can be even trickier in personal relationships.”
“For example?” I asked.
“For example, Audrey. I should have ended it sooner, but I had this misguided sense of loyalty because she was such a nice lady. Eventually, I had to let go.”
“You seem to be attracted to older women,” I said, knowing that Michael had been talking about Rob and me.
“I’m attracted to intelligent women, regardless of age,” he answered quickly. “It’s true I was often more comfortable with someone who had a few years on me because I was pretty awkward around women.”
“Michael, I don’t want to give you a big head, but you’re handsome, intelligent, witty, well-traveled, and yet when you talk about women, it’s like ‘Golly, gee. Aw, shucks!’”
“You have to remember I went to an all-boys’ school and then to The Tech, which is not co-educational.”
“You can’t tell me that Manchester didn’t have attractive women.” I just found it hard to believe that someone as charming and easy to talk to as Michael could be so clumsy around girls, especially in light of the way he was constantly flirting with me.
“Let me tell you a story that will give you an idea of just how backwards I was. When I was at The Tech, James came up from Cambridge for the weekend, and we went to this dance hall. James picked up a girl right away. This girl grabs a friend, and we go back to her house. Her parents aren’t home, so she marches James right upstairs. I’m left all alone with Linda, whom I hadn’t known thirty minutes earlier. We’re sitting there, and she says, ‘Well, what would you like to do?’ and I said that I’d like some tea. She says, ‘Aren’t you a laugh,’ and starts kissing and pawing me and sticking her tongue in my mouth and in my ear. I managed to get from under her and went back to my room. When James saw me later that night, he called me an idiot, and said, ‘She would have done anything you wanted.’ And I said, ‘All I wanted was for her to keep her tongue out of my mouth.’
I tried not to laugh, but it was impossible. The idea of a guy having to fight off a girl because she was overly aggressive was too funny.
“Sure, it’s funny now. But at the time, I felt as if I was being defiled,” he said with his million-dollar smile.
“What happened the second year at The Tech?” I asked, still laughing.
“I did a little better than in the first term, but then I got called up. After my basic and advanced training, I ended up in Lincolnshire at a bomber base.”
“Where you met Edith?”
“Where I met Edith.”
I couldn’t stop laughing. I stood up and held out my hand. “Come on, Tyrone. It’s time for Gene to see you safely home.”
Chapter 41
In late November, a dense fog engulfed most of Western Europe. Airports shut down, ships collided, trains plowed into each other, and cars crashed. With visibility reduced to a matter of feet, people began to carry flashlights when they were out walking.
The fog made me rethink my promise to Beth to stay in England through the holidays. I realized that if I received a telegram with news that my aunt’s condition had worsened, it might be impossible, because of the weather, for me to get home in time to see her. I decided to book a seat on the first available flight to the States. I wanted to make sure that I would have one last chance to be with my aunt.
The person in charge of scheduling travel for AAFES employees informed me that, because of the fog, there was now a wait time of at least two weeks for nonessential personnel, and movement on that list could take place only once the fog lifted. A few days after I mentioned my situation to Geoff, I was summoned to Rand’s office. Although Rand was always polite to me, I still had the feeling that whenever he addressed me, I was being called on the carpet.
“Maggie, you are not in trouble unless you’ve done something that I don’t know about.” I shook my head, and he continued, “Geoff has acquainted me with the state of your aunt’s health. Weather permitting, I am returning to Washington on December 15th. I am allowed to travel with one dependent. Are you interested?”
Although December 15th was still ten days off, I would actually have a scheduled departure date. This might be the only way I could get home. I went over and kissed him on the cheek. He smiled for a second before telling me that I would have to make my own way from Washington to Minooka. That would not be a problem because it was something I had done many times during my two years in the District during the war.
Now that I had a better than average chance of leaving on a certain date, I had to finish up the timeline for the history of the Lacey family. That was the easy part. The hard part would be saying good-bye to the Crowells because I wasn’t sure if I would be returning to England.
I telephoned Beth and asked if I could come to Crofton Wood on December 11th. She said she would love to have me, but that she and Jack were to attend the wedding of Ginger Bramfield’s daughter in Derby on that Saturday. It was the last weekend before I would leave, so I told her I would like to come anyway. I carefully packed up Elizabeth Garrison’s diaries and the other letters Beth had given to me, so that I could complete Mrs. Caton’s project. I had become so caught up in Elizabeth’s story that I felt as if I was parting with a friend. As I traveled north on the train from Euston Station, I noticed that the fog was beginning to lift. If the weatherman was correct, I would be able to leave with Rand on Wednesday.