by Kirby Larson
“In Indiana,” Miss Maisie continued.
It seemed odd to think that a business making silk rosettes to decorate horse bridles and footmen’s livery could be so profitable. But profitable it must be, Audie decided, to judge by that fancy new town car in the drive.
“The Commodore’s work is sought out by the finest gentlemen in the country.” Miss Maisie tittered. “His rosettes are in great demand at the President’s stable!”
“Well, at Teddy’s.” The Commodore ducked his head.
Miss Maisie clasped her hands under her triple chin and nearly swooned with admiration. “Such modesty!”
“Regrettably, our current President is a fiend for the automobile, rather than the equine.” Their visitor patted his vest pocket again.
“Oh, that is regrettable.” Miss Maisie reached her hand out again to hurry the Commodore along. Maybe five pounds of chocolates and some candied violets. That would be lovely.
Abruptly, the Commodore moved his hand from his vest to his pockets. He pulled out handfuls of small pink rosettes. “In the trade, we call them cockades, not rosettes. But by either name, here are some as gifts for your girls!” He handed them around, smiling broadly.
The girls smiled back, uncertain of what to do with the frilled circles. Divinity found a hairpin and affixed hers to her braid. Audie tucked her rosette-cockade into her pinafore pocket.
Miss Maisie’s smile wobbled in her pasty face. She wondered if the Commodore had already been at the Yule eggnog. He had clearly forgotten why he’d come. She would have to help him along. “Was there something else?” she hinted broadly.
“Something else?” The Commodore’s brow furrowed. “Well, yes there is. And I will get right to it.” He turned his toothy white smile on Miss Maisie. “Such a pretty lot and so lovingly cared for. That is clear to see.”
Miss Maisie’s cheeks bloomed candy-apple pink.
Apparently, the Commodore’s eyes were not as sharp as the crease in his white trousers because, had they been, he would certainly have seen that, except for Divinity, most of the Wayward Girls were dressed in ragged pinafores worn over woefully short dresses. Some, like Audie, also pinched their feet into boots several sizes too small.
Lest you think too ill of Miss Maisie, you should know that she did allot her wards a small allowance for clothing each month. But most of the Girls followed Audie’s example, putting that allowance into a communal pot—in this case, a rare and expensive Ming vase. Miss Maisie’s self-absorption prevented her from noticing that the Manor was crumbling down around her. It fell to the Girls to act as caretakers of the Witherton family home. Instead of ordering new frocks and boots from the Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog, the Girls ordered a new roof for the Manor when the old one sprang a leak. (Audie found a book on roofing in the Punishment Room and shepherded the older Waywards through the delicate repairs.) They sent for tulip bulbs in the fall and vegetable seeds in the spring to plant in the Manor gardens. And twice they’d ordered chicks that had come all the way from Rhode Island. Reds they were, and good layers.
“I do adore these girls so. As if they were my own.” Miss Maisie fluttered her hands every which way. “Why, just this morning, I was telling little Violet here—”
“I’m Lilac.”
“How I hoped she would never leave us.”
The Commodore bowed again. “I can see that the bond between you and your charges is as robust as the ropes that lash the mainsail together.”
“The mainsail?” The question popped out of Audie’s mouth before she could stop it.
The Commodore chuckled. “Nautical term, my dear. Nautical term. Comes from a career in Uncle Sam’s navy.”
“Children do not speak until spoken to,” Miss Maisie said. “Audie. Dear.”
Again the Commodore chuckled. “No harm. No harm.” He stroked the white caterpillar moustache atop his lip. “As I was saying, it is clear that you are the light of these orphans’ lives and that they are the light of yours.”
Again Miss Maisie’s hands flitted about. “Well, they are the dearest little—”
“So what I have come to ask will require you to be brave, my dear. To be bold.” He cleared his throat and lowered his voice. “God and country; for the greater good and all that.”
“I’m not sure I understand.” On the best day, Miss Maisie’s mind could readily be compared to a steel trap. One that was rusted shut.
The Commodore motioned her close, but spoke with volume enough for all the girls to hear. “I need help with an important job. Supremely hush-hush.” He placed a well-manicured finger to his lips. “But deucedly important.”
“Well, I couldn’t leave my charges, not at the holidays,” Miss Maisie started. “And I haven’t yet finished dessert. Toffee custard.”
“Oh, my dear.” The Commodore descended upon Miss Maisie’s puffy hand and bestowed it with a kiss.
Miss Maisie launched into a remarkably apt imitation of a carp. Her plump lips swam up and down but not a burble emerged from between them.
“I would never presume to ask you to leave this place and the good work you are doing here.” The Commodore swept his cape over his shoulder with drama and finesse. “I am here to solicit a volunteer. For a mission.”
“Mission?” The word worked its way out of Miss Maisie’s gyrating mouth.
“Mission?” Seventeen girlish voices echoed their headmistress.
“I may not say more.” The Commodore held up his hand. “It is a matter of utmost secrecy. And”—he leaned in toward Miss Maisie’s ear—“discretion.”
“Sounds dangerous.” Divinity squinted at the Commodore.
For once, Audie agreed with her nemesis.
He gave a quick nod. “There is always danger for those who are afraid of it.”
“George Bernard Shaw,” said Audie with a nod of her own.
The Commodore took her in with a sharp glance. “Why, yes. Those are his words.”
“I don’t like danger,” said Bimmy. “Too dangerous.”
“I agree,” said Lilac. Her two sisters began to sniffle. The other girls began to ape Miss Maisie’s carp impression. Sixteen mouths opened and closed, wordlessly.
But the seventeenth mouth formed a tight, straight line.
“What about this orphan here?” The Commodore indicated the newest of the Wayward Girls. Katy shrank back, hiding behind Audie. The Commodore continued in a coaxing voice, “You can ride in my fine new automobile!”
“I get carsick,” Katy said. “At least, I’m pretty sure I do.”
“Well, what about that orphan?” He aimed a polished pinky at Emma.
“I don’t speak English,” Emma said.
“What about—” the Commodore began again.
“Excuse me, Commodore.” Miss Maisie stepped forward, her right hand fidgeting with the butterfly brooch on her ample bosom. “Did you say ‘orphan’?”
“This is an orphanage, is it not?”
Miss Maisie chuckled good-naturedly. “Oh, I’m afraid you are confused.” How many times did she have to remind the old crackpot? She smiled forgiveness. “A frequent misperception. This is a school for the wayward, not the orphaned.”
“There are no orphans here?” His white moustache fairly drooped.
“No. Dear me.” Miss Maisie pressed her hands to her doughy cheeks. “I am so sorry, after all, that we cannot render assistance with your admirable efforts.”
Divinity tugged on the Commodore’s white jacket. “She is.” Her stubby index finger pointed straight at Audie. “An orphan.” Divinity’s blue eyes crackled with spite.
Long accustomed to Divinity’s torments, Audie did not flinch from being so identified.
“A minor detail.” Miss Maisie dismissed Divinity’s revelation. “She’s more wayward than all the rest put together. Far too much trouble …” Her voice trailed off. The headmistress sorely lacked the mental acuity necessary to forestall the outcome of Divinity’s action.
Audie stared f
irst at Divinity and then at the Commodore. He could not hold her gaze long and broke away.
“Are you an orphan?” He was particularly anxious about the reply because this lass looked as if she were up to the task.
Audie nodded. Our heroine was ever truthful, no matter the consequence. Whether or not this is a trait to admire I shall leave to your judgment, dear reader.
“Will you do it, then?” the Commodore asked.
She considered. It was true that she had been longing for an adventure. But was that sufficient reason to go off with a naval man, no matter how wealthy, who seemed to have no idea that mainsails were never lashed together with ropes? Or that the rank of Commodore had last been used by the United States Navy eleven years prior, in 1899? The answer to both of these questions is, of course, no.
And that would have been Audie’s answer, too, save for the buzzing in her left ear. That buzzing was a phenomenon she had learned not to ignore. If only her parents had listened to her, and begged off on that safari in the Dutch East Indies when she was five—her ear had nearly buzzed right off her head that day—she might not be in this current predicament.
More prudent minds might label the Commodore’s request nothing more than a wild-goose chase. But what good are wild geese, if not pursued upon occasion? Audie reflected on a Chinese proverb she’d skimmed in The People’s Proverbs: “Pearls don’t lie on the seashore. If you desire one, you must dive for it.” In her short life, she had noted that, oftimes, a person is put in difficult positions for good reasons. Reasons that are beyond comprehension. And more than having an adventure, Audie dreamed of doing some good in the world. It appeared that in order to gather that particular pearl, she would have to dive. “Bees and bonnets,” she said. “I’ll go.”
“Well then. We’re off.” The Commodore replaced his hat atop his head. “Come along … lassie.”
“You’re leaving now?” Miss Maisie looked befuddled. “Tomorrow is Christmas Day.”
“The young lady and I have a date with destiny,” he said. “No time to lose.”
The triplets’ sniffles exploded into wails. Bimmy threw her arms around Audie’s waist. “Don’t go, Audie. Don’t!”
Audie patted her comrade’s back. “What have I always told you?” she asked.
Bimmy released her grip, drawing in a shaky breath. “That everything will turn out splendid in the end,” she said. “And if it’s not splendid, it’s not the end.”
Audie chucked Bimmy under the chin. “That’s the ticket. No need to worry about me,” she asserted, though, truth be told, her voice conveyed more confidence than she felt.
“Oh, I won’t,” said Miss Maisie, wondering if it would be rude to slip out to the kitchen for an éclair. All of this excitement had left her feeling peckish.
“We will!” chorused the triplets, on the verge once again of imitating Niagara Falls. Audie staunched their waterworks with comforting hugs and then turned to face the Commodore. “It won’t take me but a jiff to pack.”
Farewells were made as Audie gathered her belongings, including the books she’d stashed behind the umbrella stand. Her pinafore was soggy with the triplets’ tears by the time the last of her meager possessions was packed in a worn carpetbag loaned her by none other than Divinity.
“Good riddance,” were Divinity’s tender words of parting.
There were no words spoken aloud between Audie and Bimmy, merely a shared hug and a whisper from Audie into her bosom chum’s ear.
With a wave to Miss Maisie, in whose frilled bodice was safely tucked a promissory note for an exorbitant sum given her by the Commodore for the “loan of a brave little orphan lass,” Audie climbed into the touring car.
Sadly, there was not even time for a quick adieu to Miniver, but Audie had no worries about the plucky cat, as resourceful and resilient as Audie herself.
A long-limbed feline, her coat a lush robe of chocolate stripes, blinked two gold eyes at the fancy automobile. A large man, all in white, like an angel or a phantom, slid his portly self into the passenger’s side of the front seat. Another man, with hair as black as a raven’s wing and the scent of the desert about him, tested the rear passenger door handles. They were locked.
The cat undulated her long dark tail ever so slowly. In that instant, the man from the desert worried that he had forgotten to lock the latches on the wicker trunk fastened at the rear of the vehicle. He stepped around to check. Locked. But perhaps he should make certain they were latched properly. He undid the locks, and the cat flicked her tail again. Was it by mere coincidence that a puff of wind caught the chauffeur’s cap at that exact instant, sending said cap tumbling down the drive? We leave it to you to judge. At any rate, the man gave chase rather a goodly distance—it was a shockingly vigorous gust. His breathing was ragged by the time he returned, cap firmly settled on his shiny black hair. He then completed the task of locking the wicker trunk, giving each latch a tug to check its security before proceeding to the driver’s door.
“Odd about that wind,” the man in white observed. “Came out of nowhere.”
The dark-haired man nodded in agreement. “This hat cost me three dollars. I wasn’t about to lose it.” After a long spate of bad luck, the man had only recently found this employment opportunity as a chauffeur. He was eager for his first paycheck, which would help him recoup the cost of said cap and the rest of his snappy driver’s uniform.
“Shall we be off, then, the three of us?” the man in white suggested.
“Yes, sir.” The driver gave the engine a good many cranks, then took his seat behind the wheel. He drove cautiously down the rutted lane, under the gray flannel afternoon sky, completely unaware that the vehicle now carried not three but four passengers, one of whom was curled up in a wicker trunk next to a well-worn carpetbag, where she was carefully bathing each of her four white paws.
“Oh, Father, do we have to?” Charlie kicked at the legs of the chair upon which he was perched. Never mind that Abraham Lincoln might have occupied that very chair. The young lad was too peeved to think about the historic import of White House furnishings. He kicked harder. “We’re barely related.”
President Taft turned his blue eyes on his youngest child. “Charlie, you may recall the pleasant hours you passed in this place when Quentin Roosevelt was in your shoes. I would hope you would be as generous a host.”
Mrs. Taft set her fork down. “The roast is delicious tonight, isn’t it, Will?” Her speech was so clear you would never have guessed she’d suffered a stroke mere months before. “Mrs. Jaffray has outdone herself.”
Her husband nodded.
Mrs. Taft sighed, her face awash in dreaminess. “How well I recall my first White House visit. At seventeen.” Her fingers grazed the violets pinned to her bodice, releasing their delicate fragrance. “One step inside and I was smitten.” She smiled sweetly. “I made a wish then and there that I might live in the White House someday. Thank you, my dear, for making that wish come true.”
The President returned her smile and then nudged aside a piece of gristle with his knife. He pointed said knife at his son. “She’ll only be here for a few days.” He lifted a large bite of beef, dripping with gravy, to his mouth. “And she is your cousin.” He chewed thoughtfully. “Of sorts. And said to be quite spirited and charming.”
“But she’s a girl, Father.” Charlie threw his napkin onto the table, ignoring his mother’s uplifted eyebrows. “A boring old girl.”
President Taft chuckled. “I remember thinking along those same lines about the female of the species. Until that delightful sledding outing with your mother.” He gazed adoringly at his wife, unaware of the drop of gravy glistening on his chin.
“Father!” Charlie’s head thumped to the table. “Now you’ve made me ill.”
Mrs. Taft pantomimed wiping her chin. Her husband did not get the message. She cleared her throat, pointing discreetly.
“Cousins can turn out to be the best of friends,” the President boomed, brushing aw
ay the offending drop. “Even girls. Especially girls.”
Charlie’s head lifted from the tabletop one inch. “Please don’t make me.” In his mind’s eye, he foresaw endless games of hopscotch and charades and other deadly dull pastimes.
His father calmly and methodically cleaned up the remaining bits of beef and potato on the plate. “Of course, I won’t make you.”
Charlie sat upright. He felt the wings of freedom sprouting at his shoulders. “Really, Father?”
The elder Taft leaned back, patting his stout midsection before dabbing his mouth with a monogrammed linen napkin. He rang the bell for after-dinner coffee. (Never port; this president had foresworn alcohol.) “I won’t make you,” Charlie’s father repeated, liberally spooning sugar into his coffee cup. He toasted his wife. “Your mother will.”
If his mother was behind cousin Dorothy’s visit, there was no hope. No way out. Charlie was doomed. Doomed.
His heart turned to lead with the weight of this unbearable sentence. “May I be excused?”
“You may,” his parents chorused.
At that, Charles Phelps Taft removed himself from the dining room with as much dignity as any condemned man could muster.
Because that is what he was.
Condemned to entertaining his twelve-year-old distant cousin, Dorothy, for two entire days of his Christmas vacation.
The touring car bumped down West Lyons Street, and past the Swayzee Depot, where a Toledo, St. Louis, and Western Railway train was groaning into the station. As the auto rumbled down Washington, toward the outskirts of town, Audie kept herself busy trying to identify as many of the passing trees as possible: ash, dogwood, birch. There, in front of the town grammar school, a white pine was stooped over like an old woman, limbs sagging with the weight of the previous night’s freezing rain. Several blocks farther along, a stray dog limped to shelter under the livery stable overhang. It watched the touring car pass, scratching its ear all the while. Audie wiggled her fingers in greeting.
The voyagers continued under an icy sky and Audie was grateful for the thick wool blanket draped over her legs. Jack Frost nipped cruelly at her cheeks and nose. What she wouldn’t give for a matching muff and hat like that girl across the way, walking with her family up the front steps of the Catholic church.
