“I was simply trying to make sense of all this. You changed your name from Schreiber to Sutton, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Presumably because you thought you might be more employable with a run-of-the-mill name?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that I understand,” he said. “I’m probably the only person in England who knows how to spell my surname properly. And what else? Oh, right—you fudged your credentials. Said you’d been to university.”
“Yes. I planned to go one day, but I had to save up first. And to do that, I needed a better-paying job.”
He nodded, his fingers steepled under his chin, his gaze fixed on the desktop between them. “And is that the sum of it?”
“Not quite. The worst part is that I used a forged birth certificate to obtain my passport. I went to a man who’d been at the orphanage with me. Danny was good at things like that. I . . . I may be prosecuted for it when I return home.”
“I doubt it. Bennett will make sure you aren’t bothered again.”
“Do you have any idea how they found out? I’ve been think—”
“I do,” he said wearily. “I’m fairly certain it was Peter Drury.”
“Peter? But I thought . . . I mean, we were always friendly. This doesn’t make any sense. Why would he do such a thing?”
“I’m not sure. When Bennett rang last night, he asked if there were anyone here who might bear you a grudge. Anyone who might be unhappy at your presence at PW. It made no sense to me, but then I recalled something Peter had said a few weeks ago. He came in one morning, shut the door, and asked why you’d been chosen to come here. Of all the staff writers at The American, why had it been you, since you were so young and inexperienced, at least compared to others there who might have been interested. It seemed an odd thing for him to ask, not least because he’d never shown any interest in the subject when you first came to England.”
“What did you say to him?”
“I said I’d specifically asked for a woman, and that obviously they had chosen you because you were the best of the female staff writers they had.”
“It was actually because I was the only one without a husband or family that needed—”
“Ruby. Another day I shall take you to lunch and set you straight on a few things. At any rate, I thought that was the end of it, but he kept on at me. Wanted to know why you’d been given the chance to interview Mrs. Roosevelt, for example.”
“It was an accident—a miracle, really. I just ended up in her car.”
“That’s what I told him. So then he . . . what is going on out there?”
The office was always a noisy place, but the voices outside were louder than normal; angrier, too. The door burst open. Peter all but tumbled into the room, struggling free of Emil’s restraining arms, his own limbs flailing wildly.
“I knew it! I knew you’d be here, telling Kaz your side of things, making him believe your lies.”
“Why, Peter?” Ruby asked. “Why did you do this? I thought we were friends. You were so nice to me when I first arrived.”
“And look what that earned me. Before you came, I was the one Kaz took to lunch. I was the one he confided in. I was his friend here at PW—not you.”
“No,” Kaz insisted, shaking his head. “Nothing changed when Ruby came here. If I was kind to her, it was because she was on her own. She was new here, and she needed friends.”
“Everything changed,” Peter went on, his voice rising steadily, “and there was nothing I could do. I just had to stand there and take it as she got all the best stories, all the best chances. And when I tried to be friends with her, to get to know her better, she acted like she was too good for me. Like she’d rather do anything than spend a few minutes with me after work. But then I ran into Dan Mazur, and—”
“Who?” Kaz asked perplexedly.
“A staff writer at The American,” Ruby broke in. “Remember? I met up with him just after he was posted here. I wouldn’t say we’re friends, but we’re not exactly enemies.”
“You should have heard what he had to say about her,” Peter sneered. “He told me he couldn’t understand how Ruby had landed a job at The American in the first place. He said he’d noticed that her accent would slip sometimes, just enough to make him curious. No college girl he knew would talk like that, he said. He said he figured she was hiding something.
“It was easy to unravel,” Peter went on, not noticing, or perhaps not caring, that his colleagues had begun to regard him as they might do an earwig. “I wrote to The American and asked them to send me a copy of Ruby’s bio. It said she’d gone to Sarah Lawrence College. So I checked, good reporter that I am, and they had no record of her attending.
“That made me wonder what else she was hiding, so I decided to find out where she was born. It turned out there were no records of a Roberta Anne Sutton, birth date July twelfth, 1916, in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, or any other neighboring state.”
“This is demented,” Kaz observed bitterly.
Peter ignored him. “So I wrote back to the state registrars, and asked if anyone with a similar name had been born on the same date. That’s when I discovered a Roberta Anne Schreiber had been born in Newark, New Jersey, on that date, to a woman named Annie Schreiber. There wasn’t a name for the father on her birth certificate, which didn’t surprise me one—”
“Enough!” Kaz roared.
“She grew up in an orphanage. She lied about her name, her education, everything, and you welcomed her like a long-lost sister. You even gave her the best stories—”
“She thought up those stories,” Emil interrupted. “If her ideas were better than yours, you have only yourself to blame.”
“Every time I turned around she was there, worming her way in. She even sat next to you at Mary’s funeral. And where was I? Standing at the back of the church like some nobody. How could you do that to me?”
“Get out,” Kaz said. “Collect your things and get out.”
“She’s the one who has to go! I told the police everything. They said it was a grave offense—they said she’d be deported.”
“Nothing is happening to Ruby. Emil? Can you help Peter clear out his desk?”
“With pleasure,” Emil said, and went to grasp Peter’s arm.
“You can’t do this,” Peter shouted, twisting free. “I’ll go to the papers. I’ll tell them everything.”
Kaz rounded the desk with astonishing speed for such a big man. Looming over Peter, cold fury in his eyes, he was a daunting sight. “You will say nothing.”
“You can’t stop me,” Peter squeaked, marshaling the last of his bravado.
“Perhaps not, but I’ve friends who can. And I’m not above pulling them into this to ensure you keep quiet. I’ll not let you ruin Ruby’s life because of your wounded pride.”
Peter turned to Ruby, his face so twisted by loathing that she could see little of the affable colleague she’d once known. “It was Bennett, wasn’t it? Of course it was. He’s up to his neck in—”
“One. More. Word,” Kaz enunciated, his words dropping like stones into a soundless lake. “One more word from you, and I will pick up this telephone and call him. Is that what you want? Is it? You have to know what the consequences will be.”
“No,” Peter mumbled, his face sweaty and pale. “I’ll go.” He shambled from the room. At a nod from Kaz, Emil followed.
Ruby lingered, not wanting to see Peter again. And she still had so many questions. “I thought you’d be angrier,” she said once they were alone.
“Last night I was, a bit. Only at first. Apart from your name, though, you didn’t lie to me. Your first day here, when we were at lunch, you told me you grew up in New Jersey and that you went to secretarial college. You didn’t say anything about going to university.”
“You remember that? Even three years on?”
“I remember everything,” he said, his pale eyes meeting hers. “Now, off you go. W
e still have a magazine to get out, and we’re down a staff writer. Time we got back to work.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
December 1943
At their Wednesday editorial meeting, the last of the calendar year, Emil had almost finished enumerating his list of story ideas for the week. “I’m not sure about this last one. We’ve had an invitation from the Hornchurch Cottage Homes in Essex. They’d like us to do a story on their annual Christmas party for the children. It’s this Saturday, the eighteenth, so we can just fit it in. Kaz? What do you think?”
“Hmm. In theory I don’t object, but I don’t want something syrupy about rosy-cheeked orphans. I’m not—”
“I’ll do it,” Ruby said, surprising even herself.
“Are you sure?” Kaz looked uncharacteristically anxious.
“I don’t mind. And I don’t think there’s any chance of my making it syrupy.”
“True enough,” he agreed. “Very well. Let me know how you get on. Frank—do you mind going with Ruby?”
“Not at all.”
Saturday morning saw Ruby and Frank on a District line Underground train to the wilds of Essex. When they arrived, a scant hour after leaving the PW offices, they discovered the home’s superintendent had sent his car and driver to fetch them.
“This bodes well,” Frank whispered, and she had to hope he was right.
The “cottages” were substantial two-story brick houses, no more than fifty or sixty years old, and were set well apart from one another, with no lack of green space between. Altogether the institution looked pleasant enough, but Ruby wasn’t inclined to pass judgment until she’d seen and spoken with the children who lived there.
Their car pulled up to what looked like a chapel or hall, and there they were greeted by the superintendent himself, Mr. Oldham, who was well into his sixties and had a disarmingly friendly smile.
“Welcome, Miss Sutton, Mr. Gossage. Welcome to Hornchurch, and happy Christmas to you both. Let me show you inside.”
“Is this where the party is being held?” Ruby asked.
“Yes—the hall is the only place here that’s big enough to hold all the children. We’ve nearly three hundred at the moment.”
The first thing Ruby noticed, as they entered the hall, was the noise. She’d expected silence, for the nuns at St. Mary’s had been quick to punish anyone who spoke above the merest whisper at Mass, at gatherings, or even in the dormitories. But here the children were talking and laughing with one another, their assembled voices a happy chorus, and no one seemed to be afraid of how the adults would react.
In true institutional style the girls had their hair cut short; no fussing with braids and ribbons here. But the children were dressed neatly, their shoes were polished, and their faces were clean. Ruby saw no bruises or evidence of mistreatment, though such things were easy enough to hide beneath clothing. Of course she would need to speak with—
“Don’t you agree, Miss Sutton?” Mr. Oldham asked.
“I’m sorry—I didn’t hear you just now. I was busy watching the children.” Frank, she now saw, was on the far side of the hall, melting into the background as he took his photographs.
“I was saying only that the fresh air, here in the countryside, really seems to bring out the best in the children. Most are from Clerkenwell, you see, and often are in a rather sad state when they come to us.”
“I know that part of London,” she said, turning to the superintendent. “I used to live nearby. Are all the children here orphans?”
“Some, but not all. Quite a few have a surviving parent who simply can’t manage.”
“What sort of schooling do they receive?”
“The same state-funded education as any other child. They finish at fourteen, and at that point most are placed out as domestics or, as with many of the boys, in apprenticeships of one sort or another.”
“May I speak to some of the children?”
“Of course, of course. I do ask that you be sensitive in the questions you ask. Nothing about their parents or how they came to live here, please. That sort of thing has a tendency to upset even the most levelheaded child.”
“I’m sure it does. I promise to be gentle with them.”
In the end, speaking to the children wasn’t much different from any other interview. She asked them their names, how old they were, if they had been good, and if they were excited about the visit from Father Christmas. In turn she explained, more than once, that she had a funny voice because she was from America, that she didn’t know any film stars personally, and that she sadly hadn’t brought any chewing gum or chocolate with her.
“I think that’s mostly the American soldiers who have things to share,” she explained solemnly, “but I haven’t been back to the United States in a long time. I’m very sorry.”
As she spoke with them and scribbled down their answers, she remained alert for any signs of distress or fear, but detected none. No one from the home came to hover at her elbow to intimidate with their silent presence. The children didn’t cringe or fall silent when Matron or one of the nursemaids wandered past. Best of all, when it was time for the Punch and Judy show, they reacted as healthy children ought to do, with shrieks of laughter at Punch’s alarming antics and shouted warnings to the other puppets.
At last it was time for Father Christmas, who arrived with a bulging sack that contained a small gift for every child. His costume was a little moth-eaten and his cotton-wool beard was far from convincing, but the children didn’t seem to notice or care.
By then, Ruby had returned to Mr. Oldham’s side, and they watched as Father Christmas doled out the contents of his sack to the waiting children.
“How do you afford gifts for everyone?” she asked softly.
“It’s a struggle, especially with the war on. But local businesses are very generous, as are our churches here in Hornchurch. And our staff work year round to knit mittens for everyone. Add in a pencil and a handful of sweets, and they’re happy. Or as happy as we can make them. I’m afraid children like these are destined to have modest expectations, not only of Christmastime but life in general. We do our best, though.”
“I can see that you do.”
All too soon, the party was over and it was time for Ruby and Frank to return to London. As soon as they were safely on the train she sat back in her seat, let out her breath, and tried to put her thoughts and feelings into some kind of order.
“You all right?” Frank asked quietly.
“Yes. It wasn’t . . . I mean, it was nicer than I was expecting,” she said after a moment.
“It was.”
“You know about . . . ?”
“You growing up in an orphanage? Yes. Couldn’t help it, really, what with the way Peter was shouting about it that day.”
“Oh,” she said. “Of course.”
“I grew up in one of Dr. Barnardo’s homes. My dad died when I was little, and my mum couldn’t take care of all of us. So she handed over me and my younger brother. Kept the four eldest with her.”
“I’m so sorry, Frank.”
“I was young, but I still remember that day. They had to tear me out of her arms. I was kicking and screaming like a banshee.” He began to fuss with the buckle on his camera bag. “I don’t talk about it much. I suppose it’s the same back in America. People get that look on their face when they find out.”
“They do. Did you ever see her again?”
“No. She died when I was ten or eleven. Long after I’d given up hoping she’d come back for me.”
Ruby nodded. “I remember that feeling. Even though my mother was dead, and the nuns never stopped reminding me of that fact, I still hoped. And then, one day, I just stopped.”
“Stopped hoping?”
“Yes. An awful thing, when you think of it. That a child so young should feel such despair.”
Frank nodded, and for a few minutes neither of them spoke.
“Every so often people would visit the orphanage,” Ruby
began, half-forgotten memories crowding in on her. “Couples who wanted a child. They’d sit in the parlor and the nuns would bring out a few children for them to inspect. When I got to be a bit older, I asked one of the nuns, one of the nicer ones, why I never got to go to the parlor. I’d already figured out I wasn’t pretty enough, and I assumed that’s what she’d tell me. But she said . . .”
Frank reached out and took Ruby’s hand, and the solidity of his touch, the understanding that radiated from him, helped her to go on.
“She said my mother had been a woman of low repute. A whore, in her words, although I knew she’d been a maid in a hotel. I can just remember her, dressed in her uniform, going off to work. So I knew what Sister Joan said wasn’t true.”
“Who took care of you when your mum was at work?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember anyone else being there. I think, maybe, she might have left me alone. In the room we shared. Somehow I must have known not to cry . . .”
She stopped there, not sure of her voice anymore. When she was feeling more composed, more like herself again, she squeezed Frank’s hand and gave him her best smile. “The home today wasn’t perfect,” she said. “Places like that never are. But the children . . . they seemed happy enough.”
“They did,” he agreed.
“Did you see their faces when Father Christmas arrived? That’s when I knew they were all right. That they were being cared for.”
“How?”
“They still believed. All those smiling, trusting little faces, and somehow, in spite of everything, they still believed.”
BENNETT REAPPEARED A few days into the New Year, coming through the front door of the PW offices just as Ruby was preparing to go home for the day.
“Hello, Ruby.”
“Hello,” she said, feeling awkward for no good reason at all. “You’re back.”
“I am. Are you free for dinner?”
“No. I mean yes. I mean—I’m not really dressed for an evening out.”
“I was thinking we could go to the Victory Café. See what they have on the menu tonight.”
“I’d love that.”
“Right. Just let me pop my head into Kaz’s office before we go. Won’t be a minute.”
Goodnight from London Page 24
