The Unfortunates. Laurie Graham
quite shone.
The very next day Miss Ruby was sent for. She was an unfortunate person who had lost her money through unwise investments and so was forced to do mending and alterations for good families. After a brief discussion with Ma, Miss Ruby provided me with a basket of sludge-brown wool and a lesson in turning heels. I was to be a knitter of socks for the American Expeditionary Force.
I confided in Honey my hopes that I might have been sent to the front line.
‘There are many important ways to serve,’ she said. ‘I shall be very glad of your help at my War Orphans Craft Bazaar, for instance.’
I said, ‘But I wanted to go to France.’
‘And what use would you be to anyone there?’ she asked.
I reminded her that I had studied French for four years, but she laughed.
‘Looking into French books doesn’t signify anything, you goose,’ she said. ‘Minnie Schwab went to Paris and she found they spoke something quite unintelligible. Besides, if you went away who would take care of Ma?’
I said, ‘She has Reilly. Or she could stay with you.’
‘Isn’t that a rather selfish scheme, Poppy,’ she said, ‘to think of uprooting her from her own home?’
Somehow, at the age of nearly twenty, I managed to be both useless and indispensable. My country didn’t need me, my mother couldn’t spare me, and the French would not be able to understand me. I knitted socks in such a fury of frustration, Miss Ruby could barely keep me supplied with yarn.
We suffered almost immediate casualties. Our parlor maid and housemaid had conspired to inconvenience us by leaving together to work in a factory. Then Sherman Ulysses’ day nurse volunteered for the signal corps, and Ma, in the spirit of sharing during a time of national emergency, offered Honey the use of our Irish. Honey wasn’t sure. She and Harry wished their son to be cared for by a person of the highest caliber, someone who would truly understand the ways of an exceptional four year old. My nephew was exceptional in a number of ways. His speech was still immature and when he failed to make himself understood he would lie on the floor and hold his breath until he erupted into a howling rage. ‘Num num,’ he’d sob piteously, ‘num num.’ And all around him would try to guess, with the utmost urgency, what he was trying to convey. Also, though he knew perfectly well how to sit nicely on extra cushions and use his spoon and pusher and drink neatly from a cup, he did not always choose to do so.
‘I don’t know, Ma,’ Honey said. ‘Does your Irish know anything about children?’
‘Of course she does,’ Ma said. ‘The Irish are never fewer than thirteen to a family.’
Still Honey dithered, driving Ma to become unusually testy with her.
‘I must remind you, Honey,’ she said, ‘that war requires sacrifice. And if I am prepared to make my sacrifice you might be gracious enough to accept it.’
All of this turned out to have been futile because when the Irish was sent for, to be given new orders, she had her coat on, ready to go to Westchester County and be a wartime fruit picker and leave us in the lurch.
Ma was beside herself, but the Irish was fearless.
‘’Tis to free up the men, d’you see ma’am?’ she said. I studied her as she said it, and often rehearsed to myself later how she had told this to Ma, as cool as you like, and then simply walked out of the door.
It took a week for Ma and Honey to regroup and decide there was a simple choice. Either Reilly had to be seconded to the part-time care of Sherman Ulysses or Honey must suffer a total collapse. Reilly was called upstairs.
She said it was bad enough managing without a girl to help her downstairs, without having to run to another house and play nursemaid. She said she couldn’t see the justice of being asked to do the work of three for the wages of one, and not very generous wages at that. She said she thought herself quite unsuitable for the care of a small child on account of an ungovernable temper.
‘Then you must learn to master it, Reilly,’ Ma said. ‘Think of it as your war effort.’
Two things occurred to me. The first was that Reilly had a newly defiant look about her. I sensed she would only endure this latest imposition for as long as it took her to make other arrangements. The second was that when she disappeared I might well acquire a new set of shackles. I might have to learn to cook and clean. I might have to endure the flailing feet and slimy top lip of Sherman Ulysses in full spate.
No one paid afternoon calls anymore. Mrs Lesser and Mrs Schwab were busy meeting troop trains with coffee and cigarettes, one of the Misses Stone was driving for the Motor Corps, and the other was speaking at Liberty Loan rallies when she could spare time from helping the unfortunates. As for Aunt Fish, she had become the very paragon of a committee woman.
Monday was Milk for Polish Babies, Tuesday was the Maimed Soldier Fund, Wednesday was Trench Comfort Packets and Thursdays she alternated French Orphans with Plows for Serbia. The Blue Cross Association were anxious to capture her for their Suffering Horses and Disabled Army Dogs Committee, but Ma counseled against taking on any more.
‘You will prostrate yourself, Zillah,’ she said, ‘and however deserving the cause, you may be sure it’s not worth paying for it with your health. Besides, think of Israel. When a man comes home to an empty hearth every night …’
But Uncle Israel was busy, too, with his War Relief Clearing House and I believe he found, as I did, that my aunt was improved by war. It distracted her with practical problems and filled her address book with new acquaintances.
‘Mrs Elphick,’ she reported, ‘proposed that we add sewing machines to the list, and Mrs Bayliss seconded the proposal.’
Ma played with the fringed edge of the tablecloth and yawned.
‘And then Miss Landau suggested …’ Miss Landau now featured prominently in Aunt Fish’s conversation.
‘Such a genuine person,’ Aunt Fish would prattle. ‘Quite tireless, and so generous with her time. And helping to raise her nephews, too, since her sister was so cruelly taken. They were Philadelphia Landaus, I believe, and her sister was married to Jacoby the furrier. Only thirty-five when …’ Here Aunt Fish would lower her voice. ‘… it was an obstruction of the internal parts, and she might have been saved if only she had given in sooner to the pain.’
‘Yes,’ Ma would reply, ‘I believe you told me a dozen times already. Fatigue must be making you forgetful.’
It was the tireless and genuine Miss Landau who lured Aunt Fish through the door of something called the B’nai Brith Sisterhood, and soon afterwards, onto its war relief committee.
‘Don’t look at me that way, Dora,’ Aunt Fish said.
‘I begin to wonder,’ Ma said, ‘why you troubled arguing with Israel about names, if you’re now willing to associate so freely with racial factions.’
Uncle Israel had refused to become a Fairbanks, but my aunt had had her cards changed anyway. Harry had given her a special price.
I said, ‘Is B’nai Brith German then?’
Aunt Fish laughed. ‘No, Poppy,’ she said. ‘It’s just a silly old name.’
With Reilly dispatched to look after Sherman Ulysses every day between the hours of ten and three, Ma had taken upon herself responsibility for preparing luncheon. This led to a series of mishaps with knives, hot pans, gravy browning and corn starch and to a consequent shortage of anything edible between breakfast and dinner. I was hungry, all the time, and I had sore elbows caused, Ma decided, by immoderate knitting.
I said, ‘Perhaps now I could do something else for the war?’