Lovely War(86)

Even Cobb, who had made a living peddling in Jim Crow stereotypes, and knew it, was moved by Johnson’s heroics. He put a curious coda on his own article:

. . . as a result of what our black soldiers are going to do in this war, a word that has been uttered billions of times in our country, sometimes in derision, sometimes in hate, sometimes in all kindliness—but which I am sure never fell on black ears but it left behind a sting for the heart—is going to have a new meaning for all of us, South and North too, and that hereafter n-i-*-*-*-r will merely be another way of spelling the word American.





APHRODITE


     House Call—June 1, 1918





ON SATURDAY, the first of June, on a bright and hazy midmorning, Hazel knocked on the front door of a large home on Vicarage Road, Old Moulsham, Chelmsford, with her heart in her throat.

A comfortable-looking woman in a calico day dress answered the door.

“Good morning, dearie,” she said. “Who might you be?”

“Good morning,” Hazel managed to say. “My name is Hazel Windicott. I’m looking for a Mr. James Alderidge.” She swallowed. “I’m his friend.”

The woman’s expression changed. “Are you, now?” she said. “Come right on in, then.”

The woman threw a plump arm around her shoulders and steered her through the entryway into a front sitting room. It was dark, paneled with stained oak. It felt more homey than elegant, which relieved Hazel.

“Let me take your jacket. What a pretty pink! Here, make yourself comfortable.”

A young woman of fifteen or so with the thickest sandy-brown hair Hazel had ever seen poked her nose into the front sitting room. Maggie.

“Margaret, dear, there’s a friend of James’s here. Fetch us some tea and biscuits, will you?” She layered “friend of James’s” with the significance of “Queen of England.”

Maggie’s eyebrows shot up. She disappeared toward the rear of the house.

Hazel felt rather dizzy. Every aspect of her appearance, she realized, was now being studied. Was her violet-colored skirt too garish? Her Paris shoes too vain?

“Tell me,” the woman asked, “how do you know James?”

Is James here? Why won’t you tell me?

“We met at a parish dance,” Hazel said. “In Poplar. Right before he left for France.”

“A parish dance!” the woman said. “Well, isn’t he one for not telling his blessed mother anything! Though I suppose most young men are.”

Hazel took the plunge. “Are you Mrs. Alderidge?”

The woman clapped a hand upon her forehead. “Dearie me, yes! Lost my head along with my youth ages ago, it seems. Yes, I’m Mrs. Alderidge.” She chuckled.

“And is James here?”

The woman’s face grew still. She opened her mouth, then paused. “You don’t know.”

Hazel’s flesh went cold. God in heaven, please, no.

“Mrs. Alderidge,” she pleaded, “what don’t I know?”

“Oh, you look so pale,” said Mrs. Alderidge. “When did you last hear from James?”

“We had been writing regularly,” Hazel said, “but then there was the great battle, where the Fifth Army—well, anyway, after the battle, the letters stopped. And I was so afraid.”

Mrs Alderidge’s face melted with sympathy.

“And then my mother sent me a clipping she saw in the paper,” Hazel’s words rushed on, “saying he was receiving the Distinguished Service Medal.”

Mrs. Alderidge swelled with pride.

“So I came back from France, where I’d been doing war work, to see if I could learn anything about him.”

“You came back from France,” echoed Mrs. Alderidge wonderingly. “Where you’d been doing war work. Oh, you dear, dear girl.” She closed her eyes, as though the tenderness of the scene was just more than she could bear.

This is James’s mother, Hazel told herself. Don’t grab her shoulders and shake her.

Maggie appeared then in the doorway with a tray laden with a tea service, which she set down upon a table nearby. “Shall I take some, er, upstairs?” she asked her mother.

Who’s upstairs? Hazel was desperate to know. Was Maggie trying to tell her something?

“I will in a bit, Margaret,” Mrs. Alderidge said.

Maggie retreated slowly from the room. Mrs. Alderidge busied herself with pouring tea and asking Hazel how she took it, cream or no, when Hazel’s patience burst.

“Please, Mrs. Alderidge,” Hazel implored, “is James still alive?”

A shadow passed across her hostess’s face. “He is, thank the Lord.” She set down the cup and took both of Hazel’s hands in hers. “You poor dear lamb. You feared he was dead?”

Tears pricked Hazel’s eyes. She closed her eyelids tight.

“Is he badly wounded, then?”

Mrs. Alderidge released her hands slowly. A new dread settled onto Hazel’s shoulders. It doesn’t matter, she told herself. Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. As long as it’s James.

James’s mother watched her for what felt like an eternity.

“He is well in body,” she said at length, “but he’s not yet, quite, himself.”