William’s father shifted in the saddle and pushed his hat back to wipe at his brow. On this hill, they could just catch a lick of breeze off the sea. Marin County in the summer was usually pleasant—warm in the day but not hot, cool at night—but the past few days had been uncomfortably hot, and it was still May.
“The way I see it, the railroad’s gone about as far as it can. The last few years, we’ve been grinding gears, trying to get to the next thing, but not making any movement.”
Sitting astride his own horse, at his father’s side, William looked out over the same expanse of rolling yellow hills, dotted with grazing cattle, that made up most of the Frazier ranch. “Dad, the whole country travels by rail. We’ve never had more passengers than we have now, and the trend increases every year. Motorcars aren’t changing that. When people want to travel more than fifteen or twenty miles, they take the train.”
“I know. I’m not saying we’re out of business. Our books look better than ever before. But part of the reason the money looks good is our outlay is down. We’ve been maintaining for more than three years, William. No new thing. And I don’t see what the next new thing will be for rail. Even the Cruise Line wasn’t a new thing. Just a better thing. There’s no new place to go for rail.”
“What are you saying, then?” It was shocking to hear his forward-thinking father suggest that there was no more forward left.
“Motorcars will change travel. Just like trains, they’ll get better, go farther. When the bridge finally gets built across the Bay, it’ll be built for cars. And these aeroplanes—I think that’s the new thing.”
“A passenger train carries hundreds of people at a time. How is a Ford, or a little tin can flying in the sky, going to move people like a train does?”
Henry Frazier shrugged. “Mark my words, son.”
“Do you want to get involved with that? Build aeroplanes?”
“Maybe. Start small, see if I’m right. See where it goes. But that’s not the question we came out here to work out, is it?”
No, it wasn’t. After his mother and wife had taken the Ford out on a jaunt to Mill Valley, William had gone into his father’s study and asked what he thought about William throwing his hat in for a state representative seat.
In the months since the inauguration, a flicker of fire had rekindled in his belly for politics. Seeing Washington through Nora’s eyes, watching her spar with the likes of Alice Paul, being told repeatedly that he could be doing more for the cause, he’d remembered the rush of it himself. But he didn’t trust his mind the way he had. More than a year after the Titanic, he still had nightmares. Scores of trips over the Bay since, and he still had to sit deep in the middle of the ferry with his arms clenched over his chest to survive the trip without making a spectacle of himself.
There wasn’t a large body of water between San Francisco and Sacramento, or Washington, for that matter, not one he couldn’t avoid, but it wasn’t simply about water. This ‘stress reaction’ that wouldn’t leave him made him question his mental fitness in general. What other anxieties lurked in his mind, waiting to be uncovered? The thought held him back.
Since the inauguration, however, and especially since Alice Paul had drummed her finger into the table littered with the remnants of their shared meal and laid out all the ways he could be effective in office, Nora had been pushing him to try, to start small and build his confidence. He’d countered by saying that his father needed him in the company. This morning, she’d wondered why he hadn’t talked it out with his father, and William hadn’t had an answer. So he’d gone to his father, who’d removed his glasses and stared up at him, then stood and asked him to ride.
Henry Frazier liked to move while he thought big thoughts. In the city, he walked. On the ranch, he rode. And here they were, perched on their mounts, overlooking the fruits of the Frazier empire.
William answered his father’s question. “No, it’s not. But if you want to investigate bringing aeroplanes into the fold, I guess I have my answer. There’s a lot to learn before we take on that challenge. A lot to do. This isn’t the time for politics.”
“It’s the perfect time for politics—but not state representative. Neither of us knows anything about these contraptions or how they work, and one of your trips to the library isn’t going to get us the knowledge we need. We need to bring someone in who already understands, someone we trust. I need you to do that legwork. But when we have a … Director of Aviation … then I need you in Washington, son. The next thing that’s coming at us is regulation. We see it happening already. With unions coming in all over, and transport companies becoming national concerns, after everything that came out in the Titanic investigation—Washington is getting its hands in our business. I’m not opposed to regulating travel and transport. I think we need it, but we need people who know what they’re doing making those decisions. People who’ve gotten their hands dirty. We need your hands in there, William. I think you should run for Congress. For the midterm, next year.”
William’s jaw sagged. “What? But I’ve never held an office.”
“Hardly the first time a novice went to Washington. You know the ins and outs of Congress more than most. And you’re a national hero. Not to mention a Frazier. If you want this, then take it, son. Make it happen. Stop making excuses why you can’t do it, and fucking do it.”
“Congress. You want me to run for Congress.”
“I want you to find your calling. It’s not Scot-Western, and we both know it.”
“Dad! That’s not true.”
His father turned and faced him. “You’re good as my right hand, William. You do what needs to be done to realize my vision, and you do it well. But I see the truth. I know it’s not what you love. And I don’t fault you for it. This—“ he stretched out an arm and arced it over the landscape—“is yours. Everything I have will be yours someday, whether you’re at my side at work or not. The company is part of you. But now is a good time, maybe even the right time, to think of what your place should be. We’re railroad men. That’s what we know. If there’s no next thing in rail, then let’s bring in somebody who can point our telescope where the next thing is, and let’s put you somewhere you can do some good not just for the family, but for the country.”
“Congress,” William said again, rolling the word in his mouth to get its taste.
“Congress,” his father agreed.
When they arrived back at the house that afternoon, the Ford was parked on the drive, and a Western Union truck was tooling away, plumes of gravel dust clouding the lane behind its tires. They dismounted and handed the reins over to Todd.
“When did the women get back?” William’s father asked.
“Ten minutes or so, Mr. Frazier. I was gonna give the Ford a wash before I put her up.”
“Thanks, Todd.”
William followed his father into the house and walked into an unexpected tableau. Nora and his mother stood right there, not ten feet in from the door, both still wearing their hats. Nora even had her little purse hanging from her arm.
She read the telegram that the Western Union agent had delivered, and his mother stood at her side with her hand on Nora’s shoulder.
“What’s wrong?” his father asked, before William could.
Nora looked up and straight at William. “It’s from Christopher. My father is dying. He wants me to come and say goodbye.” She came to William and handed him the telegram. Then she turned, walked down the hall, toward the kitchen. He heard the creak of the back door. She’d gone to the garden.
He read the paper in his hand:
DEAR NORA FATHER VERY ILL AND FAILING – STOP – NOT LONG LEFT I FEAR – STOP – ASKING FOR YOU DAILY – STOP – PLEASE COME PLEASE NORA – STOP – LOVE C
“There’s a wire from Chris for you as well,” his mother said and handed him an envelope. Keeping hold of Nora’s paper, he tore open the other message and read it.
PLEASE BRING HER HOME PLEASE – STOP – YOUR FRIEND C
“Looks like you’ve got some personal business to attend to before we start campaigning,” his father said, reading over his shoulder.
Bring her home. To England. Across the ocean. William’s stomach rolled dangerously at the thought.
Clutching the telegrams in his hand, he went in the direction his wife had gone.
She stood among his mother’s roses, fingering the petals of a bloom. A white bloom, of course, like a Kensington Rose. She’d discarded her hat; it lay on the seat of a wooden lawn chair at the edge of the garden. The sun shone over her gleaming golden hair, and the wind played at the strands that had loosened when she’d removed her hat. She wore her hair long again, but rarely made an elaborate style. Just a pretty twist of braids at the back of her head.
He went up behind her and pulled her into his arms. She relaxed at once into his hold, and he kissed her temple. “Talk to me.”
“I don’t know what words to say. My mind is a tempest.”
Not wishing to press her, William didn’t ask another question or make a statement of his own. His mind, too, was a tempest. So they stood as they were, the kiss of breeze fluttering tendrils of her hair over his nose, while the warm, late-spring day went on around them.
“I think I want to go back,” she whispered after a long while. “I think I need to. Not to stay. Only to say goodbye. But I think I need it.”
Go back. To England. Across the ocean. He could hardly make it across the San Francisco Bay. How in God’s name was he going to spend a week on an ocean liner again—and another week back?
She turned in his arms and looked up at him. Her eyes shone with nascent tears. “You don’t have to come with me. I understand.”
Of course he had to go with her. And of course he would go. He’d have to manage it. “I’m with you, Nora. I’m always with you.”
They booked the Cunard ship RMS Lusitania, avoiding the White Star Line, and William made it all the way to the gangway at New York Harbor without losing a step. He was wildly nauseated and his heart had wrapped itself around his throat, but he’d kept going forward, all the way until he had to lift his foot from the pier and put it on the gangway. He couldn’t do it.
Nora clenched his hand. “I’m afraid, too. I don’t want to be on the ocean.”
But there was no other way to get to England.
“Excuse me, please.” A dapper gentleman and his stylish lady stood behind them, stymied by William and Nora’s reluctance. William stepped back, drawing Nora with him, and cleared the way for other first-class passengers.
“What do we do? Do we go home?”
Nora looked up at the hull of the big ship. “We can’t go backward. We have to go forward.”
“Isn’t this trip going backward? Back to England, back to your past?”
“It’s not. It’s not going back, it’s looking back. Like sorting out the attic. Making room for something new. I need it.”
William took a long, deep breath and turned to the harbor and all that water. He stared at it until he could breathe normally and his heart had eased its grip on his throat. “I’m going to need you with me to get through this. I don’t know how strong I can be.”
“I’ll be with you.”
A clenched laugh broke through his chest as those words echoed painfully through him. “All right. Let’s board.”
He got through it the same way he managed to get over the Bay—he stayed away from the open-air decks and avoided windows that showed the water, and he tried as hard as he could to forget where he was.
Luckily, the voyage was uneventful and the weather fair for the whole week. It helped, too, that Nora’s nerves had flared a little as well. William felt a bit less pathetic when he could hold Nora and offer her comfort rather than simply cling to her for his own.
Even so, it was a long week, full of nightmares and nausea, and William nearly fell over himself in his hurry to be on solid ground again in Liverpool.
But he’d made it. Without an obvious breakdown.
“Damn, old bean, you look awful,” was Chris’s greeting to him after he’d released his sister from a welcoming hug. Truth be told, Chris looked a bit rough himself. He had circles around his eyes, and new creases between his eyebrows.
They clutched arms. “After last year, I don’t enjoy ocean travel like I once did.”
“Ah, of course. I didn’t think of that. I’m sorry.”
William shrugged. There was nothing Chris could have done.
“How is he?” Nora asked. “What happened?”
“He’s … he doesn’t have long. But he’s hung in, I think in the hopes to see you. As for what happened, it was a stroke. He’s had several in the past year or so, but this last was much worse. I’ll explain on the train. Auntie is at Tarrindale, waiting.”
The first class car had nothing on the Cruise Line, but it was certainly comfortable enough for the few hours of travel between Liverpool and Dover. William thought about his trip to England three years earlier, when he’d come on his father’s behalf, seeking partners to bring the Cruise Line to England. He’d failed utterly—but he’d been made to see that the idea could never have succeeded. Of course they didn’t need the same level of accommodation on their trains here. As long as England was cut off from the European continent, few train trips would take more than several hours. It took several days to cross America.
That thought led him to remember his idea for a tunnel under the English Channel, which led him to think of Dover, their destination of the day. The last time he’d been in Dover had been one of the best and worst days of his life—not the best, or worst, anymore, but second in line. His first night with Nora. And the night that had set her life on a careening downhill course.
He picked up Nora’s hand and kissed it. She smiled and leaned against his shoulder.
Across from them, Chris settled into his seat and sighed. “All right. As I tell you the story of Father’s health, please know I don’t wish you to feel guilt. There’s no blame here. What happened to Father, he brought largely on himself, I think.”
“What do you mean?” Nora asked.
Chris cleared his throat. William didn’t think he’d ever seen his friend look quite so nervous before.
“His first stroke happened when we got word that the Titanic had gone down.”
Nora flinched, and her hand clenched in William’s. He shifted and put his arm around her shoulders.
“He was ill and out of sorts after we left Southampton, and I stayed in Tarrindale with him. I meant to stay only for a few days, until he was stronger, but I haven’t left. He’d started drinking heavily after you told your story in the papers here, and I don’t think he was healthy again after that. But when you left, he took it badly. And then we thought you were lost, and he …” Chris stopped, and turned to stare out the window. “He collapsed right in front of me.” He brought his eyes back to Nora. “That was the first one.”
Nora blew out a shaky breath. William felt her turmoil; her body trembled in his embrace. “The first one,” she murmured.
“Yes. He had three between that and this last. Five in all.”
“Five strokes,” William mused. “In just more than a year.”
Chris nodded. “As I said, he’s not been well. But they were small, fugues he’d slip into for a few minutes, and then he’d come back and be a bit confused. After a good rest, he was himself again.”
“What happened this time?”
The porter came by and opened their cabin door after a brisk knock. “May I bring you anything from the bar car, my lord?” He addressed Chris only.
“No, thank you. Leave us undisturbed, please, unless I ring.”
“Of course, my lord. My apologies.” He slid to door closed and disappeared.
Chris focused again on his sister. “I don’t know. Nothing different that I know of. We got no news of any import and hadn’t had any for some time. He was in the garden—he’d taken to sitting for hours in the warm afternoons, reading. Gaines went out to fetch him for luncheon, and found him face down on the path. That was two days before I telegrammed.”
More than two weeks had passed since then. When Nora said nothing, William asked, “How’s he been since?”
“Badly altered. Dr. Davies believes he’s in his last days, and it’s not difficult to agree. He’s conscious a bit of every day, but every day, there’s less of him inside his eyes. Yesterday, he didn’t know who I was.” He leaned close and set his hands on Nora’s knees. “But he asks for you every day. Every time the door opens, he asks if you’ve come. He can barely speak at all, but he manages to ask for you. Thank you for coming home, Nono. I think he’ll be able to die in peace once he sees you again.”
“You’ve written. Aunt Martha has written. Why did no one tell me before now?”
Her brother looked sadly into her eyes. “What would telling you have changed, Nora? It would only have added you to the list of people in distress over this and helpless to make it better.”
Nora dropped her head into her hands and sobbed. All William could do was hold her.
If this boarding of the Lusitania had been one of the most difficult things William had done in his life, entering Tarrindale Hall seemed to be one of the most difficult things Nora had done. The footmen had carried their bags in, but William and Nora stood on the gravel drive before the house, holding hands. Nora’s head was tipped back as she studied the ancient edifice. Her hand quivered in his.
Chris stood at the door, waiting. “Nora?”
She turned to William. Her complexion had paled so dramatically, her fair freckles seemed painted on. “I don’t … I don’t know if I can go in there. My feet won’t move.”
“I’m with you. I’ll stand here as long as you need. Or I’ll turn you around and take you away. Or I’ll carry you in. Whatever you need.”
“Nora,” Chris tried again. “It’s just a house.”
William scoffed quietly. Even he knew Chris didn’t believe that.
“Full of ghosts,” Nora whispered.
William squeezed her hand. “I’m with you. Anywhere.”
She nodded and took her first step.