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"Don't say that, " he said generously. "Maybe Susan was taken from us
for a reason. I've thought that sometimes. It's impossible to know why
some things happen."

"I feel very lucky to know you, " she said kindly, and meant it, not
realizing that it was an odd thing to say to her husband. Olivia was
still so innocent, and he saw that in her as he looked into her eyes
that night and it surprised him.

"That's a sweet thing to say, " he said gently, wondering if he'd ever
really known her, or only thought he did. She seemed suddenly so
different. And without saying another word to her, he slid slowly closer
to her and kissed her. He held her face carefully in his hands and
kissed her ever so softly on the lips, afraid to scare her. He didn't
want to start the old problems between them again, he just wanted to
tell her that he was grateful for what she had said to him, and if
nothing else, for her friendship. But when he kissed her, he felt
something stir in him that she had never brought out in him before,
though he didn't know why, and he kissed her again, and tried to tell
himself that he shouldn't. "Should we be doing this? " he whispered
hoarsely to her and she shook her head, but she didn't want to stop,
although she told herself that she had to. But as he I kissed her
repeatedly, she forgot everything she knew about their relationship, and
felt her arms go around his neck and her body press against his, and he
sprang to life instantly as he held her.

"Victoria, I don't want to do anything you don't want, " he said
huskily.

They had been through this before, though not for months, and always
regretted it. Their sex life had done nothing but make them both very
unhappy.

"Charles, I don't know .. . I .. ." She wanted to tell him to stop, she
knew how wrong this was, he was her sister's husband, and yet Victoria
had come back from the dead, and she had moved on to her own life, and
Olivia was there in his arms with the man she had loved for so long. She
couldn't stop now. "I love you, " she whispered. She had never said that
to him before, and he looked at her in tender amazement.

"Oh sweet girl, " he said, feeling his heart go out to her, giving her
everything he had tried to keep from her, and suddenly he knew what had
been wrong between them. He had never dared to love her. "How I love
you, " he said almost in spite of himself, and then, as though for the
first time, which it was for her, and he didn't realize, he made love to
her ever so gently. In spite of the pain it caused her at first, she
gave herself to him completely and without reserve, with total abandon,
and as he looked down at her afterwards, he felt as though he had been
reborn. For both of them, it was a new beginning, a new life, the
honeymoon they'd never had and each of them had longed for.

He lay for hours in her arms, stroking her, caressing her, discovering
her all over again, he thought, but in fact for the first time, and at
last he slept, nestled next to her, as she held him, wondering what they
would do when Victoria got home. Charles was the greatest joy she'd ever
had in her life, and at the same time the worst betrayal.

She had no idea what she would say to her sister when she got home, but
she knew at that moment, that she couldn't leave him.

Chapter 24.

After Wesley Frost, the American consul in Queenstown, found her a dress
and a pair of shoes to wear, Victoria took a train from Queenstown to
Dublin on Sunday. She was met by a Cunard representative there, and then
took the boat train to the Lime Street Station in Liverpool.

There were a number of other survivors on the train with her, and she
was startled to see members of the press waiting to interview them at
the Lime Street Station. Vance Pitney of the New York Tribune had
already been to Queenstown by then, and then on to Liverpool after that,
and from there he would go on to London. It was the biggest story any
newspaper had had since the Titanic. And this one was even bigger
because the giant ship had been torpedoed by the Germans. This was not
only a tragedy, which had cost more than a thousand lives, it was war
news. But Victoria was careful to avoid the press as she left the
station and went to the Adelphi Hotel, where she tried to figure out
what to do next. When she got there late Sunday afternoon, she was still
very badly shaken.

And the dress she was wearing looked awful. As she checked into her
room, she lit a cigarette, and as she sat down and looked around, she
started to cry, wishing she were home in Croton. It wasn't too late to
turn back, but it had been one hell of a beginning.

The hotel sent a tray to her room that night, they knew who she was, and
why she was there. There had been whispers in the lobby when she
arrived. She had explained her situation to the desk clerk, even her
bank draft and her British currency was wet, as well as her letter of
credit, and she was going to have to go to the bank on Monday to change
them. But as much as possible, she tried to avoid any undue attention.

But no matter what she did that night, she couldn't get the grisly
images out of her head of the ship going down, bow first, and the faces
of the people who had died all around her. She still remembered the face
of the young crew member who had told her to grab a deck chair, fast,
when she couldn't get into the lifeboats, and his advice had saved her.

She was awake all night, and she looked a mess when she got up the next
morning. But after she'd had something to eat, and a big cup of hot
coffee, she felt better. She went to the bank after that, and got her
money sorted out, and then she went to the nearest shop, and bought a
few dresses, some sweaters and a pair of slacks, and two pairs of shoes,
and even a pair of boots she could wear when she got to the trenches.

She didn't know if they'd give her a uniform or not, but this way she
had something to wear when she got there. She needed underwear,
stockings, nightgowns, cosmetics, a comb. She had absolutely nothing
left, not even the shreds of her red dress which she had left in
Queenstown.

"You running away from home? " the woman in the shop asked her with a
giggle, but Victoria wasn't laughing at anything yet. She just looked at
her and shook her head.

"I was on the Lusitania when * went down, " Victoria said solemnly, and
the woman gasped. Like the entire world by then, she had heard about it.

"You're lucky you're alive, dearie, " the woman whispered, and blessed
her. And Victoria smiled sadly as she took her bundles and went back to
the hotel, still haunted by the others. She wondered if she would see
them all her life, especially the children with their sweet faces and
unseeing eyes floating all around her. She kept thinking of the little
boy floating dead on a deck chair in the blue velvet suit, with the
commemorative Lusitania pin stuck on his collar. It was enough to make
anyone hate the Germans forever.

But by late that afternoon, Victoria was slowly starting to revive, and
she began thinking about how she was going to get to France. Her plans
had changed to say the least, but the clerk at the hotel told her how to
get to Dover, and what to do after that.

She had to take a small ferry to Calais, and that was risky too, there
were U-boats lurking in the English Channel between France and England,
and the thought of them now made her shudder.

"Maybe I should have just bought myself a bathing costume and saved
myself a lot of trouble, " she said with a nervous grin and the desk
clerk smiled at her spirit.

"You're a hell of a good sport, miss, " he said, "I'm not sure I'd try
it again after what you've just been through."

"I don't have much choice if I want to get to France, do I? " she said
pensively, and knew she had to do it. It was why she had come here, and
no one had said it was going to be easy.

The Germans had introduced chlorine gas at the Battle of Ypres two weeks
before, and from everything Victoria had heard, the battle was still
raging, and thus far it had been a slaughter. The question was how to
get as close to it as she could, and reach the contacts she had been
given. They were based in Reims, and the best she could do was try to
reach them when she got to Calais, if the phones were working.

That remained to be seen. It was all an adventure, a pilgrimage she had
felt she had to make, and she hoped she hadn't been wrong in coming.

The signs, so far, had certainly not been propitious.

She left Liverpool on Tuesday morning, and thanked everyone at the
hotel. For the past two days, people had brought her little things,
small gifts, cakes, fruit, little religious objects, just to let her
know that they were glad she had survived the Lusitania.

She went back to the Lime Street Station by taxi, and from there took a
train to Dover and then on to the ferry when they reached the docks.

There were small ferry boats, and they looked harmless enough on a sunny
day in May, but after the experience she'd just had in the Celtic Sea,
she knew how treacherous the U-boats were and she wasn't anxious to
encounter another.

She negotiated the fare with the captain of the ferry boat, and there
were only a handful of other passengers when he took her over. It was a
bright blue, cloudless afternoon, but she spent the entire voyage
clutching the rail in total terror, prepared to die at any moment.

"Vous aver bien peur, mademoiselle." He smiled at her. He had rarely
seen a girl as lovely or as frightened. He had commented on her being
nervous on the trip over, and she only nodded and said one word to him,
as she kept her eyes riveted to the water, watching for U-boats and the
single white trail she had seen just before it hit the Lusitania.

"Lusitania, " she said, knowing he would understand it. The whole world
did, as she knew from reading the papers. And each time she read another
articles she cringed, thinking of poor Olivia and what she must have
been thinking.

But the sailor on the little ferry boat had completely understood her.

He didn't say another word to her on the brief crossing to Calais, and
when they got there, he carried her bags for her, and turned her over to
a man with a car who drove her to the nearest hotel, and refused to take
any money from her. There were several lengthy conversations.

She asked to use the telephone then, and called one of the names she'd
been given in New York at the French Consulate. It was a woman who
organized volunteers for the Red Cross in Paris, and she was going to be
able to tell Victoria where to go from there, and where she would be
needed. But as it turned out, she was out, and no one else spoke
English.

"Rappellez demain, mademoiselle, " and all she got was "tomorrow." She
sat alone in her room that night, smoking cigarettes and thinking of the
journey she had made and what it had taken to come here.

She had deceived a husband, abandoned a father and a twin, had a ship
sunk under her and survived it, and now God only knew what waited for
her here. She had to marvel at her own determination. Nothing seemed to
stop her.

Not even the unpleasant woman she reached in Paris the next day, who
told her they were too busy to talk to her and to call back again the
next day.

"No! " she shouted into the phone rapidly, determined not to be put off
again. She was wasting her time here. "No, I need to talk to someone now
.. . immediately .. ." And then she threw in the magic words, just to see
what would happen if she did. "I've just i . w.

come off the Lusitania." There was a brief silence, and then she could
hear muffied words at the other end. There was another pause and then a
man took the phone and asked her what her name was. "Olivia Henderson.

I got your name, or the lady's, from the French Consul in New York.

I've come here to volunteer at the front. I'm American, and I'm in
Calais right now."

"And you were on the Lusitania? " He sounded somewhat in awe and she was
glad she had said it.

"Yes."

"My God .. . can you be in Reims at five o'clock tomorrow?"

"I don't know, " she said honestly. "I think so. Where is it? "

"About a hundred and fifty miles southeast of you. If you can get
someone to drive you there, they can come right through the back country
behind it. There's fighting there, but it's not as bad as in Soissons
nearby. But you'll still have to be pretty careful." And then he smiled
into the phone, wondering why she had come so far to participate in a
war that her government wanted no part o President Wilson was still
determined to stay out of it at all costs, and the costs were incredible
so far. Five million men had died since war had been declared the
previous summer. And seven million more had been wounded.

"Find someone with a car, " the voice at the other end went on, "and get
there if you can. We have a delegation of volunteers coming down
tomorrow. Are you a nurse? " he asked hopefully.

"No, I'm sorry, " she apologized, wondering if they would still want
her.

"Can you drive? "

"Yes."

"Good. You can drive an ambulance, or a truck, whatever they tell you
to. Just be there tomorrow, " he said, and was about to hang up when she
stopped him.

"What's your name? " she asked, and he smiled at her naivete.

She was obviously very new at this, and he couldn't help wondering again
why she had come here, to risk her life in a war that belonged to other
countries. Others had come too, but most of them were older, and had
complicated stories. She sounded like a child to him over the telephone,
and then he told her that his name was unimportant, he wouldn't be
there. "Who do I look for then? " He sounded irritated again. "Any one
who's bleeding. You'll find a lot of them, I'm afraid.

You'll have your work cut out for you when you get there. Ask for the
captain in charge of the area, he'll direct you to the hospital, or the
Red Cross if we're there. You'll find us, don't worry. It's a small war,
with a lot of people in it. You can't miss us." And he hung up then. She
thanked them at the desk and went back to her hotel room.

She had a good dinner that night, and the owner of the hotel negotiated
with a driver for her. He was a young boy with an old Renault, but he
said he could get her where she was going, by the back roads. He said it
would take all day, and he wanted to set out early in the morning.

And she guessed as she looked at him that he was younger than she was.

His name was Yves, and she paid him in advance just as he asked her.

He told her to dress warmly and wear heavy shoes. It would be cold when
they left, and if the car broke down he didn't want to have to carry her
to Reims because she had high heels on. She looked annoyed at the
remark, but he laughed anyway, and she asked him bluntly if the car
broke down often.

"Not more often than it has to. Can you drive? " he asked, and she
nodded. And then he left and told her he'd see her in the morning.