In the Still of the Night

general. Cecil spoke rather loudly to Julian West. “How did you come to be in the army in the Great War, sir? I understand you weren’t a military man before then. Not in the sense of serving in the army, if I recall correctly.”
    Julian looked at him for a long moment, as if trying to remember who Cecil was, and then said, “Oh, you’re the book review chap—“
    “And your biographer, sir.”
    West gave Cecil another long, blank stare and finally said, “I had studied for the ministry in my youth. I’m afraid I lost my faith about the same time I completed my studies. But I did have a degree, and they needed chaplains over there. It qualified me as an officer, like doctors and technical specialists.
    “But I didn’t want to parade myself as a false chaplain, so I contacted a gentleman named Newton Baker who had written to me three years earlier, complimenting my books for their accuracy. A man who had become U. S. Secretary of War in the meantime. He had the power to give me any rank he wanted and any help I wanted to get to the front. And I was to send him reports that he believed I could do without bias. I did have six weeks of basic training before they sent me off to the Argonne Forest.”
    At the words “Argonne Forest,“ most of the table fell silent. They were two of the most ominous words in the world for those who had lived through the Great War as adults.
    Cecil Hoornart, however, was respectful but undeterred. “I wonder, sir, if you could tell us about your personal experience in the war?“
    “I suppose so. But the ladies wouldn’t like it, and certainly not over such a fine meal as we’ve all had.”
    Lily glanced at Bud Carpenter, holding a bottle of brandy and frowning. What had he to look unhappy about?
    Lorna spoke up. “I for one remember the Great War vividly. I lost two brothers, one in Belgium, one in France. I would like to hear your account. I’m not a silly, fainting girl anymore.“
    “Nor am I,“ Addie said.
    Rachel said nothing, but Lily felt obliged, as hostess, to say, “I would very much like to hear a firsthand account.“ Which wasn’t true, but was her duty, she felt.
    The ladies left the table first and headed off to freshen lipstick and visit their various bathrooms. Phoebe descended the steps from her third floor room at the same time Lily started down from the second floor.
    “Mr. West seems quite taken with you, Phoebe,“ Lily said.
    “He’s just slumming,“ Phoebe said cheerfully. “All that nonsense about the downtrodden working class. I haven’t the heart to tell him I consider myself an artist, or at least a craftswoman. I’m not really looking forward to hearing all about the Great War either.“
    “Nor am I, but I must endure it. You needn’t,“ Lily said. “Just sit a bit out of his sight and slip out the nearest door. Or I could make up a headache for you right now.“
    “I can probably take it,“ Phoebe said.
    Addie was already in the parlor, having run a wet brush through her wild hair. And Rachel arrived a moment after Lily and Phoebe. Mrs. Prinney ran in briefly to tell Lily she felt she must wash the crystal herself rather than trusting the hired kitchen help and would try to get back later although she didn’t really want to hear war stories.
    “No, please don’t bother to come back,“ Lily said. “You’ve worked yourself to the bone already and you need your rest. If you get one of your headaches, we’ll all go down in flames.”
    Lily poured the women tiny glasses of sherry and they chatted amiably about what a nice dinner it had been. Rachel mentioned how they’d been stopped along Route 9 to have the car searched because of the Lindbergh baby.
    “The papers said there were a man’s footprints to the house and the ladder both coming and going and a woman’s footprints along with the man’s well away from the house. I’m a little insulted, however, that anybody could have thought that Raymond and I looked like the sort of people who would steal a baby, for heaven’s sake!”
    Lily barely managed to refrain from asking what people who would steal a baby could be expected to look like.
    Lorna was the last to arrive and looked ravishing. She’d added a bit of jewelry to her ensemble and refreshed her floral perfume.
    The men, having presumably fulfilled their duty of having a glass of port and some manly talk in a very short time, joined the ladies only moments after Lorna arrived.
    Julian West took a position