The Aviator's Wife (34 page)

As for my increasingly political husband, he continued to shuttle between Paris and London, giving his advice concerning their military air fleets. He even went, secretly, back to Berlin; France enlisted Charles’s aid in persuading Germany to sell them some planes in order to shore up
their nonexistent air force. Charles, doubtful, did use his influence, to no avail.

Yet our lingering presence on the continent, our now highly publicized and scrutinized past visits to Germany, were cause for much discussion back in America. At least, according to the worried letters, full of newspaper clippings, I received from my family.

One night, Charles and I went out for a romantic dinner
at La Tour d’Argent. Just as the third course arrived, we heard an
overdressed American couple at the table next to us say, too loudly, “I guess America’s not
good
enough for them! So what if their baby was kidnapped—we’ve all had hard times, but none of us ran away from them.”

I froze, my fork halfway to my mouth. I looked at Charles, who raised an eyebrow, forbidding me to react in any way.
I continued to eat, as I heard the woman say, “I guess sauerkraut’s more to their taste, not apple pie.”

“Sauerkraut and iron crosses,” her husband agreed.

The pressed duck was tasteless in my mouth; the wine turned to vinegar. Charles was right. If this was what was waiting for us in America, we could not return.

Charles, however, was smacking his lips with gusto, tearing into his duck as
if he hadn’t eaten in days. His eyes gleamed with purpose. I knew he had just recognized his latest mission.

Two days later, he was on the phone to Cunard, arranging our tickets home.

AND SO WE RETURNED
, leaving a continent about to be torn apart by war for the safer shores of America, or so we thought. Charles went first, to report directly to Washington about all he had seen—and to caution
them as well. He firmly believed that Germany would easily overtake Poland; he thought England and France were foolish to declare war outright, and had even written a secret paper to Chamberlain and to Daladier urging them not to. I wished he hadn’t done that; he was already being maligned as an appeaser, even a spy, in some quarters.

But Charles, single-minded as always, did not appear to notice.
After he reported to Washington, he looked for suitable homes near Mother but delayed taking one until I got there. It was a good thing that he did, for none of the clippings he had sent
me mentioned schools, and when I chastised him for this, he was honestly perplexed. It had not yet registered with him that our children were growing up, needing schooling and friends and doctors and all the other
things children required. Beyond the fact of their births, that primal inclination to protect them from harm, he did not seem much interested in parenting. I wondered if it was because of what happened to little Charlie; if he couldn’t see the point of getting too involved, only to have them taken from us. Or if he simply couldn’t understand the needs of a child beyond the age of twenty months,
the age of his firstborn, forever. I understood this, had feared it in myself when Jon was first born, but found my heart miraculously expanding along with our children as they grew. I rejoiced that I was able to love and care and worry just like any other mother.

Yet other mothers did not pin whistles to their children’s pajamas so that they could call for help in the middle of the night.

In April 1939, I trudged down the gangplank of the
Champlain
, clutching Land with one hand, Jon with the other. Dozens of police escorted the children and me to a waiting car amid the usual blinding torrent of cameras, which terrified the boys, who had never before faced such an onslaught. Land turned his face to me and wailed, while Jon held tightly to my hand, his face pale and grave.

“Mrs.
Lindbergh! Mrs. Lindbergh! Are you glad to be back? Where is the colonel?” I shook my head at the usual questions, but then froze when confronted by new ones.

“What do you think of the Nazi Party? Did your husband really meet secretly with Hitler? Is it true that he was offered a commission in the Luftwaffe?”

I started to get in the car but turned around, unable to keep quiet.

“My husband has
been recalled to active duty as a colonel in the Army Air Corps. He’s unable to meet me because of his work.”

Then I ducked inside the car, my heart pulsing daringly; I knew I shouldn’t have answered them. Charles had forbidden me to do so; he felt it best that he always be the one to speak for us in public, and normally I was only too happy to let him. He wasn’t here, however, and I heard the
hostility behind those questions, and felt that I had to defend him—even though I knew he would not see it that way. But I was proud of the work he was doing now; because of his knowledge of the European situation, the military had him flying all over the country, inspecting air bases, suggesting which factories could be modified to turn out the type of planes necessary to make America the leading
air power in the world.

I was proud of it, and wanted to tell the world about it—for I didn’t know how long it would last. Already, I could see that Charles was on a collision course, torn between his sense of purpose and his sense of duty. They were very different things; I saw that clearly. I wasn’t sure that he did, however.

“You spoke very well, Mama.” Jon patted my hand. “They were such
nasty men.”

“I did? Well, thank you, darling.”

“Are we home now?”

I looked out the car window; we were still surrounded by strangers peering into the windows, trying to catch a glimpse of my children, flashbulbs popping, blinding us. I hugged them both to me, and sighed.

“Yes, we are, darlings. We’re home.”

AS WE DROVE OUT
of the city, across the bridge into New Jersey, my stomach fluttered.
And with every mile we drove toward Next Day Hill, my head began to throb, my skin to feel clammy.

“What’s wrong, Mama?” Jon asked.

“Nothing,” I said, trying to smile. My son frowned, knowing that I had lied to him.

Now that we were almost there, I was dreading coming home. Being away for three years had kept the ghosts at bay, but now I was about to encounter them in their own setting. For
it was at Next Day Hill that Violet Sharpe—poor, excitable Violet Sharpe, barely older than myself—had taken her life a few weeks after the baby’s body was found. After being summoned for yet another round of questioning about her involvement in the kidnapping, she had swallowed a glass of chlorine cyanide.

I was horrified and sickened at the news. And racked with guilt. I should have known;
I should have realized that Violet didn’t have a Charles to bully strength into her, to force her to look ahead, to forbid her to dwell in the past. She didn’t have anything in her life but my mother’s protection and shelter, but even my mother couldn’t protect her from Colonel Schwarzkopf’s ugly interrogations; interrogations instigated, originally, by me.

I made myself look at her body, even
though Charles flat out forbade me to. I couldn’t explain to him why I needed to see her, register the thin, worried face, the sad little ribbon tied in her hair, her mouth blistered and stained from the poison. The whites of her eyes, still visible beneath half-closed lids, staring at me accusingly.

When I saw Violet’s broken body, as twisted as the wreckage of the plane I had once located in
the mountains of New Mexico, I wept. How could I have ever believed this fragile girl was involved? No matter that I was desperate, insane with fear for my child; I should never have told Colonel Schwarzkopf to question her or any of the servants. Who was I to play God?

Too late did I believe in her innocence. Only days after her suicide, the police determined that the only thing poor Violet
was guilty of was being foolish. She had been involved with a married butler in my mother’s household. Her frantic tears, her inability to stick to a story about her activity that awful night; it was all a cover-up for trysts with her lover.

So Violet would not be at Next Day Hill to welcome us home. So many of the servants, familiar faces to me since childhood, were gone now, chased from the
house by the police, or retired, grown old in my absence. Even Ollie Whateley had passed away.

And Betty Gow. She would be absent as well. I don’t remember if any of us actually spoke of it, but somehow, in those weeks after Charlie’s body was found, it was agreed that Betty had to leave the household. I knew she would never love the new baby in the same way; she knew it as well.

Violet, Betty.
And Elisabeth, my sister. She, too, was gone. There were still times I found myself picking up the telephone to call her, before remembering.

She’d looked so vibrant on her wedding day in December 1932. Jon was just a cooing baby in my mother’s arms as I stood with my sister in the same room I had been married in. It was a rare moment of celebration for my entire family; we all spoke and wrote
about it for weeks after, reliving the beauty, the poignancy. The relief that Elisabeth seemed well, loved, cared for. Although I never saw her look as happy, as joyful, with Aubrey as she used to, when she was laughing and scheming with Connie.

Elisabeth’s goodbye kiss was a promise to me; a promise that despite her marriage, I would never be alone. I would always have someone willing to listen,
not judge; sympathize, not urge me to action. And I would do the same for her.

Two years later—almost to the day—she was dead. The harsh Welsh climate was too much for her; doctors ordered her to
sunny California. Aubrey whisked her away, but she died of pneumonia, Mother and Aubrey by her side.

I would never stop missing her.

So lost in my thoughts, I didn’t realize that we were home until
we were turning into the private drive of Next Day Hill. There was a new man on duty, but he recognized us and pressed the lever for the gate to open. As the gates closed, two black cars that had been following us—reporters and photographers, I realized—parked outside. I sighed. Now we were well and truly home.

“Mama, is this where Grandma lives?” Jon was climbing over me, eager to get out. “Can
you please move?” He gave me a playful shove, so I did. I pushed myself out of the car; Land and Jon scrambled after me. We walked up the steps, the boys scampering ahead.

The door swung open; my mother appeared. Before I could blurt out my apologies for leaving her all these years, and for bringing photographers back to her home, she had me in her arms. “Welcome home, my daughter,” she sang
out. “Anne, Jon! And you must be Land!” She released me, reaching for the boys. “I haven’t seen you since you were a baby, when I visited you in England. Do you remember me?”

“No.”

My mother laughed. She threw back her head and laughed. This was no sad old lady, as I’d imagined her; no Miss Havisham surrounded only by memories, grieving her life away. No. My mother looked ten years younger than
she had when I’d last seen her; she was trim, stylish in her own club lady way, although her hair was still corralled in that severe Edwardian manner. But she was electric with energy and drive; it was I who felt old and feeble, exhausted by travel, overwhelmed by being back in my native land.

“You look terrible, dear,” she confirmed my assessment, shaking
her head at me. “You’ll have your old
suite again, of course, and the boys can go up in the nursery. There’s room for your nurse—where is she?”

“She had to come on the next boat; there were things she had to arrange before sailing.”

“Of course, of course. I can’t imagine the chaos over there! Charles is here already; he drove straight through from Washington overnight. He’s upstairs, sound asleep.”

“He is?” I was stunned; I hadn’t
expected to see him so soon, and, ridiculously, I longed to powder my nose and put on a fresh frock before I saw him.

Mother must have sensed my bridal jitteriness, because she suggested I have a glass of brandy first. So I followed as she marched down the hall into what used to be Daddy’s office, but which was now redecorated. No—reborn.

Flowers bloomed in vases; the stuffy leather furniture
was replaced with comfortable chintz. There was a Picasso on the wall, which worked surprisingly well with the cabbage roses of the fabric. Where Daddy’s enormous banker’s desk had been was now a delicate French writing desk. It was piled with papers.

“I thought you’d be surprised.” Mother’s eyes twinkled.

“Surprised? I’m lost. Is this the house of the very proper ambassador’s wife?”

“No, it’s
the house of the very busy former suffragette.” She laughed, and the boys laughed with her. She bent down to hug each of them. “Oh, I won’t be able to get enough of these two! Do you want some cookies? Milk?” She looked at me, and I nodded.

“Get those children some cookies, would you, dear?” She turned to a young woman who appeared out of nowhere. The girl nodded and ushered the boys toward the
kitchen.

“Who was that?” I couldn’t seem to move my legs, couldn’t
sit down—even after my mother gestured to a comfortable armchair.

“Oh, that’s Marie. She’s part of my staff.”

“You have a staff?”

“Of course! One needs a staff when one is about to become acting president of Smith College.”

“What? Mother—when?
How?
”

“Naturally, the world situation is making the search for a new president
more difficult, so I was asked to step in during the interim. The college has so many ties, you know, overseas. We cannot turn our backs on our friends, and I’m going to see to it that we don’t.”

“Mother, it’s just me you’re talking to—you don’t have to make a political statement!”

“Oh, goodness! Did I? I’m sorry, I suppose I’m practicing!” My mother laughed, and I laughed along with her. I
was so happy for her, so happy she was busy and engaged and not grieving, as I had imagined. I shouldn’t have, I realized; when had she ever stopped long enough to give in to an emotion?

But she seemed so different now. She reminded me of Charles, that was it; they both had that purposeful gleam in their eye, a secret, a goal, that only they could recognize.