Mrs. Roosevelt's Confidante (10 page)

“The same, sir. And I came across a flyer for a rally supporting a man named Wendell Cotton's execution. Mrs. Roosevelt has been working to try to stop the execution. Maybe…”

The P.M. sighed. “If the First Lady is suspected of any impropriety, especially now, while I am in the United States, it will deflect attention from what the President and I must achieve. She would be discredited, he would be discredited, and then I—
Britain
—would be discredited by association as well. We are at an extremely perilous juncture in our relationship with the Americans—and the Roosevelts.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Prime Minister fixed his unwavering blue gaze on her. “And, what do you advise, Miss Hope?”

Maggie cleared her throat. She'd been up all night, thinking about it. “I'd start by investigating Blanche. What sorts of people she was involved with, including any ties to those supporting the Wendell Cotton execution—those who would want Mrs. Roosevelt silenced. I mean, it looks like an open-and-shut case. But then, where's the note? It makes no sense. I'd like to investigate—there's something”—she tried to find the right words—“not right about this situation. And I need to find out what it's about, to protect Mrs. Roosevelt.” She tipped her head in Churchill's direction. “And you, and Britain, by extension.”

The P.M. nodded. “Good, good. I shall lend-lease you indefinitely to the First Lady then. Report to Mr. Greene while you're here, but I'll let the First Lady know that if she needs you, all she has to do is let you know. Now, off with you.” He waved a hand.

“Yes, sir.”

When Maggie reached the door, however, he called. “Miss Hope!”

“Yes, Mr. Churchill?”

“If we're to win this war—which I believe we shall—we
must
have the Americans' undivided support. We can't have a scandal distracting them.” He stabbed the air with his cigar. “It is crucial to resolve this situation.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

As she turned to leave, there was a knock on the Prime Minister's bedroom door. “Come in!” he bellowed.

The massive Mr. Fields entered, blocking Maggie's way. “Now, Fields,” Churchill rumbled, “we had a lovely dinner last night, but I have a few orders for you. We want to leave here as friends, right? So I need you to listen. There is to be no talking or whistling in the corridors—do you understand? That's of the utmost importance. And I must have a tumbler of sherry in my room before breakfast, then a few glasses of scotch and soda before lunch. And French champagne and ninety-year-old brandy before I go to sleep at night.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Fields, in his burnished bass voice.

“Breakfast,” Churchill instructed, as he zipped up the dark blue jumpsuit he called his siren suit, “must include something hot—eggs, bacon or ham, and toast—and two kinds of fruit. I also expect prompt delivery of the red government dispatch boxes, coming from the British Embassy.”

“Yes, sir.” Fields bowed and stepped out of the doorframe, holding the door open for Maggie as she ducked past him. She shot him a quick smile of thanks, which he acknowledged with a raised eyebrow.

Maggie set the typewriter down on the nearest desk so she could hand David the typed pages. Fields passed behind her, gracefully moving around another, much smaller man who was dressed as a footman in scarlet livery, breeches, and white gloves. “A message for Flight Lieutenant John Sterling,” the newcomer announced, proffering a gold-crested invitation on a silver platter.

John looked up from his work, annoyed. “I'm Sterling.”

“Then this is for you, sir,” said the footman. He walked over to John and presented the heavy envelope. John took it, aware all eyes were on him.

David whistled through his teeth. “All right. Get on with it, then.”

John opened it and read the calligraphy. “It's an invitation to a party,” he told them. “At Mrs. Regina Winthrop Wolffe's house.”

“May I tell Madame you will be attending?” the footman asked.

“I'll—I'll need to ask the Prime Minister first.”

“Of course,” said the man in red. He turned on his heel to go. “I'll check in with you later today, sir.”

“Oh, fantastic,” John muttered as the man left.

Maggie had seen the exchange from across the room. “What's that about?”

“That ridiculous American socialite I was telling you about. Of course I won't go.”

The First Lady popped her head in the door. “Good morning,” she managed, her face drawn. “I trust everyone slept well?”

The trio snapped to attention. “Yes, ma'am.”

“Excellent,” said Mrs. Roosevelt, with a smile that never quite reached her eyes. “I'm sorry our weather isn't better for you—all this damp and fog. Miss Hope, when you have a moment, I'd like to speak with you.”

Maggie could only imagine the night the First Lady must have had. “Yes, ma'am. Right away, ma'am.”

When Maggie stepped into Eleanor Roosevelt's study, a police detective was there, in plain clothes. He had black hair closely cropped, the body of a football player gone to seed, and eyes surrounded by deep crow's-feet.

“Miss Hope, this is Detective Timothy Farrell,” Mrs. Roosevelt said. “Detective Farrell, Miss Maggie Hope, the Prime Minister's typist. Detective Farrell has been kind enough to come and inform me in person that Miss Balfour—Blanche—” Mrs. Roosevelt's voice broke.

“I'm sorry to say that Miss Balfour has been found dead,” said the detective to Maggie in a gravelly voice, his oily hair gleaming in the lamp's light. Dandruff dusted the shoulders of his jacket, and he fiddled with the gold wedding band on his left hand. “Suicide.”

“Oh,” Maggie said, her mind whirring. “I never met her, of course—but I'm so sorry.”

Detective Farrell handed her his card. “In case you come across anything,” he said. He looked to Mrs. Roosevelt. “If there's anything else we can do for you, ma'am—”

“No, thank you.” The First Lady's mouth was set in a grim line. “You've done your duty, Detective. Of course I'll write to the poor girl's mother immediately, to express my condolences.”

As the detective left, Mrs. Roosevelt half sat, half fell onto a chair.

“In light of what's happened, ma'am,” Maggie said, “I would be glad to offer my services for the duration. I've asked Mr. Churchill, and he says it's fine with him—all you have to do is come find me in his office if and when you need me.”

Mrs. Roosevelt looked up. “Services as a typist? Or something more specialized, Miss Hope?”

Maggie met her gaze. “Whatever you need, ma'am.”

The First Lady stared at her for a moment. Then she sighed and gestured for Maggie to sit. “Thank you.”

“Ma'am, was there a specific reason Blanche would want to cause a scandal for you? At this time? What could she have gained?”

The First Lady looked out the window, to the leaden sky. “If I'm discredited, Franklin's discredited. The country will be distracted by scandal. And the war effort will suffer.”

Exactly what Mr. Churchill's worried about,
Maggie thought.

“And who would benefit?”

“Any number of people. Franklin's hated by the so-called aristocracy. They think he's betrayed them—much of the South, who think he's too friendly with the coloreds and the Jews—he was hated by the isolationists, but since the attack on Pearl Harbor, they seem to have come around…”

Maggie nodded. “Tell me about Blanche.”

“Blanche was a debutante, but her family lost all their money in the Depression, like so many. She was selling perfume in a department store before she came to us. Tommy suggested her. Then I interviewed her and found her perfectly competent. I'd hoped working at the White House would be a step up for her. And I'd thought perhaps here she could learn some additional skills.”

“How long did she work for you?”

“About a month.”

“What work did she do for you?”

“Really just typing up the ‘My Day' columns. Running errands. Filing. You saw what she was working on last night.”

“I looked through her papers last night, but may I see your correspondence from the time Blanche was working for you also?”

“Of course.” Mrs. Roosevelt went to her desk and pulled out a thick manila file. Her pale face was grim. “One of the things I'm involved with is the case of Wendell Cotton. Have you heard of it?” She turned back to the younger woman.

“I have, in fact.”

“On the surface it's a simple story—a young colored sharecropper, Wendell Cotton, shot and killed his landlord in a dispute over distribution of the shares of the crop. There's no doubt Wendell did the shooting, but it's unclear if it was premeditated or manslaughter. Or self-defense. After a quick trial, by a jury of white sharecroppers, Wendell was sentenced to death by electric chair.

“Now normally the story would have ended there, but it became a matter of national concern when Wendell fled to Ohio after the shooting to avoid capture—and the story was noticed by key organizations, such as the Workers Defense League and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. As they investigated, it became apparent that the incident involved more than a simple—if fatal—shooting.

“Wendell's a typical victim of planter justice, which has ground down the poor people of Southern states—both white and colored—for generations, Miss Hope. He was tried in a court presided over by a judge who made no attempt to conceal his anti-Negro bias, and condemned by a jury consisting of a businessman, a carpenter, and ten landlords. His peers, sharecroppers, had no place on the jury list, which was made up only of people who paid the dollar fifty Virginia state poll tax.”

“I see,” Maggie said.

“Wendell's come to personify all those to whom democracy is denied in this country. He's now a symbol of the deep-seated racial and economic injustice that still poisons our society.”

“What's your exact involvement in the Wendell Cotton case?”

The First Lady rifled through the file. “Wendell's lawyer is at an impasse. At this point, there's no way to stop the young man's execution, except by a pardon from the Governor of Virginia. And since the Governor is—shall we say—traditional, Wendell's lawyer thought if Franklin asked the Governor to intercede, that might help.”

“And did the President speak to the Governor?”

The First Lady pressed her lips together. “Franklin—the President—does not want to get involved.”

“But—” Maggie tried to temper the look of shock on her face. “Why not?”

“Legally, the President has no authority over the case. But the Workers Defense League felt that if he could appoint a commissioner, the Governor of Virginia would feel obliged to postpone Wendell's execution pending the committee's deliberation and, at best, recommend a plea for clemency.”

“That sounds reasonable.”

“It does, doesn't it? But Franklin feels he's done enough with his support for Negroes through his economic programs. And now, with the war, he's wary of alienating powerful Southern politicians. So he's avoiding any direct involvement in any potentially sensitive racial issues, such as the federal anti-lynching law and attacks on disenfranchisement. And since the attack on Pearl Harbor, Franklin feels the country has more pressing concerns.”

Maggie gnawed her lip. “And who is Miss Andrea Martin?”

“Andrea Martin—Andi—is a young colored woman. She's about your age, maybe a bit older. Born here in D.C., but raised by her aunt in Durham. She wanted to go to the law school at the University of North Carolina and they rejected her application—not a surprise, unfortunately, and her rejection did have the benefit of garnering a great deal of media attention. Now she's set her sights on Howard—although that won't be an easy road either, I should think. Black women have what Andi calls the ‘Jane Crow problem'—all of the issues of being colored in our society and then the additional challenge of being female as well.”

Maggie nodded.

“Andi was determined to attend a nonsegregated college for her undergraduate education, and she did, graduating from Hunter, in New York. After that, she worked with the National Urban League, selling subscriptions to its journal,
Opportunity
. She protested against segregated seating on buses last year and was arrested—if you can believe it—and jailed just south of Petersburg, Virginia.”

“My goodness.”

“Yes, she appealed with the help of an NAACP lawyer, but lost and spent time in jail—about a month, until the Workers Defense League paid the fines and got her released. After that, Andi wanted to pay the WDL back, so she took a job with them in New York. And then the Wendell Cotton case came up.” The First Lady smoothed back her hair. “She was sent to Virginia with the WDL to help Wendell. She's been raising funds for Wendell's defense and trying to get as much public support as possible.”

“And how do you know Miss Martin?”

“She sent me a letter months ago, telling me of Wendell's situation, and asking me to look into it. I did, and since then we've stayed in touch. Of course, it's tricky. I'm not the President, after all, and even he sometimes has his hands tied when it comes to the good ol' boy networks of the South. So I wrote to Governor King of Virginia personally, saying, ‘Please look into the case and see that the young man has a fair trial.' It might not seem like much, but I felt stronger words would prejudice the Governor the other way.”

Maggie nodded. “Do you have a copy of the letter you wrote to Miss Martin?”

“Let's see,” Mrs. Roosevelt said, going through the file on her lap. “Ah, here it is, yes
—‘I've received a great many letters about Wendell Cotton,' ”
she read.
“ ‘If the facts stated by his defense lawyer are true, I hope very much that you will be able to go over the case very carefully, as it has created strong feelings among both white and colored people, and may not
have only national but international implications.' ”