Ruth smiled and then laughed a little from the excitement.
“So when you’ve chosen a copilot,” Cornell added, “we’ll be set.”
“Oh,” Ruth said without pause, “I’ve already chosen. I know who my copilot will be. I’m not going anywhere without George.”
* * *
Levine grinned when he heard the sound of the crowd heighten as Mabel’s Duesenberg pulled to a stop. Within a moment the car was swarmed with onlookers, all eager to spot the prize inside. At Croydon Aerodrome in South London, Levine’s press conference aroused the exact measure of hysteria and display that he had hoped for. Of course, his previous antics never hurt him when he took to announcing a new adventure; the newspapers couldn’t wait to see what Levine was up to next, and began taking bets on what stunt he might pull. Flashes of light and pops of brightness shot from all directions as Mabel emerged from the car, waving to the photographers with one arm and holding Solitaire, her black and silver miniature Schnauzer, under the other. Her bracelets collided and chirped delicate chimes with each wave. She stopped for a moment, elated with the size of her audience, then blew a kiss; she felt the moment was worthy. Shimmering, she approached the podium, the sweater’s gold links ricocheting sparks of light, glowing as she slowly moved, not missing a moment of adulation.
Unamused, Hinchliffe could only bring himself to look downward; he loathed flagrant displays of any sort. His hands clasped tighter behind his back the closer Mabel made her way to him and Levine, who had promptly positioned himself next to the microphone. Levine, the ringmaster, looked delighted, rocking up on his toes and back again as he unabashedly gave in to his excitement. It was a spectacle, every man with a camera jostling the others to get a better shot at Mabel, her diamonds sparkling pools of light at her throat, fingers, and wrists. Even Solitaire’s collar—containing more gemstones than any of the men in the crowd could ever buy their wives—gleamed and reflected rainbows.
With his arms outstretched, Levine grinned as Mabel parted the crowd with the stride of a camel, swaying from one hip to the other, smiling and nodding to the onlookers as she passed. Once she had reached Hinch, a nickname used by close friends, and Levine, the ringmaster cleared his throat as Mabel passed the dog off to Marcelle as if she were passing a bouquet of fragile roses.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I am Charles Levine of Columbia Aircraft Company and the first passenger to fly across the Atlantic!” he proclaimed, promoting himself without a scrap of humility. “I am announcing before you today that I will again make the transatlantic journey in the Miss Columbia by the east–west route, piloted by Captain Walter Hinchliffe, noted aviator of Imperial Airways and war hero. Miss Mabel Boll will also make the flight, becoming the first woman to fly over the Atlantic! I will be the only person on earth who has flown across the ocean nonstop from both directions!”
The crowd exploded; the roar of questions overwhelmed them as newspaper reporters shouted over one another, accented by the striking pops of flashbulbs. The one word they all seemed to be saying was “Mabel.”
Mabel, the only one expecting the onslaught of attention focused on her, feigned shock at all the questions aimed in her direction.
“Mabel! What do you say about this?” a reporter demanded from the crowd.
She cleared her throat and smiled demurely as she stepped in front of Levine and took the microphone. “I am terribly thrilled,” she said, raising her voice an octave above where it usually landed. “I want to be the first woman to fly across the Atlantic.”
A bulb from the front row flashed close to her face, illuminating her grimace as she winced. Jumping from Marcelle’s limp arms, Solitaire meandered through the legs of the crowd back toward the voice of his mistress with the maid on all fours behind him.
“Mabel! What jewels are you going to wear on the flight?”
Mabel laughed coquettishly. “Well, I won’t know that until the morning of our journey. I have to feel what gems are in my heart that day! But I will be wearing an ermine cape and a matching traveling suit!”
A barrage of light flashes illuminated Mabel as she stopped for a moment to pose with one hand on her hip, then turned a bit sideways to feature her best side, although she did honestly feel she had two. Solitaire pushed through to the front of the crowd and saw his lady’s legs in front of him. Then, detecting a scent he could not deny, he focused on the tiny feet just to the left of his lady’s fancy heels.
“Mabel! What kind of sweater are you wearing?”
“This old thing?” she said, looking puzzled. “It’s made of one hundred percent gold thread. How d’ya like it, fellas?”
The whoops and hollers outnumbered the sound of cameras clicking this time.
“Mabel, did you really go swimming in the Riviera in broad daylight with nothing on but jewels?”
“See?” Levine whispered to Hinchliffe, elbowing him in the lowest rib. “Whaddid I tell ya?”
Mabel laughed. “I never swim and tell,” she teased.
“Mabel! Mabel! Is it true that you and Mr. Levine are engaged and that you caused his impending divorce?”
Mabel’s face dropped momentarily, then regained composure.
“I’m sorry,” she said hoarsely, waving her hand, and barely whispered, “I seem to have a sore throat.”
She noticed Solitaire at her feet and quickly scooped him up as if the dog could offer some protection against any tawdry but true accusations.
Levine grabbed the microphone and addressed the crowd, but they had already lost interest after Mabel’s voice failed. Levine stood there and watched them begin to turn and go, a dark spot on his trousers—in the area over his ankle—beginning to spread higher and wider.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMER 1927
Charles Levine and Ray Hinchliffe in the Miss Columbia.
Well, that was it, Elsie thought to herself as she raised the teacup to her lips. Looks like Levine’s got him.
She sighed and shook her head almost unnoticeably before she placed the newspaper back down on the breakfast table.
From the front page, Captain Hinchliffe looked up at her as he stood alongside a man who looked like a very old child and the garish American heiress Mabel Boll, whom Elsie hadn’t seen since her voyage back from New York.
Poor fellow, she thought, to get mixed up with those two. Levine must have paid him a king’s ransom. The best pilot in Britain goes to the lunatic who steals planes and a woman who collects more men than diamonds. What a pity. Tony clearly hadn’t known.
Well, Mr. Levine, the one who gets there first gets the first pick. And then wins.
It was her own fault, she knew: she should have acted on this sooner, as evidenced by the princess’ admission she’d endured at Effie’s wedding. Everyone, it seemed, had caught the flying-transatlantic bug. Now the best pilot was locked up and Elsie would have to search elsewhere. She wasn’t happy about that.
She also knew she couldn’t be the only one staring in disbelief at the morning’s paper. Certainly Princess Anne was doing the same thing.
But Elsie had better things to think about today than Princess Anne’s threat to the transatlantic crown. Cousin Bluebell, almost a fifth child in the Mackay family, had come to Seamore Place for the summer while her parents traveled to Egypt. Refusing to be presented as a debutante this year, she stated that the entire affair was archaic and seemed like a cattle auction in which young men of means were to choose from the new crop of eligible young brides-to-be. This made Elsie secretly smile. Elsie had half a notion to take Bluebell to a suffragette rally in London in support of extending the vote to all women over the age of twenty-one, not just women over thirty who held property. But that could wait.
Today was a day for amazing things: Elsie, with the permission of her aunt and uncle, was taking Bluebell for a flight in the DH4. She couldn’t wait to share the splendor of the sky with her young cousin, although her father protested a bit until Elsie pointed out that far more people had died at
sea than had died in the air.
The first thing Elsie did was make sure Bluebell’s safety belt was taut, buckled, and in no danger of tossing her daring young charge out into the clouds. She fastened her leather flying cap, then her goggles, and started the engine, careful to listen for any Effie-like terror shrieks from behind her. She headed down the runway, slowly at first, then quickly picked up speed, and in the heart of a beautiful, sunny, and glorious day, Elsie and Bluebell deserted the ground below.
Elsie heard what she thought was a cry from behind her, but Bluebell squealed, “Go higher! Smashing! Oh! I can see everything!”
Elsie laughed in response, happy that Bluebell wasn’t shrieking in terror. Elsie was right: Bluebell saw what she saw, felt what she felt. It confirmed that flying was in her blood; she couldn’t shake or abandon it. As soon as Elsie brought the plane down for a perfect landing, Bluebell tossed off her goggles and helmet and screamed with delight.
“That was wonderful!” she cried as she jumped from the wing to the ground, as if she had experienced real magic, and reminded Elsie of the day that Tony first took her up. “When can we go again?”
“Just about anytime!” Elsie said, squeezing her cousin by the shoulders.
As the two cousins pulled into the drive of Seamore Place, Kenneth was standing unexpectedly outside the front door, as if waiting for someone. He waved for them to get quickly out of the car as he walked over to where Elsie had stopped.
“What is it?” she asked immediately. “Has something happened?”
He exhaled a cloud of cigarette smoke. He threw the butt down and ground it out with his foot into the pea gravel. “It’s Mother, Elsie. She’s collapsed. It was after breakfast; you had just left. Father called me right away, and Dr. Cunningham is here. It doesn’t look good, old girl, I’m sorry to say.”
* * *
Ruth didn’t exactly expect Lyle to be thrilled at her news, but she didn’t expect him to be so damn nasty about it, either.
“Absolutely not: under no circumstances is my wife flying across the ocean with another man,” he insisted when Ruth picked him up from Dixie’s. He was in Lakeland only for a couple of days and had flown in immediately after getting Ruth’s letter that told him what had happened with the West Virginia businessmen.
“Lyle, please,” she replied, not quite pleading. “I don’t think I’ll ever get this chance again. I want to be the first woman to fly the Atlantic! They picked me!”
“Stick to beauty contests,” he snapped. “I said no, and I’ll make sure everyone knows it. You are not getting on that plane, Ruth. Not in my lifetime.” Ruth didn’t say another word. She didn’t really care what Lyle felt about it. When had she ever told him he couldn’t do something? She had made an agreement, and her plan was to stick to it.
She was going to make that flight.
As it was, she had quit her job after she met Mr. Cornell and Mr. McArdle, and had been concentrating on her flying lessons. Some days George had her do nothing but take off and land until she got perfect at it. Mr. Cornell had a photographer out to Dixie’s to have her pose with the plane, smiling from below as the camera snapped away from above the cockpit, standing next to it, her hair all done up in the little scarf she had started wearing tied around her head to keep it from getting frazzled and knotted.
“I can’t believe my girl is flying across the ocean,” Mama said worriedly.
Daddy wasn’t shocked. “I always knew you to be determined,” he observed.
But Lyle . . . whew. He barely talked to Ruth at all when he was home. She didn’t even know why he had made the effort to come all that way. He took his protests to George, who laid out the plan of the flight but told him that his problems with Ruth were his own.
“I’m confident of her skill enough to get on that plane with her,” George told him. “That should tell you everything you need to know.”
“You think she’s that good of a pilot?” Lyle finally asked him.
“Ruth is a good pilot, Lyle, and your wife has the chance to make history. And she wants that chance.”
“They picked her because she’s pretty, huh?” Lyle said, still suspicious. “There have to be hundreds of woman pilots all over the place.”
George paused for a moment.
“Lyle, take no offense to this, but you’re right,” he replied. “There are lots of lady pilots who would kill for this chance, but they don’t look like Ruth. They don’t have the charm Ruth does, or that sparkle in her eyes. Ruth’s got something special. You know it, I know it, these West Virginia fellows know it. Lindbergh is America’s hero and, well, these fellows think they can make Ruth the American girl.”
Lyle, his hands in his pockets, shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “That right?” he said.
“It’s so right, they’re going to call the plane the American Girl,” George informed him. “This whole thing can’t happen without Ruth.”
Lyle stood there for a minute or so without saying anything. Then he nodded, thanked George, and went home. And when his plane left the next day, Ruth drove him to Dixie’s and gave him a big kiss good-bye when she stopped the car.
He waved once more before he entered the hangar, and George heard him call, “Farewell, my American girl!”
* * *
“A lion hunt?” Charles Levine exclaimed, then slapped his knee while sitting in his suite at the Ritz. “Really? You want me to go on a lion hunt?”
“Yes,” the man sitting opposite Levine said with a smile. “The more lions you kill, the more you will be liked in Africa.”
John Boyes, a poacher, a thief, a buddy of Teddy Roosevelt, and a white man who had named himself the king of the Wa-Kikuyu in Kenya, invited Levine and Captain Hinchliffe to an aerial lion hunt in which they would shoot their prey from above and the tribal men would tan the hides and then ship them back to Levine and Hinchliffe.
Hinchliffe, who was seated at a desk across the suite working on wind and current charts, rolled his eyes and let out a small sigh.
Levine, his mouth half open and smiling, nodded silently.
“A lion . . . rug, yeah, I guess that’s what you’d call it, right? I bet the missus would like a coupla lion rugs. Why not, right? How many times am I gonna get a shot at this?” He laughed, forgetting that he owned an aircraft company and could shoot at anything from the sky that he liked.
“Whaddya say, Ray?” Levine said, turning toward Hinchliffe.
“I only shoot at things that shoot back at me,” Hinch replied sharply.
He put down his pencil and turned to face Levine, who was not his new best friend. He was weary of Levine’s shenanigans, especially when they had a tendency to pop up in the newspaper with Hinchliffe’s name following closely behind Levine’s.
This latest adventure, marked in posterity by the purple shiner circling Levine’s eye, was, of course, due to Mabel Boll. They had been at a nightclub several nights before when a drunken man made a slur about her as she slunk by, apparently mistaking her for a Queen of the Night rather than the Queen of Diamonds.
She was offended, words were exchanged, and before anything could be resolved, Levine swung. The drunk, knocked out of his chair, was still a better drunkweight than Levine was a tinyweight, and his bruised face was now the reminder after Mabel sunk her heel into the drunk man’s thigh as he lay inebriated on the floor and it was called a draw.
To make matters worse, a report of the scuffle popped up in the paper the following day with a quote from Levine stating, “It was all on account of Mabel Boll. She is just a nice girl, but nothing to me. A man whom I had not seen before insulted her, and I socked him in the jaw. They pulled me off.”
This, of course, did not sit that well with Mabel, who threatened to give him a matching black eye if he ever called her “nothing” again. As a result, the two were not speaking. And now each man had only one functioning eye.
“I am not a hunter, Charles,” Hinchliffe said simply. “And neither are you.
Please stop this nonsense at once.”
Levine turned back around and shook his head. “King, we’re gonna think about it,” he said before showing him to the door.
It was fine for Levine to take his mind off of the flight and puff up his ego while they waited for a propeller to be shipped from the United States, but to entertain lion hunting was ridiculous and tiresome. Levine didn’t know how to entertain himself, Hinchliffe noticed, and jumped around from one subject to the next like a flea in a kennel of dogs. Levine’s nervous energy was becoming stressful, and there was more than one occasion on which Hinchliffe wondered just what he had gotten himself into. He wasn’t used to working on one man’s whim; in fact, even during all of this preparation for the transatlantic flight, Levine would phone up and say, “Whaddya think about India? Should we go to India instead?” before arguing with himself for ten minutes and finally settling on their original flight plan. As it was, they already had a stop in Rome so that Levine could drop off a present for Benito Mussolini’s newborn son. After the Italian leader had issued him an invitation to stop by the palace, Levine was chomping at the bit.
No one was happier about the propeller finally arriving than Hinch; since the lion-hunting argument, he had taken to working on his charts out at Cranwell, the RAF aerodrome north of London, the site where he had secured permission to depart from. When the equipment was delivered, Hinch reluctantly summoned Levine to the aerodrome; once the mechanics had their shake at it, the plane would be ready to fly and could take off any day now with the right conditions. If that happened, Hinch wanted Levine on-site and ready to go before he changed his mind again and decided to fly to the South Pole to drop off a present for Santa Claus. Mabel, with her dog, maid, chauffeur, Levine’s Rolls, baggage, and her own little present for bambino Mussolini—a diamond-encrusted baby bracelet—checked into a nearby hotel and was told to be ready at a moment’s notice. Levine and some chums he had brought along slept in the barracks.