“You’re a very lucky girl, Sarah Thompson,” her mother said, and Sarah could only agree with her, while mentally trying out her new name … Sarah Whitfield…. She liked the way it sounded … it had a wonderful ring to it…. The Duchess of Whitfield, she whispered grandly, and then laughed to herself as she went to smell the huge bouquet of red roses on the table beside her bed.
The crossing on the Queen Mary seemed to drag by this time. All she wanted to do was get home and start planning for her wedding. She was pampered by everyone on the ship, once they realized that she was the future Duchess of Whitfield. They were invited to the captain’s table several times, and this time Sarah felt an obligation to be more obliging. Now she had a responsibility to William to be more outgoing, and her parents were pleased to see the change in her. William had done wonderful things for their daughter.
And when they arrived in New York, Peter and Jane were waiting for them, and this time they hadn’t brought the children. Jane was beside herself at all the news, and squealed with delight, unable to believe how beautiful Sarah’s ring was. They showed photographs of William to her in the car, and Peter and Edward chatted endlessly about the news from Europe.
In fact, it was a week to the day after their return that normal radio broadcasts were interrupted to bring Americans Hitler’s speech to his Nazi Congress at Nuremberg. It was an awesome, frightening speech, and his threats to Czechoslovakia were clear to all who heard them. He declared that Germany would no longer tolerate the oppression of the Sudeten Germans by the Czechs, and he revealed that close to three hundred thousand Germans were working to reinforce the German border along the Siegfried Line. The dangers were obvious, but the question remained as to what Hitler would actually do about it, and how the world would react when he did it. The venom and fury and hatred that had emanated from him as he spoke had shaken Americans to the core, as they listened to him, broadcast live to them over the airwaves, and for the first time the threat of war in Europe seemed real, It was obvious that, if nothing else, the Czechs were going to be devoured by the Germans. And no one who listened thought that was good news.
For the next week people spoke of nothing else. The newspapers announced that the armies of Europe were being mobilized, the fleets were at the ready, and Europe was waiting for Hitler’s next move.
And on September twenty-first, at eight-fifteen New York time, events in Prague finally reached a climax. The French and British ministers there announced that they would not mobilize on behalf of the Czechs, and risk Hitler’s fury. They offered Czechoslovakia no choice but to capitulate, and give itself over to the Nazi forces of Adolf Hitler. By 11 A.M. in New York, 5 P.M. in Prague, the government had come to the conclusion that it had no choice. Prague capitulated to the German forces, as their supporters around the world heard the news and cried.
And by then it was raining in New York, as though God were crying for the Czechs, as Sarah did as she listened to the broadcast. The broadcast had come to New York in an oddly roundabout way, due to “difficult” weather on the Atlantic, and in order to circumvent the problem, the broadcast had gone from Prague to Cape Town to Buenos Aires to New York. And could then be clearly heard. But by noon there was nothing left to hear. It was six o’clock in Czechoslovakia by then, and for them the fight was over. Sarah snapped off her radio, as did everyone else, and never heard the storm warnings that were issued at 1 P.M., announcing that a storm that had been hovering over the Atlantic might hit Long Island. The wind had picked up by then, and Sarah had been talking to her mother about going out to Southampton to start getting organized for the wedding She had a thousand things to plan and do, and the house on Long Island was a peaceful place to do them.
“You don’t really want to go out there in this awful weather, dear,” her mother replied. But the truth was, she really didn’t mind. She liked the beach in the rain. There was always something peaceful and soothing about it. But she knew her mother worried about her driving in bad weather, so she stayed home to help her mother in town. Her father had already called the man who owned the farm she had put the deposit on, and had explained to him that his daughter was getting married and moving to England instead. He had been extremely nice, and given Sarah her money back, although her father had still scolded her for doing something so foolish, and he assured her that he would never have let her live alone in a fallen-down farmhouse on Long Island She had taken the money back from him apologetically, and put it in the bank. It was the thousand dollars she had gotten for selling the wedding ring she had gotten from Freddie, a useless item she had never missed.
But she wasn’t thinking of the farm, or even the wedding, that afternoon, as the rain grew worse in New York. She was thinking about Prague and the terrifying situation there, when she suddenly heard a ferocious rattling of her bedroom windows. It was two o’clock by then, and when she looked at the window it was so dark it almost looked like midnight. The trees outside her parents’ apartment were bent low in the wind, and she thought she’d never seen such a fierce storm in New York, and at that exact moment her father came home early.
“Is something wrong?” Victoria asked him worriedly.
“Have you seen that storm?” he asked her. “I could barely make it out of the car and into the building. I had to hold on to the awning poles and two men on the street had to help me.” He turned to his daughter then with a worried frown. “Have you been listening to the news?” He knew how well-informed she was, and that she often listened to the news bulletins in the afternoon, if she was at home with her mother.
“Only about Czechoslovakia.” She told him the latest about that then, and he shook his head.
“This is no ordinary storm,” he said ominously, and went to his bedroom to change. He came back out in rough gear five minutes later.
“What are you doing?” Victoria asked nervously. He had a habit of doing things beyond his skills or his years, as though to prove that he could still do them, even if he never had before. He was a strong, able man, but he was clearly no longer as young as he had been.
“I want to drive out to Southampton and make sure everything’s all right there. I called Charles an hour ago, and the phone didn’t answer.” Sarah looked at her father’s eyes only for an instant, and then spoke firmly.
“I’ll come with you.”
“No, you won’t,” he argued with her, and Victoria began to look really angry at both of them. “You’re both ridiculous. It’s just a storm, and if something is wrong out there, there’s nothing either of you can do about it.” An old man and a young girl were not going to be able to fight the forces of nature. But neither of them shared that opinion with her. As her father put his overcoat on, Sarah emerged from her room in some of the old clothes she had worn during her year of solitude on Long Island. She had on heavy rubber boots, khaki pants, a fisherman’s sweater, and a slicker.
“I’m coming with you,” she announced again, and he hesitated, and then shrugged. He was too worried to argue.
“All right. Let’s go. Victoria, don’t worry, we’ll call you.” She was still furious with both of them when they left. She put the radio on as they went downstairs, got in the car, and set off toward the Sunrise Highway en route to Southampton. Sarah had offered to drive, but her father had laughed at her.
“I may be old and feeble in your eyes, but I’m not crazy.” She laughed and reminded him that she was a very competent driver. But they said little to each other after that. The force of the winds made it almost impossible for him to keep the car on the road and more than once, the wind pushed the heavy Buick a dozen feet sideways.