Crossing the Horizon Read online

  “Elsie Mackay,” she replied, extending her hand back.

  The pilot hesitated for a moment.

  “I’ve seen you in the Times. You’re the daughter of Lord Inchcape? The man who set the gold standard in currency for England?” he asked with a weary smile.

  “Yes, the very same one who was knighted by the King,” Elsie said with a tired sigh and then a smile. “But he’s never flown, so I can at least beat him to that victory.”

  “Looks like we’re going for a ride, then,” he said, smiling as her foot hit the gas and the tires spun out wildly, creating a magnificent plume of dust behind them.

  * * *

  Up in the sky, Elsie couldn’t believe it was real. With the bright sun forcing her to squint, she didn’t know where to move her eyes—to look up, down, sideways, or ahead, or to watch the blur of the propeller create a constantly moving grey circle. The higher they rose, the more insistent the wind came and the stronger her heart beat.

  Elsie laughed loudly and slapped the outside of the plane.

  “Oh, Tony!” she cried. “I am so awake!”

  She could hear Tony laughing back, and then he shouted, “Hang on!”

  He dipped the plane, flipping Elsie’s stomach inside out, but she just laughed louder. He circled the aerodrome, now a line of squares and rectangles placed over a neat brown patch. The freedom in the sky was austere, no boundaries, no stopping, no starting, going as fast as you wanted to go. It was limitless. She was never so untethered and genuine. It was terrifying and serene at the same moment. She loved that.

  Tony took the plane higher, closer to lower-lying clouds, and headed right for them. In a moment they were enveloped in a thin, ethereal mist, the sun diminished to a golden, delicate glow. She reached her right hand up gently to touch it.

  “I’m in a cloud,” Elsie whispered to herself. “I am in a cloud.”

  Suddenly the sun burst forward, and she squinted again. They were back in the blue of the sky, brilliant and endless. Elsie could see the span of London below her, looking more like a puzzle than a large city. This is what the world looks like from up here, she thought, so narrow and small. Life up here is bigger. And faster. And forever.

  Elsie wanted to stay, floating in the miraculous blue of the sky, the sigh of the clouds, and far above the cramped, tiny world below.

  The brown patch came closer and closer, the aerodrome in view. This couldn’t be the last time she felt like this, she told herself; it just couldn’t. She had to figure out how to get back up here again, for as long as she could stay.

  With a bump and a bounce, Tony brought the plane in on the dirt field, right next to a row of biplanes currently doomed to the earth.

  He removed his goggles, climbed out to the wing from the cockpit, and helped her down. She landed back on the dirt with a small jump.

  “So,” Tony said, smiling and removing his leather flying helmet, “how does it feel to be back on the ground?”

  “Boring,” Elsie said, not hesitating to answer. “Devastatingly boring.”

  Tony laughed and nodded. “We’d better find a comb,” he said, tapping her on the shoulder. “Your hair is a wreck.”

  * * *

  Elsie convinced Tony to take her for two more flights before she was summoned back home. Inspired by the work her daughters had done to aid the war effort, Lady Inchcape decided that she, too, needed to contribute in the only way a woman of high-ranking nobility was able to.

  Four Seamore Place, a vast Georgian town house built a century before, was located on one of the most respectable streets in Mayfair. Two addresses down from Alfred de Rothschild’s mansion that housed his famous art collection and looking westward over Hyde Park, the house at Seamore Place was gracious, with a wide, sweeping staircase that opened to a palatial drawing room on the second floor.

  “Here,” Lady Inchcape said, waving her arms widely, “is where we shall set up initially. I think the view here over the park is lovely, especially at dusk, a time when things can get so dreadful. It will do good to lift some spirits, don’t you agree?”

  The four Mackay daughters all nodded precisely on cue.

  “Forty beds if we’re economical,” Lady Inchcape pointed out. (This was the same woman who had told her husband to turn down the offer of viceroyship of India when she learned they would have to pay for a complete china service, since the exiting viceroy was taking his with him. Her husband took her advice.) “I’ve contacted the Red Cross and we can probably expect six or seven VADs to be sent over in addition to you four by next week.”

  Elsie understood then that her chances of flying were over. Of course she would abide by her mother’s wishes, but since she had taken that first flight through the clouds, she could barely stand to think of anything else. Her driving became her grounded substitute as she felt the speed and the wind shoot past her. It was the closest she could get to being in the air, although after she received several speeding reprimands, the Crossley was replaced by a much slower Ford, which was then replaced by a rattling, falling-apart motorbike that barely started, let alone flew.

  The Seamore Place hospital was full immediately. The injuries and wounds were more horrific than Elsie had remembered in the earlier days of the war: the boils and burns of mustard gas were more prevalent, as was the damage of charred lungs and skin that had simply melted; faces that were twisted and torn by artillery; eyelids and noses that were burned off; and cavernous head wounds that could never be healed. Elsie held hands; she patted brows, cooled fevers; she talked. She took dictation when hands were too shaky to write, or when there weren’t hands left at all. She read letters to those anxious to hear them, and passed on a good joke when she heard it. She knew, truly and honestly, that at that moment her presence there was more important than anything, even flying.

  The injuries of the new patient in bed eighteen were not serious in the grand scope of things. He had all appendages, and a face that was intact. He had suffered a blighty one: a nonhorrific wound that was enough to get him sent back to England and probably not back into battle thereafter. Dennis Wyndham, a lieutenant from South Africa, had shell shock along with teary eyes and raw lungs from a mustard gas attack. He was fair, tall, and handsome, with a square jaw and serious eyes. He had smiled slightly at Elsie when he first arrived, uninterested in making any small talk. He spent most of his day by the window, sitting in a tufted armchair that Princess Mary had once taken tea in. Before the war, he had been a popular actor frequently seen in starring roles in London’s West End.

  But now he required very little contact with anyone. He would rather not speak. He preferred to spend those daytime hours sitting in what sun he could catch, studying the people below who were able to go about their lives—those who still had lives—and he spent his nights trying not to fall asleep. It was better not to fall asleep.

  Initially, Elsie had sensed his separation from the world; she had seen shell shock many times before. Sometimes, it was only a matter of days before they came back to the surface, and other times they were lost somewhere inside, forever. She respected Wyndham’s solemnity, his separation from the rest of the men, his time in the chair staring at the park. But as she passed him one brilliant and sunny afternoon, she noticed his hand on the arm of the chair. Lean, long fingers, but strong and capable. Shaking. They moved with a firm tremor, from side to side, without pause.

  And Elsie, doing what she always did, simply reached down and took ahold of his quivering fingers, put his hand in hers, pulled up a nearby chair, and sat quietly.

  * * *

  The romance between the Honourable Elsie Mackay and Lieutenant Dennis Wyndham blossomed quickly, but was steadfast and unwavering. His lungs healed, the tremors eased, and he came back to the surface full of unquestioning confidence of his love for the curly-haired, slight, dark-eyed heiress. Her smile popped, he said over and over again, until he simply called her “Poppy” and she found it adorable.

  It was only a matter of time before her f
ather caught wind of the pairing and wasted no time announcing his aversion to the entire idea.

  “He’s . . .” Lord Inchcape angrily declared, nearly shuddering, “. . . an actor!”

  Elsie stopped listening. And as soon as Dennis was well enough, Lord Inchcape instructed his wife to make sure the actor was moved to another hospital. Undaunted, Dennis bravely approached Inchcape for his daughter’s hand in marriage. Inchcape forbade it, and made it clear that if his wishes were not respected, the consequences would be severe.

  “Elsie, be reasonable,” Margaret tried to tell her. “Father is right. You can’t marry Dennis. He’s a very fine man, but it isn’t sensible. You are one of the richest women in Britain; play this one very safe.”

  Elsie laughed. “You mean Father will disinherit me? Cut off my income? I don’t care,” she said, still smiling and determined when her father whisked her to Scotland to examine the fifteen-thousand-acre estate of Glenapp Castle near his childhood home. He had purchased it, Elsie believed, out of spite, and instructed her to set up the household.

  It was Effie, Elsie’s youngest sister, who ran into Dennis, waiting at the edge of Hyde Park across the street from Seamore Place for an opportunity to pass her a letter for Elsie just before Lord Inchcape returned to London.

  In Scotland, Elsie’s hands tore open the letter and immediately saw Dennis’s shaky handwriting; addressed to his dearest Poppy, it said he still wanted to marry her. Elsie proposed to Lord Inchcape that she return to London as soon as possible, preferably before the Royal Ascot or the regatta. She was anxious to get back to the social season, she said, and surprising her, he agreed.

  Elsie and Dennis met at the registrar’s office on a quiet Saturday morning in early May to secure a marriage license. She wore a light blue silk dress with a slightly dropped waist, carefully picked out for the occasion. Dennis looked handsome in his starched captain’s uniform of khaki barathea wool and brass buttons; it was hard to believe he had been so ill just months before. After delivering their names and addresses, the registrar took a moment, then informed them that an objection had been made. No license could be issued to them with that standing.

  “There is nowhere in London that will marry us,” Dennis told her once outside the office. “There isn’t a corner that your father can’t touch.”

  “I won’t let him stop us!” Elsie objected.

  “I’m going to the telephone box to call my station; we’ll need more money than what I’ve got. I’ll be back in minutes,” he told Elsie as he steered her into a tearoom. “Stay hidden.”

  When Dennis retuned, Elsie saw that his face was pale, his brow furrowed. For a moment he looked frail, revealing shadows of the man Elsie first saw in his hospital bed.

  “My leave has been canceled,” he spit out as soon as he got close enough. “There are provost marshals coming to arrest me. We’ve been followed.”

  “Now I have an idea,” Elsie said, carefully watching the door, then approached a uniformed waitress and whispered in her ear.

  When Elsie returned, the waitress was with her, as was a young man from the bakery counter of the shop. Elsie jotted notes on two pieces of paper, handing one to the waitress and the other to the baker, along with several folded pound notes.

  “Thank you both,” Elsie said, and the waitress smiled.

  “They’re looking for a captain and his girl in a light-blue dress,” Elsie said. When the baker and waitress returned, each had a package; in the misshapen brown paper was a grey tweed suit, and in the streamlined box was a tailored beige linen dress that had been waiting at the dressmaker’s for Elsie since the week before.

  And into a crowd of men wearing homburgs and tweed suits, Elsie and Dennis were absorbed, and then simply vanished.

  Within an hour of arriving in Glasgow, they had applied for a marriage license and were married at St. Aloysius’ Church, with a verger and an old woman who had been praying acting as witnesses. The bride wore her blue silk dress.

  Elsie telegraphed her family and Sophie before they left for London that night, announcing their marriage and that they would be back the following day. She wasn’t surprised when they pulled into Euston Square Station in London and saw the provost marshals on the platform, waiting to arrest her husband.

  Much to Lord Inchcape’s dismay, the “arrest” consisted of the provost marshal taking Elsie and Dennis to his home, where they were served breakfast and then Captain Wyndham was simply ordered back into uniform.

  The consequences for disobeying her father, however, were not so hollow for Elsie. He refused to see her, despite pleas from his family, especially his son, Kenneth, who had come back from the war to find his family fragmented. But when it came to the subject of his favorite daughter, Inchcape was devout in his conviction.

  His heart was shattered. The man who had been knighted by the king saw a bleak future for his daughter, but he had reconciled himself to the fact that he would not contribute to the disreputable and venal world she had just introduced herself to.

  Elsie, in the days of being a newlywed and believing that things would always remain as delirious and sanguine, laughed at her disinheritance. Dennis was invalided from the army and returned to the stage, having secured a medium-size part in a West End play. Elsie busied herself by creating a home in their tiny, little third-floor flat in a somewhat unsavory neighborhood.

  When her older brother, Kenneth, was in London, he would always stop by Elsie’s flat and plead for her to just make an effort to mend things with their father. He suggested that perhaps an apology might smooth things over a bit and perhaps give Elsie some access to her bank accounts, but she shook her head adamantly. Yes, she admitted to her brother, finances were difficult. Dennis’ salary didn’t provide for everything. Elsie had sold some jewelry to stretch things further, but she had exciting news to share.

  “I’m going to be a film actress,” she said, her cheeks full, eyes beaming.

  “Oh, Elsie,” Kenneth mourned, stopping just short of holding his head in his hands. “Do you have any idea what this will do to Father? As it is, he saw Rothschild on the street the other day, who immediately issued his condolences after hearing that his daughter had run off with a lion tamer from the circus.”

  “No—listen, Kenneth; it’s perfectly fine. It is!” His sister spoke excitedly. “There’s another actress by the same name, so clearly I can’t be myself! She was in a West End play with Cyril Maude. It would create mayhem if there were two of us!”

  Elsie grabbed his arm and gave it a playful tug. “What do you think,” she said, rolling her hands forward to present herself, “of the actress named Poppy Wyndham?”

  “Ooooooh,” Kenneth said with a wince. “Well, that sounds . . . tarty.”

  “I play a horsewoman, and the name of the movie is A Great Coup,” Elsie said, ignoring him. “Have you read the novel? In most of the film I’m riding, which I am awfully excited about. I haven’t been riding in quite some time.”

  “Even under a stage name, Father is bound to find out,” Kenneth said with a grin. “This news will keep the Mayfair gossips busy for years!”

  “Well,” Elsie replied, hesitating a bit, “they’ve offered me a year contract.”

  “Darling sister,” Kenneth said as he tilted his head downward and looked up over his brow, “nothing is beyond you, little dear.”

  Kenneth ground out his cigarette and stood up to depart. Elsie smiled and threw her arms around him, giving him a quick peck on the cheek.

  “By the way,” he said when she let go, “it’s a delightful little hovel you have here. I bet even the rats are flawlessly adorable.”

  * * *

  A Great Coup was a marvelous success, with the reviews hailing Elsie as not only an expert horsewoman but as possibly the brightest new thing to happen in silent film. She made eight movies that year, but it didn’t mean to Elsie what it meant to Dennis. It was his art, it was his profession, whereas to Elsie, being an actress was terrible fun.
r />   She secured Dennis a part in her new film, and it was on that set that Elsie, wearing a flowing gown, was to walk down a dark hallway with only candles lighting her way. One of the small, flickering flames caught the edge of the gauzy dress, and within seconds the whole train and back of the gown billowed into flames. Dennis leapt up and threw himself on her, extinguishing the fire and saving her from an excruciating death.

  That was the man that Elsie remembered; that was the man that Elsie had married. Now he spent more time at the theater, working out new roles and taking on bigger parts. He was hardly at home. There were some mornings when Elsie woke alone in her flat after he had fallen asleep in his dressing room. Those mornings became more frequent.

  He missed the premiere for A Dead Certainty; she waited at the flat until the last minute, then stood outside the theater for as long as possible until she was the last person seated. When she asked him why he hadn’t come, he didn’t even offer up an excuse.

  “For heaven’s sake, Elsie,” he replied in a huff, waving her away with his hand. “It’s not a live performance. I could go watch that movie right now and it wouldn’t be any different than the night of the premiere. Why does it matter when I see it?”

  The film made her famous. In Spain, collector’s cards with her name and photo were given out with chocolate bars. She was offered another movie, and with each passing success she saw Dennis fade more and more into his own separate life.

  She saw a facet of him return: the solemn man by the window, only interested in his life outside their home. She offered to abandon acting if that was what Dennis needed; she had already abandoned riding and flying because they simply could not afford it.

  But Dennis would say nothing. Stunned again by the quiet, Elsie felt the frustration rise up in her until it breached. As Dennis was heading out yet again without a word, she abandoned her composure and grabbed him by the arm. “Tell me,” she said fiercely, looking him in the eye. “Tell me what it is I’ve done.”