Page 5 of Two Wars and a Wedding

“That’s the one. Do you know when they’ll get here?”

“No one knows anything about anything right now,” Kit said cheerfully. “Not even the generals on the porch of the Tampa Bay Hotel.”

“The Tampa Bay Hotel? That’s where I’m going. Where I was meant to go.” Betsy’s head itched with dried sweat and what she suspected might be something else entirely. She needed a bath. And someplace to think. “Sister Bettina says I can stay the night there before coming back to the ship. Do you know how to get there? I just got in this morning and I have no idea where anything is.”

Kit stretched, her hands on the small of her back. “Honey, you can’t miss it. It’s the monstrosity that looks like a cross between the Brighton Pavilion and a Turkish harem.”

Betsy vaguely remembered seeing something like that. “It’s not in Port Tampa, is it? It’s in the other Tampa.”

“Right at the end of the train line. You probably saw it when you came in.” At Betsy’s look of bewilderment, Kit took pity and slid her arm through Betsy’s. “I’ll take you. Come along with me.”

Blinking, Betsy followed Kit up onto the deck into the bright sunlight. For a moment, the intensity of the light reminded her of Greece, in happier times. If she closed her eyes, she might be there again, twenty-two and fearless, ready to take on the world. . . .

How on earth had it come to this?

Chapter Two

Darling Ava,

I’ve already made the local papers! The headline read, “Miss Hayes, one of the most famous bicyclists in Europe, is staying at the Grande Bretagne.” All this because I decided to ride my wheel from the Hotel Grande Bretagne to the American School. Before you ask, no, I wasn’t wearing my bloomers. I was very respectably attired in all that was modest and inconvenient.

But it is glorious here, Ava. You couldn’t imagine anything farther from Northampton. We have an olive grove behind the school—and a herd of goats to go with it! The goats are meant to produce milk but largely produce chaos instead. I hear they’ve been known to eat papers, particularly when said papers are overdue.

Dr. Richardson is a bit of an old stick—doesn’t think women’s temperaments are suited to the work. Ha! A month at Smith would set him right. But what can one expect of a Dartmouth man?

With love,

Betsy

—From Miss Betsy Hayes ’96 to Ava Saltonstall ’96

Athens, Greece

September 1896

Betsy really didn’t see how it had come to this.

She stood in the office of the director of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, trying to put in clear, simple terms that even a man could understand just why she should be allowed to excavate like any other member of the American School.

“I don’t see why I can’t go along. Corinth is to be excavated by the American School. I am a member of the American School. It’s really quite simple.”

“Miss Hayes.” Dr. Richardson looked deeply pained. “Women do not dig.”

He had no idea what she could do with a shovel. But, then, the poor man taught at Dartmouth. He hadn’t had the benefit of female students before. “I assure you, we don’t faint at the sight of a bit of dirt.”

“Your constitution . . . your clothing . . .” Dr. Richardson appeared to be having trouble mustering words, which Betsy thought was a distinct disadvantage in someone meant to be heading an intellectual institution. “Have you ever considered a career as a librarian?”

Betsy stared at him. “A librarian?”

Dr. Richardson visibly relaxed. “Yes, a librarian. You have some facility with Greek, I understand.”

Some facility? She’d been reading Herodotus in the original before she was in long skirts.

Dr. Richardson warmed to his theme. “Think of the role you could play in cataloguing the vast store of knowledge for future generations.”

Future generations were all very well, but it was the past that interested Betsy. “I came here to excavate. If I wanted to work with books, I could have stayed in Northampton.”

Where she was surrounded by people of sense. Otherwise known as women.