Dorothy Eden (5 page)

Someone was saying the Lord’s Prayer. A woman’s soft Irish voice. “Our Father who art in heaven. Hallowed be Thy name …”

“Cold!” Hetty muttered between chattering teeth. “Cold!”

“Ah, dear child, are you waking up? Thanks be to God. Sister! Sister! This one’s coming round. There, I’ll put another blanket on you.” There were fingers holding her wrist, counting her pulses. Then the voice again, “Do you think now you could take a sip of hot soup? It’ll put some heart in you. You just close your eyes. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Other voices floated about.

“Who is she? Anything on her to identify her?”

“She’ll tell us herself soon enough. She’s a young one, poor soul. She was brought in practically naked. Wrapped in a seaman’s jersey…”

And then, “Here I am again, little one. Try a sip of this. It’s Mrs O’Brogan’s best broth. That’s better than sea water, isn’t it?”

“T-thank you,” Hetty tried to say. She was deep in the nightmare. She didn’t think Mrs O’Brogan’s hot broth had any place in that.

She wanted to drink a little, and be warm, and sleep. That was all she ever asked again.

“Do you see, she’s got a bracelet on her wrist. A fine gold one. Let’s be having a look at it. Do you see, now.” The soft voice was excited. “It has initials on it. Now then, wake up, my dear. It’s morning, didn’t you know? Can you tell us your name? I have your initials here. C.M.J. What do they stand for?”

“Clemency Millicent Jervis,” murmured Hetty, the faces shadowy above her.

“Ah, then, that’s another one we know, thanks be to God. Rose will bring you a nice hot cup of tea and then we’ll talk some more.”

Rose, with her bright cheeks and awed dark eyes, looked scarcely more than a schoolgirl.

“Can you be sitting up then, Clemency?”

“I’m not—” She was too tired to explain. Mrs Jervis would come presently and sort things out in her confident manner. Mrs Jervis with the sun glinting on her diamonds. As if she were dressed up for entering heaven.

“Oh, yes, you can, I think, if I help you. There now, don’t be struggling like that.”

“Where are they?” Hetty asked hoarsely.

“And who would you be meaning, dear?”

“Mrs J-Jervis.”

“Your mother? I can’t be telling you that, dear. They’re still bringing bod—people in. Wait until you’re stronger and then you can look for her. Or perhaps she’ll be coming looking for you.”

“I’m sure she’s dead. I saw her fall out of the boat. Clemency, too.”

“But that’s you. You’re alive, thanks be to God. Did you not know it? Come along now. Drink up your tea.”

Hetty lifted her leaden eyelids, and saw that she was in a hospital ward. It was terribly crowded, the nurses, most of them nuns, could scarcely move between the beds. There were supine forms on either side of her, grey-headed and unconscious. Neither of them was Mrs Jervis or Clemency. She tried to lift her head higher to observe other beds, but the white plastered walls and ceilings, the narrow windows, the dark crucifix hanging at one end of the room, swung dizzily.

“Now, love, you’re not going to faint. You’re doing nicely. We’ll have you moved up to the hotel before long. It’s a bit sad in here.” The rosy-cheeked child had tears in her eyes. “Mother of God, we’ve never seen anything like it in this town. It’s a terrible war.”

Her hand trembled and it was Hetty who had to steady it. The small action helped to revive her. She gulped at the lukewarm tea thirstily and asked if she could have another cup.

Rose cheered up immediately.

“It’s the salt water. You’d swallowed gallons. You must have wanted to live, Sister said, or you never would have. It’s all in your own will. I’ll get you some more tea.”

It was all right when Rose, young and healthy and sympathetic, was beside her. But when she had gone and Hetty was aware of the moans and stirrings and difficult breathing all about her, the nightmare returned.

The suffocating black water, the screams growing weaker, the horrible debris, a dead baby tied to a lifebelt, a struggling bald-headed man gulping and sinking, a table—was it a table?—draped with a young couple clinging desperately together in death. And the empty innocent sea where the great ship had been.

But she had survived. It was in her will, Rose had said.

She remembered herself as a terrified child being abandoned in the big house on Fifth Avenue. “Because it’s your rightful place,” Mother had said. She remembered Mrs Jervis keeping her so reluctantly, and then owning her. Giving her no choice as to whether she would sail on a doomed ship. Believing she was a second-class human being and in this world merely to do what she was told.

But her spirit had survived, she had remained hopeful and ambitious. And now her body had survived as well.

She was a survivor.

They thought she was Clemency Millicent Jervis. Presently they would ask her what she meant to do, and she would say, “I mean to go to London to meet my fiancé.”

Ah, no, she was having delusions. She had to get out of this narrow bed and go and look for Mrs Jervis and Clemency. Perhaps they were at the other end of the ward. Or at that hotel Rose had mentioned.

Rose was returning with the second cup of tea.

“Rose—”

“You remembered my name. That’s fine.”

“Rose, how many drowned?”

“Now, I can’t be telling you that, Clemency, because I don’t know.”

“Many?”

“It’s been a terrible awful thing, and that’s the truth.”

“Where are—the drowned?”

“They’re still bringing them in, up and down the coast as far as Queenstown. There can’t be many living ones now. But don’t be thinking of it.”

“I have to find Mrs Jervis.”

“Of course, dear. That’s natural. Your own mother.”

“She was wearing a diamond necklace. You couldn’t miss that.”

“Glory be to God!”

“And Clemency had—a gold bracelet.”

“Sister’s put that away safely, dear. Don’t you be worrying. And you’ll be told as soon as your mother’s found.”

But if she were Clemency, Hetty, as well, had still to be found.

“Were there just the two of you, dear?”

“We had—a maid.” The treacherous words were coming out of her mouth again.

“Now, now, don’t cry, love. Don’t cry.”

Hetty was sinking, drowning, strangled with ropes of pearls. Clemency was the survivor, with a tall blond Englishman waiting to marry her.

Because the young aviator from Toronto would never be seen again. He had been in steerage, the worst place of all, where the sea had flooded in through the ship’s torn plates. She hoped he had tried to help Mrs Drummond and Alfie and Benny. But she mustn’t go on thinking about it. A glimmer of happiness had been instantly snuffed out. It was past. Past and dead.

She must have fallen asleep again for she opened her eyes to see a priest with a kindly wrinkled face bending over her.

“I’m Father Neely, my child. How are you feeling now?”

She realised that she felt better, stronger, and said so.

“That’s good, because I have some sad news for you. We think we have found your mother.”

“A-alive?”

“Alas, no. The fishermen brought her in. The fishing boats are going up and down the coastline looking for survivors, you understand. You told us your mother was wearing a diamond necklace. That’s why we think it’s her.”

“She was alone? There wasn’t a dark-haired young lady—”

“Just herself. May God have mercy on her soul.”

Hetty sat up. “I have to see her.”

“That’s what I was about to ask. Are you up to it? I’ll be blunt. We need an identification apart from that bauble she was wearing. Then we can send messages to your family, and to whoever was expecting you in England. The American Ambassador has sent us instructions from London. Mr Walter Page, would you be knowing him?”

Hetty shook her head.

“Ah, he’s a good man. He wants all American nationals looked after, and that includes yourself. Now I doubt you’ll be able to walk as far as the school. But here’s what we’ll do. I’ll get Rose to put you in a chair and push you. She’s a strong young girl. That way you can get the shock over as soon as possible. Rose. Rose! Can Sister spare you for half an hour? And get a warm wrap to put round Miss Jervis.”

Rose came hurrying up.

“Father, isn’t it a bit soon for the poor young lady?”

“Yes, it is soon, but it’s a terrible tragedy and we have to deal with it as we can. There are a great many identifications to be made and the authorities have to act as fast as they can. There’ll be funeral instructions, and a coroner’s inquest.”

The simple barren little schoolhouse stood a short way up a gentle hillside, near to the grey weathered church. Why hadn’t Mrs Jervis been laid in the church?

Because it was full, Father Neely said briefly.

Hetty shivered.

“Are there so many dead?”

“This is only a small town. Its name is Kinsale. I hear that a lot of bodies are being taken to Queenstown. They say several hundreds altogether. Ah, a big shipwreck is a terrible thing.”

It was a terrible thing, too, to look down on poor Mrs Jervis’s drowned face, the unmistakable choker, its diamonds sparkling brilliantly from their immersion in sea water, cutting into her swollen throat. She looked grey and quite lifeless. But someone had mercifully closed her eyes and folded her pudgy hands on her breast. She would never again shout “Brown!” in her commanding voice.

It was hard to believe. So dreadful that Hetty couldn’t speak. She only nodded in response to Father Neely’s unspoken enquiry. Then she clutched her throat, feeling she couldn’t breathe, and Father Neely, misunderstanding, said, “She won’t be buried with her jewellery unless you specifically request it.”

“I wasn’t thinking of that. Anyway, it must go back to New York.”

“Surely. That’s what we’ll talk about. Let us get out of here. We can do nothing for any of these poor souls,” he indicated the rows of sheeted bodies, “except pray for them.”

Hetty had collapsed by the time they got her back to the hospital. So they left her alone for the rest of the day, except to bring her a plate of bread and milk in the evening. Then she was afraid to sleep because sleep would bring back the nightmares, dominated by Mrs Jervis’s face, so still and yet somehow so full of reproach. “How dare you be alive, Brown, when Clemency and I are dead!”

But where was Clemency? Hetty had asked to be told if a dark-haired young girl were found.

“Ah, the maid,” said Father Neely. “Yes, we’ll look for her. You may find she’s still alive. But don’t be building up your hopes.”

“If she was alive she’d be asking for—” Hetty had been going to say “her mother”—“for us.”

But so far no one answering to the description had been found. They had telephoned to Queenstown to make enquiries.

Hetty did eventually sleep and dreamed that she was holding Clemency’s head under the water. It was an appalling dream, and she woke sobbing in horror. The night sister came to her bedside, the gentle shadowed face looking down at her. “Hush, child. You’re disturbing the others. I’ll bring you some hot milk. Then you’ll sleep more soundly.”

Surprisingly enough, after drinking the milk, she did sleep, and in the morning found herself starving. She could eat everything they brought her. She wanted to live. She was so hungry to live now that she had laid the way to becoming an impostor and seizing Clemency’s golden opportunities. She was Clemency Jervis, an insistent voice within her repeated over and over.

She was ready to leave the hospital, she told the tired sister on duty.

“That’s grand, dear. But don’t go until Father Neely comes. He wants to ask you some questions.”

Was he going to accuse her?

“We have discovered that you are impersonating a dead girl, Harriet Brown. Aren’t you troubled for your immortal soul?”

Far from any such thing, Father Neely, who came at mid-morning looking serene and harassed at the same time, asked her whom she wanted to notify of her escape from death.

“We didn’t want to disturb you yesterday. But I’m sure your family will be very worried.”

“Is there any news of the girl I asked about?”

“None at all. What did you say her name was?”

“Harriet Brown.” So there, in a second, she had killed poor Brown, although she could have sworn she had no intention of speaking the fatal words. But, “This is your rightful place,” Mother had said, looking up at the rich house. And she had known it was.

“Is there any chance still of her being found alive?”

“Well, now, she might be found wandering lost somewhere, but I doubt it. We have so many searchers out. We believe we have found all the survivors. But I do hear there’s a great search going on for an important American gentleman, Mr Vanderbilt. He hasn’t yet been found. He must have gone down with the ship. A fine gentleman. They say he was last seen tying lifebelts to babies in their baskets. God rest his soul.”

Hetty breathed deeply, the pain too bad to be born. Alfie and Benny, Seaman Drummond waiting for news of his wife. Poor Donald Newman who was never going to fly above the clouds.

But she had been given the chance to live. She was going to live and live and live.

“Could you send a cable to my Uncle Jonas in New York?” she heard herself asking calmly. “He is Jonas Middleton of the Middleton Bank, Wall Street.”

“And what am I to say?”

“Just say, ‘Clemency has survived’.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes. No. No, it isn’t. Would you also send a message to England. To Lord Hazzard of Loburn near Cirencester. Say, ‘Will be arriving London with survivors
Lusitania.
Longing to see you, Clemency.’”

“And this gentleman?” Father Neely was at last able to produce a twinkle in his eyes.

“He’s the man I’m going to marry.”

T
HE FERRY BOAT NUDGED
into Holyhead, and its passengers, a wan-faced collection of exhausted people, still dazed and haunted by what they had seen and endured, went ashore. They were dressed, by courtesy of the Cunard line, in a motley collection of Irish garments; tweed overcoats, tweed skirts, thick Irish sweaters, woollen stockings. Some of them talked too much, still hysterical and afraid of silence. Some seemed to be in the grip of permanent nightmare.