The Dressmaker (19 page)

“How could I know? I wasn’t there.”

“Nice dodge. Well, that’s what I hear from a sailor on the lifeboat.” Pinky abruptly changed course. “I also hear from a Mrs. Brown that it was the women who took over the rowing in your boat, and that you were one of them.”

Tess nodded, then laughed. “The sailors were impossible. I don’t think the ones in our boat ever had an oar in their hands in their lives.”

“That’s a good quote,” Pinky said, scrambling in her bag for her paper and pencil. “Think of how many times women have to step up when men turn cowardly. And the pompous cretins won’t even let us have the vote—”

“You’re a suffragist?”

“Of course.” Pinky was amused at the instant curiosity on Tess’s face. “And you will be, too, if you stay here.” Then, in one of her abrupt transitions, “Which sailor gave you the carving of a boat?”

“That doesn’t matter—it was just a carving.” Why this seemed to be information she didn’t want to give, she didn’t know. Maybe because Pinky seemed to want to know everything and could spring surprises too easily.

“Oh.” Pinky allowed herself a disappointed look, but she had her answer. Maybe a romance on board? That would make a nice sidebar. Or, perhaps—oh, forget it. She folded the retrieved notebook and stuffed it back into her bag. She liked Tess. No need to peel any more layers. At least, not now.

The chandelier began to blink, signaling the resumption of the hearings. “It’s time to go back to the hearing room,” Tess said, bracing her shoulders.

Pinky caught the movement. “They’re morons, to hold these hearings so soon,” she said quickly. “You must think we’re ghouls.”

“I see ghouls everywhere today,” Tess said. “Nobody looks real.”

“It’s kind of a dance, you know? It’s not to be taken personally. At least, not all the time.”

“You know it can hurt,” Tess replied.

“I do. And I’m not out to hurt you.” They exchanged swift, unguarded glances. For just a second, Tess let herself believe that Pinky understood the conflicts between head and heart.

Captain Rostron was an unusually tall man, something Tess had noticed from the first moment she saw him on the deck of the
Carpathia
. She remembered how his bald head had shone under the morning sun.

The room fell quiet as he began his testimony. There was a daunting distance of fifty-eight miles between the
Carpathia
and the
Titanic
, and if he hadn’t moved fast when he got the distress call time would
have run out. He posted extra lookouts and ordered emergency gear brought on deck and bedding prepared for the survivors. He ordered all hot water on the ship to be turned off so that every drop of water could be converted into steam. And, icebergs or not, the ship would travel at full speed.

“Captain, could you describe the
Titanic
lifeboats that carried the survivors?” Senator Smith asked at one point. “How many can they hold?”

Tess closed her eyes, waiting for the answer.

“The collapsible boats could hold sixty to seventy-five comfortably,” he replied.

The next witness was Charles Lightoller, the second officer of the
Titanic
, the highest-ranking officer to survive. It was clear immediately that Lightoller realized that Senator Smith was no expert in maritime affairs. Smith’s first questions about technical matters were clumsy, obviously uninformed. Each time Lightoller patiently explained some detail, as if to a child, he would give a little smile and tilt his head, as if to let others in on the joke. He seemed almost cocky as he slumped back in the witness chair, fielding questions about the proximity of icebergs, the speed of the ship, the absence of warnings.

Then, unexpectedly, a direct question. “You were in charge of loading the lifeboats, sir. Why were so many not filled to capacity?”

“I was afraid that fully loaded boats might collapse on the way down to the water,” Lightoller said smoothly.

“But weren’t people clamoring to get on?”

“Some were, some weren’t.”

Tess thought of the chaos, of people being shoved into boats or pushed away from them, of the shouts and screams and total confusion of those last hours.

“Would you do it differently if you could?”

“No, I handled it the best way possible.”

Glances were exchanged in the room: indignant ones accompanied
by exclamations; furtive ones darting back and forth with lips sealed. Tess stared at the man in the witness chair. She had seen smooth liars before. Just say something calmly and convincingly and there will be those who believe you.

“They’re going to close ranks,” a man behind her muttered. “Nobody gets the blame.”

Tess was left to sit and stare and wonder at her own naïveté.

Lightoller’s testimony—without a breath of criticism for his employer—continued for hours but was finally over, and a clearly weary Senator Smith adjourned the hearing for the day. Some in the audience went up to shake his hand, with polite murmurs of praise. But many just filed out, talking among themselves.

Smith collected his papers. Ismay, Lightoller—their testimony came as no surprise. They knew damn well they were in trouble if there was a ruling of negligence. They knew Americans could sue them, even if they were British. And they knew they would face a British inquiry when this one was over.

Shoulder on, he told himself. One thing he had accomplished: none of the Britons were going anywhere for a long time.

Pinky pushed herself back from her desk at the
New York Times
, the broken wheel of her chair catching once again on the pine boards of the newsroom floor. Tonight, she didn’t care. Today’s testimony would be in everybody’s stories tomorrow. Not hers. Her story was juicier—written fast, headlining the early night edition—and it was more than a good story; it dug into the world of the entitled rich. What idiots they were. So the Duff Gordons hadn’t done anything worse than anyone else? She didn’t believe it. They deserved to be brought down. They were foils for the real story: mostly poor people died, and mostly rich people were saved; that was the fact of it.

She wadded up her discarded copy sheets into tight little balls and threw them, one after another, into a box mounted against the far wall. It was a good way to let off steam after a deadline, and she was one of the best shots in the newsroom. And oh, it felt good to have won an argument with Van Anda. How could she name the man who had given her the information? He would immediately be fired or deported; that’s what they did with those sailors. “Okay,” he had finally said. “You’re opening up things here, so be ready for what comes next.” Tomorrow she’d talk to some suffragists who felt that it was a scandal to save women and children first.
That
would raise some hackles.

Van Anda’s amused voice cut through her concentration. “Good job, Pinky,” he said. “Smith will be mad as hell that you got this on your own instead of waiting for testimony. Do you have to keep showing up your fellow reporters? Go home, you’ve got those hearings tomorrow.”

“In a minute.”

“Yeah, I know.”

A slow rumble began beneath their feet. The presses were running.

“You can go now,” he said gently. Where did she go? he wondered. Not for the first time, he marveled at his star reporter’s single-mindedness; her refusal to share anything about a private life that he suspected centered around a hot plate in a lonely rooming house. The women in this business were a strange lot.

Pinky sent one more wadded ball sailing across the room and leaned over, heaving her canvas bag up over her shoulder. She gave Van Anda a mock salute and strode out of the newsroom, kicking at an orange peel on the floor. Why was this place always so filthy? Somebody should write the shocking story of poor housekeeping at the
New York Times
. She smiled to herself as she took the stairs, two at a time. She could have tap-danced down tonight. Once again, that lovely feeling of twirling under the stars, beholden to no one, standing clear and tall on a bold byline that thousands would see, and if that wasn’t enough, then nothing was.

Tess stepped outside the revolving doors of the Waldorf-Astoria, breathing in the sharp, cold air. It felt wonderful. She wondered if Lady Duff Gordon was back yet from her shop. Surely she was, it was already sunset, and the street before her—filled with a noisy mix of horse-drawn clattering carts and automobiles—was bathed in a rosy glow.

But she didn’t want to go upstairs to find out. Not yet. There was a park nearby, a hotel doorman told her, quite a nice park, right here in the middle of the city. He was astonished that she hadn’t heard of it.

“Tess.” It was a calm, familiar voice.

Jim Bonney stood on the sidewalk, hands shoved into the pockets of baggy pants held up with a knotted belt missing a buckle. If anything, he looked shabbier than before. She saw the disdain in the eyes of the doorman, who was dressed in a navy-blue uniform with glittering brass buttons. She had seen that look today in the eyes of many of the Waldorf’s bellboys and waiters as steerage survivors crowded past them.

“Jim,” she said, astonished at her own rush of pleasure. “I was afraid I wouldn’t see you again.”