The Girl Who Came Home - a Titanic Novel (32 page)
‘
No Father, he wouldn’t. He liked his warmth. Whatever little else we had he would always see that there was peat burning in the grate. I’ll see to it right away. I was just having a little nap, y’know, after the business of the burial an’ all.’
The Priest nodded and stepped towards the small window. ‘He was a great man indeed. Hard worker – and very proud of his boys y’know.’ He nodded at Séamus to impress this upon him before sitting down at the table which stood in the centre of the room. ‘I’m afraid I’m visiting many homes in the Parish tonight Séamus. I’ve received some rather unfortunate news.’
Séamus noticed then, for the first time, the strain etched across Father Mullin’s usually peaceful looking face. ‘Oh? What is it Father?’
‘
I hate to bring this news to you tonight of all nights, with you having just buried your father, God rest his soul.’ The two men paused for a second then to cross themselves in respect to the dead man. ‘Inspector O’Brien was in contact with me earlier today,’ he continued. ‘He had himself been alerted by a Mr Thomas Durcan in Castlebar. He is the local shipping agent for the White Star Line. I’m sorry to say, Séamus, that he reports that Titanic has foundered in the Atlantic.’
‘
Foundered?’
‘
Yes. We believe that she struck an iceberg two days before she was due to arrive in New York and according to the White Star Line office in Liverpool, she sank to the depths of the Atlantic ocean.’
Séamus couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘But, it was such a big ship Father – all the papers spoke of it being unsinkable and being made of triple-screws or something. I remember seein’ it in the papers with my own eyes – the pictures an’ all. It can’t have
sunk
- surely to God it didn’t sink.’
‘
There are reports of around seven hundred survivors, mainly women and children although we do not yet know whether those who left from this Parish are among the fortunate ones.’ He paused then, looking down at the floor, shuffling his feet as a pool of water gathered around him on the flagstones, the raindrops falling steadily from his overcoat. ‘It is a truly terrible business. A terrible business indeed. It was Peggy Madden’s sister who suggested I come and speak to you. I understand you are friendly with Maggie Murphy who was travelling with her aunt Kathleen Murphy.’
‘
Yes, yes – I am. That’s right.’ Séamus remembered then the telegram message which had been delivered to him just a few hours earlier. ‘But, I just received a message from Maggie,’ he said, rushing over to the chair and picking up the telegram, showing it to the Priest as if he wouldn’t otherwise believe him. ‘Look. Here, see. It’s from the R.M.S Titanic. It’s franked and everything.’
Father Mullins studied it for a moment, before placing it carefully on the table and speaking in an almost whisper. ‘Yes Séamus, I see. A very unfortunate coincidence. You see it shows us here that the message was transmitted on the night of April 14
th
. That was the night, we believe, the incident occurred.’
Unable to comprehend what he was being told, Séamus leant against the kitchen table, pressing his palms hard to the cool, solid surface as if he were clinging onto it for his life. He stayed like this for some time, his mind reeling, his thoughts racing as Father Mullins relayed all the information he had himself been given. It was now a case of waiting for further confirmation and for news of any survivors. They were to prepare themselves for the worst, he warned, before leading them both in prayer.
For seven days, Séamus and the other villagers of Ballysheen wandered around in a daze, unsure of what to think or what to believe. Rumours skirted the town about reports in the local newspapers that all of the females had been saved. Others suggested that everyone had been lost. A farm labourer reported that he had seen Maggie Murphy’s name among a list of survivors printed in The Western People which was being passed around at the market. It was impossible for Séamus to allow himself to believe anything until he heard from Maggie himself, or saw her dead body.
There was a strange numbness about the village; people wouldn’t look each other in the eye, afraid to suggest either hope or despair, not knowing which emotion to express from among the many they were feeling.
It was Thomas Durcan, the White Star Line agent himself, who finally arrived with the tragic news. Families watched anxiously, hidden inside the dark interior of their homes, as he walked with Father Mullins, knocking firmly on door after door to convey the news of what had become of their loved ones.
The two men walked, ashen-faced, from home to home, the wailing and crying from within telling anyone passing what the fate of their family members was. Mothers were inconsolable, fathers wept for their lost sons and daughters, the grief and suffering was unbearable to behold.
Everywhere he went, Séamus overheard hushed conversations and anxious whispers; secret, almost forbidden, exchanges between neighbours of how individuals had reacted to the news.
‘
Poor Ellen Joyce’s father was sellin’ a cow at market to get back the money he’d paid for her passage,’ one woman whispered to another.
‘
Young Michael Kelly’s grandmother can’t sleep for nightmares, thinking that the sharks have his poor, dead body,’ another said.
It chilled his heart, and through it all he recalled his dream from the night his father died and reflected on Maggie’s telegram.
Some families were left hoping, with names so similar to their loved ones showing on the lists of survivors, only to be rocked to their core when it was established that there had been confusion and, in fact, their relative had been lost. So far, it was known that all of the fourteen travellers had been lost, with the exception of Peggy Madden, who had survived by clinging to a capsized lifeboat.
Séamus was at the lake, throwing stones into the water when he felt Father Mullin’s hand on his shoulder. He’d been dreading the moment the man would speak with him and he squeezed his eyes shut tight, hoping to block out the reality of the news he was about to hear. He barely heard the Priest when he spoke, the words seeming to flutter and drift around him like damsel flies.
‘
She lives Séamus,’ was all the man said. ‘Maggie survived. She is recovering in a New York hospital.’ He tightened his grip on Séamus’s shoulder and then turned and walked away to allow Séamus to process this news in private.
Séamus nodded and let the tears fall as he continued to sit in silence. The girl he loved with all his heart was alive; had survived the most terrible tragedy. He wished he could feel joy, elation, but those elusive emotions were stifled by the overbearing knowledge that she did not want him to be in her life anymore.
Don’t wait for me,
she’d said.
Don’t wait for me.
He sat watching the clouds gathering on the horizon, watched as each solitary cloud drifted lazily across the sun, casting everything into shade before moving off to let the warmth and brilliant light of the sun settle on him momentarily again. As the rhythms of nature moved constantly between light and shadow, so, it seemed, did the young man’s heart.
The next few weeks were taken up with grieving and comforting those who had lost their loved ones. Séamus tried his best to help where he could, feeling a terrible guilt at receiving the news he had prayed for every night, while others had had their worst fears confirmed. With only a few hundred bodies of the fifteen hundred lost souls recovered, there were no funerals to be held, so it was without the body of their loved ones that the grieving families held their wakes.
For two days and two nights, wakes took place across the Parish for those who were lost at sea. Séamus visited each home, removing his cap to approach the bed where the victim had slept just a few weeks ago, the photograph of them placed carefully on the crisp, white pillow, dozens of candles burning all around the room. In home after home he visited, the same dark scene of unimaginable grief was played out and he looked at the black and white faces staring at him from the photographs, unable to believe that these people were lost forever.
‘
It’s the not knowing where she is that’s so hard to accept,’ one mother told him as she gripped his hands so tightly he thought she would never let go. ‘Not knowing where her little body lies and what with her being so a-feared of the dark and it will be so dark down there won’t it. I just cannot bear it, truly I cannot.’
The rain fell steadily over the parish for those few weeks, as if the very sky itself was mourning along with those whose hearts lay broken in their chests down below.
The last of the blossom had fallen from the two remaining trees by the time the newspapers stopped reporting the news of the Titanic and the findings of the enquiries and of the aftermath in the parish of Ballysheen.
Séamus took some small comfort by visiting the sixth blossom tree every Wednesday. He would sit a while under the dappled shade and remember. He wondered often how different things might have been if he had travelled with Maggie on that journey as she had so wanted him to. If his father had died a few weeks earlier, what then? Perhaps he would have gone with Maggie. Perhaps he would have drowned in the Atlantic Ocean too and then what good would have come of it all.
When he felt stronger in his mind, he gave up remembering and sat under the blossom tree planning. He would write to Maggie one last time. He would somehow find the address of the aunt she was travelling to stay with and he would write to tell her how his heart had leapt with joy when he heard she had survived the disaster but that it had sunk again with utter despair to learn that she did not wish him to wait for her. He would tell her that he was glad that she would be able to live her life, as he knew how much she would make of this chance God had given her and that he hoped hers would be a very happy and long life – with all his heart, he wished her the best life possible, even if he could not be the one to share it with her.
As the spring months gave way to summer and the first leaves of autumn started to fall from the trees by the lakeside, he resolved to sell his father’s house and their small plot of land and travel to England with the money to work at the cotton mills. At least there he would have no reminders of the love he had known and lost. There, he might stand a chance of putting Maggie Murphy and the horrors of the Titanic from his mind. Fate had decided his path in life and he now had to walk that path, wherever it might lead him.
CHAPTER
33 - New York, 1912
New York,
19
th
April, 1912
Dearest Mammy,
It is with the deepest, deepest sadness that I write these words. I do not know if news of the awful event will have reached you yet in Ballysheen, but there was a terrible tragedy Mammy and the mighty Titanic is sunk in the Atlantic and there has been the greatest loss of life ever imaginable.
I have been at the White Star Line offices in New York for the last week waiting for news of our beloved Katie. The steamship Carpathia, which rescued the survivors, arrived in New York yesterday evening. I waited there for hours and hours until every last person was down the gangway and the doors were closed again.
Katie did not come to me Mammy.
She did not walk towards me and fall into my arms in the pouring rain. I did not scream her name in delight and relief as so many others did when they saw their loved ones emerge from that black night.
I have been to all the hospitals and anywhere where I am told that victims have been taken – still I cannot find her Mammy and I sit here with the heaviest, heaviest heart as I find that it has fallen to me, your eldest daughter, to tell you the terrible news that little Katie did not survive the disaster - she did not manage to escape on one of the few lifeboats which left Titanic.
With fifteen hundred others, Katie was lost to the ocean.
I think I have cried enough tears now to fill the depths of that ocean over and over and over again, because I cannot believe she is gone – cannot believe she didn’t walk off that mighty ship to the sound of ragtime bands and the sight of ticker tape and flags and the joy of seeing my face in the waiting crowds.
I wish I could be there to comfort you all Mammy, dearly I do. I will be making arrangements to travel home on the first ship I can secure passage for but for now I am so sorry that these words are all I can send.
I have enclosed a pair of gloves which I had bought for Katie as a birthday and welcome gift. They were bought in Macy’s department store – I think she would have loved them dearly and wish you to have them now to lay on her bed as you mourn her.
I know there will be much mourning in Ballysheen Mammy with so many of our loved ones dead. I cannot imagine the sadness there must be there. The whole city of New York seems to be in mourning – nobody can believe such a thing could happen.
Please forgive me for writing this terrible news and may God bless us and comfort us all at this terrible time.
Your loving, devoted daughter,
Catherine
New York
24
th
April, 1912