The Girl Who Came Home - a Titanic Novel (7 page)

Although tired from the long day of travelling, Kathleen Murphy was restless herself. She was relieved to have finally started their journey but anxious to be back in her comfortable home in Chicago with her familiar belongings and just her sister and her niece for company. She didn’t mind most of the others in their party - with the exception perhaps of Ellen Joyce who she found a bit superior - but large groups were not something Kathleen usually surrounded herself with. She found them a bit unnecessary.

It was no surprise to those who knew Kathleen that it was she who had galvanised the group of travellers to make this journey to America, that it was she who had brought back tantalising tales of prosperity and opportunity which had captured the imaginations of the women and men of Ballysheen who wished for more in life than failed harvests and employment in the cotton mills of England, that it was she who had mentioned, quite matter-of-factly, that the Titanic would sail from Queenstown in Cork on 11
^th
April and anyone who wished to be aboard could obtain their ticket from the local White Star Line shipping agent, Thomas Durcan of Castlebar, at a cost of £7 15s. Kathleen Murphy was a formidable force when she set her mind to something.

Her demeanour over the past weeks had been one of prudent efficiency and a resolute impatience to get going. Now she enjoyed the opportunity to lie still, glad of the silence. As she watched her niece settle under her eiderdown and glanced around the room at the sleeping forms of the other young girls sharing the room, Kathleen was reminded of her own emigration journey as a nineteen-year-old girl. Far from all the tears and worry she’d witnessed that day, she’d considered it all a prodigious adventure.

Painfully aware that she was an unremarkable girl in many respects, ordinary enough to look at with her square set jaw, rugged complexion and deep set eyes which made her look older than her years, it was only her determination and resolve to improve her situation in life which made her stand out from the other girls of her age. With two of her sisters already settled in America, Kathleen had sat for years in the bedroom she shared with her two brothers, consuming every word of the letters her sisters wrote about their alluring American lives; the employment prospects, the gaily coloured clothes, the opportunities to get away from the social constraints of Irish life. Their words, transported on the steam liners which would remove another batch of emigrants from Ireland’s shores, offered enticing prospects for a farmer’s daughter whose domestic duties were drearily predictable, whose clothes were dour and whose social position in life was defined from the moment she was born. Undaunted by the fact that she was leaving with little money, Kathleen had revelled in the prospects America held for her and had departed without much emotion.

Like many before her, she’d settled easily into the rhythms of metropolitan life in Chicago. So many of the neighbours were of Irish descent that she often found it hard to believe she was in America at all, catching the unmistakable Irish brogue in exchanges on the street or in the local grocery store: Offaly, Mayo, Donegal, Kerry; she was certain all the counties would be represented if you listened hard enough.

She wrote often to her niece Maggie, and to her friend Maura Byrne who had recently returned to Ireland to marry her childhood sweetheart John Brennan. In her letters, Kathleen described the buildings reaching up into the clouds, the grand homes, carriages and motor cars of the wealthy, the well-paid opportunities for women in domestic employment, the impressive avenues and the majestic department store at Randolph and Washington Street where you could buy anything and everything. She knew that the recipients of her letters enjoyed hearing about this ‘new world’, so far removed as it was in both distance and experience from their own.

But, no matter how settled and involved she became with the American way of life, a letter with news from home was always a welcome sight to Kathleen’s eyes and caused her heart to beat a little more rapidly than usual. It was such a letter which had prompted her recent return to Ireland; a letter which she realised, as she lay in the uncomfortable boarding house bed, had in many ways led to the fourteen of them being in Queenstown that night.

The letter had arrived on a crisp fall day, the leaves on the trees which lined the sidewalk outside the Chicago home she shared with her sister Mary glistening in the bright sunshine. It was a modest, but perfectly pleasant home on North Ashland Avenue, close to the boarding house she owned on Lincoln Street. Her sister had made a comfortable home, her choice of furnishing befitting two women who were doing well in life.

As she picked up the letter from the doormat, she immediately recognised Maggie’s familiar handwriting and the distinctive Castlebar postmark. Walking into the front room, she settled herself on the chair at the writing table and carefully opened the envelope.

22
^nd
October, 1911

Ballysheen

Co. Mayo

Eire

My dear aunt Kathleen,

Just a few lines from home to let you know that we are all well. I’m sorry for not writing in a while; Esther was sick with the flu and needed me by her bedside. She is well again now, thanks be to God. Apart from the usual coughs and colds everyone else is in good health.

Maura and Jack Brennan were thinking of coming to America after Christmas, but now Maura is suffering with the morning sickness, so they’ll delay until the spring. Imagine, a baby for them! It’s grand news altogether.

Will we be seeing you at Christmas time? It would be lovely to have you among us again. If you’re not planning to travel, I wonder will I come to visit you in America for the Christmas it being a good while since we have been together? You might write to let me know your thoughts. Kitty sends her love.

Good bye

Yours faithfully,

Maggie

Relieved that there was no bad news, but surprised to hear of Maggie’s suggestion that she travel to America alone, Kathleen placed the letter on the table. She stood up, smoothing her skirt and turned to her sister.

‘
It’s from Maggie. She says she’ll come out for Christmas! What do you make of that?’

Her sister glanced up from her darning. ‘She won’t fare well on a ship on her own, that’s for sure. What else does she say?’

Kathleen glanced back over the letter. ‘She says that the Brennan’s are thinking of coming in the spring.’ She paused for a moment to collect her thoughts. ‘Maybe I should go, Mary. I could spend Christmas in Ireland and bring Maggie back with me in the spring. We could travel together with the Brennan’s. It would be nice to see Maura again now that she’s married to Jack and expecting a baby. She would probably enjoy some female company on the crossing.’

Mary nodded and returned to her work. She already knew the conclusion Kathleen would reach.

‘
Yes, that would be a grand idea. I’ll reply to her Mary, straightaway. I’ll go back to Ireland for Christmas and return in the spring and bring Maggie with me to settle here. There’s nothing much to keep her in Ireland that’s for sure.’

‘
What about that Doyle fella she’s always pining over.’

‘
Oh, she’ll soon enough forget about him.’ Kathleen didn’t disapprove of Séamus Doyle, she knew of him and his family, knew that he was a hardworking, polite boy and judging by Maggie’s letters, he clearly cared for the girl, but she also realised that at the ages of seventeen and nineteen this was a romance which would eventually fade out. ‘Right, that’s settled then. I’ll write to her in the morning.’

She’d written her reply the very next day, informing Maggie to wait.
I’ll
be back in Ireland in three weeks, and we’ll come together in the spring
she advised
.
True to her word, she sold her boarding house within a week and bought her own return passage to Ireland.

Crossing the Atlantic was almost second-nature to Kathleen by the time she’d set sail for Ireland that November, having made the journey between her American and Irish homes several times over the years. She was, however, well aware of the fact that her arrival back in Ireland that winter had not passed without remark. This time she’d returned noticeably different; a successful, astute businesswoman who, although connected to the stones, earth and rivers of her Irish home was somehow changed by her extended experience of a new life, by her knowledge that there were better prospects to be found elsewhere. For those who had neither the financial means nor the desire to travel and had stayed behind to continue their lives at the same steady, unremarkable pace, it was unsettling to witness the lightness in Kathleen’s step, the glare of her colourful overcoat and to hear the occasional, unfamiliar turn of phrase which the returning traveller brought with her.

The hushed whispers and furtive glances as she went about her business didn’t bother Kathleen, although the rumours that she had returned to Ballysheen to look for a husband, did. It was a subject which came up time and time again, and was one of few things in Kathleen’s life which unsettled her. It had started before she’d even left Chicago.

‘
You know, it might not be any harm to consider looking for a suitable husband while you’re back in Ireland Kathleen,’ her sister Mary had mentioned, tentatively, as she helped Kathleen pack the last of her belongings. ‘You’ve a good dowry now from the sale of the boarding house and the prospects you can offer a future husband are much improved. You should think on it.’

It wasn’t the first time that Mary had raised the issue of a husband with her sister, whose apparent indifference to the matter was something she found completely incomprehensible. Unlike her friend Maura, and several of her other sisters, Kathleen had never really considered marriage, her successful boarding house business occupying most of her time and her thoughts. It was an issue which refused to go away though as someone or other would make a remark or throw a suggestive glance in her direction whenever there was talk of engagements or weddings. Having read the excitement in the letters from Maura about her engagement to Jack Brennan, Kathleen’s thoughts had turned fleetingly to the matter recently, although never for too long. A fiercely private woman, the thought of discussing the matter with anyone else, even her own sister, left Kathleen feeling distinctly uncomfortable. As far as she was concerned, whether she had her mind set on finding a husband in Ireland or not was nobody’s business but her own.

‘
May God have mercy on me Mary Murphy,’ she’d replied huffily, hoisting her luggage into the hallway, ‘I am certainly not going back to Ireland on some desperate mission to find a man who will spend all my hard-earned money on silly notions of running a shoe factory or making buttons. I’m going to Ireland to collect my niece and bring her safely across to America.’

No more was said between them on the matter and once back in Ireland she chose to ignore the Ballysheen gossips. In any event, whatever the truth was about her real intentions of returning to Ireland that winter, Kathleen would board Titanic in the morning along with her niece and twelve others from the parish, but without a husband.

Marriage could wait. For now, she was more concerned about getting a good night’s sleep.

CHAPTER
7 - R.M.S Titanic, 10
^th
April 1912

The journey from Southampton to Queenstown, Titanic’s final embarkation stop before heading out into the vast reaches of the Atlantic, passed smoothly enough – with the exception of the
New York
pulling loose from its moorings and nearly causing a collision with Titanic before she had even sailed out of Southampton harbour. This caused a few heart-stopping moments among the passengers and crew who saw it all from their vantage point on the decks. For the ship’s financiers and those in positions of authority and influence within the White Star Line, it was a near disaster.

Returning to his dormitory to have a quick wash before the lifejacket inspection and preparations for dinner service, Harry stopped just short of the Scotland Road passageway as he saw two men, deep in conversation at the top of the D deck staircase. He recognised them as Mr Ismay of the White Star Line and Thomas Andrews the ship’s designer. Harry leant against the wall of the corridor which ran at right angles to the staircase, making sure he was well out of their eyesight. He listened carefully. They were discussing the incident and sharing a much-needed smoke out of the sight and earshot of their first class passengers.

‘
Bloody hell Bruce, that was a bit too close for comfort. There can’t have been four feet between them before that tug pushed her aft.’

Andrews rubbed his hand anxiously through his hair and loosened his tie as Harry observed from his vantage point. He seemed to Harry to be a nervy-looking man, although no wonder, Harry thought, when the ship he’d spent the last few years designing had almost been grounded within minutes of raising its anchor.

‘
My God man, imagine the shame if we’d had a bloody collision in Southampton harbour,’ Mr Ismay replied, taking a long drag from his cigarette. ‘We wouldn’t have had much of a maiden voyage to celebrate then would we, never mind breaking speed records for crossing the Atlantic.’