Titanic: The Long Night (7 page)

Seeing her curiosity, a nearby steward said, “Third-class smoking room. For the gentlemen, you know. That other room”—gesturing with a wave of his hand toward a larger room with white enameled walls framed in pine, furnished with what Katie regarded as fine furniture—“is called the general room. Got a piano. You folks can have yourself some good times in there.”

It was nicer than any of the pubs back home. Katie would have thought he was mistaken if he hadn’t been wearing a uniform. She would have thought such fine rooms must be reserved for the first- and second-class passengers. She kept the thought to herself, not wanting to appear unsophisticated. Sure and the steward’s word had to be good as gold.

The second painful moment came when, to Katie’s consternation, she learned that an entire ship would separate her from the brothers Kelleher. Single women were housed near the stern of the ship, single men near the bow.

“No one told me!” she cried to Brian when this piece of information was announced. “I thought you’d be close at hand.”

Brian’s eyes twinkled. “That wouldn’t be proper, Katie. Not to fret. The gathering room is just above your quarters. We’ll be spendin’ most of our time there. You can’t get rid of us that easy, you’ll see.”

Paddy hesitated, looking down at Katie with what looked like concern in his eyes. “You’ll be missin’ Brian somethin’ sore, I’d say by the look on your face.”

“I’ll be missin’ both of you,” she answered, touched by his concern. “But Bri is right. We’ll just settle ourselves in our cabins and then meet in the gatherin’ room. You’ll both hurry back here?”

“We will,” Paddy assured her, awkwardly patting her shoulder as he turned to follow Brian.

Then Katie had no choice but to follow the stewardess to her quarters. She felt very much alone, a feeling she was not at all accustomed to.

She had expected to be sleeping in one large cabin filled with bunks. Instead, when they got below, she was directed to a group of rooms containing two, four, or six berths each, all with fine, new, red-and-white bedspreads. Some of the rooms, Katie noticed as she passed in a delighted daze, were larger than the tiny bedroom under the eaves she shared at home with Moira and Mary.

“’Tisn’t a ship,” she told a young woman holding two small children by the hand. “’Tis a grand floating hotel. And a fine one, at that.” Seeing the confused look on the woman’s face, Katie asked, “Are you lookin’ fer your husband, then? Is it himself you’ve lost?”

“I don’t have a husband.” The young woman, who looked no older than Katie and had a headful of frothy blond curls, led each of the children to a berth and motioned to them to sit down. Her dark eyes cleared some then, and she turned back to Katie to extend a hand, saying, “Eileen O’Keefe here. These two”—pointing to the quiet, motionless children—“are Kevin and Bridey Donohue.” She lowered her voice. “They’ve just lost their parents to the influenza. I’m takin’ them to America to live with an aunt in Brooklyn. That’s in New York City,” she added knowingly. She unpinned her wide-brimmed straw hat and dropped it on one of the red-and-white bedspreads. “I’ve got the willies about goin’ to sea on a ship that hasn’t never sailed before atall. But the money they’re payin’ me is fair, and it’s a chance to see America.?

“You’re comin’ back then, to Ireland?”

“That I am.” Eileen’s fair cheeks turned rosy. “Engaged to be married, I am.” She held out a hand again, this time to display a gold band boasting a small pearl. “To a fine young lad name of Sean Murphy. An April wedding, though this time of year, rain is almost as sure as the dawn. Me ma wanted me to wait till June. But”—the flush deepened and her eyes twinkled—“Sean says waitin’ till June would be the worst kind of torture. So ’tis an April bride I’ll be.” She turned back to her two charges, still sitting mute on their bunks. “I plan to use the money the aunt is payin’ me to buy me trousseau.”

“It sounds lovely,” Katie said politely, though she couldn’t imagine getting married at such a young age. “And it’d please me to give you a hand with these two little ones,” she added. “I’m a fair hand with youngsters. It’d give me somethin’ to do.” And it would be nice, with Brian and Patrick so far away at the far end of the ship, to have a friend right here.

“I could use the help,” Eileen admitted. “You might want to help me get their outer garments off now. I was afraid we’d be cold down here, but it’s warm as toast.”

“Sure, I’d be glad to. Then maybe we could hie ourselves up to the common room,” Katie suggested as she untied the string on the little girl’s hat. “I’ve some friends I’d like you to meet. And ’tis my guess,” smiling at Bridey, who almost smiled back, “there’ll be other children up there for these two to play with.” There had been families on board the tenders, and as she helped the little girl slip free of the red coat, she could hear mothers nearby calling to young ones, and fathers’ deeper voices echoing the call. Families were permitted to remain together, which she thought must have come as a relief to mothers traveling with a pair or trio of lively little ones.

“Didja catch a glimpse of the common room, Eileen?” she asked. “’Tis lovely. Like a giant pub, only much nicer. I believe there’s a piano, even. A sing-along would be nice of an evenin’. Do you sing, then?”

Eileen laughed. “When I sing the hymns at mass on Sunday, Sean says if Saint Patrick hadn’t already chased all the snakes out of Ireland, my voice would do it. But,” she added cheerfully, “I do love to listen. A musicale might be a treat.”

“Well, then,” Katie said briskly, “I’ll keep the little ones entertained while you change out of your traveling clothes, and then I’ll hand them over to you while I do the same.” She was anxious to see Brian and Patrick again, and was sure they’d have made their way to the general room by now. Thinking the new white middy with the linen collar her mother had sewn for her for the trip might be nice, Katie opened her satchel.

Elizabeth had watched the tenders disembark their passengers from Ireland. It seemed to her, looking down from above, that most of them were probably destined for third class. She had hoped to find another young companion among these new arrivals. But no one seemed dressed elegantly enough for first class.

Elizabeth was disappointed, and was about to turn away from the rail when someone caught her eye. A young girl…perhaps her age…sat in the tender, her own eyes wide with awe as she looked up at the huge ship. Fiery red hair spilled down her shoulders instead of being confined in a proper do, and her traveling clothes looked wrinkled and dusty. But she had a beautiful face, and there was something about her, an electrical air of excitement that Elizabeth found herself envying. What would it be like to still become so excited about something new? She herself hardly ever did anymore.

Sitting beside the girl was a tall, dark-haired young man in a worn wool jacket. Although he seemed much more restrained than the girl, who was waving wildly at another dark-haired young man arriving in the second tender, Elizabeth was certain the first two were traveling together. Married? They seemed young, but they could be embarking on a honeymoon voyage. But then, who was the second young man? She heard him shout, “Katie!” and saw the red-haired girl wave in response. Katie. Short for Kathleen?

The three held her interest for several moments. She would have continued watching them had not a voice at her elbow said, “Elizabeth, I’d like you to meet someone.” Max’s voice. Elizabeth sighed in irritation. He was actually going to introduce her to that gypsy person? But she had
no
desire to meet the girl!

Unwilling to let him see her annoyance, she pasted a polite smile on her lips, and turned around. “Oh, hello, Max. I was just watching the Queenstown passengers arrive. It’s great fun. They all look so interesting!”

Max gave her a wry smile. “You sound a little like the queen gazing down upon the peasants.” The girl at his side, her wild, dark hair windblown, smiled, too.

Elizabeth flushed. “I didn’t mean that. I just meant—”

“This is Lily Costello,” Max interrupted, smiling at the girl in the brightly flowered jacket. “We met in Paris. She’s traveling to New York to go on the stage.” The smile broadened. “But she’s already an actress. And a very good one. I’ve seen her in a number of plays.”

Elizabeth shook the girl’s hand. “Costello doesn’t sound French.”

“I’m Italian,” the girl said, with barely a trace of an accent. “We moved to France when I was eight. When my parents were killed in a train crash, I had already been on the stage for several years, so I decided to stay in France, where I was known in the theater community.”

An actress. That explained the odd costuming, the wild hair. Lily Costello wasn’t a gypsy at all, she was only an actress. “Your parents allowed you to go on stage as a child?”

Lily’s fine, delicately arched brows rose. “Allow me?” She shrugged. “They saw that I had a special talent and that I was determined to use it, and that it would do them no good to stand in my way. I do not understand what you mean by ‘allow.’ And you? What is it that
you
do in America, Elizabeth?”

Elizabeth was stunned. Within her own circle of friends, no one would have asked such a question. Though she had certainly asked it of herself repeatedly, she had never been asked it by anyone else. And she had never once thought of what the answer might be.

A thick cloud of humiliation enveloped Elizabeth. To answer truthfully, “Nothing. I do nothing,” in front of Max Whittaker would have taken far more courage than she had or ever expected to have.

It was Max himself who answered for her, but Elizabeth was unable to see his remark as any kind of rescue. Rather, when Max laughed lightly and said, “Oh, Elizabeth is engaged,” she only burned with further humiliation.

To make matters worse, Lily frowned again and asked, “Engaged? Yes, but what does she
do
?” as if being engaged had nothing whatsoever to do with who Elizabeth
was.
The concept was directly the opposite of Elizabeth’s mother’s belief: that the engagement to Alan Reed had
everything
to do with who Elizabeth was and would be for the rest of her life.

Still, as mortifying as the conversation was, Elizabeth felt a pang of envy. This girl in the strange clothes and wild hair had always done as she wanted, even as a child, and she believed that other people, including Elizabeth, should do the same. “I would like to become a student,” she answered stiffly, desperately wanting both Lily and Max to see her as someone with ambition. “But my parents are against it.”

To her surprise, instead of Lily’s expression going blank, she nodded understandingly. But then she said, “And you are afraid to defy them.”

Though that was the truth, Elizabeth was angered. “I can’t
afford
to defy them. College is expensive. I have no money of my own.”

Below them, the tenders pulled away from the ship. Elizabeth heard the bubbling wash they made and thought again of the red-haired girl and her handsome companion. She wondered if that girl had had to defy her parents to leave Ireland for America. If so, she had clearly done it or she wouldn’t be on board the
Titanic
now.

“And do you have great affection for this man to whom you are engaged?” Lily had the effrontery to ask then. She smiled a mischievous grin. “This is a grand passion for you, Elizabeth?”

Elizabeth drew herself up to her full height, which still left her with the disadvantage of an inch or two below Max and Lily, and said coolly, “I really don’t want to talk about it.” And she turned and swept away with as much dignity as possible, though she nearly tripped over a deck chair in her haste to escape.

Behind her, she heard Lily say, “I did not mean to offend her.” Then, worst of all, Max’s deeper voice saying, “I think you struck a nerve with that last question.”

Elizabeth took refuge in the glassed-in promenade. How
dare
he? Suggesting to a perfect stranger that Elizabeth didn’t love the man she was engaged to! She had never told Max that. Couldn’t tell him that. Such an admission would be the most humiliating of all. She would never make it to someone she had just met.

Had she hinted at it, somehow, when they’d first talked? No, she wouldn’t have. But she couldn’t remember what she
had
said to Max, not exactly.

Even if she had said something, Max had no right to reveal that to Lily Costello.

I hate him, Elizabeth thought, not for the first time. And this time, she meant it.

Thursday, April 11, 1912

“You look fetching in that middy,” Eileen told Katie as, with Bridey and Kevin in tow, they left the cabin to make their way up to the general room, “’Tis a fine collar.”

“Me ma made it.” A sudden, fierce pang of homesickness assaulted Katie. “She has a knack with the needle. Meself, I’m all thumbs.”

“I guess you’re not goin’ to be a seamstress in America, then? So many of our girls are. Workin’ with lace, especially, brings a fine penny, I hear.”

Katie laughed. “I’d starve if I ever tried to make me way by sewin’.” But she didn’t confess what her real goal was. If Eileen disapproved of young women making their way on the stage, they couldn’t be friends. That thought was so depressing, Katie added quickly, “I’ve always liked the little ones.” There, she hadn’t actually
said
she was intending to become a governess, so it wasn’t a true lie. But it would keep Eileen from asking how she planned to earn a living in America.

It did. Eileen nodded and said, “Aye, you have a way with them.”

Katie let out a small sigh of relief. The voyage would be much more fun with a companion, especially with Brian and Paddy so far away in the bow.

The brothers were, as she had hoped, already mixing with other third-class passengers in the large, pleasant room filled with lively conversation in a variety of languages. The smell of fresh paint hung in the air. Blue sky showed through the portholes in the whitewashed walls, and the feet of playing children clattered noisily across the bare floor.

Brian’s dark head towered over the crowd, and Katie heard Patrick’s deep, melodious laughter before she actually spied him. He was surrounded by a small cluster of young women, which didn’t surprise Katie at all. Back in Cork, Paddy had a reputation as a ladies’ man. Brian had once said laughingly of his handsome younger brother, “Slippery as the fish in the cold waters of the Atlantic, that one. The lass who catches him had best hold on for dear life.”