Titanic: The Long Night (16 page)

Elizabeth, still standing just inside the door because she was too anxious to sit, began talking. She had said all of these things before, but never so seriously. The time spent in the writing room had proved useful, as her thoughts were now so organized in her head she was able to present them calmly and logically. She explained that she did not wish to enter into a loveless marriage, and she did not love Alan Reed and never would. She added that she would be willing to go through the entire season of debut parties
if
her parents would at least consider sending her to college the following autumn. She kept her voice level and spoke quietly.

It seemed to work. Her parents listened without interruption, though her mother was tapping one foot impatiently against the wood trim on the chaise lounge. Neither got up and moved about, neither got up and left the room. Grateful for that much, she finished her carefully reasoned argument. And waited for their reaction.

Her mother’s came first, as she had known it would. “I had no idea you felt so strongly about marrying Alan,” she said, smoothing the folds of her pale yellow gown as she spoke. “You might have told us sooner.”

Elizabeth held her breath, feeling a kernel of hope spring alive within her. “I’m sorry. I thought I had. I realize it will be embarrassing for both of you when the engagement is canceled, but I’m sure Alan will understand.”

“Canceled?” Elizabeth’s mother looked up from her position on the chaise. “Oh, my dear, the engagement won’t be canceled.”

The kernel of hope died a swift but painful death. “But you said—”

“I merely said that you might have told us of your feelings sooner, so that we could have attended to them. We are not heartless, Elizabeth, though you apparently think otherwise. But we won’t be canceling anything. Not the engagement, not the debut season. This is why you have parents, darling, to lead you in the proper direction. To stop you from making foolish decisions. We love you very much, and we want the best for you. Seeing that you get it is our job.” Glancing at her husband, Nola Farr said, “Wouldn’t you say so, darling?”

Elizabeth had one last faint hope left. That her father might take her side, as he occasionally had in the past. If he did, the two of them might be able to sway her mother, just enough to at least cancel the engagement.

That hope lasted while her father seemed to ponder the question for a moment, but it, too, died as he nodded and answered, “Yes, I would say that is our job.” To Elizabeth, he said calmly, “Of course, we don’t expect you to understand that just now. Children never do. I myself didn’t when, at seventeen, I wanted to sign on a ship and travel the world. My father forbade it. I was angry, just as you are now. But he knew what he was doing, and I must say I’ve been grateful for some time now. My plan was ridiculously foolish. But I was too young to see that.”

Elizabeth tried to count. One…two… three…four…But it was too much. They were allied against her and together they made one formidable foe. “How do you
know
that?” she cried. “How do you know it would have been a foolish thing to do, if you didn’t
do
it? Maybe it would have been wonderful. Maybe you were just a coward!”

Elizabeth was sorry immediately. Her father flinched as if she had struck him, and her mother cried out, “Elizabeth, how
could
you!”

But wasn’t it true, just a little? He had wanted to go to sea, and he hadn’t gone.

She wasn’t going to follow his example. She
wasn’t.
One…two…three…four…it was no use. This was much too important to her to back down, and speaking logically and calmly hadn’t worked. They weren’t giving an inch. “You won’t even think about a compromise? I said I would go through the entire debut season. But I won’t, I will
not
marry Alan. And you can’t make me.”

Nola raised an eyebrow at that. She turned her head to look at her husband. “It’s that Whittaker boy,” she said, her voice perfectly calm. “I knew it. I should have forbidden her to see him, but I was afraid of offending Enid and Jules.” Turning back to Elizabeth, she said, “This is nothing more than a shipboard flirtation. I realize the young man is better-looking than Alan, and closer to your age. But Elizabeth, that boy has no
future.
He wants to be an
artist
, for heaven’s sake! You simply cannot be serious about him.”

“Oh, but I am. And he feels the same way. And I don’t care if he’s poor, I really don’t.”

“Well, now I
am
forbidding you to see him again,” Mrs. Farr said. “There will be no more talk of college, and during the remainder of this trip, you will not see or speak to Maxwell Whittaker, do you understand me?”

Tears filled Elizabeth’s eyes. But her voice was soft when she spoke. “No, Mother. That’s the problem. I
don’t
understand you. And I never will.” She wanted to keep fighting, not to give up until they had agreed to give her at least something of what she wanted. But it seemed so futile. It
was
futile. They had all the power. She had none.

“I’m not marrying Alan Reed,” Elizabeth said, still softly, and then she walked to the door to her room, opened it, went inside, closed the door behind her…and locked it.

Sunday, April 14, 1912

At the service on Sunday in the first-class dining room, Katie couldn’t believe her eyes. She had thought the dining room in steerage was a sight to behold. But this room, so beauteous, its woodwork so new and shiny, even its ceiling embossed, its long, arched windows made of smoky glass was like nothing she had ever seen before. How fine it all was!

If only Paddy had agreed to come with her and Marta. Father Byles had said it was all right for them to attend the service, though it wasn’t Catholic, as long as they also attended his Mass in third class, which Katie had done. But while Marta had eagerly embraced the notion of seeing with her own eyes a first-class facility, Paddy had refused, saying, “Why would I want to be around them people that stared at us like we was freaks?” Brian, too, had refused, saying he had scheduled a game of cards in the smoking room.

So Katie and Marta had joined a small group from third class, mostly women, who thought it a fine idea to get a look at the huge room where the “tony people” ate.

“Not in my wildest dreams,” Katie whispered to Marta as the captain began reading, “would I imagine such a room as this. ’Tisn’t it fine, then? To think that somethin’ so wondrous would be on a
ship. ’
Tis just a ship, after all.”

“No,” Marta disagreed, also in a whisper, “it is not just a ship. It is the
Titanic
, and everything on it is like nothing ever seen before. I will be so happy to tell my mother and father what I have seen here.”

The pretty girl who had argued with her mother on that awful morning in third class was in the crowd, dressed in a navy blue skirt and jacket that looked to Katie to be made of the finest wool. She was standing between her parents. All were so nattily attired and well-groomed, they made Katie think of an advertisement in a magazine. The three made a lovely picture. Any artist who might paint them standing like that would surely title his work “A Happy Family.”

When the last hymn had been sung, Katie was reluctant to leave. She wanted to stay a while, sit in one of the fine chairs and try to imagine what it must be like to be surrounded by such luxury. The girl in the blue dress must travel in this way all the time. Fortune had smiled on her. How lovely it must be to never have to trouble yourself about the future.

Reluctantly trailing along behind the other third-class passengers returning to their quarters, Katie wondered if that girl knew how lucky she was. Could be she didn’t. If you’d never had troubles, you wouldn’t know what they were, and so you wouldn’t give them a thought. Or so it seemed to Katie.

Still, when she passed the girl and her family on her way out of the dining room, Katie was struck by the fact that the pretty face didn’t seem untroubled. That was a bit of a surprise. There was a frown, there, on her forehead, and was there not a droop to the mouth? Didn’t the eyes seem a bit red-rimmed, as if there had been tears recently?

Of course, that couldn’t possibly be the truth of it. Why would a girl like that be shedding tears?

I’m imaginin’ things, she told herself. I don’t need to be thinkin’ that someone born into such good fortune could have troubles. She looks that way because she’s been concentrating on the service, that’s all, and I would have been better off doing the same.

When they returned to steerage, she went straight to the general room in search of Eileen and the two children, to see if Bridey had suffered any ill effects from last night’s accident. The little girl seemed fine, which Katie regarded as a good thing since Eileen, dancing in the arms of the Norwegian, was paying no more attention to Bridey than she had before the fall.

Katie took the children out on deck for a breath of fresh air later that afternoon. She was taken aback by how much colder the air had become. Her shawl was woefully inadequate, and Bridey had left her coat folded on a bench inside. They had only been on deck a few minutes when Kevin’s teeth began chattering with cold.

“Fresh air ain’t goin’ to do you any good if you catch pneumonia,” Katie said, and took them back inside, thinking that it was a good thing the Atlantic Ocean was saltwater, or it would be frozen solid and then how would they sail on it?

“Might be icebergs about,” a crewman commented as a shivering Katie returned to the general room. “Seems cold enough. Seen them around these parts before, on other trips. Big as houses, some o’ them.”

Big as houses? Alarmed, Katie asked, “There’s no danger, is there?”

The crewman laughed. “No, ma’am, I don’t guess so. It’d take a lot more than an old berg to do damage to the
Titanic
.”

But Katie was picturing a chunk of ice the size of a house floating toward them on the open sea. The thought made her stomach begin to churn. Was it really true, as the crewman had said, that an object so large could collide with the
Titanic
and cause no harm?

She would ask Paddy and Brian what they thought.

But she had to wait all afternoon, as they didn’t return from their card games until just before supper. She didn’t want to ruin the meal, so she kept her worries to herself until afterward, when they were all back in the general room. A party had already begun, and Brian went off to dance with Marta, leaving Katie alone with Paddy.

“There’s talk of ice,” she said abruptly over the sound of the accordion and the pipes. “Bergs as big as houses. Do you think that’s likely, Paddy?”

He nodded. “Of course. I was out on deck a while ago. It’s turned cold as an icehouse out there. Could be bergs. Why? You’re not troublin’ yourself about it, are you? You don’t trust the captain to steer the ship through an ice field?”

Katie thought about that for a minute. “I don’t even know the captain,” she answered then. “You haven’t seen him walkin’ around down here talkin’ to all us third-class passengers, have you, now? How would I be knowin’ whether or not I should trust him?”

“Well, he’s got us this far. I guess he can take us the rest of the way. Anyways, the shipping line wouldn’t trust a ship as fine as this one to just any old captain, would they? Don’t you think they’d hire the best? The one with the most experience?” Then Paddy said the words Katie had been hoping to hear. “Quit troublin’ yourself about icebergs and come dance with me.”

Whirling in his arms, Katie forgot about the crewman’s words and let the music lift her feet off the floor.

Elizabeth had agreed to meet Max on the boat deck at nine o’clock. She almost changed her mind and went to bed instead, wanting nothing more than to huddle deep beneath the coverlet and wallow in her misery. Besides, he’d be disappointed again that she’d failed to talk herself out of a loveless marriage. She didn’t want to see the look on his face when she shared that depressing bit of news with him.

She went, after all, only because she needed to see him. Not that seeing him would change anything. But it would make her feel better.

She listened at the door of her parents’ cabin before she left her own. Silence. She hadn’t heard their door closing, but that was probably because she’d been lost in her own thoughts. They wouldn’t have gone to bed this early, so the silence meant they’d gone out.

Elizabeth threw on the gray cloak, left her room, and hurried down the corridor and up the stairs to meet Max.

He was very understanding at first. It was too cold to stay outside, so he led her into the warmer gymnasium, which was nearly empty. Many people were attending a concert being performed by the ship’s orchestra; others were playing cards or eating in the restaurant. Max and Elizabeth sat on side-by-side stationary bicycles to talk.

“It’s not your fault,” he said sympathetically. “Maybe a sea voyage isn’t the place to discuss such serious matters. When you get home, it’ll be different.”

“When I get home,” Elizabeth said bitterly, “my debut will begin immediately. There won’t be any
time
to talk. I was counting on this trip. It seemed to me the ideal time to talk to them, since the only way they could avoid me would be to jump overboard.”

Max laughed.

Elizabeth did not. “I didn’t realize they’d be so busy all the time, or that even when they weren’t, they wouldn’t really listen.” She would almost certainly have to endure the debut season, and it looked very much as if college was out of the question, at least for a while. It could take her years to wear them down. All of which meant life was going to be pretty dismal when she returned to New York in three days. The only bright spot she could think of was having Max Whittaker in that life. Without him…

Elizabeth shuddered at the thought of life without Max.

“Max, if you agree to take just one or two college courses, your parents will let you study painting at the same time. You won’t be disowned, and my parents won’t have any reason to keep me from seeing you.”

“We’ve already had this discussion, Elizabeth,” Max said firmly. “I haven’t changed my mind. Pigheaded or not, it’s time for me to go out on my own. When you think about it, leaving home is the only way to grow up, right?”