A Good Woman (2 page)

“Has anyone been picked up by other ships?” someone asked. The clerk silently shook his head. Although there were other ships recovering bodies from the freezing waters, the crew of the
Carpathia
were the only ones who had been able to rescue survivors, mostly in lifeboats, and a very few from the water. Almost all of those in the icy Atlantic had died before the
Carpathia
arrived, although the rescuers had been on the scene within two hours after the
Titanic
went down. It was just too long for anyone to survive the frigid temperature of the ocean.

Annabelle checked the list one more time. There were 706 survivors. She saw her mother’s name again, but there were no other Worthingtons on the list, neither Arthur nor Robert, and all she could do was pray that it was a mistake. Maybe an oversight, or they were unconscious and couldn’t say their names to those who were checking. There was no way to get more news than they had. They were told that the
Carpathia
was due into New York in three days, on the eighteenth. She would just have to keep faith until then, and be grateful for her mother’s survival. She refused to believe that her father and brother were dead. It just couldn’t be.

She stayed awake all that night, after she got home, and still ate nothing. Hortense came to visit her, and spent the night. They said very little, just held hands and cried a lot. Hortie tried to reassure her, and her mother had come over briefly to comfort Annabelle as well. There were no words to soften what had happened. The whole world was shocked by the news. It was a tragedy of epic proportions.

“Thank God you were too sick to go,” Hortie whispered as they lay in Annabelle’s bed together after her mother left and went home. She had suggested that her daughter spend the night, and in fact stay there until Annabelle’s mother returned. She didn’t want Annabelle to be alone. Annabelle only nodded at the comment, feeling guilty for not having been with them, wondering if her presence could have helped in some way. Maybe she could have saved one of them at least, or someone.

For the next three days, she and Hortie roamed the house like ghosts. Hortie was the only friend she wanted to see or speak to in her shock and grief. Annabelle ate almost nothing, despite the housekeeper’s exhortations. Everyone was constantly crying, and finally Annabelle and Hortie went for a walk to get some air. James came and escorted them, and he was very kind to Annabelle and told her how sorry he was about what had happened. The city, and the world, could think of nothing else.

There was still relatively little news from the
Carpathia,
except the confirmation that the
Titanic
had indeed sunk, and the list of survivors was complete and firm. Only the unidentified babies and children were not on the list, and would have to be identified by family members in port, if they were American. If not, they would have to be returned to Cherbourg and Southampton to their anguished families there. Half a dozen of them belonged to none of the survivors and were too young to say their names. Others were taking care of them in the absence of their parents, and there was no way of telling who they were. But everyone else, even the sick or injured, was on the list, they’d been assured. Annabelle still didn’t believe it as Thomas drove her to the Cunard dock on the night of the eighteenth. Hortie didn’t want to go with her, as she didn’t want to intrude, so Annabelle went to Pier 54 alone.

The waiting crowd saw the
Carpathia
steam slowly into port, with tugboats, just after nine
P.M.
Annabelle could feel her heart pounding as she watched her, and the ship startled everyone by going to the White Star docks at Piers 59 and 60 instead. And there, in plain sight of all observers, she slowly lowered the remaining lifeboats of the
Titanic,
which was all that was left of her, to return them to the White Star Line, before the
Carpathia
docked herself. Photographers were crammed into a flotilla of small boats trying to get photographs of the lifeboats, and survivors of the disaster lined up at the rail. The atmosphere around them was half funeral, half circus, as the relatives of survivors waited in agonized silence to see who would come off, and reporters and photographers shouted to each other and jockeyed for the best positions and best shots.

After depositing the lifeboats, the
Carpathia
moved slowly to her own dock at Pier 54, and longshoremen and Cunard employees tied her up quickly. And then the gangway was finally let down. In silence, and with heartrending deference, the
Titanic
survivors were let off first. Passengers from the
Carpathia
hugged some of them and squeezed their hands. There were many tears, and little said, as one by one, the survivors came off, most of them with tears streaming down their faces, some still in shock from what they’d seen, and lived through on that awful night. No one would soon forget the hideous screams and moans from the water, the shouts and calls for help in vain as people died. Those in the lifeboats had been too afraid of picking people up, for fear they would capsize from the effort, and drown even more people than those who were already doomed in the water. The sights around them had been hideous, of dead floating bodies, as they waited for help to come and to be picked up.

As they came off the
Carpathia,
there were women with young children, a few women still in evening gowns from their last night aboard the doomed ship, with blankets over them. Some of them had been too shaken to change their clothes for the past three days, and had huddled in the space provided in the
Carpathia
’s dining rooms and main salons. The regular passengers and the crew had done all they could to help, but no one could change the death toll and the shocking loss of life, in circumstances no one could have foreseen.

Annabelle felt breathless until she spotted her mother the moment she reached the gangway. She watched Consuelo coming toward her in the distance, with borrowed clothes, a tragic face, and her head held high in grief-stricken dignity. Annabelle saw it all on her face. There was no other familiar figure with her. Her father and brother were nowhere to be seen. Annabelle glanced one last time behind her mother, but Consuelo was entirely alone amid a sea of other survivors, mostly women, and a few men who seemed to look slightly embarrassed as they got off with their wives. There was a constant explosion of flashbulbs, as reporters recorded as many reunions as they could. And then suddenly her mother was standing in front of her, and Annabelle took her in her arms so tightly that neither of them could breathe. Consuelo was sobbing, and so was she as they clung to each other, while passengers and families eddied around them. And then, with Annabelle’s arm around her mother’s shoulders, they slowly walked away. It was raining, and no one cared. Consuelo was wearing a rough wool dress that didn’t fit her, and evening shoes, and still wore a diamond necklace and earrings from the night the ship sank. She had no coat, and Thomas quickly brought Annabelle the car blanket to put around her mother.

They were barely away from the gangway when Annabelle asked the question she had to ask. She could guess the answer, but she couldn’t bear not knowing. She whispered it to her mother, “Robert and Daddy?…” Her mother only shook her head, and cried harder as Annabelle led her to the car. Her mother suddenly seemed so frail and so much older. She was a widow at forty-three, and she seemed like an old woman as Thomas gently helped her into the car, and covered her carefully with the fur blanket. Consuelo just looked at him and cried, and then quietly thanked him. She and Annabelle held each other tight in silence as they rode home. Her mother didn’t speak again until they reached the house.

All of the servants were waiting in the front hall, to embrace her, hug her, hold her, and when they saw she was alone, to tell her how sorry they were. Within the hour, there was a somber black wreath on the door. There were many in New York that night, once it was clear who hadn’t come home and never would.

Annabelle helped to bathe her mother and get her into a nightgown, and Blanche fussed over her like a child. She had taken care of Consuelo since she was a young girl, and had attended both Annabelle’s and Robert’s births. And now, it had come to this. As she plumped Consuelo’s pillows up behind her, once they got her into bed, Blanche had to constantly wipe her eyes, and made little comforting cooing sounds. She brought up a tray with tea, porridge, bland toast, broth, and her favorite cookies, which Consuelo didn’t eat. She just sat staring at both of them, unable to say a word.

Annabelle slept in her mother’s bed that night, and finally in the darkest hours, when Consuelo shook from head to foot and couldn’t sleep, she told her daughter what had happened. She had been in lifeboat number four, with her cousin Madeleine Astor, whose husband hadn’t survived either. She said that the lifeboat had only been half full, but her husband and Robert had refused to get in, wanting to stay back to help others, and allow room for the women and children. But there had been plenty of room for them. “If only they’d gotten in,” Consuelo said in desperation. The Wideners, Thayers, and Lucille Carter, all known to her, had been in the lifeboat too. But Robert and Arthur had steadfastly stayed on board to help the others into lifeboats, and given up their lives. Consuelo spoke too of a man named Thomas Andrews, who had been one of the heroes of the night. And she made a point of telling Annabelle that her father and brother had been very brave, which was small consolation now.

They talked for hours, as Consuelo relived the last moments on the ship, and her daughter held her and cried as she listened. Finally as dawn streamed into the room, at last, with a sigh, Consuelo fell asleep.

Chapter 2

T
here were hundreds of funerals that week in New York, and elsewhere. Newspapers everywhere were filled with poignant stories, and shocking accounts. It was becoming clear to everyone that many of the lifeboats had left the ship half empty, carrying only firstclass passengers, and the world was shocked. The much-acclaimed hero was the captain of the
Carpathia,
who had rushed to the scene and picked up the survivors. There was still little explanation as to why the ship had sunk. Once it struck the iceberg, they couldn’t avoid her going down. But there was much comment and consternation about why the
Titanic
had pressed on through the icefield, after it had been warned. Fortunately, the
Carpathia
had listened to their desperate pleas for help on the radio, or perhaps none of them would have survived.

The doctor had come to check Consuelo, and found her in remarkably good health, although grief-stricken and shocked. All the life seemed to have gone out of her. And Annabelle was left to plan her father and brother’s funerals in infinite detail. The joint service would be held at Trinity Church, which had been a favorite of her father’s.

The service was somber and dignified, with hundreds of mourners there to pay their respects. Both caskets at the Worthington funeral service were empty, as neither body had been recovered, and sadly, never were. Of the 1,517 who died, only fifty-one bodies were ever found. The others disappeared quietly into a watery grave at sea.

Several hundred of the people who attended the service came back to the house afterward, where food and drink were served. Some wakes had a festive atmosphere to them, but this one didn’t. Robert had been only twenty-four, and his father forty-six, both in the flower of life, and had died in such a tragic way. Both Annabelle and Consuelo were swathed in somber black. Annabelle with a handsome black hat, and her mother in a widow’s veil. And that night, when everyone had left, Consuelo looked shattered beyond belief. So much so that Annabelle couldn’t help wondering how much of her mother was left. Her spirit seemed to have died with her two men, and Annabelle was seriously worried about her.

It was a great relief to Annabelle when her mother announced at breakfast two weeks after the funeral that she wanted to go to the hospital where she did volunteer work. She said she thought it would do her good to think of someone else, and Annabelle agreed.

“Are you sure you’re up to it, Mama?” Annabelle inquired quietly, with a look of concern. She didn’t want her mother getting sick, although it was early May and the temperature was warm.

“I’m fine,” her mother said sadly. As fine as she was going to be for a long time. And that afternoon, both women wore their black dresses, and white hospital aprons, and went to St. Vincent’s Hospital, where Consuelo had worked as a volunteer for years. Annabelle had joined her mother there since she was fifteen. They worked mostly with the indigent, and dealt more with wounds and injuries than infectious diseases. Annabelle had always been fascinated by the work, and had a natural talent for it, and her mother had a gentle manner and a kind heart. But the medical aspect of it was what had always intrigued Annabelle, and whenever possible she read medical books to explain the procedures they saw. She had never been squeamish, unlike Hortie, who had fainted the only time Annabelle had convinced her to join them. The messier a situation got, the more Annabelle liked it. Her mother preferred to serve food on trays, while Annabelle assisted the nurses whenever they let her, changing dressings and cleaning wounds. Patients always said that she had an amazingly gentle touch.

They returned exhausted that night, after a long, tiring afternoon, and went back to the hospital again later that week. If nothing else, it was keeping both Annabelle and her mother distracted from their double loss. Suddenly, the spring that had been meant to be the most exciting time of Annabelle’s life, after her debut, had turned into a time of solitude and mourning. They would accept no invitations for the next year, which worried Consuelo. While Annabelle would remain at home in somber black, all the other young women who had just come out would be getting engaged. She was afraid that the tragedy that had struck them would also now impact her daughter’s future in a most unfortunate way, but there was nothing they could do. Annabelle didn’t seem to think about what she was missing. Appropriately, she was far more distressed about their losses than about her future, or the absence of a social life.