Cold April (8 page)

“
See, here’s your message, and now I will put it into Morse code and send it off. Come with me.”

He opened a door at the side and they entered another small windowless room, also filled with various equipment. The operator sat in a chair and struck a key on a small box, sending out a series of high tapping sounds. “There,” he said finally. “All done. Your message is on its way.”

“
But I want to see it,” Kathleen said.

“
You can’t see that one, but I’ll show you one we’ve received so you may see what it will look like.” He took another form from the desk and handed it to her. Kathleen ran her fingers over the surface, feeling the printed tape that contained the words. She handed it back and they returned to the main room.

“
I like explaining the procedure,” the operator said, “and we’re not busy just now. The nights are better for sending messages long distances. Radio waves can bounce around better when there’s no sun heating the air.”

Another young man came out of an adjoining door. As if having heard the conversation, he added, “It’ll be a different matter later, when we get closer to New York. Then everyone will want us to send Marconigrams.”

“
Is sending ... er ... Marconigrams another service provided by the White Star Line?” Richard asked.

“
Oh, no.” The first man, whose name badge identified him as Harold Bride, spoke proudly. “We work for the Marconi Company, not the ship’s owners.”

“
Of course,” the other man, whose badge read Jack Phillips, commented, “we do forward any message that comes in for the captain or crew members, but there’s no telephone between here and the bridge, so we must hand-deliver it.” He paused. “The passengers are our first concern, and we must deliver their messages as well.”

“
Do you deliver them yourselves?”

“
Oh, no. The purser gives incoming Marconigrams to the stewards to deliver.”

Operator Bride spoke up. “Would you like to send another message, sir?”

Another message? Richard thought of his employer, Lord Wheatly, back in London. It might be a good thing to send him a message announcing he was on board the ship sailing across the Atlantic. “Perhaps I shall.”

“
Sit here, sir.” Phillips offered his unused chair. “Here’s a pad you may write your message on and then you can watch us send it in Morse code as well.”

* * *

Beth gave some of her and Kathleen’s clothing to the steward, who explained that there was no laundry service on board but agreed to press and return them the next morning. She wished she had asked Richard if he needed any of his things pressed but decided the next day would be soon enough. With the fast service the steward promised, there should be time.

Reading her book still didn’t appeal to her, however, so she left the cabin and wandered down the corridor to the Grand Staircase. This time she went down to C Deck and found herself surrounded by signs indicating second-class accommodations. The corridor led to a large public seating area. Surprisingly, it was full of people, most of them standing around a large open space in the center of the room. Even more surprising, a magician entertained them. She took a place near the door and watched.

The magician was a handsome young man with an unruly mass of sandy hair. He wore a worn black tailcoat and striped trousers. To the delight of the crowd, he performed several clever tricks with decks of playing cards. Then he asked for coins from members of the audience and made them disappear and reappear. He even seemed to make off with a pound note, but after pretending it was lost forever, he reproduced it in the pocket of the very man who had provided it. Everyone laughed and applauded.

Beth saw him place a tall black silk hat on a small table, and she wondered if he would produce a rabbit or dove. Then, remembering they were on a ship, she decided he had probably not brought along either rabbits or doves. Instead, after showing everyone the hat was empty, he proceeded to extract an exceedingly long string of colored scarves, all knotted together.

After bowing to the crowd, he put the hat on the floor in front of him, removed his coat and, asking some of the onlookers to move back a bit, did a series of somersaults, cartwheels, backflips and other acrobatic stunts. Donning wooden stilts, he walked about as easily as anyone in normal boots, even dancing and doing flips. Next, he bent his body into unbelievable positions and snaked his way into a square box that didn’t appear large enough for a medium-sized dog, much less an entire grown man.

Many people in the audience threw coins into his hat, and Beth, who had no purse with her, felt guilty for enjoying the performance without paying. She slipped out the door, retraced her steps to the corridor, and returned to her own deck.

She barely had time to settle into her cabin chair when the corridor door suddenly burst open.

Richard stood on the threshold. “Is Kathleen here?”

“
No.” The question startled her and set her pulse to racing. Why would he ask such a thing? “Is something the matter?”

“
Kathleen’s missing. I can’t find her.”

Chapter 7

Impossible. Beth sputtered the first thing that came to her mind. “She can’t be missing.”

His voice rose. “She is, I tell you. Did I ... I mean did I ask you to ...?”

“
No. I believe you said we’d meet again at dinner.”

Richard came fully into the room, his face flushed, one fist clutching at his thick, dark hair. “I can’t believe this.”

“
Are you certain?”

“
One moment she was right there, standing next to me and the next ...”

“
Where were you?”

“
On the boat deck.”

“
What were you doing?”

“
I was talking to the Marconi wireless operators. We’d sent a telegram to Kathleen’s aunts and I decided to send one to Lord Wheatly, and when I looked again, she was gone.”

“
She’s only three. She can’t have gone far.”

“
But I’ve looked everywhere.” He paced the floor rapidly, distress etched into his features.

“
Here, sit down. Tell me where you looked.”

Quickly, he related searching everywhere on the boat deck, then the next lower deck. “I thought she might have returned here.”

“
All by herself? How could she know the way?”

“
I don’t know,” he wailed. “But she must be somewhere.”

Not just somewhere: Kathleen could be anywhere. The brochure mentioned ten decks, 840 staterooms, and miles of corridors. Beth’s muscles tightened in her midriff, and her hands grew clammy with cold, even as her face flushed hot with fear.

She sat next to Richard and took a deep breath. “Please tell me again where you looked for her.”

“
Just the Boat and A Decks. Then I came here. I know she’s very young, but we’ve been in and out of these cabins several times already. I thought she might have remembered how to do it. She’s almost four, a very smart child, you know.”

“
I know.”

He wiped his brow. “And usually obedient. It never occurred to me she would go off alone while I talked to the wireless operators.”

“
Children can become restless in a very short time.”

“
But where could she have wanted to go so eagerly that she couldn’t wait for me?”

“
The ship is too large for us to search alone. Is there someone you can ask? The steward? The purser?”

“
I did ask the steward as I was coming here. He hadn’t seen her.” He was pacing again. “But the purser is a good idea. I’ll go and find him. Maybe there’s some way ... Perhaps they can ...”

Richard seemed unable to imagine how a purser, or anyone, could locate a missing child, and neither could Beth. Had the brochure addressed the subject of lost children? The only information she could recall that pertained to children was the hours they were allowed to use the gymnasium and that they were permitted in the dining saloon at dinner. On many other ships that was not the case. She felt as helpless as Richard looked.

Richard stopped pacing and straightened his shoulders. “I’d better go at once.”

“
Perhaps I should stay here in case ...”

“
As you like.” He was already out the door.

Worry nibbling at her nerves, Beth did some pacing of her own, trying to think where Kathleen might have gone. Nothing came to her. There was really little on board that would be of interest to a child. This ship was designed for adults. Wealthy adults. Yet, it had its share of emigrants, and Kathleen had remarked that she saw some children arriving on board by way of the tenders that morning. Was it possible she had attempted to find them? No, that didn’t sound like something she would do on her own.

Beth sat at the desk, chin resting on her upraised hand, and tried to picture the little girl walking beside her when they strolled the decks. What had interested her?

The “ela-bators.”

What if she had simply retraced her way to the lifts and the doors had opened—perhaps for other passengers? She could have just stepped inside, not realizing that it would go somewhere else. At any rate, it was an idea worth pursuing.

She left her cabin and hurried down the corridor to the Grand Staircase. The lifts went between A and D decks. Since Richard had already tried A Deck, she’d try the lower ones.

Inside one of the four lifts, she asked the operator—a ruddy-cheeked young man not a day over sixteen—if he had seen a little girl, not yet four, get on all by herself.

“
No, ma’am,” he answered. “I’da been concerned if I ’ad. A child that young, and not with her mum?”

“
If you had seen her, what would you have done?”

“
Taken her to a steward, ma’am.” He pushed the lever, and the car began its descent. “Not everyone has this job might-a done that. O’course, there’s lots of children in steerage—excuse me, third class. You want to try D Deck? That’s as low as this lift goes, but there’s stairs after that.”

“
Yes, I’ll try D Deck.”

She exited from the car, walked to the long corridor stretching the length of the ship and started for the stern. Very soon she came upon a large dining saloon, its tables already being set for a meal.

A uniformed steward or waiter, holding a tray of utensils, approached her. “Excuse me, ma’am, are you looking for something?”

“
Someone. A little girl is missing.”

“
I didn’t see no one like that, ma’am. This is the second-class dining saloon. Was she coming here?”

“
No.” She frowned and bit her lower lip. “Is third class on this deck?”

“
No, ma’am, but if you go up one flight,” he pointed above his head, “there’s a third-class public room near the stern. I always see lots of children there.”

She thanked him, retraced her steps to the stairs, went up to C Deck and again headed toward the stern of the ship.

Before she reached it, she heard the sound of people talking and laughing, and the high, excited voices of many children. She paused at the wide open doorway and saw a crowd surrounding an open area where a young man was performing magic tricks. The same one she’d seen more than an hour before.

He did the coin trick again—making them disappear and reappear—and also made a cup float in the air and a spoon bend and magically straighten again. Now, his performance was apparently ending, and he bowed while the audience applauded.

As the crowd began to disperse, she observed the children sitting on the floor in front of what must have been the magician’s makeshift stage. She mustered her courage and approached the man.

He smiled broadly when he saw her, removed his silk hat and made a little bow. “Welcome, Miss. Did you like the show?”

“
I saw your show an hour ago in a different public room.”

“
I know. I watched you come in, but you left again before I could speak to you.”

Beth felt her face warm, surprised he had noticed her. He looked to be in his mid-twenties and was as handsome as he was talented. She remembered her reason for being there. “I’m looking for a little girl.”

His grin widened as he pointed to a bench in a corner. “She says her name is Kathleen.”

Kathleen saw her at the same instant, hopped off the bench, and attacked her knees in a fierce hug. “Miss Beth, Miss Beth. I found you.”

The young man laughed. “I think it’s the other way around. Your Miss Beth has found you.”

Tears of joy springing to her eyes, Beth stooped down and embraced Kathleen.

When she resumed standing, her hand clutching Kathleen’s, she acknowledged the young magician again.

“
I knew she didn’t belong in steerage,” he said, “not dressed like that. I decided someone would likely come and fetch her soon enough.”

“
And if I hadn’t?”

“
I’d have taken her to a first-class steward as soon as I finished my act. Excuse me, the name’s Harry Palmer. At your service.”

“
I’m Elizabeth Shallcross.”

“
Your daughter calls you Miss Beth.”

“
She isn’t my daughter.”

“
You look too grand to be a servant.”

“
Thank you, but I’m her governess, and I shall be forever grateful that you were taking such good care of her.”