Titanic Affair (6 page)

Emilia waved him off, watching until he was lost to view, then began to take an interest in all the other things that were going on. The stop at
Cherbourg
was a busy one, with passengers disembarking and new passengers coming on board.

Emilia recognised a number of them from the newspapers. There was millionaire Benjamin Guggenheim - she overheard him remarking to a companion that he had originally booked passage on the
Lusitania
, but that he had transferred to the
Titanic
when the
Lusitania
had been laid up for repairs. There was a formidable-looking woman, who was addressed as Mrs Brown, and there was Lady Duff-Gordon with her husband Sir Cosmo, as well as a number of second class passengers and what seemed like a hundred passengers for steerage.

She felt a slight qualm at the thought of mixing with so many fashionable people when her own clothes were so shabby, but she did not mean to let it affect her enjoyment. If she had to go in to dinner in her home made gown and endure the stares of the other diners, then so be it.

With this resolve in mind, she headed towards the dining-room, but as she came to the seating area outside the dining-room she began to regret her decision.

She heard the sound of smothered laughter and a woman’s voice saying, ‘My dear, have you ever seen anything like it? Look! Over there! Do you see the young woman in the home-made dress! She must have wandered up here from steerage. Do you think I should tell the stewards?’

‘No, don’t,’ came another woman’s voice. ‘It is too delicious. I only hope she goes into the dining-room. I am longing to see if she knows which cutlery to use.’

‘She’s probably more used to eating with her fingers, don’t you think so, Carl?’ came the first voice.

Emilia’s spirits sank. It was bad enough to be humiliated, but to be humiliated in front of Mr Latimer was worse.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she heard him reply. ‘I dare say she knows how to use a fork and spoon, although I must admit she’s unlikely to use a knife as efficiently as you, Ida.’

There was a stunned silence from the ladies, and Emilia laughed. Looking up she caught his eye in one of the gilded mirrors. He inclined his head, and she inclined hers in reply. He had been bested in the matter of her stateroom, and she had been routed when trying to help his mother, but it seemed a truce had been declared between them.

She only hoped it would last until she disembarked in half a day’s time.

‘There are ten floors on the
Titanic
, miss,’ said the waiter helpfully as Emilia studied the breakfast menu the following morning. ‘There are the state rooms, of course, then there are the sitting rooms, the libraries, the cafés, the Turkish baths and the exercise rooms. The gymnasium is just off the boat deck, and the swimming pool —’

‘Swimming pool?’ asked Emilia in surprise.

‘Yes, miss. It might not be filled yet. The water’s too dirty close to shore and we have to wait until we’re in the open sea, but it will soon be ready for use. Then there’s the squash court, and of course it’s very pleasant up on deck.’

‘I won’t have time to see half of it, or even a quarter,’ said Emilia. ‘I’ll be leaving the ship at Queenstown. We dock at lunchtime, I think?’

‘Yes, miss, that’s right.’

‘I will just have to see how much I can fit in before then.’

She had managed to see the reading room and the library the night before, and she had eaten in the dining-room, where not even the titters of some of the ladies at the sight of her home-made dress had been enough to dim her enjoyment, but there were still plenty more things she wanted to see.

After a breakfast of fresh fruit, poached eggs and soda and sultana scones, with Norborne honey and
Oxford
marmalade, she carried on with her explorations. Just as she came to the Grand Staircase, however, she saw a familiar figure. It was the elderly lady she had glimpsed through the stateroom door the day before, Mrs Latimer. Mrs Latimer was sitting on the bottom step, looking most unwell.

Emilia went over to her in concern. ‘Are you feeling all right?’ she asked.

‘No, dear, I’m feeling a bit queer,’ said Mrs Latimer in a weak voice. ‘Can you help me up, do you think? It’s my legs. They won’t do what I want them to.’

Emilia felt a rush of guilt. She had told Mr Latimer there was nothing wrong with his mother, and had suggested the elderly lady be encouraged to go on deck, but she had been quite wrong. She only hoped it was not her own words that had caused the present situation. If Mrs Latimer had heard her talking in the stateroom the day before, and then been encouraged to go out alone with such disastrous results, Emilia felt she would never forgive herself. Why had she interfered? she asked herself in mortification, as she put her hand gently beneath Mrs Latimer’s elbow.

‘Is your companion not with you?’ she said, as Mrs Latimer, half risen, fell back on to the stair again.

‘No, dear. She’s feeling poorly so I left her behind. She doesn’t travel well on ships. It’s the throbbing of the engines. They make her feel sick. Thank you,’ said Mrs Latimer, as she finally managed with Emilia’s aid, to rise to her feet. ‘You’re a good girl.’

‘It’s the least . . . ’ began Emilia, only to be arrested by the sound of a man’s voice behind her.

‘What the devil do you think you are doing?’

Emilia turned round with a sinking feeling, to see Carl Latimer striding towards her, glaring ferociously.

‘I am trying to help — ’ she began.

‘Help?’ he demanded as he almost drew level with her. ‘Inducing my mother to leave the safety of her stateroom and take a walk about the ship, without even so much as her companion to assist her? And that is what you call helping?’

‘I didn’t —’ began Emilia, her sense of injustice starting to rise with this false accusation.

‘And with what result? She collapses on the stairs.’

He put his arm solicitously around his mother’s shoulder as she staggered, and helped her to keep her feet.

‘I suggest you refrain from any further meddling in other people’s affairs,’ he said over his shoulder as he escorted his mother away from the stairs and towards her stateroom.

Emilia was tempted to make an angry retort, but his words so exactly matched her own feelings that the words died on her tongue. She should have refrained from meddling. She had done no good. On the contrary, she had done a great deal of harm. Making matters worse was the fact that a number of curious glances were being directed towards her. Feeling distinctly uncomfortable, Emilia turned to go towards the deck.

‘Got a mighty fine suitor there,’ said a formidable woman, dressed in grand style. She had the appearance of a very wealthy woman, but a twang in her voice suggested she had not always been wealthy. Emilia recognised her as Mrs Brown, the
Denver
millionairess who had joined the ship at
Cherbourg
.

‘Suitor?’ she said, shaking her head. ‘He is not my suitor. He can hardly bear to look at me.’

‘Is that so? Seems to me a man doesn’t cut up so rough unless his feelings are involved.’

‘You don’t understand,’ said Emilia. ‘His mother’s been very ill.’

Mrs Brown nodded. ‘I know all about it. I’ve met Carl a time or two in
America
.’ She looked at Emilia appraisingly. ‘How long are you staying on board?’

‘Until Queenstown,’ said Emilia.

‘Pity. If you were on board til
New York
we might see some fireworks. It would set a few of the old biddies here by their heels, that’s for sure.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Emilia, perplexed.

‘No. I don’t think you do,’ laughed Mrs Brown. ‘Enjoy the rest of your trip, my dear, and don’t worry about Mrs Latimer. She’ll pull through.’

‘What a lot of fuss,’ said Mrs Latimer as her son steered her gently along the corridor, back towards her stateroom.

‘I find you collapsed on the staircase and take you back to your stateroom and you call it a fuss? You forget how weak you are. You shouldn’t be out of bed —’

She sighed, and stopped, shaking off his arm.

‘Oh, yes, I should. I’ve been thinking about it for a while now. I’ve tried telling you once or twice, but you were always saying the doctors were right. I knew a breath of fresh air’d cheer me up but they made such a fuss about it I got frightened and gave in.’

‘They were right. Look what happened as soon as you left your stateroom. You’d hardly gone any distance before you collapsed,’ he reminded her sternly.

‘Now what’s distance got to do with anything? I hadn’t found my sea legs, that’s all. This
Titanic
’s a marvel, but it’s still a ship and I lost my balance.’

‘But the doctor  —’

‘The doctor’s a cheat. I heard that girl talking to you in the stateroom yesterday, and a good thing I did. It made my spirits rise, I can tell you!’

He looked uncertain.

‘Now then, Carl, don’t you believe me?’

He pursed his lips. ‘Every doctor we’ve ever had —’

‘Have a look at me,’ she said. ‘Do I look poorly?’

He scanned her face, then gave a rueful smile. Her eyes were sparkling with unwonted vitality, her complexion looked fresh and vibrant, and there was an animation to her features that hadn’t seen there for a very long time indeed.

‘I have to say I can’t remember having seen you look so well for years.’

‘That’s more like it. You’re a good boy, Carl, but if you try and put me back in that sickroom we’ll have words. I shouldn’t have gone into it in the first place, or any other sick room either, for that matter, but there’s no use crying over spilled milk. I’m alive again now, and that’s the way I’m going to stay.’

‘You don’t just look alive, you look young,’ he told her truthfully.

‘Well, so I should,’ she replied. ‘I was only eighteen when I had you. I’m not even fifty yet, you know.’

He looked surprised.

‘You’d forgotten. So had I, until that girl reminded me that I wasn’t an old lady. And now you’ve frightened her off,’ she said with a glint in her eye.

He laughed.

‘What’s so funny?’ she asked.

‘You are,’ he said with a smile. ‘You sound exactly as you used to, before you took to your bed. Before . . . . ’

‘Before your dad died?’

He nodded.

Her face fell. ‘It was a bad time, and that’s the truth, but what’s done is done. I’ve got to make the best of it, and I’ve got that young woman to thank for making me see it. If she hadn’t come in, I’d still be in that sick room. Would you believe it, I was so used to being treated like an invalid I’d started thinking I must be one. You’d better go and find her, Carl, and ask her to have her dinner with us.’

He pursed his lips. ‘I can’t do that, I’m afraid. She’s leaving the ship at Queenstown.’

His mother looked surprised.

‘How do you know that?’ she asked. ‘I didn’t know you knew her.’

‘I don’t. But I tried to buy her stateroom from her and she told me I could have it when she left the ship She’ll be disembarking at mid-day.’