Titanic: The Long Night (2 page)

The only independent woman Elizabeth knew was her great-aunt Bess, for whom she had been named. Bess had never married, and was in her early fifties now. She lived alone in an enormous house in Westchester that smelled of cats and lily of the valley, a sickening combination. She treated all six of her huge, hostile cats as if they were her children, but had no patience at all with real children. Elizabeth had been frightened of her for years. Bess Langston was not a very good example of the “independent woman” Elizabeth envisioned herself becoming someday. There had to be a more pleasant way of living on one’s own. All Elizabeth wanted was the chance to find it.

How was she ever going to do that, with her parents orchestrating her life?

She was planning on using this time on board the
Titanic
to change their minds, to beg them to let her attend Vassar College in September to study journalism, instead of marrying Alan. It wasn’t as if she were asking to go back to Europe. Poughkeepsie, New York, wasn’t that far from home. Monica Beaumont, a girl one year ahead of Elizabeth at Miss Chatsworth’s School in Manhattan, was a student at Vassar, and she often came home by herself on the train on weekends. Monica was studying biology, and said that she loved college.

I would, too, Elizabeth thought now, hearing her mother calling her from the next room. I know I would love it. They
have
to let me go. They just have to.

But they had refused to let her stay in London, and she’d had no choice in that matter. She had no money of her own. Not until she was twenty-one. If she made them too angry, they would disown her. It wasn’t the money itself she cared about, but the freedom it would provide. So she had to be careful. If she were penniless, she could never go to college.

They had to change their minds about the debut and the marriage, and let her go to school. She would spend every waking moment on this floating hotel working toward that end. No making friends, no playing shuffleboard, no swimming, even though she loved swimming and had been amazed to discover that the
Titanic
actually had a swimming pool. She would have positively no fun at all until she persuaded them to let her make her own choices.

She left the bed then, went to the dressing table, sat on the plush, green velvet bench and peered into the mirror. She knew without being told that she would be one of the prettier debutantes. This was not conceit, it was simple fact. It had nothing to do with her, since she’d inherited her fair skin, deep blue eyes, and pale hair from her mother, who was still pretty and would have been a great beauty had she had more of what Elizabeth thought of as “sparkle.” Her mother did not sparkle. It was Elizabeth’s firm opinion that her mother’s apparent lack of personality was the direct result of her husband’s strong, almost overwhelming presence. He was the competent one, the popular one, the accomplished one of the pair. If there had ever been a shining light in Nola Langston’s eyes, it had been overshadowed long ago by the brilliance of Martin Farr’s light.

Elizabeth was determined not to make the same mistake. If she ever married at all (and she wasn’t sure that she would), she hoped to find a mate who would see her as a partner, rather than as someone subservient to his needs and wishes.

She had expressed that idea aloud to her mother, only once.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” her mother had responded. “If women were meant to express their opinions, we’d be allowed to vote.”

“As we should be!” Elizabeth had replied hotly.

Now, she took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then she carefully, studiously, rearranged her hair in a proper upsweep, pinning it carefully in place, got up from the dressing table, and taking one last, satisfied look around at the roomy, tastefully decorated cabin, left to explore the ship. Without a hat.

At the same time that Elizabeth and her family were leaving London’s Waterloo Station for Southampton that morning, a tall, very thin young man in a worn tweed jacket and cap, his arms loaded down with a large, leather portfolio and a trio of large boxes tied with string, left Paris on the
Train Transatlantique
for Cherbourg, France, a six-hour trip. But when the train arrived at Gare Maritime in Cherbourg, there was no sign of the great ship
Titanic
that Max Whittaker had read so much about. Impatient under the very best of circumstances, he glowered from beneath thick, dark eyebrows as the announcement came that embarkation on the tenders, originally scheduled to leave at four-thirty, would be delayed at least an hour. Something about the new ship having some trouble in Southampton.

“Perfect!” Max muttered under his breath. How good could this highly touted ship be if it couldn’t even make it out of Southampton without problems? It hadn’t been his idea to procure passage on a maiden voyage. The problem with maiden voyages was, if there were any manufacturing mistakes to be worked out, they hadn’t been discovered yet. He would have preferred passage on a more sea-tested ship. But he was totally, completely broke after his year of studying art in Paris. He had had to swallow his pride and contact his grandmother for passage home. That seemed preferable to contacting his parents, who were still angry with him. The
Titanic
was his grandmother’s choice. Also the first-class accommodations, which Max wouldn’t have selected for himself. Too many snobs, most of whom knew very little about art. All a painting had to be was expensive, and they’d gladly hang it on their walls. His parents included.

He wasn’t the only one upset about the delay. Others complained aloud. Some people got up and, paying someone to watch their baggage, strolled off to explore. Others shrugged and headed for the nearby casino. A young couple set off along the Grand Jetée, keeping their eyes on the ocean for some sign of the great liner.

Sighing with irritation, Max dropped one of the larger boxes onto the ground and sat down on top of it, stretching his long legs out in front of him. “I should have stayed in Paris,” he told a small boy playing with a few shiny marbles. The boy frowned up at him, clearly not understanding English. Max repeated his statement, this time in French, and the boy smiled and nodded. “
Oui, oui, Paris
,” he cried. Then he went back to his marbles.

Max sat, staring glumly out at the sea, willing the ship to appear. His legs were already beginning to cramp.

At about that time, in County Cork, Ireland, a young girl and two male companions were cheerfully making their way south by a variety of means. Katie Hanrahan had never been so excited. She was not only going to America to seek her fortune, an adventure in itself, but she was making the trip on a great new ship, the
Titanic.
Everyone in Ballyford had talked about the wondrous new vessel. And all seemed to want to take a trip on it, though few could afford even a third-class passage. Fortunately for Katie, her da had done well this year, thanks be to the dairy cows and the milk and cheese they provided. And although her ma and da said they hated to see her go, they agreed that America was the place for Katie. So, on her sixteenth birthday on the first day of March, her da had surprised her with a steerage ticket on the maiden voyage of the majestic new ship, the
Titanic.

Katie had never been on a ship in her life. “But Da,” she had cried to her father when she opened the ticket envelope, “what if the ship should sink? I cannot swim a stroke!”

Her father had laughed and answered jovially, “Ah, Katie-girl, have you not heard? The miracle ship
Titanic
cannot sink!”

She had found that reassuring. Her da was always right.

But it was truly Brian Kelleher she must thank for this journey. She wouldn’t have been allowed to go if Brian, nearly a grown man at twenty, hadn’t agreed to go along and seek his fortune as well. According to Katie’s da, who had worked alongside Brian on the farm for two years now, Brian was “a strong, steady bloke, and that’s the truth of it.”

Of course, she hadn’t known that Brian would be bringing along his younger brother, Paddy. Patrick Kelleher was as different from his older brother as a sheep from a cow. Katie had never taken to Paddy. A true rascal, especially with girls. Everyone knew it. Brian was quiet, like her, but Paddy wasn’t.

And then she found, to her surprise, that she was grateful for Paddy’s lighthearted company during the trip. He was a master at keeping their spirits up during the long, taxing trip, and that was the truth of it. He sang while they traveled first by wooden cart, told jokes while they rode next in the back of a lorry, played pranks on Brian while they traveled on foot. During that tiring trek, their luggage became so burdensome, Katie thought her back was going to break. Paddy took the luggage from her, carrying it along with his own, until they were lucky enough to hitch a ride on another lorry. Paddy
was
a rascal, but he was good company.

They were almost to Queenstown, where they would stay with a friend of Brian’s da until it was time to board the ship. “Better to get there early,” her ma had said as she hugged Katie good-bye, “than to miss this chance.”

It had been hard leaving her ma and da, always so good to her, and going off into the unknown. And she would miss Moira and Sean and Mary and the newest Hanrahan, Siobhan, not yet two.

But it was time. Her ma was right. This
was
her chance, and she’d have been a fool not to take it. Her uncle Malachy and his wife, Lottie, had agreed that she could stay with them in Brooklyn while she made her place in America. That was good fortune. Without relatives in the new country, her da would never have let her go.

The chill rain had stopped at last, and as the skies cleared, Katie could see in the distance the unfinished spire of St. Coleman’s Cathedral, Queenstown.

Her heart swelled with excitement…and fear. Her adventure was about to begin.

Wednesday, April 10, 1912

On the boat deck astern, facing the docks, Elizabeth watched in fascination as six tugboats began to maneuver the massive
Titanic
from its moorings. From where she stood, leaning over the railing, she had a bird’s-eye view. The tugs seemed dwarfed, no larger than a child’s bathtub toys. The ship moved slowly…slowly. Then, still with the help of the tugboats, it made a ninety-degree turn, which felt to Elizabeth like the final, easy turn of a carousel ride. Now the ship was ready to go forward. The tugs slacked off, and the ship began to head out, away from the docks.

Elizabeth moved to the port side for a better look. There were two much smaller ships anchored on the port side. The rush of water as the
Titanic
pulled away was too much for one of the ships, the
New York
, and it began bobbing up and down in agitation. Its ropes snapped with a loud cracking sound. As the larger ship increased its speed, the
New York
, now free to follow if it chose, was pulled broadside. It looked from above as if the two ships would collide momentarily.

Elizabeth, watching from the railing, gasped and took a step backward, anticipating the collision. Others standing near her did the same.

The
Titanic
slowed, then halted in the water, then moved almost imperceptibly astern, back toward the dock, away from the smaller ship.

Elizabeth’s reaction was, Why isn’t my father up here, watching this? After all his talk about this ship being the greatest in the world, we have barely left the dock and already it’s in trouble! A faint hope arose within her that the trip would be canceled and they would all be forced to return to London.

The runaway
New York
drifted down river slightly, but one of the tugs had somehow managed to toss a wire or a rope on board. That was followed by other lines, until the tugs had regained control. Elizabeth continued to watch as the
New York
was allowed to drift further. It ended up with its bow pointing toward a floating bridge and was safely moored there until the powerful
Titanic
had left the area.

Though all of this seemed to Elizabeth to have happened in minutes, it had actually taken much longer. As the ship once again got underway, she heard the bugle announcing luncheon. Glancing down in surprise at the tiny, round gold watch worn on a delicate chain around her neck, she realized departure had been delayed by more than an hour by the near-collision between the two ships. She couldn’t wait to see her father. He hated delays.

When she arrived at the stateroom, she had to endure a brief lecture from her mother, who seemed aghast that Elizabeth had gone exploring on her own. “What will people think, seeing someone your age wandering about as if you had no chaperone?”

“That I’m a wild, irresponsible person who should be made to walk the plank,” Elizabeth retorted. Then, more calmly, “They won’t think anything, Mother. They have more important things on their minds.” And she told them how the captains of both the
Titanic
and the tugs had narrowly averted disaster.

Her mother frowned. She asked her husband nervously, “You don’t think that means this ship is too large to be handled efficiently, do you, Martin? You know, that’s why the Logans didn’t book passage. Amanda felt she would be safer on a smaller ship.”

“Amanda Logan is a neurotic bag of nerves,” her husband answered shortly. “She’d worry throughout the entire trip no matter what kind of ship she was on.” Facing the dresser mirror as he gave his black bow tie one final adjustment, he added, “And didn’t you hear what Elizabeth said? She said Captain Smith did a fine job of negotiating his way around the smaller ship. That should reassure you, my dear.”

Elizabeth’s mother didn’t look reassured. But she did look beautiful, as always, in a silk dress of periwinkle blue, its high collar edged with Irish lace, the same lace edging the cuffs of the long, full sleeves. “Come along, then,” she said to her husband and daughter. “The bugle blew a good fifteen minutes ago. Well be hard-pressed to find decent seats in the dining salon.”

Although there were elevators between decks, her father insisted on taking the Grand Staircase to D deck as they had not yet had a chance to study it in the rush of embarking. He had heard, he told them, that it rivaled anything seen in the best hotels.