The Second Mrs. Astor

by Shana Abe

  “Naturally! And he read my palm for me.”

  “The right or the left?” asked Margaret, looking serious.

  “The left. He was terribly intense about it, scowling and mumbling. Then he looked up at me and told me that I would be in danger every time I traveled on the sea—”

  Charles snorted.

  “—because he saw me adrift in an open boat on the ocean. He said I was going to lose everything but my life, and that I would be saved but that others would be lost.”

  She laughed a little, but no one else joined in. A new silence descended over them all, heavy and strained.

  “Then what happened?” Madeleine asked.

  “Then,” said Charles, “I gave the bugger—excuse me!—the man the baksheesh he demanded, and that was the end of it. He went off to fleece someone else.”

  “An unsettling story, though,” said Eleanor Widener, a line of worry creasing her brow. “I swear, you’ve given me a chill.”

  And me, Madeleine thought.

  Ethel rested an elbow brazenly upon the table, lifting up her wine. “I fancy we’re safe enough on this voyage. After all, Charles was right there with you, and the fellow never said a word to him about being stranded on a boat or dying.”

  “That’s right,” Charles said. “Rather rude of him not to tell me if I’m going to die. I was the one who paid him.”

  The stewards arrived in a spate of snowy jackets to clear their plates, bringing out the next course. The orchestra began a German waltz.

  Margaret said lightly, “Has anyone else heard a rooster crowing from time to time? I swear I’m not crazy. I realize Titanic is thoroughly modern, but they don’t keep live poultry aboard for our meals now, I hope?”

  Mark Fortune smiled, obviously relieved at the turn of conversation. “No, Mrs. Brown, you’re not crazy, and no, they don’t. There’s a foursome of prized breeders, roosters and hens, crated and housed by the galley. One of the passengers picked them up in France. Worth a pretty penny, from what I understand, and the lady means to take them back to her estate . . .”

  Madeleine gazed down at the coq au vin that had been placed before her, fragrant and steaming. Her stomach rumbled.

  But she could not stop thinking about what Alice had said, the open boat, the sea. In her mind’s eye, she remembered the lifeboat from the Noma struggling to reach the stranded men of the Zingara, that small shell of wood pitching against the blackened waves.

  She looked up and out the windows lining the walls, at the belt of stars caught behind the leaded glass: cold and remote, white as ice.

  CHAPTER 23

  It was an uncanny dreamworld aboard that ship nearly from the beginning, growing stronger as the days went on. Time seemed suspended; the hours uncounted. There was everything to do and, at the same time, absolutely nothing. You could pace along the decks, compose letters in the reading and writing room, splash around in the swimming bath, or steam yourself like a lobster in the Turkish baths. You could play squash, or chess, or dominoes, or draughts, and there were nearly always card games going on wherever I looked, usually bridge or whist. Charlotte Cardeza’s son hosted poker games on the private promenade deck of their suite, raucous affairs that included (from what I understand) a great deal of drinking and smoking, even by the ladies.

  (Your father went once. The stakes were a dollar a chip, and he won rather a lot. The cardsharps were not pleased, and after that, they didn’t invite him back.)

  You could have a meal at practically any time of the day or night, breakfast, luncheon, tea in your rooms, tea in the Palm Court & Veranda Café, the lounge. Dinners of ten scrumptious courses, the most luscious dishes you ever tasted, followed by coffee and port.

  Out of boredom, I guess, or just because they could, someone began a betting pool on the number of nautical miles covered by the ship each day, and a good many of the passengers became involved in it. There was always a surge of interest every afternoon outside the Purser’s Office when the miles from the previous day were posted. People were happy when Titanic’s daily tally bested that of the Olympic for the same run.

  Everyone expected Titanic to be the faster ship, and she was.

  Your father got his tour with Bruce Ismay. I declined to go. As he came back grimed with grease and soot—the tour had included the boiler rooms and the engine rooms—it was not a decision I regretted.

  At six o’clock, the ship’s bugler would play a tune to let us know it was time to dress for dinner. At seven, he reappeared, playing “The Roast Beef of Old England” to let us know it was time to eat.

  Titanic was a ship full of sheep, ready to be herded. You hardly had to think about anything at all. All you had to do was enjoy your captivity, and have faith that everything would be well.

  Friday, April 12, 1912

  Aboard Titanic

  Nurse Endres agreed, with trepidation, to a visit to the Turkish baths. The weather had dawned uncertain, with layers of gunmetal clouds blowing in and out, trailing needles of rain. Madeleine had hoped to walk the boat deck with Jack and Kitty, but the rain was slanting cold, the kind designed, according to Jack, to soak through coats and scarves and hats and steal into your heart and lungs.

  Thus Carrie had advised against it, and Jack had agreed, and Madeleine was outnumbered.

  He went to the Purser’s Office to purchase two tickets to the baths instead, handing them over with a bow.

  “It’s reserved for the ladies in the morning, gents in the afternoon,” he said. “So you’ll need to be there within the hour.”

  “But—the Turkish baths, sir?” Carrie had said, with more than a hint of dismay. “Is it decent?”

  Madeleine tapped the paper tickets against her palm. “Let’s go find out.”

  * * *

  The entrance to the baths was on F deck, far lower into the belly of the ship than Madeleine had been before. Down here, she had a much clearer sense of the rhythm of the engines, a constant drumbeat vibrating through the walls and floor. Any trace of natural light, of the rain or clouds, had disappeared; it truly was like being swallowed by a great mechanical beast. But the bath complex itself was extravagant enough, with subdued lighting and a fantastical, Moorish theme. The bath attendant, a slender young woman with downcast eyes, handed them both thick white towels, and directed them to the changing rooms.

  “We are to disrobe?” Carrie asked.

  “Yes, ma’am, if you please. Right through there, at the end of the cooling room. I will wait out here until you need me.”

  Carrie said nothing, clutching her towels to her chest, but the look she threw Madeleine was scandalized.

  The cooling room, center of the complex, was something to behold. Long and exotic, it had a deeply recessed, blood-red ceiling supported by intricately engraved wooden pillars. Glassy green-and-blue tiled mosaics alternated with fretted wooden screens affixed along the walls. Bronze lanterns glowed from above; metal domes that looked like halved, gilded onions topped the doorways. The chaise lounges were teak and gilt, covered in cream and red pillows and cushions.

  The overall effect was one of being cloistered inside in a feverishly contrived harem. All that was missing was the scent of cumin and turmeric peppering the air, and the call to prayers from minarets beyond the screens.

  “It’s almost like being back in Egypt,” Carrie whispered as they walked to the curtained dressing rooms.

  “Almost like Egypt,” Madeleine whispered back, “but somehow more.”

  There were six other ladies in the chamber, no one Madeleine knew, all of them wrapped in towels and reclining back on the loungers, looking either flushed and frazzled or else peacefully heavy-lidded. Another attendant brought them glasses of water on a tray.

  A girl with unbound brown hair, one of the peaceful ones, caught Madeleine’s eye. She lifted her glass in salute. On the table beside her was another glass of what appeared to be white wine.

  “It’s really quite relaxing,” the girl offered, smiling.


  Madeleine did not go so far as to release her hair, but she did strip all the way down—dress, underdress, corset, linen combinations, shoes and garters and silk stockings; the attendant had to step in to help—emerging from the curtained room in her towels, both embarrassed and curious at what would come next.

  The attendant lifted her hand. “Will you sit for the weighing machine chair, ma’am?”

  A canvas-covered chair set inside a gilded bench had been placed near one of the walls, strange and mysterious.

  “What does it do?”

  “It will print out a ticket with your weight, ma’am. So that afterwards, if you like, you may see the results of your bath.”

  Madeleine took a step back, thinking of her thickening figure. “No, thank you.”

  Carrie declined, as well.

  “This way, then, if you please. It’s best to start in the temperate room.”

  The temperate room was hot. At least it felt so to Madeleine. They settled together on one of the empty couches and looked at each other. Madeleine began to smile, and then to giggle, eventually cupping both hands over her mouth to hold in the sound. A loop of hair coming free from her pins lay plastered against her temple, limp with the heat. Carrie wiped away the perspiration beading along her forehead.

  “Isn’t it like the desert?” Madeleine asked when she could, lowering her hands.

  “But more,” replied Carrie, fanning herself with one end of her towel.

  * * *

  After the temperate room, they were to go to the hot room. Carrie opened the door, winced, and shut it again.

  “No,” she said, emphatic, and turned to the attendant. “What is the temperature in that chamber?”

  “Around ninety-three degrees Celsius,” the woman said.

  Carrie drew in a breath.

  “It’s very healthful,” the attendant added, earnest. “For invigorating the circulation and improving the complexion, ma’am. All the finest physicians will tell you so. You need only hop in and out.”

  Carrie crossed her arms. “What else is left?”

  * * *

  What was left was the swimming bath or the shampooing room, and Madeleine chose the shampooing room, because the bath—while pleasant enough in its own way, with its high, bright walls and ceiling, filled with warmed saltwater from a storage tank on the boat deck far above—was empty and unexciting and nothing like the serene marble pool back in Cairo, where she had floated with her husband beneath the open night sky.

  In the shampooing room, she endured a shower from a series of nozzles attached to tubing, their spray lukewarm and hard. She emerged dripping but cleaner than she’d likely been in months, swathed in more towels. The shampoo left her wreathed in the strong, unmistakable aroma of freesias, which clung to her for hours afterwards, sweet and soapy, a phantom scent trailing her wherever she went.

  * * *

  Back in the suite, Rosalie took in the state of her hair with astonishment.

  That evening before dinner, the brush and comb raked extra hard against Madeleine’s scalp.

  Saturday, April 13th

  The liner steamed along the North Atlantic, and the weather was rapidly cooling. Not enough to tempt Madeleine to return to the Turkish baths, but enough so that when she accompanied Jack outside for their twice-daily walks, she donned a woolen tailor-made suit and a fur coat and muff, and worried that Kitty might soon need a coat of her own. They were well and truly grasped inside the fist of an arctic spring.

  The child inside her was growing into a heavy weight, far heavier than her body had before conceded. As they ambled along the boat deck, the dog tugging at her leash, Madeleine felt her baby move for the first time, the barest shifting of her center, just enough to steal her balance. She staggered two steps; by the third, Jack had her by the arm.

  “Madeleine?”

  She laughed and clutched her hands over his. “Dear me! I’m sorry I’m so clumsy but, oh, Jack! I think she moved!”

  His face lit up with a sudden quick delight. She slid his hand down her body over her sable, over her thick Parisian coat and dress, uncaring of who noticed or why, pressing his palm against her. One of the emerald buttons from the fur dug into her stomach.

  “She moved,” she repeated quietly into the curve of his ear, just for him.

  They waited but it didn’t happen again, and he dropped his hand. Kitty nudged between them, raising her nose to be petted.

  “Next time,” Madeleine said. “You’ll feel her then.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Next time.”

  In front of all the other people walking and dawdling nearby, Jack captured her chin with the curl of his fingers and kissed her on the lips.

  The wind shoved by. The sky was so sheer a blue it seemed unreal, an echo of her thoughts, of a memory of salt and sand and sea, as fanciful and pretend as the Moorish baths, decks below.

  * * *

  “Hello! Mrs. Astor, yes? How do you do?”

  Madeleine twisted a fraction in her deck chair, wrapped from collar to toes in warm blankets, a mug of hot beef tea steaming between her palms. She was waiting for Jack to come around again on his walk with Kitty; the beef tea was a lovely bonus of sitting on the promenade deck on a chilly afternoon. One of the deck stewards waited nearby, ready to replenish her bouillon whenever she liked.

  A young woman in mink and a tall, flowery hat gave a little wave from three chairs away. It was the heavy-lidded girl from the baths, her brown hair now neatly tied up, smiling her same sleepy smile.

  Madeleine lowered her mug. “Hello, Miss . . . ?”

  “Mrs. Bishop! Mrs. Dickinson Bishop, that is. But, please! Call me Helen.”

  Helen Bishop pushed out of her chair, resettled in the one right next to Madeleine without waiting for an invitation. This close, Madeleine could see that she was probably the same age as she, with a slyly smiling mouth and those slumberous big eyes.

  “I’ve noticed you walking along the decks with the colonel and your dog. So charming! I admire your devotion to it—the dog, I mean. Dick and I have just gotten one of our own, little Frou Frou. We did receive permission to keep it in our cabin, but mostly it’s down in the kennels. I’d love to have it around us more, but it’s such a bother! Whining and barking all the time, always begging for attention! Needing treats, needing walks and pettings, all that. And the fur goes everywhere! I declare, I don’t know how people tolerate it. At this point, I honestly don’t know what we thought it would be like to have a dog, but certainly we did not brace ourselves for this. I imagined a dog would be more like a baby, you know? Adorable and dear, something you could show to your friends and then put away. Something you could hand off to the help when necessary.”

  “I see. Forgive me, Mrs. Bishop, I find I’m somewhat weary—”

  “Oh, no! I do hope you’ll call me Helen! Because I really want to call you Madeleine. I hope you don’t mind that! I’ve read so much about you already, you wouldn’t conceive it! I mean, everyone has, of course. I’m hardly alone! But I feel as if I’ve just come across an old bosom confidante, even though I know we’ve never met before in our lives. As soon as I noticed you in the baths—how amazing that we’re aboard the same ship!—I knew that we should chat. I’m a newlywed, too, as it happens! How positively amazing that we are to be friends !”

  Madeleine brought her bouillon closer to her face, lowering her eyes into slits. The steam coiled up and around her, scented of beef and garlic and tender rich leeks. She blew a sigh into it, tearing the tendrils apart.

  The real world was rushing in again at last, predictable, inexorable. There were going to be girls like this around every corner from here on out.

  “Helen Bishop,” Madeleine murmured without looking up, getting the words out. “How do you do.”

  “A pleasure! You’re so kind! I never meant to encroach upon you, Madeleine, I swear. I know you’re—why, you’re New York. Dickie and I are Dowagiac.”

  Madeleine lifted her lashes.


  “Michigan,” Helen clarified, her fingers nervously checking the hooks of her coat, up and down and up.

  “Ah. I’m from . . . I’m from a few places, actually,” Madeleine said. “But Manhattan and Bar Harbor, mostly, I suppose.”

  “How fabulous!” Helen Bishop gushed.

  “Yes,” replied Madeleine, breathing in the scent of the broth. “Yes, I imagine it is.”

  Sunday, April 14th

  She slept through the church service held that morning in the dining saloon. After her encounter with Helen Bishop, Madeleine decided to retreat from Titanic for a while, and their stateroom was peaceful, the bed plush and comfortable. Even after the sunlight began to breach the velvet curtains draping the window, changing all the shadows of the room into soft colors, warming the satins and silks, Madeleine pulled the covers over her head and squeezed her eyes shut.

  Jack, up and dressed, came to sit at the edge of the mattress. She felt it through the languor dragging her downward, the sudden dip of the bedding. He eased back the covers to stroke the hair from her forehead.

  She opened her eyes a little, caught a glimpse of golden cufflinks and starched linen. Closed them again.

  “I’m not going,” she mumbled into the pillow.

  “I know, love. I’ll make your excuses.”

  “Tell them I’m hiding from them,” she said. “Tell them I’ll come out when they all go away.”

  He laughed, short and rumbling. “I’ll present an excuse a little less porcupine, perhaps. Sleep well. I’ll return in a while.”

  She pulled a second pillow beneath her to support her belly. She was already floating back into her warm, quiet dreams as he closed the door gently behind him.

  * * *

  “Messages for you,” Jack said that afternoon, coming back to find her seated by the electric fireplace in the sitting room, enjoying tea and scones, pretty blue-and-white bowls of sliced strawberries, ivory dots of clotted cream.

  Kitty, at her feet, followed the movement of Madeleine’s fork with unwavering attention.