The Second Mrs. Astor

by Shana Abe

  “I am Marian Thayer. Do you remember me? We were introduced once in Newport, a year or so ago. And we spoke on the lifeboat, but I think you were in something of a faint by then.”

  Madeleine bit her lip, shook her head. Their hands parted.

  “That’s all right. Here, come sit up in the bed and I’ll bring you the tray. Try the soup. It’s not bad.”

  “No. Excuse me. I must get dressed and go look for my husband.”

  “Colonel Astor is not aboard the Carpathia,” said Marian, in the same gentle tone. “There are a great many people not aboard, though. There’s talk that they may have been picked up by other ships.”

  “You can’t know that for certain. He might be here somewhere. He might be injured—”

  “Mrs. Astor. Do you imagine there is a single person of our ilk who would not recognize the colonel?”

  “Perhaps he’s on a lifeboat that hasn’t come in yet! I need to go see!”

  “All the lifeboats are in, long in. You’ve been asleep for nearly twenty-four hours. We’ve been underway for New York practically the entire time.”

  She stood paralyzed, trying to comprehend it. This time when Marian took her hand, she allowed herself to be led back to the bed.

  “You’ve had quite a soldier of a nurse guarding you all this while, but as the ship’s surgeon was of the opinion that you are out of immediate danger, your Miss Endres is off helping with the other injured passengers. There’s a lot of frostbite, broken bones, sprained ankles, matters of that sort to deal with. I suspect the doctor is overwhelmed. So I volunteered to check in on you, to see if I could entice you to eat.” She regarded the simple tray with a frown. “There was buttered bread to go with the soup, but it seemed to me the butter had gone off, so I skipped it. We have crackers instead.”

  Madeleine slumped against the pillows. Marian Thayer got up, found Madeleine’s sweater, and arranged it over her shoulders.

  “The rest of your clothes will have dried by now, I think, although I’m afraid your fur is beyond repair. We stored your jewelry in the ship’s safe, just so you know. Doctor McGee has issued strict orders that you remain in bed, and I really do think you should listen to him.”

  Madeleine gazed down at the bowl of soup, at the bits of carrot and celery turning in the greasy broth, and felt her stomach pitch. When she picked up the spoon, her hand was trembling.

  “I’m afraid I must tell you something more,” said the other woman, regretful.

  Madeleine put down the spoon, trying to control her nerves.

  “Apparently there’s a journalist aboard this ship. Maybe two. And at least two people with cameras.”

  “What?” she said, stunned. “Already?”

  “The journalist booked his ticket as a legitimate passenger. He was headed off to Europe for a holiday with his wife before Carpathia got our distress call and diverted, so it’s really just an unfortunate coincidence. I assume the people with the cameras are merely hobbyists, but they’ve been snapping shots all the while. I wanted to warn you. I understand that . . . your relationship with the press has been difficult.”

  Madeleine wanted to laugh at that but couldn’t. She could only sit there, blinking at the soup, the wooden tray, the linen napkin so neatly folded.

  “The newspaperman has been slipping around, attempting to interview the survivors. A Mr. Hurd, I am told. Carlisle or Carlos, something like that. His wife’s name is Katherine. They both continue to inquire about you.”

  Madeleine flattened her palms against the sheets, her fingers spread, shaking her head.

  “My husband is missing, too,” said Marian in her gentle, grave voice. “I have a son your age, and by God’s good grace he lived through that night. Eleanor Widener’s had no word of either her husband or her son.” She placed the spoon back into Madeleine’s hand. “Think of your baby, Mrs. Astor, and eat.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Carpathia’s magnificent Captain Rostron had given over his own cabin to me and Eleanor and Marian. (In the days that followed, he would be hailed as a hero, and indeed he is. Without him, I have no doubt that every single person aboard Titanic would have perished, instead of three-quarters. I do not plan to go on an ocean liner again, but if I do, I will find the one he commands.)

  If you’re thinking that three of us sequestered in a cabin meant for a single occupant was a lot, you’re right, but believe me, we were lucky. Nearly everyone had to share rooms or berths (except for Bruce Ismay, hiding away in one of the ship’s hospital examination chambers, and he wasn’t even injured). Had you been offered someone’s cabin or their bed, you could at least sleep in relative comfort. But the Cunard liner was a great deal smaller than our own had been, you see, and she had set sail from New York with nearly the same number of passengers as they’d taken in from the lifeboats. We were all of us practically shoulder-to-shoulder.

  For the four days it took us to get back to New York, people bedded down wherever they could, on tables, on benches, on the floors of the lounges and saloons. Whenever awake, they formed huddles of misery, sobbing and whispering and repeatedly exchanging their tales of that night.

  I’ve mulled for many an hour on that, the compulsion to discuss what had happened again and again. I think now I’ve teased it out. If one breaks the horror apart, breaks it into all these little, smaller moments, perhaps it’s possible to reconstruct it in such a way as to make everything more . . . manageable.

  At any rate, it’s a better way to carry on than turning to laudanum.

  As we sailed for home, the universe beyond Carpathia clamored for the names of Titanic’s survivors aboard the ship, and to the best of the abilities of Carpathia’s unhappy, exhausted wireless operator, the universe had slowly been fed them. (My own, I was told, was among the first released, and at least I had that slight comfort in the days that followed: my family knew I was safe.)

  But, as hungry as we were for news of our missing loved ones, we never received a single name wired back to us.

  Tuesday, April 16th, 11:59 p.m.

  Aboard Carpathia

  Madeleine came awake with a jerk. The cabin blazed with light, stark white that plummeted into black. Someone was shooting off rockets. The ship was sinking.

  She scrambled up, panicked, and the light flashed again, this time followed by a deep roll of thunder.

  She remained upright, catching her breath, waiting for her heart to calm.

  Beside her, curled away on the far side of the mattress, Eleanor still slept. Marian, covered in blankets on the settee, also didn’t stir.

  The lightning flickered again, dimmer now. The thunder rumbled. A thin patter of rainfall struck the glass covering the portholes, small and subtle, like mice scampering inside walls.

  Madeleine eased out of the bed, trying to shift the mattress as little as possible. As soon as her toes touched the floor, her left foot cramped, sharply painful, and she had to stop and bend at the knee with her foot stretched behind her in a long, flexed arch until the tendon released.

  She opened the wardrobe and found her dress and cardigan and shoes. The tailor-made was impossible to manage without help, so she simply tugged the sweater on over her combinations, long and white, and worked her feet into the shoes. The leather seams scraped hard against her skin and stockings, dried rigid from their hours submerged in salt water. Her sable was there, too, so she took it from the hanger, put it on as quietly as possible.

  Neither Eleanor nor Marian woke.

  She took up a White Star deck blanket that someone had draped over a chair, wrapped it over her head and around her shoulders as the women from steerage did. She made very certain the door made no sound as she closed it behind her.

  She did not know the time. There was a wall clock back inside the cabin, but she hadn’t thought to look at it, and they had locked her corsage watch away with the rest of her jewels. But it was dark out, cloudy with no hint of anything but full night beyond the dim lights of the deck. After all her hours confined
to the captain’s quarters, it was a relief to be outside again, breathing in the rain.

  Lightning flashed in the clouds overhead, purple and silver, revealing massive whorls and billows in swift broken instants.

  Beneath the storm, Carpathia steamed smoothly along.

  The fur coat hung from her, clumped and ragged, the lower third of it stiffened with crystals of salt. The crystals winked as she walked, minuscule diamonds that melted and dropped away with her every step. She left them behind her like a trail of breadcrumbs, only she didn’t know if or when she’d be retracing her steps.

  She found her way onto the main section of the deck. She glanced behind her at the bridge, blue-green lights burning, shadows of men within, then down at the empty deck chairs left unfolded from the day. A few fellows had stretched out along slatted benches beneath an awning portside, their arms pillowing their heads. Despite the falling rain, none of them were awake.

  Lights glowed, very weak, past the windows of what she guessed was the dining saloon. She found the entrance, pulled open the door. The smell hit her first: onions and cheese and unwashed humans, more than she could easily count. The illumination was coming from a handful of wall sconces; all the chandeliers had been darkened. She could see why the sconces had been left on: there were so many people spread out across the floor that it would be easy get up in the middle of the night and stumble across a neighbor just trying to get to the lavatory.

  She began to pick her way between them. She paused to take in each face, men and women both but certainly every single man, but did not see Jack.

  The saloon led to a hallway—he was not there either, squeezed up against the polished wood wall—which led to the smoke room, full of stained glass and even more men. There was a scattering of ladies in here, too, lodged in this sanctuary of masculinity. The women slept atop the sofas, their hats and gloves and shoes arranged neatly nearby.

  Madeleine crept among them as if on cat’s paws, keeping her blanket tugged close against her chin.

  He was not here.

  She kept going, not understanding the layout of the ship and not caring to, only walking along as her feet took her, finding more people, their expressions etched with sorrow, even asleep—not him, not him—moving on.

  * * *

  On a wooden bench in another narrow corridor, she passed an older woman covered to her waist in falling furs, a satin cushion beneath her head. One hand rested atop her sternum, clenched into a defiant, spotted fist. Her hair was gray and stringy and unkempt. She was breathing heavily, eyes closed, her features cadaverous.

  It was Charlotte Cardeza. The grand Mrs. Cardeza, looking like nothing more than a grizzled fishwife caught napping in the open, her mouth agape, aged and senseless.

  Madeleine edged past, paused, went back to her. As carefully as she could, she lifted that bony knotted fist, straightened the furs and slid the top one up further, all the way up to Charlotte’s chin, before lowering her hand again.

  Kinder hearts are stronger, her mother had once said.

  Maddy needed to be strong.

  She crept on.

  * * *

  A deck below, in what might have been the second-class lounge, Madeleine at last encountered a pair of women awake, wrapped in blankets and nestled in chairs in a corner, holding hands and conversing in whispers. She paused at the entrance, then turned away to grant them privacy.

  “Madeleine.”

  She turned back, uncertain in the low light. The woman spoke again, her voice scarcely a murmur above the steady thudding of the liner’s engines.

  “Madeleine, it’s me.”

  “Margaret?”

  The woman stood, shedding her blanket. She wore black velvet and diamonds and opened her arms, smiling sadly, and Madeleine, all at once and without warning, lost her courage.

  She rushed forward to embrace her, barely missing three people along the way.

  “They didn’t tell me,” she said into her friend’s shoulder. Her body trembled; her face felt wet and hot. Margaret’s auburn hair was loosely bound into a plait, and Maddy turned her face into the rough silk of it, scented of rosemary and brine. “They didn’t tell me you were here. I asked and they said they thought so but didn’t know. They said they’d find out for me but didn’t know.”

  Margaret patted her on the back. Maddy hardly felt it through the thick ruin of the coat.

  “I’m sorry,” Margaret whispered. “I should have come to you before. But the doctor said you were to be left undisturbed, and there’s been so much to be done down here with everyone, with all these poor people from steerage. But I should have come. I am sorry.”

  Maddy was crying now, trying not to, trying not to make any noise at all so that no one around them would wake, her lungs burning and shrinking. She pulled back, scrubbing her hands along her face. She felt the stare of Margaret’s companion, candidly curious, and ducked away from it.

  “Have you seen Jack? Is Jack here?”

  “No, my dear heart. No. I’ve been up and down this ship, top to bottom. And . . . no.”

  Madeleine nodded, wiping at her cheeks again. She lifted her gaze to a painting of a Spanish galleon battling lapis-colored waves. It hung just a fraction crooked on the wall, the ormolu frame a peeling glimmer against the darker wood behind it.

  “Come on.” Margaret touched her arm. “Come with me, little mother. We need to get you back to bed.”

  * * *

  The rain turned into fog, and the fog consumed the ship and everything around her, forcing the Carpathia to slow. Hours and hours were added to their voyage home.

  Madeleine slept more, hidden beneath her blankets. Occasionally she’d wake, either from the booming blasts of the foghorn or else whenever Carrie or Rosalie or the doctor would show up. She’d eat the food they’d brought and answer the physician’s questions, and then fall back into her ocean of slumber.

  It was Carrie who told her there was no sign of Victor Robins, the valet, either. Madeleine could only nod.

  If she suffered any nightmares during those damp gray days, she couldn’t remember them, and for that Madeleine was intensely grateful.

  Her visitors brought any tidbits of news they could glean about Jack, about what had happened to him after Lifeboat Four had launched.

  He had helped load the last boats with frantic women and children.

  He had placed a woman’s hat atop the head of a boy so that the child would be allowed to board with his mother.

  He had sawed tangled ropes free from the davits with his penknife.

  He had freed all the dogs from the kennels.

  He had stood back calmly amid the pandemonium after all of the lifeboats were gone, smoking a cigarette with two other gentlemen.

  Margaret and Carrie and the rest—they must have thought they were comforting her. But the only common thread Madeleine found to connect any of their stories was that no one knew what actually became of her husband. No one saw him again once the ship foundered.

  Or, if they had, no one would tell her about it.

  * * *

  Late at night, shrouded in fog, she could go out.

  Hardly anyone else did, which meant she mostly walked the decks alone, wrapped in her coat and the concealing blanket, her skin and hair clammy with the cold moisture but not caring, because in these moments no one cried, and no one spoke of drowning or freezing or who was to blame. The only sounds she had to listen to were the ordinary ones of the ship herself. Creaking ropes. Thrumming engines. The water below, soughing past.

  In the pre-dawn hours of Thursday, the day they were due to dock at last, Madeleine stood at a railing along the promenade deck, contemplating the smooth misted nothingness that erased the sea and sky. That erased the world that would be waiting for her, clawing for her, scrabbling, such a short while from now.

  The mast lights behind her lent the deck and rail and darkness a silvery, prismatic glow.

  “Mrs. Astor?”

  It was a woman’s
voice, unfamiliar. Madeleine didn’t turn from the railing.

  “My name is Katherine Hurd. I’m with—”

  “I know who you are,” Madeleine said, quiet.

  “Oh.” The woman paused, then rallied. “I’m very sorry to bother you. I was wondering if you’d—if you’d care to say something. For the record.”

  Madeleine closed her eyes. “Such as?”

  “Anything. Anything at all you’d wish anyone to know, even as a matter of public interest. A number of the other wives have given me statements about that last night, or else messages meant for their loved ones.”

  Madeleine felt her lips press into a smile, keen as a blade. “And you, of course, will publish those messages purely as a matter of public interest.”

  “A brief statement of fact can do no harm,” countered Mrs. Hurd.

  “I believe a statement of fact about me has already been released. I was saved. Surely that’s enough.”

  “But—a more personal note, perhaps? For the sake of your family?”

  Madeleine glanced at her. Katherine Hurd, the reporter’s wife, was in her middle thirties, maybe, tall and wearing a summer hat, despite the time and the weather. The hat was silk and straw—not nearly warm enough—with large, faux coneflowers fixed to the brim. The petals trembled with the wind.

  Madeleine let the blanket fall back from her hair. “You’re not a journalist.”

  Mrs. Hurd pursed her mouth, released a rush of air that lifted and withered into smoke. “No. Not as such.”

  “But your husband is.”

  “Yes.”

  Madeleine faced her squarely. “Do you have any news about any other survivors besides us? Anyone else rescued and taken aboard other ships?”

  Mrs. Hurd hesitated, then shook her head. “Captain Rostron has forbidden all wireless communication to, or from, either my husband or myself. He has confiscated all the stationery aboard the ship in the hope that we cannot write without it. He’s even had our cabin searched for scraps of paper. We’ve had no news at all, I’m afraid.”