The Deep

by Alma Katsu

  “Violet said you jumped in to save a baby.”

  She feels a thud at the back of her skull, like a mallet striking a bell. “Yes . . . That’s right. I did.” How could she forget that?

  “Then you’re a hero, Miss Hebbley,” he says with a laugh.

  Yet the recollection leaves her cold and hollow, not feeling like a hero at all. And she doesn’t remember anything of what happened after that.

  She looks over the railing again, into the waves pounding the side of the ship. Dark green-gray water, frilly whitecaps. The wind teases a few strands of her hair loose and into her eyes . . . and she can feel herself in the water once more, wrapped in it, succumbing to it, called by it, by some force she didn’t know yet recognized intimately. Some voice calling her home.

  1912

  Chapter Four

  10 April 1912

  Southampton, England

  Annie checked the tiny watch pinned to her apron and gasped. It was already 8:38 a.m. Passengers would begin boarding at 10 a.m. Captain Edward John Smith made it clear they would adhere to his schedule.

  As she swept a strand of hair back, her fingers grazed the chain of the necklace she always wore, a slender gold cross. It must’ve slipped out from under the neckline of her blouse. She quickly tucked it back in place. The Catholics on staff had been warned to keep their religious insignia out of sight for the duration of the voyage: no rosaries, saints’ medals, or crosses. But she found the cool metal against her skin comforting.

  She returned to the task of putting away the last of the damask napkins, swanlike and fine. There was a time when the cavernous dining hall and its echoes made her shudder, but she had gotten used to the gigantic ship being empty. And it did feel empty, even with almost nine hundred crewmen. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like once they were joined by the thousands of passengers.

  The Titanic was more than her home now: it was her world. It felt as though her life had begun the day she stepped onto the ship, as if she’d crawled out of her past like a grave, reborn into the fresh sea air. It seemed, too, that she was learning everything for the first time, like a toddler: how to wear her crisp White Star Line uniform correctly, how to be understood despite her Irish accent, how to walk on the gently rolling ship.

  She resolved not to be frightened by the newness of everything, instead immersing herself in work. There was no shortage of things to do on this massive ship. Stocking the linen closets with fresh-pressed tablecloths. Making beds; Annie had been told there were 7,500 blankets on board and there were times when it felt as though she’d smoothed, tucked, and folded each and every one. Counting the numbers of cups and saucers; glasses; sets of fine, expensive dishes—enough to have a complete set for every man, woman, and child in first class—entering the numbers in the quartermaster’s ledger to be checked for breakage when they docked in America. The entire staff was busy from sunup to sundown, and this on an empty ship. Annie could not imagine how she would manage once her twelve assigned cabins were occupied by living, breathing passengers.

  “You’ll be on your feet for fifteen hours a day,” her roommate, Violet Jessop, had warned. Annie was glad to have been paired up with Violet, a London girl who had worked on ships for years and was impossibly worldly in Annie’s eyes.

  At night, once they had finished for the day, Violet would coach Annie on what to expect from passengers. “I come from a small village in Ireland,” Annie confessed to her on the first day. “We never had servants. I don’t know how I’m supposed to act.”

  Violet was amazed that Annie had landed the job at all. “White Star is particular about the women they hire,” Violet said, and Annie knew that Violet knew this firsthand. She’d heard all about Violet’s troubles getting a position because the men who did the hiring suspected young, pretty girls like Violet would be distractions to male passengers and crew. Either that, or they’d quit within a year to get married.

  Annie just shrugged. “Maybe he thought I was plain enough,” she said. “And I told him I was eager to help.”

  “No surprise there.” Violet narrowed her eyes. “It was probably your solicitous nature that persuaded the hiring manager to take a chance on you. Just remember not to be too solicitous—some men will try to see how much they can get away with, especially if they think you’re naive.” Then she arched an eyebrow. “Though, if you’re going to fall for a passenger, better a rich man than a poor one. There will be some very rich men on the Titanic. Women with jewels so big they’ll make your eyes water. Babies with gold teething rings. You’ll see.”

  And now, in not more than an hour, she would.

  Annie took a moment to marvel in the vast quiet of the empty room. She loved the ship, had never been on anything so big or so beautiful. She liked to touch the plates in the dining room—where she would be serving as part of the victualing staff—and wonder at the china as thin and delicate as paper. She liked to walk through the staterooms with their silk wallpapers and finely turned furniture, crystal chandeliers and mahogany appointments—modeled after the legendary Ritz hotel in London, Annie had been told proudly during her orientation—and pretend that it was hers, all hers. She could block out the occasional shout from a coworker or bang and crash of a hammer amid last-minute repairs, block everything out except the delicate ping of the crystal drops above her.

  Were they ready for passengers? she wondered as she gave the tablecloth a final smoothing. Was she ready to lose the gracious quiet of her ship?

  A steward appeared with a set of chimes at the far end of the dining room. Three bells. An hour till boarding. “Chief steward’s called a meeting in the first-class smoking room,” he called to her across the empty space, before abruptly withdrawing. Just her luck. The first-class smoking room was three decks up. She’d have to hustle.

  As she hurried down the alleyway, she passed John Starr March going the other way, and smiled when he touched the brim of his cap and greeted her with a nod. John was much older than she, as old as her father. He was a postal clerk, responsible for the mailbags that were loaded on the Titanic for delivery to New York, but he was also to help out on the victualing staff. John was a bit of a celebrity among the staff, for he had survived eight incidents at sea. “One a year, regular as rain,” he told her, laughing. “I don’t even think about it no more. It’s part of the job.” Like many of the newer staff, Annie found John March’s presence reassuring.

  In the smoking room, Annie found to her relief she was not the last one to arrive. As she slid into place next to Violet, she was startled to feel her friend grab her hand. It was the first time, Annie realized, she had been touched by a single other person since she’d left home. She felt amazed by what this small gesture did—she felt suddenly anchored, secure.

  The other assembled stewards reminded her of the poor of Belfast: gaunt, nervous eyed, anxious. A few were broad, bloated by drink and a diet of potatoes and cabbage. There were only about two dozen women among them, and she and Violet were among the youngest; the company was notoriously difficult when it came to young single women serving on board its ships, convinced it led to moral turpitude. She wasn’t entirely sure they were wrong, judging by the behavior she’d seen on the staff decks after hours: Women as well as men wandering from cabin to cabin with a bottle of stout or whiskey, looking for drinking companions; card games and dicing in the alleyway. Men whispered temptations in your ear, when they thought they could get away with it.

  But then, nearly everything about being on this ship surprised Annie—the aliveness of it all, the raw potential. The only other place where she’d been in the company of a large group of men at once had been church on Sundays, and there she’d known the names of each of them. Now, those names had slipped away into the light spring fog, evading her.

  Her past: a dream of greens and grays, quickly blurring. All that remained was an acrid taste in her mouth.

  Violet gave Anni
e’s hand another squeeze as Andrew Latimer, the chief steward, cleared his throat, shouting for quiet over the nervous chatter of her fellow stewards and stewardesses. Annie hadn’t had much time with Latimer but her impression was that he was a competent man who liked things done a certain way. Whether he was fair or kind, she hadn’t a clue.

  “From this moment until we dock at our destination, you must remember that the passengers’ happiness is your paramount concern.” Latimer’s face was a florid red over the high white collar of his uniform. “Regardless of the demand placed on you, regardless of your other duties and tasks, regardless of the hour, the passengers’ needs always come first.”

  Annie’s stomach tightened. What did that mean? If she were fulfilling one passenger’s request—fetching a meal for a passenger too sick to go down to the dining room, for example—and was stopped by another passenger who wanted her to retrieve an item from her stateroom, which request was Annie to obey? She’d been given a dozen staterooms in her charge: she was servant to a body of passengers nearly as robust as her old parish, bound to answer their beck and call, satisfy their every whim, in addition to cleaning up their rooms, making their beds, and serving in the dining room during meals.

  “You must maintain for our passengers—our first-class passengers—the perception that they are residing at a world-class hotel. We are proud of the Titanic, yes—it’s the finest oceangoing luxury liner in the world, we must never forget that!—but we should stress to our passengers the many amenities available to them. Make sure they know about the gymnasium, for instance, and the library.” There are one thousand books in the first-class library, Annie recalled being told, statistics drilled into their heads so they would roll easily off the tongue. Five hundred in second class. The weight of the books alone, the massiveness of the stories contained therein, had seemed, to her mind, greater than what any ship could carry. The heated pool, only one shilling per visit. The children’s playroom. The promenades.

  “You must also be aware of what not to mention to passengers, as it would only detract from the enjoyment of their voyage.” Latimer looked at each of them in turn, as though to make sure they were paying attention. “Familiarity with passengers is discouraged. Do not be drawn into talking about yourselves. Do not allow them to refer to you by your given name.”

  They’d already been handed a printed sheet of rules to memorize, but hearing them aloud had a different kind of power over Annie. Rules had always made her feel safe.

  Latimer paused. His eyes were very dark. Annie felt, despite the color of his complexion, that there was something bloodless about him, something cold and hard. “Then there is the occasional passenger with a morbid turn of mind who will display a fixation with the natural fears and dangers of the open sea.” Latimer continued his pacing. “You must do your best to discourage this line of thinking. If questioned, assure them that the White Star Line enjoys the finest reputation for safety in the industry, then endeavor to draw their attention to the evening musical program or the shuffleboard and ring toss sets.”

  Latimer had just finished when the bell sounded: the hour was spent and the moment they’d all been waiting for had arrived. In an instant, the din outside the iron bulkheads had swollen to a roar.

  Latimer shouted something, but he had lost their attention. Annie rushed out to the alleyway with the rest of the stewards, catching herself with a gasp at the railing.

  The dock below was teeming with people. Standing in lines, waiting to be let up the gangplanks, pressing impatiently at the chains. Spilling out of carriages. Lecturing the stevedores who struggled with their luggage. So many people, more than she had ever seen massed in one place. The sight alone made her dizzy.

  They were divided by passenger class. At the far end of the ship was third class: mostly men in workaday clothing, albeit their best, duffel bags slung over their shoulders like sailors. Next came second class: again, mostly men, slightly better attired in their Sunday suits. Solid middle-class shopkeepers and preachers, teachers and the like.

  But the first-class crowd was altogether different. Men and women in equal measure, all dressed in near-regal finery that she’d only seen in periodicals, clothing that no one in Ballintoy would be able to afford. Silks and satins and ostrich plumes, ribbon by the yard. Dresses that could only have been made by an expert seamstress, so closely did they follow the wearer’s form. Most had a servant or two standing behind them, prim in black uniforms, carrying valises or attending to children. Annie strained to find a gold teething ring, though she was pretty sure Violet had been teasing her; even a country lass knows that gold is too soft to bite down on without damage.

  At 10 a.m. precisely, the chains barring the gangplanks were lowered, and passengers flooded the gangplanks. It looked, to Annie, like a dark churning wave of people, overspilling the decks, foaming toward her. Annie hung back. The press of bodies and cacophony of voices: it was all too much after the relative quiet of the past week. She fought a mad desire to turn and bolt, to hide in the room she shared with Violet, and somehow sneak off the ship before it left the harbor. She took a breath. She might be frightened, but she felt it in her bones: this moment in time, this ship, was her destiny.

  She turned around and then drew sharply back: a young man, only slightly older than her, had materialized in front of her, jogging a baby in his arms in an attempt to stop its fussing. Her heart went out to him immediately. He looked miserable, unable to stop his child from squirming, untethered and unhappy. She sympathized, too, with the infant—wishing itself back in the nursery, no doubt, where it was calm and sweet and cool.

  “May I be of some assistance?” Somehow, she managed to get out the words.

  His eyes opened, taking her in. They were kind eyes, the cool gray-blue of a hidden grotto. And, somehow, familiar.

  “Oh—pardon me! I didn’t see you standing there.”

  A burble from the child: suddenly there was white spittle all over the front of the man’s wool coat.

  “Please. Let me help.” She pulled a cleaning cloth from her pocket as she reached for the baby. He surrendered the child to her readily, as if by instinct.

  The child was not more than a few months old, a small but healthy thing with dark eyes and wisps of pale, honey-brown hair peeking from under the bonnet. The baby felt comfortable—almost familiar—in Annie’s arms, even though she had little experience with infants, having been the baby of the family herself.

  But the baby soon fell silent, squirming and nuzzling into Annie’s chest.

  The father dabbed the front of his coat with her cloth. “She has taken to you, hasn’t she?”

  He was handsome, she noticed, now that he was no longer so anxious looking. And there was something so familiar about him, she could almost think of nothing else. Something like alarm clamored in her head. Have you ever been to Ballintoy? she wanted to ask. But the idea seemed ludicrous. Londoners didn’t go to Ballintoy.

  “She’s beautiful, and so healthy,” Annie said instead. A tiny pink fist lifted toward her face, attempting to clutch at her chin.

  The man shook his head, smiling. “Like a duck to water. Miss . . . ?”

  “Stewardess Hebbley.”

  “Well, Miss Hebbley, you are a godsend. I am very grateful for your help.”

  “Shall I show you to your cabin, sir? Cabin number, please?”

  He pulled out his ticket and showed it to her, as though he wasn’t quite sure of the number himself. She was disappointed to see it wasn’t one of hers.

  Mark Fletcher. Another jolt of pure electricity went through her. I know you, she wanted to say. Though at the same time she knew she didn’t, that they’d never met before, that this handsome man who seemed so familiar to her was, in fact, a stranger. “I would be pleased to show you the way, Mr. Fletcher. If you would just follow me . . . ?”

  At that moment, however, a woman stepped off the gangplan
k and reached out a hand to her husband. Annie felt an irrational stab of disappointment. Had she hoped the mother of the child was out of the picture somehow? What a terrible wish that would have been. Yet the feeling Mark Fletcher had given her had been so sudden and sharp, almost primal.

  She was doomed, it seemed, to be drawn to men who were out of her reach.

  The woman who’d appeared at Mark’s side was all brass and flushed beauty, fireworks in human form, confident of the power of her own happiness. She was dressed like a queen from one of Annie’s imaginary stories; her hat alone, with its fine, delicate netting, the way the contours shadowed her face just so—would have cost a full year of Annie’s wages. She was, Annie saw, the type of new young mother who seemed easeful and light, and the child not a burden but a pretty item to add to her collection of wonders.

  “I’m sorry for the holdup,” she said to Mark, and immediately Annie heard the sharp twang of her American accent, broad and easy and careless, “but I saw the Van Allens on the pier and I wanted to thank them for the other night. . . .” The woman turned her dark eyes on Annie, not unkindly. “And who is this?”

  “I found a stewardess to show us to our room.” Mark made introductions as he took the baby from Annie and handed her to an older woman who had appeared beside his wife. The nanny, of course.

  Annie felt the baby’s sudden absence from her arms.

  “Shall we go?” Mrs. Fletcher took her husband’s arm.

  The Fletchers had a suite just beyond the row of cabins that had been assigned to Annie; theirs included a sitting room in addition to the bedroom. The nanny would be housed below with the other servants and crew. The luggage had already been delivered and was heaped to one side of the door: a huge steamer trunk and hatboxes, a half-dozen smaller cases. Two dingy valises—probably the nanny’s. A small crib.