The Glass Ocean

by Beatriz Williams

  I’d bought the notebook from a stationer in the village, and it contained fifty pages of graph paper. I’d transcribed the message in all twelve different ciphers, one to a page, and transcribed again to be sure I hadn’t made a mistake. And none of them made any sense. I ran my pencil along the lines of the first page, examining the letters and numbers, trying to find some kind of pattern. The second page. The third.

  It was the fourth transcription that interested me the most. There was something familiar about the arrangement of characters, like I’d seen it before somewhere. But not recently. A long time ago, high school or college, something I’d learned and forgotten. A mathematical formula, perhaps? Calculus? (Oh God, anything but calculus.)

  But what? Why? What did it mean?

  Across the room, my phone buzzed. I’d left it on the rug, next to the papers. I’d been ignoring it lately, other than to make sure there wasn’t some urgent message from Riverside Haven—for some reason, hanging around with John, the pings of the outside world were less interesting—but this time I jumped from the chair. Might be John, I thought. Might be an emergency. A whippet emergency. A crazy ex-wife kind of emergency.

  I dove for the phone and read the alert. It was a text, all right, but not from John.

  Hello there gorgeous. Livin in London now n heard ur here too. Lets meet up for drinks hmm? Jared xx

  For a moment or two, I stared at the words on the screen. My God, I hadn’t thought about Jared Holm in months, maybe years, and now—just minutes after remembering that encounter in a piss-scented Morningside Heights stairwell, his hand reaching for mine—he sends a text. An incoming communication from some strange, unsettling universe, that Twilight Zone in which a person’s image flashes across your memory, just before the phone rings and it’s him. And you can’t help thinking, you can’t help wondering—why?

  My mother’s voice intruded. My mother’s brusque, pre-Alzheimer’s voice in my head: Oh, for God’s sake, Sarah. It’s just a coincidence.

  I sank on the sofa and replied—Sorry, I’m in the country now, headed back to NY in a couple of days, looks like we missed each other. Hope all’s well ☺. Pressed send. Stared at the screen, at the dot dot dot of Jared replying, and then I looked back at the desk.

  Why not?

  A little gust of wind came through the door, fluttering the papers. I wound my way around the piles, back to the desk, and picked up the notebook. In my hand, the phone buzzed again—Jared’s reply—but I tapped the internet browser instead and entered the first set of characters in the search field: FE3C

  The search results came back an instant later, but not quite in the way I expected. At the top of the results page came the dry question: Did you mean Fe3C (iron carbide)?

  “Holy crap,” I whispered. “That’s it.”

  * * *

  I burst through the garden door, panting, calling John’s name, and crashed into Mrs. Finch. She was dressed in floral blue and an ecru apron that might once have been white, and her face wore an expression of extreme displeasure.

  “I’m so sorry! Are you okay? Where’s John?”

  “No, Callie. I am not okay.” She placed a withering emphasis on the last word.

  “Um, it’s Sarah. Not Callie.”

  She peered at me through her inch-thick spectacles. “You’re not Callie.”

  “It’s Sarah!” I said. “Where’s John?”

  “In the sitting room.”

  I flew down the hall, past the door to the dining room, around the doorway to the sitting room. I’d never actually gone inside. John and I stuck to the kitchen and dining room. Any lounging took place in the folly. So when I whipped open the door, I wasn’t really thinking about what lay inside.

  Silly me.

  “John!” I said. “I figured out—”

  John looked up from the corner of a cream-colored sofa next to the fireplace. On his lap curled his ex-wife, sobbing softly. Her hair spilled free to dangle in a shining, sun-streaked waterfall from the sofa’s edge. Walnut lay at his feet, next to Callie’s discarded shoes, looking anxious and miserable. He lifted his head at the same instant as John.

  For an instant, our gazes met. The room faced north and the air was cool and dim, but I could still see the stricken expression on his face, the lines of worry on his forehead. He opened his mouth to say something.

  Before he could speak, I turned away. Left the room and closed the door quietly behind me.

  * * *

  An hour later, John walked through the door of the folly and said my name. I looked up from my place on the rug, surrounded by paper, and thought how tall he looked from this angle. How big-boned, and how lean, and how his face had lost all its hard-won handsomeness and now looked exactly as it had in the Costa Coffee shop, grim and square and cold in the eyes.

  “Hey,” I said. “How’d it go?”

  “I’m going to take her home now. I’ll be back in a day or two.”

  “A day or two?”

  “Do you mind?”

  Did I mind? Did I mind if John Langford left with his beautiful ex-wife and went to her home—whatever that was, probably their old home, the one they once shared as newlyweds, having blond, skinny, long-limbed sex all over the furniture—and came back in a couple of days? Possibly even after I’d departed for New York?

  I crossed my arms. “Of course not. She’s your wife.”

  “Ex-wife.”

  “I understand. Seriously. Go ahead.”

  “No, Sarah. You don’t understand. She’s an addict, she—” He ran a hand through his hair. “Look, I can’t say more. But I can’t turn my back on her. We’ve known each other since we were babies.”

  “John, it really is okay. I’m just your research buddy, remember? Your annoying houseguest. You don’t need my permission to go anywhere. With anyone. Do what you need to do. I’ll be right here, sorting through all this precious Langford memorabilia without supervision, keeping myself busy. Don’t mind me at all!”

  He cracked a small, grateful smile. “All right, then. I won’t.”

  “Really? You trust me? No more guarding the stacks?”

  “I trust you, Sarah.”

  He turned to the door and stopped, and I stared at his profile, his too-large nose, his neck, his shoulders covered in worn green cashmere.

  “Something wrong?” I asked innocently.

  “Your flight back,” he said. “When is it again?”

  “Um, it’s Sunday. Three days away.”

  He swore softly.

  “But you don’t need to worry. I’ll make sure everything’s locked up, and—”

  “That’s not what I’m worried about.” He turned to face me. “Can’t you extend your ticket or anything? Another week, perhaps?”

  “No. I need to get back to my mother. It’s killing me, not being there for her. And I need to figure out . . .”

  “Figure out what?”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “The money side of things?” he asked gently.

  “Like I said, I’ll figure it out. You do what you need to do. And if this is goodbye—” This time I had to cut myself short; I actually choked on the word, like a teenager.

  “Sarah.” He turned his head to stare at the wall next to the window, and I realized he was looking at Robert’s portrait. He frowned at his great-grandfather for several seconds, not speaking or even moving, until at last he turned back to me.

  “Yes?” I said.

  “Don’t mess with my Rubik’s Cube while I’m gone,” he said, and he walked out the door.

  Chapter 17

  Caroline

  At Sea

  Wednesday, May 5, 1915

  Caroline felt as if she were playing a game—a game where the rules hadn’t been completely explained and one in which she had no idea if there could be any winners. She burrowed a little deeper into her pillow, unwilling to open her eyes and face the daylight. And the truth of not only what she’d done, but the glaring reality that she couldn’
t replace her elation with justified guilt no matter how hard she tried. You said you’d love me forever. Maybe she’d spoken the truth all those years ago. Maybe she and Robert were meant to be together. If only she hadn’t been sent up north to school. If only she hadn’t met Gilbert. If only.

  Her bedroom door opened and she feigned sleep, imagining it was her maid, and felt more than a twinge of embarrassment. She’d had no regret the night before in Robert’s arms, nor when he’d had to get Patrick to go to Jones’s room at dawn and ask the maid’s help to safely deliver Caroline into her bedroom. Caroline had no experience with this sort of thing. How did one act when faced with a servant who knew your darkest secret? Pretend that nothing had happened? Or acknowledge it and ask for discretion? Despite her commitment at pretending to be asleep, her mouth formed itself into a smirk. Yes, she thought. A game, indeed.

  “Mrs. Hochstetter?”

  Caroline didn’t move, hoping to postpone the inevitable as long as she possibly could. Maybe she could say she was ill and wouldn’t have need of her maid’s services for the duration of the voyage. But how could she? She’d made her proverbial bed, and now she must lie in it. If only this game came with a rulebook, she’d know how to proceed.

  “Mrs. Hochstetter?” the woman said again, her voice more urgent. “Your husband would like to see you. I told him you were indisposed, but he’s most insistent.”

  Caroline opened her eyes, then shut them again when she remembered Gilbert’s departure from the dining room the previous evening. Her humiliation. And then she remembered that he’d told her that he would be too busy to see her until they’d reached England. Her eyes fluttered open, wondering if this might be a peace overture, and something that felt like the stirrings of guilt began to gnaw at her insides.

  She sat up, taking stock of her body, of the sore places and the raw skin where the bristle of Robert’s chin had left its mark. No regrets, Robert had said. And so she wouldn’t. Except . . . Her gaze locked on her maid. “Did Mr. Hochstetter . . . ?”

  “He checked in on you an hour ago, ma’am. When you were tucked into your bed sound asleep.”

  “So . . . ?”

  “There was nothing amiss. Just your husband worrying a bit because you don’t usually sleep so late. I told him you were overtired and to let you sleep. But he’s asking after you so I thought I’d come wake you and help you dress. Won’t do to have tongues wagging.” Jones raised eyebrows that were oddly lighter than the hair on her head.

  “What do you mean?” Caroline asked, as if she didn’t already know the answer.

  Jones placed a long-sleeved afternoon dress of crepe de chine on the opposite bed and slid open the curtains so that Caroline couldn’t see her face as she spoke. “I’m just saying that at breakfast this morning, several of the servants mentioned that you and Mr. Hochstetter had a row last evening at dinner, and that another gentleman followed you out of the dining saloon. It might be best if you and your husband are seen together, to still any tongues that feel too loose.”

  Heat burned Caroline’s cheeks. It took two attempts to force the words from her throat to her lips. “Thank you, Jones. I will take your advice.” She swung her legs to the side of the bed, realizing too late that her nightgown had ridden up high enough to expose skin rubbed pink on the insides of her pale thighs. When she looked up, she saw that Jones had seen it, too.

  “I thought a dress with sleeves would be best. There’s quite a bit of chill to the air as we head toward the Irish coast. I’ve drawn you a hot bath, too. It might help wake you up along with the coffee I’ve asked Patrick to bring for you.”

  “Thank you,” Caroline managed without meeting the maid’s eyes, still unsure of her role. If this were a game of chess, she had no idea if she were the queen or a mere pawn. The one thing she knew for certain was that the board was set precariously on the rocking waves of the Atlantic Ocean and she couldn’t quite gain her footing.

  She bathed and dressed in record time, glad that Jones’s usual stoic silence had suddenly turned to an uncharacteristic chatter. If Caroline had to guess, she’d say that her maid seemed almost giddy. It was as if she’d been tested by her employer’s indiscretion and on her own strength of will and superior abilities had navigated them both into safety.

  As Jones placed the last pin in her mistress’s coiffure, her eyes met Caroline’s in the mirror. “You’re a picture of loveliness, ma’am,” she said. “Just make sure that you don’t tilt your head too far to the right. There’s a mark on your neck that your dress collar won’t completely hide.”

  Caroline stood suddenly as heat rose from her chest and neck, and focused on straightening her silver brushes on the dressing table. “Thank you, Jones. That will be all.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Mr. Hochstetter is in the parlor.” Jones inclined her head as Caroline walked past her to the door, acutely aware of where her collar brushed the skin on her neck.

  Gilbert sat reading the Cunard Daily Bulletin, the liner’s attempt at keeping Lusitania’s passengers mildly knowledgeable of a world at war, and the battles being waged on land and sea. Gilbert usually folded it and tucked it out of sight, thinking the contents too disturbing for her, but Caroline was adept at finding his hiding spaces and had been successful so far at reading it daily. Not that the news was painted with anything but the broadest strokes, giving readers a sanitized version of the war. It was like the entire world was conspiring with her husband to soften all possible edges of life. Except that Caroline, as her mother had once told her, knew that one could never appreciate the beauty of a rose without having once been stuck by its thorn.

  She watched her husband for a moment as he read, unaware of her presence. His blond hair was combed back and perfect, showing a broad, smooth forehead that belonged on a boy and not a man closer to forty than thirty. She felt the old tenderness as she watched him, the same feeling she’d had when Claire had first introduced them and he’d been so awkward with her. He’d barely said a word and she’d assumed it was because he was shy, which, considering his size and stature, she’d found endearing. It wasn’t until much later that he’d admitted he’d simply been smitten and afraid of embarrassing himself if he’d uttered a single word.

  He looked up and their eyes met, and she had a flash of memory of the night before, of his anger and her humiliation, and any words she might have said died in her throat. She almost asked him why he was there since he’d all but promised that she wouldn’t see him for the duration of the voyage. But she couldn’t. Only those without sin should cast the first stone.

  He stood and placed the paper on a side table. After clearing his throat, he said, “Patrick brought your gloves from the dining room and gave them to Jones. You must have dropped them last night.”

  She nodded tersely, swallowing back her disappointment. Assuming that’s all he had to tell her, she began to back out of the room.

  “Caroline.”

  She stopped and their gazes met again. “Yes?”

  “Are you unwell?”

  She started to answer then stopped as Gilbert’s eyes flickered to her waist and then back up again. “Just tired,” she said quickly, finding her way to a chair and sinking into it before she collapsed. His implication was clear. Dear God. What have I done? It was too early to tell, of course, but there was always the possibility.

  He was at her side in a moment. “You’re looking very pale. Let me get you a glass of water. . . .”

  She waved him away, but couldn’t meet his eyes. “No, really. I’m just tired. I’ll feel better after I have a cup of coffee.” As if waiting for his cue, Patrick entered with a tray upon which sat a coffeepot and two cups. Glad for the interruption, she took her time pouring the coffee, lots of sugar and cream in hers, plain black for Gilbert. Her hands shook a little, but at least doing something kept her mind away from Robert and what they’d done together in his bed. No regrets.

  Gilbert sat down in the chair next to hers and picked up his coffee cup. He seemed n
ervous, something she rarely saw. It put her on edge, causing her to take a quick sip of her coffee and burn her tongue. He cleared his throat awkwardly. “I received a telegram from Claire. She sends her love. She also cautions us to wear our life belts about the ship at all times. The Germans are apparently nondiscriminatory with their sinking of ships.”

  Caroline was surprised he’d confided this much to her. “Are you worried?” She found herself holding her breath.

  Without pausing, he shook his head decisively. “No. I feel quite confident that the Germans would not wish to sink Lusitania.”

  There was something in his tone that broached no argument. It was infuriating yet comforting at the same time and she felt herself exhale. “How can you be so sure? I’ve heard the talk about munitions being on board. And how my husband might be responsible for having them on the ship, but he won’t tell me. Wouldn’t that make us a target? Unless, of course, you’re aware that there’s something else on this ship that might be more valuable to them, in which case they wouldn’t want to send us to our watery graves.” She wasn’t sure where the bitter hardness came from in her voice. Perhaps it was simply the manifestation of her guilt.

  With a disarming smile that reminded her of the young man she’d fallen in love with, he said, “There are a lot of Americans on board. I doubt the Kaiser would want to shake that particular lion’s cage.”

  But there was something in his smile, something that told her there was more, and she was just as sure that he would not tell her what it was.

  He surprised her by standing and moving next to her chair. He took her cup and placed it on the low table, then reached down and took her hand. “I’m sorry you’re so tired. Not the least because I know I’m to blame for your not sleeping well last night.”