The Girl Who Came Home

by Hazel Gaynor

  Peggy was the only one to make any sort of a noise on the journey to Claremorris, getting a fit of the giggles at the sight of a fat woman trying to pull something down from the luggage rack. She kept falling backward and forward and sideways with the movement of the train—she looked drunk, so she did! Aunt Kathleen chided Peggy for sniggering and said it was poor manners.

  We was starving by the time we reached Cork and were glad of Mrs. Brogan’s oatcakes and Aunt Kathleen’s soda bread. It’s strange to think she baked that bread in our cottage just this morning. I can hardly remember what it looks like, it already seems such an age since I was there.

  By the time we boarded the train to Queenstown, most of the weeping had stopped. Katie cheered us with her songs, and Jack Brennan took to playing cards with Michael Kelly—he told me he thought it might stop the young lad’s mind from dwelling too much on home. I’ve watched Pat take his lucky sovereign out of his pocket a few times. His mam gave it to him this morning as a good-luck token, but he dropped it as he climbed into the trap—I saw it and I know some of the others did too, but we all pretended not to notice and he hasn’t talked of it. I know what he’s after thinking, though, as he turns it over and over in his hands, because it’s bad luck to drop a sovereign. We all know that.

  Queenstown is a strange town. I’ve never seen a place like it in my life. There wasn’t a spare inch of space around the train station without a person or a cart or a horse or a piece of luggage on it—half of Ireland seems to have come here tonight. The sea air feels damp on my skin, and there’s an awful stench of salt or seaweed or something hanging over the place. It makes me feel like I want to be sick. The seagulls make a horrible noise, a sort of shrieking cry, like a bawling baby. It makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.

  Aunt Kathleen arranged the lodgings for us all, speaking with one of the runners at the station who found this place, the McDonnell Rooming House at the Beach. Aunt Kathleen is familiar with boardinghouses, after running one of her own in Chicago and all, and seems pleased because this one is close to the cathedral for Mass in the morning.

  We are split up across three rooms, the two boys and Jack Brennan sharing one; Maura Brennan, Eileen Brennan, Katie, Peggy, and Ellen Joyce in another; and myself, Kathleen, and four of the other girls in this room. I heard Ellen telling Pat that it has cost 7s.6d. each for the night’s lodgings. Pat told me that’s practically a week’s wages and that the owner must be making a fortune. She seems like a nice enough woman, but she breathes heavily when she goes up and down the stairs and an awful smell of sweat comes from her. Thanks be to God we only have to stay for one night.

  Poor Peggy is in a dreadful state. I don’t know how it happened ’cause not a one of us saw him, but she says that a strange man dressed all in black approached her at Queenstown train station. He appeared from nowhere and tapped her on the shoulder. She says she leaped nearly ten feet into the air, not knowing who the man was at all. She tried to pass him a few pennies from her purse, thinking he must be a Traveller, but he refused them and told her that she was going on a long journey and there would be a terrible disaster, but she would survive. He then disappeared into the crowds. She’s a bit shaken up with it all. What with this and Joseph Kenny’s tea leaves, I’m almost beside myself with the nerves now. Aunt Kathleen says we’re letting our imaginations run away with us and reminded us that we couldn’t be sailing on a safer ship.

  Séamus has been constantly in my thoughts since we left Ballysheen. I wonder what he says in his letters. I have them in my coat pocket for safekeeping—I haven’t opened the packet yet. I think I should wait until we’re far out at sea before I read them—I’m half afraid that if he has written too fondly or offered a proposal of marriage, I will have to run off to be with him again. Aunt Kathleen would never forgive me if I did something like that, so I’ll wait until we’re on the ship. I can be sure I won’t be doing any running off to him when there are miles of cold, dark ocean stretching between us.

  Aunt Kathleen says that Titanic will be on her way from France by now, and should arrive to Queenstown by midmorning. All going well, we should be sailing by the afternoon. I can’t imagine what it will feel like to be on the water—I’ve never seen a steam liner, other than the pictures Peggy showed me in the newspaper. I wonder what I’ll think of this ship after all the talk and the fuss. It is only a ship when all is said and done. I might not think much of it at all.

  Anyway, it’s getting late now and Aunt Kathleen is fussing about getting a decent sleep for the journey tomorrow, so I’ve told her I’ll be finished in a few minutes. Most of the others are already asleep, tired out from our journey today. It seems to have taken so long to get here, and New York is another week away. How we are going to fare on a boat for seven days I do not know. I hope Séamus will visit me in my dreams tonight.

  CHAPTER 6

  Queenstown, County Cork, Ireland

  April 10, 1912

  For the love of God, girl, would you look at the time, it’s gone eleven. Put that book down, whatever it is you’re scribblin’, and get some sleep now. We’ve an early start in the morning and there’s plenty more miles to be covered yet before we reach America.”

  Although tired from the long day of traveling, Kathleen Dolan was restless herself. She was relieved to have finally started their journey but anxious to be back in her comfortable home in Chicago with her familiar belongings and just her sister and her niece for company. She didn’t mind most of the others in their party—with the exception perhaps of Ellen Joyce, whom she found a little superior—but large groups were not things Kathleen usually surrounded herself with. She found them rather unsettling.

  It was no surprise to those who knew Kathleen Dolan that it was she who had galvanized the group of travelers to make this journey. She had made no secret of the tantalizing tales of prosperity and opportunity America offered and knew that she had captured the imaginations of the women and men of Ballysheen when she spoke of her American life. Many of them—even if they wouldn’t admit it—wished for more than a life of failed harvests and employment in the cotton mills of England, and Kathleen knew exactly what she was doing when she mentioned, quite matter-of-factly, that Titanic would sail from Queenstown on the eleventh of April and that anyone who wished to be aboard could obtain their ticket from the local White Star Line shipping agent, Thomas Durcan of Castlebar, at a cost of seven pounds, fifteen shillings. Kathleen Dolan was a formidable force when she set her mind to something.

  Her demeanor over the past weeks had been one of prudent efficiency and a resolute impatience to get going. Now she enjoyed the opportunity to lie still, glad of the silence. As she watched her niece settle under her eiderdown and glanced around the room at the sleeping forms of the other young girls, Kathleen was reminded of her own emigration journey as a nineteen-year-old. Far from all the tears and worry she’d witnessed that day, she’d considered it a prodigious adventure.

  Painfully aware that she was unremarkable in many respects, ordinary enough to look at with her square jaw, rugged complexion, and deep-set eyes, which gave the impression that she was older than her years, Kathleen knew it was only her determination and resolve to improve her situation in life that made her stand out from the other girls her age. With her eldest sister already settled in America, Kathleen had sat for years in the bedroom she shared with her remaining sister, Nora, both of them consuming every word of the letters Mary wrote about her alluring American life: the employment prospects, the gaily colored clothes, the opportunities to be away from the social constraints of Irish life. Mary’s words, transported on the steam liners that would remove another batch of emigrants from Ireland’s shores, offered enticing prospects for a farmer’s daughter whose domestic duties were drearily predictable, whose clothes were drab, and whose social position had been defined from the moment she was born. From the moment her opportunity arrived with a ticket paid for by her sister in Chicago, Kathleen had reveled in the prospects America h
eld for her. Undaunted by the fact that she was leaving with little money, she had departed Irish shores with very little fuss and even less regret.

  Like many before her, she’d settled easily into the rhythms of metropolitan life in Chicago. So many of the neighbors were of Irish descent that she often found it hard to believe she was in America at all, catching the unmistakable Irish brogue in exchanges on the street or in the local grocery store: Offaly, Mayo, Donegal, Kerry; she was certain all the counties would be represented if you listened hard enough.

  She’d written often to her only remaining relative in Ireland, her sister Nora—Maggie’s mother—and to her good friend Maura Byrne. In her letters, Kathleen described the buildings reaching up into the clouds, the grand homes, carriages, and motorcars of the wealthy, the well-paid opportunities for women in domestic employment, the impressive avenues, and the majestic department store at Randolph Street and Washington Boulevard where you could buy anything and everything. She knew that the recipients of her letters enjoyed hearing about this “new world,” so far removed in both distance and experience from their own.

  But, no matter how settled in and involved with the American way of life she became, a letter with news from home was always a welcome sight to Kathleen’s eyes and caused her heart to beat a little more rapidly than usual. It was such a letter that had prompted her recent return to Ireland, a letter that, she realized as she lay in the uncomfortable boardinghouse bed, had, in many ways, led to the fourteen of them being in Queenstown that night.

  The letter had arrived on a crisp fall day, the leaves on the trees that lined the sidewalk outside the Chicago home she shared with her sister Mary glistening in the bright sunshine. It was a modest but perfectly pleasant home on North Ashland Avenue, close to the boardinghouse she’d previously owned on Lincoln Street. Her sister had made a comfortable home, her choice of furnishing befitting two women who were doing well in life.

  As she picked up the letter, Kathleen immediately recognized Maggie’s familiar handwriting and the distinctive Castlebar postmark. Walking into the front room, she settled herself on the chair at the writing table and carefully opened the envelope, expecting the usual gossip and casual news from home.

  October 22, 1911

  Ballysheen

  Co. Mayo

  Eire

  My dear Aunt Kathleen,

  I write with the sad news that Mammy is very sick with the influenza. She has told me to write to you to ask you to come back to Ireland as soon as you can, as she worries about me should anything happen to her. I am sorry to have to write to you with this news and hope that we will see you in Ballysheen soon.

  Good-bye.

  Your niece,

  Maggie

  Kathleen had placed the letter on the table, stood up, smoothed her skirt, and turned to her sister.

  “It’s from Maggie. Nora has the influenza. I must go to Ireland as soon as I can arrange a ticket. I’ll write to Maggie straightaway to tell her I’m coming.”

  Crossing the Atlantic was almost second nature to Kathleen by the time she’d set sail for Ireland that October, since she had made the journey between her American and Irish homes several times over the years. She was, however, well aware of the fact that her arrival back in Ireland that autumn had not passed without remark. This time she’d returned noticeably different, a successful, astute businesswoman who, although connected to the stones, earth, and rivers of her Irish home, was somehow changed by her extended experience of a new life, by her knowledge that there were better prospects to be found elsewhere. For those who had neither the financial means nor the desire to travel and had stayed behind to continue their lives at the same steady, unremarkable pace, it was unsettling to witness the lightness in Kathleen’s step and the glare of her colorful overcoat, and to hear the occasional unfamiliar turn of phrase the returning traveler brought with her.

  The hushed whispers and furtive glances as she went about her business didn’t bother Kathleen, although the rumors that she had remained in Ballysheen after the death of her sister in order to look for a husband did. It was a subject that came up time and time again, and was one of few things in Kathleen’s life that bothered her. It had started before she’d even left Chicago.

  “You know, it might not be any harm to consider looking for a suitable husband while you’re back in Ireland, Kathleen,” Mary had mentioned, tentatively, as she’d helped her sister pack the last of her belongings. “You’ve a good dowry now from the sale of the boardinghouse, and the prospects you can offer a future husband are much improved. You should think on it.”

  It wasn’t the first time that Mary had raised the issue of a husband with her sister, whose apparent indifference to the matter was something she found completely incomprehensible. Unlike her friend Maura, and her sisters, Kathleen had never really considered marriage, her successful boardinghouse business occupying most of her time and her thoughts. It was an issue that refused to go away, though, as someone or other would make a remark or throw a suggestive glance in her direction whenever there was talk of engagements or weddings. Having read the excitement in the letters from Maura Byrne about her engagement to Jack Brennan, Kathleen had found her thoughts turning to the matter, although never for too long. Because she was a fiercely private woman, the thought of discussing the issue of marriage with anyone else, even her own sister, left Kathleen feeling distinctly uncomfortable. As far as she was concerned, whether she had her mind set on finding a husband in Ireland or not was nobody’s business but her own.

  “May God have mercy on me, Maura Brennan,” she’d said to her friend one morning after overhearing some of the women gossiping about her in the street, “I am certainly not waiting around in Ballysheen in some desperate attempt to find a man who will spend all my hard-earned money on silly notions of running a shoe factory or making buttons. I’m here to make arrangements for my niece—and anyone else who cares to join us—to come back with me to America.”

  Kathleen chose to ignore the Ballysheen gossips for the remainder of her time in Ireland. Whatever the truth was about her having remained in Ireland since returning last autumn, Kathleen would board Titanic in the morning along with her niece and twelve others from the parish and without a husband. Marriage could wait. For now, she was more concerned about getting a good night’s sleep.

  CHAPTER 7

  RMS Titanic

  April 10, 1912

  The journey from Southampton to Queenstown, Titanic’s final embarkation stop before heading out into the vast reaches of the Atlantic, passed smoothly enough—with the exception of the New York pulling loose from her moorings and nearly causing a collision with Titanic before she had even sailed out of Southampton harbor. This caused a few heart-stopping moments among the passengers and crew, who saw it all from their vantage points on the decks. For the ship’s financiers and those in positions of authority and influence within the White Star Line, it was a near disaster.

  Returning to his dormitory to have a quick wash before the life jacket inspection and preparations for dinner service, Harry stopped just short of the Scotland Road passageway as he saw two men deep in conversation at the top of the D Deck staircase. He recognized them as Mr. Ismay of the White Star Line and Thomas Andrews, the ship’s designer. Harry leaned against the wall of the corridor, which ran at right angles to the staircase, making sure he was well out of their sight. He listened carefully. They were discussing the incident with the New York and sharing a much-needed smoke out of sight and earshot of their first-class passengers.

  “Bloody hell, Bruce, that was a bit too close for comfort. There can’t have been four feet between them before that tug pushed her aft.”

  Andrews rubbed his hand anxiously through his hair and loosened his tie as Harry observed from his vantage point. He seemed to Harry to be a nervy man, although no wonder, Harry thought, when the ship he’d spent the last few years designing had almost been grounded within minutes of raising its anchor.

&nb
sp; “My God, man, imagine the shame if we’d had a bloody collision in Southampton harbor,” Mr. Ismay replied, taking a long drag from his cigarette. “We wouldn’t have had much of a maiden voyage to celebrate then, would we, never mind breaking speed records for crossing the Atlantic.”

  Andrews nodded in agreement. “We’d have been financially ruined, never mind the field day the press would have had. Things like this just can’t be allowed to happen. Not on this ship. Not on this voyage.”

  “Well, let’s just consider it a very fortunate escape from an untimely and embarrassing disaster then,” Mr. Ismay whispered, lowering his voice as two officers walked past them, “and let’s get on with the business of making sure this ship lives up to its billing for the rest of the journey. We’re already behind schedule for our stop in Cherbourg. I’m going up to the bridge to encourage Captain Smith to increase the speed.”

  The two men separated then, Andrews heading up the companionway corridor, Ismay taking the elevator to the boat deck.

  Harry already felt strangely at home on Titanic. He was impressed with the facilities provided for the third-class passengers, which were far superior to any he had encountered before. He was perfectly happy to work here and settled into his duties easily, despite the second- and first-class stewards’ taunts to the third-class stewards that if they weren’t careful down there among the rats and the nit-infested, clap-riddled steerage folk, they’d be arriving in New York with a lot more than their duffel bags.

  He was minding his own business and setting out the cutlery for dinner when a familiar voice behind him made him jump.