by Hazel Gaynor
For two days and two nights, wakes took place across the parish for those who were lost. Séamus visited each home, removing his cap to approach the bed where the poor soul had slept just a few weeks ago, a photograph placed carefully on the crisp white pillow while dozens of candles cast their soft light around the room. In home after home he visited, the same scene of unimaginable grief was played out, and he looked at the black-and-white faces staring at him from the photographs, unable to believe that these people, people he knew, were lost forever.
“It’s the not knowing where she is that’s so hard to accept,” Maria Cusack’s mother told him as she gripped his hands so tightly he thought she would never let go. “Not knowing where her body lies and what with her being so afeared of the dark and it will be so dark down there, won’t it. I just cannot bear it, truly I cannot.”
The rain fell steadily over the parish for those few weeks, as if the very sky was mourning along with those whose hearts lay broken in their chests in the simple homes below.
The last of the blossoms had fallen from the two remaining trees by the time the newspapers stopped reporting the news of Titanic and the findings of the inquiries and the aftermath.
Séamus took some small comfort by visiting the sixth cherry blossom tree every Wednesday. He would sit awhile under the dappled shade and remember. He wondered often how different things might have been if he had traveled with Maggie as she had so wanted him to. If his da had died a few weeks earlier, what then? Perhaps he would have gone with Maggie. Perhaps he would have drowned in the Atlantic Ocean too, and then what good would have come of it all?
When he felt stronger in his mind, he gave up remembering and sat under the cherry blossom tree planning. He would write to Maggie one last time. He would somehow find the address of the aunt she was traveling to stay with and he would write to tell her how his heart had sunk with despair to learn that she did not wish him to wait for her but had nevertheless leaped with joy when he heard she had survived the disaster. He would tell her he was so glad that she would be able to live her life, that he knew how much she would make of this chance God had given her and that he hoped hers would be a very happy and long life. He would tell her that with all his heart, he wished her the best life possible, even if he could not be the one to share it with her.
As the spring months gave way to summer and then the first leaves of autumn started to fall from the trees by the lakeside, Séamus resolved to sell his da’s house and their small plot of land and travel to England with the money to work in the cotton mills. At least there he would have no reminders of the love he had known and lost. At least there he might stand a chance of putting Maggie Murphy and the horrors of Titanic from his mind. Fate had decided his path in life, and he now had to walk that path, wherever it might lead him.
CHAPTER 33
New York,
April 19, 1912
Dearest Mammy,
It is with the deepest, deepest sadness that I write these words. I do not know if news of the awful event will have reached you yet in Ballysheen, but there was a terrible tragedy, Mammy, and the mighty Titanic is sunk in the Atlantic and there has been the greatest loss of life ever imaginable.
I have been at the White Star Line offices in New York waiting for news of our beloved Katie. The steamship Carpathia, which rescued the survivors, arrived in New York yesterday evening. I waited there for hours and hours until every last person was down the gangplank and the doors were closed again.
Katie did not come to me, Mammy.
She did not walk toward me and fall into my arms in the pouring rain. I did not scream her name in delight and relief as so many others did when they saw their loved ones emerge from that black night.
I have been to all the hospitals and anywhere I am told that victims have been taken—still I cannot find her, Mammy, and I sit here with the heaviest, heaviest heart as I find that it has fallen to me, your eldest child, to tell you the terrible news that little Katie did not survive the disaster—she did not manage to escape on one of the lifeboats that left Titanic.
With fifteen hundred others, Katie was lost to the ocean.
I think I have cried enough tears now to fill the depths of that ocean over and over and over again, because I cannot believe she is gone—cannot believe she didn’t walk off that mighty ship to the sound of ragtime bands and the sight of ticker tape and flags and the joy of seeing my face in the waiting crowds.
I wish I could be there to comfort you all, Mammy, dearly I do. I will be making arrangements to travel home on the first ship I can secure passage on, but for now I am so sorry that these words are all I can send.
I have enclosed a pair of gloves that I had bought for Katie as a birthday and welcome gift. They were bought in Macy’s department store—I think she would have loved them dearly and wish you to have them now to lay on her bed as you grieve for her.
I know there will be much mourning in Ballysheen, Mammy, with so many of our loved ones lost. I cannot imagine the sadness there must be there. The whole city of New York seems to be in mourning—nobody can believe such a thing could happen.
Please forgive me for writing this terrible news, and may God bless us and comfort us all at this terrible time.
Your loving, devoted daughter,
Frances
New York
April 24, 1912
My dearest Edgar,
Apologies for my recent lack of communication—as you will be aware from the many press interviews I have been giving recently, I was one of the many unfortunate victims of the Titanic disaster. Really, Edgar, it was the most frightful business altogether—the stuff of nightmares. Mother is overcome with grief at the tragic loss of darling Robert and the ruination of all the wedding plans. I am wracked with guilt about leaving him on the deck of the ship, but what was I to do with the officers insisting that the women and children fill the boats first—I had to go without him, he was quite insistent, and those poorly educated steerage people caused such an unnecessary panic and stampede it was almost impossible to hear oneself think, never mind pay any heed to one’s own survival, let alone anyone else’s.
So I found myself in the lifeboat with little Edmund, being lowered into the Atlantic before I really had much time to think about it.
Thank goodness for the first-class stewards encouraging us to dress warmly or I think I may have frozen to death in the lifeboat waiting for rescue. I actually gave one of my topcoats to a wretch of a girl who sat shivering in a thin cotton nightdress and light cotton coat that was drenched to the knee with seawater. I can only assume she was from steerage class—she was lucky, I don’t think many of them survived. I suspect I will never see the coat again and I suspect it will be the nicest coat that she will ever own—it was from an exquisite little boutique in Rome. I quite liked it, but I suppose it was put to good use.
Well, Edgar, now that Robert is buried and I have had chance to grieve and rest and recover my spirits a little, I have considered your proposal to play a part in the studio’s movie about the Titanic disaster. I agree that it would make for great drama, and I would, of course, be delighted to take a role, showing from firsthand knowledge what really happened that night. Perhaps Mr. Francis might make a suitable Captain Smith and Mr. Adolfi a crewman. With all the inquests and inquiries and haranguing of poor Mr. Ismay, I am sure such a movie would be welcomed by the White Star Line and might serve to put some of the more unpleasant rumors about the incident to rest.
In any event, I have arranged for the white silk evening gown I wore that night to be freshly laundered, as I thought it might be a nice touch to wear the very same gown in the reenactment—we could perhaps print the information about the gown on the studio posters.
I look forward to a prompt reply, and perhaps we could make arrangements to talk further over lunch. I am in desperate need of some stimulating conversation, and I think you may be the only person in this entire city who is capable of providing it!
You
rs affectionately,
Vivienne Walker-Brown
CHAPTER 34
Chicago
May 30, 1982
You must be Mr. Lockey,” Grace said nervously, extending her hand. She wasn’t used to making arrangements to meet total strangers in coffee shops, but there was something about the man’s face that reassured her.
He was taller than she’d imagined, and his soft white hair had been left a little longer than that of most men of his age she had met. It made him look a little hippieish. While he was obviously in his sixties or possibly seventies, his face was youthful and there was a wonderful sparkle in his eyes. He was smartly dressed in a collared shirt and navy blazer, and a fresh scent of cologne added to the sense of good grooming. She immediately relaxed.
“Yes, indeed. And you must be the famous Grace Butler,” he replied, shaking her hand warmly and smiling broadly. “I’m delighted to meet you—I so admired your article.”
Grace felt herself blush a little, and she giggled as she spoke. “Well, hardly ‘the famous Grace Butler,’ but yeah, that’s me.”
They stood a little awkwardly for a few seconds, Grace twirling her long hair around her fingers as she was prone to when she wasn’t quite sure what to do next, before Mr. Lockey gestured for them both to sit down at the table he had taken toward the back of the shop. It was a good choice, relatively quiet so they could have a conversation without the constant interruption of coffee orders shouted over their heads.
“So,” he began, after ordering them each a coffee. “How very strange is this?”
“Um, very,” Grace replied, laughing and reaching into her bag for her notepad and pen. “I wasn’t even sure you’d turn up. My mom was convinced you would be one of those weirdos who lure young women away from home. She’s sitting outside in the car, you know, waiting for me. How embarrassing!”
He chuckled. “Well, hopefully you’re convinced I’m not a weirdo—I’ve been accused of worse over the years! Aha,” he added, motioning toward her writing materials. “I see your journalistic instincts follow you everywhere.”
“Oh, these? Yeah! Force of habit, I’m afraid. Don’t worry, I’m not planning to record our conversation. I just like to have a pen and paper handy to jot things down.”
There was another silence then, each wondering how to broach the subject of the letters. Grace didn’t want to appear rude and demand to see them right away, but she felt as though she would burst if he didn’t say something soon. Sensing her impatience, Mr. Lockey lifted a brown paper bag onto the table.
“Well, here they are,” he said. “The coat and the packet of letters. Go ahead, take a look. I hope they’re what you’re looking for.”
Grace carefully lifted the bag from the table, surprised at how much her hands were shaking, and placed it on her lap. She peered inside for a moment before lifting out a threadbare black overcoat and a relatively small packet of brown paper tied with a fraying piece of string. They were just as Maggie had described them to her. She could hardly believe what she was seeing.
“Oh, wow,” she whispered, turning the fragile packet over and over in her hands and brushing the smooth cotton of the coat with her fingertips.
Mr. Lockey gave her a few moments to look over the items, smiling at her delight. “Is it them?” he ventured after a while.
“I really think it is, yes. They’re just as my great-grandmother described them to me. It’s amazing. They’re so old. I can’t believe they’ve survived all this time.”
“Well, my uncle was a bit of a hoarder by all accounts. There’s also this,” he continued, passing Grace an envelope. “It’s a letter he wrote to go with the items. It explains how he came to have them and what he wanted done with them.”
Grace took the envelope from him.
“Go on, open it. I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve read it—I had to, you see, to check whether there were any specific instructions. It’s fascinating stuff.”
Grace slipped the piece of paper out of the envelope and unfolded it. Delighted by the wonderfully old-fashioned script, she started to read.
April 28, 1912
This coat and packet of letters belong to a Miss Maggie Murphy. She is a seventeen-year-old girl who traveled with her aunt and several others from a town in Ireland. They boarded Titanic at Queenstown in County Cork, and I was their dining saloon steward. I got to know the girl Maggie, and some of the others she was traveling with, and had arranged for a Marconigram message to be sent from the ship, from Maggie, to her sweetheart back in Ireland.
When Titanic sank on the night of April 15 after hitting an iceberg, Maggie was rescued in lifeboat 16, which I was commanded to man by one of the ship’s officers. We were rescued by the steamship Carpathia at dawn the following morning after eight hours drifting in the freezing cold. Maggie was suffering terribly and was lifted out of the lifeboat onto Carpathia barely conscious. I tried to find her on the Carpathia as we sailed on to New York, but nobody knew of a young girl called Maggie from Ireland, and her name was not on the survivor list. Everything was so chaotic on that boat it is a wonder anyone found anybody they were looking for.
I remembered that Maggie had been given the lend of a coat by one of the other passengers in the lifeboat; a Yank singer, Vivienne Walker-Brown, as Maggie had given her own coat to a young child. When the Carpathia arrived in New York, we first docked at the White Star Line pier to unload the lifeboats from Titanic, which had been hauled aboard the rescue ship, and I was asked to give the crewmen a hand. I know I probably shouldn’t have, but I also planned to take the S.S. Titanic sign from the lifeboat I’d manned. I wanted to give it my father because he’d been too ill to see Titanic in Southampton docks. The lifeboats were all there was left—all he would ever see of her. As I was removing the sign, I saw a black coat in the bottom of the boat and grabbed it. Recognizing the name Maggie on the front of a packet that I found in the coat pocket, along with a set of rosary beads, I realized the coat must belong to the Irish girl.
In an attempt to get the coat and packet of letters back to her, I visited some of the hospitals in New York that I knew had taken in survivors. Being in reasonably good health myself, I was not admitted to hospital and was taken in by the Salvation Army until my employer, the White Star Line, could find accommodation for me in the city.
I was told at the St. Vincent’s Hospital that a Maggie Murphy and a Peggy Madden (who I was so happy to hear had also survived) had been admitted, but had been discharged earlier that day. I had no idea where Maggie was traveling on to, although I did know that Peggy, whom I had become quite friendly with on the ship, was traveling on to St. Louis. I have a mind to try and track her down when we have all had a chance to recover from our ordeal.
Unable to find Maggie, I have kept her coat, which bears a set of rosary beads in one pocket and the packet of letters and some browned cherry blossom petals in the other. I assume the letters are very important to her, so I will keep them until such time as I might be able to find her.
I don’t want to write about Titanic or what happened that night. I just want the haunting sounds and images to leave my mind, and I swear that I will never set foot on a ship again for as long as I live.
If, in time, this letter and the coat and letters belonging to Maggie are returned to her, please pass on my regards. She was a very brave young lady and I will never know how she must have felt stepping into that lifeboat, leaving those she was traveling with standing on the deck of the ship, which we then watched sink to the bottom of the ocean.
Whatever happens, I hope she goes on to live a very happy life and that she manages to return to her sweetheart in Ireland. From what little she told me about him, I think she must have loved him very, very much and I think he must have loved her equally.
I thank God that we are safe, and it would make me very happy indeed to see the letters reunited with their rightful owner.
Written by Harry Walsh (of sound mind),
New York
> America
Grace folded the page up and placed it carefully on the table. For a while she couldn’t speak.
“Incredible, isn’t it,” Mr. Lockey said. “You must keep the letter and give it to your great-grandmother. I hope she will be happy to know how Harry came to have her letters.”
“What was he like, your uncle?” Grace asked, interested to hear more about this young man who had risked so much to save lives and whose integrity was such that, throughout his life, he had kept Maggie’s possessions in the hope that he would one day find her.
“Ah, Uncle Harry!” Mr. Lockey chuckled. “Lucky Uncle Harry—the man with a permanent twinkle in his eye, a plan up his sleeve, and a spring in his step. He was like a second father to me, so I was extremely fond of him—where oh where do I start?”
For the next two hours Grace absorbed every detail of Harry’s life—how he had been so traumatized by the events of that night and by the loss of so many of his colleagues from Southampton that he refused to ever set foot on a boat again and found employment with the Cunard line in the offices (“the safest place to work for a steamship company,” he’d said), unable to bear the sight of the White Star Line swallowtail flag.
She heard how his mother was frantic, waiting for news of his fate, and how she and his sister had waited at the docks in Southampton, along with hundreds of other weeping mothers and wives, refusing to leave until they knew what had become of him. She listened as Mr. Lockey told her how Harry’s parents and sister, Sally (Mr. Lockey’s mother), had eventually traveled to New York to start a new life with him, how his father’s health had improved and allowed him to work again at the docks, and how his mother had become a very influential figure at the Salvation Army, helping those less fortunate than herself.