RAZORBILL
UNSPEAKABLE
CAROLINE PIGNAT is the award-winning author of four critically acclaimed YA novels, including Egghead, a Red Maple Honour book, and Greener Grass, the 2009 Governor General’s Award winner. A high-school teacher, she lives in Ottawa.
ALSO BY CAROLINE PIGNAT
Egghead
Greener Grass
(Book 1 of the Greener Grass series)
Wild Geese
(Book 2 of the Greener Grass series)
Timber Wolf
(Book 3 of the Greener Grass series)
CAROLINE PIGNAT
FOR GRANNY
MY GUILT HAS OVERWHELMED ME
LIKE A BURDEN TOO HEAVY TO BEAR.
Psalm 38:4
THE MORNING AFTER
May 29, 1914
Rimouski, Quebec
Chapter One
“THIS WAY,” THE SAILOR COAXED US from where we huddled against the cold, hundreds of us on the deck of the small steamer. Dazed, we stumbled down the gangway into the early morning light.
This isn’t real. It’s a nightmare. It has to be.
But try as I might, I couldn’t wake. I couldn’t forget. And I couldn’t stop shaking.
I thought that long night would never end. That I’d never see the sun again, never feel it on my face or the solid ground beneath my bare feet. I staggered forward on my trembling legs and stopped for a moment to reassure myself. But nothing felt steady. And neither the sun on my head nor the stranger’s shirt that reached my bare thighs did anything to keep away the chill.
The other ship had docked behind us, and I walked partway down the quay as hundreds of disoriented victims left her gangway and trudged past. Most were injured. Many nearly naked. But all looked numb. From the cold, yes, from the freezing waters and biting winds, but mainly from the shock. It was all too much. Their vacant eyes didn’t see me even as I stood before them. Survivors, still lost at sea. Though their bodies had survived that long, horrific night, for many, their minds and hearts had not, as they watched their loved ones lose blood and heat, lose their very lives, seeping away in the cold depths.
Meg.
I closed my eyes. Tried not to see her in those last moments, then opened them to search for him.
He’s here. Somewhere. He has to be.
I scanned every bruised and battered brow, but no face was his. They moved past me, drawn by the kindness of strangers offering woollen blankets and mugs of tea. Even at this early hour, the townspeople of Rimouski had rallied quayside, their farmers’ carts piled with whatever clothing and food they could spare.
“Thomas! Thomas!” shrieked a young woman in a ragged nightdress as she shoved past. A man coming off the other ship lifted his face, his eyes, his hopes. His soul sparking back to life as he heard his name, as he saw her come. She pushed through the crowd and flung herself into his arms, and they fell to their knees where they stood.
“I thought I’d lost you …” He gripped her face, as though convincing himself she was real. “Dear God—” He kissed her roughly as he pulled her to him. “I thought I’d lost you.”
The crowd thinned to a few stragglers, and some townspeople rushed down to shoulder the injured and carry those too weak to walk. Face after face, yet none were his. By the time I reached the empty gangway, my legs, my hands, my very heart trembled as I gripped the rope railing.
He had to be here. I’d already searched in vain for him while aboard the Lady Evelyn, and the only thing that had kept me going was the belief that he was right behind us. That I’d find him. That I would run to him. That he would take me in his arms again and, this time, never let me go.
I glanced back at the crowd dispersing into Rimouski homes or the temporary hospital at the train station. The reunited couple walked away, arms tight around each other’s waists, each holding the other up. Their prayers had been answered. Why not mine?
A bald-headed man called up to the sailor on deck. “The shed is ready for the others.”
The others. I shuddered.
“Claude!” a local woman scolded the man, gesturing at me. She put a blanket around my shoulders. “Vienst’en Monique,” she urged, firmly pulling me from the ship’s gangway as Claude and the men of the town climbed up. “Ça va être correct.” She patted my arm and gently muttered sympathies, but there was no way she was letting me on that ship or leaving me here.
I let her steer me back quayside. Let her slip a dress over my head and help me shrug off the dirty old shirt. I couldn’t stop thinking of him.
Hundreds survived. He had. He had to.
Monique poured a steaming cup from her flask and put it in my hands. It burned my fingers but I gripped it tightly, wanting to feel something—for I feared I would never feel anything again.
I STARTED AT THE HOSPITAL and then moved to the nearby homes. All that afternoon, I ran from house to house, calling their names until I was hoarse. Monique came with me, speaking fast French to neighbours who looked at me with sad eyes and shook their heads. And when my search had led us road after road, house after house down to the thick-planked quayside shed, I knew I’d looked everywhere. Everywhere but there.
And I just couldn’t go in. I couldn’t.
The door opened and two men exited. The tall man with slick hair glanced briefly at Monique before resting his dark eyes on me. He wasn’t from around here. Even before he spoke, before I heard his American accent, I knew. His clothes were too smooth and tailored. But more than that, his gaze held no pity. He was no farmer. No victim. He wasn’t here to offer or seek help. He smiled at me. Any other time and place, I might have thought this twenty-something young man handsome, might have longed for his attention, but here and now, his intensity unnerved me.
“Were you a passenger, mademoiselle?” the shorter of the two asked.
“Stewardess,” I mumbled, wondering if they might be Canadian Pacific Railway officials.
“Mind if I take your picture,” he said, raising the camera to his eye, “for the Montreal Gazette?”
“Actually,” I said, lifting my hand to cover the lens, “I do mind.”
“Wyatt Steele, New York Times.” The taller man held out his hand. I didn’t take it. “The world wants to hear your story, Miss …” He fished for my name and once again came up empty. But he wouldn’t be deterred. He flipped open his notebook. “Can I ask you a few questions?”
I eyed the door, considered what was behind it. “Let me ask you something. What business do you men have in there?”
“Memorial postcard,” the short man said.
“What?” I looked at him in disbelief. “You actually took a picture of the dead … for a postcard?” The rage surged from a place deep inside me. “Did you ask them if they minded?”
“Just doing my job.” He shrugged. “The public have a right to know.”
“And what about the deceased?” I snapped, pointing at the shed. “Do they not have any rights? To dignity? To privacy? To respect?”
“They deserve to have their story told,” Steele answered. “By someone who was there, by someone who survived.” He rested his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t you think you owe them that?”
“Get away from me,” I yelled, shrinking away, “you—you vultures!”
Monique stepped in and, in no uncertain terms, put the men in their place. I don’t know if Steele spoke French, but he got the message just the same. She took me to her home then, murmuring her words of comfort, tucking me under her wing. I let her fuss. Let her stoke up a roaring fire and wrap me in a thick quilt. Let her make a cup of tea I wouldn’t drink and back-bacon sandwiches I wouldn’t eat.
Maybe at least one of us would feel like she was doing something.
They thought I was sleeping in the g
uest room—as if I would ever sleep soundly again. I heard Monique puttering about making Claude’s tea, the spoon clinking on his cup, the knife scraping his sandwich in two. And the halting sound of his voice. This tough old farmer, reduced to tears as he told his wife what he’d done that day. What he’d help carry from the ship decks to the shed. I didn’t understand a word of French, but I knew exactly what he said.
For now we all spoke grief.
FOUR MONTHS BEFORE
January 1914
Strandview Manor, Liverpool
Chapter Two
GRIEF WAS NO STRANGER TO ME. I’d known more than my share of it in my short eighteen years. My mother. My father’s love. My innocence. My hope. All of it had been stolen from me. In many ways, I was a victim long before the Empress tragedy. I’d arrived on the steps of my great-aunt’s Liverpool house two months before with nothing but my losses. And I hadn’t the will or the strength to do anything more than wallow. To bury myself under the covers and never come out.
But apparently, Aunt Geraldine had other plans.
“You can’t make me,” I yelled from my bed that damp December morning, gripping the quilts in my fists as I burrowed deeper. “I won’t do it!”
Aunt Geraldine ripped the bedding back and dumped it on the floor. Her strength surprised me. So did her temper. Not just because she was ancient, like some wizened apple doll, in her eighties at least, but because my aunt rarely came out of her study. I’d ignored her these past long weeks. Why couldn’t she do me the same courtesy? Hadn’t she done that for most of my life?
She pointed her finger at me as I sat shivering in my nightie. “You will go on that ship, Ellen Hardy, and you will work hard, bloody hard. Mr. Gaade is doing you a favour taking you on at all.”
“Some favour,” I sulked.
“You will learn to be grateful for all you do have,” she continued, as if I had anything to be thankful about. “Maybe, just maybe, you will learn how to make a life for yourself.”
“As a stewardess?” I couldn’t believe her. What kind of life was that? Outraged, I bolted from the bed and stood before her. Though we were the same size, my great-aunt’s greatness seemed to loom over me, snuffing out whatever my words might have sparked.
Her young maid dropped to her knees to gather up my bedding, tending to my every need as she had since I’d arrived. Fetching tea. Bringing trays. Warming water bottles.
“Leave it, Meg,” Aunt Geraldine said, and the quiet girl stood. “Ellen will do it.”
Meg curtseyed and left.
“You can’t write my life. You can’t just order me about.” I crossed my arms. “I’m not some halfwit maid you can—”
I never saw my aunt’s slap coming, but I still remember its sting. How it made both of us watery-eyed. I raised my trembling hand to my burning cheek. No one had ever slapped me before. Not even my father, though he surely must have wanted to after what I’d done. I felt hot with the memories, the shame, the smouldering flush of a victim who is powerless to do anything but burn.
“Why didn’t you just leave me where I was?” I said, defeated, as she turned to go. “You’ve only traded one jail for another.”
She rested her wrinkled hand on the doorknob and, slumping, looked back over her shoulder. Her eyes were tired. Her face, sunken. For the first time, Aunt Geraldine seemed as old as she truly was. “I promised your mother I’d watch over you.”
“Well,” I said, gloating somewhat in the small power of my words, “I’d say she’s sorely disappointed, isn’t she?”
“Yes,” Aunt Geraldine said softly, her eyes meeting mine. “I’d say she is.”
She paused. “You know, Ellen, I always thought you had more of your mother in you. I guess I was wrong.”
TRUE TO HER WORD, within the week Aunt Geraldine had me signed on, suited up, and shipped out as a stewardess on the ocean liner the Empress of Ireland. And her maid along with me. That’s all Meg was to me then. My aunt’s hired help. Her eyes on the ship. I’d no idea then that Meg would become so much more. That I would become a victim of a shipwreck because of my aunt’s actions, or that I’d survive it because of Meg’s.
Oh, Meg. She always had a wide-eyed wonder about her. So something as grand as the Empress of Ireland literally left her speechless. As soon as we boarded, bags in hand, the stiffly starched Matron Jones led us for what seemed like miles, through passageways and back stairs from one long hall to another. Meg followed, fascinated by the grand dining halls, the stocked library, the lush carpets and rich wood panelling—even the bloody doorknobs were worth a mention. Everywhere she turned she seemed even more amazed, but all I felt was trapped. Meg saw grandeur. I saw work. More places to clean. More places to get lost. I’d never be able to find my way around.
“Is this the front of the ship?” Meg asked, trying to get her bearings.
“The bow—yes,” Matron Jones corrected. Her dark skirts swished as she marched. Her keys jangled on her belt like a jailer’s. “Stewardesses’ cabins are located on the Shelter Deck.”
Meg’s smile widened. Perhaps it was being referred to as a stewardess or the idea of having a cabin on the Shelter Deck. But I knew neither were going to be as glorious as Meg imagined. Not by a long shot. Not for me, anyway. Matron Jones finally stopped outside a door and knocked brusquely before entering. As soon as it opened, I knew there had to be some mistake. This wasn’t a room, it was a cupboard. A closet of bunk beds.
“Them’s the new girls?” A short stewardess stood at the small sink between the bunks patting her reddish-brown hair. She looked to be in her early thirties. Solid. Ruddy. She reminded me of a potato.
“Kate, this is Ellen Ryan and Meg Bates,” Matron Jones replied in her clipped voice. She glanced at us. “Change and report to the galley in five minutes.” She left as abruptly as she spoke.
I didn’t like being ordered about by this old goat. And hated even more that this was my life now.
“Well, here’s the grand tour.” Kate flourished her arm, taking in the tiny room, the two sets of bunk beds, their green curtains swagged up either side. “ Bed. Bed. Bed. Bed. Sink. Closet.”
“It’s lovely,” Meg gushed. “And look, there’re little drawers right by our bed. We can each have our own.”
A tantrum roiled in my stomach. I didn’t want my own drawer. I wanted, I needed, my own bloody room, not to be shelved away like one of my aunt’s books. “This is our room … I mean, for all three of us?”
Kate snorted at the ridiculousness of it and I felt my shoulders relax. Clearly there was some mistake.
“Actually, we’re four. Gwen is upstairs giving the toilets another swish. I dunno the fuss, really. But you know, some passengers can be so finicky—every bowl must sparkle, even the one for their shite.”
The already cramped walls started to close in. This can’t be happening. How could Aunt Geraldine do this to me?
“Don’t worry,” Kate said, no doubt reading my expression, “we hardly ever spend time in here other than sleeping or dressing. The passengers keep us hopping.”
That didn’t make me feel any better.
“You working second class?” Kate asked.
Meg looked at me, unsure.
“Probably,” Kate concluded. “Funny, they don’t normally sign them on so young. Or pretty. Most of us are working widows or spinsters.” She tilted her head at us. “What are you, eighteen?”
Meg clutched her bag and nodded enthusiastically. “Lady Hardy knows Chief Steward Gaade so she put in a—”
I glared at her blathering our business. My business.
She blushed again and added lamely, “… good word for us.”
Had the girl no sense? I’d told her not to speak of it.
“Either way,” Kate concluded, “I doubt Gaade will let you wet-behind-the-ears serve first.” She lifted a white apron from her bunk and slipped it over her dark uniform, efficiently knotting it in a looping bow in the back before adjusting her white cuffs and collar. I h
ated the sight of the drab uniform, the knowledge that I’d be forced to wear it every day, like some inmate. “The last thing the chief steward needs is for you to piss off some upper-class brat.”
“What do you know about upper class?” I didn’t like her tone. Or her suggestion that all upper class are brats or that I couldn’t serve them. If anyone knew what an upper-class person wanted, surely it would be me. I was upper class, or had been, once.
She laughed and busied herself with her cap, securing it in place with four hairpins. “Nothing personal, Ellen, but you don’t know your galley from your glory hole. And if there’s one thing rich people expect, it’s a servant who knows the place.” She tilted her head. “A servant who knows her place.”
“She has the right idea.” Kate nodded at Meg. “Look at her, all eager to please. You must have served first class before, love. Am I right?”
Meg hesitated and glanced at me. “Um, I’ve only ever worked as a maid. For Lady Hardy.”
“We both did,” I added. “As maids. I’m a maid, too.”
“Oh?” Kate seemed amused by my overinsistence. “Just the one mistress, then?”
“And her young grandniece,” Meg added. Her eyes flickered from Kate’s to mine, terrified she’d said too much.
“Let me guess,” Kate continued, smoothing down her apron and brushing her hands together. “Rich, spoiled brat who speaks of nothing but her clothes and her hair and her debutante dress?”
Meg said nothing and stared at the floor, but her blush made Kate laugh.
“Do you know the Hardys?” I asked. It hadn’t occurred to me that anyone but Chief Steward Gaade knew my family. And even he didn’t know the whole story.
“No.” Kate shook her head. “But they’re all the same, aren’t they?”
I thought of my old friends. Of our visits that summer before everything changed. And we did talk of clothes and hair and dresses. Until Declan Moore appeared. Then all I spoke of was him. And look where it got me.
Unspeakable Page 1