Unspeakable
Page 4
May 28, 1913
The lads on this ship all call me Lucky. I wish they wouldn’t. I’m not lucky—not by a long shot. It’s cursed, I am. Bloody cursed. They want to hear all about it—all the gory details. So I just keep to myself most of the time.
Mam bought me this book on my last layover at home. Told me to write in it, though I don’t see the point. She thought it might help with the nightmares, might give me something to do when I wake up in a cold sweat and can’t sleep. You were the smart one, Da. Not me. You always had a way with words. She told me to write about how I am feeling—but all I ever feel is angry. And the more I try to stop, the hotter it burns.
The last place I want to be is at sea again. But I suppose I belong in the boiler room. I’ve shovelled my way cross the pond four times now. Liverpool to Quebec City and back again twice. The company men brag about the Empress taking only six days to cross from dock to dock, but it’s the firemen—the trimmers and stokers—they should be bragging about. She might have two engines three decks high, but where do they think she gets that 18,500 horsepower to turn the twin screws? What do they think propels all of her 14,000 tons?
The sweat of the Black Gang, that’s what. While the hobnobs sip their brandies and marvel at her speed, eight levels down, men blackened by soot drive the ship by their muscle and sweat. It’s like some bloody Roman galley. The Black Gang shovel tons of coal into the white-hot furnaces. A hundred or so of us, taking turns, labouring non-stop until we reach port. Gruelling work, and hotter than hell’s bowels. But I deserve no better. Mam wanted me to get on as a bellboy, not a stoker. Work my way up to assistant steward and, like you, maybe even smoke room steward someday.
But I’m not you, Da. As badly as Mam needs me to be, I’ll never be you.
I sat in bed and read both entries a few more times, though I knew them by heart now. Despite the hot water bottle and extra blankets Lily had given me, I couldn’t stop shivering. There were things about Jim that I never understood. Maybe the other entries yet to come had answers. Or better yet, maybe Steele would tell me where Jim was so I could go and ask him for myself. I could wipe his brow and help him heal. Maybe, I could finally tell him how I really felt.
I set the pages on my nightstand and snuffed the candle stub, but I wouldn’t sleep. I couldn’t. A part of me was still on the Empress. Trapped. Drowning. Sinking deeper and deeper in regrets. And so I lay awake as I had each night for the past three weeks, listening as the house creaked and moaned, an empty shell settling in the darkness around me.
THE FIRST INTERVIEW
June 1914
Strandview Manor, Liverpool
Chapter Eight
THE NEXT MORNING, I sat in front of the breakfast I wouldn’t eat and grudgingly read Steele’s Rimouski and Titanic articles. I skimmed the Rimouski piece. He’d captured the details and facts. But more than that, the people. I could hear Gracie in his retelling. Even the Titanic articles were top-notch. Clearly he’d interviewed dozens of survivors from third class. Heart-wrenching accounts. The man could write, I’d give him that. But that didn’t mean I wanted to be his next headline. I wasn’t really going through with it—was I? Just thinking about it made my stomach twist even tighter.
As promised, Steele arrived at ten sharp, eyes bright and keen. He seemed excited to be here. Lily sat him across from me at the dining table. I’d had her remove the drape cloth and polish the table before Steele arrived. It seemed more formal, but the truth was, I felt safer, less exposed, with the solid mahogany between us. Clutching the curved armrests in my white-knuckled grip, I anchored myself to weather whatever he’d throw at me.
“Let’s get started,” he said, flipping his notebook to a fresh page. I felt hunted—no, worse than that. I felt trapped, about to be skinned and dissected.
Can I do this? Am I really going to talk about that night?
I’d put so much energy into staunching those memories as they bubbled up these past few weeks. Yet here I was, baring their very arteries to a stranger.
“So, Miss Ellen,” he said, looking at me as though I were a specimen. His pencil, ready for the first incision. “Tell me about the Empress of Ireland. When did you first meet?”
He spoke of her as the crew did—as though the ship were a woman and not steel and rivets. I released the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. Though it had some pain of its own, that memory came easy.
“It was the summer of 1906, the year I turned ten. I spent time with Aunt Geraldine. My mother had been ill—she was dying, actually. And I suppose my parents felt it best that I be spared that goodbye. I was sent from my home in Ireland here to Liverpool, to Strandview Manor, which I hated, and to Aunt Geraldine, whom I liked even less.” I cleared my throat and focused on what I meant to say. “That was when I first saw the Empress. Mr. Gaade, the chief steward, was an old friend of my aunt’s and had invited us to see the ship off on her maiden voyage. Just a short one, across the Irish Sea to Ireland.”
I was back there, then, looking at the Empress through my ten-year-old eyes. I could almost hear the band playing beneath the bunting, almost feel the long blast of her horn shake my heart as she pulled away. From her red-bottomed hull, up her sleek, black sides, past her white upper decks to her black-rimmed golden funnels, she was a beauty. But I didn’t care about all that, I didn’t want to wave my hankie at a ship bound for Ireland—I wanted to take it. I wanted to go home.
I paused, but Steele, seemingly comfortable with the uncomfortable silence, waited for me to fill it.
“That’s the first time I saw her,” I finally added, pulling away from the memory. “I never thought I’d sail, much less serve, aboard her.”
“What did you think when you boarded her for the first time as crew?” Steele prompted. He glanced at a side note. “In January 1914.”
It seemed like such a long time ago. Was it really only five months? “I didn’t know what to think, really. I’d only recently recovered that winter from … an illness. I was tired and overwhelmed.”
He jotted something in the margin. “And Meg Bates, you joined together, didn’t you? What was her first impression?”
“Honestly, you’d think she’d won a first-class ticket.” I smiled, remembering Meg’s excitement. “She loved it. Meg loved every minute of that job.”
I SPENT THE BETTER PART of the morning educating Steele on the life of a stewardess. Hardly newsworthy. But he’d asked, and so as we sat at the table in the front room, I told him all about it: league after league of making beds, cleaning cabins and alleyways, scrubbing toilets, drawing baths at the right time and temperature. Stewards and stewardesses existed for the comfort of the upper-class passengers. We were to be out of sight and within call, summoned like trained dogs. Run my bath. Fetch my tea. Hang my clothes. Arrange these flowers. Each stewardess was assigned to about a dozen cabins—enough to keep you hopping, all right. And we worked six straight sailing days from five thirty in the morning till eleven at night, squeezing in our meals when we could, second-class leftovers hastily scarfed where we stood in the corners of the steamy pantry. If we were awake, we were on duty one way or another, and always under the watchful eyes of Gaade and Matron Jones. Nothing roused their fury more than stupidity. As a stewardess with absolutely no experience, I had more than my fair share of stupid mistakes on that first voyage: dropping teapots, constantly getting lost in the maze of halls, botching the errands I did remember. I’ll never forget the look on old Colonel Ripper’s face when I mixed up his laundry delivery with Lady Featherton’s extra-large unmentionables. My eyes smiled even now as I recounted the incident to Steele.
“There he was, standing in his dinner uniform in the middle of his cabin intent upon the large white flag he held in one hand. With the other, he scratched his bald head, confounded by what was, in fact, an enormous brassiere dangling on the tip of his cane. ‘Good Lord, Ellen,’ he’d finally said, red-faced and wide-eyed, when it dawned on him what he’d retrieved from the laundry
bag I’d left him, the one that was clearly not his. ‘It’s like the billowing sail of a double-masted brig!’”
Steele laughed.
“And whenever Meg and I saw Lady Featherton’s great girth coming down the deck, I’d only to lean in and whisper, ‘Thar she blows!’ to send poor Meg into a fit of giggles. Oh, Meg.” I shook my head and smiled, lost in the mist of a good memory. “I wouldn’t have survived it all without her.”
The truth of my words echoed in the dining room, tolling through my fog like a ship’s bell. I survived because of Meg. That horrible night, she’d given me her life vest. Insisted upon it. Her last great act of service to me.
A dry lump lodged in my throat as I took my hankie and dabbed my stinging eyes, uncomfortable under Steele’s scrutiny. I swallowed and shifted in my seat. “I’m sorry.”
He nodded, but the apology was not for him. Not really.
“Take your time.” He scanned his questions. For a man who made a profit on words, he was surprisingly stingy. Had he any words of comfort, he kept them to himself.
Unready to continue, and unwilling to sit still, I stood and rang for Lily. Twice. Where was that girl? My throat was parched. I turned to stare out the window while I waited.
In all the weeks that I’d been at Aunt Geraldine’s before we sailed, I’d never truly appreciated all that Meg did. Or how well. To be honest, I hardly noticed her at all. My aunt had hired Meg the year before, I believe. Most of the time a cup of tea would appear on the end table before I’d even realized I wanted it. Earl Grey, milk and two sugars. My bed was always turned down and warmed up no matter what hours I kept. My clothes neatly pressed. Meg was simply a part of the house, really. If I rang a bell, I knew Meg would run as surely as I knew water did when I turned the tap. “You just have to get to know them, is all,” she’d said, when I’d returned to the second-class galley a third time because Lady Featherton’s soup was too cold, then too hot, and eventually too late. “They’re people just the same as you and me, Miss Ellen.”
I had my doubts about Lady Featherton, but for the most part, the passengers were patient with me, and I improved over the winter as we crossed the Atlantic from Liverpool to New Brunswick and back each month. Six days at sea, serving passengers from dawn to dark; six days at dock to clear them out, clean her up, and board again; and six days back to Liverpool. With Meg’s help, I learned how to serve hot soup, steep strong tea, and carry five plates at one time just as well as she could, though I never got the ten-shilling tips Meg did when the passengers docked. Many even offered to hire her for their personal staff. But she never even considered it. “I couldn’t leave you, Miss Ellen. I made a promise to Lady Hardy, so I did. And I don’t break my promises.”
I wasn’t too keen about having my aunt’s spy watching me day and night; still, you couldn’t help but like Meg. She lived to please, and it seemed to please her to live that way. Getting paid for it was a bonus. Though, truth be told, we weren’t paid all that much; we relied on those tips. Once we paid for our uniforms and our laundry bills, not to mention all my broken dishes, there wasn’t much left. But there was always enough for us to treat ourselves when we docked in Saint John, New Brunswick. Freed from the rule of Aunt Geraldine, the demands of Gaade, and the disapproving eye of Matron Jones, we’d kick up our heels in Saint John, sharing a pilfered bottle of stout on the pier, sharing the adventures of stealing it, the recent melodrama of the passengers, and the longing for that look from those two young men we fancied. Just two girls having fun. I didn’t realize it then, but not only was she by far the best maid, Meg Bates was the best friend I ever had.
Chapter Nine
STEELE SAT IN HUNGRY SILENCE at the table behind me, waiting to feed on whatever I might reveal next: more of my life aboard the Empress, more about Meg, more about all that I had lost. I’m not sure how long I stood staring out the front window at Aunt Geraldine’s garden, lost in thought as I watched Bates putter around in his rubber boots.
My mother brought me here a few summers before she died. She always made time for Aunt Geraldine, her husband’s aunt who never seemed to have time for us. But Bates always had time for me. I’d often sit on the garden wall and watch him prune or weed or water. Ask him a million questions about why he plucked at the plants. Oh, just making a space for the new buds. He’d always been so gentle with the flowers, so patient with my many questions. Back then, he’d answered every but why, Bates? Yet even Bates couldn’t answer that question now.
I looked at him now, the stoop of his back, the tremble of his wrinkled hands as he reached his shears into the white rose bush. He seemed so old. So frail. What would become of him, of us, without Aunt Geraldine’s direction and Meg’s help? He snipped a rose, dropped it beside the other two on the ground. They’d be on Aunt Geraldine’s grave within the hour. She would have liked that. Then Bates turned his attention to the foxglove by the gate. Its vibrant purple bells rustled in the breeze, carrying its sweet scent through the open window. Meg loved foxglove. No doubt her grandfather would have cut her some, would have brought a bouquet to her grave, had he known where she lay. Like Jim, her body had never been recovered. I never saw either of them in a rough-hewn coffin, lined up among the hundreds of others. Husbands. Wives. Children. I closed my eyes.
No.
I never saw them because they weren’t there. Jim and Meg were listed as “lost at sea.” Lost … not dead, and something lost might still be found. For weeks now, I had clung to the withering hope that there had been some kind of mistake. That one day I’d see Jim on the docks, see Meg coming through that gate. Bates had told me it was time to let go, but I just couldn’t. I saw her struggle and gasp. No matter how my numbed hands tried to hold her up, no matter how I kicked my leaden legs, she kept slipping away, and all I could do was watch her terrified eyes disappear beneath the black water.
I wouldn’t let go of her. Not again.
“—as a stewardess? … Miss Ellen?” Steele’s voice bobbed on the edges of my darkness and I gripped it like a lifeline, letting him reel me back to here and now.
“Sorry?” Once again, I found myself apologizing to the very man who was keelhauling me through the depths.
“Well …” He scanned the pages, flipping back through the many notes he’d made this morning. “We’ve got when you started, what you did, where, and with whom. Mainly Meg, right?”
I nodded, in slight shock at his callousness. Bloody journalist. His cold detachment contrasted with my wild emotions. He was calm and rational while my mind galloped and my heart bucked. Yet somehow he tethered me to the present. Gentled me, I suppose. I didn’t know whether to be angry or grateful.
“This is good. Really good stuff.” He put his pencil to his lips. “But one thing I don’t understand is why.”
“That’s the question, isn’t it, Mr. Steele?” I returned to my seat, drawn by his sympathy. “Why? Why do these tragedies happen? Why do we lose people we care about?”
He flipped the page. “No, I mean why were you even on the ship?”
Once again, his bluntness caught me off guard.
“You’re Ellen Hardy,” he continued. “Daughter of Joseph Hardy—sole heir of Hardy Estates, one of the richest stables in County Wicklow.”
My face burned and I shut my mouth, only just noticing it was hanging open. Clearly, he’d done his homework. Any gratitude or connection he’d evoked in me were gone. How dare he? How dare he bring up my father! I wondered how much he already knew. Not all of it, not if he was asking.
“I don’t see what any of that has to do with the Empress.” I tried to keep my voice neutral, though I knew my face betrayed me. My very thoughts flushed up my neck and across my cheeks. I’d never been a good liar.
“Why would someone like you be living a second-class servant’s life?” He squinted as if trying to read me more clearly. “What made you do it? Now, that’s exactly the kind of story that sells.”
My mind raced. “It was for a story, of course.�
�� I scrambled for an answer to stop up the truth I didn’t want to spill. If I let it out, even a little, I knew the whole of it would gush forth. “That’s exactly it. Aunt Geraldine needed some research.”
His eyes darkened as a frown settled over them. He wasn’t buying it.
“For her new book,” I added. “About a stewardess. Who works on a steamship.”
He tapped the pencil on his lips, sounding my story for truth. “It’s just, I can’t see G.B. writing about something that mundane. A stewardess adventure—I mean, come on, who’d want to read that?”
I arched my eyebrow and clenched my jaw. “Indeed.”
He smirked at the irony, and his eyes brightened once again. He relaxed into his chair. “So why not just send the maid, Meg? Why both of you?”
“Have you met my aunt, Mr. Steele?”
“I wish I had.”
“She was a perfectionist who lived and breathed her books. Her characters were more real to her than … than I was.” The words came easier the less he doubted. Plus I spoke the truth. Aunt Geraldine simply wanted to write my life. To control me like some secondary character in her bloody novels. “I wanted to get away from her overbearing ways. I wanted … an adventure of my own.” I chose my words carefully, using what little I knew about the man before me. If we were going to play this game, I needed to know more about him, a lot more. “Besides, surely a writer such as yourself would know that two sources are better than one.”
Lily knocked and entered with tea. I’d made it clear before he came that Mr. Steele would not be staying. I’d given him the whole morning, enough for one day. She seemed embarrassed when he noticed the tray held tea, soup, and buttered soda bread for one. Aunt Geraldine would’ve been disgusted by my actions. But my lack of hospitality was the least of the many ways I’d disappointed her.
He caught Lily’s eye and winked as he flipped his notebook shut. “Well, I guess that’s my cue.”