One should think kindly of everyone on a Sunday, but I can’t help wondering if Roberts found an excuse to stay with the baby boy. She must know, by now, that her former employers are on board and that even a wig, dyed hair, or a nurse’s uniform cannot disguise her forever!
When we stand to sing
Eternal Father, strong to save…
O hear us when we cry to Thee
For those in peril on the sea,
the words have never sounded more beautiful to me, especially because we have the ship’s orchestra to accompany us. The service does not end until noon, but the children have behaved beautifully throughout. Captain Smith shakes hands with all the passengers, and I am as thrilled as Miss Portia and Miss Alexandra are to be included.
It must have been the hymn that gives me the idea to take the children up to the boat deck to look at the lifeboats.
“Look, here they all are. Can you read what name is written on each side, Miss Portia? I will give you a clue. The lifeboats have the same name as our ship,” I say.
“I know, I know, it is Titanic! I can read, Gardy,” she says proudly.
“Me read too, Titanic,” Miss Alexandra repeats, not to be outdone.
“You are both very clever girls. Now, look at the numbers 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, and 16–these are the even numbers. They are on our left, which the crew calls the port side, Mrs. Landers said. And on our right, on the starboard side, are the odd numbers: 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, and 15.” This is far too much information for the children to take in, but I do it as much for myself as for them. It is a precaution. There is no harm in looking at the Titanic’s safety features!
The boat deck is deserted. Other passengers are wiser than me, for the wind has turned bitter and the temperature has dropped.
“Let’s run along one side of the deck and then down the other, before lunch. It will warm us up.” I hold out my hands. A gust of wind blows off my cap, and my hair tumbles down. The children shriek with merriment, and we almost collide with Mr. Thomas Andrews. I had not noticed his lonely figure before.
“I do beg your pardon, sir,” I say.
“This belongs to you, I believe, Nanny?” Mr. Andrews says, and returns my cap. “And do you still like my ship, young ladies?” he asks the children.
They nod vigorously, suddenly shy.
“You need not be concerned, Nanny. There are twenty lifeboats, including the four Englehardt collapsibles. Not that we have need of so many. As it is, we have room for quite half the passengers–more than the law asks of us. In addition, I designed sixteen watertight compartments. They reach all the way up to F deck. You may rest assured, the Titanic is unsinkable! I wish you a pleasant afternoon.” He bows and continues on his walk.
Mr. Andrews is such a kind gentleman. To think that he would stop and talk to me! Now, Mr. Ismay of the White Star Line walks past us as though we are invisible. I have not been given so much as a nod, though we often pass by him in the corridor. His stateroom is also on B deck.
Hart said that Mr. Ismay’s manservant mentioned that his employer’s sole topic of conversation is taken up with beating the competition. He keeps urging the captain to increase the ship’s speed! As if it mattered whether we get to New York a few hours earlier or later…
“I’m cold,” Miss Alexandra says, shivering.
“I am too. Come along into the lift and down to our warm stateroom. Won’t it be lovely to eat some nice hot soup for lunch?” I say.
The sun has disappeared and it feels almost cold enough to snow. When Hart comes in after lunch, she says that I should not bring the girls up to the Verandah Café and Palm Court this afternoon. Lady Milton has decided it is too chilly.
“I have not seen anyone out on deck,” Hart says, “but the library and little writing room are full. There is to be a big dinner party this evening, in the à la carte restaurant, which the first-class passengers have named the Ritz. The dinner is to be in honor of Captain Smith’s last voyage before he retires. Lord and Lady Milton have been invited. Lord Milton has already been down to the purser’s office to fetch Lady Milton’s diamond tiara, bracelet, and necklace. There will be more glittering jewelry at that dinner party, Gardener, than you’d find at Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle! And as for the food, goodness knows what has been ordered specially for the occasion. I shall ask her ladyship to tell me. Mrs. Porter is sure to be interested.”
“Don’t you think it is wasteful, Hart, to spend all that money up there when they serve such wonderful food in the first-class dining saloon?”
“What do we understand of the whims of American millionaires? I am more than satisfied with the meals we are served in the saloon–fit for the grandest home, I should think!” Hart says.
“Mrs. Landers says Chef sends up plain, simple, nursery meals for us. He has no idea what is meant by plain nursery food, and I’m happy to admit it. Last night, we had chocolate éclairs for dessert. I had never tasted them before! You should have seen Miss Alexandra’s face–chocolate from eyebrows to chin! Can you imagine what Nanny Mackintosh would have said?”
“Don’t get too used to all of this, Gardener,” Hart says. “We’ll be returning to normal soon and to eating good plain English food. I’m not complaining–we are luckier than some I know, where the cook watches every scrap of butter the servants put on their toast! We are treated fairly. I’m not just talking about food. What I’m trying to say is, nothing about the way life runs in our household at Number 4, or anywhere else, is going to change, Gardener. We’ll go on the same way we’ve always done.”
“I know that, Hart. No one could live like this; it’s not real life!” I am glad Hart reminded me that all I am is a fourteen-year-old nursemaid who’ll soon be back at the house as an extra pair of hands for Nanny Mackintosh. But that’s what I was hired to be. No one ever promised me anything different.
You’re right, Father. It’s about keeping to my place. I can’t help hearing his voice in my head–I do need to be reminded. To think I had not wanted to come! Well, I have had my wish–I have seen what the world is like and how different it can be. But the whole ship is not like first class. I know about the stokers, who live and work in the bowels of the ship. The sailors and cooks and glass-washers and stewards, they are the ones–the servants, like Hart and me–who make first class happen.
As Mother said, “There are those at the top and those at the bottom of the heap.”
“Thanks, Hart, maybe I have been carried away a bit. But I’ve enjoyed myself as much as the children!”
“You’ve been a tonic for those little girls. Anyone can see how fond you are of them. Look at the time! I must go. I’ve to press Lady Milton’s dinner gown, her newest one, bought especially for the voyage. A lovely, dusty-rose-colored silk, with an embroidered bodice and matching shoes. I will see you tonight, though if it gets any colder, you would be better off in the servants’ saloon than walking on deck and freezing to death!”
It is kind of Hart to give me this time to myself every evening. She does not need to do that, and I would never have asked her. She was right about the cold. Tonight I stay out hardly any time at all and am soon driven back to our stateroom. Hart crouches by the electric heater, and I sit beside her, warming my frozen fingers.
“You want to be careful not to be blown overboard on a night like this, Gardener. I’ll go down to the saloon for a bit, just to show my face. I’ll be back up long before her ladyship returns, after the concert.”
The girls lie curled up beside each other, just like Kathleen and I used to do. I cover them with an extra blanket, then lay out their warmest clothes for the morning, adding flannel petticoats. The life jackets are on the chairs, arranged as I have done since our first night on board. The little sisters compete now for who can put on their jacket first and who will receive the first sugar cube.
I told them earlier, “I declare you have eaten so much Sunday dinner, I shall have to ask for adult-size life jackets for you both!” They giggle
d, puffed out their cheeks, and strutted round the cabin, enjoying the joke.
Our Sunday night dinner of roast lamb and mint sauce, as well as chicken or beef, salads, vegetables, and new potatoes, would last our family for a week. You would think that Chef grows a garden on deck! As well as ice cream and oranges in jelly, Mrs. Landers brought in a fruit basket crammed with every imaginable fruit, even purple grapes the size of plums! “Every table in the dining rooms, for all three classes, has a similar basket,” she said, “as a centerpiece for Sunday night.”
I’m afraid Mrs. Wilson will not only have to lengthen the hems of my uniforms, but also let out the seams….
I close the door of the children’s room. The girls have not stirred. I feel restless–it has been quiet tonight, passengers retiring early because of the change in the weather. Our hot chocolate is waiting on the table, and Mrs. Landers has brought in a dish of biscuits as usual, but I am too full to nibble even one. I put my feet up on a chair and lean back on the sofa, waiting for Hart to return. She often has some interesting gossip to tell me!
I must have dozed off to the steady throb of the ship’s engines. But suddenly I wake up as if someone had nudged me, the kind of jolt that occurs when Mr. Harris stops the automobile unexpectedly. A scraping sound fills my ears–sharp as nails across a blackboard, yet distant, as if a grand piano were being dragged carelessly across a polished floor. Why would someone be moving furniture at this time? And how can I manage to hear it when there is carpet everywhere? Something else must be causing the noise.
I look out into the corridor, and a few other passengers do the same. A gentleman wearing his dressing gown peers round his cabin door, before closing it again. There is nothing unusual at all, except that just as I am getting ready to go to bed, I notice that the engines have stopped. I stand still, listening to the unaccustomed silence replacing the hum of working engines. I go to the window and look out.
The night sky is brilliant with stars, then a dark shadow looms up close and drifts past. I remember Lord Milton’s words when we stopped moving that first day out of Southampton. He said that it was a close shave after the Titanic had started to move again. But now we are well on our way to New York, with the whole ocean to sail on. What could possibly get in the way of our ship? A gong booms from one end of the ship to the other–is it a warning of some kind? Moments later, Hart bustles in.
“Not in bed yet, Gardener? It is nice and warm in here. You’ll never guess what I brought to show you, look!” She holds out her hand, with a piece of ice beginning to melt in her palm. “There are more pieces on deck.” Hart warms her hands in front of the heater. Something strange is happening. Nothing feels right….
“Did you hear that gong sounding a minute ago?” I ask her. Hart shrugs her shoulders.
“There was quite a party going on in the third-class saloon. Some of the lads sounded the gong for a lark–I shouldn’t be a bit surprised!” she says. “We could hear them singing and dancing earlier, before the steward switched off their lights at eleven o’clock! It will soon be midnight, and I’m off to my bed. Lady Milton is fast asleep, and Lord Milton has gone up to smoke a last cigar.” She yawns.
Footsteps hurry up and down the corridor, followed by a knock on the door. Mrs. Landers does not wait for a reply, but enters and says, “No need for alarm, ladies.”
I feel certain she means the exact opposite!
“Captain Smith has requested all passengers to go up on the boat deck and to bring their life jackets. It is only a precaution, he said. There is nothing to worry about.” Our stewardess disappears before we have a chance to ask her any questions. The engines have not started up again.
“I will see you and the girls on deck, Gardener. I must wake Lady Milton and help her dress–she will need her furs. I hope Lord Milton has returned from the smoking room,” Hart says.
“Hart, wait, put your coat on! And take your life jacket,” I say, reaching up to get it down for her from the top of the wardrobe.
“I’ll come back for it later. No doubt it is only a drill, our first one! Though why they would choose a cold Sunday night…”
After Hart leaves, a kind of calm settles over me. I have a premonition that something beyond my control is about to happen. Is this the moment I have been preparing for, without knowing it? Deep down, my mistrust of the sea is always there, waiting to surface.
I wake up the sleepy children and dress them. They raise and lower their arms obediently, helping me to put on their life jackets over their coats.
“Look at us, dressing in the middle of the night because Captain Smith wants us to go on deck so he can count the passengers!” I say. “Come along now, and very soon your mama and papa and Hart will join us.” I put on my own coat and life jacket and, before leaving the cabin, wrap a few biscuits in a napkin and thrust them deep into the pockets of my coat. We may be on deck for some time!
“Is this a game?” Miss Portia asks.
“A kind of game,” I reply.
When we go out in the corridor, ladies and gentlemen are laughing and joking as if it is the most natural thing in the world to go up on deck at a time when normally we’d all be asleep.
One lady who is draped in a blanket asks her steward if she is expected to go up too. “I have a cold,” she says, “I would like some tea with lemon, if you please.”
“Don’t you worry, madam, you will all be back on board by morning,” he replies, continuing down the corridor.
“Then I intend to wait and see what morning brings–after I am suitably dressed and have eaten my breakfast,” she says to his retreating form and goes back into her room, shutting the door behind her.
It sounds as if we may be going on the lifeboats! I hurry the children toward the lift. All around us, passengers are emerging in the strangest assortment of clothes. Furs over night attire, one lady in her slippers, another carrying several shawls and a hatbox! Stewards are still knocking on cabin doors, smiling, and speaking reassuringly: “No cause for alarm, madam, sir!” I’m beginning to wonder if they really know what is going on.
A portly gentleman, still dressed in his evening clothes, takes hold of a steward’s arm. “Look here, my good man, why has the captain not made an announcement to the passengers? Not very sporting, keeping us in the dark like this!” The lift arrives and the door opens. He enters in front of us, making sure he and his wife have enough room. I follow them in.
We are packed together tightly, and I pick up Miss Alexandra. Another gentleman comforts his wife, “This is a mere formality, my dear, you must not upset yourself! If anything was really amiss, we would have been notified.”
Outside, on deck, the cold takes my breath away. I turn up the collars of our coats.
“Where is the moon gone, Gardy?”
“It is late, after midnight; I expect the moon is asleep!”
We hold on to each other’s hands tightly. Miss Alexandra is already shivering with cold. I scan the deck, hoping to see Lord and Lady Milton and Hart.
The lift brings up more and more passengers. A group waits near us, trying to get some information from the officers. They are too busy to answer, directing and instructing the crew, who have begun to lower the lifeboats on the starboard side. I think I recognize the girl I saw on the first day, standing with her young brother and sister, though it is difficult to make out faces clearly. What are the second-class passengers doing up here, if there is nothing amiss?
The most wonderful aroma of freshly baked bread is in the air. Two of the pantry boys have brought up baskets of bread. Anyone would think we are about to have a midnight picnic! Miss Portia tugs at my hand. She wants to look over the railing and stands on tiptoe to do so. I grip her by the back of her life jacket with one hand. With the other, I clutch Miss Alexandra, who is doing her best to follow her sister.
A lifeboat hovers in midair, being let down inch by inch, ropes creaking in the wind. The blackness of the water so far below us makes me dizzy. I hear an officer ask
ing the ladies to enter the boat. He calls out in vain. Who wants to leave our beautiful ship to step down into that nothingness? A hissing noise erupts as steam shoots out of the funnels, adding to the clamor on deck. If only there was someone to tell us what to do …
14
Women and Children First
“Women and children first, please,” says the officer in charge. He sounds like a salesman pushing his wares, trying to coax unwilling customers to purchase his goods.
But no one wants to leave the Titanic. Why would they? A gentleman nearby urges his wife to go. I overhear his wife say, “Nonsense, Herbert, I refuse to enter one of those small wooden boats, not on someone’s whim. No, don’t tell me again that you think we have struck an iceberg–it makes no difference. We will be safer on board!” They move off.
An iceberg! Could it be true? Hart did show me a piece of ice, but Mrs. Landers would have told us if there was any danger. And I believe in Mr. Andrews. He said the ship is watertight. However, it is too cold for the children to stay out here any longer!
“Come along, my dears, we will go to the gymnasium. It will be nice and warm in there and much easier for your mama and papa to find us.” What can be taking them so long?
Several passengers, encouraged by the gymnasium instructor, are using the stationary bicycles and rowing machines. Music wafts in from the deck. The orchestra must have come up to play. I recognize the melody–Mr. Phipps has been known to whistle it. He said it is the latest American composition, called “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.”
Miss Alexandra immediately stamps her feet and claps her hands in time to the music. A lady smiles at her indulgently. I rub my hands–icy inside my gloves–and for a few seconds, take my eyes off the child. I should know better! I see her dart outside again, in search of the music.
“Miss Portia, I want you to be a good, brave girl and stay right here. I will be back as fast as I can. I must find your sister,” I say.
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