The night was moonless, and the air became increasingly oppressive and damp. My good feelings of the evening were gradually extinguished, though nothing particularly bad had happened except that Mr. Hardie remarked to Mr. Hoffman that before morning it would rain. A kind of unhinged laughter rippled through the boat when we imagined what new wretchedness rain would bring.
After that, the talk stopped and we were left alone with our thoughts and the musical sound of the water against the bottom of the boat. Remarkably, we all slept those first nights, either taking our turn in the dormitory or leaning against each other or putting our heads in willing laps. We explained this by saying that we were exhausted, shocked—not knowing the depths our shock and exhaustion would eventually reach—but optimistic, practicing in our heads the language with which we would present our experiences when we got home.
Sometime around midnight I was awakened by shouts. A man’s voice called out that he had seen lights in the distance. The sighting was unconfirmed, and though my eyes strained to pierce the obscurity of the night, I could see nothing. I slept again, and when I awoke just before dawn, I rose, intending to make my way to the little lavatory Henry and I had used on the ship before I remembered where I was and stuck one of the bailers up under my dress and urinated into it, making fussy little adjustments to my clothing and trying not to attract attention to myself. I mildly resented the men, who made no bones about unbuttoning their trousers and sending frothy streams out over the side of the boat. As time went on, this became less of a problem, for we were taking in so little water that our need to relieve ourselves became more and more infrequent. Even so, our resentments didn’t disappear. They only found new differences on which to light.
Day Four
THE EPISODE IN the night—the false or at least unconfirmed sighting of lights—had an adverse effect on us. There were new renditions of the stories of the ship’s last moments, but the romance that had been washed over everything by the haunting beauty of the sunbeams and the singing of the previous afternoon was unequal to the task of dispelling the night’s disappointment, and we were overcome by a creeping gloom. This was exacerbated by the overcast day. All around us, the gray of the sky met the gray of the sea at an indistinct horizon. Hardie said, “The clouds aren’t white now, are they, Mrs. Winter?” and Maria began once again to stand up and pull at her clothes. “Sit down,” growled Hardie, “or I’ll have to tie ye.”
Mrs. Grant called out, “Who was it that saw the lights?”
“Preston over there,” said Mr. Sinclair. “It was Preston.”
“I did. I’m not making anything up.” Mr. Preston was an earnest, round-faced man who seemed perpetually out of breath.
“Which direction were they?” asked Mrs. Grant in a voice one might use to ask the way to a hotel. “See if you can remember.” Mr. Preston looked immensely relieved and said, “Five points off the wind.” Mr. Hardie had told us how to apply the degrees of a circle or the hands of a clock to locate objects with relation to the wind or to the nose of the boat, so when Mr. Preston said this, we all craned our necks toward the starboard bow as if something might be seen there now. There was an air of unrelenting gravity about Mrs. Grant, a solemnity she conferred on whomever she addressed, and I could see at once that this sort of respect for his viewpoint was all Mr. Preston wanted.
Hardie said, “In the last hour the wind’s shifted forty-five degrees,” and he pointed off in a different direction.
“Oh,” said Preston, clearly discouraged and afraid of losing credibility. “I’m an accountant, after all, not a seaman, but accountants are noted for their accuracy. I have an eye for detail and the memory of an elephant. Just ask anyone who knows me. If I say I saw lights, then lights are what I saw.”
“Give me your attention, everyone! Listen to me!” Mrs. Grant called out in a voice everyone could hear. I was surprised to find her capable of producing such volume, for up until then she had been forceful in a quiet way. “Mr. Preston saw lights coming from there.” She nodded in the direction Mr. Hardie had indicated. “We need to keep our eyes open. I suggest you set up a watch, Mr. Hardie. It seems to me we should divide ourselves into shifts of four people, with each of the four responsible for a ninety-degree sector for one hour.” She proceeded to divide people up into nine shifts, exempting Mr. Hardie, of course, but also exempting Hannah and herself, saying they would take on more general duties and fill in where needed. It occurred to me that Hardie did not relish taking orders from a woman, for as he listened, his features were set in a wooden stare.
Several times during the morning, Mr. Hardie was asked for his opinion of the lights, but he was saving his breath. Perhaps he had been offended by Mrs. Grant’s failure to consult him before assigning new tasks. “Won’t be long now” was all he would say, but he left it to our imaginations what it was that wouldn’t be long in coming. At first I assumed he was talking about the arrival of the ship that would carry us to safety, but then I was hit with a burst of sea spray and I thought perhaps he was talking about the rain that threatened but did not fall. Only in the last couple of weeks have I decided that he was talking about something altogether different, about some rivalry that was emerging between himself and Mrs. Grant, some crisis of leadership or some approaching moment when people would see clearly what was what and would unalterably commit themselves to his command; but at the time I had no real basis for thinking anything of the sort.
Mr. Hardie passed out the breakfast biscuits and the tin cup full of water, warning us to take no more than the third of a cup allotted to us. I took only my share, but I was one of the few who did. Hardie watched grimly as people fought over the cup and some of the precious water slopped onto the floor. “Look at ye, acting like children,” he said. From then on, he measured out the exact allotment and passed the cup to us one by one.
When Mrs. Fleming again wondered aloud what might have become of her daughter, Isabelle burst out, “She has a right to know! I wouldn’t want to be protected from the truth,” and despite Mrs. Grant’s stern warning that Isabelle didn’t know what she was talking about, Mr. Preston said, “I saw it, too.” This caused Mrs. Fleming to spring to her feet and clamber over our legs to cower in the bottom of the boat next to where Isabelle and Mr. Preston sat. She clutched at their sleeves and said, “Saw what? What did you see? Which lifeboat did she get into? She didn’t get into the very next one, did she, the one that dumped all of those people into the water?” Mr. Preston looked nervously from Mrs. Fleming to Mrs. Grant and held his tongue.
“Tell me, damn you! You can’t stop there!” screeched Mrs. Fleming, her injured hand flapping unnaturally at the end of her arm. “The next boat is the one that turned upside down. I saw it with my own eyes. Were Emmy and Gordon in that boat or weren’t they?”
“It wasn’t…,” began Mr. Preston.
“Go ahead and tell her,” said Mr. Hoffman. “I hear you’re famous for your accuracy.”
“Yes, tell me!” she screeched again, rising from the damp bottom of the boat, where water continued to pool and slosh no matter how industriously we bailed. I grabbed at her, trying to assist her, but it was Hannah who ended up helping her to squeeze in between Mary Ann and me, and it was Mrs. Grant who reattached her sling and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, for she was shivering and her dress had gotten wet.
“The harm is already done,” said Mr. Hoffman. “You may as well tell her the rest.”
“You saw her too?” Mrs. Fleming’s lunatic eyes now seized on Mr. Hoffman, who said, “Yes, as a matter of fact I did.” Nobody said a word. Even the deacon seemed to shrink inside his loose coat from the scene of desperation before us.
Mr. Hoffman spoke without a trace of emotion. “She was hit by this boat when they raised it back up. She was knocked off the deck. I saw her fall into the water. She probably drowned.”
“We don’t know that,” said Hannah. “We don’t know that at all.”
“Maybe she was rescued,” the dea
con suggested gently, and I knew we were all thinking of the child with the bow tie and how Hardie and Nilsson had beaten the men away from the side of the boat with their oars. Mrs. Fleming was trembling uncontrollably and kept repeating, “Thank you, it’s best to know,” but I wondered how, in the confusion, Mr. Hoffman’s word could be taken on faith.
Inexplicably, just before dark, two of the Italian women, who had until then remained mostly silent, shrieked and repeatedly crossed themselves as well as they could while still clutching on to each other. It was Mr. Sinclair, the cripple, who translated and told us that they had prayed and received a revelation that half of us would not survive. “That means half of us will,” pronounced Mrs. Grant, making it clear with a look that this was the last word on the subject.
Mrs. Fleming seemed to have recovered her composure somewhat, and I prided myself that it had something to do with my attempts to calm her by holding her hand and saying, “It’s just a story they’re telling you. It might not even be the truth.” Then I told her of my short but happy married life with Henry and how we were planning a wedding celebration when we got home, so it greatly surprised me when she announced, “Since we’re all being honest, it really should be mentioned that Grace shouldn’t be in this lifeboat at all.”
“Nonsense,” said Mary Ann in the soothing tone of voice she had been using with Mrs. Fleming all along.
“Perhaps you didn’t see it, Mary Ann, but I did. Grace is the reason this boat is overcrowded. Did you hear what Mr. Hoffman said? How they lowered the boat and then raised it back up a fraction before continuing to let it down? Mr. Hardie was helping people into the boat and had already started lowering it into the water when Grace and her husband appeared and said something to him. What was the conversation about, Grace? We’d all like to know. I saw it because I was expecting to see my Emmy get into the boat. She was right behind me. They told me to get in first because of my hand, but I never would have done it if I wasn’t sure my daughter was coming too. What was it your husband promised Mr. Hardie? They raised the boat up and that’s when Mr. Hardie and Grace got into it. And that’s when Mr. Hoffman says Emmy was hit. If Grace won’t tell us, maybe Mr. Hardie will!”
“If they raised the boat up, it was to keep it level,” barked Hardie. “The ship was tilted nearly twenty degrees, the decks were slick with oil, and people were clawing at anyone in a uniform. I’d like to see the lot of you try to work the pulleys under those conditions!”
“They raised the boat for you and Grace—that’s the only reason. I saw it with my own eyes!”
“There, there,” I said, for I remembered nothing about getting into the boat except how I had seen smoke billowing from the bridge and how, amid the terror and confusion, I had clutched Henry’s hand and followed him blindly, putting one foot in front of the other and doing what I was told until I was swept off my feet and deposited in the boat. I could think of nothing else but to murmur meaningless phrases and pull Mrs. Fleming in against my chest, but she persisted: “Is it or is it not your fault that this boat is overcrowded? Is it or is it not your fault that my little Emmy is dead?” Her voice had become cracked and low, and the others had gone on to talk about other things and so probably didn’t hear us. Only Mary Ann heard, for she was helping me with Mrs. Fleming, and once again she tried to ease her mind, saying, “Now, now, dear. One person more or less isn’t going to make a difference.”
“It wasn’t one,” hissed Mrs. Fleming, as if she were imparting some terrible secret. “It was her and Hardie. That’s two, isn’t it? I count two.”
“And thank goodness for that, then,” said Mary Ann. “Without Mr. Hardie, we’d be lost.”
“And we’ll be lost with him!” croaked Mrs. Fleming. “You mark my words.”
Mary Ann and I exchanged a look, but Mrs. Fleming sank into an exhausted silence. I continued through the afternoon with my arms around her shoulders, whispering encouraging things to her the way one would to a child. She seemed to sleep for a while, but immediately upon waking she said, “It should have been you. Emmy should be here beside me, but your husband bought you a ticket, didn’t he? That has to be the explanation. If it weren’t for your money, the boat wouldn’t have been so overloaded in the first place. If it weren’t for your money, little Emmy wouldn’t be dead.”
I remained calm, for of course she was upset and talking nonsense. I replied that no one was allowed on the Empress Alexandra without a ticket. “You can misunderstand me if you want to,” she began evenly, but then her temporary calm evaporated and she started to scream: “It should have been her! It should have been her!” It took three of the men to subdue her. Finally, she became quiet and slumped down between Hannah and me, either asleep again or in a trance. Mary Ann took my turn at the bailer so as not to wake her up.
Because of the clouds, the sun faded away rather than set, but in the diminishing light, I could see that Mrs. Fleming had regained a kind of peace. When she asked for the bailer, I supposed she wanted it for private reasons. I had no idea she intended to drink seawater. I didn’t see her do it, but in the night I felt her shivering, so I adjusted the blanket, which had fallen from her shoulders, and Hannah and I took turns holding her tightly against our bodies. Once in the night she mumbled something incoherent, and in the morning she was dead. Later, after Mr. Hoffman had allied himself with Hardie, Mrs. Grant used this as an example of Hoffman’s treachery, of how he had killed Mrs. Fleming with the truth.
The Empress Alexandra
THE OTHERS IN the lifeboat talked about how they had seen Mr. Hardie on the Empress Alexandra, going about his duties with black looks and evil already evident in his heart, but I never saw him before the day of the disaster. My experience of the deckhands and servants was as uniformed furniture, usefully located for the convenience of the passengers, and by passengers I mostly mean Henry and me. I was newly dazzled, not only by the ship’s grandeur, but by Henry, who was proving as substantial in personality as he was in breeding and means. In London, Henry had arranged for me to purchase a new wardrobe, and I glided up and down the decks like a fairy princess, intensely but selectively aware of my surroundings, so that I noticed the chandeliers and fluted champagne glasses and the sunsets that spilled buckets of color across the sky, but not the intricate mechanics that allowed the meals to be served on time or the ship to keep to her course. I have mentioned seeing the Colonel and Mrs. Forester on board; eventually, I also remembered Mrs. McCain, for she could often be found playing bridge or solidly ensconced with a book of fiction in the reading room on the first deck, but I can’t say I remember her companion, Mrs. Cook, or her servant, Lisette.
Later, I had a lot of time to think about the ship—about what I remembered and what I didn’t—and I tried to apply what Mr. Sinclair had told us about the science of remembering and forgetting. Dr. Cole told me that the mind can work to suppress traumatic experiences, and I suppose that is true, but sometimes I think the failure to remember is not so much a pathological tendency as a natural consequence of necessity, for at any one moment there are hundreds of things that could take a person’s attention, but room for the senses to notice and process only one or two.
I remembered one incident to do with the Empress Alexandra’s crew, however. As the ship prepared to set out from Liverpool, I was standing at the rail and gazing with astonishment at the crowds of well-wishers who had come to wave us on our way, when Captain Sutter came striding along the deck as if he were restraining himself from breaking into a run. His boots made a great clatter, and he was followed by several seamen, who were struggling under the weight of two large wooden chests secured with massive locks. The captain kept glaring back over his shoulder and muttering, “You fools!” and then he would look ahead again and shout out, “Pardon me, pardon me,” in order to clear a path through the crowd of passengers trying to spot their loved ones on the dock below.
“Why didn’t you take those straight to the safe room?” the captain hissed to the men just as he br
ushed past me. “You might as well have posted an advertisement so that any thief will know exactly what to look for!”
I followed along at a distance, pretending to scan the faces in the crowd whenever the captain looked back to chastise his men, but he was preoccupied and took no note of me. When he descended a set of stairs, I held well back, my heart pounding as if I were transgressing some unwritten law, but I had no trouble making out what was said in the echoing stairwell. The group soon stopped at a door next to the purser’s office, and the captain called out: “Mr. Blake, did you bring the key?” I stayed in the shadows, then hurried back up the stairs so I wouldn’t be discovered when their attention turned from their task, as it was eventually bound to. I supposed the door led to the safekeeping room where they had stored the box containing the necklace Henry had bought me in London, as well as my rings and Henry’s heirloom watch. This is how I knew that what Penelope Cumberland later told me about two chests full of gold was the truth.
Henry was more interested in the other passengers than I was, but he was always attentive to me, and he more than filled my need for human companionship, which has always been low. He wouldn’t have stayed up late to play cards and talk about politics in the smoking room if I had asked him not to, which I never did. I liked to have time to myself to fix my hair and arrange things alone in our cabin before Henry came to bed. I liked to gaze out of the porthole and watch the moon on the water, and I liked to savor my good fortune at having met Henry just when I thought I might have to become a governess. From the safety and solitude of my stateroom, with its Belgian linen and porcelain washbasin, I could look back on the events of the previous year and try to make sense of them; but in the end, the only sense I could make of my parents was that they were weak.
The business partners who had defrauded my father had also effectively ended his life, for when it became clear that he did not hold the patents on which his business relied and for which he had mortgaged not only his offices but also the house where we lived, he shot himself. What had Papa imagined a wife and two daughters would do without him? What my mother did was throw up her hands and let her hair fall down around her face so that when she made her erratic way to and from the shops, the beggar children scurried into the gutter, pointing and afraid. My sister Miranda immediately rolled her sleeves up and managed to get work as a governess, but when she encouraged me to do the same, I resisted. It might have been a manifestation of my mother’s passive streak that tempted me to throw up my own hands and hope to be rescued, but I also had some of Miranda’s decisiveness in me—perhaps the same decisiveness that had persuaded my father to shoot himself rather than face the humiliation of poverty, which goes to show that admirable traits are often exactly the same as negative ones, only expressed in a different way. Whatever it was, the trait hadn’t taken root in me in the same way as it took root in my sister, and I will admit that my mother often called me stubborn when I was a child. No sooner had Papa been buried than Miranda went straight to brushing up on her French grammar and arithmetic, and off she went to Chicago, whence she sent frightening letters filled with excruciating details about the children’s daily life and academic progress. Or maybe I wasn’t decisive at all. Maybe I was a hopeless romantic like my mother, just one who was lucky enough to avoid madness by finding the romance and security her heart desired.
The Lifeboat: A Novel Page 5