On a Cold Dark Sea

by Elizabeth Blackwell

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  A simple enough question. A question she felt too overwhelmed to answer. Seeing the picture of Mr. Van Hausen had brought it all back: the men at the oars, Charlotte’s arm around her shoulders, her own pleading sobs. Time and age had distanced Anna from that bewildered, half-frozen girl, so much that she might as well be another person. Yet Anna was still carrying the guilt of that previous self. Why? She’d been so young, so frightened. Wasn’t it time that poor girl was forgiven?

  Speaking softly, looking at her pillow rather than Josef, Anna tried to make her husband understand. “An Englishwoman gave me this coat, when I was pulled into the lifeboat. I was so cold—I could hardly breathe. She wrapped it around me, and it felt like she’d brought me back to life. Her name was Charlotte.”

  Josef listened, impassive. He never spoke solely for the purpose of filling a silence.

  “Emil was behind me. If he’d been only a few feet closer, they would have pulled him in, too. I saw him in the water—he was calling out . . .”

  Anna began to cry, silent tears that solemnly rolled down her cheeks. She cried for Emil, who’d come so close to being saved, and for herself, who’d failed him. Anna knew she should have told Josef everything long ago or never at all. Bringing it all up now served no purpose other than to make Josef upset. Whenever he spoke about Emil with the children, he always told happy stories, his memories of his brother softening with time. Forcing Josef to confront the reality of his brother’s death was no kindness. But hadn’t Anna always known she would disappoint him, in the end?

  Josef reached out, then stopped his hand in midair, as if her tears might burn. Josef, so handy when it came to the chores of daily life, didn’t have the tools to fix her. Quietly, Anna told him what had happened in the lifeboat. The fights, the screams, the threats. How she’d tried to make herself understood; how futile her efforts had proved. Josef simply listened. When Anna saw the gleam of tears in his eyes, she knew she must be strong, for his sake. She wiped her face and managed to steady her breathing.

  “Emil asked me to marry him,” she whispered. “On the ship.”

  “Did he?” Josef’s lips curled into a reticent smile. “I didn’t think he’d have the nerve.”

  It was clear the revelation hadn’t come as a shock. “You knew?” Anna asked.

  “He was in love with you,” Josef said. “Wasn’t it obvious? Even before I left for America, he was saying you’d be married one day.”

  So Josef had known, long before Anna did.

  He waited for her to continue, and when she didn’t, he prodded, “What answer did you give him?”

  “None. I said I wasn’t sure. But I would have said yes, in time. I wanted us all to be together. I loved you so much—for as long as I can remember. Marrying Emil was the next best thing to marrying you.” Anna knew she should end her revelations there, but she was too curious—or too weak—to resist. “That’s why I understand. How you felt about me and Sonja.”

  “Sonja?” Josef’s face shifted, and the muscles in his cheeks tightened.

  “She was your first choice. And I was the next best thing.”

  “Do you think I’m still pining away for Sonja?”

  Anna shook her head and came perilously close to crying again. She didn’t know how to speak of such matters; she and Josef had never tried. Josef sighed, and though he sat perfectly still, Anna could see the mental effort he was making to sort out his thoughts before speaking.

  “It was a mistake, asking Sonja to marry me,” he said at last. “I was lonely, and I wanted a wife who’d remind me of home. In my mind, you were spoken for, by Emil . . .”

  “And you thought of me as a sister. I know.”

  “I did, yes. Until you came to see me. That afternoon in the barn.”

  The scene was still vividly real to Anna. Josef’s arms clutching at her back, his relief flooding through her like a tonic.

  “If you had drowned, and Sonja had been the one to survive, I would not have felt the same joy. I knew, right then.”

  Josef reached for Anna’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. With those few words, he told Anna all she needed to know. He had never regretted their marriage or wondered what his life would have been like with Sonja. Once Josef set himself to a task, he saw it through faithfully, and the duties of a husband were no different than any other job.

  Downstairs, the front door opened with a clatter; Susan was home. Anna pushed the coat off to the side of the bed. She sat up, neatening her hair, as Josef stood and adjusted his belt. Anna was already embarrassed by her outburst. She’d had a moment of uncharacteristic self-pity, but now it was time to see to Susan and get started on dinner. Had she really left the groceries sitting at the bottom of the stairs?

  Josef patted Anna on the shoulder. A fatherly pat, the kind of touch that pledges enduring, unquestioning love.

  “Do you feel better?” he asked.

  Surprisingly, she did. For years, Anna had locked away her guilt and fear, but like mice behind the walls, they’d been scratching to get out, tormenting her with their muffled protests. Now they’d been released, and she was free. But if she truly wanted to set the past to rest, she had to tell him everything.

  “There’s one more thing,” she said. “There were banknotes—British pounds—hidden inside the coat. I tried to find Charlotte to give them back, but I couldn’t. So I kept the money and pretended it came from my great-uncle.”

  Of all the things Anna had told Josef that day, it was this revelation that most shocked him. “Your inheritance? You lied?”

  Anna nodded, her face reddening. “I’m sorry.”

  But Josef didn’t seem angry. If anything, he looked impressed.

  “Well, it turned out for the best, wouldn’t you say? I might never have started the business otherwise. Any other crimes you care to confess?”

  “No,” Anna mumbled, looking down at the floor. She heard Josef laugh and felt his hands wrap around her arms and pull her forward.

  When Susan Andersson ran up the stairs a few seconds later, she was greeted by an astonishing sight: Mama and Papa hugging, right in the middle of their bedroom. Mama’s cheek was resting against Papa’s chest, and Susan thought she was crying, but no, she wasn’t; she was smiling, and Papa was looking down at her like he was the luckiest man in the world.

  CHARLOTTE

  Los Angeles felt like another country. It might well be, given the time it had taken to get there. It was the air, Charlotte thought: dusty and dry, the warmth lulling you into immobility. The town itself wasn’t much, to her jaded eyes, but everywhere she saw signs that its ambitions were growing: construction crews and scaffolding, motorcars spiffy enough for Mayfair. A sense of promise that lured dreamy-eyed wanderers into believing they could make a fresh start.

  Dreamy-eyed wanderers . . . Charlotte jotted the phrase in her notebook for future use. Even with the windows open, the taxi was stuffy, and she pulled off her jacket and loosened her damp blouse from her chest. None of the clothes she’d packed were appropriate for the California climate, and she felt out of place in her brown tweed suit, a dowdy wren in a land of butterflies and parrots. But this was where her search for Reginald Evers had led, and thanks to the Record’s generous expense account, this was where it would end.

  Charlotte could have neglected her promise to Lady Upton. It would have been easier, in many ways, if she had. But curiosity had won out over apprehension. There was no Reginald Evers listed in the New York City telephone directory, but Charlotte found two mentions of him in the archives of the New York Express, both reviews of plays in which he’d appeared in secondary roles. That sent her on a round of visits to theaters, where a manager at the Palace told her, sure, he knew Reggie Evers. He was a director out in California now, making movies. That’s where the money was, these days.

  Charlotte delayed her return to London, sold Teddy on her plan to write a series of columns from Hollywood, and bought a cross-country tr
ain ticket. (First class, of course, since the Record was paying.) First, however, she had to file her story on Charles Van Hausen. Charlotte’s visit to Esme’s house had gone about as disastrously as it could have. Charlotte had been genuinely surprised when Esme agreed to meet her at the hotel later, and even more shocked when Esme launched into her maudlin confessions. At first, Charlotte’s journalistic instincts had prickled to life: What a story this would make! Teddy will be over the moon! But she’d quickly realized she would never write about Esme. Esme was like a fine piece of china: daintily pretty from afar, dangerously fragile up close. Convinced her husband had committed suicide, rattling around in that ostentatious mansion, so terribly, terribly sad. Charlotte had always remembered Esme as spoiled and overdramatic, and perhaps she still was. But that night, in the hotel room, Charlotte had also felt sorry for her. They would never be friends, yet Charlotte felt a duty to protect Esme all the same.

  The following day, Charlotte sent Teddy a gushing profile of Charles Van Hausen, “an adventurer whose appetite for life was only outdone by his appetite for love.” She described him as a devoted husband and father, and sent along a picture of the oldest Van Hausen boy, who was gorgeous enough to warrant a quarter page at least. She wrote that Esme was “living in seclusion, laid low by grief.” Which was true.

  Now, Charlotte was on the brink of another momentous reunion. Her taxi pulled up at the Sultan’s Palace Hotel, which looked to Charlotte like an opium addict’s vision of a mythical Arabian stronghold. Teddy had recommended the place the last time they spoke.

  “Plum Wodehouse stayed there—said it’s full of soused writers who’ve got all the gossip.” Teddy spoke hurriedly, cramming as much as he could into the extravagantly expensive transatlantic phone call. “I’ll expect daily reports. Get me something on Charlie Chaplain—he’s English, he’ll talk to you. And pictures of starlets. If they’re British, all the better . . .”

  Dual minarets stood sentry on either side of the hotel’s entrance, and the windows were framed with bright green and blue tiles. Charlotte walked through the arched front doors into a courtyard centered around a mosaic-lined swimming pool. A woman was floating serenely in the middle of the water, her hair splayed out around her in rays like a child’s drawing of the sun. The woman—who barely reacted to Charlotte’s arrival and questions—said lazily that the office was the front door on the right. But there was no one inside. Charlotte waited on the nearest lounge chair, feeling prim and self-conscious as people drifted past, calling out to each other and trading affectionate insults. The Sultan’s Palace felt more like a boarding school than a hotel.

  The manager, as it turned out, was making a repair in Charlotte’s room. When he finally returned to the office, and then showed her up the stairs to the second floor, he pointed out the patch where the plaster was still wet. Charlotte wondered who or what had made such a big hole in the wall but was too tired to bother asking. Her room lacked the rest of the building’s exuberance: there was a bed, a small table, a chair, and not much else. Its monastic simplicity was the ideal setting for serious writing—no distractions—but after a few minutes in that bleak space, Charlotte understood why everyone gathered around the pool instead.

  It wasn’t long before Charlotte drifted back down to the water, drawn by what appeared to be a nightly cocktail party. At first, she felt uncharacteristically ill at ease; she was one of only a few women staying at the hotel, and the oldest one by miles. The others were actresses and models and dancers, each more gorgeous than the last. The men ranged from earnest youngsters who believed films could be Great Art and cynical theatrical types who believed in nothing more than a steady studio paycheck. When Charlotte began introducing herself, she was welcomed at first with flattering enthusiasm. A lady reporter! From London! But the novelty wore off after a few desultory conversations. She wasn’t working on a film, and she didn’t know anyone working on a film. Therefore, her appeal was limited.

  Charlotte did find out enough to get her bearings. She gathered business cards and arranged visits to sound stages, sweet-talked her way into dressing rooms, and scribbled in her notebook as publicity-department minders doled out studio-approved stories about the stars. (Why yes, Joan Crawford and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. were deliriously happy, their marriage a real-life love story.) Charlotte found herself unexpectedly charmed by the brazen artificiality of a motion-picture set: castles built of plywood, temples of cardboard. None of it real, and defiantly so. Here, a Kansas farm girl could reinvent herself as a Polish princess, and the shy son of Italian immigrants could be transformed into a romantic hero. In a town with no history, you could be whomever you wanted.

  It was the perfect place for a man like Reg.

  Charlotte found out Mr. Evers was under contract to Paramount, and by sweet-talking a studio secretary, she got his home address. It was in what the hotel’s manager simply described as “the Hills,” not far from the hotel. There were no convenient excuses of distance or difficulty to put her off.

  Charlotte put on her best day dress, one she’d bought for a country weekend when she’d wanted to impress a certain gentleman with a scar and a limp, who hadn’t turned out to be quite the war hero he had implied. The long sleeves and relatively high neckline looked matronly compared to the scraps of sheer fabric the other women at the Sultan’s Palace paraded around in, but it gave Charlotte a severe elegance that felt appropriate to the occasion. She walked through the hotel’s courtyard and was gratified to see that she could still turn a few heads.

  As Charlotte’s taxi passed from apartment buildings and bungalows to orange groves and barren hillsides, her nerve began to falter. Would it be better to send a letter instead? The driver stopped at the bottom of a narrow, steep driveway and gave her a questioning look. Charlotte couldn’t see where the drive ended, but she decided to have mercy on the car’s brakes and paid her fare. Gathering her courage as she stepped out of the car, she began trudging upward. There were voices calling out somewhere behind the hedges on her right, interspersed with rhythmic thumps. After a few more steps, she was high enough up to see a tennis court. Two men were skittering back and forth on either side, their shirts a brilliant white in contrast to their tanned faces and arms. To her left was the house, a saffron-yellow Spanish-style villa with a red tile roof. A half dozen cars were parked along the circular driveway, and Charlotte hesitated. She’d no intention of crashing a party.

  As she stood there, wavering, a young man with ruddy cheeks and smooth dark hair came bounding out the front door, like a puppy let off his leash. He drew up short when he saw Charlotte.

  “Hello!”

  Americans had an unnerving habit of greeting Charlotte with such warmth that she always wondered if they’d met before. As he approached, she felt sure they hadn’t, though he had the kind of face that looked familiar. His sculpted cheekbones and soulful eyes were those of a matinee idol, the kind whose picture gets clipped from magazines and pinned up in wistful girls’ bedrooms.

  “Here to see Reggie?” the man asked.

  “Yes.” The word was out before she’d officially decided to stay.

  He held out his hand. “I’m Percy.”

  Casually informal—so very American. “Charlotte.”

  Percy shook her hand decisively, and Charlotte knew she was staring, but he didn’t seem to mind. He really was quite attractive, and the fact that he knew it didn’t detract from his charm. Then Charlotte realized where she’d seen him. “Were you in a film with Ramon Novarro?” she asked. “Something about pirates?”

  Percy’s smile widened, which made his face glow all the more. “A Rogue at Sea. Don’t tell me you saw it? Not my best work, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh, I liked it very much.”

  Charlotte hadn’t liked it at all—what passed for the plot was sentimental nonsense—but she’d spent enough time around theater people to know that self-disparaging comments must always be countered with compliments.

  “You’re English, hu
h?” Percy asked. “You know Reggie from back home?”

  Charlotte nodded. “I happened to be in town and thought I’d surprise him. It might not be the best time, if he’s got visitors . . .”

  “Oh, it’s just the usual gang. Reggie opens the house to everyone on the weekend. I’m running home to pick up some new records, but you can go on in. Reggie was by the pool, last I saw him.”

  The interior of the house was a sprawling, open space, its dark wood furniture and terra-cotta floor tiles a somber contrast to the California sunshine. Charlotte walked through the central seating area—all oversized sofas and thronelike chairs—toward a set of open French doors. She peered out onto a patio and swimming pool; beyond, the sloping grounds had been carved into a series of terraces, one with a putting green, others with fruit trees and flowers. The pool was vast and blindingly white, with umbrella-topped tables at either end. Visitors were huddled in groups of two and three, some on lounge chairs, others with their legs in the water. Charlotte hovered in the doorway, watching the tableau as if it were a film scene. Waiting for the leading man to arrive.

  And then she saw him, wrapped in a navy-blue dressing gown, one hand holding a pipe, his thumb caressing the stem. Charlotte stepped forward, pushing one of the doors wider as she stepped through, and his attention was drawn by the movement. He looked at her first with blank politeness and offered a tentative smile. Then she came closer, and his hand dropped. The pipe dangled from his fingers, forgotten.

  “Charlotte?” said the man everyone knew as Reggie Evers, but who to Charlotte would always be Georgie.

  As if in a dream, she tried to speak but couldn’t. It seemed impossible that the two of them should be here, on this sunny California afternoon, when they’d last seen each other on the rain-soaked deck of the Carpathia. One impulsive decision had led to two utterly different lives. His golden hair was darker now, and his jawline was more prominent. He’d aged, yes, but was still entirely, recognizably Georgie.