It turned out to be a bit of good reporting in the Winnipeg Star that toppled Rupert from his pedestal. Because the paper had a reporter in New York at the American Congressional Inquiry into the Titanic Disaster, many stories were published about the passengers enroute to Manitoba. One such story appeared about the Willows family, accompanied by a photograph of Rupert standing tall with a scarf at his neck and warmly clad in his hat and buffalo coat as he was being helped off of a lifeboat at the side of the Carpathia.
Things started to change immediately after the story was published. The invitations to share his story still trickled in, but they were no longer from the right kind of people. A whisper campaign took hold and started to destroy his reputation. He still went to the Manitoba Club, but in the coming months, he lost his seat on City Council, and new business proved hard to attract. The upper class had abandoned him.
By the first anniversary of the sinking, Rupert had lost his power and magnetism. The world had moved on, and no one seemed interested in his opinion any longer.
The final blow came on April 20th, 1913. James and Maisie had come to lunch at Ravenscraig, and James announced that he would be marrying Maisie on the third Sunday in June. Beth was delighted. Rupert remained silent. It was a short visit that ended with excuses from the young couple that they needed to get along to their next stop with their happy news.
Rupert retreated alone to his library and mulled over the matter in silence. He felt that he had reached the crushing end to everything he had tried so hard to achieve in his life. He had never approved of their courtship and was aghast that his son would so belligerently disobey his order to drop the girl. He felt that his whole life was in a shambles, and he didn’t like it one bit. He wanted the old way back and despaired that it might never return. He had to take a stand. He summoned Beth for a private discussion, having resolved to attempt to stop the upcoming marriage. Perhaps if he just stated his position, it would slow down all of these awful changes.
She eyed Rupert warily as he began explaining. “I’m sorry, Beth, I can’t accept this. I will do anything for you, my love, but this is simply improper, and I cannot give my blessing to James marrying Maisie.”
“I am afraid I really can’t comprehend your objections, Rupert,” Beth responded with starch in her tone. “It is wholly unfair of you to not give them your approval. Let’s not even consider the fact that he’s a grown man who has already been married and truly doesn’t care whether he gets your approval or not. He’s going to marry the woman he loves. All that you are going to do is tear this family apart with your attitude.”
“Beth, listen to me. Be reasonable. She’s Jewish. James is studying with a rabbi with the intention he will also be a Jew, which means you will be the grandmother to Jewish grandchildren! Does none of this concern you?”
“No, Rupert, it doesn’t,” Beth slammed her hand down as she rose to her feet. “What harm have the Jews ever done me? All my life I have hated Jews. I don’t really don’t know why I have, but I have. I never thought about it but I can tell you that I am ashamed, Rupert. Deeply ashamed. Perhaps I have been spared death in the disaster to come to this understanding that I really need to question my attitudes.”
Rupert put his hand up to stop her but she railed on. “Do the Jews not believe in one God and is that one God not the same who hears my prayers? I ask you, am I better than a Jew simply because I am not a Jew?”
Beth stared hard at her husband, waiting for an answer.
Rupert sat silently and kept his eyes on the floor, his hands clasped over his crossed legs, his foot bouncing in the air at twice the pace of his rapid heartbeat. “I will be cast out of society,” he said pitiably, completely flummoxed by the fact that his wife was capable of such a rant.
“Rupert, stop it! Has it not already occurred to you that the glory days are gone?”
As apt as Beth was to jump to anger in the aftermath of the shipwreck, the effect of the tragedy seemed to have an opposite affect on Rupert. The shouting seemed to have gone out of his character. He seemed distracted and analytical, his swagger gone and his confidence knocked flat. What remained, though, was his determination to regain his position in society.
“Beth, please, come sit.” He patted the place next to him on the settee. “I want to explain my feelings to you.”
She regarded him cautiously before accepting his invitation. He took her hand and shifted so he could face her and spoke calmly.
“As to the issue of having a Jew in the family, it’s not as easy for me, Beth. Quite apart from the fact that it is just not done among people of our standing, you have to understand that I have always had very strong feelings about the Jews. I must say, truly, that I never for a second would have considered hiring Maisie all those years ago, if I had known.”
“And how lucky for all of us, Rupert that we didn’t know and that we were blessed to have this wonderful girl come into our lives,” Beth jumped to her feet and started pacing again.
“Rupert, she has saved my life twice. What more demonstration do you need that she is worthy to be our daughter? I tell you as plainly as I can say it, I do accept Maisie, and I will welcome her into the family whether you attend the wedding or not. I think you should be ashamed of yourself. We were spared death on the Titanic, and you are worried about your son’s choice of a bride. Really, Rupert. I do hope there will be little Jewish grandchildren to bring us joy in whatever else God has planned for our future. I love Maisie, and I will be proud to call her my daughter.”
“Beth, I don’t wish for this to sound ridiculous, but the truth is I do admire you. You are far more accepting than I believe I can ever be. I know you think of me as capable of being dishonest, and I admit that even to myself at times. But I cannot extend that dishonesty as far as pretending to accept a Jew into the family.”
There was no fight in his tone, nothing more than a calm explanation. “You go to the wedding,” he said. “I will do the best I can. I will withdraw my objections to the marriage, but I will not offer my blessings.”
Beth turned for the door. “Suit yourself, Rupert.”
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Shabbat
April 17, 1914
Hannah was rushing to get everything ready for Shabbat dinner. It was a special night. Not just because welcoming the Sabbath always made it a special night in the Zigman home, and not just because all of the family and especially the grandchildren would be there. But tonight was special because Isaac was bringing home a date.
At twenty-eight, he was getting a little long in the tooth she thought. Getting married was not such a bad idea. Not that he had actually said anything about getting married, but just to bring someone home meant he thought the family should have a look. He said only that she was someone special. He wouldn’t even give her name.
It was always the women that suffer from mystery, Hannah reflected. A woman’s mind never lets go of mystery. It’s easier to be a man. A man can rest his brain when he stops working. He can think of nothing and be happy because he is thinking of nothing. Just look at her Zev. It would be something if he even remembered that Isaac said he would be bringing a girl to the house.
As for the mystery girl, all that Isaac said was that she was a nurse, a pretty nurse he met when he worked on a story at the hospital. Tonight the table would be set with the good linens and would be extended to stretch from the dining room all the way into the front sitting room. The pretty nurse would eat from Hannah’s gold rimmed plates, special for Shabbat. Plates that Zev gave to her as a gift when they opened the new delicatessan. Eighteen people worked in the expanded restaurant, and life was finally easier for the Zigman family.
As always, when Hannah bustled about cooking and making ready the house for Shabbat she considered the many blessings she had. They were blessed because first of all they had their health and their beautiful children. They were blessed also because they had good fortune in business and a comfortable life. Zev didn’t have to work so
hard now and had time to enjoy other things. Fishing he liked. In the winter, yet. Imagine to make a hole in the ice to go fishing. She shrugged. But he likes it, she thought, shaking her head at the idea. She thought of her warm fur coat and her big sheepskin boots in the basement closet. A gift from Ziporah and Max for her birthday. Now that is how to get through the winter in Winnipeg.
Hannah finished setting the table and counted the places one more time to be sure that she had the right number. With the smell of chicken soup on the stove and brisket in the oven she was filled with contentment. She turned to the big china cabinet in the dining room and reached for the long silver Shabbat candlesticks. They were her mother’s candlesticks, the same ones she frantically searched for in the bundles when they had left that dark night long ago. As was her habit, every time she placed them on the table, she whispered a prayer of thanks that her family was safe and happy. With all of the beautiful things they had added to their home, nothing was more precious among her treasures than this pair of candlesticks.
She and her Zev had enjoyed many years of happiness. They had much to be proud of in their children and grandchildren. Ziporah was a wonderful businesswoman, making a great success of the Selkirk Avenue Delicatessan. She was loving and kind and adored by her Max, the tailor and their three smart children. Isaac was a big shot of some kind now with the newspaper. A lawyer he could have been, but he chose, instead, to be with the newspaper. Her hardworking Aaron had his clothing store, and Mendel, now also studying to be a businessman and working with Aaron in the clothing business.
And Maisie. What could she say about Maisie and her husband? The two doctors who were adored by everyone. They were the poorest of her children and the richest at the same time. They turned away no one in need.
The sound of the crying baby, waking from his nap, wrenched her from her thoughts and she rushed to pick up her new grandson. “Irving Willows! It is an opera singer you will be! Shush now, my tchochkelah and let Baba sing to you. Or should I tell you a story before everyone comes to the house? Everything is ready in the kitchen. Let me sit with you my sweet baby boy and sing with you. Lots of stories you will hear at the dinner table. Singing we should start now. Will you sing with Baba?”
She fussed in her accustomed way, changing him and playing and finally sitting in her rocking chair next to the stove, with Irving on her lap.
Hannah sang her favorite lullaby, a song her mother had sung to her when she was little and that she had sung to all of her children.
Tum bala, tum bala, tum balalaika,
tum bala, tum bala, tum balalaika,
tum balalaika, shpil balalaika,
tum balalaika, freylekh zol zain!
The baby reached for her face and gurgled away. Hannah sighed with happiness. They had made it. They were truly alrightniks in the new country.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
First Class Gentleman
April 19, 1914
By the spring of 1914, Rupert’s life had dramatically changed. He still had a business and his family and Ravenscraig, but it was clear that never again would he regain his social standing in Winnipeg.
Rupert’s fabricated story of his heroism on the Titanic may have hastened the ruin of his reputation, but it was not, strictly speaking, the cause of it. As time passed after the disaster, international public opinion on the male survivors of the Titanic had begun to shift against the men who had found their way into the lifeboats—particularly the fifty or so gentlemen of first class. Plainly put, the very fact that they had not gone down with the ship was seen as bad form.
Of course, no one of good breeding would ever say such a thing out loud. Quiet, private commentary was far more appropriate and, indeed, more devastating as the gossips imagined how it was possible that a gentleman would not have given his place to save a woman or a child.
By the second anniversary of the sinking, the newspapers had reported two suicides among the surviving men, and Rupert had the distinct impression there were those at the Manitoba Club who were wondering why he had not yet become the third.
This is how it came to be that Rupert’s status as a Titanic survivor ultimately killed all of the joy in his life. Beth, for her part, did what she could to jolly him out of his doldrums, but he was just not the same man. After the unpleasant fuss Rupert had made over James marrying Maisie, she found herself wondering what she was fighting to save. It was just too difficult, and there was too little to be gained.
Beth turned her attentions to Emma, who had found emotional healing in having returned to teaching and in her recent passion: the fight to win voting rights for women. Emma was a tireless campaigner, greatly inspired by the leadership of Nellie McClung. Beth slowly came to see the value of the arguments of the suffragists and ultimately pledged her support. Unbeknownst to her practically estranged husband, Beth Biggleswade Willows was helping to finance the movement.
Rupert missed her when Beth stopped paying attention to him but was at a complete loss as to how to improve their relationship. He gave up. Nothing in his life was fun anymore, and Rupert came to realize that his life would never again be as splendid as it once had been. The glory days were truly a thing of the past.
In their place were small pleasures that had grown into matters of great significance in his desire to find comfort in life. Chief among them was his Sunday bath. It had come to be viewed by everyone in the household as a ritual of the highest order. His bath was never rushed. It was an inviolable private time the master of Ravenscraig required above all else. Naturally, he was extremely finicky about the preparations, all of which were entrusted to his faithful man, Chadwick.
Rupert’s Sunday bath on April 19, 1914 was no exception.
Chadwick took great pride in his work. Impeccably dressed in his black butler’s uniform, he stood next to the tub with a towel over his left arm and a thermometer in his right hand. The clock in the hall struck two, and the butler immediately plunged the thermometer into the water. It was one degree too cool, and he turned the hot water on full force while keeping a sharp eye on the climbing temperature.
By the summer after the Titanic disaster, the construction crews in Ravenscraig had completed elaborate renovations Rupert had designed for his personal quarters. The center of his posh apartment was the original ornate bathroom of the master bedroom. This he left completely intact.
The work crews also built a splendid adjoining suite for Mrs. Willows. There was a connecting door between the two bedrooms that had yet to be unlocked. Rupert was not surprised, but he was disappointed.
The butler bowed and slipped quietly from the bathroom. Rupert eased himself into the tub and slid slowly into the steaming water. He breathed deeply and felt the comfort of buoyant bliss, the silky warmth soaking away his tensions as the water lapped lightly against the porcelain-clad sides of the great iron tub. For sixty minutes he would luxuriate, having instructed the household that he was not be disturbed for anything less than a raging fire.
On this particular afternoon, he mulled over the contents of the letter he had received, hand delivered in the morning. He had opened it in the privacy of his library and on reading it, had struck a match and watched the letter burn in his ashtray. He then summoned Chadwick to send an immediate reply stating that he would see the author of the letter at his office on Main Street at ten o’clock that very evening.
The note was from Rupert’s father. Ira Volinsky was on his way back to Toronto, apparently having had a bad experience in San Francisco. He wanted money. The man had turned greedy. He stated plainly that only a lot of money would keep him from disclosing the proof he carried of Rupert’s true identity as Reuben Volinsky.
Rupert slid deeper into the tub, and his thoughts turned to Dr. McDonnelly. In less than six months it would be the twentieth anniversary of the death of the man who had built Ravenscraig. Poor Dr. McDonnelly, slipping and striking his head on the same bathtub that provided so much pleasure to Rupert Willows. What a terrible end to a fruitful
and productive life.
Rupert picked up the handgun he had purchased in Deadwood Gulch and spun the chamber. He kissed the barrel. He caressed it slowly under his nose and breathed in deeply. The steam of the bath rose around him as he brought the pistol to his open lips and touched his tongue to its rounded smoothness. The taste was unexpectedly pleasant.
Rupert’s funeral was a solemn and understated affair. Few beyond family chose to attend. Interestingly, Ginger Snooks, the scavenger, who was known to run in every civic election was called upon to be a pallbearer. All of the instructions for Rupert’s funeral had been neatly spelled out in his will.
His requirements were clear and very specific, as had been everything in Rupert’s life. Grenville Doddsworth, his long trusted lawyer and confidant, spoke eloquently and movingly about the loss of his friend and the great contribution that Rupert Willows had made to the City of Winnipeg. Rupert’s children were shocked and resolute in their pain-filled silence, their attentions focused entirely on their grief-wracked mother.
Beth was inconsolable. It was the day before the funeral that she had found the love letter Rupert had written to her. He had tucked it into her sewing basket. By the date on the letter, she knew it had been there for several days before he died, and it tore her apart that she had not seen it in time to speak with him about its contents.
Shivering in misery, she sagged against the supporting arms of her sons as she made her way to the graveside ceremony. Beneath her black cloak, the sweet last letter from her Rupert rode lovingly between her breasts.
April 15, 1914
Dearest Beth,
Ravenscraig Page 54