Distant Waves: A Novel of the Titanic: A Novel of the Titanic

by Suzanne Weyn

  A horn sounded. I looked up at Thad in alarm. “Are we leaving? So fast?”

  Thad nodded. “I think everyone’s boarded. The third-class passengers were the last to come on.”

  “We have to get off the ship,” I said.

  “You’re not booked for this trip?” he asked.

  “No. Are you?”

  He nodded. My heart sank. Our reunion would be painfully brief. Seeing him again reawakened all the longing I’d felt these last months. My efforts to forget him were undone in a second.

  It wasn’t right that we would be separated again soon.

  “The boat’s going to leave,” he cautioned as the horn sounded once again. “If you plan to get off, you’d better go.”

  “I have to find Mimi and my other sister, Blythe. In fact, you and Tesla shouldn’t be on this ship, either.”

  “Why not?”

  “Oh, you’ll think I’m crazy…but…”

  “What?” he pressed.

  “We’ve just come from a psychic conference, and have learned that this ship is going to sink,” I blurted.

  He stared at me skeptically. “I wouldn’t worry about it, Jane,” he said, suppressing a grin.

  “I’m not exactly sure it’s true anymore, either,” I admitted. “But it’s not worth taking the chance.”

  “And how are you getting those two out of here before the ship sails?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I replied.

  “I could carry one of your sisters. Maybe you and Li could carry the other between you,” Thad suggested.

  “All right. All right,” I agreed. “Let’s try it.” Thad spoke to Li in Chinese and she nodded. She lifted Amelie under her arms and I took hold of her feet. Thad was trying to get Emma over his shoulder when a loud, shrill third blast blew.

  “Where should we go?” I asked, utterly lost.

  “I’m not sure. Let’s carry them toward the bow.”

  As we got closer to the happy, waving crowd toward the bow, a uniformed steward approached us. “What’s happened to these young women?” he demanded.

  Thad, Li, and I looked at one another, speechless.

  “They’ve fainted,” Thad replied after a quick moment of indecision.

  “Where are you taking them?” he asked suspiciously.

  “We have to get off the ship,” I admitted but, at that moment, a fourth deafening sounding of the horn obscured my words.

  The ship lurched, knocking Li and me off balance. We staggered, with Emma still hanging between us.

  The Titanic was moving!

  At the same time, Emma and Amelie began to come to. “Ladies, are you feeling better?” the steward asked.

  “I—I think so,” Emma stammered drowsily.

  “And you, miss?” he addressed Amelie.

  “She doesn’t speak,” Emma told him.

  “She seems much better,” I offered.

  “Very well, then,” the steward said, satisfied and moving on.

  “The three of us have no tickets,” I told Thad. “What do we do now?”

  He made no answer but his baffled expression said that he had no idea what we should do. “Just don’t let them catch you, I suppose,” he suggested.

  “It might not be such a bad thing if they put us off for not having tickets,” I said. Of course, there would be the problem of how to get home from France or Ireland—the places the ship would stop before New York—made especially difficult by the fact that the three of us had no money.

  “This ship is not going to sink,” Thad said confidently once again. He took a folded brochure from his back pocket. It had been issued by the White Star Line. “Read this,” Thad said. “It says that the ship has been designed to be unsinkable.”

  As he spoke, there was a loud crack and a jolt as if the ship had hit something very large.

  “What was that?” Thad cried, alarmed.

  A wide grin swept over my face. I was hugely reassured at this sound, nearly giddy with relief, in fact. Would the ship sink right here and now? If it was going to sink, this was surely the place to do it, while it was still in the protected Southampton waters with hundreds of people onshore, watching. There were boats everywhere that would come out and help at a moment’s notice. The ship’s lifeboats would never even have to be used.

  “Why are you smiling?” Thad asked me, looking perplexed.

  “I’ll tell you later,” I said as the five of us hurried to the bow of the boat where many passengers were hanging at the railing, curiously watching the activity below.

  It turned out that the Titanic was hardly out of port when it collided with a much smaller vessel called the New York. Neither was greatly damaged.

  I hoped that the Titanic had sunk just a fraction, sprung a pinprick of a leak. I knew from my years in Spirit Vale that clairvoyance was not an exact science. I recalled the mediums in the town square: I’m getting a J.R.—either initials or a junior.

  What if Mr. Stead and Mr. Robertson really possessed extrasensory perception, could truly predict that there would be a collision and some damage to this ship? Might not they be wrong about the severity of the accident?

  Of course they could be! They had been right about the incident but wrong in the details of it.

  This was what they’d predicted. It had just happened! Their premonitions had been accurate. But now it was over.

  I didn’t voice any of this, because I didn’t want to think about it anymore. And, with the truth of hindsight, I realize now that I didn’t want to risk having Emma tell me any differently.

  As far as I was concerned, the danger had passed.

  The Titanic was under way and there was no chance of getting off now. Our biggest challenge was to get to New York without being discovered and locked up for not having tickets. They probably had some sort of jail on the ship—they had everything else conceivable, so why not that?—and I didn’t want to spend this trip sitting inside a windowless box.

  Besides, if I was in jail, I wouldn’t be able to spend time with Thad. Had all my dreams and longing for him somehow made this happen? At the moment, that was how it seemed to me. The force of my desire to see him again had somehow brought him back to me. I knew such thinking made no sense, but I’d also heard people say that if a couple was meant to love each other and be happy together, somehow it would happen.

  Maybe all the events of the last few months had occurred for just one reason—to bring Thad and me together. Perhaps our being here on the Titanic wasn’t predestination, but rather, destiny.

  Chapter 24

  We knew Mimi was in first class and Blythe was in second. Thad had a room in first class so I went with him to C Deck to search while Emma and Amelie remained in second class with Li to look for Blythe.

  The moment we got to first class, I immediately felt my dress to be shabby compared to the gorgeous dresses and day suits I saw parading past. When I mentioned it, though, Thad just smiled. “You look better than all of them. They need all that stuff because they don’t have what you do.”

  “What do I have that they don’t?” I asked, immensely pleased by his compliment.

  “You know what,” he said as we hurried down the hall. “That certain something. You know, inside.”

  What a letdown!

  “You’re saying I’m smart?” I surmised unhappily. I knew I wasn’t a raving beauty like Mimi, but I had hoped he was working up to a more thrilling bit of praise than smart.

  “Not only smart,” he said. “Stop fishing for compliments. You know what I mean.”

  I didn’t know! I had no idea! And I’d have given anything to hear him say what this special something I possessed was—but since he was onto my attempt to get him to compliment me, I would probably never know. And it occurred to me: If he thought I was so “special,” why hadn’t he written?

  After walking through a labyrinth of thickly carpeted hallways unsuccessfully looking for Mimi, Thad guided me into an empty room on A Deck. It was filled with elegan
t tables and upholstered chairs. Heavy moldings surrounded a huge chandelier at the center, and its many windows were draped with velvet curtains that matched the swirling brocade pattern of the thick wall-to-wall carpet. “This is the reading and writing room,” he told me.

  As I examined the linen stationery embossed with the ship’s letterhead that was offered free for the taking, Thad pulled out a chair for me beside a highly polished round table. I sat and he took a chair beside me. “I’m so glad to see you again, Jane,” he said.

  “I thought you were going to write to me,” I reminded him. I hadn’t planned to be so direct, but the words tumbled out almost on their own.

  He pressed the tips of his fingers together and studied them for a long moment before speaking. “Jane, when we first met I didn’t realize you were only sixteen.”

  “But you said I was smart.”

  “I said more than smart.”

  “Then what’s the difficulty?”

  He leaned back and studied me with a mixture of amusement and frustration. “You’re blunt, aren’t you?”

  “I just want to know why you didn’t write,” I said.

  “It just didn’t feel right to be corresponding with a girl your age.”

  “Even a smart girl?”

  “Jane!”

  “My birthday is in four days,” I told him. “I’ll be seventeen.”

  “I’m twenty,” he reminded me. “Seventeen does sound better than sixteen, though.”

  “You make too much of it,” I insisted. “There’s not much difference between us at all.”

  He thought about this a moment. “Let’s forget about it for the time we’re on the ship,” he suggested. “I’m surprised to see you, but really glad.”

  I laid my hand lightly on his, an overly bold gesture perhaps, but it felt right. “I’m really glad to see you, too.”

  We left the reading and writing room and set back out to continue looking for Blythe and Mimi. “You still haven’t told me why you and Tesla are here,” I reminded him as we walked along the second-class promenade, checking every deck chair for signs of them.

  “Okay, here’s the thing,” he began earnestly. “You can’t tell anyone that Tesla is on board.”

  “Who would I tell?” I questioned. “Besides, doesn’t the White Star Line already know? He must be on the ship’s roster.”

  Thad shook his head and offered me his arm to hold. It felt wonderful to be walking arm in arm there like a real couple. He bent closer in order not to be overhead. “He’s traveling under the name Emil Christmann.”

  “Why?”

  He bent closer still, leaning in until we were nearly nose to nose. This closeness thrilled me. I was drawn to the warmth of his body. “John Jacob Astor the Fourth is on the Titanic,” he revealed, speaking very quietly. “Tesla is determined to talk to him while he’s a captive audience on the ship. Tesla has a couple of inventions to pitch to the guy. He’s even brought some prototypes to demonstrate. He doesn’t want the press catching wind of any of this.”

  “Is he worried they would file a report from France?” I asked.

  “No,” Thad said, shaking his head. “They only take on passengers in France and Ireland. No one gets off. The problem is that there’s a Marconi room on board.”

  “Marconi the inventor?”

  “Yeah, it’s named after him. It’s a room where they send telegrams. It drives Tesla crazy that they call it a Marconi. He’s suing the guy for stealing his ideas.”

  “He told me about that,” I said.

  “It should be the Tesla room. If Tesla was allowed to do his work in peace, ships would be able to speak from ship to ship by now. Anyway, the ship is crawling with reporters writing reports and articles about the trip. One of them could send a telegram ahead. Some capitalist in America might steal the idea and set up a rival manufacturing plant before we even land in a week from now.”

  “All these new inventions make things move so fast these days,” I commented.

  Thad laughed drily. “This is just the beginning. At the rate things are being invented—even with all the delays—everything will keep moving faster and faster. You’ll see.”

  “What kind of delays?” I asked.

  “Competition, lack of money,” Thad answered. “Tesla has lost years of research because he always needs money guys to back him. And the money men only care about something if it can make them more money. Tesla can’t manufacture any of his inventions, but big shots have the money to jump on it.”

  “Why is he so desperate for Astor’s money?”

  “He likes Astor, thinks he’s a good guy, a smart guy. He’s invented a few things himself. Tesla trusts him.”

  “From what I’ve heard, I guess that’s important,” I remarked.

  “Trust is important to Tesla. It’s important to everybody, I guess.”

  “How do you know Li?” I asked.

  “From when I was in China. I told her father I would escort her over from England to America to work with him in his restaurant. She’s in second class, so you and your sisters can squeeze in with her.”

  “Maybe. Perhaps we can also bunk with Blythe or Mimi,” I suggested, throwing my arms wide with frustration. “Where could they be?!”

  Back in the hallway, we found a steward who was willing to check the roster and located Mimi’s room. We knocked on her door but got no response. I wrote her a fast note on Titanic stationery:

  I AM ON BOARD WITH TWINS. MEET YOU HERE AT 3 AND I WILL EXPLAIN. JANE.

  After I’d slipped the note under the door, I felt we could stop searching.

  Thad and I climbed up narrow stairs to the first-class promenade. We stopped by the railing to gaze out over the water. “You know, Jane, I’ve been thinking about trust since we talked about it just before. Do you feel you can’t trust me because I didn’t write after I said I would?”

  I kept my eyes on the ocean. I didn’t want to say anything hurtful but I wanted to be honest, too. His not writing had caused me a lot of pain. Did I trust him? I was madly happy to see him—but did I trust him completely?

  “I don’t know,” I replied.

  Chapter 25

  Thad looked out over the water. It seemed like a long time before either of us spoke. I was dying inside, worrying that my words had been too harsh. I feared losing him again but I had to speak the truth. He had hurt me deeply. The past winter had been so difficult—hoping for a letter every day and never receiving one.

  “I’m sorry if I hurt you,” he said softly. “I wanted to write. I did put one thing in the mail to you.”

  I gazed up at him, surprised. “I never received anything,” I said.

  “I sent you a book,” he replied.

  “You sent it?” I questioned. “I thought it was Tesla who did.”

  “Are you disappointed it was me?” he asked.

  “Not one bit,” I said. “Why didn’t you add a note?”

  Thad shrugged. “It was a way of writing without writing, I suppose.”

  “Was there a reason you sent me The Time Machine? Why that particular book?”

  “Have you read it yet?”

  “I’m nearly done but I’ve left it back at my cousin’s house, I’m afraid. Hopefully Mother will bring it with her and I can finish it on the train ride home from New York. Why did you send it to me?”

  Once again he looked out to sea, but then faced me as though he’d made his mind up about something. “I might as well just say it, Jane. I’ve never met a girl like you, one I can talk to so easily. You’ve been on my mind. A lot. Tesla has been working on an invention and in my mind—my imagination—I keep talking to you about it.”

  This was all too wonderful! Here I’d believed he’d completely forgotten me, and all the while he’d been wanting to talk to me, to tell me everything that was important to him. While he’d been imagining speaking to me, I’d been doing the exact same thing. In a strange way, it was as if we’d never really been apart.

  �
��In your imagination, did I understand what you’re talking about?” I asked.

  “Not at first,” he admitted. “But slowly I explained it to you and we had amazing conversations about it. I even imagined that Tesla asked us to test it, and you and I traveled to—” He cut himself short.

  “Traveled to where?” I pressed.

  He didn’t answer.

  “Did you imagine we traveled in time?” I guessed. “Did we travel forward or back?”

  He stared at me, stunned at my words. “How did you…how could you…?”

  “Tesla talked to me about time travel that day when I interviewed him in the park,” I explained.

  “It’s all theory, Jane. Sending you that book was my way of talking to you about it.”

  “I’m so happy that you did, and now I regret not having finished it,” I said. “Thad? If finances are so bad for Tesla, how are you two staying in first class?”

  “Tesla sold a patent he held on an electric car to an automobile manufacturer. He thinks the company is going to produce the cars, but I think they wanted the patent so they could make sure it never is produced. A lot of people are going to make fortunes in oil when motorcars get into big-time production. They’re already investing. This war that’s coming—”

  “I hope not,” I interrupted.

  “It’s coming, and part of the reason for it is because it’s going to be a land grab for oil,” he said with assurance.

  “And that’s where Tesla got the money for this trip—from selling the patent for a car that doesn’t use oil?”

  “Exactly. Our room is C-93. We’re both in there.”

  An eight-man band began to play lively music there on the deck. “That’s called ragtime,” he told me. “It’s the newest thing. Come on. I’ll show you how to dance to it. I just recently learned it myself.”

  He took hold of my hand and together we hurried to a spot near the band where other couples held one another close and did a bouncy sort of strut in unison. “I have to put my arm around your waist—is that okay?” he asked.

  I hoped to high heaven that I wasn’t blushing as I nodded that it was fine—much better than fine. He held me so close that we were cheek to cheek, ankle to ankle. The dance was fast, which didn’t leave time to feel too awkward, and before I knew it I was smiling so hard that my face ached a little. At one point Thad began turning us in dizzying spins without ever letting go of his hold on me.