by Diane Hoh
Elizabeth was stunned. Within her own circle of friends, no one would have asked such a question. Though she had certainly asked it of herself repeatedly, she had never been asked it by anyone else. And she had never once thought of what the answer might be.
A thick cloud of humiliation enveloped Elizabeth. To answer truthfully, “Nothing. I do nothing,” in front of Max Whittaker would have taken far more courage than she had or ever expected to have.
It was Max himself who answered for her, but Elizabeth was unable to see his remark as any kind of rescue. Rather, when Max laughed lightly and said, “Oh, Elizabeth is engaged,” she only burned with further humiliation.
To make matters worse, Lily frowned again and asked, “Engaged? Yes, but what does she do?” as if being engaged had nothing whatsoever to do with who Elizabeth was. The concept was directly the opposite of Elizabeth’s mother’s belief: that the engagement to Alan Reed had everything to do with who Elizabeth was and would be for the rest of her life.
Still, as mortifying as the conversation was, Elizabeth felt a pang of envy. This girl in the strange clothes and wild hair had always done as she wanted, even as a child, and she believed that other people, including Elizabeth, should do the same. “I would like to become a student,” she answered stiffly, desperately wanting both Lily and Max to see her as someone with ambition. “But my parents are against it.”
To her surprise, instead of Lily’s expression going blank, she nodded understandingly. But then she said, “And you are afraid to defy them.”
Though that was the truth, Elizabeth was angered. “I can’t afford to defy them. College is expensive. I have no money of my own.”
Below them, the tenders pulled away from the ship. Elizabeth heard the bubbling wash they made and thought again of the red-haired girl and her handsome companion. She wondered if that girl had had to defy her parents to leave Ireland for America. If so, she had clearly done it or she wouldn’t be on board the Titanic now.
“And do you have great affection for this man to whom you are engaged?” Lily had the effrontery to ask then. She smiled a mischievous grin. “This is a grand passion for you, Elizabeth?”
Elizabeth drew herself up to her full height, which still left her with the disadvantage of an inch or two below Max and Lily, and said coolly, “I really don’t want to talk about it.” And she turned and swept away with as much dignity as possible, though she nearly tripped over a deck chair in her haste to escape.
Behind her, she heard Lily say, “I did not mean to offend her.” Then, worst of all, Max’s deeper voice saying, “I think you struck a nerve with that last question.”
Elizabeth took refuge in the glassed-in promenade. How dare he? Suggesting to a perfect stranger that Elizabeth didn’t love the man she was engaged to! She had never told Max that. Couldn’t tell him that. Such an admission would be the most humiliating of all. She would never make it to someone she had just met.
Had she hinted at it, somehow, when they’d first talked? No, she wouldn’t have. But she couldn’t remember what she had said to Max, not exactly.
Even if she had said something, Max had no right to reveal that to Lily Costello.
I hate him, Elizabeth thought, not for the first time. And this time, she meant it.
Chapter 7
Thursday, April 11, 1912
“You look fetching in that middy,” Eileen told Katie as, with Bridey and Kevin in tow, they left the cabin to make their way up to the general room, “’Tis a fine collar.”
“Me ma made it.” A sudden, fierce pang of homesickness assaulted Katie. “She has a knack with the needle. Meself, I’m all thumbs.”
“I guess you’re not goin’ to be a seamstress in America, then? So many of our girls are. Workin’ with lace, especially, brings a fine penny, I hear.”
Katie laughed. “I’d starve if I ever tried to make me way by sewin’.” But she didn’t confess what her real goal was. If Eileen disapproved of young women making their way on the stage, they couldn’t be friends. That thought was so depressing, Katie added quickly, “I’ve always liked the little ones.” There, she hadn’t actually said she was intending to become a governess, so it wasn’t a true lie. But it would keep Eileen from asking how she planned to earn a living in America.
It did. Eileen nodded and said, “Aye, you have a way with them.”
Katie let out a small sigh of relief. The voyage would be much more fun with a companion, especially with Brian and Paddy so far away in the bow.
The brothers were, as she had hoped, already mixing with other third-class passengers in the large, pleasant room filled with lively conversation in a variety of languages. The smell of fresh paint hung in the air. Blue sky showed through the portholes in the whitewashed walls, and the feet of playing children clattered noisily across the bare floor.
Brian’s dark head towered over the crowd, and Katie heard Patrick’s deep, melodious laughter before she actually spied him. He was surrounded by a small cluster of young women, which didn’t surprise Katie at all. Back in Cork, Paddy had a reputation as a ladies’ man. Brian had once said laughingly of his handsome younger brother, “Slippery as the fish in the cold waters of the Atlantic, that one. The lass who catches him had best hold on for dear life.”
Katie had sniffed in disdain. As far as she was concerned, any man who saw himself as a great “catch” should be cast back into the sea immediately. She knew Paddy had broken more than one young heart in Cork, including the hearts of some of Katie’s best friends.
She hadn’t been very sympathetic, she remembered now with chagrin. To Mary Frances Molloy, weeping in Katie’s bedroom, Katie had said tartly, “Didja think you were so special that he wouldn’t be faithless to you like he was with Siobhan and Fiona and Sheila, then?”
“Aye,” Mary Frances had sobbed, “I thought he hadn’t loved them the way he loved me.”
“More the fool you, then.” But Katie had gone downstairs to fetch a plate of soda bread and a glass of fresh, cold milk to comfort the distraught girl.
She vowed, not for the first time since she’d met Patrick Thomas Kelleher, to never be taken in, like the other girls, by his dark, snapping eyes and that broad, arrogant grin and thick, dark, curly hair. She hadn’t had the chance, as it turned out, because Paddy treated her more like a sister than an available young woman. He was courteous and considerate. He had never once said or done anything flirtatious. When he talked to her, as he often did, it was usually about his brother.
It puzzled Katie sometimes that Paddy expected her to know what was going on in Brian’s head. Why would she? Brian didn’t confide in her. She suspected that was because she was a girl. It didn’t rile her. She had no need to know Brian’s every thought. She also suspected that his thoughts were not nearly so deep as Paddy’s. Brian was a bright but uncomplicated fellow. Paddy should know that, being his brother.
Telling herself she felt sorry for the unsuspecting young ladies hanging on Paddy’s every word, Katie turned away, intent on meeting some of her fellow travelers.
She was sitting on one of the shiny wooden benches talking with Eileen and a young mother of three small children when there was a slight stir behind them, at the foot of the staircase.
Katie turned to find a small group of elegantly dressed people accompanied by a uniformed steward, gathered on the wide, lower steps. They were gazing around with interest, like visitors touring a museum.
“Why, this is quite nice!” a tall, gray-haired woman with a fur stole draped around her shoulders declared. “Plain, to be sure, but quite comfortable, considering.”
“Oh, much better than the usual third class,” the steward admitted, adding proudly, “but this is the Titanic. Everything on it is grand.”
A hush fell over the third-class passengers gathered in the meeting room. Even the children fell silent. All eyes were turned toward the group gathered on the stairs.
A short, round woman with an unpleasant scowl on her pink, doughy f
ace commented, “I wonder if they appreciate how fortunate they are.” A man standing behind her nodded and said, “On any other ship they’d be crammed together like sardines in a can.”
Caught off guard by the sudden appearance of the group, it took Katie a few minutes to grasp what was happening. When she did, she became indignant, then furious. She, along with everyone else, was being put on display, like the two-headed calf she’d once seen at a county fair. As if they were a curiosity, something foreign and strange, to be examined carefully by the first-class passengers. ’Twas outrageous! The steward, who must have been conducting a tour of the ship, had no right to invade their privacy like this. Would the third-class passengers ever be permitted to tour first-class facilities, to visit the fancy restaurant, the gymnasium, the Paris-type café she’d read about, the fine staterooms? No, never! There were iron gates barring their way. And no steward eager to unlock them.
Katie rose to her feet. Her cheeks felt hot. Brian and Patrick saw her stand. Both were at her side instantly, flanking her.
As Katie opened her mouth to speak, a tall, very pretty girl in a blue dress, standing in the group of onlookers, said nervously, “I think we should go. We’re disturbing these people.” She looked directly at Katie as she spoke. For a second, she seemed about to smile. Then, reading the expression on Katie’s face, apparently thought better of it.
When the steward said, “Don’t worry about offending them by what you say. Most of ’em don’t speak English,” Katie’s temper reached the boiling point.
Her eyes sweeping the room, she shouted to the other third-class passengers, “Do you all understand what’s happenin’ here, then? Do you see that we’re bein’ put on show?”
In response, she received only confused glances from those who didn’t understand English, and shamed, lowered eyes from those who did. No one said anything.
“Don’t give them a show,” Brian warned quietly. “You’ll just be givin’ them somethin’ to blather about at supper.”
But Katie couldn’t repress her anger. Whirling in fury back toward the group on the stairs, she asked the steward heatedly, “Do you charge admission, then, for lettin’ the fancy folk get a good look at us common people?”
The pretty girl in blue tugged on her companion’s sleeve. “Mother, please! This was a terrible idea. Let’s go!” She turned to leave, but no one else did.
Katie felt revulsion as she saw mild amusement in the eyes watching her. Brian had been right. Except for the girl in blue, the onlookers were entertained by her display of temper.
Suddenly, Paddy shouted, “If a show is what they want, then that’s what they’ll get!” And in one swift, sure move he reached out and took Katie into his arms, lifted her chin, and before she could utter a word of protest, kissed her soundly.
She told herself later that if she responded, it was only because she was taken by surprise. No time to raise her defenses.
But she was aware of two other elements of the kiss. One was, she felt a perverse pleasure when she heard shocked gasps from the group on the stairs. And the other, if the truth be told, was that the kiss made her tingle all the way down to her toes. This very pleasant sensation was accompanied by a clear-cut, belated understanding of Mary Frances Molloy’s anguished weeping last September.
“Have you lost your mind, man?” Brian demanded of Paddy as the kiss ended.
The steward shrugged.
But the girl in the blue dress, Katie noticed, was openly smiling. The others murmured disapproval among themselves as they retreated up the staircase and disappeared from sight.
Conversation in the room slowly resumed. The children began playing again.
“Sure, and that was a nice display!” Brian told Paddy sharply. It seemed to Katie that his peevishness included her, but she told herself that might just be her guilty conscience. After all, Brian couldn’t know how much she’d enjoyed the kiss. Or could he? Nothing much got past him. “It pleases you to know you’ll be on their tongues tonight when they sit down in their fancy restaurants? They’ll be speakin’ of you as a common, ignorant lout.”
Paddy shrugged. “I care as much for their opinion as I do the cows in the meadow. But I don’t mind apologizin’ to you, Bri. I was so riled up, I wasn’t thinkin’.?
“No need to apologize to me. But you might give some thought to how people on this ship regard Katie!”
That, Katie saw, did give Paddy pause. He reddened, and she realized in awe that she’d been wrong earlier. Paddy Kelleher, ladies’ man or no, did blush. Amazin’! But why had he seen fit to apologize to Brian for kissing her?
“Sorry, Katie,” Paddy muttered. “I should have asked you first if it was fine with you. But they made me so mad! Like I told Bri, I wasn’t thinkin’….”
“And there’s a shock,” Brian said sarcastically.
But Katie, remembering how she’d felt when she was being stared at and remarked upon, nodded and said, “I know, Paddy. I was mad, too.” The three stood in silence for a few moments. There didn’t seem to be anything else to say about the incident. It had happened and it was ugly, but it was over now. Best to forget it. Quickly.
The girls who had been talking with Paddy earlier were, Katie noticed, waiting impatiently for him to rejoin them. They either didn’t care that he’d kissed someone else or they were smart enough to realize the kiss had been for show.
“Your adoring fans are waiting,” she said, her voice sugary sweet.
When Paddy, with his usual arrogant grin back in place, had sauntered off, Brian said sharply to Katie, “You’re not the first girl he’s ever kissed, y’know.”
“Nor am I the last,” she responded blithely, and hurried off to stop Bridey from yanking a fistful of hair off the scalp of her older brother.
Back in their cabin, Elizabeth said in disgust, “I can’t believe we did that! Staring at those people as if they were mannequins in a department store window! Everyone talking about them as if they were deaf.” She wished fervently that she’d stayed with Max and Lily instead of letting her mother talk her into that stupid tour. “They’re people, Mother! They have feelings! But then,” she added, “feelings aren’t something you care very much about, are they?”
“You wouldn’t dare speak to me that way if your father were here.” Nola Farr calmly removed her plumed hat, tossing it carelessly onto the bed, and slipped free of her purple velvet jacket. Because she had neglected until the last minute to see about hiring a maid for the trip and then been unable to find one willing to make the journey, there was no one to pick up after her. The jacket joined the hat on the bed and would remain there until nightfall, when Martin Farr would hang both items in the wardrobe room.
“Well; he isn’t here.” Elizabeth sank into a chair. She kept seeing the furious eyes of that beautiful, red-haired girl. The boy in the second tender had called her “Katie.” Katie had been very, very angry. Elizabeth didn’t blame her. The steward should never have guided them down there, to gawk and make thoughtless comments. The reverse would never be permitted, she was sure of that. Third-class passengers were barred from entering first-class accommodations. The steward guiding their tour had found it necessary to unlock more than one gate.
“And,” Elizabeth added, “I can’t believe Father would approve of what just happened. He’d think it was disgusting, just as I do.”
Her mother had taken a seat on the velvet bench in front of the mirrored vanity. As if Elizabeth hadn’t spoken, she mused aloud, “I wonder if I could hire one of those third-class girls to act as our maid for the rest of the trip.” Removing her diamond-and-pearl earrings, she added, “You would think one of them would be delighted with such an opportunity, wouldn’t you?”
Though Elizabeth was tired from the guided tour and her legs ached from climbing various staircases in high heels, she jumped to her feet. “Oh, yes, Mother! How generous to allow one of those girls to fetch and carry for us.”
Without turning around, her mother said, “E
lizabeth, I will not have you speaking to me this way. Please leave. Go to your own cabin. Once there, you might reflect for just a bit on how fortunate you are to be traveling first class.” A brittle quality Elizabeth knew well crept into her mother’s voice. “You might also reflect on just who is responsible for your good fortune. Please don’t come back here until your attitude has improved.”
Glad to be dismissed, Elizabeth left, careful not to slam the door.
But she didn’t stay in her own cabin. Instead, she decided to seek out the gymnasium. If unescorted women were permitted to use the equipment, perhaps she could work off some of her anger on one of the exercise machines she’d heard about.
Chapter 8
Thursday, April 11, 1912
The gymnasium was uncrowded. In the middle of the afternoon on such a nice day, most passengers seeking fitness preferred to stride briskly around the decks and breathe in the ocean air.
A middle-aged woman in a long, dark skirt and striped blouse was sitting a bit awkwardly on a machine unfamiliar to Elizabeth. It resembled a camel. An older, balding gentleman was using a rowing machine, and a woman with a broad face was pedaling a stationary bicycle, her cheeks red with effort. Elizabeth saw no sign of the instructor she’d been told would be available. The red-faced woman informed her that he had “stepped out” briefly.
Unwilling to sit around doing nothing while she waited, Elizabeth decided to tackle one of the machines on her own. She often rode her own bicycle through Central Park at home. How different could a stationary bicycle be?
Not so different, she decided as she climbed on, and she would have been fine had it not been for the length and fullness of her skirt. Had she been wearing the latest fashion, a hobble skirt that forced a woman to walk as if her ankles were chained together, Elizabeth would have been unable to even think about approaching one of the machines. She believed that her own fuller skirt had enough room for negotiation. It did. But as she swung herself up onto the seat, the hem of her skirt caught on a pedal and stuck there, jerking Elizabeth suddenly sideways and causing her to topple off the seat.