by Shana Abe
Her hat, forest felt and chocolate silk wrapping, was rounded and large enough that it blocked a good deal of the chamber. The curved brim was meant to shield her, to protect her from the day, but what it really did was hide her from the intrusive stares.
The scent of her coffee, creamy and rich, filled her nose. The fat pair of croissants on her plate lay spread with jam, red raspberry glistening.
A woman approached the table. From Madeleine’s perspective beneath her hat, she consisted entirely of an overskirt of green-and-white serge.
“Am I late for our coffee date?” inquired Margaret, pulling out her chair without waiting to be helped. “I apologize.”
“Oh no, I don’t think so. I was early, and the waiters kept hovering, so . . .” She shrugged, looked at her café au lait and those croissants, buttery and fresh. “My appetite,” she added dryly, “seems to have returned.”
“That’s good news. I’m ready for a real meal myself, taking on all these stairs. Everyone goes on about those fancy elevators, but I haven’t seen a moment yet when there isn’t a stack of people waiting outside of them.”
“I haven’t tried the elevators. This is the first time I’ve been out of our suite since we boarded last night, actually.”
Margaret angled a shrewd look around the long, sun-splashed room, at all the people deliberately glancing away. “Not quite our cozy saloon back on the dahabiya, is it?”
“No,” Madeleine said, and attempted to smile. “It isn’t.”
“Where’s Jack?”
“He went to the Enquiry Office to post some letters, and then I believe he meant to visit the vendors on the sun deck while we’re still anchored. Did you go?”
“I did. Not for long. Nearly as crowded as Khan el-Khalili in Cairo up there, without as many bargains. I have plenty of lace back home.”
A waiter appeared, taking in Margaret with an assessing eye. Madeleine supposed this to be a truly authentic Parisian café, as not one of the staff had warmed to her until she’d mentioned her surname. The main dining saloon welcomed every passenger in first class, but the privately owned Café Parisien, along with the à la carte restaurant next door to it, served whom they pleased. Namely, those passengers who could afford yet another charge on their fare.
It was a slender, exclusive space, lined with those white trellises and walls of climbing ivy (real or silk, she couldn’t tell), the only shipboard restaurant Madeleine had ever seen with such open ocean views. It was one of the reasons she had chosen it for her late breakfast. Not quite like dining outdoors, but almost.
“Coffee for Mrs. Brown,” she said to the waiter, as coolly dismissive as she could manage. Attempting to be friendly had gotten her only churlish looks.
“Oui, madame.”
“Excusez-moi,” interjected Margaret. “Je préfère le vin rouge.”
“Bien sûr.”
As the waiter bowed and moved off, Margaret sat back, removing her gloves. “How are you feeling?”
“Better. Better than yesterday, at least. I . . . I wanted to tell you how sorry I am about your grandson. I don’t remember if I did at the station. I was in something of a state, to be honest, and it’s all rather a nightmare to me now. But I hope he’s doing well.”
“Thank you. I hope so, too. In the end, I know we must surrender everything into the Almighty’s hands. But I remember . . .”
Margaret trailed off, lost again. A pair of seagulls hung in the sky beyond their window, tilting and floating.
Madeleine said, “If he’s anything like his grandmother, he has the heart of a lion. I’m sure he’s very strong.”
“Yes. We Browns are tough enough, all right.” Margaret nodded, then gave a dazzling smile; in it, Madeleine had a glimpse of the girl she used to be, a girl with a soul like a flame, heroic enough to travel across the country to test her mettle just because she could.
“Tough as nails,” Margaret was saying, “and just as stubborn. I’ll get there, and everything will already be fine, I’m certain. I’ll have raced back home for nothing.”
The string trio outside the room shifted into a new piece, softer and even more genteel. A passing waiter placed a glass of red wine exactly between them, as if he could not recall who had ordered it. He walked off without making eye contact.
Margaret’s smile turned more sardonic; she reached for the glass.
A new woman swept by in slow, stately steps, pausing by their table as if she had just noticed who sat there.
“Why, Miss Force, Mrs. Brown. I didn’t realize you were also on board.”
“Mrs. Cardeza,” replied Margaret. “Surely you’ve heard that my friend is Mrs. John Jacob Astor now. It was somewhat in the news.”
“Of course. Naturally, one does try to keep up with all of the little tidbits of social happenings, but one becomes so busy, you know . . .”
“Quite.”
“We are to be shipmates all the way to New York, it seems.”
“All the way,” drawled Margaret, looking away, trying her wine.
Charlotte turned to Margaret directly, cutting away from Madeleine to get to her point. “Mrs. Brown, as you are here, perhaps you might care to join my son and me at our table for dinner tonight in the dining saloon? Frank Millet is among us, along with Major Butt. The major is always so entertaining with his tales of life at the White House, being such an intimate of President Taft’s. Such a handsome, honorable man. We’ve secured the best table in the saloon.”
“What a delightful offer. But I’ve already joined the Astor table, I’m afraid.” Margaret examined her etched goblet, the wine inside gleaming liquid garnet against the sun. “Although I’m sure I wouldn’t presume to know what’s best, or even honorable. Merely what is most agreeable.”
A small sensation began at the entrance of the restaurant, billowing outward in a hushed verbal ripple. Madeleine glanced around to discover her husband weaving toward them, his bowler in hand.
Charlotte Cardeza made a grimace of a smile, her face puckered. “I see. Enjoy your voyage.”
“We assuredly will,” said Madeleine, a touch louder than she intended to as the other woman huffed away.
* * *
The Astors took a walk on the promenade deck after lunch, because Kitty had needed to escape the suite, and Jack wanted Madeleine to see what she could of the wild Irish coast. By noon, however, what she could see wasn’t much. They were stationary at Roche’s Point, the narrow mouth of Cork Harbour, still some miles away from the mainland shore.
A thin blue haze had crept in, turning the islands around them into distant dreamscapes, sleeping beasts of rock and green with mysterious stone towers bumping along their spines. The Queenstown traders had already scrambled back down to the tenders and bumboats; a group of passengers stood at the edge of the deck to watch them depart. Madeleine and Jack joined them, gazing down at the boats chugging away, ribbons of pearl trailing behind them, small as toys against Titanic’s enormous bulk.
The deck began to vibrate. Or perhaps it didn’t; perhaps it was only her imagination, because it was clear now that the great ship was moving, but she heard nothing from the engines. Only the other passengers, laughing and talking, and a thuggery of seagulls that persisted in circles around the mooring cables of the forward funnel, calling out their shrill cries.
“And we’re off,” said Jack. He lifted his face against the wind flicking at his overcoat, testing the brim of his hat, then glanced back at her with silvered eyes. “Are you pleased to be going home?”
Madeleine answered as honestly as she could. “I am pleased to be with you, no matter where we go.”
“A diplomat’s response!” He curved an arm around her waist, softened his voice. “It won’t be as bad as all that. The press will have moved on to bigger stories by now. New scandals crop up every day, believe me. They might have forgotten all about us.”
She couldn’t even think of an answer to that, only raised her eyebrows at him.
The corn
ers of his mouth quirked. “Well, maybe not. Tell you what, I’ve run into at least three acquaintances on board in the company of ladies who are definitely not their wives, including Ben Guggenheim. If any reporters attempt to accost us dockside in New York, we’ll just point our fingers in their direction and scurry the other way.”
“Golly,” she said faintly.
“Don’t worry, beloved. We’ll weather any storm. You and me and baby Muddington.”
She laughed in spite of herself, smacked him lightly on the chest. Kitty whined and pushed between them, her head low, her tail rapping against Madeleine’s knees.
“And our dog, too, obviously,” Jack said, reaching down to stroke a hand along the Airedale’s back. “Our own perfect family. We’ll be happy as clams. I guarantee it.”
“Yes,” Madeleine said, because beneath his tilted smile and easy tone, she knew it was what he wanted to hear. “Yes, Jack. I know we will.”
From somewhere on the ship behind them, distant but distinct, came the sound of bagpipes playing a low, mournful lament as they left Ireland behind them.
* * *
It seemed to Madeleine that their suite had rooms enough for nearly all of their party, but only Rosalie stayed with them. Carrie had a single cabin across the hall, and Robins had been booked in second class, decks below. Madeleine would have felt badly about it but, as Robins himself had cheerfully pointed out, Titanic’s second-class cabins were on par with any of the ones in first on other liners. And perhaps Jack’s valet appreciated the space between them, even if he did have to traverse the ship a number of times a day to do his job. Rosalie, in charge of Madeleine’s trunks and hatboxes and jewels (whatever wasn’t stored in the Purser’s Office for the day) had no choice but to remain nearby.
Madeleine made sure several of the vases of flowers ended up in Rosalie’s room.
She dressed for dinner slowly that second night, choosing a high-waisted tunic of smoky lilac chiffon over satin, one of her few from Worth that still fit. As Jack and Robins selected his evening coat in the next room, Rosalie stood behind Madeleine at the dressing table, brushing and parting and shaping her hair, creating perfect dark tendrils and curls, all held in place with diamond-encrusted clips.
Madeleine looked at the girl in the mirror and the girl in the mirror looked back at her, gradually transforming into someone Madeleine didn’t know, a glossy creature of alabaster skin and parted lips, no hint of her inner qualms revealed.
She slipped out of her silk kimono and into the gown, then sat again as Rosalie added her necklace, a fitted collar of more diamonds, platinum filigree that reached from her jaw to the base of her throat.
Her golden bangles.
The rings to go under her gloves.
“Powder, madame?” Rosalie asked.
“No, I don’t think so. I look so pale already.”
Her maid replaced the container upon the table, picked up the embossed compact of cream rouge instead.
Madeleine frowned. “All right.”
“Scent?”
“Yes. The French jasmine.”
“Very good.”
Madeleine lifted her wrists, tilted her head, as her maid stroked the glass stopper against her skin. When she rose from her chair, she was fully Mrs. John Jacob Astor, ready to ignore all that displeased her. Ready, on her husband’s arm, to glimmer.
* * *
She hadn’t been back to the Palm Room since boarding, but it seemed to her the same people stood in the very same clusters, drinking their same aperitifs against the same potted plants as they quietly sliced apart reputations.
Outside the ship, the stars were beginning to melt into their river of light. The ocean rippled silver and calm, and the ether became crystalline with ice. Inside, however . . . inside Titanic, the celebrated men and women surrounding them lived as if captured in amber. Nothing changed for them, nor would, not ever. The air was perfectly heated, the food was exquisite and fresh, and the gossip fresher still.
The Astors paused for a moment at the wide foot of the grand staircase, allowing themselves to be noticed, and when she looked up at her husband, Madeleine honestly thought there could not be a more attractive man in the room, White House anecdotes or no. Certainly there could be no man more compelling.
Jack’s right, she thought. Everything will be fine.
The orchestra leapt into a tune from The Tales of Hoffmann. They recognized it at the same time, their eyes locking.
That summer night. The paper firefly lanterns, the heady flowers. The moment she’d realized there existed a lovely, tenuous spark between them, unlikely as it might have been.
Jack lowered his gilt lashes, lifted her hand to his lips. Beneath the warm lights, his hair was sandy gold and dark.
“Am I the most fortunate of men?”
She rested her other hand on his upper arm, her glove stark against his sleeve. The music flowed, and they were the only two people in the world.
“You’ve made me the most fortunate of women. So I’m going to be immodest and say yes.”
“Lucky us,” he whispered against her hand.
“Yes,” she said. “Lucky us.”
Dinner awaited.
* * *
She made it through, laughing when she should, listening when she should, always remembering the proper fork or knife or glass for each course, because the lessons of her youth were hammered into her, no matter the circumstances, and in the back of her mind was a small, worried voice always reminding her to be correct, be the public wife he needs.
In addition to Margaret, Jack had invited a few of the brighter luminaries of his circle: the Wideners from Philadelphia, Eleanor and George, along with practically the entire Fortune family from Winnipeg, which included three lively daughters and a son not much older than Madeleine. Mr. Mark Fortune, like Jack, was involved in real estate. They had a few interests intermingled.
The conversation remained anodyne, consisting mostly of comments about the meal, the accommodations, and had anyone yet ventured into the gymnasium or the Turkish baths?
Despite the voice in her head, despite her many, many lessons in etiquette, by the seventh course (salmon mousse with dilled carrots, lightly roasted), Madeleine’s energy was waning. Her attention began to wander.
“I don’t care what anyone else says,” declared Mabel Fortune, the second (third?) daughter, her voice cutting sharp through Madeleine’s stray thoughts. “I think your story is fiercely romantic.”
She looked up. From her chair three places down, Mabel was leaning toward her, her eyes shining.
“Oh,” said Madeleine, putting down her knife and fork.
“We should all be able to wed whomever we wish.” Mabel threw a fuming glance at her father, who took a bite of carrot off his fork without responding.
“Not this again.” Charles Fortune, her younger brother, blond and athletic, covered his mouth on a sham yawn.
“Yes, this again. Look at the colonel and Mrs. Astor, after all they had to endure to be together. Clearly marriage has worked out beautifully for them.”
“For them,” enunciated the eldest sister, Ethel. She pursed her lips over her glass of wine. “You, my girl, are not them. And neither is that jazz player fellow from Minnesota.”
“Mrs. Astor! Won’t you speak for me? Tell them how it is.”
“I . . .”
Margaret came to her rescue. “Love is a powerful force, Miss Fortune. There’s no denying it. But love and common sense don’t always go hand in hand.”
“I’m afraid that’s true,” agreed Mrs. Widener. “Hearts may be easily broken, young lady, just as promises made in the heat of the moment may be. It pays to keep a cool head in courtship.”
“But my heart is broken now,” protested Mabel. She shook her head, the tortoiseshell combs in her hair gleaming. “It feels like I’ll die without him.”
“Mabel,” interrupted Mrs. Fortune in a granite voice, “you will bore our companions. No one desires to hear ab
out your heart, broken or not.”
Mabel ignored her, leaning forward once more, fervent. “Mrs. Astor! Please! Tell them.”
Madeleine glanced at Jack, who had observed the entire exchange with a dispassionate expression. But beneath the table, he took her hand.
“I will say this,” she offered cautiously. “I genuinely cannot imagine my life ahead without my husband by my side. He is my rock and my true north and my whole heart. I’m not afraid to say it.”
“There!” breathed Mabel.
“But,” Madeleine continued, “I would never hope for anyone else to undergo the ordeal we did to reach this place of happiness, this place where we are now. Especially anyone of a tender disposition. Society can be . . . extremely unforgiving.”
For a long moment, no one at the table said anything. There was only the low buzz of conversation from the other diners across the saloon, the stewards hurrying by, the music from the orchestra.
Charles tapped his fork against the china plate. “Speaking of stories. Alice has one, a real lulu, and it only just happened back in Cairo a few weeks ago. Tell them what happened, Alice.”
Alice Fortune, young and remarkably pretty, looked flustered for a second, then flashed a smile.
“Oh, it was the silliest thing. We were at Shepheard’s, sitting and having drinks one afternoon on the terrace. Do you all know it? No? Well, it’s really quite something, very inviting and open, and you can see all the people outside, walking and selling things and trying to get your attention, because they’d like you to buy a mummy or some papyrus or something. Anyway, this one little man in a maroon fez simply would not stop pestering me—”
“Thought I’d have to slug him,” Charles offered, concentrating on his mousse.
“He was waving his hands at me and practically hopping in place, so eventually I gave in. We had him brought to our table—I was very much afraid he was going to produce a severed mummy hand from his coat, or one of those pitiful dead cats—but it turns out he was a soothsayer. So he claimed.”
“The best one in North Africa, I wager,” Ethel said.
