The Girl Who Came Home

by Hazel Gaynor

  “Well, you see—and I am aware that I may be completely mistaken here—but my uncle had in his possession a lady’s coat and a packet of letters. The name Maggie is handwritten on the front of the packet of letters, and there’s a note scribbled on them, which I presume was written by my uncle. I have it here in front of me. Would you like me to read it to you?”

  “Yes, yes please.” Grace was now on the very edge of the step.

  “Okay, let me just find my reading glasses. Ah yes, now, here we are. It says, ‘Possessions of a Miss Maggie Murphy who traveled from Ireland on Titanic with her aunt and two young women—Peggy and Katie. Items found in lifeboat on Carpathia.’ ” Mr. Lockey paused for a moment. “I have to assume, Miss Butler, that these items belong to your great-grandmother.”

  Grace couldn’t believe it. Maggie’s letters! The letters from Séamus. After all these years. “That’s amazing!” she gasped.

  “Yes, isn’t it?” Mr. Lockey continued. “And from what I hear from members of my own family, my uncle was very eager to see these items reunited with their owner. He seemed to think that Maggie had given her coat to a little girl who was in their lifeboat and that the coat was then left in the boat when the Carpathia took the survivors on board. He had come across it when he, and some other crew, were unloading Titanic’s lifeboats onto the White Star Line wharf when Carpathia arrived in New York. He had tried to find Maggie on the Carpathia and in the New York hospitals, but with all the confusion and with survivor names being misreported and misspelled, he never found her. So he kept the coat and the letters in the vague hope that one day he, or they, would find her again.” He paused for a moment to take a breath. “I am hoping that, after all these years, they possibly have.”

  Grace couldn’t speak for a moment.

  “Miss Butler? Are you still there?”

  “Oh, yes, yes, I’m sorry. I’m here. I just can’t believe it! I can’t believe you have Maggie’s letters. Are they all still there?”

  “Well, miss, I’m not sure, but the packet certainly seems to have been kept in very good condition. My uncle was very particular about them and insisted that nobody read them—those were his specific instructions in his will. He apparently told members of the family that he believed they were love letters from a boyfriend Maggie had left behind in Ireland and that only if Maggie was found should they be read.”

  Grace was stunned, her heart racing at what this would mean to Maggie. Her letters finally returned to her. It momentarily crossed her mind that it might all be a bit too much for her great-grandmother. She often seemed reluctant to talk about Séamus, as if thinking about him upset her.

  “This is just incredible, Mr. . . .”

  “Lockey. Edward Lockey.”

  “This may be a silly question, Mr. Lockey—”

  “Please, call me Edward,” he interrupted, laughing.

  “Sorry, Edward. Was your uncle’s name Harry by any chance?”

  Now it was his turn to be surprised. “Yes! Harry was his name! How did you know that?”

  “Maggie kept a journal on Titanic,” Grace explained. “She mentions a Harry often, or Lucky Harry, as she and the girls she shared a cabin with seem to have called him. She told me a steward named Harry helped her get to the lifeboat. It must be him.”

  They spoke for a few moments more about the incredible coincidences: Edward reading Grace’s article, and him being related to the man who had helped Maggie get off Titanic, and that he had what they believed to be Maggie’s lost coat and letters. It was simply amazing.

  “I think it would be useful to meet,” Edward Lockey continued. “I’d prefer to hand over the items to you in person if that isn’t too much of an imposition. I certainly wouldn’t want to rely on the postal service to get them back to Maggie—it would be terrible if they were to be lost after all this time.”

  Grace agreed, and they made arrangements to meet the following week at a coffee shop they both knew in downtown Chicago. She thought it best not to say anything to Maggie just yet—in case the man turned out to be a crackpot. The letters clearly wouldn’t change anything for Maggie now, whatever they said, but Grace hoped that they might bring her some sort of closure, allow her to lay to rest some of the ghosts that had haunted her since that night.

  She put down the phone and walked into the kitchen.

  “So?” her mother inquired from inside the pantry, which she was rearranging. “Was it another reporter?”

  Grace sat down at the kitchen table, absentmindedly taking a banana from the fruit bowl. “No, he really wasn’t a reporter. It’s unbelievable, Mom. He says he’s the nephew of someone else who survived Titanic, and we think it’s someone who Maggie knew.”

  Her mother appeared then, wiping her hands on the front of her trousers. “Really?”

  “Yeah! Really! And he seems genuine. And you’ll never guess what.”

  “What?”

  “He thinks he has Maggie’s coat and the packet of letters. You know, the ones she says she left on the Carpathia. The letters from Séamus.”

  The two women sat at the table then, as they often did when they had something important to discuss, and Grace filled her mother in on all the details that Edward Lockey had passed on to her. They agreed there was a chance that this was a hoax, but deep in their hearts, they both hoped that he was genuine.

  May 30, 1982

  On the morning that Grace had agreed to meet Edward Lockey, she received a letter. In her hurry to make the agreed-upon rendezvous time, she almost walked past the pile of mail her mother had placed on the small console table on the front porch, assuming that it would just be bills for her mom as usual. But something made her stop and pick them up. She recognized his handwriting immediately.

  “Jimmy,” she whispered.

  Trembling with excitement and dread, she tore open the envelope. Her heart fell at the sight of a single piece of notepaper folded in half. Good news comes in large packages she remembered her father saying when she had first applied to college and was waiting to hear whether she had been accepted. If it’s bad news, it’ll be short and sweet. This was definitely short and sweet. Hesitating, afraid of what she would see written on the page, she unfolded the single piece of paper.

  Hey, stranger. Read the article—amazing! I knew you’d find a story eventually. How about that cup of coffee?

  He didn’t need to sign it.

  Despite there being only a few words written on the page, they were the best words she could have hoped for. She read them over and over and over again. It was an olive branch. It was more than an olive branch. He wanted to meet her for coffee. He’d read her article. He was still there, still waiting, still interested—maybe. A million thoughts and emotions swirled around Grace’s mind.

  Since opening the box of letters she’d kept under her bed, she’d held out some hope of a reunion. I guess this is just too hard for you, he’d written in his final letter. I’m not sure I really understand, Grace, but I am trying to, I really am. So I’m going to leave you now, to heal in peace. I’m not going to write to you again, Grace, because it’s too painful when I don’t hear back. Take your time and mourn your father as you need to. I don’t know how long that’s gonna take—possibly forever? But maybe, someday when you’ve gotten over this and feel a little better, maybe you could write me? Maybe I could buy you a cup of coffee and we could start over? Think about it. You know where I am. I will be waiting. Always, J xx

  After reading the letter, she’d written to Jimmy’s old home address and sent the note for his attention in care of Professor Andrews along with the manuscript for her article. She’d left her phone number but, not having heard anything, had assumed he had given up and moved on with his life—as she had told him to. This small note that she now held in her hand told her otherwise.

  Recognizing the number he’d added to the bottom of the note as a Chicago exchange, she wondered whether she should call right away. She remembered the words Maggie had said to her in the
café. Life is fragile, Grace—it is no more than a petal of cherry blossom. Her mind was made up.

  She paused, just for a moment, to check her appearance in the hall mirror. Her cheeks were flushed; her eyes sparkled. She looked like the girl who used to stare back at her from the mirror, a girl whose lust for life and whose vibrancy oozed through her every pore. The girl looking back was a girl she hadn’t seen for a long time. She adjusted her hair and dialed the number quickly, before she could change her mind.

  The phone rang and rang at the other end. Her heart raced, her mouth was as dry as sandpaper. “Pick up, pick up, pick up,” she muttered under her breath.

  “Hello?”

  Her heart did a somersault at the sound of his voice. She had to fight back the tears as she responded.

  “Jimmy,” she whispered, her voice shaking. “It’s me. It’s Grace.”

  CHAPTER 30

  New York

  April 18, 1912

  Frances Kenny handed her yellow ticket to the inspectors at the top of West Street. Satisfied that she was a relative awaiting the arrival of Carpathia, which was expected at around midnight, the inspectors gave her permission to access the fenced-off area, and she made her way to join the hundreds of others already gathered at the docks.

  The flags in New York harbor, all lowered to half-mast, flapped and snapped in the wind gusting over the exposed harbor, rattling the flagpoles, blowing out the ladies’ skirts, and lifting umbrellas from rain-soaked hands. It was just past three o’clock in the afternoon, but the darkening sky cast a hue of nightfall over the entire city.

  Frances knew she had many hours to wait before the expected arrival of the rescue ship, but she didn’t care. She didn’t feel the wind or the pouring rain. She didn’t worry about catching a chill. “I’d rather stand in a blizzard than spend any more time alone in this house,” she’d told her neighbor who had stopped in earlier that day to ask whether there was any further news of Katie. “I’m walking in and out of the guest room like a caged tiger,” she’d explained. “I’ve spent weeks preparing for my sister’s arrival and now I don’t know whether the bed will ever be slept in. I stand and stare at those pillows and wonder whether they’ll always remain as smoothed and plumped as I have made them with all my fussing and ironing. I would give anything to have Katie’s beautiful head to rest upon them and mess them all up again.”

  She hadn’t been to work that day, or for the several days since news of the Titanic disaster. Her heart was so full of despair it was hard to summon up the energy to wash and dress in the morning, let alone travel across the city and wash Mrs. Walker-Brown’s endless floors. As it transpired, one of the other employees at the Walker-Brown residence had called to Frances’s home to pass on the message from Mrs. Walker-Brown that Frances’s services wouldn’t be required for the time being. Mrs. Walker-Brown had apparently taken to her bed with grief for her daughter, who despite being listed as one of the survivors, appeared to be returning on the rescue ship without her fiancé. Mrs. Walker-Brown was unable to bear the thought of her daughter having suffered such horror and could not imagine what terrible conditions she was traveling in on the rescue ship. She was distraught to learn that Robert had, most probably, perished when the ship went down and was inconsolable, refusing to eat and not wishing to see anyone until her daughter was safely returned to the family home.

  According to the young kitchen maid who had visited Frances, Vivienne Walker-Brown’s pet dog, Edmund, was also listed among the survivors. She assumed the officials had thought Edmund Walker-Brown to be the lady’s son, and not just a dog. Frances had seethed with anger when she heard this, unable to comprehend how a dog could be permitted to survive when so many had lost their lives.

  Now, as she walked along the wharf, oblivious to the steadily falling rain, she wandered past the yellow taxicabs and the sleek black limousines that cast their lights onto the rain-soaked pavement, reflecting the sights of the dock buildings and freight cranes at her feet. She could barely register the absurdity of the situation that would permit some survivors to walk off Carpathia into immediate luxury, while others would undoubtedly arrive without a cent or a pair of shoes to their name.

  Alongside Pier 54—the Cunard pier—the lines of ambulances waiting to ferry the shaken and injured survivors to the hospital reinforced the severity of the situation and the scale of the tragedy. It struck Frances for the first time that even arriving safely in New York would not be the end of the ordeal for these poor people, many of whom would still be far from their final destination.

  As she walked, she caught fragments of conversation that shocked and scared her all over again.

  “Not enough lifeboats by far, they’re reporting. There wasn’t a chance for half of the passengers. It’s a disgrace. Probably saving room for some more of those fancy first-class staterooms.”

  “It’s my fiancé I’m waiting for. We’re to be married next month. I didn’t see his name on the list, but I had a dream that he survived. He has to have survived.”

  “Mammy and Da and me four little brothers were sailing. Only Mammy survived,” a young girl sobbed. “It was their first time coming over. We was all planning a life here together.”

  It was unbearable to hear.

  Frances walked past large groups of Salvation Army and Sheltering Society volunteers, dressed in their uniforms, ready to provide assistance wherever possible, serving hot coffee and sandwiches to the waiting relatives and to the dozens of dockworkers who had arrived of their own will, eager to help in whatever way they could.

  A dozen or so black-robed Sisters of Charity gathered in quiet prayer, awaiting the rescue ship’s arrival. They stood alongside representatives from the Pennsylvania Railroad, who were ready to provide assistance and tickets to those trying to travel on to Philadelphia or points farther west. It was a rescue and humanitarian operation the scale of which Frances had never seen before. It moved and encouraged her immensely.

  “You’re doing a wonderful job,” she remarked to a Salvation Army volunteer who offered her a cup of hot coffee. “It is much appreciated.”

  “You’re welcome, miss,” the young volunteer replied. “It’s all so terribly sad, we’re just glad to be able to help in some way, no matter how small. There’s thousands gathered in Battery Park. Just waiting to see those poor folks safely home.”

  Frances walked on as the storm clouds gathered ominously overhead and the first crackles of lightning lit up the sky.

  The atmosphere among the waiting crowds was one of numbed sobriety and tension, anxiety and grief lining the faces of those she passed, dark shadows and red-rimmed eyes bearing witness to the suffering these people had already endured as, like her, they had scoured and scoured the lists of survivors only to discover that the names they were looking for were not present.

  Observing the steadily growing mass of people and waiting volunteers now gathering along the wharf did little to calm Frances’s fears or reassure her troubled mind. Would Katie be on Carpathia, or would her worst fears be realized when all the survivors had disembarked?

  She’d telephoned the White Star offices every day since news of the disaster broke.

  “What have you heard?” she asked when her call was answered.

  “Nothing new, miss,” came the somber reply from the anonymous person at the other end of the line.

  Frances very quickly realized that “Nothing new” meant that the first reports of survivors hadn’t changed and that the names of many of the travelers from Ballysheen, who had been reported as lost, were accurate and had not changed. But although Frances had not found the name Katie Kenny—or others from the Ballysheen group—on any of the issued survivor lists, her heart would not allow her to give up hope. She had seen a Kate Kennedy listed and a Katherine Denny and had prayed every day that one of those was her sister, the name having been misprinted or mistakenly taken down in all the confusion.

  Except for the lists of survivor names, there’d been a frustrating
silence from Carpathia over the last few days; the anticipated details of the events that had unfolded on Titanic had not been forthcoming, and rumors among the press were rife that the surviving Marconi radio operator, Harold Bride, had been told to keep quiet until Carpathia docked, at which point his story would be sold for a large sum of money. Looking around at the harrowing scenes of grief and despair, Frances found it impossible to conceive that anyone could hope to prosper from such unimaginable tragedy.

  As the hours passed, Frances and the hundreds of other anxious relatives and friends of Titanic’s passengers huddled against the strong wind and lashing rain and watched the gathering nightfall. Many, who knew their loved ones were safely aboard Carpathia, waited quietly. Others, like Frances, were left to pray that there had been a mistake and that the person they so longed to see would emerge from the liner when she docked.

  It is as if the entire city is stricken with grief, Frances read in the newspaper she had picked up at the stand, looking for the latest reports. Rich and poor are united under one great wave of sorrow and sympathy. God has indeed spoken.

  Turning her rosary beads over and over in her hands, Frances sat under the large letter K, corresponding to the surname of the survivor she was so hoping to greet. She said a silent prayer, closing her eyes against the rain and the impossible situation she found herself in.

  Time passed slowly.

  It was just before nine o’clock when a shiver seemed to cross the waiting crowd as the first sightings of Carpathia steaming up the Hudson River were relayed from the tugboats that had gone out to meet her. Everyone stood up then, desperate to see the ship itself, as if, until that moment, this could all be imagined. Men, women, and children stood on tiptoes, craning their necks, peering into the gloom as if watching a theater show, waiting for that moment when the magician delivers the prestige.

  The unmistakable single funnel of a steam liner emerged from the murky mist. Just a few lights were visible from the upper cabins and the masthead. Otherwise, all was darkness around the great mass of the ship.