“No. No doctor.”
“William—“ She stopped. “Let’s just get you to bed first.”
She helped him stand and walked him to the bedroom. There, she stripped his befouled clothes from him—he fought her, he was cold, but she was resolute, finding more strength in her small body than he had left in his spent one, and she stripped him bare. Then she helped him into the bed and went to the closet for all the extra blankets. She spread them all over him. Alone in the bed, he buried himself deep and tried to make the shaking stop. He shook so hard his head ached and his eyes rattled. He needed Nora.
She slid in with him, as naked as she’d made him, and wrapped herself around him, setting his head on her shoulder, the way he’d held her through so many hard nights in Bath. She was soft and warm, and he drew in a deeper breath. The shaking began to ease.
“Nora.”
“I’m here, my love. I’m with you. All’s well now. We’re safe, and we’re together. Forever.”
Still shaking, but calmer, anchored in Nora’s arms, William closed his eyes and let the cold dark have him.
TWENTY-NINE
He was feverish, Dr. Schuyler had warned about fever, and Nora was going to call for the hotel doctor whether William liked it or not. After all this, she was not about to lose him to a fever.
She held him until the shaking and gasping stopped, and he slept quietly. She held him a bit longer, giving him her warmth and comfort, making sure he was fully asleep, and then she eased herself out of the coil of their bodies and slipped out of bed. Wrapping herself in a robe provided by the hotel, she went to the sitting room, picked up the telephone, and rang the switchboard.
“Good evening. How may I direct your call?”
“Hello. I’m calling from ...”—she tried to remember—“the Central Park Suite.”
“Yes, ma’am … Mrs. … Lady Frazier, yes. How may I help you this evening?”
“My husband is ill, running a fever. There’s a doctor on staff, I hope?”
“Of course, my lady. Dr. Gunther. I’ll send him up immediately. Is there anything else I can do?”
“No, no. Thank you very much.”
“You’re welcome. I hope Mr. Frazier is well soon.”
Nora hung up and went back to the bed. William slept deeply, but his breathing seemed too loud, and too fast. She brushed his hair back from his forehead. He really was warm.
Since she’d been brought to him on the Carpathia, Nora had felt a steady pulse of worry under the powerful current of her relief and elation to be reunited. When Dr. Schuyler had told her to be prepared for William to be different, she hadn’t known, nor cared, to imagine what that meant. She still didn’t care. They were together, and he knew her, knew them, and all would be well. But she was worried nonetheless. William was like half of himself—but it was worse than that, because she could see that he knew the other half was missing. He was distracted and disconnected, from everything but her, as if he kept his attention inward, searching. Nora knew what that was. She was worried because she understood what it felt like to be lost and to know it.
Dissociation, Dr. St. John had called it.
When the women had come to him on the deck that evening. William had stared at them as if they were some kind of strange species of beast. He didn’t remember them at all, and what was more, he couldn’t understand what he’d done—or at least not the impact of what he’d done. He’d been confounded and dismayed by their gratitude.
Nora had been both profoundly proud and steaming mad. It didn’t surprise her at all that he’d helped women and children board lifeboats while other men tried to steal their places. But each time he’d helped someone else had been a chance for him to be sure to come back to her, and he’d chosen the risk every time, until there was nothing but risk.
Would she have wanted him to force a child to stay behind with the ship? Of course not. She loved him for his good heart and selfless spirit, and she couldn’t have loved a man who’d do otherwise. But he’d almost left her alone. He was sick now, and wounded, because he’d put others before himself. Before them.
A knock on the suite door sent her hurrying into the sitting room, making sure her robe was modestly closed. “Yes?” she asked through the closed door.
“Dr. Gunther, my lady. You’ve called for me?”
She opened the door. “Yes, yes. My husband. We were … we were on the Titanic. He was in the water. They pulled him from the water. He’s …” She didn’t know everything she should say as they walked toward the bedroom. “He’s feverish now.”
Dr. Gunther was young, perhaps William’s age, but not older. He’d come to her in nightclothes and a robe, his blond hair at all ends, but he had his medical bag with him. He turned back the covers and set his hand on William’s forehead.
“Yes, he’s feverish. Before I wake him, tell me everything you can about his trauma.”
“I don’t know everything. The doctor on the Carpathia, Dr. Schuyler—he said he’d been pulled from the water, and was almost … almost dead. Hypothermia. He didn’t wake until he was on the ship and his body was warm again. He’s different since he woke.”
“Different how?”
Nora thought how to explain it. “He’s quieter. He’s a good speaker. Not a windbag, but eloquent and thoughtful. Now he barely speaks, and almost never in sentences. He often seems confused. Dr. Schuyler said there could be … losses.”
“Yes, there could be. From what I understand about the event, there could be profound losses for anyone who survived in that water. But he knows you, knows who he is, what his life is?”
“Yes. Yes. He’s just quiet … and distracted.” She thought about telling him how he’d reacted to seeing the ocean but decided against it. “When we got to the hotel, he was sick. He began to shake, very strongly, and his face was hot.”
“All right, thank you.” He turned back to the bed and put his hand on William’s shoulder, and Nora remembered that she’d stripped him naked. Because Dr. Schuyler had said that skin-to-skin contact was warmer and more soothing.
“He’s … not wearing any clothes.”
Dr. Gunther smiled back at her. “It’s not a concern, my lady. There’s little modesty in the medical profession.” He shook William’s shoulder. “Mr. Frazier? Mr. Frazier, can you wake up?”
William groaned and stirred, and Nora ran to the other side of the bed and climbed on, so he would see her first. Dr. Gunther shook his shoulder again, harder, and William’s eyes finally opened. He groaned again. “Nora?”
“I’m here. The doctor is here. Can you wake up and let him examine you?”
Confusion racked his brow. He turned his head. Seeing the doctor, he rolled to quickly to his back. “No!”
The doctor was unfazed and professionally firm. “Mr. Frazier, you’re running a high temperature. Your wife told me what you’ve been through, and it wouldn’t surprise me if you’re developing pneumonia. With the work your body’s been doing already, it will need help to fight any new illness off. I can provide that help.”
William stared at the doctor in that baffled way. He turned to Nora. “Nora?”
He was behaving as he had when she’d first been brought to him. Was he losing more of himself? Was the fever taking more away? “It’s all right, my love. Let him help you. For me.”
He stared at her for a few seconds more, then nodded and turned back to the doctor. “For Nora.”
Dr. Gunther lifted his eyes to Nora. He understood what she’d tried to describe. William wasn’t himself. Half of him was lost.
“His lungs sound clear. That’s very good news. His heart rate is a bit fast, but that’s likely the fever, and it’s not in the danger zone. We’ll need to keep close watch, but I don’t think it’s pneumonia, not yet. Most likely, he picked up an infection on the ship, and his body was too weak to fight it off. His temperature is one hundred and two, and that’s a bit concerning. But there’s a lot of good news, my lady. The greatest concern is tha
t he’s already weak from the trauma at sea. So keep him in bed, not too flat, keep him comfortable, and I’ll stop in regularly and check on him. I’ll arrange for a menu for him as well.”
“Thank you, Doctor. And … and his confusion?”
The doctor’s expression had been reassuring. Now it turned serious. “I’m afraid I don’t know enough about how he was after the rescue to judge if he’s lost more. But I’m sure you’ve had fever in your life. You know how it can cloud your thinking. If he was already feeling cloudy—
“Gauzy.”
“Excuse me?”
“Gauzy. He calls it gauzy.”
“Well, that itself is a very good sign, that he’s aware of it and can describe it metaphorically. My best advice, based on what you’ve told me and I’ve observed, is to keep talking with him, encouraging him to speak in whole sentences. Maybe read to him. The important thing is to keep working at it. New losses can be remedied much more easily than old ones.”
“Thank you, Doctor.” She offered him her hand. Dr. Gunther was the first doctor, the first male doctor, she’d trusted since she’d known enough to be suspicious.
He took her hand and squeezed. “You be sure to get good rest, too. You’ve had a trial as well, and he needs you to be strong. I’ll arrange his menu before I go back to bed myself, and I’ll be up after breakfast. In the meantime, call if you need anything.”
Then he left, and Nora stood alone in the suite’s sitting room. William slept in the room beyond. She stood alone in the Central Park Suite of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New York City.
New York, New York. The United States of America. America.
She turned and stared at the wall of windows, their draperies still open. William had collapsed so quickly that they hadn’t had a chance even to notice the room. Crossing over the lush carpet on legs that had forgotten how to bend, she went to the windows and looked out at the nightscape of this storied city. A park, it must have been Central Park, spread out across the street below. Central Park. New York City. America. This was to be the place of her rebirth.
Eighteenth—no, nineteenth April. Just a few hours less than exactly nine days ago, she’d woken in a hotel in Southampton, with a grand adventure and a whole new life before her. She’d turned her back on her past and leapt forward into her future with her beautiful new husband.
And had fallen into the middle of the ocean.
As she stared down at the dark trees of the park, her own mind began to slip and shift in that horrifyingly familiar way, and she dropped her head to the glass with the thud, hard enough to shake her thoughts back to their proper places. No. There was no room, or reason, for despair, no need to run from this reality. William was with her, just a few feet away. He was every bit the breathtakingly strong, honourable, kind man she’d always known him to be, and he would be well. They had survived that cataclysm in the ocean—and she knew precisely what a miracle that was. She’d watched the tragedy play out before her own eyes, sitting helpless in a boat while hundreds and hundreds of people died and that massive, marvelous floating city was devoured by the sea. She’d been witness to the terrible silence that fell over the world mere seconds after the last of the ship submerged. From howling horror to deathly emptiness in a blink. She knew how lucky they were.
Lucky. Miraculous.
They hadn’t been lost at sea. They’d landed exactly where they’d aimed, only a day later. There was a compelling unreality in that, a tendency in her mind to try to make the sinking nothing more than a nightmare. That horrible rift in the world that had destroyed so many lives, torn so many families apart, had made almost no difference to her material life, or to William’s once he was well. If her memories of the night hadn’t been so replete with sensate impact, if she hadn’t been reliving the smells and sounds and even the taste—of salt and oil and metal and ice—as well as the feel and sight of it with every reminder, she wasn’t sure how she’d reconcile the truth of that horror with the reality of her wellness.
William didn’t remember the sinking. Except in his dreams, his last memory was of the hours before.
Nora turned and looked through the open bedroom door. She could see him, sleeping, lying on his back now, propped up on pillows. The doctor had given him an injection, saying it would help him rest comfortably so his body could do its work against the infection.
She understood why he was confused, why he was lost, what he searched for. And she thought she knew how she could help him. She turned out the sitting room lights and went to bed, sliding naked under the covers and curling up against her husband.
“Nora,” he sighed in his sleep, and his hand found hers.
The next morning, William was a bit better. He was still feverish and weak, but a good rest in a good bed had restored much of his sense, and he was enough himself to grumble at the breakfast of oatmeal and tea the doctor had arranged. He wanted coffee.
Nora kissed his cheek and denied him. The doctor had sent up tea, so tea he would have.
He slept again right after breakfast, and Nora used the opportunity to get some important tasks completed. She called down to the desk and told the concierge everything she needed, and a few minutes later, still in her robe because she had no clothes—one of her day’s tasks—she sat in the sitting room with a hotel secretary, who helped her make and execute an agenda.
First order of business: she wrote telegrams to send to Aunt Martha and William’s mother. They read nearly the same in their important part: We’re both safe in New York. Taking some time to rest before we continue to California. Will keep you apprised. To her mother-in-law, she added some light detail about William’s health to explain their delay. She would write longer letters when she had time, but for now, the important thing was to get word to their families that they were safe.
Next was clothing and possessions, of which they had none. The clothes William had been wearing were nothing but salt-stiffened tatters and a donated pair of worn broughams. Her own clothes had fared better, but she wanted to keep not one single piece. She’d lost her bag of gifts William had given her, and those were the only lost things she’d have wanted. She still had her engagement and wedding rings, on her finger where they belonged. She still had her medal and her Kensington Rose. Everything else that she’d worn on that night could be burned.
Which meant they needed new wardrobes and personal items, at least enough to get them to California. With no idea how such purchases would work in America when they couldn’t go to the shops in person, she asked Miss Calloway, the secretary. It turned out to work not unlike in England, when one had enough means. Miss Calloway made a note to contact the proper shops, and she assured Nora that those shops would send representatives and samples up to the room.
Finally, Nora wanted copies of all the papers. She wanted to know everything that was said anywhere about the Titanic—every description, every opinion.
“On that point, my lady,” Miss Calloway said as she took her shorthand notes. “We’ve got a ‘do not disturb’ notice on your suite, but there have been quite a number of calls from reporters looking for you and Mr. Frazier, as well as a representative of the White Star Line, and even someone from the United States Senate. It’s our policy to let no one through, no matter who he might be, but I’d like to suggest that you should think about how you and your husband will speak, officially, about what happened.”
“My husband is ill.” William would be mortified to have it known that he struggled.
“I understand. We’ll keep the room blocked. But maybe we could draft a statement? I think that would, at least, calm the papers.” She smiled. “There’s talk, you know, that your husband is a hero.”
“He is. And that’s why he should be left alone. He doesn’t want acclaim, and he’s already done his part. He’s ill because he helped so many without regard for himself.” She’d snapped at the secretary, and there’d been no call for it. With a sharp sigh to rein in her temper, she added, “A statement is an excellen
t idea. Let’s prepare that, and I’ll trust you to know where it should be directed first.
“Oh, the Times, my lady. Certainly the Times.”
“This one.”
William picked up the Herald, and Nora took it and began to read the front-page story. Miss Calloway had brought back issues of the papers as well, chronicling the catastrophe from the first stories, when people out in the world had no clear understanding of what had happened in the middle of the ocean. From the first story a few hours after the sinking, before Nora and William had been reunited, the Titanic had dominated the front page of every paper in New York, and likely across the world. Those first stories told wildly different accounts, all of them conjecture based on faulty and incomplete information.
The very first stories suggested that there had been no casualties, but thereafter, the one thing later accounts got right was the tremendous loss of life. Barely more than seven hundred Titanic passengers had been conveyed to New York on the Carpathia. There was not yet an official casualty count, but there had been more than two thousand people on that ship.
She finished the front page story, where it carried over inside. Below that, she found another, and she was immediately so absorbed she forgot to read aloud.
“Nora?”
“Sorry. William, this is about you. See the headline?” She turned the paper so he could read: TITANIC HERO: RAILROAD SCION SAVES WOMEN AND CHILDREN.
“Shit. Read it?”
Another odd feature of his struggles was that he swore much more often than he had before. At least, she’d rarely heard him swear before. She didn’t mind, but she’d noticed and wondered if it was significant, or if he was simply too distracted to temper his language around her.
“Nearly a dozen women,” she began, “have come forward with stories of a debonair savior, a handsome man in elegant dress who helped them onto lifeboats, sometimes beating off the panicky attacks of other men to carry women and children to safety. Most of these women know him only as their mysterious knight, but one woman, Miss Mabel Morris, of New Jersey, told this reporter that she encountered him on the Carpathia and thanked him in person. He is, she reports, Mr. William Frazier. Examination of the passenger manifest shows that there was one William Frazier on board the Titanic, and only one: Mr. William John Frazier, the only son of J. Henry Frazier, and heir to the Scot-Western railroad fortune. While this tragedy has taken from us some of the most important men in our country, we can take heart to know that one of the greatest among them survived.”
Nothing on Earth & Nothing in Heaven Page 40
