‘What is true? They say that the ship went down with only enough lifeboats for half the passengers, that Third Class were left until it was too late . I’ve heard rumours, people shot on deck. Can you imagine what my wife went through and with no one to help her?’ He was shouting now.
‘Calm down, rumours won’t help you. What happened happened, and that is what the public inquiry is for, to make sure nothing like this ever happens again.’
Someone listening interrupted. ‘And how many steerage men have been called to bear witness? Only three out of hundreds, I’ve heard. It was mass slaughter. How can this boy ever get justice? It’s a disgrace!’
‘I am not judge or jury. I’m just doing my job. So don’t take it out on me. You have to get on with your life. There’s many worse off than you.’ The clerk was rattled by the support Angelo was getting. ‘Any more of this and I’ll call the manager.’
There was nothing more to say, but Angelo pulled out the tiny shoe once again, showing it to the audience. ‘I will have to live with this for the rest of my life. I killed my baby,’ he whispered. ‘And I didn’t even get to hold her. She was born after I left.’ He pulled out a tattered photo. ‘This is all I have, this photo of my Maria and Alessia.’
‘Such a pretty name,’ said a woman pityingly.
‘It was my grandmother’s name,’ he said, crossing himself. ‘Now go and find yourself a stall, have a coffee and calm down,’ the clerk said. ‘You
can’t keep taking time off work to come here.’
‘How can a man work when he’s lost his world? Why did this have to happen to us? What did they do to deserve such an end?’
‘Beats me, son, beats me. What sort of an Almighty lets some live and some die? I’m sorry but you must go. There’s others waiting in the queue.’
As Angelo turned to leave the clerk hesitated. ‘Good luck! Maybe one day the truth will Someone patted him on the back. Another squeezed his arm. None of it comforted him. Fingering the shoe in his pocket Angelo bent his head and pulled his cap over his face to
hide his distress. He would never stop looking for Maria and Alessia. But first he needed more than strong coffee if he was going to write a letter home that would break all their hearts.
The journey back to Akron was a sullen affair. Celeste stared out of the window while Jack Bryden chattered on about the Wells family who’d lost both their men in the sinking. They were now five days later than planned, partly out of Celeste’s defiance and disappointment that Grover hadn’t rushed to New York to greet her. It might have made their reunion easier if he had been waiting, full of concern for her safety. All those cries of raw emotion she’d witnessed brought home how unmissed she had been, how life in Akron went on smoothly without her. Even Roddy sometimes saw more of his nursemaid, Susan, than he did of his mother. All that must change. All she’d got was poor Jack waiting in his mackintosh as if she was a mere client visitor to the Diamond Rubber Company. She’d wanted to scream at him but you didn’t shoot the messenger. What was she thinking? Where was this fierce rage coming from?
Those meetings with Margaret Brown and her friends had filled her with zeal. She must continue her campaigning no matter what, and then there was the Carpathia reception to organize. She had telephoned Grover two nights earlier with their change of plan. He in-formed her that a welcome home soiree in her honour had now had to be rescheduled. He was clearly far from pleased about this delay. There would be a car waiting for them at the train station.
Celeste thought once again of May on the high seas and hoped her journey back was trouble free. How brave she was to trust herself to another ship. How would she find life in the Midlands? Would she settle there? She shook her head to clear her mind, her thoughts spiralling. She must concentrate on her duties. Only the thought of Roddy’s wel-come warmed her heart.
As they drew into the driveway of the large house off Portage Hill, its ivy-clad turrets in each corner making it look more like a fortress than a home, she wondered what sort of re-ception would be waiting for her. Looking up, she saw Grover staring at her from an upstairs window, and she shivered.
The maid was standing at the door. ‘Welcome home, Mrs Parkes. We are so glad you are safe.’
‘Thank you, Minnie,’ Celeste smiled. ‘Where’s Master Roddy?’ ‘Out with his nurse. We didn’t know what time the train would arrive. The Master told
Susan to take him out into the sunshine. I’m sure they won’t be long.’ Celeste felt bitter disappointment stinging her.
‘The Master’s in the study. He’ll see you in there when you’re ready.’ Celeste’s heart sank at this command. She was in disgrace. Everything had its price, and
staying in New York would be viewed by Grover as defiance of the first order. With leaden feet she climbed the wide oak staircase to his study like a child before the headmaster. Her new-found courage was fast deserting her.
‘At last. Close the door.’ Grover strode across the room from the window. The look on his face would melt steel.
‘How dare you arrive so late? I gave Bryden strict orders to bring you straight home, and you defy me,’ he roared, his florid face growing even redder.
‘I know, I’m sorry, but there were people I needed to help, survivors. It was terrible, Grover. You wouldn’t have believed your own eyes. I couldn’t desert them.’
‘I don’t want to hear your excuses.’ He dismissed her with a wave of his hand. ‘You were able to desert your own family for weeks. That didn’t bother you.’
‘My mother died. I had to go back.’
‘You took your time to return. Go and get changed. We need to leave soon.’ ‘I want to see Roddy first. I’ve missed him so much.’ ‘He’s out with Susan. She’s more a mother to him than you are. He’ll barely even notice
you’re back.’
‘How can you say that? I wanted to take him with me to England but you wouldn’t let me. My mother never even got to see him. Now it’s too late.’ She was close to tears. She was arguing and she knew that was unwise when Grover was in this mood.
‘Do as I say and get those drab things off. You look like a common shop worker.’ ‘I’m in mourning.’
‘Not here, you’re not. Black doesn’t become you.’ ‘It suits my mood after what I saw, what I’ve been through,’ she snapped. The blow to her shoulder knocked her sideways into the bureau. She staggered. ‘I will not stand for disobedience in this house,’ Grover roared. ‘You ignore my instruc-
tions, my driver, my timetable. You know what happens when you do that.’ He was stand-ing over her with flint in his grey eyes. Celeste tried to stand upright.
‘I nearly drowned and you expect me to dress up for a party? Grover, please . . .’ ‘You should be grateful. My mother has been preparing this soiree for days. The cream
of Akron society will want to hear your story first-hand.’ Celeste touched her shoulder, which hurt terribly. She felt dizzy and disoriented with the
speed of her fall. ‘I’m tired. I don’t feel like celebrating anything.’ ‘What you feel and what you want is of no importance,’ Grover barked. ‘Please, another night,’ she pleaded.
‘Go to the bedroom. You need to be taught a lesson, one you won’t forget in a hurry.’ Celeste saw the furious gleam in his eye and knew what was coming next. ‘Oh, not now,
please. Can’t you see I’m hurt? For the love of God, don’t take me now.’ ‘You are my wife and I won’t be denied my rights. Get to the bedroom before I drag you
by the hair. I would’ve thought by now you’d know who is master in this house. I will not be made to look foolish by a disobedient wife.’
May kept to her cabin on the Celtic , out of sight from prying eyes. She knew the other pas-sengers were dying to ask her questions about her experience and to pet the baby. There were toys for Ella; a First Class passenger sent a beautiful teddy bear for her to play with and a doll dressed in pink velvet with gold lace ribbons. People meant well but May was too ex-hausted to a
ppreciate it. There were at least five other female survivors on board, some with children, and she’d seen they were fussed over and passed around as if they were famous. She avoided their company when she could. People wanted them to pose for photographs but she shied away from the fuss and attention from the start. Slowly people were starting to get the message.
She’d been upgraded to Second Class and was sure that Celeste had something to do with this. She didn’t deserve such a friend, one who’d saved her life. Their few days in New York she would never forget, riding in a carriage around Central Park, tasting ice-cream sodas, shopping in Macy’s, trying not to gawp at the luxuries on the counters and the elegant ladies in cartwheel hats who sipped tea in the restaurant and admired Ella. It wasn’t real. Nothing had been real since they’d set sail nearly two weeks ago. Could it really have been such a short time since she’d sailed into a new world, seen the bustle, noise and dust of the city? It wasn’t for the likes of her. She was pleased to be heading home. If not to her real home, then to her own country where all would be more familiar.
Not for the first time she wondered if she was in some strange dream waiting to wake up. In a matter of days, she’d travelled from Bolton to London, Southampton to New York, and now back again into the unknown; days and days of living in borrowed clothes, carrying a baby she hardly knew. Then in the small hours of darkness reality dawned, the pain hit and her mind felt like it would explode. It was as much as she could do to make up a bottle for the baby.
Ella suckled on it unheeding. As long as she was fed and changed, she was no bother. I have taken someone else’s baby. God forgive me! Willingly at first she’d clung to this child just for comfort but now there was no going back. She was her responsibility. For better or worse.
‘I don’t know you,’ she whispered in the baby’s ear. Ella grinned with such an appealing smile, and May shook her head. The innocence of the young. ‘But we’ve plenty of time to get to know each other, lass.’ There were days ahead to sit in peace, sing nursery rhymes and walk the decks before they must face the years to come.
Ella looked so different from Ellen, petite limbed, with long delicate fingers, and so dark skinned. She was foreign, no mistake about that. There’d been so many nations on board in steerage, families, women in headscarves jabbering away. Did this baby understand one word she was saying?
Everything they were wearing was new, from her black coat with the velvet trim, the smart hat and handbag, her calf-skin boots, her corset and shift. Only her careworn face was the same, but ravaged by sorrow, pale and drawn.
In her pocket was Celeste’s letter of introduction to one of the clergymen of Lichfield Cathedral, Celeste’s own father, Canon Forester. He would help her find a suitable position, her friend had insisted. What was a canon? The only cannon she knew was the gun that stood in the park. She’d no idea even where Lichfield was except it was somewhere close to Birmingham, and she’d never been inside a cathedral in her life.
Every time the ship’s engine shuddered or went silent, she felt the panic rise. What if it happened again? The icebergs were still out there. She could hardly bear to go on deck to look. It was hard to sleep shut up in a cabin, however comfortable it might be.
When Ella woke for her dawn milk, May dressed her warmly and forced herself to walk her up and down the deck, looking out to sea. There was no one around to stare at them but crew, who smiled and left her to her own thoughts. They sensed she wanted no fuss, no reminders of what had happened to them.
Celeste may want to publicize their experience, to tell the world what had happened, but she never would as long as she lived and she’d begged her friend not to tell the canon too much of their story; only that she had been widowed by the disaster.
‘Please,’ she’d insisted, ‘I don’t want us to be pitied and pointed out in the street.’ That was the only condition she’d asked in accepting this kind offer of help. Anonymity. The chance to start afresh. Celeste had had no option but to agree.
On 25 April, under a gull-grey sky, the ship slipped into the Western Approaches; that part of the Atlantic that heralded the coast of England was getting closer and soon they would be reaching Liverpool. There was one last task May decided she must do.
If this was to be a new start for both of them, then all reminders of this terrible experience must be destroyed: her salt-stiffened nightdress, the baby’s clothes, nothing that could identify them as passengers of the Titanic. She pulled out her own things and the baby’s clothes, stuffed them in the pocket of her new coat and took them on deck. When nobody was watching, she dropped her own clothes down into the water. They fluttered on the breeze at first, ballooned and then floated away like swollen bodies in the water. She turned away horrified at such a terrible reminder.
Then she fingered Ella’s gown with that beautiful lacy border, the bonnet, the one little shoe. The other had been lost somewhere that day they’d gone ashore in New York. She hadn’t noticed the lace’s intricate pattern before. It was a frieze of Noah’s Ark with animals two by two, dogs, horses, deer and a dove with outspread wings. Such fine work. As she touched the texture, she knew this lace had been made with love and pride.
The two of them had found an ark of safety in the lifeboat and then on the Carpathia. They were still at the mercy of the waves and water. Reaching over the side of the ship, May noticed how the swell of water frothed into hundreds of white holes with patterns like lace.
How could she watch these beautiful tiny clothes float away and sink like her own little girl must have done? She shoved them back into her pocket. These were not for the sea. They must be kept. They weren’t hers to destroy, but Ella must know nothing of the secrets they held. All May knew was that you don’t throw love away, however painful the memor-
The candelabras glittered, the diamonds shone on bracelets and ear drops. Dinner had gone well enough although Celeste hadn’t been able to eat a thing. How could she with her ribs so bruised, chafing against the tightness of her corset. It was agony to bend or twist but she must smile and be the perfect guest. Formally and precisely seated were the usual stuffy line-up of masters of industry that had sprung up in the past few years in the city, including partners from the Roetzel and Andress law firm. One of the B. F. Goodrich Company rubber magnates was sitting opposite her. Everyone wanted to hear her dramatic tale.
‘Isn’t it terrible about Walter Douglas?’ The Akron newspapers had been full of the loss on board of the founder of the Quaker Oats Company. ‘Poor Mahala was left with nothing but a fur coat on her back. And John Jacob Astor, Guggenheim, and that poor Strauss couple, all of whom died . . . You must have met some of them in First Class, Celestine?’
She paused before replying, seeing Grover giving her a pointed look. She smiled, nod-ding. ‘Those gentlemen were all so brave,’ she said. ‘They won’t be forgotten for their cour-age. I met some of their wives at the Relief Committee.’
‘I hear the steerage men behaved like brutes,’ said Grover’s mother, Harriet, as she stuffed another piece of cherry pie into her mouth.
‘That’s not what I saw,’ Celeste snapped back. ‘There were many gentlemen of all classes waving their children off and kissing their wives, knowing they’d never see them again. Most of the steerage passengers weren’t allowed on deck until near the end when there were no lifeboats left. Women and children too. The poor souls were left to die, abandoned. Fifty-three children died that night in steerage. Fifty-three. Only one in First Class and that was because she refused to leave her parents.’ She knew now that she had their full attention and could have turned their stomachs with even more harrowing details but this was neither the time nor the place. They wanted stories of heroism, nothing to disturb their night’s sleep. ‘But we raised ten thousand dollars on the ship alone for their immediate relief,’ she added proudly.
And besides, Grover had said earlier that she mustn’t go on about her experience at dinner. He’d not been impressed with her account.
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p; ‘Titanic!’ he’d said angrily. ‘I am sick of the damned ship, nothing but news of it on every page of the Tribune. Everyone knows the score now so don’t bang on about it on your high-and-mighty drum at the dinner tonight.’
‘But it was terrible, Grover,’ she’d protested. ‘I’ll never forget what I saw. I was so lucky to survive.’
‘What was all this business I heard from Bryden about sorting out that widow from steer-age? There was an army of do-gooders to do that.’
‘May and I sat together in the lifeboat. She lost her husband and everything they pos-sessed in the world. How could I not do my duty?’ Celeste said, trying not to raise her voice. She’d heard Susan bringing Roddy back a few minutes before. She longed to see him but knew she must wait for Grover to dismiss her. To rile him risked him keeping Roddy from her for even longer. ‘Besides, I wanted to help Mrs Brown with the survivors’ fund.’
‘Always the parson’s daughter,’ he sneered. ‘Thank God I had more sense than to let you take my son. If anything had happened to him . . .’ She could hear the threat in his voice.
The beating that followed was no surprise. She’d angered him and so she must be pun-ished. He’d withheld Roddy until the last moment before they left for the dinner. She was too sore to pick him up and he had cried when he saw her, hiding behind Susan at first until she had produced a little package of toys. It broke her heart not to stay. It was all her fault for not returning when demanded.
Now she looked at the eager faces of Harriet’s guests and swiftly changed the subject. ‘Enough about me, what’s been happening while I was away?’ Celeste was soon subjec-
ted to all the local gossip, but when the women retired to the drawing room while the men took their port they took up the subject again. ‘Did you see Madeleine Astor? They say she is in a delicate condition . . .’
‘I saw her on the Carpathia , looking dreadful, and yes, she is pregnant.’ ‘Only eighteen, not married five minutes to a man twice her age . and him a married
Fleming, Leah - The Captain's Daughter Page 9
