On a Cold Dark Sea

by Elizabeth Blackwell

  ALSO BY ELIZABETH BLACKWELL

  In the Shadow of Lakecrest

  While Beauty Slept

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Elizabeth Blackwell

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781477808900

  ISBN-10: 1477808906

  Cover design by PEPE nymi

  To Mary Jean, Jenny and Gayle

  Long-time readers, lifelong friends

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  PART ONE: BEFORE

  CHARLOTTE

  US SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE

  ESME

  US SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE

  ANNA

  US SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE

  PART TWO: AFTER

  CHARLOTTE

  ESME

  ANNA

  CHARLOTTE

  PART THREE: THE LIFEBOAT

  APRIL 15, 1912

  PART FOUR: AFTERMATH

  ANNA

  ESME

  CHARLOTTE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PROLOGUE

  April 15, 1912

  Captain Rostron ordered rope set out by the deck chairs to restrain anyone driven mad by the disaster. But the crew of the Carpathia also busied themselves with more mundane preparations: gathering spare pillows and blankets, heating up soup, and brewing tea. Dr. McGee bustled back and forth from the medical bay, laying in supplies for an unknown number of patients. A few light-sleeping passengers poked their heads out of staterooms and asked why the engines were going so loud. The captain had insisted they not be told. No use in starting a panic.

  They’d all find out soon enough.

  In those frantic hours before dawn, it didn’t feel quite real. The Titanic sending out distress signals? Loading her lifeboats? There wasn’t anything heroic about the poky Carpathia, yet the Mediterranean-bound liner was now speeding to the rescue, more than fifty miles off course. Lookouts stationed on the bow scanned the treacherous obstacle course before them, cheeks stiffened by the arctic air. Chunks of ice dotted the water in shades of white and blue, an awe-inspiring sight to anyone not trying to steer through them.

  The sky was softening from black to gray when one of the officers saw the first lifeboat. A gangway door was opened and ladders hung down for those strong enough to climb; the others would be lifted up in slings. The lifeboats were undermanned, and the Carpathia’s officers were cautious, making each approach and unloading a drawn-out affair. In all, it took four hours to unload the boats, each filled with a ragtag assortment of millionaires and immigrants, some in hats and fur coats, others in what looked like nightclothes. The only thing they had in common were the life belts fastened around their chests.

  And then, when the Carpathia’s deck was crowded with stunned passengers and exhausted survivors, one last lifeboat emerged from the sea’s icy camouflage. Weaving erratically, it made pitifully slow progress as the bent figures at its oars struggled to bring it flush with the Carpathia’s side. Three stout American women climbed up the ladder first—clearly sisters, by their family resemblance. A twitchy-faced British woman clutched the hands of two small children and looked relieved at a steward’s offer of tea. An elderly lady, assisted by her nurse, had to be pulled up in the sling; she was the only one who managed a smile.

  When the officer in charge turned to greet the next passenger, his heart sank. The creature standing before him looked like a character from a fairy tale, a frost maiden carved from snow. Her dark-blonde hair was frozen in icicles around her homely face, which showed no emotion at all. A man’s coat hung limply off her slender frame. The officer asked the girl her name, and she stared at him, bewildered. He looked at the girl’s homespun dress and patched stockings. Lord have mercy, she wasn’t even wearing shoes. Third class. And a foreigner.

  “Votre nom?” the officer asked, trying French. Then, adopting the time-honored English strategy of speaking louder in order to be understood, “Your name!”

  The girl stared at the officer, who found the blankness of her features unsettling. “Anna Halversson,” she said.

  The officer steered the girl toward a steward and whispered, “Find that boy Olaf, in the kitchens. We’ll need a translator.”

  When the officer returned to his position, the next three passengers were already aboard, and for the rest of his life, the pitiful tableau they formed was the first image that sprang to mind when he thought of the Titanic. The handsome young man in his evening dress, eyes haunted, one hand pressed protectively against his companion’s back. There was a girl hovering nervously behind them—a maid, by her cowed bearing and black dress. And then there was the lady, swathed in a fur coat over a shimmering green gown, a vision of ruined elegance. She looked done in, her thick auburn hair cascading in a tangle over one shoulder, a dull burgundy gash blighting her cheek. Yet there was a nobility to her suffering. She was young, the officer realized, younger than she appeared at first. Too young to have learned that the world can inflict harsh blows on even the most charmed lives.

  “Your name?” the officer asked, his manner markedly more respectful than it had been toward the third-class girl.

  “Mrs. Hiram Harper,” the beauty replied. The officer was surprised to hear the flat American tone; he’d assumed by the woman’s bearing that she was English.

  “Charles Van Hausen,” the gentleman said.

  So, not her husband, as the officer had assumed. He jotted down “and maid” after Mrs. Harper’s name, and nodded dismissively at the girl in black. Proper names were not required for servants. He directed the passengers to the first-class steward waiting to escort them further, then turned to see a young woman staring at him with disconcerting directness. Quite lovely, he couldn’t help but note, though her disheveled hair and white-cold skin gave her an eerie wildness that distracted somewhat from her beauty. She couldn’t be past her early twenties.

  The officer asked for her name, yet she kept staring, as if the question were beyond comprehension. She didn’t look like a foreigner; she was quite respectably dressed, though most likely second class rather than first.

  The officer repeated the question. This time, he saw her struggle to respond. It must have been the shock. It left some people quite unable to speak.

  “Charlotte Evers,” she managed at last. Her voice was more refined than her clothes: British, well bred. “Mrs. Reginald Evers.”

  Then, to the officer’s astonishment, the woman began to cry.

  PART ONE: BEFORE

  CHARLOTTE

  Charlotte hadn’t believed the Titanic would sink. Even at the very end, when glass shattered and a hand thrust her forward, she’d still assumed they’d all be saved. She’d stepped out into the icy night, grabbing at the arm a sailor offered for support. Stiffened by pride and anger, she’d taken a seat in the middle of the lifeboat, refusing to look back at what she was leaving behind.

  Now, Charlotte’s eyes scanned the upper deck of the rescue ship, looking for the man she both loved and loathed, the only person who’d ever truly known her. From the very beginning, Reg saw past Charlotte’s flutterin
g eyelashes and false modesty, to the scheming beneath her meek exterior. You’ve the face of an angel, he’d said, not a week after they’d met, but a devilish soul. Laughing, as if it pleased him. Reg didn’t pull Charlotte into a life of crime; she chose her own path, herself. But Reg applauded her along the way. He alone understood what she was capable of.

  And she hadn’t even said goodbye.

  Charlotte Digby was a beauty. Everyone told her so, even when she was too young to know what it meant. In time, she learned to heighten the effect by widening her deep-blue eyes as the faces leered down, offering a charmingly hesitant smile that made her chestnut ringlets quiver. Her looks, she quickly came to understand, were her greatest asset, an advantage to be leveraged. People assumed her perfection was a sign of inner purity, a surprisingly common belief that put them off their guard.

  Charlotte inherited her good looks from her father, who’d been lost at sea before she was born. Charlotte’s mother spoke of him as she would a natural disaster: a storm that upended her life before passing on, leaving her to sweep up the pieces. Charlotte grew up on the fringe of respectability, in a small but spotless house paid for by Mr. Hepworth, the father of Charlotte’s two younger brothers. They called him Papa, but he was always Mr. Hepworth to Charlotte, a seemingly small matter of etiquette that told her everything she needed to know about her status in the family. There was a Mrs. Hepworth, who lived somewhere in the country and either didn’t know or didn’t care that her husband kept a separate household in south London. Perhaps she was relieved to be spared his physical demands. On the nights Mr. Hepworth was in residence, Charlotte pushed her face into her pillow so she wouldn’t have to hear the ridiculous, piglike grunting from her mother’s bedroom.

  Such domestic arrangements may have been denounced from a pulpit, but in practice, Charlotte’s childhood wasn’t marred by scandal. She lived on a street where neighbors acknowledged each other with nods but never invited each other over for tea or questioned the story you chose to tell about your life. Charlotte had no idea how precarious her position was until a coldly worded letter arrived from Mr. Hepworth’s lawyer, informing her mother of Mr. Hepworth’s sudden death and the provisions of his will. School fees for Charlotte’s brothers were to be paid in full, but there was nothing left to Mother or Charlotte; their house—rented, never purchased—would revert to the landlord at the end of the month. When Charlotte’s mother burst into ragged sobs, Charlotte knew she was mourning the loss of Mr. Hepworth’s money as much as his companionship.

  The boys were packed off to school, their faces pale but composed as they boarded the train; at eight and ten years old, they already had the look of men resigned to their fate. Charlotte and her mother moved into a room above a cheese shop, a sour-smelling space with a single, lumpy bed and leaky windows. Their rent was paid in labor, and they scrubbed cheesecloth and counters until their fingers and knuckles pulsed with pain. Charlotte was thirteen years old, growing up and filling out. She was always ravenously hungry. Now that Mother could afford meat only once a week—a gristly joint that was stretched into watery stews and soups—there was never enough food to fill Charlotte’s grumbling stomach. But Charlotte also hungered for other comforts of her previous life. A new dress to replace the one whose sleeves no longer covered her wrists. A silk ribbon to distract from the shabbiness of her hat. When she saw young women her age prance across the street, their pearl-buttoned boots peeping out from beneath jaunty dresses, Charlotte felt a gnawing ache.

  Life-changing decisions could be made on a whim, a lesson Charlotte would remember in the midst of the Atlantic, many years later. For months, Charlotte stared longingly at the apples on the fruitmonger’s cart whenever she passed by the market. Until one day, for no particular reason and with no advance thought, she stopped and stepped closer. When the fruit seller turned to a customer, Charlotte’s hand darted forward, swiping an apple and sliding it into the fold of her skirt. A cart rattled past, blocking her path and forcing her to stand in place as the fruit seller turned in her direction. Charlotte’s arm trembled, and the apple’s red skin peeked out, betraying her.

  There was no denying what she’d done. Charlotte’s eyes prickled with tears; her lips parted to offer an excuse that her mind was too dull to produce. The fruit seller’s scowl softened.

  “Go on, then,” he muttered.

  The reprieve was so unexpected, and her relief so overwhelming, that Charlotte couldn’t move. She stared at the man, as he stared at her, and she felt his gaze as a physical sensation, a warmth that emanated from his admiring eyes. It was the first time she realized her beauty would allow her to sin and be forgiven. Or, better yet, never be suspected of sinning at all.

  Thinking of her face as protective armor made stealing easier the next time. And the time after that. Not that Charlotte didn’t take precautions. She only ventured into markets well away from home, at the busiest times of day. In a matter of months, she had progressed from snatching buns out of maids’ shopping baskets to pickpocketing, brushing up against well-dressed gentlemen and feeling for the chink of coins in their trousers. On these occasions, there was no need to skulk about; she looked the men straight in the eye as she stumbled against them and slid her hand into their pockets. A few even tipped their hats to the pretty girl who apologized so sweetly, even as she clutched their money behind her back.

  Charlotte hoarded her earnings for months, but it was only a matter of time before the temptation to spend it won out. When she came home with a length of poplin for a new dress, she told her mother it was a gift.

  “A lady saw me admiring it in the shop window and bought it for me, out of Christian charity,” Charlotte said. “It’s an unpopular color—the shopkeeper offered it to her at half the price.”

  The fabric was a rather ostentatious shade of blue, and the shopkeeper had been willing to haggle. The price had dropped after a few blinks of Charlotte’s woeful eyes. But there’d been no generous stranger.

  “Aren’t you lucky,” Mother said, her tone suspicious. “Sure there’s nothing more to it than that? There’s plenty of so-called gentlemen who’d take advantage of a girl like you.”

  Charlotte was tempted to boast that it was the other way around, that she was the one tricking the gentlemen. But that would be asking for a slap—or worse. Mother’s pride was the only thing of value she still possessed, and she’d extract a harsh punishment if she found out what Charlotte was up to. It was a protectiveness born of self-preservation, not love. Charlotte was a bauble she hoarded, kept shiny and pristine until she could be married off for an appropriate sum.

  “Time you put that face to good use, in any case,” Mother continued. “I’ve been thinking you’re the right age to start in service.”

  Service? Working as a maid meant scrubbing and groveling and emptying chamber pots from dawn until dark. Charlotte had no intention of succumbing to such a fate, no matter how grand the house. The following day, she returned to the fabric shop and asked the owner if he knew of any dressmakers who’d pay her to do piecework. To her surprise, he offered to hire her instead.

  “Be good for business, having a pretty thing like you about,” he said, with a sly smile.

  He kept her at the front of the shop, greeting customers. Even other women, it seemed, liked to be welcomed by an attractive face. The well-to-do clientele were the wives and daughters of factory owners and bankers who needed wardrobes for country weekends and formal dinners, and Charlotte studied them as their fingers stroked the silks and velvets. She listened to their murmurs and later repeated their words: Quite lovely, don’t you think? and This will do marvelously for Delia’s coming-out. She mimicked their expressions and their posture, the way their lips and teeth snapped together. A south London accent wouldn’t get her where she wanted to go.

  Charlotte learned other lessons as well. How many fondles to allow Mr. Thornton, the shopkeeper, before wriggling away and asking what his wife would think of such behavior. How to use such incid
ents to increase her pay while keeping her reputation. How to smile one way at a demanding female customer and another way at the woman’s shy, unmarried son. A future beckoned, with a husband and a house and children, the kind of future that would be a victory, given her upbringing. In the meantime, she continued to steal when the opportunity presented itself. A pudgy middle-aged man walking along Clapham Common, his watch chain trailing from his coat. A sour-faced old fellow who’d stuffed a few pound notes in his pocket without folding them first. Each successful theft felt like a gulp of fresh air after a lifetime spent in smoke-filled rooms. Complacent with success, she grew careless in picking her targets. And that carelessness led her to Reg, which led to everything else.

  He looked like any other likely prospect. A gentleman of means, out for a Sunday stroll in freshly shined shoes. His green suit was a shade brighter than most men would wear, and he walked with a springy step that told her he took pleasure in being noticed. A dandy, Charlotte thought, easily distracted by simpering admiration. When he pushed aside his jacket and slid a hand into his front trouser pocket, she saw the bulge in his waistcoat and knew she’d found her mark.

  Charlotte followed him into the park, around the fountain where children were racing wooden boats. She lingered by a tree as he stopped and smoked a cigar, then picked up her pace when he resumed his walk through an alley of trees. She pitter-pattered until she was almost running, a seemingly distracted young woman focused solely on her destination. She hurried on until—thump!—she’d bumped into his back, throwing off his balance so he stumbled forward and then teetered back against her.

  “Oh dear!” Charlotte cried out in mock distress. Her mouth formed a perfect round O.

  “Gracious.”

  The man had the kind of face whose bold features all fight for attention: dark eyes framed by prominent eyebrows; a large, fleshy nose; a thick-lipped mouth and dimpled chin. The overall effect was striking rather than handsome, but there was something appealing in the way he looked at Charlotte, as if she were just the person he’d hoped to see.