On a Cold Dark Sea

by Elizabeth Blackwell

  Charlotte stood, preparing to leave. But just before she reached the door, she paused and turned back.

  “You’ll have to make up a good reason for sending me. I don’t want anyone knowing I was on the Titanic.”

  The only reason Teddy knew was that he’d been there, on that desolate April night when the Carpathia reached New York. The rain and cold kept most of the Titanic survivors below deck, but Charlotte and a few others gathered at the rails to watch the journey’s end. The city’s illuminated skyline was no match for the weather, which dimmed the lights into an indistinct haze. It was hardly the inspiring arrival Charlotte had once imagined. And she could no longer fend off the question that had stalked her for the past four days: What now? She needed money, she needed a plan, but she’d depended on Reg for all that. What would she do without him?

  As the ship neared the piers, a huddle of motorboats sputtered toward the Carpathia’s hull. Camera flares shattered the darkness, and voices shouted out from the shadowy figures on board.

  “Are you from the Titanic?”

  “One hundred dollars from the New York World for an exclusive!”

  “C’mon, jump off, we’ll pick you up. Easiest money you’ll ever make!”

  The thought of jumping made Charlotte feel queasy, but she didn’t turn away. There was something captivating about the men’s brashness. Ever since the sinking, Charlotte had felt paralyzed, breathing and eating by rote, barely speaking. The passengers on the Carpathia had been kind, offering their cabins and extra clothes with expressions of hushed concern. To Charlotte, they seemed like angels, creatures who meant well but weren’t quite real. She heard herself referred to as a survivor and thought the term particularly apt. All she’d done was not die. Her thoughts, her emotions, her aspirations—all had been frozen by what she’d endured.

  Now, looking out at the newspapermen, Charlotte began to thaw. This was America, vigorous and undaunted, even in the face of tragedy. She didn’t want to talk to the reporters—she didn’t want to talk about the Titanic, ever—but she admired the fervor that propelled them out on such a wretched night. How thrilling it must be, rushing to the scene of dramatic events, never knowing what the next day would bring. Charlotte wished, achingly, that she could see the world through their eager, curious eyes.

  As the ship drew closer to the Cunard pier, Charlotte saw that a crowd had gathered. In every direction, as far as she could see, spectators were huddled, their faces sheltered by dark umbrellas. She hadn’t realized until then that the Titanic’s loss had reverberated across the continents, and the Carpathia’s arrival gave tens of thousands of New Yorkers an opportunity to demonstrate their anguish. When Charlotte walked down the tunnel-like gangway into the pier’s reception area, she felt assaulted by the lights and shouts of people searching for loved ones. A steward had told her there was a ladies’ charity that would assist anyone who wasn’t being met, and Charlotte nodded gratefully when an officious middle-aged woman asked if she needed help. She was offered coffee, then escorted into a room filled with donated clothing. Charlotte took a simple wool dress and a pair of stockings as other newly widowed women looked through the piles for suitable mourning clothes; there wasn’t nearly enough black. The women were then taken to taxicabs and driven to the hotels where they’d stay until further travel arrangements could be made.

  Charlotte tried to see something of the city as they sped along the soggy streets, but all they seemed to pass were blurry lamps and darkened shop windows, men and women scurrying as raincoats flapped at their calves. When the taxi stopped at the Hotel Montreal, a knot of men in rumpled suits crowded around the car.

  “Titanic survivor? Titanic survivor?”

  “Any English ladies? The Record will pay for your story.”

  Charlotte recognized the accent instantly: a south Londoner who’d learned to put a polish on his words. She turned away from the voice—she hadn’t seen the man’s face—and hurried into the comforting warmth of the lobby, where a line of bellhops and maids were waiting with expressions of curious anticipation. Charlotte joined a group of fellow survivors, feeling disconcertingly like an animal on display at the zoo. She heard a woman admonish her young daughter, “Don’t tell anyone you were on the Titanic.”

  An exhausted, apologetic representative of the White Star Line informed them that all passengers were to remain in New York for the time being, on orders of the United States Congress. The government would be making an investigation into the sinking, and potential witnesses must be available for questioning. The man led them to understand, in a roundabout way, that it was unlikely they’d be called in; the testimony of second-class widows wasn’t nearly as important as that of the surviving officers and well-known first-class passengers. In the meantime, their room and board would be paid for, as would their train fare if they planned to travel on. Those who wished to return to England would be booked on the next White Star liner.

  And that’s what she would do, Charlotte decided with weary acceptance. What choice did she have? There was nothing for her in New York, not without Reg. She couldn’t run a swindle on her own in a town she didn’t know, and her craving for adventure had withered in the middle of the Atlantic. Her aunt would take her in, and she could join her brothers in the country. She’d never wanted a rural life, but it was the only place she could imagine starting over.

  The Titanic widows breakfasted together the following morning, with most agreeing it would be best to stay indoors, away from questions and stares. The rain had let up, and sunlight gleamed through the dining-room windows. Charlotte didn’t want to stay cooped up in the hotel’s velvet-hushed rooms; she wanted to be outside, an anonymous figure in the bustling crowds. If this was the only time she’d be in New York, she might as well see something of it.

  Two reporters were leaning against the side of the building, talking, when Charlotte came out the front door. She recognized the taller one’s voice; it was the Englishman from the Record. Fair-haired and spindly, he straightened up when he saw her.

  “You’re a long way from home,” Charlotte said, allowing her childhood accent to come to the fore.

  The reporter’s expression shifted from mild to intense interest. “I could say the same for you, madam.”

  The other man—American—blurted out, “Are you one of the Titanic ladies?”

  Charlotte shook her head. The Englishman, who must have guessed she was lying but didn’t let on, waved his colleague back with a gesture both dismissive and possessive: Leave her alone; she’s mine. He sidled up to Charlotte and followed when she gave him a brief nod of acknowledgment. If he’d started asking questions then—if he’d pushed her in any way—she would have increased her pace and left him behind. But his respectful silence allowed her time to think. Charlotte remembered the spark of envy that ignited when she saw the newspapermen calling out from the water. This man offered a way into that world.

  Charlotte stopped at the end of the block and spoke without looking at the reporter. “I’ll talk to you. But not at the hotel. Somewhere else.”

  “There’s a café round the corner,” he said. “Would that do?”

  From the word “café,” Charlotte expected a tea shop, with subdued conversations taking place at dainty tables topped with equally dainty china. The establishment they entered sounded almost as raucous as a nightclub. The clientele was a cross section of New York working folk, from shop girls to traveling salesmen. Everyone seemed to be laughing or exclaiming, their conversations consisting of sounds as much as words. The reporter led Charlotte toward a back corner, where his nod to a waiter made it clear he was a regular customer.

  “Let’s get the niceties out of the way, shall we?” he said. “The tea here is dreadful; it will only make you homesick. The coffee’s tolerable, and the lemonade’s rather nice. I’ll order some buns as well. I’m not sure about your appetite, under the circumstances, but I’m ravenous.”

  His words streamed out with barely a pause for breath.
After the waiter took their order, the reporter leaned forward, giving Charlotte his full attention.

  “My name’s Theodore Ranger,” he began, “Teddy to my friends and to you, if you’d like. I’m the New York correspondent for the London Record. The owners want every Titanic account I can get, with no limit on my expenses. If I deliver what they want, it’ll be the making of my career.”

  Teddy might look like a schoolboy, his cheeks so smooth that he barely needed to shave, yet Charlotte saw in him a kindred soul. He made no bones about what he wanted and didn’t pander to her with false sympathy. She was familiar with the Record; her mother used to take it, back when they could afford newspapers. Charlotte knew exactly the sorts of stories the Record would run about the Titanic: glowing accounts of first-class heroes who died bravely on deck, maudlin celebrations of their wives and children, gleeful descriptions of the treasures that sank to the bottom of the sea. The ideas came easily, almost without effort.

  Perhaps she really was suited for this sort of work.

  “I can pay fifty dollars for your story, if it’s a good one,” Teddy went on. “More, if you saw what happened to the captain or one of the millionaires.”

  It wouldn’t be hard to come up with a convincing lie. Charlotte could tell Teddy that she’d seen Captain Smith save a baby from certain death, or heard the last words of Mr. Guggenheim. Fifty dollars would be enough to change her life, for a time. But once it ran out, she’d be back where she started: alone and adrift.

  “I doubt my story’s worth much,” she said apologetically. “I boarded a lifeboat, and we floated about for a few hours until we were rescued.” Not once did she consider telling him the rest. “But there’s another way we might help each other.”

  Teddy looked at her blankly, waiting to be convinced.

  “The women I’m staying with at the hotel are more likely to talk to me than you. I could write down what they say, then you could put it in one of your stories. I think they’d agree, if I made it sound noble. I could tell them it would honor their husbands’ last hours, to share their memories. Though it wouldn’t hurt to offer a payment as well.”

  “And you’d charge a fee for your services?”

  “Yes, but it’s more than that. I want to do what you do. Take me on as an apprentice. Teach me.”

  Teddy looked doubtful. “It’s not that easy . . . ,” he began.

  “You’ve got nothing to lose by trying me out.”

  Charlotte gave Teddy her most flirtatious smile. Not the most appropriate response for a young widow, perhaps, but it seemed to soften Teddy’s resolve.

  “Show me what you can do first,” he said. “If you get me something good by three o’clock, it’ll be in time for tomorrow’s paper.”

  “I’ll meet you in the lobby of the hotel,” Charlotte said as she stood, already pulling on her coat. She mustn’t allow him time for second thoughts. “Thank you very much, Mr. Ranger.”

  That heady first day, Charlotte convinced three fellow passengers to talk. Despite the lack of first-class names, Teddy was pleased with the stories Charlotte brought him. One woman had seen an officer fire a gun to prevent a rush on a lifeboat; another had been reunited with her son on the Carpathia after thinking him drowned. That afternoon, Charlotte accompanied Teddy to his office—a gloomy room equipped with a desk, a typewriter, and a decade’s worth of dust—and watched as he intertwined the words she’d taken down as a knitter twists yarn, melding single colors into an intricate pattern. Teddy’s frenzied fingers turned stark facts into heart-tugging dramas, and when he was done, they dashed to the telegraph office. He transmitted his cable to London in a shorthand-like code, but Charlotte was still staggered by what it must have cost. The whole tumultuous process entranced her. This is what I’m meant to do, she thought.

  Newspaper work required a quick tongue and a quick mind, Teddy told her, and Charlotte had both. The survivors she interviewed trusted her to tell their stories, just as the gentlemen she’d once stolen from had trusted in her innocence. No one who looked like Charlotte was suspected of having ulterior motives. As she learned how to build the framework of a story around what people said—an act of both translation and creation—Charlotte discovered that writing brought the same satisfaction as crafting a scheme with Reg. It allowed her to be someone else, someone who shaped unruly reality into a narrative with a satisfying end.

  When the Senate began its investigation into the disaster, Charlotte traveled to Washington, DC, as the Record’s newest correspondent. There, all it took was a bashful, girlish giggle, and the other reporters ushered her into a sought-after front-row seat. In the overcrowded hearing room, she listened to the testimony of Mrs. McBride and Charles Van Hausen. They glided over the truth of what happened, of course, but Charlotte felt oddly detached from their stories. What they described seemed to have nothing to do with her, and she took no notes. It was different when Mr. Healy gave his evidence. There’d been something between them in the boat, an instantaneous trust she’d never felt with anyone else. His distress latched into Charlotte as if it were her own pain, and for one absurd moment, she wanted to leap up and defend him before all those condemning faces: It’s not his fault! Instead, she slumped her shoulders and slid lower in her chair, hoping Mr. Healy wouldn’t see her. Charlotte hadn’t spoken to him since the rescue, and she was shocked at how his once-confident expression had been dulled by grief. Yet she shied away from offering a kind word, or even an acknowledgment of her presence. What was the point? Mr. Healy would always be a reminder of the past, of a night Charlotte was determined to forget. She was looking only to the future.

  When the British inquiry began in May, Teddy and Charlotte were called back to London. By then, Charlotte was eager to return home—she was tired of the constant attention that came with being a foreigner—but she hadn’t counted on how difficult the journey would be. When the ship pulled away from the pier, her limbs felt shaky with nerves. No one would have known it to look at her; she managed to chitchat with Teddy and was breezily friendly with the stewardess who showed her to her stateroom. But she could hardly bear to remain below deck. As long as she was outside, scanning the horizon, Charlotte was able to stave off panic, but dinner sent her into a whirlwind of fear. She pictured the floor of the dining saloon tilting, china crashing to the floor, water pouring through the cracked windows. Sleep wasn’t possible the first night, not with her ears constantly alert for shouts or a knock on the door. The engines’ steady hum gave no reassurance, for she expected it to cut out at any moment. The thought of passing three more nights in such agony brought her close to tears.

  The second evening, Charlotte lingered with Teddy in the second-class lounge after dinner. When she caught him yawning discreetly behind an upraised hand, she asked him to see her to her stateroom. She didn’t even bother with finding a suitable excuse, knowing only that every minute she spent in his company was a minute she wasn’t afraid. When they reached her door, she wordlessly took his hand and brought him inside.

  Teddy, like any good reporter, knew there were occasions when it was best not to ask questions. If he was surprised to be kissed by a woman so recently widowed, he didn’t show it, meeting Charlotte’s advances with good-natured acquiescence. She hadn’t intended to pull him so close, or tug at his shirt, but once her palm made contact with the bare skin of his back, she realized that the longer she continued, the longer Teddy would stay. And so Charlotte forged on.

  It struck her as rather ridiculous, all the panting breaths and fumbling with clothes, though Charlotte tried to maintain the solemnity she thought such an encounter demanded. As they collapsed onto the bed, each of them wincing as they pulled apart to adjust their twisted wrists and cramped legs, Teddy laughed. The realization that physical relations needn’t be deadly serious—that the entire process might even be funny—was a salve to Charlotte’s despair. She felt like a child again, all wide-eyed curiosity, and had to remind herself that in Teddy’s eyes she wasn’t an innocent v
irgin but a woman who’d experienced a marital bed. Charlotte’s heart raced when Teddy maneuvered on top of her, but the act wasn’t as painful as she’d expected. When Teddy had satisfied himself, he slid down to her side with a content grunt and regarded Charlotte with moist-eyed gratitude, the recipient of an unexpectedly generous gift. Charlotte felt the warmth of his body soak into hers, soothing her far beneath her skin. When he began to pull away, she asked him to stay, and he did. For the rest of the journey, she spent her nights curled up against him, sleeping more soundly than she had in ages.

  It wasn’t love. Charlotte found Teddy soothing, that was all, and they continued to soothe each other from time to time, whenever they were lonely or frustrated or giddily celebrating a professional success. Charlotte told Teddy early on that she wasn’t interested in marriage, and if Teddy had hoped otherwise, he never let on. Charlotte knew they’d make for an uneasy domestic match, for despite Teddy’s happy-go-lucky façade, he was just as ambitious as she was. When Teddy got engaged to a suitably domestic-minded woman, their physical interludes came to an end, with no regrets on Charlotte’s part. By then, she’d had other lovers, men who intrigued and amused her, men she thought herself passionately in love with until their mysteries were revealed and the attraction withered. At work and in bed, Charlotte was always drawn to novelty.

  Life as a newspaperwoman wasn’t so very different from life as a thief. Though Charlotte no longer created characters with made-up names and histories, she still played roles, shifting her words and mannerisms to lure her subjects into trusting her. When she was talking to a cook suspected of poisoning her drunken employer, she was Lottie, the south London scrapper-made-good. When she toured the Chelsea Flower Show, she was Mrs. Evers, a respectable middle-class wife. Charlotte’s stories may have been confined to the women’s pages, where reporters worked without bylines, but public recognition was never her goal. What mattered to Charlotte were her own, more personal successes: convincing a reluctant subject to give her an exclusive interview, furnishing her own bedsit near Hyde Park, juggling suitors with the expertise of a circus performer so that none ever knew the others existed.