Echoes of Titanic

by Mindy Starns Clark

  When he introduced the fellow as Mr. Neville Williams of Transatlantic Wireless, Adele realized instantly who he was. This was the man Rowan and Tad had met with in London the day before. Adele’s father was extremely interested in investing in Mr. William’s company, which was the reason he had sent a representative over to London in the first place. Tad Myers had crossed the ocean charged with the task of escorting Adele and Jocelyn and Rowan back to America, yes, but prior to that he was to meet with Mr. Williams, learn more about Transatlantic Wireless, and evaluate it as a potential investment on behalf of Brennan & Company. Uncle Rowan had attended that meeting along with Tad yesterday, and though the young American had dismissed the company as an unwise investment choice, Rowan hadn’t seen things quite that way. He hadn’t bought in as of last night, but as soon as Adele could get her uncle alone, she would ask for more details of this morning’s “change in plans.” She had a feeling that he’d slept on the matter and awakened this morning with a different intention, despite Tad’s negative evaluation. She could only assume from Rowan’s jubilant attitude and easy manner with Mr. Williams that a transaction had taken place that morning and he was now in possession of investment bonds from Transatlantic Wireless.

  “Mr. Williams is a first-class passenger,” Uncle Rowan explained to the girls now as he made the introductions, “but he has come aboard early just to give us our very own customized tour.”

  Soon their group of five set off, and Adele realized that she liked the man right away. Mr. Williams seemed a true British gentleman, yet not one mired in convention. He was also quite knowledgeable about the ship and made for a fascinating tour guide indeed.

  As they moved through first class past the darkly paneled male-only smoking room and then the more feminine reading-and-writing room, conversation between the three men turned to the business model of the White Star line, which involved catering to passengers’ growing demand for beauty and luxury.

  “And this room is the perfect example of that,” Mr. Williams said when they reached the first-class lounge. “It is considered by many to be the finest room afloat.”

  Looking around, Adele could believe it. The magnificent space, with its gold and green decor, intricately carved oak paneling, and large marble fireplace, reminded her of pictures she had seen of the palace of Versailles. There was even a cupola in the ceiling, fitted with intricately cut glass panels that allowed a gentle illumination of the entire space.

  As they continued down to a lower deck, Adele decided to insert herself into the topic and give her own opinion on the matter. Like many in Belfast, she had read extensively on the various issues besetting the White Star Line and their multimillion dollar investments in Titanic and her sister ship, Olympic. And though the company repeatedly touted its emphasis on luxury, she felt that behind closed doors their real emphasis had been to tap into the ever-growing third-class-passenger market.

  She said as much to their little group now, adding that while she knew that White Star’s public emphasis was indeed on luxury, their bottom line was probably far more dependent on plain old steerage.

  When Adele finished, she realized that everyone in their group had grown silent, all eyes on her. After pausing to give her a piteous smirk, Tad continued on his way down the staircase. Jocelyn smiled politely and kept going as well.

  “You are completely correct on that, young lady,” Mr. Williams said to Adele with a broad smile. “From what I understand, steerage class offers the best return per passenger per mile traveled. Jolly good of you to pick up on that. Your uncle told me you had a head for business.”

  At that moment Mr. Williams became Adele’s favorite passenger aboard the entire ship.

  Their group continued the tour with a visit to a Turkish bath, a swimming pool, and a squash court, and then they rode the lift back up to B deck so they could climb the famous grand staircase while it was still open to them. Once they were up on the boat deck, they looked at the large gymnasium there. The equipment inside was varied and interesting, and included machines for horse riding, rowing, bicycle racing, weight lifting, massaging—even camel riding. Jocelyn seemed fascinated by them all, but Adele just kept wondering why such machines were necessary when a person could far more easily just go outside and take a walk.

  The final stop on their tour was the most important, Mr. Williams explained, and in fact was the main reason he had chosen to sail on this ship. He led them forward along the first-class promenade, and when they reached a low barrier that separated the passengers from the ship’s crew area, they were met by a young officer. He brought them through the gate and into the nearby deckhouse. There, they walked down the corridor until they came to the Marconi operating room, which housed the ship’s wireless equipment.

  “As you know,” Mr. Williams said proudly, “our company developed a major component of what you are about to see here. I predict that someday we will all be communicating via the wireless.”

  The area was bigger than Adele had expected and was comprised of three separate rooms, including one that was soundproof to house the noisy equipment.

  “This technology is simply amazing, and Titanic is one of the first ships to be fitted with a rotary spark gap. This greatly reduces the transmission jamming problems on older units. It’s our technology that makes that improvement possible—and someday soon we hope to eliminate all jamming issues entirely.”

  Mr. Williams pointed out the workers in the room: Mr. Phillips, the senior operator, and Mr. Bride, the junior operator. Though they each gave a polite wave, the men were fast at work and far too busy to stop and chat.

  “As you can see,” Mr. Williams pointed out, “these two are sending and receiving messages, status updates, weather reports, and much more.”

  Mr. Williams thanked the men for their time and they all turned to go. As they were leaving, Adele saw the posted price chart for sending telegrams—twelve shillings and sixpence for the first ten words, and nine pence per word thereafter—and then took note of the paid passenger messages that had already started piling up prior to departure. With a wink to Mr. Williams, she said, “That’s a nice revenue stream if I’ve ever seen one.”

  Grinning conspiratorially, he nodded. “White Star knows exactly what they’re doing. Better yet, half of these two men’s salaries is being paid for by the Marconi company, so personnel costs are particularly reasonable.”

  Mr. Williams concluded the tour by bringing them back to the passenger area of the ship. They parted ways with him there, and though Adele was sorry they weren’t all traveling in the same class together, her disappointment lifted a bit when she learned they might be able to spend some time with him during the voyage anyway.

  Adele’s step was light as the four of them headed back down to their own section of the ship. They settled into their staterooms, and then shortly before noon they heard the great steam whistles blow. Quickly, they joined in with their fellow passengers and moved up to the second-class Promenade. There they stood among the suspended lifeboats, leaning out from the deck to watch as five tugboats chugged into place, preparing to move the ship from the dock sideways and out toward the river. There was excitement on board the ship, of course, but out on the quay, which seemed to be packed with thousands of well-wishers, people seemed equally thrilled. As the massive vessel finally began to move away from the dock, everyone waved and cheered.

  And though Adele and Jocelyn didn’t know a soul ashore, soon they found themselves joining in, enthusiastically waving and cheering as well. The ship’s next stop would be Cherbourg, France, and so with that in mind they bid a fond goodbye to England’s shores, hearts filled with both joy and loss, comforted by thoughts of the wonderful adventure they knew lay ahead.

  CHAPTER

  FIFTEEN

  Kelsey scooted closer, looking intently into her father’s face. “Do you have these bonds, Dad? Do you know where they are?”

  He stared at her for a long time, and then slowly his eyes filled with tea
rs. “Gloria,” he whispered.

  “Gloria?” she asked. “Gloria had the bonds?”

  He couldn’t seem to answer her question, so she tried again.

  “Did Gloria spend the bonds? Did she cash them in?”

  More silence. He was looking very tired.

  “How about this, Dad. Was Gloria the one in charge of the bonds? Like, in charge of their safekeeping?”

  At that Nolan’s face lit up, and he gave a definite nod. “The wonder!” he cried.

  “The what?”

  “The wonder.”

  “Wonder? Are you saying ‘the wonder’?”

  He nodded. “Wonder,” he whispered. “The wonder.”

  Sitting back, she tried to figure out what he was telling her. “I don’t know what that means, Dad. Does it have something to do with Gloria?”

  He just stared at her, again whispering, “The wonder.”

  After that he closed his eyes. Trying to make sense of it all, Kelsey sat quietly as she rolled his words and phrases around in her head. What she really needed to do was talk to someone who could fill in the many blanks in the story. All of this stuff had happened long before Walter even worked at the company, but she realized he might know enough about it that he could be of some help anyway.

  Kelsey was about to wrap things up with her father when his head slowly tilted forward and a soft snore escaped from his lips. Smiling tenderly, she smoothed out the cuff of his sleeve and tucked an errant lock of hair away from his forehead.

  Then she kissed him gently on the cheek and left him there to rest.

  She found her mother out in the courtyard, snipping away at a bare, spindly hydrangea bush that had been allowed to get out of control. As she worked, Kelsey told her about the conversation she’d just had. Unfortunately, Doreen could add no additional insights and had no idea what he might have meant by “the wonder.”

  “I’m finished here for now,” Doreen said, stepping back from the bush and dropping the last of her clippings into a bag. “I think I’ll go check on your father myself. Will you be staying for lunch? I could heat up last night’s leftover soup. Yvette made a saffron mussel bisque.”

  Kelsey was tempted. The woman who cooked for her parents was a wonder in the kitchen, and her specialty was rich, aromatic soups. But with no time to linger today, she would have to take a rain check. “Thanks, no, I should get rolling soon. I just need to make a call first.”

  “Okay, well, I’ll be in the living room if you need me.” With that, Doreen headed into the house as Kelsey pulled out her phone and dialed the office. Once the automated system answered, she typed in Walter’s extension, and as she waited for him, she moved over to a sunny spot and settled herself down on the wide, flat brick rim of a raised flower bed.

  The sun felt good on her arms and face, and she closed her eyes and tilted her head back to take it in. By the time she heard Walter’s voice on the other end of the line, it took a moment for her to snap back to attention.

  “Hey, Walter, it’s Kelsey. How are things there today? Has everyone heard the news?”

  He cleared his throat. “About Gloria? Yes, I decided to tackle that head-on with a full staff meeting first thing. Most of them had already heard but didn’t have many details. There were lots of questions and concerns. As you can imagine, some people in the office aren’t taking it well.”

  “I’m sure.”

  He went on to explain that the police had closed off the back half of the fifth floor, and that the people with offices in that section had been relocated to meeting rooms on the fourth. He said that Detective Hargrove had set up shop in the Human Resources department and was bringing people in individually to question them.

  Kelsey was a bit taken aback. They were still actively investigating? Swallowing hard, she said, “I’m guessing that’s not standard procedure with a suicide. Does this mean they’ve decided Gloria was…” her voice trailed off. Somehow, she just couldn’t bring herself to say the word.

  “The police still haven’t said one way or the other,” Walter answered quickly. “They’re playing this all very close to the vest.”

  “I wonder why.”

  “I don’t know. Hargrove is a reasonable enough fellow, but maybe that’s just the way he operates. On the one hand, it’s frustrating, because I’d like to be kept apprised of the situation. On the other hand, if he’s not even telling me, that means it’s not likely he’ll go blabbing things to the media either.”

  “That’s good, at least.”

  Kelsey heard a soft buzzing and looked up to see a pair of bumblebees hovering around a still-dormant azalea bush.

  “As for the employees,” Walter continued, “I gave everyone the option of taking the rest of the day off, and a few took me up on it. We also have a counselor coming in around noon for anyone who might feel the need to talk.”

  “Good move. What are you doing about Gloria’s clients?”

  “Well, the police confiscated her computer, but she was tied in directly with the server, so that hasn’t posed any serious problems as of yet. Right now Yanni is going through her active case files and divvying those up among the staff. Ordinarily, I would have funneled most of them straight to you, but considering the situation I knew that wouldn’t be an option.”

  Kelsey thanked him, grateful that he realized she wasn’t up to it—and might not be for a while. First thing this morning, she’d left a message on Sharon’s phone telling her to reschedule all of her appointments for the next few days. At some point during that time, she would have to sit down with her own account list and start making calls, just to touch base and reassure all of her clients that things were fine and it was business as usual at Brennan & Tate. But she couldn’t even attempt to do that until she felt sure she could pull it off. She had to sound as though she actually meant it.

  “Have you talked to your father yet?” Walter asked. “I know I should go over there and tell him about all of this personally, but I’m still tied up doing damage control.”

  “Not to worry,” she replied, brushing a fallen leaf from her skirt. “I’m at my parents’ house right now, and my dad and I just had a nice long talk. He’s devastated, of course, but mentally speaking he’s having a very lucid day.” She went on to explain about their discussion of the whole Rupert Brennan situation. “Believe it or not, Walter, this conflict goes way back, to the early nineties. Only that time, the person making the claims about Adele being an imposter was Rupert’s father, Ian Brennan.”

  “I can stop you right there,” he replied. “I had a long conversation with our lawyers last night. They had a big file on the matter, which they photocopied and sent over first thing this morning. I’ve been reading through it for the past hour.”

  Kelsey breathed a deep sigh of relief, feeling stupid that it hadn’t occurred to her to get this info via the lawyer route.

  “So what have you learned?” she asked, shifting to a more comfortable position. “Do you know what kind of ‘proof’ Rupert Brennan thinks he has?”

  “Yep. It’s all in here.”

  “Oh, thank goodness. Do you have time right now to tell me about it?”

  “I can take a few minutes.” He rustled some papers and then said, “Just to be clear, you know the basic Brennan family history, right? That around the turn of the century Sean Brennan left Ireland and came to America. His wife Beatrice and three-year-old daughter Adele stayed behind, though he planned to bring them over once he was established here.”

  “Of course. Sean was my great-great-grandfather. He came over in 1896, I believe.”

  “That’s what it says here. Anyway, it took a few years, but once they were finally making plans for his wife and daughter to come over, Beatrice contracted diphtheria and died. That left six-year-old Adele alone in Ireland with no mother and an absentee father. Rather than bring her over here by herself, where Sean would have to hire a caretaker for her, the decision was made that she would be taken in by Sean’s brother, Rowan, and
his sister-in-law, Oona, who lived in Belfast. They would raise her along with their own two children, a daughter named Jocelyn, also six, and a toddler named Quincy.”

  Walter wasn’t telling Kelsey anything she didn’t already know, but it was still helpful to hear things laid out so systematically. He went on to describe Sean’s progress as a businessman in the States, how with help from a few affluent members of the Irish community he had landed a low-level job at a Manhattan bank. He had an affinity for numbers and money and quickly worked his way up to management. In 1904, he left the bank to open his own investment firm, Brennan & Company. With the strategy of primarily investing in forward-thinking businessmen such as Edison and Marconi, he made good fairly quickly. Once Marconi won the Nobel Prize in 1909, Sean wisely began channeling more and more funds toward wireless technologies, and most of his investments began paying off nicely.

  Of particular interest was a new start-up in England called Transatlantic Wireless, Ltd., which manufactured an integral component of the Marconi system. Transatlantic Wireless was looking to drum up substantial funds for the expansion of their factory, and Sean learned that one of the founders of the company, a man named Neville Williams, was planning a trip to the United States in April 1912 to meet with potential investors. He had chosen to cross over on the maiden voyage of a brand-new ship, Titanic, because it would actually be using the newest Marconi wireless system on board.

  The more Sean learned about Transatlantic Wireless, the more he wanted to get in on the ground floor. Eager to beat out other investors, he made the decision to preempt Neville’s trip to the States by sending a representative to London to meet with the man there first, before he even left London.

  Around that same time, Sean had been communicating with Oona and Rowan about Adele. She was nineteen by then, smart and pretty but with few satisfactory prospects in Ireland either for marriage or work. It seemed the right time to get her out, especially because of the rumblings of trouble throughout the British Isles and the flaring up of issues and conflicts throughout Europe that would eventually lead to the first world war. Sean urged all of them to come, but Oona had no interest in leaving her homeland. She did, however, agree that Jocelyn might do well to make the move along with her cousin. In the end, the plan was for Rowan, Adele, and Jocelyn to come to America. Adele would stay, Rowan would visit for a few weeks, and then he would head back home, and Jocelyn would make the decision as to whether to stay in America with her cousin and uncle or go back to Ireland with her father.