Madeleine grew uncomfortable; with her increasing size, it had become harder and harder to sit still in one place for too long. Kitty needed to be walked, in any case, so they left their group behind to take in the scenery, such as it was.
A long, thin jetty stretched out over the chopped water, a stone tower crouched at its end. The two tenders, the Nomadic and the Traffic, pitched in the waves. They were already heavily loaded with luggage and mail; all they needed now were the paying passengers.
Plus, Titanic.
The clouds lowered, lifted, bunched and scattered. Sunlight waxed and waned, sending bright flashing coins across the harbor, and the wind gusted cooler.
“How are you feeling?” Jack asked, as Kitty sniffed at a scruff of grass growing from the muck near the path.
“Tired,” she admitted. “A little impatient, I guess. But it’s nice to escape that smoky waiting room. I was getting queasy.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, for what? I wasn’t complaining, I assure you.”
“I know. I just . . . I want things to go smoothly. I want you to be careful.”
“I am careful,” she said, irritated.
“And I want to get you a proper meal,” he went on with barely a pause, “because you’re so grumpy without one.”
“I beg your pardon!”
“All right. I pardon you.”
She gazed at him, speechless, torn between wanting to be offended and wanting to laugh. Jack slanted a smile at her, lifted her hand in his to kiss her knuckles, one by one, over her kid glove.
“Mrs. Astor. How beautiful you are when provoked.”
“You are supposed to tell me I am beautiful all the time, not just when you needle me.”
“You are the sole object of true beauty in all the world,” said her husband, “no matter your mood. And that is the honest truth.”
*
The White Star manager hustled them aboard the tenders in an optimism of hope, Madeleine thought, given that they were launching out into the harbor without any hint of the liner to meet them yet in view.
The Nomadic, like Titanic, was essentially new, built especially to shuttle people and mail and supplies to and from White Star’s enormous new Olympic-class ships, which were far too large to dock near the quay. The tender was spacious enough inside, clean and refined, with tiled floors and carved plaster walls and a long, varnished bar lined with waiting stewards. She’d been on it once before, ten weeks ago when they’d disembarked from the Olympic. Back then, it hadn’t seemed quite so congested.
Jack guided her to one of the wooden banquettes in the forward lounge, and Madeleine sat again, her maid on one side of her and her nurse on the other, Kitty ducking under the table at her feet, as the colonel and his valet went to see about procuring food from the buffet.
“Waiting for a steward to come to us,” he said, looking around at the chattering, restless mob of people, “will leave us all old and gray.”
They returned with sliced fruit and finger sandwiches, which Madeleine was desperate to eat, but by then, the tender was beginning to battle the rougher waves of the outer harbor, and her stomach rebelled. She tried a bite of apple, chewing as slowly as she could, but in no time, her nausea was worse, and her headache had returned.
She fed a cheese and pickle sandwich to Kitty, who didn’t bother to chew at all.
The pretty plaster trimwork decorating the walls began to spin. She shoved to her feet but had to bend over as spots took her vision, balancing herself with all ten fingertips pressed against the rim of the table.
“Ma’am?” Carrie seized her by the arm at the same time Jack said urgently, “Madeleine,” taking her other arm.
She wet her lips. “I think I must go above. I—I need to be outside.”
Later on, when she tried to remember how she made it from the first-class lounge to the deck, all she would recall was a blur of colors, of voices, and that both of her elbows were caught in two very hard grips. The next clear memory was of sucking in cold, bracing breaths of sea air, half-collapsed against Jack with Carrie hovering nearby, a vial of smelling salts in her hand.
“I’m all right,” she said, the words coming out without any actual evidence of truth. She said it again, more slowly. “I’m all right.”
The wind scoured her skin, and it felt like waking up from a bad dream. She turned her face into it, blinking. The sun was low now, casting terra-cotta light against the darkening blue clouds, and the water splashed and hissed as it was sliced in two by Nomadic ’s bow.