Very gently, Madeleine freed her hand. “I pray you’re right,” she said, and walked away.
*
Back inside the cabin, she found Eleanor on the settee, clutching a pillow to her face, silently weeping in the dark.
Madeleine sat beside her without speaking, slowly stroking her friend’s hair.
CHAPTER 28
As headlines about Titanic’s sinking became splashed across every newspaper known to man, your half-brother’s grief was well-documented. Articles described him ricocheting from the White Star Line offices to the Marconi Company’s offices, tear-stained, desperate, offering any amount of money that could be named to the wireless operators in exchange for news of Jack’s survival.
None of the wireless men could accept his offer.
By the time Vincent found me aboard the Carpathia three days later, his grief had turned to rage.
But then, we were all of us in a state. Tormented by the unknowns.
Too often, I found my thoughts straying as I stared into that wall of gray mist, and in my imagination, the ship that sailed through it wasn’t Carpathia but Titanic: fog surrounding me, surrounding the steamer and the berg and the hundreds of corpses the berg had claimed, caught gelid in the boundary between the sea and the air. Just . . . bobbing along through all that nothingness.
Blank fathoms vaulting above them.
Blank fathoms stretching below.
Thursday, April 18th, 5:25 p.m.
Aboard Carpathia
People began to line the decks, the rescued and the rescuers, spilling out of the fusty confines of the saloons and lounges and overcrowded staterooms. It was raining, but no one seemed to care. Everyone was eager to catch sight of New York.
Mostly what they saw, however, were tugboats, dozens of them swarming the ship. The tugs held reporters, and the reporters held megaphones and money and hand-lettered signs, all of them bawling questions up to the passengers and crew. From inside the cabin, Madeleine could hear their shouts, if not their actual words, a dull sort of roar too close in her memory to the cries of the dying. She sat on the edge of the bed and twisted her hands in her lap.
Carrie and Rosalie stood at the porthole windows, looking out. Madeleine didn’t even want to glance up at them.
She was dressed and bejeweled and ready to flee. However that was going to happen.
Marian entered the cabin; the clamor outside acutely amplified until she closed the door again.
“Do not go out there,” she warned Madeleine. “We’re surrounded. All these beastly newsmen have flashlights and cameras and signs. Some are even offering cash to any of the crew willing to jump overboard and speak with them.”
“Well, I never,” said Carrie, astonished.
“I saw at least five different men holding up placards,” said Marian, “inquiring specifically about Mrs. Astor.”
Someone knocked on the door. Marian turned back, opened it cautiously, then stood aside to let the ship’s second officer enter.
“Good evening, ladies,” he said, removing his cap. “Captain Rostron sent me to inform you that we should be docked by around nine this evening. He would have come himself, but—” The officer grimaced, gestured to the portholes. “After a brief stop at the White Star Line’s terminal to lower Titanic’s boats”—he paused, looking uncomfortable—“er, her lifeboats, we’ll head to Pier 54. That’s ours. We’ll be disembarking the injured first, but then you. The captain wants to reassure you all that the strictest measures are being employed to keep the press at bay, but, of course, our influence ends at the Cunard terminal.”
Madeleine and Marian exchanged a look.
“Mrs. Astor, your stepson has requested permission to come aboard after docking and customs to escort you off. The captain has granted his request.”
“I see,” she said, confounded.
The officer replaced his cap, gave a nod.
“Wait, please,” said Marian, catching him by the arm. “Is there any news? Anything at all?”
The man’s gaze slid from hers. “I really cannot say, ma’am.”
*
Night fell. The ship reached the Cunard pier amid bursts of white light that popped and burned beyond the portholes—not lightning now, but camera flashes.
Marian Thayer left on the arm of her son.
Eleanor Widener left sandwiched between two friends.
Madeleine sat. She waited. The cabin grew cooler, and she used her sable as a blanket across her lap.
“If only madame had a veil,” brooded Rosalie, seated in the swivel chair by the desk. “Hélas, I should have thought. I might have borrowed one.”