The Girl Who Came Home: A Novel of the Titanic

  He was minding his own business and setting out the cutlery for dinner when a familiar voice behind him made him jump.

  “Well, Lucky Harry strikes again.”

  Lucky Harry was a nickname he’d been given by some of the other lads he knew in Southampton due to the endless amounts of good fortune he had whenever they played a game of cards. He recognized the voice right away.

  “Billy? What the hell are you doin’ down here? You nearly gave me a heart attack.” He carried on laying out his place settings. “I thought you were too posh now to be slummin’ it down ’ere with us steerage lot. You’d better get back upstairs before you catch something!”

  Billy laughed. “Yeah, I am too posh. But I need you to come and help me upstairs. We’ve stewards laid up and are short of hands to help out with evenin’ dinner. The officers are panicking that the dinner service will be late, and they don’t want people to start complainin’ before we’ve even got to Ireland. I suggested a few names to the officers to come and help, and you’re one of ’em.”

  Harry thought his friend was pulling his leg, being partial to a practical joke as he was. “Ah, bugger off, Billy. You’re ’avin me on. Get lost, will ya, I’ve a proper job to do.”

  “I’m not kiddin’. Honestly. They want you to come up now. I’ve a first-class uniform all ready for you.”

  After a little more cajoling, Harry was convinced and left what he was doing to go with Billy up the staircase to D Deck, where the first-class dining saloon was. He quite liked the idea of the all-white uniform worn by the first-class stewards.

  “Oh, and I forgot to tell ya,” Billy added as they ran up the stairs two at a time, “there’s some fancy woman fussin’ about ’er dog upstairs. She needs someone to take it for a walk and I thought you might be able to help ’er out.”

  Harry stopped. “So, that’s what you really got me up here for? I can’t believe I fell for it.”

  Billy slapped his friend on the back. “Ah, stop moanin’, will ya. I thought you might like a snoop around up here, and the ladies aren’t bad-lookin’ either, y’know. Thought you might like to check out some new girlfriend material, seeing as how you’ve tried just about every lass in Southampton and scared her off with your rubbish chat-up lines and your interfering mother.”

  Harry laughed, despite his annoyance that Billy had tricked him. He actually did quite fancy having a look around the first-class decks, and if it meant taking someone’s dog for a walk to do it, then what the hell?

  Vivienne Walker-Brown reclined on a deck chair, enjoying the warmth of the late afternoon sun on her petite face and the feel of the gentle sea breeze in her smooth, dark hair. She was glad she had tied it up loosely, having noticed how quickly the dampness and salt in the air could wreak havoc on a hairstyle. Edmund, her Pekingese dog, sat quietly under the chair, enjoying the same warmth on his face and the same sea breeze in his dark fur. Robert, her fiancé, had gone belowdecks to fetch her fur stole, her neck being a little too chilly and threatening to give her a nasty cold. He returned quickly and handed her the garment.

  “Now, darling, you can sit here as long as you like without worrying about catching a chill,” he announced, ignoring the dog, which had curled its lip slightly at him. Robert Isaacs didn’t care for the animal at all. He would have quite liked to give it a sharp kick with the toe of his shoe but resisted and sat down in the seat next to Vivienne’s. “Anyway, it will be time for dinner soon. I think the bugler calls at seven P.M. sharp.”

  Vivienne wrapped the stole around her neck, snuggling into the instant warmth it provided. “Well, I have to wait for our dog walker to arrive first,” she said curtly, “bugler or not. They’ve gone to see if it might be possible to hire a boy from the steerage crew. I doubt they’ll miss one steward at dinner. They probably have to make the meals for themselves down there anyway!” She laughed at her own joke. “Ah, this must be him now,” she exclaimed, relieved to see the first-class steward she had spoken to about her predicament walking toward her with another young man. He introduced him as Harry Walsh, a reliable crew member who would attend to the needs of her dog and anything else she might require assistance with.

  “Wonderful,” she enthused, standing up to shake the man’s hand. “Edmund needs his daily constitutional, you know, just the same as we do. Don’t you, sweetheart?” The dog raised its head and patted its tail enthusiastically on the deck. “And since my aide is suffering with the seasickness, we had to find an alternative arrangement, didn’t we, Edmund? Yes we did, didn’t we?”

  Robert winced at the ridiculous affectations Vivienne added whenever she addressed the dog, as if it were a small child who might one day talk back to her. The raised eyebrows between the two stewards didn’t go unnoticed by him.

  “Well, I’ll leave you to it then,” the first-class steward said, turning to depart. “I must go and start preparing for evening dinner service. It wouldn’t do to keep the first-class passengers waiting now, would it! Good day to you.”

  Vivienne laughed at the joke. “Oh, yes. Very good.” She turned to the other steward. “Right then, Mr. . . .”

  “Walsh,” Harry prompted, already taking a dislike to the woman and her dog. “Harry Walsh.”

  “Yes, indeed. Well, Walsh, Edmund would be very happy if you could take him twice around the ship . . . Of course, strictly speaking, he should be walked on the poop deck, along with the kennel dogs,” she continued in a whisper, passing the dog’s lead to Harry, “but I don’t think we need to worry ourselves with minor details such as that, do we? I wouldn’t want him catching anything.” She shuddered in mock alarm. “The exercise is good for his legs, you know. I would take him myself but we shall be called to dinner soon and I have some business to attend to with my ladies. Come along then, Robert, I shall die of thirst if I don’t have a gin and tonic before dinner.”

  Robert gave Harry a simpering half smile before following his fiancée inside to the reception area at the bottom of the Grand Staircase, where predinner drinks were being served.

  For his own part, Harry was quite pleased to have the opportunity to stroll around the first-class decks and get a proper look at the luxury that had been boasted about by the ship’s designers. He also knew his mother would be very keen to hear all about how the other half lived on board, so he paid attention as he walked along, the small dog trotting beside him.

  It was everything he had imagined it would be, and more. From the boat deck, standing between the first and second funnels, he could look right down through the massive wrought-iron-and-glass-domed skylight onto the spectacle of the Grand Staircase, which swept in graceful arcs to the lounge and beyond, all the way down to E Deck. He watched the passengers descending the staircase, dressed in their finest dinner outfits. Others stopped at the bottom of the first tier of steps, greeting one another before congregating in comfortable-looking chairs at round mahogany tables, where they were served drinks before dinner.

  On the promenade deck a similar scene of opulence was repeated. Harry gazed into the ostentatious gentlemen-only smoking room, admiring its sumptuous leather chairs and heavy wooden paneling. Farther along the deck, he caught sight of the Palm Court, with its delicate wicker chairs and dainty vases of flowers. He glanced into the reading and writing room as he strolled past, the huge bow window affording him a good look at the interior, painted in elegant white, luxurious curtains draped around the windows, and a fire blazing in the center of the room. This room alone was bigger than the entire downstairs of his house.

  As he strolled, he passed a bellboy walking a miniature dog. It had never occurred to Harry that people might take their pet dogs on a trip across the Atlantic, but as he was starting to realize, there was very little about this ship and its occupants that didn’t surprise him.

  Taking a second circuit of the decks, as instructed, he passed the rows of lifeboats that hung, covered in their white tarpaulins, suspended on ropes from the huge steel davits. They were a strange, awkward, bulky
sight amid all the luxury and elegance. Harry was almost surprised that they hadn’t been made from a dark mahogany and embossed with ornate carvings to be more in keeping with the opulence of their surroundings.

  Walking down onto the port side, he almost forgot he was on a ship, almost forgot entirely about the silly little dog trotting along behind him, so caught up was he in the elegant atmosphere of the place. The delicate sound of a piano drifted across the starboard side of the ship, and the gentle melodies of a string quartet came from the port side. Nothing had been overlooked; the passengers were even entertained and soothed as they walked their dogs or strolled with parasols or sat about with their aperitifs and their cigarette holders.

  Harry was glad Billy had given him the chance to see all this. Even though he’d been impressed with the standard of accommodation given to the steerage passengers, the furnishings of the general room and the third-class dining saloon now seemed unnecessarily sparse when compared to this grandeur. Never in his life had Harry seen such a stark demarcation of class in one place, and for all of its jaw-dropping elegance, it turned his stomach.

  His mother was right; he would take extra-special care of his steerage passengers now and do everything he could to make their journey as pleasant as possible. The first-class toffs and their silly little dogs could get well and truly stuffed.

  CHAPTER 8

  Private Journal of Maggie Murphy

  RMS Titanic, April 11, 1912

  Day 1 at sea

  We are finally sailing! I don’t think there are enough words to describe this amazing ship or how it feels to be floating on top of the ocean (a fact I don’t like to think about too often)—but I will try!

  First, I’ll explain how we came to be here.

  Our day started very early this morning, Aunt Kathleen rousing us all with a brusque shake of the shoulders or a hard rap on the door. I’m used to her no-nonsense ways—some of the others aren’t, and I don’t think they took to the rude awakening too well.

  When we were all up and dressed, we attended Mass in St. Colman’s Cathedral. After Peggy’s tale of the odd stranger, I paid more attention than usual to the prayers. The priest offered a special blessing to those in the congregation who would be departing Irish shores that day. There were many, many more than our fourteen; in fact, almost the entire congregation seemed to be heading to America.

  It was then time to assemble at the White Star Line wharf at the Deepwater Quay, where we had to wait for a tender boat to take us out to Titanic, which was anchored some miles offshore at Roches Point. I asked Jack Brennan why we had to take one boat to get to another, and a friendly gentleman standing nearby explained that Queenstown harbor isn’t wide enough, deep enough, or equipped with the right facilities to manage such an enormous ship as Titanic. I told him I thought the harbor looked very big. He laughed and said it still wasn’t big enough. He wished me a pleasant journey and went to join a pretty lady who wore a hat twice the size of Peggy’s. I saw Peggy admiring the hat and adjusting her own. I think she might care for that silly hat of hers more than she cares for her own brothers back home!

  We stood for a while among the other passengers outside the offices of James Scott & Company, shipping agents. I enjoyed listening to the conversations, hearing accents from other parts of Ireland that I haven’t heard before and watching people arrive from the train station or by cart and gather, with the rest of us, on the wharf side. Some were dressed like us, others in finer clothing and with grander luggage. I thought it funny that we would all sail on the same ship, no matter how battered our trunks or how scuffed our boots.

  Queenstown harbor was a much nicer sight in the bright morning sunshine than it had been the previous night. The colorful houses lining the seafront looked pretty, and we could see the cathedral we had just prayed in standing out on the skyline. Although we were all still a bit jittery and anxious now to get going, there was a much happier mood about us. Dear God, nothing could be worse than that terrible maudlin feeling that had hung about us all a day earlier. Katie said that she feels so far away from home now that it’s almost impossible to be sad about it. I think I know what she means.

  The two tenders, Ireland and America, were moored alongside the wharf. They were nice-looking boats themselves. We stood together, the fourteen of us, some talking, some thinking of home, and some, like me, watching the piles and piles of mailbags being loaded onto the boats, the red flags of the White Star Line and the colorful bunting fluttering in the breeze. It must have been quite a spectacle for the newspaper reporters and the crowds who had gathered to see people off.

  It was a bit of a struggle to get us all and our luggage aboard the tender America, but once on board we huddled around the front of the boat, I think it is called the bow. It felt a bit odd swaying from side to side as the boat rocked in the water. We had to wait for a while as a late-running train from Cork had just arrived carrying more passengers. I thought how lucky they were not to have missed the tenders, or Titanic itself for that matter! Ellen Joyce went a bit green while we stood there—I think she was struggling not to get sick.

  As we waited for the delayed passengers, a young photographer from one of the local papers climbed from the other tender, Ireland, onto ours, saying it would give a better viewpoint for his pictures. I thought him a bit reckless jumping from one boat to the other; I hope his pictures are worth the risk of falling overboard!

  All the passengers seemed to be in good spirits. We talked among ourselves and to strangers, sharing stories of the journeys we’d already made and talking about where we were headed to in America. I spoke to a friendly, nervy-looking girl who told me she was also from Mayo. We didn’t know of each other or our families. She was traveling alone to join her five brothers who were already in America. I said she should look out for me on board the ship and to come and chat or play cards if she was feeling lonely.

  “All one hundred and thirteen third-class aboard, sir,” I heard someone call.

  With Ireland in front, the two tender boats left the wharf then, chugging back along the waterfront of Queenstown, passing the White Star Wharf again. We each blessed ourselves with the sign of the cross as we sailed past the cathedral, and a tall man standing just near to me began to play “A Nation Once Again” on his uilleann pipes. He played well, and the gathered passengers sang along and clapped when he finished. He smiled at me and then played “Erin’s Lament,” a sadder tune that made some people cry. I didn’t look at any of our group, afraid that I would take to weeping again if I did.

  As we moved farther away from the wharf, the boat became quieter. The men shuffled their feet, and the women cuddled their children against them or stared into the distance. Everyone had their own private thoughts at that moment; mine were of Séamus and the time we had danced at Maura and Jack Brennan’s wedding. I wondered if he was thinking of me at all.

  The boats then turned a bend in the channel, and that was when we saw her.

  All that could be heard were gasps. The piper stopped his playing altogether.

  Not one person spoke, stunned into silence by the towering mass of this ship that was anchored in the waters before us. I have never seen, and doubt that I will ever see again, a sight so astonishing.

  Some of our group, who have traveled on steam liners before, were less impressed than the rest of us, who have rarely seen a rowboat on Lough Conn, but I even heard Aunt Kathleen comment on how large and magnificent the ship appeared.

  As our now tiny tender pulled alongside the wall of steel, a door opened in the side of the ship and a gangplank was lowered. At the top of the gangplank were the ticket inspectors and the doctors who carried out the health inspections. Not one of us was able to stop ourselves from craning our necks to take in the height of the decks and the masts soaring high, high into the clouds above. I didn’t want to look down, didn’t want to see the swell of the ocean under my feet.

  There was a delay in the inspection line, and I heard another passenger tell her
friend that a girl up ahead had a rash and was being refused entry. Then I saw who the person was; it was the Mayo girl I had spoken to on the wharf, the girl who was going to join her brothers. As she walked back down the gangplank, sobbing, I heard a crew member explain to her that she would have to travel on another ship when her rash was healed. “The Celtic sails tomorrow, miss, and the Oceanic next week. A few days won’t make much of a difference.” I wanted to call to her but didn’t even know her name. My heart was so sorry for her, and I hope she can board the Celtic tomorrow.

  We waited more anxiously then for our own inspections, wondering what would happen if one of us was turned away. As we waited, I saw a man hiding among the mailbags to be taken back to Queenstown—a stoker or a boiler man, judging by his dress and the muck on his face. I’d noticed him walking off Titanic and covering himself with the gray mailbags. I saw him and I’m certain that he saw me. He had the fear of God in his eyes—like a man who was running away from something. Maybe he is in trouble. When I watched the tender chug back to the quayside, I wondered what the man was running from and hoped that it was for good reason he didn’t want to sail to New York.

  The doctors eventually examined our eyes and our hair and checked our faces and hands. All fourteen of us passed with a clean bill of health, and finally, one by one, we stepped onto the deck of the ship which would take us to America.

  The passengers who had already boarded in England and France watched us from the decks above and from benches and seating areas scattered around the deck we stood on. We were the new arrivals. I felt as though we had arrived late to a grand party. These people had already been aboard for a day and looked comfortable in their surroundings. An old lady smiled at me as we followed a steward who was to show us to our cabins. I smiled back and swapped my trunk into my right hand, the left growing tired of the weight. The steward noticed.

  “Let me take that for you, miss,” he said, taking the trunk from me. “You’ve probably carried it far enough already.”