Chapter Thirty-One

Penelope was acutely aware of a hand on her wrist, fingers pushing against the underside with a steady pressure.

She blinked and raised her head from where it was slumped against her chest.

“You gave us a fright, miss,” Charles Lightoller’s voice seeped into her mind.

As she fully opened her eyes and took in her surroundings, she found herself still aboard the new lifeboat. Several men were rowing, pushing them gently through the field of corpses and away from the wreck site.

Which meant she couldn’t have been out for long.

“Sorry.” She pinched at the bridge of her nose as she straightened herself. “I…have no idea…”

“Probably just shock.”

Penelope offered him a smile, knowing that he probably spoke the truth.

She was just glad that she was awake. And that she was in a lifeboat that wasn’t sinking, with two officers who knew what they were doing.

After that, it turned into a waiting game.

When someone finally pointed out the lights on the horizon, Penelope felt as though her heart was going to burst with relief, even though it seemed to take the ship forever before it got anywhere close enough to them.

The rising of the sun brought a new and unwelcome clarity to the scene.

The sight of the bodies in the water at night had been bad, but it was nothing compared to the full view in daylight. Amongst them floated huge blocks of ice, and it amazed Penelope that anyone had survived the night partially submerged in such cold water. And littered across the surface was wreckage from Titanic herself, large chunks of wood making up most of the carnage.

Their lifeboats bobbed through all of this as the ship steered closer. Lightoller called up to the sailors on board, informing them that his passengers were in no state to climb up and would need aid.

Her name was Carpathia, if Penelope was able to make out her nameplate correctly. Her colouring was similar to Titanic’s—a black body, a red waterline, the same faint trim of white around the deck area. She only had one small funnel that was red and black, but four large masts spaced in a similar fashion to Titanic’s masts.

Penelope wanted to take in everything she could about the ship, because it was her survival. If it weren’t for the ship before her, she’d be dead, regardless of the fact that she was now in an upright lifeboat. If Carpathia hadn’t shown up when she did, the cold would have stopped Penelope’s heart before much longer.

A sling was lowered down the side of the ship, and, once more, Lightoller insisted that Penelope go first. She was happy about that, even if it seemed wrong. But she couldn’t help it as she settled into the fabric and began the slow haul up the side of the ship and over onto the deck.

She immediately froze, however, as she straightened and saw the large number of people who were milling around the deck.

“Miss, we need to get the others up,” one of Carpathia’s sailors said.

Penelope nodded numbly and stepped away from the edge, pulling the blanket she wore tighter around her frame. It had long since gotten wet as it had soaked up the water from her body and clothes and was now stiff to the touch, thanks to the cold air.

Penelope stumbled forwards towards the crowds that had already gathered, somehow knowing just by the amount of people that hers had been the last boat to be picked up.

It almost made her want to laugh, to think that she had been left until the very last moment. Just as she had been on Titanic until its very last moments.

As she moved forwards, someone approached her and asked her name. He was wearing a jacket with an unfamiliar logo embroidered into the breast, so Penelope could only assume he was from Carpathia.

“Penelope Fletcher.”

“And which class were you sailing with?”

She swallowed. “Second. Room E-56.” He started to scan the piece of paper that he held, so she said, “My parents didn’t make it. They won’t be…” She felt horrible for saying such a thing, but she couldn’t cling to any hope that they had survived. How could she, remembering all those bodies they had had to row through, and the men who had fallen from their shared lifeboat to their deaths? One look at all the wreckage had made Penelope certain that, hard as it was to admit, her parents were gone.

He shrugged, giving her an apologetic look. “I am sorry for your loss. There is a physician in the Second Class dining room who will be able to look you over.”

Nodding, Penelope offered him a smile, praying that he’d leave without another word, and feeling thankful when he did. All she wanted was to sleep, to rest without the fear that she would die if she did.

At the reminder of her parents, however, her heart felt heavy, and without realising, she reached up to grab her grandmother’s locket.

Only for her fingers to touch skin.

Frowning down at her chest, Penelope saw no sign of the delicate chain around her neck, nor of the beautiful silver locket, engraved and set with sapphire stones. Her heart picked up in pace, thudding against her chest, and her hand flew to her throat, hoping to be greeted by the sensation of linked metal.

But it wasn’t there.

It was the final straw, taking that last glimmer of hope away from her. Penelope buried her face in her hands, feeling the tears flow and flow, unable to staunch them. She had felt the pain when she had seen her and Ruby’s room engulfed by water and known that her sewing kit and her thread-painting of Poppy were gone.

But she had always had her grandmother’s locket with her, holding a piece of Scotland inside.

And now it was gone, surely lost to the bottom of the ocean.

Along with everything else she knew and loved.

When the tears finally stopped, Penelope removed her hands from her face.

Wiping her tears on the back of her hand, Penelope straightened herself to the best of her abilities and followed the crowds that were heading down to the lower decks. The new ship was much smaller, which made it easier for her to find her way, joining the steady stream of people towards the Second Class dining room, which had been turned over to the survivors hauled from the water.

Every time the ship gave a shudder, something that she had easily become accustomed to on Titanic before the sinking, her heart leapt to her throat, stressed that something else had gone wrong. She couldn’t get the thought out of her mind that some other tragedy would befall her.

She stared numbly ahead as the physician gave her a once-over, warning her that she would need to get to a hospital as soon as they docked in New York, because of her toes. Penelope was pretty certain she could have worked that out for herself, since several were an alarming shade of blue-purple.

After that, a bowl of hot soup was handed to her. She ate one spoonful of it and then felt as though she would bring it back up if she ate any more. She pushed it away, giving it to a young mother who was feeding her two children with one bowl.

Everything after that passed in a blur. She could do no more than focus on her hands cradled in her lap, occasionally watching as people moved around her. All her hope had long since died—claimed by the depths, just like her locket.

She couldn’t hope that those who had gone into the water with her—Frank, Mr. Cole, her mother and father—had survived. Not after losing some of those who had been on the lifeboat with her, like Jack, and Mr. Wright as well.

And whilst she knew that there was a good chance of Ruby being aboard, she was certain that she would want nothing to do with Penelope.

Not after how she had left.

So she sat there, staring down at her hands, listening to the screams that haunted her, made afresh by people realising that loved ones hadn’t made it off the ship—that they had boarded Titanic with loving families and now were widows and orphans. It didn’t help that the one action she usually performed to ground and comfort herself—tug at her locket—was gone. Her neck felt dreadfully bare and too light, which made her entire body feel off.

It was overwhelming. So, when the opportunity came to sleep, she no longer fought it.

Instead, Penelope lowered herself to the floor, a blanket draped around her and many other bodies beside her, and allowed herself to succumb.