Professor Longworth was sitting alone at the breakfast table when he was joined by Brenda Martin. A woman I find particularly dull, he thought, as he stood up courteously and greeted her with a smile.
“And how is Lady Em this morning?” he asked. “I was concerned for her last evening. She looked very pale.”
“When I didn’t hear from her by nine o’clock, it meant that she was having breakfast in her suite,” Brenda replied. The waiter was at her side. She ordered her usual generous breakfast of orange juice, cantaloupe, poached eggs hollandaise, sausage and coffee.
It was then that Yvonne Pearson arrived at the table. “I couldn’t bear to be alone any longer,” she explained, her voice breaking. “I wanted to be with friends.” She had worn almost no makeup to accentuate her supposedly grief-stricken appearance. Not having carried any black clothes in her wardrobe, she’d done the next best thing. She was wearing a gray running suit. Her only jewelry was her diamond wedding band. She had slept soundly and knew that she did not portray the exhausted look that would have been most suitable. But as the waiter held her chair for her, she sighed. “I cried all night. All I could think of was my darling Roger falling. If only he had listened to me. I begged him often not to sit on the railing.” She brushed away an imaginary tear as she sat down and picked up the menu.
Brenda nodded sympathetically, but Professor Longworth, a keen student of human nature, saw through the façade. She’s a good actress, he thought. I don’t think those two were happy with each other. It was clear there was tension between them. Roger was always fawning over Lady Em, and Yvonne didn’t hide the fact that she was bored with both of them.
At that moment the Captain’s somber announcement that Lady Em had passed away in her sleep was heard throughout the ship.
Brenda gasped, “Oh no,” stood up and ran from the dining room. “Why didn’t they tell me? Why didn’t they tell me?”
Henry Longworth and Yvonne Pearson exchanged shocked glances and then stared numbly at their plates.
At their table Alvirah, Willy, Anna DeMille and Devon Michaelson reacted to the announcement with disbelief. It was Anna who spoke first. “Two people dead in two days,” she gasped, “and my mother had a saying, ‘Death comes in threes.’ ”
Alvirah was the one who responded. “I’ve heard that too, but I’m sure it’s just an old wives’ tale.”
At least I pray it is, she thought to herself.