Who needs the Ritz or the Waldorf Astoria when we have the Titanic?” Lucile asked Cosmo as they swayed together on the dance floor. The ship was swaying too, so they didn’t move much, unlike those who insisted on a swirling waltz. Although the eight-member string orchestra was playing Strauss and others were sweeping past them, they stayed off to the side in their own world.
“An amazing little city unto itself,” Cosmo said. His mustache tickled her earlobe as he spoke over the music. “My time in the gymnasium and the Turkish bath today really woke me up. Shipboard living agrees with me.”
“I haven’t waked up yet from this dream. Such a glorious setting. Why, I’d love to have my goddesses float down that grand main staircase. I wouldn’t mind having Maestro Hartley and his violin play for my next parade, too,” she added with a nod at the exuberant leader of the musicians.
“Always business in mind with my sweetheart,” he teased. “So how did you assess the ladies’ shops you were in today?”
“Mm, spent more time in the beauty salon, but I would have redone several of the layouts in the shops.”
“With Lucile, Lady Duff-Gordon, creations on display out front, of course.”
“Now who’s talking business?” She moved closer to press her breasts to his chest and her hips to his. He held her tighter. She lifted her head to gaze into his face. For a moment they forgot to sway, let alone waltz, though the orchestra swept into the opening chords of “The Blue Danube.”
Cosmo cleared his throat and said in a husky voice, “I’d like to skip dinner but not from the captain’s table. It was good of Captain Smith to include us tonight.”
“I heard he’s a stickler for being on time, though it’s said he’s pushing for the ship to be ahead of time in New York. Best we go join them then.”
They made their way into the elegant first-class dining room and joined the people gathering at the captain’s table set for eight with crystal goblets, sparkling china, and an array of silver. They were introduced to an American named Margaret Brown, who declared, “But call me Molly.”
Lucile was excited to see, according to the lettered place-name cards, that she’d be seated next to the co-owner of Macy’s Department store, the bearded Isidor Straus, while Cosmo was next to Mrs. Straus. They chatted with the couple briefly and with Captain Smith. Lucile wasn’t sure whether Straus himself or his wife would be best for this, but she intended to pitch her clothing to one or the other of them.
Even the hand-lettered menus they were given looked grand, just as did this entire floating universe of the Titanic. Caviar and a choice of wines began the meal; she ordered quail and Cosmo chose lobster—although they could have had both. Amazingly, in this chilly mid-April at sea on the Atlantic, fresh peaches were part of the table decorations, intermixed with pink roses and large white daisies.
Even as the bearded captain stood to propose a toast, the violinist-maestro Lucile had admired stopped by their table to play a Puccini aria she couldn’t name, but no doubt, Elinor could have. Puccini loved his heroines and gave them soaring songs, so Lucile never could understand why so many of them had to die tragic deaths.
She smiled at Cosmo over the top of her champagne glass. Heading for New York in luxury with the man she loved . . . conquering New York as she had London . . . hoping yet for great success in Paris . . .
Life had never been so lovely.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever been happier,” Lucile told Cosmo the next night as she sat back down by him at their lounge table on the A deck of the Titanic. “You were so right to counsel me to wait for the right price for the Paris shop on the rue de Penthièvre, and now we have it not only staffed and stocked, but ready to go. I’m excited that, after this quick trip to New York to see to things there, we’re off to Paris to attract and build our clientele! And in New York, I just know you’ll love my little suite at the Ritz and the motorcar. Not as fancy as ours in London and Scotland, but, after all, American made. Oh, just a minute. I see someone I must greet.”
He reached across their little table and snagged her wrist to pull her gently back down. “Lucile, do you need to keep popping up to have people sign that Confessions book of yours?” he groused as she flipped it open again. He seemed tired and snappish to her today, but then they’d been up to all hours making love last night after dancing and dining.
“Getting a signature is one thing,” he went on, “but personal questions under headings such as ‘likes, abominations, and madnesses’? I think it’s all a bit mad.”
“Now don’t fuss. You know it’s all the rage.”
“Sleep is all the rage for me tonight, lass.”
“I use my Confessions book not for rubbing shoulders with the elite and famous but for connecting with people, getting to know them better, just as I need personal contact with my clients. You are too much of a stay-at-home, my dearest. See here?” she asked, leaning across their table to slide the little leather book toward him. “John Jacob Astor and his bride filled in their likes and pet peeves and favorite things. Ben Guggenheim wrote in it too. This little book will bring us important New York contacts and business.”
“Always the self-advertiser. It’s in your blood. And you are in mine. But speaking of that, I have a bloody headache and need to turn in.”
“Sorry, love. Too much champagne for your head, do you think? I’m afraid that though it’s after midnight, I’m wide awake. Maybe it’s that chill wind outside I can hear keeping me up. If you feel bad and want to sleep, I can spend tonight in my own cabin for once and have Miss Francatelli come keep me company.” She reached up to push a stray lock of his hair back from his forehead.
“I imagine I’ve had too many late nights staying awake making love to you,” he whispered. “And, yes, I’d best stick to my Scottish whisky instead of all this fancy Paris bubbly stuff.”
“All right,” she said and downed the rest of her goblet. “But I’ve been on such a whirl, I don’t know if I can sleep.”
They headed toward their cabins, feeling the slight roll of the massive ship. Others had remarked on the rough seas, but after all, it was mid-April in the northern Atlantic. Not only the engineer but the designer of the vessel were aboard and so proud of this break-speed liner on its maiden voyage. And why not, with such elegance and beauty everywhere they looked on board? Lucile saw it as a luxurious, floating palace with decor like something she would design, and she’d seen three Lucile gowns besides the one she was wearing this evening.
“That’s not the champagne making me sway this time,” Cosmo commented, zigzagging slightly again.
“Nor the remnants of our dancing three nights straight when I know you’d rather they do a Scottish reel.”
“Not tonight with a pounding head.”
“Poor Franks won’t know what to make of my actually using my cabin,” she told him as they strolled their corridor.
He kissed her quickly on the lips and rapped on her cabin door for her. “I’m going to turn in. Call me for a late breakfast. Good night, Franks,” he said when Lucile’s secretary opened the door.
“G’night, my lord,” she said, obviously surprised Lucile was stepping in past her.
Lucile sank onto her bed with a sigh. The cabin was very pretty with pink curtains and several bouquets of flowers. She’d needed the closets and drawer space here as well as in Cosmo’s cabin, but most of her jewelry was in the ship’s safe.
“Wait until my sister hears about this ship,” she said as she sat on her previously unused bed and took her shoes off. “She’s holed herself up writing like mad, but when I tell her about the Titanic, she’ll want to use it for a lovely, romantic setting.”
Elinor was struggling to find the words to write. She knew things were stacked against her. She had to write fast, at least thirty pages a day to make her deadline. Since she was desperate for money to pay off Clayton’s debts, Gerald Duckworth had promised her a thousand pounds for a novel to be serialized if she could do it quickly. She wasn’t sure she was composing up to her usual standards, and that scared her. It didn’t seem to flow. And it wasn’t only her layabout husband’s flight to distant Constantinople to escape his debts that was worrying her, but George Curzon’s activities right here in England—or the lack thereof.
Quite simply, they didn’t include her lately, not even snatched, private, hidden moments like lunch in their old hotel. Sometimes he didn’t write or telephone for days—eleven days and counting right now. Of course he knew she was busy. No doubt he was busy, too, with his daughters and government service, but she felt panicky when thinking he had wearied of her.
Thanks to her publisher, she’d paid George back for his loan to Clayton, every bit of it, despite how he’d never mentioned it again and others were hounding her. Could he have taken offense at that? Or had his Souls’ friends sabotaged his passion for her when she’d been certain he meant to tell them to steer clear of that? Or was he simply bored with her when she needed his strength and attention desperately?
“Curse it all!” she cried. She wadded up the new, half-written page, despite getting ink on her hands, and threw it across the room against the wall. What if this novel was utter rubbish? Should it all be in the dustbin? Why weren’t her golden thoughts working to attract her beloved Milor, as she called him in her diary. Even her last novels had been letdowns. The Reason Why had not been well received, and Halcyone, which she’d hoped would be her intellectual book, her masterpiece, had been misunderstood and even mocked for its pretensions. And now she had ideas to write a book she would call The Man and the Moment, and had that somehow passed her by with Milor? Had she given him too much too fast?
Drat, she actually wished Lucile was here to talk to, even though lately they went weeks in their own worlds without a word, or subtly sniped at each other when they were together. But whatever would she do without her, even if it was to argue and scold, trying to one-up each other? Sometimes, though she’d never tell Lucile, she envied her for Cosmo and for her new shops and designs—and her luxurious, glamorous maiden-voyage trip on that new wonder of a steamship.
She glanced at the clock. Mother used to say that nothing good ever happened after midnight, so maybe she should try to sleep or at least send both her daughters some golden thoughts and Lucile and Cosmo, too.
Elinor pulled out another sheet of paper and stared hard at its vast, white blankness. It seemed so big, so cold, almost dangerous. Though it was quite warm in here, she shivered.
Trying to go to sleep, Lucile said a quick prayer and fretted briefly about how Elinor had gone overboard for Lord Curzon. She hoped Cosmo would be in a better mood and rested in the morning. He was a dear to come on this voyage with her, and she was worried he wouldn’t like New York with all its bustle and rush—and how busy she was there, so busy . . .
She stepped off into sleep but something woke her. A jolt nearly flung her out of bed. She bumped her head on the wall above her pillow. One of the vases of flowers in the room crashed to the floor.
“Franks, are you all right?”
“I’m up. I felt something earlier. I just looked out in the hall. The lights are out. And what’s that funny rumbling noise?”
“Sounds like the engines straining. I wish they wouldn’t try to set some sort of speed record on this first voyage.”
She had been chilled, even with their electric stove, so she had not completely undressed. Now, especially with the glass on the floor, she jammed her feet back in her shoes, seized her fur coat from the foot of the bed, pulled it on, and got up.
“I can’t believe there would be anything wrong with the engines on this ship,” she said. Her voice shook. “It sounds like someone rolling large balls on a wooden bowling alley. I’m going to check on Cosmo.”
She wrapped her coat she’d been using for an extra blanket tightly around her. Fumbling for her purse in which she had both cabin keys, she went across the hall. Amid many voices and some people rushing past, a man’s voice down the way carried to her, though he was speaking to someone else: “I hear there’s ice on the deck. Can we have hit something? Someone said an iceberg.”
The corridor lights were flickering now—perhaps it was only some sort of electrical problem. She unlocked her husband’s door and went in. Unbelievably, he must be sound asleep because he was snoring.
“Cosmo, dear, the ship is having some sort of problem. People are most disturbed and many are up. I heard someone say we might have hit an iceberg.”
She touched his shoulder. He startled. “Lucile, it’s damn cold out there and so is the draft from the hall. Go back to bed. This ship is built with watertight compartments. It may slow down their race for the crossing record, but go back to bed and don’t worry.”
Upset he was so gruff, she went back out. But, with Franks standing in the door of their cabin, she told her, “I’m going out on deck to see what I can learn. I’ll be right back.”
The night was blank black. The ice cold wind cut right through her coat and froze her face. “Nothing but temporary trouble,” she heard someone down the deck say. “Word from a steward is not to worry.”
She exhaled a sigh of relief that turned to a puffy cloud the wind ripped away. But as she went back to her cabin to assure Franks all was well, a deadly silence fell. The constant hum and slight vibration of the ship’s engines had stopped. The sudden silence was terrifying, especially when it had been filled with the distant sound of raised, panicked voices.
She ran back to Cosmo’s cabin. He was up and getting dressed. “Strange sounds,” he told her. “I’m going to check things out. Get dressed—doubly dressed—and not in those flimsy dance shoes, just in case.”
In case of what? she wondered. Thank God this was an unsinkable ship.
However exhausted she was, Elinor could not sleep. She wrapped herself in an old lilac-and-pink Lucile cape and jammed her feet in shoes. Taking an electric torch, she went out the back door of the small house, hoping not to wake her mother, and stepped out under the fading stars that the rising sun was devouring. She clicked off her light, wishing she’d managed more sleep.
The wind was a bit chill for April fourteenth—no, it was the fifteenth now, the Ides, as Julius Caesar would have called it. Beware the Ides of March, she recalled the line from Shakespeare that was to warn Caesar just before he was assassinated.
She went out and sat in the swing her daughters had once enjoyed when visiting their grandmama. It creaked, and the wind rustled the new leaves of the apple tree. What time would it be aboard the Titanic now? she wondered. If the ship were close enough to New York, it would be about seven hours from daylight for them. Well, she’d hear it all from Lucile, whether she wanted to or not.
Elinor scratched her ear and was surprised to realize she still had Milor’s gift of emerald earrings on. He had said those would remind her that he wanted to remain her close friend, no matter what, through thick and thin. Now she feared, they were a farewell gift. Her trust in golden thoughts and angel guardians was useless. So hard to say good-bye. But if this separation of theirs was to be permanent, she somehow knew how it felt to die.
Cosmo, thank God, returned to the cabin quickly. “I’m glad to see you both warmly dressed, though I’ve been assured it’s nothing dire. Still, they are taking the covers off the lifeboats, and it is captain’s orders we are to wear our lifebelts. Just keep calm. Think of it as a drill, and I’m certain we will be all right.”
Cosmo’s deep voice had always calmed her, but Lucile sensed his alarm. They helped each other don and strap on the awkward, clumsy belts. The three of them went onto the port side of the ship and there saw a scene of horror.
“Who the hell is in charge?” Cosmo asked, as if speaking to himself.
They huddled back against the ship wall—was it tilting slightly?—as screaming people charged the lifeboats. They rushed for places on them, shoving others aside, even screaming women and crying children. From somewhere in the chaos, officers on megaphones roared, “Women and children first! Stand back! Order! Order here!”
Cosmo’s arm came tight around her. She leaned into him, and Franks pressed close to her. “I’ll get you two on a boat,” he shouted over the noise. “It might be more serious than they’ve said. I think the deck is listing.”
Just then a lifeboat in front of them tilted from its uneven weight and cast shrieking people into the cold blackness of the sea. Everyone on deck gasped, but the shouts for help far below soon quieted.
“No!” she told Cosmo, gripping his arm. “I won’t leave you, no matter what! Maybe we can put Franks—”
“I will stay with you!” Franks cried over the renewed noise on deck. “Please let me stay with you, milady!”
A sharp noise split the night, and the flare of red rockets overhead screamed into the sky. “SOS flares,” Cosmo muttered. “From the other side of the ship. Let’s try that instead of this hell here.”
He seized Lucile’s elbow and propelled her inside with Franks following. He nearly bounced off the door on the shuddering deck but managed to open it. People fled at them, pushing at the door. They staggered across the width of the ship as it jolted, lurched, and went even more atilt. That pressed them into the wall of the corridor, but they fought their way on.