Chapter Fifty-One
“Caroline is a better match for you than I am,” Lillian said, touching his shoulder. They were sitting together in the breakfast room of Caroline’s house, looking out the window at Caroline with the baby in the garden.
Lillian missed nothing. Her big blue eyes seemed to take in everything. Mark cursed himself; had she caught him looking too intently at the way Caroline moved through the manicured rows of flowers? He could always claim he felt indebted to Caroline—which was true. They owed her much and there was no arguing that. But Lillian was no fool.
“No woman could compare with your beauty,” he said, kissing her hand. It was true: Lillian could be a model for illustrations in women’s magazines. If she chose, her face could sell tea, perfume, soap. Except that it was hard to imagine her sitting still. She could perform on any stage in the West End (if she could act, but alas, she could not—she was far too dramatic for it).
“Beauty fades,” she said, her voice tipped with the silver of need. “Will you still love me then, I wonder? When I am old—”
He laughed. “To me, you’ll always be this young and this beautiful.” He could tell she wasn’t satisfied by his flattery. Lillian had changed over the past few months. Ever since Ondine had arrived. Her mood shifted without warning. She cried at the sight of a stray kitten, at a rain stain on her sleeve, at anything. He’d always loved the dark, complex winding of her thoughts, but now they seemed always to tremble at the edge of an abyss. She never slept, even when the child did.
The thing was, she wasn’t wrong to be uneasy. Mark knew he was changing, too—and he blamed her for it.
Mark had resisted joining the two women for as long as he could, in this perfect house, where the outside world could be shut out at the gates. Eventually, he could resist no more and left his lonely rooms to live with them, and then he could barely stand to leave them to go to work. His days were perfect. He had Caroline at dinner and for long walks through the woods, Caroline’s educated mind and clever tongue to entertain and engage him with fascinating stories about life in America. At night, he had Lillian in his bed. Lillian racing through his veins.
He knew he was being selfish and that it couldn’t last, one man with two perfect women, but by the same token, he couldn’t walk away from it. The longer he indulged, the harder it would be to give up—it would take some external force to pry him out of this love nest.
That force was Caroline’s imminent departure for America.
The lawyers had finished their work. Caroline had the necessary documents ready and could finally return home. For this momentous occasion, Caroline decided to book passage on the maiden voyage of a new passenger ship, RMS Titanic, said to be the biggest and most luxurious liner of the day. It was expensive, yes, but Caroline wanted to celebrate what she saw as the turning point of her life. Mark wouldn’t admit it, but he was a little jealous. What he wouldn’t give to start a new life in a new country, and to do it in luxury, not to have to scrimp and struggle as he and Lillian had done before Caroline entered their lives.
That evening, as their stroll was drawing to a close, Caroline had handed him an envelope. “If I have misread your intentions of the past month, please forgive me,” she said, her cheeks coloring. “But if I let this opportunity slip through my fingers, I’d never forgive myself.”
He opened the envelope: it held a first-class ticket for the Titanic.
“Join me—or don’t, and I will know your answer,” she said before running away, leaving him openmouthed at the garden gate.
He spent the night and the next morning in a daze. It was as though Caroline had read his mind—but now he doubted whether he knew what he wanted. He’d held Lillian in bed that night, wondering if he could bear to leave her. He tried to picture life as Caroline’s husband—in America, no less. Would he be expected to run her business interests? What would be his role, when he understood nothing about America, its laws or its ways? He could end up Caroline’s lapdog, a conversation piece (“an English husband, how interesting!”) for her American friends.
And there was Ondine to consider. He had grown to hate the thought of parting with her, of sending her off to America alone with Caroline. The more he thought about it, the more heartless it seemed. Was he that kind of man? Lillian slept unaware while Mark tossed and fretted. At one very dark point, he almost rose to pick up his straight razor and slit his own throat. What kind of man had he become? This was intolerable, insane. Impossible.
He was hunched over his ledger at work the next day when the solution came to him: we shall both go to America with Caroline. He no longer cared about what he would do—he and Lillian could become Caroline’s servants, lady’s maid and butler, in order to remain close—but he would not abandon his daughter. During his tea break, he went to a pawnshop and asked how much he might get for the first-class ticket, then ran to the White Star Line office to see about prices of second- and third-class tickets. Only then would he tell Lillian about his plan. He didn’t want to get her hopes up, not when she had been so black of late.
But when he returned home that evening, Lillian was not there.
The first-class ticket sat on the nightstand, pulled from its envelope.
She’d discovered where he’d hidden it hurriedly in the pages of a book. She’d always been suspicious, even before. He should’ve known.
But the worst was yet to come.
It was a horrible scene, one his mind could not make sense of. Refused to make sense of.
What have you done, Lillian?
It was a misunderstanding.
He would find her. Make every apology, every assurance ever known to a man.
He loved her. He’d marry her, at last.
They would find a way, no matter what.
Except that they would not. Because he never saw Lillian alive again.
Mark lifts the bottle of Scotch and tips it upside down over his glass, for the last streaky drops of amber. The whiskey was good, a bottle found hidden in a drawer in one of the doctors’ offices.
He leans over the map he found in Annie’s pocket. It’s almost dry now, laid out on a table and its edges weighted down with books. It’s crinkled and there’s some bleeding of the ink, but it’s legible. He’s looked it over for the last hour and thinks he’s made sense of it: it’s a chart of the Kea Channel off the Greek coast. It’s in the Cyclades, which has the reputation of being windy and hazardous, considered an ancient Greek curse upon sailors. He’s no seaman, but the chart certainly looks treacherous, dotted with many islands and the space between them marked with quickly changing depths and soundings.
Most troubling are the notations—freshly made by hand—that, as best Mark can figure, mark the location of sea mines. The German mines have been an increasing threat to ships in the area, he’s heard. And now: the Britannic is steaming up the southeastern coast of Greece, bearing down on the Cyclades, at this very minute. The captain needs to see this map right away.
As he rolls it up, he can’t help but wonder how it came to be in Annie’s possession.
He steps into the alleyway, wondering where he might find Captain Bartlett at this hour of the morning, when he hears muffled singing. He recognizes the tune: it’s “Nearer My God to Thee” and then he remembers: the morning church service is going on, probably in the mess hall, the largest gathering place. Captain Bartlett will surely be there, perhaps even leading.
Mark tugs at his clothing, unchanged since the day before. He feels rumpled and untidy, and his mind swims in the whiskey. He tries to smooth down his hair. Its natural curl has been unleashed by sweat and humidity and it makes him look like a madman, one of the many unkempt shell-shocked.
He lurches toward the service as fast as he can with his injuries, but it’s hard to navigate the ship with a cane and he nearly goes sprawling several times, catching the tip on a railing or doorsill. As he makes his way down flights of stairs, he is unnerved by how much like the Titanic this ship is—even without the fine touches, servants and musicians, female passengers in silk dresses and wildly plumed hats, alcohol fumes and cigar smoke and perfume. It’s like he’s stepped back in time—or perhaps is a ghost haunting the present day.
The sound of singing grows closer. He can make out the words now:
Though like the wanderer, the sun gone down,
darkness be over me, my rest a stone;
Yet in my dreams I’d be
Nearer, my God, to thee . . .
He feels the presence of many souls on the other side of the door and can picture them sitting on the benches, sailors in their uniforms, nurses in their pinafores and wimples, soldiers in dressing gowns, sleeves or trouser legs pinned up and neatened for a missing arm or leg. The smell of breakfast, long past, lingers on the air. Fried kippers and beans, coffee and tea. Human smells. Such human affairs, even the worshipping of a God is quintessentially human. The wavering sound of unaccompanied song.
The presence—of life, of faith—emanating from beyond the door is strong and thrums with heat and life—while he is dead and cold and has been these four years since Lillian’s death.
Stop thinking about Lillian. We are sailing into danger. I must tell the captain. Mark wills himself to push everything else out of his head. Annie, Lillian, his daughter. He clutches the rolled-up map tighter to his chest and reaches for the door.
But it doesn’t budge. He can’t open it.
It wouldn’t be locked, not for a church service. That’s absurd. All are welcome.
He tries again, but the handle merely turns in his hand. Spins loosely at his touch. He bangs on the wood. They must be able to hear that inside—why doesn’t someone get up and open the door for him? But nothing happens; it’s as though they can’t hear him, as though he’s in another dimension. As though he’s a ghost.
Or as though the church won’t allow him in.
He remembers from a childhood story that witches and demons can’t cross the threshold of a sacred place.
It’s all in your head, old boy.
But it’s not, and he knows it.
He bangs on the doors some more, rattles the handles again, but still no one comes to his aid. Finally, he stumps back out into the alleyway until he can no longer hear the singing. What sounded sweetly human moments ago, now sounds eerie, threatening, and deafeningly loud. A cacophony of innocence.
In his frustration and confusion, a crazy idea flits through his head.
Maybe Annie is telling the truth. After all he’s experienced the past few days, he must admit that Annie’s story is the only thing that makes sense.
And what’s more—maybe she’s not the only ghost.
He starts to come alive, reverberating with a new thought. Maybe there is one last redemption. It’s his fault Lillian is dead, he’s known that all along. Living with the guilt, trying to hide it by marrying Caroline. He killed her with neglect. This dubheasa, this sea witch or whatever Annie called her, may have claimed Lillian, but fate has given him the chance to save his daughter. What was it Annie said—the sea witch wants her innocents? Ondine is innocent, but he’ll be damned if the sea is going to claim her.
If everyone is in the service this morning, that means the wheelhouse and bridge will be minimally staffed. There will be few men to get in his way. Mark knows what he needs to do. To end this curse at last. To end it all.
That’s why the map ended up in his possession. It was important that he knows where the sea mines are.
Rising again to his feet, Mark Fletcher starts off for the bridge. And his destiny.