Sunday, April 14, 1912
At the service on Sunday in the first-class dining room, Katie couldn’t believe her eyes. She had thought the dining room in steerage was a sight to behold. But this room, so beauteous, its woodwork so new and shiny, even its ceiling embossed, its long, arched windows made of smoky glass was like nothing she had ever seen before. How fine it all was!
If only Paddy had agreed to come with her and Marta. Father Byles had said it was all right for them to attend the service, though it wasn’t Catholic, as long as they also attended his Mass in third class, which Katie had done. But while Marta had eagerly embraced the notion of seeing with her own eyes a first-class facility, Paddy had refused, saying, “Why would I want to be around them people that stared at us like we was freaks?” Brian, too, had refused, saying he had scheduled a game of cards in the smoking room.
So Katie and Marta had joined a small group from third class, mostly women, who thought it a fine idea to get a look at the huge room where the “tony people” ate.
“Not in my wildest dreams,” Katie whispered to Marta as the captain began reading, “would I imagine such a room as this. ’Tisn’t it fine, then? To think that somethin’ so wondrous would be on a ship. ’Tis just a ship, after all.”
“No,” Marta disagreed, also in a whisper, “it is not just a ship. It is the Titanic, and everything on it is like nothing ever seen before. I will be so happy to tell my mother and father what I have seen here.”
The pretty girl who had argued with her mother on that awful morning in third class was in the crowd, dressed in a navy blue skirt and jacket that looked to Katie to be made of the finest wool. She was standing between her parents. All were so nattily attired and well-groomed, they made Katie think of an advertisement in a magazine. The three made a lovely picture. Any artist who might paint them standing like that would surely title his work “A Happy Family.”
When the last hymn had been sung, Katie was reluctant to leave. She wanted to stay a while, sit in one of the fine chairs and try to imagine what it must be like to be surrounded by such luxury. The girl in the blue dress must travel in this way all the time. Fortune had smiled on her. How lovely it must be to never have to trouble yourself about the future.
Reluctantly trailing along behind the other third-class passengers returning to their quarters, Katie wondered if that girl knew how lucky she was. Could be she didn’t. If you’d never had troubles, you wouldn’t know what they were, and so you wouldn’t give them a thought. Or so it seemed to Katie.
Still, when she passed the girl and her family on her way out of the dining room, Katie was struck by the fact that the pretty face didn’t seem untroubled. That was a bit of a surprise. There was a frown, there, on her forehead, and was there not a droop to the mouth? Didn’t the eyes seem a bit red-rimmed, as if there had been tears recently?
Of course, that couldn’t possibly be the truth of it. Why would a girl like that be shedding tears?
I’m imaginin’ things, she told herself. I don’t need to be thinkin’ that someone born into such good fortune could have troubles. She looks that way because she’s been concentrating on the service, that’s all, and I would have been better off doing the same.
When they returned to steerage, she went straight to the general room in search of Eileen and the two children, to see if Bridey had suffered any ill effects from last night’s accident. The little girl seemed fine, which Katie regarded as a good thing since Eileen, dancing in the arms of the Norwegian, was paying no more attention to Bridey than she had before the fall.
Katie took the children out on deck for a breath of fresh air later that afternoon. She was taken aback by how much colder the air had become. Her shawl was woefully inadequate, and Bridey had left her coat folded on a bench inside. They had only been on deck a few minutes when Kevin’s teeth began chattering with cold.
“Fresh air ain’t goin’ to do you any good if you catch pneumonia,” Katie said, and took them back inside, thinking that it was a good thing the Atlantic Ocean was saltwater, or it would be frozen solid and then how would they sail on it?
“Might be icebergs about,” a crewman commented as a shivering Katie returned to the general room. “Seems cold enough. Seen them around these parts before, on other trips. Big as houses, some o’ them.”
Big as houses? Alarmed, Katie asked, “There’s no danger, is there?”
The crewman laughed. “No, ma’am, I don’t guess so. It’d take a lot more than an old berg to do damage to the Titanic.”
But Katie was picturing a chunk of ice the size of a house floating toward them on the open sea. The thought made her stomach begin to churn. Was it really true, as the crewman had said, that an object so large could collide with the Titanic and cause no harm?
She would ask Paddy and Brian what they thought.
But she had to wait all afternoon, as they didn’t return from their card games until just before supper. She didn’t want to ruin the meal, so she kept her worries to herself until afterward, when they were all back in the general room. A party had already begun, and Brian went off to dance with Marta, leaving Katie alone with Paddy.
“There’s talk of ice,” she said abruptly over the sound of the accordion and the pipes. “Bergs as big as houses. Do you think that’s likely, Paddy?”
He nodded. “Of course. I was out on deck a while ago. It’s turned cold as an icehouse out there. Could be bergs. Why? You’re not troublin’ yourself about it, are you? You don’t trust the captain to steer the ship through an ice field?”
Katie thought about that for a minute. “I don’t even know the captain,” she answered then. “You haven’t seen him walkin’ around down here talkin’ to all us third-class passengers, have you, now? How would I be knowin’ whether or not I should trust him?”
“Well, he’s got us this far. I guess he can take us the rest of the way. Anyways, the shipping line wouldn’t trust a ship as fine as this one to just any old captain, would they? Don’t you think they’d hire the best? The one with the most experience?” Then Paddy said the words Katie had been hoping to hear. “Quit troublin’ yourself about icebergs and come dance with me.”
Whirling in his arms, Katie forgot about the crewman’s words and let the music lift her feet off the floor.
Elizabeth had agreed to meet Max on the boat deck at nine o’clock. She almost changed her mind and went to bed instead, wanting nothing more than to huddle deep beneath the coverlet and wallow in her misery. Besides, he’d be disappointed again that she’d failed to talk herself out of a loveless marriage. She didn’t want to see the look on his face when she shared that depressing bit of news with him.
She went, after all, only because she needed to see him. Not that seeing him would change anything. But it would make her feel better.
She listened at the door of her parents’ cabin before she left her own. Silence. She hadn’t heard their door closing, but that was probably because she’d been lost in her own thoughts. They wouldn’t have gone to bed this early, so the silence meant they’d gone out.
Elizabeth threw on the gray cloak, left her room, and hurried down the corridor and up the stairs to meet Max.
He was very understanding at first. It was too cold to stay outside, so he led her into the warmer gymnasium, which was nearly empty. Many people were attending a concert being performed by the ship’s orchestra; others were playing cards or eating in the restaurant. Max and Elizabeth sat on side-by-side stationary bicycles to talk.
“It’s not your fault,” he said sympathetically. “Maybe a sea voyage isn’t the place to discuss such serious matters. When you get home, it’ll be different.”
“When I get home,” Elizabeth said bitterly, “my debut will begin immediately. There won’t be any time to talk. I was counting on this trip. It seemed to me the ideal time to talk to them, since the only way they could avoid me would be to jump overboard.”
Max laughed.
Elizabeth did not. “I didn’t realize they’d be so busy all the time, or that even when they weren’t, they wouldn’t really listen.” She would almost certainly have to endure the debut season, and it looked very much as if college was out of the question, at least for a while. It could take her years to wear them down. All of which meant life was going to be pretty dismal when she returned to New York in three days. The only bright spot she could think of was having Max Whittaker in that life. Without him…
Elizabeth shuddered at the thought of life without Max.
“Max, if you agree to take just one or two college courses, your parents will let you study painting at the same time. You won’t be disowned, and my parents won’t have any reason to keep me from seeing you.”
“We’ve already had this discussion, Elizabeth,” Max said firmly. “I haven’t changed my mind. Pigheaded or not, it’s time for me to go out on my own. When you think about it, leaving home is the only way to grow up, right?”
Every girl Elizabeth knew expected to go straight from her parents’ home to her husband’s home. Young women did not leave their parents until they married. Even Monica Beaumont, who was attending Vassar, still lived at home when she wasn’t attending classes. Young women did not live on their own.
“Just because a person never lives in a garret somewhere in New York City,” she said indignantly, sliding off the bicycle seat to stand up, “doesn’t mean that person never grows up. Marrying and raising children is very maturing, I’m sure. My mother’s not a child.” The minute the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. Everything she had ever told Max about her mother had made Nola sound like a spoiled child. If he laughed now, she would never speak to him again.
He laughed. Then, seeing the look of fury on Elizabeth’s face, he sobered and said seriously, “Well, my mother is very childlike. My father caters to her every whim, but he also treats her like she doesn’t have a brain in her head. She knows that’s not true, and I know it’s not true, and I’m pretty sure he knows it. But they pretend. When she gets unhappy or restless because she isn’t doing anything very interesting, he brings home a new fur from the store, and she pretends it’s what she wanted all along. They play this game, and it keeps peace in the family, so…” Completely serious now, he added, “I would never treat you like that, Elizabeth, whether or not you ever go to college. I know you have a brain, and I know you’re not a child. But you have to prove that to your parents by not acting like one. By insisting on having what you need.”
Elizabeth stared at him. He was lecturing her! Talking to her as if she couldn’t figure that much out for herself. And saying at the same time that he knew she had a brain! He certainly wasn’t treating her as if he believed that.
“Compromising is part of being grown-up, too,” she said coldly, turning away from him. “Since you’re not willing to do that, not even so we can see each other in New York, I guess you’re not any more mature than I am, even though you’re older and have lived in Paris. So why should I take advice from you?” She began walking away.
Behind her, she heard, “Elizabeth, don’t storm off like this. Wait.”
Elizabeth was becoming very weary of walking away from arguments. She seemed always to be storming out of a room: her parents’ stateroom, the dining room, the restaurant, and now the gymnasium. But what else was there to do when people refused to listen to her? To take her seriously?
She kept walking. When she exited the gymnasium and the frigid air outside took her breath away, she remembered Max’s earlier remarks about ice in the area. Though she had wished then for an ice field, to slow down the Titanic and give her more time, now she wanted nothing more than to race straight to New York and put an end to this useless, disappointing voyage.
Max did not follow her.
Hurt and angry, Elizabeth locked her cabin door and threw herself across her bed, too furious to cry, too despondent to sit up and close the porthole, which someone, probably her mother, had opened again. The air streaming in through the opening was so bitterly cold, she wouldn’t have been surprised to find frost on the coverlet.
She buried herself in the bedding for warmth and as she fell asleep, she made up her mind to stay exactly where she was until they arrived in New York Harbor on Wednesday.