By the Light of the Silvery Moon (3 page)

Finally, his turn. He approached the steward and handed him the ticket with a heavy sigh.

“Sir?” the steward asked, eyeing him.

“Dratted motorcars.” Quentin spoke with a lilt. “My friend offered a ride and the beast broke down.” He shook his head, looking at his pants. “And guess who was the one on the ground, checking the motor? Yessir, you guessed it.” Quentin smiled. “At least I can be guaranteed this ride. No break downs, right, lad?”

“Uh, no sir.” A smile lifted the steward’s rosy cheeks. “I do say you’re in for a fine ride from here on out.” The steward studied the ticket and then handed it back. “Glad to have you, Mr. Gladstone. Your room is on B deck. At the top of the gangplank, continue down the hall, and then take the grand staircase up one level. Enjoy the voyage. I can’t imagine anything but smooth sailing today.”

Amelia stepped into the second-class room. Two mahogany beds were bunked, one on top of the other. A sitting bench and cupboard filled the opposite wall. In the center, built against the wall between the two, was a wash basin with running water, drawers, a mirror, and a lamp.

Imagine that, running water!

It was far nicer than she’d imagined. For so long she’d never thought she’d board any ship, and now she was a passenger on the finest ever built. What would her mother think of this?

Her hands quivered as she set down her aunt’s small suitcase on the floor. Most of their things—all they owned—had been crated up and stored below, deep in the ship’s belly. A few more of their suitcases would soon be delivered to their room.

Amelia bit her lip. She told herself again that she was making the right choice by leaving what she knew to venture into a future in America, and possibly a future with Mr. Chapman. It wasn’t as if her mother had ever come looking for her in Southampton. Twelve years she had stayed with her aunt—her mother’s sister-in-law. Aunt Neda had married her mother’s brother, but they’d only been married ten years when sickness took Uncle Rupert.

While Uncle Rupert had stayed on land and had married Neda and had two children, Amelia’s mother had taken to the sea. She’d worked as a stewardess from the time she was sixteen, until Amelia was born when she was twenty-two. She knew that good mothers settled down, and she’d tried that for a time. They moved near Aunt Neda and had provided comforting arms during Uncle Rupert’s passing. But as Amelia grew, her mother often took her down to the docks to watch the ships departing.

Then one day, with little more than a brief explanation that “the sea is calling,” Mother’s things were packed up and Amelia—only six years old—was taken to live with Aunt Neda. As Amelia grew, she wondered if it was more than the sea that called. She never knew her father, but her mother had told her once she met him on a ship. Was it love—his love—that had drawn her mother away? A love even deeper than that for her own daughter?

In the last twelve years, not a day passed when Amelia didn’t wonder if it would be the day she’d hear a soft knock on the door and she’d open it to see her mother’s smile.

But that had not been the case, and all Amelia had left from her mother were memories of her first six years and stories of her mother’s many trips across the sea as a stewardess.

Mother had told Amelia about sleeping on a thin bunk with rats as her bed mates, and Amelia thought that on a ship like this, even the rats would be forced into coats and hats.

“This is a fine room.” Aunt Neda settled onto the sitting bench and removed her hat pin, placing her simple bonnet on the bed. “There is even a small desk where you could write letters to your Mr. Chapman.”

“Yes, Mr. Chapman.” Even as she said that name, Amelia couldn’t help but think of the man she’d given the ticket to on the dock. Had he boarded? Was he situating himself in the room next door even now?

Amelia lowered herself onto the sitting bench. “I do suppose I could take time to write a letter, although since Mr. Chapman is the one meeting us in New York, a letter couldn’t possibly beat us to him.”

Her aunt’s eyes locked with hers, and Amelia could see questions there. Questions whether they’d made the right choice leaving everything. Questions if he was the right man for Amelia. They were the same questions that stirred in Amelia’s heart.

“Yes, that is true. I just supposed that if you had any romantic notions, quickened by the ocean breeze, you very well could write them down.”

“Of course, Aunt, if I have any romantic notions.” Amelia breathed out a soft sigh, wishing it could be so.

The problem was she didn’t know the man’s first name. She had yet to see a photograph. She’d been so sure of her decision to leave Southampton, but her and her aunt’s future now depended on the man who’d sent their passage. Surely her cousin Elizabeth had decent taste and a sharp eye. Amelia’s whole future depended on that.

Tears filled Quentin’s eyes as he sank into the bathtub in the common bathroom. His first real bath in weeks. Or was it months? He didn’t know. And that bath had only been in a public fountain.

Time had become a flowing river. He slept under whatever bridge wasn’t already occupied. Worked menial jobs with hopes of a decent meal for supper. And along the dark, raging river of time, he left behind so-called friends, vengeful enemies, regrets, curses, tears.

He lifted his hand from the warm water and looked at it. His knuckles were cracked and bloody from more than one bar fight. He lifted his arm farther. Thin, covered with sores. His fingers probed his chest. Only a layer of skin, not an ounce of fat, covered his ribs. Amazement filled him that one could fall so low and still live. Still hope.

The ship. The
Titanic.
News of its arrival had spread through London. Many had traveled to Southampton to view the sight. From the first moment Quentin saw it, he desired to be aboard its maiden voyage. London had robbed everything from him. Maybe returning to America would reverse his fate.

A memory of other voyages he’d taken filled his mind. He cupped his hands and filled them with the warm, fragrant water, pouring it over his head as if the water could wash away the past. Wash away recollections of how things used to be—before.

A knock sounded at the door and Quentin tensed. Had he been discovered? As soon as he boarded he hadn’t taken one moment to explore the ship like everyone else. Instead he dropped off the borrowed sweater in front of Mr. McHenry’s door, found his room, dropped his coat on the bed, and then hurried to the modest second-class bathroom and locked himself in, lest anyone question what such riffraff was doing aboard. Only when he and his clothes were cleaned up would he dare show his face.

Would anyone bother him if he stayed in his room? He’d hole up there if he had to, leaving only in the darkest part of the night to steal food. If he’d excelled at anything over the past two years on the streets, that was it.

Another knock sounded. “Sir, a delivery,” a man’s voice called.

A desire to protect himself battled with curiosity. He rose from the bath and slid on the white cotton robe he’d snagged from an opened, unoccupied room on his way to the bath—telling himself he’d return that later, too. He hurried to the door, his wet feet sliding on the white tiled floor. He opened the door a crack.

A steward stood there. One of the two who’d carried him off. But instead of anger flashing in the man’s eyes, the steward’s lips lifted in a slight smile.

He doesn’t recognize me.

The steward held up a small, cardboard suitcase. “So sorry to interrupt, sir, but there is a delivery from a lady. She asked that this be brought to you right away. When I told her you weren’t in your room, another steward mentioned he saw you enter here. Your friend was certain you’d want your things.”

Quentin reached for the handle of the suitcase. “Yes, of course. Thank you. I was—uh—in need of this.” He rubbed his forehead. “And I forgot where my—uh—friend told me she was staying. The excitement of the journey has emptied my mind of every other detail, I’m afraid.” He took the suitcase from the man’s hand.

The steward cocked his eyebrow. “In the room right next to yours, sir—toward the stern. Although the young lady is not present in the room at this moment. She’s stepped to the upper deck for the cast off.”

“Yes, of course. Thank you again.”

The man didn’t leave. The steward perhaps expected a coin, and he had none.

Quentin took the suitcase and put it inside the door, noticing the steward eyeing his cut cheek. Then his hair. The steward looked closer and his brow furrowed.

Without another word, Quentin shut the bathroom door. He touched his hand to his face then looked at his fingers. Blood. He hoped the gash hadn’t stirred the man’s memory. To have his identity questioned. Then again, why should he worry? He had a ticket. He had the woman to back up his story that he was indeed Henry Gladstone.

Not that the steward could do anything about it even if the truth was discovered. They’d be out at sea soon. The worst that could happen was he’d be locked up or watched over. Either way, he’d make it to America. He considered opening the suitcase and going through its contents, but his instinct kicked in, telling him to leave, to run back to the safety of his room, to hide.

Quentin finished bathing, dressed in his dirty pants and shirt, and then hurried back to his room that had two beds and a mahogany bureau. His heartbeat quickened at the thought of sleeping in a bed again. Of sleeping with a pillow, between fresh, clean sheets that had never been slept in.

He placed the suitcase on the white bed covering. With a slight quiver of his hand, he opened the latches. Clothes. He pulled out a pair of new pants, a white shirt, and a jacket. A modest pair of shoes were tucked beside them, and under those yet another outfit.

He lifted the jacket. A note fluttered to the ground. He picked it up. It smelled like the woman—soft and sweet like her perfume. Then he read:

“Amelia,” he whispered, refolding the note and placing it on the bed. So that was the name of his angel of mercy.

He looked at the jacket, and eagerness filled him. He would dress in these clothes and perhaps meet her and her aunt for supper. His only worry, though, was that his lack of excitement over this fine vessel would give him away. Amelia was wrong—he
had
seen such finery. Lived in places grander than this. But for a ship, he guessed, it was the nicest he’d seen.

With a damp hand, he fingered the white cuff of the shirt.

I’ll pretend to be awed by it all. For her.

F
reshly bathed and in his new clothes, Quentin made his way to the second-class deck, amazed at the number of visitors and reporters who still strolled the decks so close to casting off. An older gentleman strode by in a white pinstriped suit. Even if the man was in second class, he dressed the part of someone from first class. Quentin was no stranger to playing the part of someone he wasn’t. He’d done it for years, living on the streets of London. He did it now. The ticket in his pocket read H
ENRY
G
LADSTONE
. He wondered what had caused Henry to skip the ship.
Poor Henry, missing out.

Many people browsed the library, which still smelled of fresh paint. Quentin glanced into the room filled with books and polished wood, looking for the woman who’d given him the ticket. In addition to those who strode around the library, two men sat at a small table, relaxed and talking as if they spent every afternoon in such a manner.