The Lifeboat: A Novel (9 page)

THE NEXT MORNING
Lisette pointed to something floating on the water on the starboard side of the boat. It turned out to be Rebecca’s cap, and I closed my eyes against the possibility that the next thing we might see floating by would be Rebecca Frost herself.

Mary Ann began to cry and wail. It was a pitiful sound and would have been heartrending if I had not gone long past pity and if it weren’t for the clearly advantageous fact that the boat was now two people lighter than when we had started out. Besides, there was nothing practical we could do about it. As it was, I felt a profound irritation and an urge to throttle Mary Ann. Mrs. Grant, who was sitting two rows ahead of us, made her way back and squeezed in between us and put her arm around Mary Ann’s shoulders. It was well over an hour—nearly two shifts of bailers—before she became quiet and fell asleep against Mrs. Grant’s immovable shoulder, but my resentment persisted. Why should weakness get rewarded like that? I would have liked to lean against Mrs. Grant too, but I was also a little afraid of her, and it was not something I would ever ask to do. She showed different sides of herself to different people, and she had not yet made any effort to comfort me.

I am trying to be honest. In memory, I can feel a tug at my heartstrings as I think of Mary Ann. She was frail and beautiful. Her engagement diamond slipped uselessly around on her thin finger. The indigo veins on her wrist looked like delicate calligraphy on the white parchment of her skin. In other circumstances we might have been real friends, but there in the boat, I had no sympathy for her. She was weak, unlikely to survive or to be of use in prolonging the lives of others.

I think Hannah and Mrs. Grant had similar thoughts, for later I saw them sitting near the rail with their heads together and serious expressions on their faces, looking now and then at Mary Ann. I had no idea what they were talking about. It would be untrue to say I knew, but I’ll put down here that I did catch the phrases “weakest ones” and “strategy.” Don’t ask me to attribute significance to it. Even now, with all of the benefit of retrospect, I don’t have any inkling of what they meant.

This was our first day with nothing to eat. Not a square of hardtack or a scrap of fish remained, and when Hardie passed around our ration of water, there was scarcely a swallow for each of us in the cup. Mrs. McCain wondered aloud if the water was finished, and Mr. Hardie said it was not. He also assured us that the boat was not leaking, that the rising level of water under the seats was all coming in over the rail. I wanted to believe him, but I didn’t. Again I suspected him of saying things to avert panic, and despite the fact that this was a noble end, I did not like to be lied to. The only time Henry and I had ever disagreed was when he led me to believe that his family knew all about me. “I know you will handle your family as you think best,” I had told him when we first decided to marry, but once his ring was on my finger, I wanted to know the true situation, and eventually we had argued. In the lifeboat, I experienced a similar desire to comprehend exactly where we stood and precisely what we needed to do about it, though it stands to reason that Mr. Hardie did not know the true situation or what to do about it any more than I did. He made his best guess, that was all, which was certainly better than mine. Yet I and others blamed him as if he knew the truth and kept it from us—capriciously, or as a form of punishment for our sins.

Oddly, I liked bailing. It made me feel useful, or maybe it was a feminine desire to order my surroundings. It gave me something to do other than looking out over the terrifyingly black and empty sea. While I bailed, I inspected the bottom of the boat for the leak I knew to be there, but I never found it. Sometimes I imagined I was cleaning the house Henry and I would one day have, which merged in my imagination with the Winter Palace I had designed in my head. I imagined a sun-filled drawing room graced by my grandmother’s Louis Quinze settee, which was to have been given to me as a wedding present if we had not been forced to sell it when we moved. Henry liked blue, so I chose for the walls of the room a robin’s-egg blue—blue enough to please Henry, but nothing masculine or cold. Henry warned me that we might get nothing from his mother, who didn’t approve of our match, but I had every confidence that in time I would win her over.

Anya Robeson refused to bail. She alone was exempt from any sort of duty. She didn’t want to leave little Charlie even for a moment, and they huddled in the very middle of the center thwart like the motionless center of a gyroscope. She was terrified of getting her skirt wet, for once something was soaked with salt water, it took days to dry. It was cold enough, but how to measure the effects of fear and wind, of wet cloth next to raw and salty skin, of the chilling knowledge that in some indecipherable way we were responsible for our lot?

Mrs. Grant talked about trying the sail again, but we had already learned that the wind-filled canvas would cause the boat to heel over and water to pour in over the side. With that in mind, her suggestion was not taken seriously, but I could see that she was trying to present some sort of solution rather than merely sit and hope. Her suggestion was followed by a long, dispirited silence that was finally broken by Mr. Nilsson, who said, “Then we must row.”

Mr. Hardie croaked out what might have been a laugh and said we’d have a hard time merely keeping pace with the current, to which Mr. Nilsson replied: “I don’t mean we should row to America, even if that is the continent to which we are closest. I mean we should row back to England.” He went on to tell us about two Norwegian men who had rowed across the Atlantic Ocean in an eighteen-foot open skiff some years before.

“But those were experienced oarsmen!” exclaimed the Colonel; and it was true that of the eight people Mr. Hardie had assigned to take turns with the oars, only Mr. Nilsson and the Colonel showed any aptitude for rowing.

“And at the top of their form,” added the deacon.

“The alternative seems to be to drift about waiting to die,” said Mr. Nilsson, and after some thought, Hardie agreed. “We might still encounter a passing ship,” he told us, filling my heart with hope until he added, “But then again, we might not.” He went on to say that perhaps the
Empress Alexandra
had drifted out of the proper shipping lane or that the war had affected the number of boats making the crossing, both of which might explain why we had not yet been picked up.

The Colonel and Mr. Nilsson were appointed to school the rest of us in the art of oarsmanship, but many of the women and the older gentleman, Michael Turner, were either too weak or were otherwise unsuited to the task. Once we began rowing, our spirits lifted to see the boat slice through the water with the wind behind it rather than stall as we tried to hold our position against forces for which we were no match. But even those who had been deemed strong enough to row tired easily. After only ten minutes, the Colonel’s oar came loose from its oarlock and fell into the water, and we had to spend precious energy retrieving it. He and Mr. Nilsson and Mrs. Grant were able to last their allotted hour, but most of us lost rhythm after only a few strokes. Our hands blistered despite the cushions Mr. Hardie had fashioned out of strips of blanket, and when Mr. Preston took the oar from me, I dipped my hand into the ocean, thinking the water would soothe it. But I had not accounted for the salt, and I quickly drew it out again, as near to crying as I had been since the
Empress Alexandra
had disappeared beneath the waves. By evening it was apparent that we had not the strength to continue. Mr. Nilsson and Mrs. Grant were the last to ship their oars, taking great care that they were nestled properly in under the rail so as not to be lost. Mrs. Grant’s features did not betray any emotion, but Mr. Nilsson bent his head in defeat and didn’t reply when Mr. Hoffman thumped him on the shoulder and said, “It was a good idea, anyway. We’ll try again tomorrow.”

Mrs. Grant said that if we couldn’t row to Europe, we would have to sail there, and Mr. Hoffman just shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t have to remind us that the boat was too full of people for sailing, and what was meant to be a note of optimism ended the day with a sour chord.

THE NIGHTS WERE
cold, and the more emaciated we became, the less our bodies worked to keep us warm. When I looked at the others, I was shocked to notice their sunken eyes and hollow cheeks. The changes had been gradual, but in the fading light I saw that their lips were chapped to the point of cracking, their eyes seemed glassy and unseeing, and their clothing hung loosely on the unnatural protrusion of their bones. Mr. Hoffman had a line of dried blood under his hairline from when the butt of an oar had hit him in the face, but he seemed unaware of it. There is no doubt that similar ravages had been worked on my own features, but in my inner eye I was unaltered from that last morning on the ship when Henry had watched as I used the looking glass to arrange my hair. There were no more stories, only an occasional sigh or Mrs. Cook’s hacking cough, which had started the day before and gotten progressively worse; and I knew we had all retreated into memory in order to escape the harsh realities of our plight.

I had begun to notice that the closer the
Empress Alexandra
got to New York, the more agitated Henry seemed. He and Mr. Cumberland frequently sought each other out, and I guessed it must have to do with the bank business Henry had told me about, for they often made mention of “our special responsibilities.” The previous night, he had stayed up drinking and talking with a man he had recognized from his family’s social circle, so as I observed his reflection in the glass, I surmised that his vexation might stem from fatigue. It was only later, when he took my hand and drew me into a protected corner of the deck where we could enjoy the sunshine without being exposed to the wind, that I understood the cause of his concern. “I have been drafting messages to my parents,” he said, which aroused my curiosity and then my suspicion that no telegram had yet been sent to inform them of our married state.

At first I was upset because we had been over the same ground several times and he had assured me that the matter had been taken care of. I also couldn’t help but feel that we should not be talking about practicalities on our honeymoon. We should have been laughing over frivolous matters, such as why Mrs. Forester always seemed to be on the verge of tears or how serious and ill at ease Mr. Cumberland looked in his new role as a wealthy banker, or delighting in long silences where we gazed into each other’s eyes, or discovering weighty truths about each other, truths we would wonder over and use as a basis for our growing trust. I started to say I thought the matter had been handled, but Henry put a finger to his lips until a high-spirited couple who had come onto the deck to take some air had passed us by.

Once we were alone again, Henry said, “I received a telegram from my mother this morning, and she says she is bringing Felicity with her to meet the ship.”

“But she can’t do that!” I cried, and my heart grew cold when I realized what Henry was really telling me. “She is thinking that Felicity can win you back!” I said, my voice cracking with something between anger and grief, for the only way his mother could entertain such a misconception was if she thought her son unwed.

We stood for a moment mindful of the ocean stretching on either side of us—in one direction was Europe, where I had been so happy, and in the other lay New York, where who knew what awaited me. “You have put it off too long,” I said. “It is unfair to Felicity and your mother, and it is unfair to me.”

Henry looked like a chastened schoolboy and could only agree. He said he would make the matter right directly after lunch, and I said lunch could wait and he should send a telegram right away. Together we came up with suitable wording, then Henry escorted me back to our suite and rushed off looking either purposeful or relieved, I couldn’t determine which. When he returned, we had to hurry in order to be seated, so we did not broach the subject until the meal was over. “I have taken care of it” was all he said to me, for just when I was going to ask for details, somebody slapped him on the shoulder. It was Mr. Cumberland, who seemed to have some pressing matter to discuss. Henry appeared glad to see him and asked if I could find my way back to our cabin on my own. I thought it was an odd question, as we had been on the ship for over five days. “Of course,” I said, not stopping to wonder about those words the way I wonder about them now. Now I think they are evidence that Henry was still anxious about something, but perhaps there was a worrisome business matter that required his attention and that is what he was thinking of. “I have taken care of it,” he had said, but as I watched the play of moonlight on the water and pulled my life vest more tightly to my body to cut the biting wind, I began to wonder if he had.

I tried to remember what Mr. Cumberland had been saying to Henry as they walked away. It was something about the Marconi and how it had stopped working and so had prevented him from accomplishing some item of business, which is what he wanted to talk to Henry about. Henry had replied, “But I was just there, and it was working just as it should.” Then Henry had glanced over his shoulder at me and nodded before walking away to discuss whatever it was out of my presence.

As I proceeded toward the staircase that would lead to our cabin, my heart leapt a little because these words, if I had heard them correctly, seemed confirmation that Henry had indeed sent the wire to his mother—and just in time, for it was later that afternoon that the
Empress Alexandra
sank. But as I sat in the lifeboat, I wondered if Henry’s pronouncement had not been for Mr. Cumberland’s benefit at all, but for mine. Then I racked my brain for Mr. Cumberland’s exact words, for if they were as I remembered them, they held another meaning with significance far beyond whether or not Henry had informed his family of our marriage. And that was that the Marconi might not have been working at the time of the shipwreck, and if it had not been working, then no wires or signals of any kind had been sent. And if there had been no distress signals, our position all along had been far more precarious than Mr. Hardie had led us to believe.

I sat for a long time with my eyes closed against the darkness, numb with fear and cold. Now and then I dipped my torn hands into the water at my feet for the very purpose of feeling the sting of salt in the wounds. I wanted to feel something besides the fear that enveloped me. Mary Ann was stretched out across my lap, and I shifted my weight not only to find a more comfortable position, but to wake her if she was only sleeping lightly. She breathed deeply but otherwise didn’t stir. “Mary Ann,” I said, leaning down over her ear. “Are you sleeping?”

“What is it?” she said, only half hearing me, and then, when she came more fully awake: “Is something wrong?” But by then I had lost the urge to tell her what I had been thinking so I said, “It’s nothing. Go back to sleep.”

I tried to think nice thoughts about Henry and our time in London, but I couldn’t, and it was nearly dawn before I finally fell asleep.