Titanic Twelve Tales - A Short Story Anthology RMS Titanic (3 page)

They passed through the dock gates. Soon they would be at the quay where the tenders for the great liner would be loading. “Yes, Seamus, you are emigrating and I’m staying at home. I can’t promise to wait for
you,
it’s not fair to either of us. We’ll be worlds apart.”

The cart stopped, the driver tethered the horses and started to help the passengers down.
Bridie
stood up, turned and found Seamus at her elbow.

“Here, at least let me help you down.” He took the heavy basket, jumped down, placed it on the ground and held his arms out for her.

Obligingly, as the rest of the passengers watched, she placed her hands on his shoulders. His hands went to her waist, swung her down and pulled her towards him. His lips descended on hers and stole a kiss. The group of onlookers cheered.

Struggling, she tried to push him away. She shivered in his arms. His lips felt cold and from somewhere lost in an ocean of time she heard him call her name.

When he released her, she stepped back, shocked by what she had felt and imagined. “Who gave you leave to be kissing me?” But she gave him no time to answer. “I need my wares. I have to queue with the other sellers, only a few of us are allowed on board. I’m sorry Seamus. I wish you well and Gran said you’re not to wait when you get the chance of a boat.”

“What in God’s name did she mean by that?”

“I don’t know Seamus McFadden but God be with you.” She stooped and grasping the handle thrust the heavy basket onto her arm. Without looking back, she scurried to the iron gates where the souvenir vendors had gathered.

“I do hope Mrs Glynn’s not suffering with her eyes again,” an elderly woman asked.

“She’s managing as best she can,”
Bridie
said as the first tender disgorged its passengers, luggage and mail bags. Once those disembarking at Queenstown had passed through the gates and the mail bags had been collected, the sellers pushed their way towards the tender.

“Hold fire there!” shouted the man in charge of the craft. “Wait your turn.”

Bridie
stood in silence, the strange experience of Seamus’ kiss weighing heavy on her mind. But soon she was aboard the open tender, crowded shoulder-to-shoulder with the other sellers as they bobbed up and down over the waves towards the giant ship.

“She’s a sight to behold,” the elderly woman said.

Bridie’s
mouth dropped open at the sheer size of
Titanic
as they drew closer to her side which seemed to rise out of the water like a cliff face, dark and foreboding. She followed the others through the ship onto an open deck area, where a row of tables had been set up.

“Aren’t you excited to be standing on the biggest ship in the world?” the same elderly woman asked.

Bridie
paused for a few moments, everything she had seen of the new ship looked amazing. She was as they had christened her, ‘a ship of dreams’. “It would be a very poor soul who didn’t find magnificence aboard this lovely ship, but I’m glad I’m not sailing on her.”

“Are you now and would it be asking too much for you to say why?”

“She’s too perfect, too sure of herself,”
Bridie
answered.

“And that’s a bad thing is it? Well, if it is, perhaps someone ought to tell all those rich folk who have paid to sail on her. I’ve heard the richest man in America’s on board with a new wife, less than half his age.”

Bridie
smiled. “Well if he is the richest man in America, I’m sure there have been lots of women wanting to be his wife. So, you can’t blame the man for wanting a young one.”

“Aye,” the old woman sniffed, “but he’s got himself one of those divorces so he could marry her. It’s not right to set an older wife aside. He’ll get his comeuppance to be sure.”

They rushed for the best spot.
Bridie
brought out her finest piece, a delicate lace collar and displayed it on the dark cloth Gran had insisted she take with her. The collar looked exquisite, even the old woman admired it.

Passengers wanting to examine the Irish goods started to gather around the tables. Several ladies picked up the lace collar and admired it. But when they heard
Bridie’s
price, they moved on.

“You’re asking a fearful price for the collar. When I heard you talking to that lady in the green hat, I thought you might come down a bit. I’m sure you’d have got a sale, if you had,” the old woman said, “I only do lace edging now. It’s easier on the eyes, but hard on the fingers.” She stopped talking as a middle-aged, distinguished looking gentleman approached with a pretty young lady on his arm.

“Why JJ isn’t this the most beautiful lace collar you’ve ever seen?” the young lady said in an American accent.

“I’m no judge of lace,” he smiled beneath his well-groomed moustache.

Bridie
looked at their clothes and decided her price has just gone up.

“It would look so lovely on my new house gown,” the young lady smiled lovingly up at the gentleman.

House gown!
Bridie
bit her bottom lip.
Was this lady, who was no older than herself, planning to wear the delicate piece of lace around the house?
She pushed the thought to the back of her mind. She didn’t want to scare them off.

“Would you like the lace, my dear?” he said.

The young lady blushed and nodded her head. As
Bridie
scanned the young woman’s lovely eyes, delicate nose and full passionate lips, she realised the woman was with child, but she had no idea how she knew. If only she and Gran had worked a Christening Robe. The pretty lady might have persuaded her very wealthy husband to buy that, but no, she had to sell them the collar, whether it was going on a house gown or not.

The gentleman took his wife aside.
Bridie
worried that perhaps they were turning away. She needed to offer them something else, something to win back their trade. Fortunately, he returned.

“How much is the
lace
?” he asked.

“Five pounds, sir.”

“We’ll take it.” He reached inside his coat pocket and drew out his wallet. He handed
Bridie
a brand new five pound note. It was the first five pound note she had ever seen. Taking the money from him, she wrapped the lace in linen, tied it with a silk ribbon and handed it to him. “Is there anything else?
Perhaps something for the new child?”

The gentleman looked at her sharply, his forehead creasing. “How could you possibly know?”

Had she gone too far? Would he return the lace and demand his money back? “It’s in her face. I can tell from her face,”
Bridie
said.

“Madeleine,” he called over his shoulder and beckoned his wife. Dutifully she returned to his side and clung to his arm. “This young Irish girl knows our secret. Boy or girl, can you tell that too?”

Bridie
didn’t know what to say, except the first word that came into her head.
“Girl.”

“Really?” the lady smiled.

“Perhaps you’d like some lace edging for the Christening robe or nightgowns when she comes?”

“What do you have?” the lady asked.

Bridie
turned to the old woman. “I don’t have any edging but this lady works the finest lace in the West of Ireland.” She pointed to the lace wrapped around cards.

The lady smiled, “I like it. Can we take it all back to New York, JJ?”

He lifted his eyebrows, “If that’s what you’d like my dear.” Madeleine stepped aside as JJ took out his wallet again.

Bridie
nudged the old woman with her foot under the table to silence her and smiled up at the gentleman, “Five pounds, sir, for all the cards on the table,”

The gentleman paid over the money as he had done before and
Bridie
helped the woman wrap the cards in linen. Tying them all together she presented them to the lady. As she did so, she touched her hand briefly and felt a presence.

“I want to thank you for the bottom of my heart,” the old woman said when the couple had gone. “I’ve never had such a good day’s sale. Have these folk got more money than sense?”

“Perhaps,”
Bridie
replied, “but I’m glad she has taken the gift of lace for theirs is not to be a long union.”

“So they’ve troubles ahead?”

“Yes, he might be the richest man in America, married to a less than half his age bride and expecting a child, but there’s something ahead and it’s not too far off.”

“You mean he’s the one who’s set his old wife aside and—“

“Aye, the one you said who deserves his comeuppance. I felt
something,
I think it’s just around the corner.

Later that day
Bridie
and the old woman stood on the quay at Queenstown and watched
Titanic
sail for New York.

“Wouldn’t you like to have gone with her?” the old woman asked.

Bridie
shook her head. “She might be the ship of dreams, but I sense her future will be more than that. A young man wanted me to sail with him to New York on her, but I knew he wasn’t the man of my dreams. Madeleine has found her JJ but her dream will be short-lived. I wish I didn’t sense these things, especially when I don’t really know what will happen but I’m resting easy now I have my feet on dry land.”

“And I’m resting easy with a five pound note in my pocket, thanks to you.” The old woman smiled a toothless grin.

The night I grew up

Mama had put us to bed
early,
at least I thought it was early. It was Sunday. The twins slept in the adjacent bed. “Two peas in a pod,” the stewardess called them when she tucked them in. It surprised me that the grating noise along the starboard side of the ship didn’t wake them.

I wasn’t asleep. I heard it and sat bolt upright. Without arousing my eight year old brothers, I jumped out of bed, made for the door and opened it. I looked up and down the well-lit corridor, but no one was there. Then I heard another strange sound, like a huge engine blowing off steam. Surely that would wake the boys?

I closed the door quietly. Light came through the porthole into our stateroom, so there was no need to switch on the electric light as I could see well enough. My brothers slept on, but I sensed something was wrong. I unscrewed the port hole fitting and pushed the window open just a few inches. A bitingly cold draught of air rushed in. It smelt odd, but I closed my eyes and inhaled. Ice...
the
ice cave on the
Eiger
where my grandfather had taken me to celebrate my thirteenth birthday last year. There must be ice near, an ice-field perhaps, or icebergs?

Jack stirred and I thought he was about to wake Joe, so I shut the porthole. I willed the twins to carry on sleeping because I wanted to go outside and find out what was happening. They turned over, and then settled together once more.

I pulled on my trousers, pushing my nightshirt into them and slid my arms into my bracers. A thick sweater and my gabardine coat and school cap, socks and boots and I
was
ready. My housemaster would have been proud of the speed I got dressed. I took another look at the boys and opened the door quietly.

There were more people in the corridor, some hurrying, an officer walking away from me and a steward carrying two of the white canvas life-preservers. Our staterooms, mine and my parents were only a few yards from the stairway. I hesitated at my parents’ door, my fist clenched ready to announce myself. I lent my ear close to solid wood but heard nothing. If they were inside, then they were asleep.

I climbed the stairs. Up, up and up I went until I reached the Boat Deck. Maybe I could see something from there?

One gentleman stood alone. He looked at me and I thought he was about to tell me to go below and that I shouldn’t be about the ship by myself so late at night.

“Can your young eyes see what struck us lad?” he shouted in a soft American drawl.

From the ship’s rail I scanned the blackness for any clue of what was out there. Behind me the roar of steam from three of the ship’s funnels persisted. I cupped my hands around my mouth in an attempt to make my voice carry over the din of the steam. “We’ve been hit, haven’t we sir?”

He turned towards me, his expression stern, and his penetrating eyes searching my face. He, too, cupped his hands around his mouth before speaking. “Yes lad, I reckon we have.”

I watched as he turned from me and hurried along the deck. He rounded a lifeboat, looked out to sea again, then down the side of the ship. We were on the starboard side. I followed in his wake, disappointed that I saw no ice or icebergs. I was beginning to doubt my
sense of smell, when the American gentleman stopped and faced me. “You’d best go below son. Find your mother and look after her.”

It felt like an order. I did not reply but watched him vault the
iron gate
which divided the first and second class areas of the liner. He was making for the stern. I was tempted to follow him, but his orders had been specific.