On a Cold Dark Sea(43)
“Why would I trust you?” Esme cried. She wanted to shriek loud enough to rattle the chandeliers. To launch into a rage that would hurtle her out of the onslaught of memories. She turned away, too quickly, and her knee slammed against a side table, knocking her off balance. Nauseous, swaying, she heard Charlotte apologize and say she could be reached at the Metropolitan Hotel if Esme changed her mind. Esme didn’t turn around. She didn’t look back as she teetered out of the room and up the stairs, making her faltering way to the bedroom. Back to the nightstand and the bottle that brought a sour but dependable relief.
So much for the triumph of love over loss.
The gin coated the back of her mouth like a medicinal penance. Now that Esme was safe in her second-story refuge, the blinds drawn against the accusing sunlight, she felt a resentful admiration for Charlotte’s nerve. There was a time when Esme would have courted such attention, a time when she saw newspapers as allies instead of enemies. She hadn’t minded playing the role of a sad-eyed young lover, one whose happiness was all the more precious for being tinged with heartbreak. Everyone, it seemed, had wanted her and Charlie to live happily ever after.
No one would thank her for admitting they hadn’t.
Damp-eyed, embracing her self-indulgent sorrow, Esme grabbed the silver-framed wedding photo on her bureau and lay it beside her as she burrowed under the covers. Charlie had loved her, in the beginning at least; she was sure of that. But he loved her in the carefree way he was capable of, not with the dogged devotion that weathers the boredom of daily routines. Esme had spent years wondering what she’d done wrong, then years after that shoveling the blame on Charlie. It was only recently that she’d come to believe they were doomed from the start, long before the gushing headlines. The moment she’d pulled Charlie into the lifeboat—without even thinking, simply reaching out in need—was the moment she’d lost him.
How could they have foreseen the repercussions of that one action? Esme had been so grateful to have Charlie with her, to know he was alive. And saving him hadn’t been wholly selfish, either. They all might have drowned if Charlie hadn’t been there, keeping a cool head and rowing until his hands cramped in pain. On that night, it was impossible to imagine that each small decision might later be magnified beyond reason, or that one spontaneous gesture could be held up as evidence in the court of public opinion. Esme knew she hadn’t been as careful as she should have been, but she’d been young and frightened and confused, and the only thing that made her feel better was Charlie. She could still remember how Charlie smelled when she leaned her face into his neck. So heady, so much hers. His warmth had seeped into Esme like a sedative, and she’d slipped her hand into his coat pocket, where his fingers clutched hers with forceful need. Charlie had been her anchor, holding her still.
They’d both been more mindful of propriety in the days following their rescue. Charlie was solicitous on the Carpathia, asking after Esme’s health and joining her at meals, but they never spoke in private; Esme was taken into the care of the same Philadelphia society women she’d once regarded with bored contempt. Mrs. Thayer and Mrs. Widener were also recent widows—Mrs. Widener, appallingly, had lost her son as well—and Esme was soothed by their quiet camaraderie. In their presence, she wasn’t expected to talk or be charming. She could simply savor her relief at having survived.
Esme grieved for Hiram in an obligated, perfunctory way. She didn’t really miss him until she was back in Philadelphia, wandering through their sprawling home, feeling like a child playing house. The chair at the head of the dining table would always be his, just as the large armchair in the sitting room was still molded to the shape of his body. She might as well have been living with a ghost. But Esme didn’t cry until his sister came to visit, her face splotchy and wan. As Esme’s sister-in-law spoke haltingly of the brother she’d lost, Esme felt the full enormity of Hiram’s absence. She’d dismissed him as plodding and dull, but he’d been a good man at heart. He’d deserved better.
Esme’s guilt over Hiram in no way lessened her desire for Charlie. There was an inevitability to their marriage, a recognition among both their families that Charlie had taken on the role of Esme’s guardian, but mourning etiquette still had to be observed. For Esme, that meant months of condolence calls and meals eaten alone. Her correspondence with Charlie was a lifeline, for it was only in her letters that Esme was able to reveal her true self: hungry for Charlie and their future. Though she thought of Charlie’s body often, in her lonely bed, social niceties prevented her from even touching him. When Charlie called on Esme in Philadelphia, she received him with her father and the ever-obliging Mrs. Ayres as chaperones. When Esme spent a few days in Boston at the invitation of his mother, she stayed in a guest suite at the opposite side of the house from Charlie’s room and felt as if she were being constantly watched and critiqued. But Esme was Charlie’s choice, and his mother wouldn’t deny anything to her adored youngest child who’d miraculously survived the Titanic. If Charlie wanted to marry Esme, he could.
When the engagement was announced, six months after the sinking, Charlie and Esme had already settled the terms of their married life. They would start fresh in New York, where Charlie’s Harvard connections had already found him a job in banking, and his parents would buy them a suitably distinguished house. Esme took care to be circumspect with Hiram’s family and friends, describing the upcoming union in practical rather than emotional terms, but she saw how much the news wounded Hiram’s sister. It couldn’t be easy to see her brother so quickly replaced. But Hiram’s sister was gracious and gave Esme her blessing.