On a Cold Dark Sea(61)
“We could tell the officer making up the passenger list that you’re Reginald Evers. And you saw George St. Vaughn die.”
His head tilted to the side, and his lower lip drooped, like a half-wit child’s.
“You’d have a fresh start. I’ll vouch for you as my husband until we reach New York. After that, you’re on your own.”
Georgie was slow to understand—no surprise—so Charlotte sat beside him and explained how it would work. And it was their closeness and complicity that made an approaching steward assume they were husband and wife before they said a word. The steward asked if they would like one of the staterooms set aside for married couples. Georgie glanced at Charlotte, and she glared back: Be a man for once. Make up your mind.
“Yes,” Georgie said, with a quick nod. “Very well.”
Charlotte never would have suggested the name switch if she’d thought through its implications: the days she was forced to hover beside Georgie, the nights they shared a cramped second-class cabin. Luckily, the subdued mood of their fellow passengers made the deception easier. They didn’t have to fake cheerfulness when they sat side by side on deck chairs or summon conversation over dinner. The weight of shared grief hung over them like a fog, and they climbed into their berths each night fully dressed, exhausted yet sleepless. The first evening, Charlotte heard Georgie crying, though he tried to muffle the sound with his pillow. She pretended she was asleep. If he cried the following nights, she didn’t hear it. Perhaps, like Charlotte, he’d learned to do so silently.
They never talked about Reg.
The last time they’d seen each other was in New York Harbor, as black rain lashed down like a curse from God, and they’d gone their separate ways at the Cunard pier. Georgie put on a brave face, but Charlotte was convinced he wouldn’t last a week. He’d get by all right for a time—she’d seen the money in the inner pocket of his coat, her pickpocket’s eye still sharp. He could afford a week or two in a nice hotel; he could buy a new wardrobe. But he was young and sheltered and out of his depth. Sooner or later, he’d get frightened; then he’d wire his mother and beg forgiveness. Before long, he’d be back on his posh estate in England, doing his duty. For months after the sinking, Charlotte expected to see the story splashed across the papers: “A Miraculous Return” or “Lord Upton’s Son Survives!”
But George St. Vaughn never came home. And eventually he’d disappeared from Charlotte’s consciousness, too.
Those first weeks had been difficult, Georgie now admitted. “I felt quite abandoned,” he told Charlotte, and she could hear reproof in the slight pause that followed. Faint, but still there. “Then I met a chap at a . . . a sort of drinking establishment, who fancied himself an impresario and asked if I’d ever considered the stage.”
Charlotte could imagine the sort of seedy “establishment” where the conversation had taken place. A young man like Georgie—gorgeous, innocent, British—must have been a veritable beacon for lechers. But Georgie, improbably, had used his looks to his advantage. He’d begun with bit parts in dance-hall and variety shows and moved up to leading roles, though he was refreshingly candid about his lack of talent.
“If you’re the least bit good-looking and speak as if you’re just down from Oxford, it’s not hard to get cast,” he told Charlotte. “I always knew my main job was to stand in front of the lights and smolder. Acting didn’t really come into it.”
Theater reviewers seemed to agree, from what Charlotte had read in the Express. Perhaps that was what pushed Georgie to move behind the scenes, though he told Charlotte he’d simply gotten bored reciting lines and wanted to do something more challenging. He’d started as a set decorator, then moved to California in 1923, just in time to take advantage of the moving-picture boom. They were so desperate for directors back then, he said, that they’d give a one-reeler to anyone who knew how to operate a camera.
Charlotte asked if she might have seen any of his films.
“Not unless you’re a glutton for punishment!” Georgie laughed. He waved a hand at the wall behind her. It was covered with garish posters of pouting women and scowling men, the titles in great white swaths along the top: She Done Him Wrong. The Devil Is a Dame.
“My speciality is ‘good girls gone bad,’” he said. “A sweet young thing is seduced and led into a life of crime. Sometimes she’s saved by the love of a good man; otherwise she goes down in a hail of gunfire. Very tawdry, and usually third-billed. It’s good fun, though. And as you can see, it pays well.”
He seemed eager to impress her, though Charlotte couldn’t think why. Everything about Georgie’s new life was a reproof to hers: the magnificent house, the crowd of friends gathered around the swimming pool, the pile of money that made it all possible. When Georgie asked what she’d been up to, Charlotte felt the luster leak out of her life. The flat she was so proud of now struck her as cramped and gloomy, her glamorous job a rote exercise in forced jollity. She had friends, yes, but dinner-party friends, and going-to-the-theater friends. Hardly anyone she’d invite over on a Sunday afternoon, and almost no one she trusted enough to confide in. She’d left Georgie to fend for himself, and he’d done it. He’d proved her wrong.
When Georgie offered a tour of the house, Charlotte didn’t have to fake her awe. His bedroom was massive but tranquil, with all-white linens and windows overlooking the mountains. Waking up there, she thought, must feel like you’d made it halfway to heaven. Charlotte followed Georgie out onto the balcony, where she could see the full sweep of the property. More people had gathered by the pool, and the sounds of clinking glasses and determinedly jolly laughter drifted upward. Again, Charlotte felt as if she were watching a film. The guests were all so lovely, walking with the easy grace of dancers. Their animated faces made every conversation look fascinating, tempting Charlotte to eavesdrop.