The Second Mrs. Astor(69)
The wind shoved by. The sky was so sheer a blue it seemed unreal, an echo of her thoughts, of a memory of salt and sand and sea, as fanciful and pretend as the Moorish baths, decks below.
*
“Hello! Mrs. Astor, yes? How do you do?”
Madeleine twisted a fraction in her deck chair, wrapped from collar to toes in warm blankets, a mug of hot beef tea steaming between her palms. She was waiting for Jack to come around again on his walk with Kitty; the beef tea was a lovely bonus of sitting on the promenade deck on a chilly afternoon. One of the deck stewards waited nearby, ready to replenish her bouillon whenever she liked.
A young woman in mink and a tall, flowery hat gave a little wave from three chairs away. It was the heavy-lidded girl from the baths, her brown hair now neatly tied up, smiling her same sleepy smile.
Madeleine lowered her mug. “Hello, Miss . . . ?”
“Mrs. Bishop! Mrs. Dickinson Bishop, that is. But, please! Call me Helen.”
Helen Bishop pushed out of her chair, resettled in the one right next to Madeleine without waiting for an invitation. This close, Madeleine could see that she was probably the same age as she, with a slyly smiling mouth and those slumberous big eyes.
“I’ve noticed you walking along the decks with the colonel and your dog. So charming! I admire your devotion to it—the dog, I mean. Dick and I have just gotten one of our own, little Frou Frou. We did receive permission to keep it in our cabin, but mostly it’s down in the kennels. I’d love to have it around us more, but it’s such a bother! Whining and barking all the time, always begging for attention! Needing treats, needing walks and pettings, all that. And the fur goes everywhere! I declare, I don’t know how people tolerate it. At this point, I honestly don’t know what we thought it would be like to have a dog, but certainly we did not brace ourselves for this. I imagined a dog would be more like a baby, you know? Adorable and dear, something you could show to your friends and then put away. Something you could hand off to the help when necessary.”
“I see. Forgive me, Mrs. Bishop, I find I’m somewhat weary—”
“Oh, no! I do hope you’ll call me Helen! Because I really want to call you Madeleine. I hope you don’t mind that! I’ve read so much about you already, you wouldn’t conceive it! I mean, everyone has, of course. I’m hardly alone! But I feel as if I’ve just come across an old bosom confidante, even though I know we’ve never met before in our lives. As soon as I noticed you in the baths—how amazing that we’re aboard the same ship!—I knew that we should chat. I’m a newlywed, too, as it happens! How positively amazing that we are to be friends !”
Madeleine brought her bouillon closer to her face, lowering her eyes into slits. The steam coiled up and around her, scented of beef and garlic and tender rich leeks. She blew a sigh into it, tearing the tendrils apart.
The real world was rushing in again at last, predictable, inexorable. There were going to be girls like this around every corner from here on out.
“Helen Bishop,” Madeleine murmured without looking up, getting the words out. “How do you do.”
“A pleasure! You’re so kind! I never meant to encroach upon you, Madeleine, I swear. I know you’re—why, you’re New York. Dickie and I are Dowagiac.”
Madeleine lifted her lashes.
“Michigan,” Helen clarified, her fingers nervously checking the hooks of her coat, up and down and up.
“Ah. I’m from . . . I’m from a few places, actually,” Madeleine said. “But Manhattan and Bar Harbor, mostly, I suppose.”
“How fabulous!” Helen Bishop gushed.
“Yes,” replied Madeleine, breathing in the scent of the broth. “Yes, I imagine it is.”
Sunday, April 14th
She slept through the church service held that morning in the dining saloon. After her encounter with Helen Bishop, Madeleine decided to retreat from Titanic for a while, and their stateroom was peaceful, the bed plush and comfortable. Even after the sunlight began to breach the velvet curtains draping the window, changing all the shadows of the room into soft colors, warming the satins and silks, Madeleine pulled the covers over her head and squeezed her eyes shut.
Jack, up and dressed, came to sit at the edge of the mattress. She felt it through the languor dragging her downward, the sudden dip of the bedding. He eased back the covers to stroke the hair from her forehead.
She opened her eyes a little, caught a glimpse of golden cufflinks and starched linen. Closed them again.
“I’m not going,” she mumbled into the pillow.
“I know, love. I’ll make your excuses.”
“Tell them I’m hiding from them,” she said. “Tell them I’ll come out when they all go away.”
He laughed, short and rumbling. “I’ll present an excuse a little less porcupine, perhaps. Sleep well. I’ll return in a while.”
She pulled a second pillow beneath her to support her belly. She was already floating back into her warm, quiet dreams as he closed the door gently behind him.
*
“Messages for you,” Jack said that afternoon, coming back to find her seated by the electric fireplace in the sitting room, enjoying tea and scones, pretty blue-and-white bowls of sliced strawberries, ivory dots of clotted cream.
Kitty, at her feet, followed the movement of Madeleine’s fork with unwavering attention.