The Second Mrs. Astor(74)

*

A man poked his head in past the gymnasium door. It was George Widener, the collar of his overcoat turned up, his nose and cheeks red.

“They’re ordering us below again! We’re all to go back to A deck.”

A collective grumble rose from the crowd.

When they walked outside, Madeleine was shocked to see the row of lifeboats that had been suspended there before from their davits were all gone, leaving behind only long snakes of ropes that disappeared down the side of the ship. Crewmen and passengers stood clustered at the railing, looking down. She joined them, peering past their shoulders.

Below them—way below—the lifeboats floated atop the black waters, tiny pale cowrie shells dotted with dim lights, slowly rowing away.

*

She turned to her right, toward the stern of the ship, where there seemed to be a storm of people congregating along the edges of the very end of the deck. Their shouting swept over her but it was tinny distant, like trying to hear a phonograph playing from another room.

She looked to her left, toward the bow, taking a few steps closer to be sure: the ocean was creeping, thick as oil, over the foredeck.

“Port,” Jack said grimly, his arm clamped through hers. “We need to get to the other side of the ship.”

*

For all the havoc playing out at the end of the topmost deck, A deck below it was full of people looking as dazed as she felt. All the ladies and gentlemen seemed to be sleepwalking, their eyes glazed. In her hat and coat and shawl, she went from chilled to flushed and back to chilled; several of the glass windows enclosing the promenade had been unlocked and opened, letting in the arctic air. Behind her glowed the warm yellow lights of the ship’s interior, still filled with people and chatter and heat. But before her were only windows of stars, one after another, blazing in silence against the ebony night.

But for the fact of the saltwater stealing up the prow, that the yellow light occasionally flickered, she would have cast her faith in everything waiting behind her, rather than that deep soundless sky ahead.

A ship’s officer, trim and sweating, crouched atop a high, open windowsill, one foot planted on a stack of steamer chairs made into a ramp that reached to its ledge, the other inside the lifeboat that hung just beyond. He was helping women climb up the chairs to crawl through the frame, with men on either side below, pushing the ladies forward as needed.

Madeleine turned away from the sight. Her breath frosted in front of her, short puffs of silver that flashed and dissolved. Behind her, Rosalie was muttering to herself in French.

The officer steadied himself against the frame of the window, called out to the clutches of people hanging back.

“Women and children! Women and children only! Any more women and children to board?”

No one came forward. The lights dimmed, brightened again. The bowels of the steamship let out a long, metallic groan.

“We must get on that boat,” said Carrie calmly. “Don’t you agree, colonel?”

“Yes,” Jack replied, another shock. “Yes, you must.”

Madeleine shook her head. “But—I thought—”

“Listen to me,” he said, but then nothing more, only looked at her, that focused look, gray and absolute. She gazed back up at him, his lowered lashes, the straight slash of his brows, the determined set of his lips: half in gold, half in night, just like the rest of them.

She grabbed his hands, holding hard. “I won’t go without you.”

“It will only be for a while. A few hours, at most. We’ll see each other in the morning.”

“No!”

“Madeleine, you can’t think only of me right now. There are three of us in our family, and at this moment, you comprise the most valuable two of our three. The finest honor I’ve been given in this world—that I will ever be given—is the task of safeguarding you and our child. Take the boat.” He touched her cheek. “You’re a mermaid, remember? The sea is your element. You’ll be fine, and we’ll all be together again soon. New York, at the very latest.”

“Last call!” the officer shouted. “For women and children, please!”

Her husband said to her, very quiet, “You must. You know that you must, habibti.”

“Ma’am.” Carrie took her by the elbow. “Ma’am, right this way.”

Madeleine moved stiffly, her legs and feet numb, but she did move because Carrie was pulling her and Jack was pulling her, and her breath was flashing more quickly now because underneath her veil of acquiescence was a black feeling roiling so deep and dark she had no name for it. It was panic and fear and bleak desperation. It was anger and fear, fear, fear.

She climbed the awkward ramp of chairs, Jack supporting her left arm, another gentleman supporting her right. The officer bent down, reached out for her.

The black thing inside her enlarged, choking, closing her throat. She turned back to Jack.

He met her eyes, smiled. “Nearly there.”

The officer seized her right hand, plucking her the rest of the way up. The lifeboat outside dangled and swayed from its slender-thin lines, uneasily tilted, just like Titanic. Huddles of women inside it stared back at her as she balanced at the window’s edge.

“Step here, madam, and mind the gap. Do you see the plank? Your foot just there, one and then the other. I have you.”

Below her, so much closer than it should have been, the ocean whispered and flicked against the side of the ship.