Chapter 14 #3
THE PURSER’S BUREAU resembled nothing more than an oval-shaped teller’s cage at a fine uptown bank, with metalwork grills and smiling workers behind them, handing out receipts for whatever was to be deposited in the ship’s safe: gold, jewels, cash, stock certificates, bonds.
Anything rare or precious or valuable. And on a ship like this, with passengers like this, valuable included a great many items. So Rita was waiting in line once more, drowsing on her feet, when a voice to her left spoke softly in her ear.
“Miss Jolivet, may I have your autograph?”
She started and turned, and there was Charles Frohman, dear old Charles, smiling at her with his wise gray eyes, dressed in an outdoors overcoat and hat and leaning on a walking stick she’d never seen before, ebony with an ivory wolf’s head.
“Why, Charles! How marvelous! Are you sailing, too? Or are you here to see someone off?”
“I’m sailing. You know I go over about this time of year.”
“What luck! I had no idea you’d be here. How glad I am to see you.” She stepped forward, kissed his cheek. The people in line shuffled around her, and Rita found her place again. “Where are you situated?”
“One of the Parlour Suites.”
“Well, frankly, I’m envious. I’m in the tiniest little room. Gorgeous, of course, but an inside cabin.”
“Oh,” he said easily, “you won’t be there all that much, anyway. I’m gathering up quite the glittering group for my amusement, and you’ll certainly be a part of it.”
The line crept forward, and they crept with it.
“In fact,” he went on, tapping the tip of his cane twice against the floor, “I can’t even fib and say it’s a surprise to find you aboard, as it happens we are both invited to the Captain’s Dinner at his table tomorrow night. I saw your name on the list.”
“We are?”
“We are.” He gave a nod to the wooden case in her hands. “So perhaps don’t hand over all of those diamonds quite yet. You’ll want to sparkle.”
ONE OF THE most tedious and necessary chores of beginning a transatlantic voyage was heading to the main dining saloon as quickly as possible after boarding to try to arrange for a prime table for the journey.
One might quietly reserve a table at any point during the day, for the right price, but there was no guarantee that that table would remain reserved by the evening if some other, flusher passenger came along (or merely one with a more recognizable name), someone who offered an even greater cash bribe to the head steward.
Discretion was guaranteed aboard the best ocean liners; table reservations were not.
Rita had planned to go after her visit to the Purser’s Bureau, even though she knew, as a lady traveling alone, she was probably going to be assigned to either a large group table or else one composed of similarly solitary women, usually paid companions or widows or the unwed daughters of men of industry.
She had ten dollars in her reticule and the determination not to be stuck in the back of the saloon, next to the swinging doors leading to the service entrance.
But Charles Frohman, producer of hits, unearther of stars, surprised her yet again.
“Don’t be ridiculous, you’re at my table.
I’ve already taken care of it. You, me, a smattering of other luscious people, authors and singers and playwrights, everyone divine.
Why would you want to dine with anyone else?
We’ve got Alfred Vanderbilt, too, in case you’re curious.
He’s always up for a scintillating conversation, especially if you want to talk about racehorses.
Nice chap, actually. You two might hit it off. ”
“I know hardly anything about racehorses.”
“Even so, I can promise you possess all the right attributes”—he glanced meaningfully at her figure—“to hold his interest.”
They shared a chuckle. Vanderbilt was known to be good-looking, soft-spoken, obscenely rich, and extremely married. Still in his thirties, he enjoyed travel, nearly as much as he enjoyed keeping a mistress in every port.
They began to wind their way back to Charles’s suite, so he could rest. She’d pressed him about that cane, but all he’d said was that he’d taken a tumble on his porch steps a few weeks back in New York and had injured his knee.
It was nothing, he insisted, it was over, but as they walked, his limp grew more and more pronounced.
“Are you sure about the table?” Rita asked. “I hate to impose.”
“I’m as sure as can be.” He opened the door and, golly, beyond his shoulder she glimpsed a parlor, a real parlor with real windows, not round portholes, oxblood velvet curtains and a fireplace, already lit.
His personal phonograph set up on the coffee table, records in paper sleeves neatly filed in a wire holder nearby.
Charles hobbled over the threshold, tipped his hat, and gave a nod.
“You’re one of my most favorite people, Rita Jolivet,” he said, holding her eyes.
“I don’t know that I’ve ever told you that.
You make me laugh. You make me think. You make me remember what it was like to be hotblooded and young and formidable.
So I owe you for all that, I think. I owe you for the reminder that life still holds marvels. ”
Rita murmured his name, touched.
“See you around,” her old friend said, and smiled down at the floor as he closed the door.
ELEVEN O’CLOCK. ELEVEN-FIFTEEN. Eleven-twenty.
Rita wanted to be outside when the liner left the pier; she wanted to be in the crowd that waved and cheered and watched the land they were leaving behind fade into a distant ocean haze.
Normally, it was one of her favorite moments of a sea voyage, the undeniable treat of interacting with happy strangers, hundreds or thousands of strangers, everyone excited about the same thing, everyone joyous.
But today wasn’t normal; there was no use pretending it was.
The Lusy was still idling in place, belching coal smoke, and there were still far more people on board than could possibly be passengers.
She wondered about that some. She wondered that there hadn’t been any sort of extra security measures apparent when she’d embarked, considering that dire notice in the morning papers.
Perhaps a phalanx of police officers or Cunard officers inspecting identification cards or passports or whatnot.
It seemed to her that it wouldn’t have been difficult for a malcontent to blend in even with the first-class crowd, much less second or steerage.
But that was what war did to you, she thought. It made suspicions bloom, your skin itch with paranoia. It made you search unfamiliar faces for any hint of something Other, something off.
Just after eleven-thirty, the gongs sounded at last, leading to a rush of goodbyes, of kisses and hugs and tears.
Rita waded through that rush all the way up to a spare bit of railing along the starboard side of the Boat Deck, wedging into place between a man with an unlit cigar clenched between his teeth and a lady in a netted hat and an impressive ruby ring worn over her glove.
Like Rita, the woman gripped the railing with both hands.
Whenever she shifted, the ruby flickered in the cool, steely light.
The gangplank was slowly raised. A ripple of excitement took the crowds on the pier and the ones aboard, yet the steamer remained where she was.
Men below her began shouting in harsh voices, giving orders for the gangplank to be lowered again.
When it was, a solitary young woman hurried off the ship, one last straggler, who, Rita would later discover through the ship’s lively gossip chain, was in fact the niece of the captain, William Turner.
He’d been giving her a tour, and apparently neither of them realized the gangplank had already been raised.
But the young lady was now gone, consumed by the swarm on the quay. Rita could feel the slight vibration beneath her feet that meant the propellers were beginning to turn.
Gradually, carefully, the Lusitania backed out of her slip, unmoored. Everyone watching on land and water began to cheer.
The railing shivered. That ruby broke daylight into tiny, blood-red shards.
Three tugboats bobbed close, closer, guiding the much more massive vessel safely into the flow of the Hudson.
Rita found her handkerchief. She began waving it at the people on the pier, who waved back with enthusiasm, kerchiefs and hats and American flags.
Confetti was flung, bright paper bits that winked through the air before sifting back down to rest on shoulders and heads and dust the water.
To Rita’s right, a chorus of male voices rose up, expertly singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” It was a thrilling adieu.
Lusitania’s foghorn blared, shattering the air: three long, farewell blasts.
“A late start, but nothing irredeemable,” muttered the man next to her, around his cigar.
She looked up to see if he was addressing her, but he was talking to the fellow on the other side of him.
“No doubt Turner’ll make up the loss along the way.
” “He bloody well better,” replied the other man.
“I’ve got meetings in London. I’ve got Juno waiting, and Venus after her.
I didn’t book a greyhound so we might take our bloody time. ”
AS KIND AS Charles was to include her at his table, Rita realized she was too tired tonight to attend the formal meal service.
She sent her regrets, had Eleanor bring a tray of bread and cheese and fresh fruit to her room, and ate it all while reading yet another script, one Cecil had sent along at the last moment after he’d caught wind she was scrambling to leave for England.
Close to midnight—how did it get so late?
—she stood and stretched and thought about visiting the Ladies’ so she could finally retire.
She looked around her windowless room, unhappy once more with the lack of air, the lack of sky.
So instead of retreating to the washroom, she shrugged on her coat and found her gloves.
The ship was still buzzing with activity, even this late.
As she climbed the stairs to the first-class lounge and music room, she passed men and women talking, laughing softly, not too loud because it was late and perhaps it wasn’t quite as seemly as it should be, having such a good time during, well, these times.
But the lounge itself, with its overstuffed satinwood chairs and settees, with its green marble fireplaces that burned real wood and the barrel-domed, stained-glass skylight—the lounge itself still held a surprising number of well-heeled passengers playing cards or simply conversing over drinks.
A grand piano waited off to the side of the chamber, lid closed, silent now but ready for the concerts that would be performed every evening after the dinner service.
A wooden box on a stand accepted cash donations—cash only, please—to the Red Cross.
It took her a moment to register that there was no obvious exit to the outside from here, so she turned around, back to the staircase lobby, and found the handsome double doors she’d missed before that led to the deck, the promise of fresh air just beyond them.
She went port this time instead of starboard, just for a change. She found a bench and settled into it, letting the wind scrub her face.
Salt. Dampness. A clouded sky lacking moon or stars. Darkness barely thinned by the light shining behind beveled glass windows, golden and subdued.
Water sluicing by far below, a tinny, rushing sound, like a distant waterfall.
She closed her eyes and allowed the night to seep through her, cold as it was, misted as it was.
Rita thought of Giuseppe, so recently returned to Italy, of the world he was confronting there, politics and alliances shifting so rapidly, atrocities raging just beyond borders.
She thought of Alfred, her impetuous brave brother, and of her parents.
How distraught Maman must be, and Papa too, although he was less likely to show it.
At least Inez was with them. Her tranquil ways might smooth the waters.
None of them knew she was on her way. There had been no time to send a cable before the Lusitania had sailed.
It hadn’t even occurred to her in those frantic last minutes, and so none of them knew.
Tomorrow she’d return to the Purser’s Bureau and send a wireless to remedy that.
She was going to have to catch train after train from Liverpool to reach Winter Queen, but maybe an auto could at least meet her at the Medmenham station.
Someone paced by in slow, measured steps. The blue-acrid aroma of burning tobacco wafted against her face and was gone.
Rita opened her eyes.
A man with a cigarette stood at the railing about ten yards aft, one foot propped up on a lower rail, the tails of his coat flapping.
He touched the cigarette to his lips and a brief orange glow brightened his cupped fingers and taut jaw.
His hair was pulling free of its pomade, stirring with the wind.
She frowned at him. She knew him, didn’t she? A fellow actor, maybe, from one of her plays?
He flicked the cigarette over the railing in a spiral of dull falling sparks, turned and saw her. His face broke into a smile.
“Marguerite,” Inez’s husband said. “How splendid to see you again.”