Chapter 4
Bert convinced Victoria to have lunch with him two more times during the crossing.
He tried to get her to have dinner with him, but she refused, to respect the fact that she was in mourning, but she enjoyed having lunch with him, and the conversation was lively each time.
She grew comfortable being alone with Bert, without her father present, and she wasn’t afraid to speak her mind to him.
He was an easy person to talk to, and she admired his sharp mind.
He obviously had a good head for business, and he had a straightforward intelligent way of expressing things, and explaining to her whatever she didn’t understand, without belittling her, or dismissing her questions.
He told her about the trips he had taken to China, to study how they produced silks there, and about a recent trip to France.
The French were his main competitors in silk.
He claimed that his products were as fine as theirs.
It annoyed her when she saw the condescending looks some of the first-class passengers gave him.
He was an enormously successful wealthy man, but the aristocrats considered him an “industrialist,” hence, of an entirely different class.
His success and money meant nothing to them, in fact they held them against him, as though he was somehow tainted and less worthy because of his more common birth, although his family had been important for several generations, with their mills.
And he had attended Cambridge as a young man.
Most of the aristocrats who snubbed him were far less intelligent, educated, and well-brought-up than he was.
She actually found them quite rude to him, sometimes subtly, and sometimes they blatantly ignored him and greeted only Victoria when she was having lunch with him.
“I’m so sorry,” she said to him, after a particularly rude couple she knew stopped to offer their condolences about her father, after giving Bert a quelling look.
They acted as though she were alone at the table.
They paid no attention whatsoever to her formal introduction to him.
She had even mentioned that he was a good friend of her father’s.
It meant nothing to them. They didn’t approve of him, and made it clear that they considered him too lowly to acknowledge. It was shocking.
“I can’t believe how rude they were,” she said in a fury, after they left and went to their own table.
“I’m used to it.” He smiled at her. “Your father was the only member of our club who actually spoke to me.”
“How incredibly stupid of them,” she said with a slight flush of her cheeks, which he found very attractive.
“They’re unbearable stupid snobs, without a brain between them.
What have they ever done, other than inherit a title, and an estate they usually run into the ground?
Sometimes I truly hate the people I grew up with, and I’m ashamed to be considered one of them.
My father wasn’t like that. He liked people for their merits, their minds and accomplishments, not because of who their father was, or their title. ”
“I know. That’s why we got along so well. I wish I’d known him better.”
“He liked you a lot,” she confirmed, but Bert already knew that.
He had entrusted his only daughter to him, and commanded him to marry her in his final moments.
Bert didn’t think he should condemn Victoria to a life of scorn for marrying someone her world considered beneath her, and she was so much younger than he was, nearly forty years.
He had been tormented by her father’s words, and his own growing feelings for her during the entire trip.
Bert finally took his courage in both hands on the last night of the trip, after several glasses of wine at dinner.
Afterward, he went to her cabin to get her, and they took a walk around the deck.
He was leaving for Manchester directly from the ship, when they docked in Liverpool.
The Cedric didn’t go to Southampton. Liverpool was actually more convenient for him, although a longer trip home for Victoria.
He had important meetings the next day, they were trying to avert a strike at one of the mills.
He had gotten a steady stream of telegrams about it on the ship, which he hadn’t mentioned to her.
He didn’t know when he’d see her again. He didn’t go to London often, and he had a busy month ahead of him, after having been away for several weeks.
He knew what he wanted to say to her, he just wasn’t sure how to say it.
He didn’t want to offend her, and it was an unusual situation.
He had no idea how she would react. He didn’t know her well enough to guess.
All he could do was tell her the truth, and leave it to her to make her own decision.
They were standing at the rail in the moonlight, as they had done nearly every night on the crossing.
The other first-class passengers were still at dinner, and Victoria and Bert were alone on deck.
She was quiet, and he had the feeling she was thinking about her father, and so was he.
He could still hear Alfred’s words ringing in his ears.
At first, Bert thought he wasn’t serious, and then he realized he had been.
After speaking to Victoria every day on the voyage, he understood better why Lord Alfred had entrusted her to him. It wasn’t entirely a mad idea.
He covered her delicate hand on the rail with his own, and looked at her. She looked up at him with eyes full of trust, with no suspicion of what he was about to say.
“I have something to tell you, Victoria.” She waited and didn’t say a word.
“It’s about an exchange I had with your father, before I left him on the ship.
” Bert knew he would feel forever guilty for not forcing him to come along, but there wasn’t time, and Alfred was adamant about staying.
It would have taken time to convince him, and there was none.
If Bert had stayed a moment longer, he would have died too.
He was almost twenty years younger than Alfred and still had some living to do.
“Something my father wanted you to tell me?” She looked surprised that he had waited this long to say it.
“No. Something he wanted me to do. I’ve given it a great deal of thought since that terrible night.
I didn’t agree with him then, but I do now, under certain conditions.
” He hesitated for another instant and dove in.
He knew that his growing friendship with her would never be the same once he did.
And if she took offense, he didn’t want to lose what he had with her.
He had come to value her friendship after their conversations, and he knew her better now.
She would be a good friend to have. She was a woman he could truly talk to.
Victoria was puzzled by what he said, and couldn’t guess what her father might have wanted from him.
Perhaps something about business, or his estate.
Maybe Alfred had wanted Bert to sell something or buy something, a piece of land, or an investment of some kind that Bert wanted to tell her about now before he acted on it, since he said he agreed.
“I tried to get him into a lifeboat, and he flatly wouldn’t go. He wouldn’t take a place that could be occupied by a woman or a child. He had made up his mind and nothing could sway him, and we were down to seconds before the last lifeboat was lowered to the water.”
“Papa was very stubborn,” she said. “What did he want you to do?”
“It was about you,” Bert said simply. “It sounded crazy to me, but I no longer think so. Victoria, I have never met a woman I admire as much or can speak to the way I do you. You’re incredibly intelligent, more than any man I know.
I enjoy your company. You’re very beautiful.
Any man would be lucky to have you, and I can’t think of a single man I know who would deserve you. ”
“Papa wanted you to find me a husband?” Her eyes grew wide and she looked shocked.
“Not exactly.” He paused for a moment for breath and courage.
“He wanted me to marry you. Frankly, you deserve a great deal better than me. I thought he’d lost his mind in the moment, but after spending time with you, I understand why he said what he did.
I think we would be well suited to each other.
But marrying me would come at a high price for you.
You would be criticized and punished by your own kind.
No one would approve of the marriage. They would always consider me beneath you.
And they might be right, not due to my birth, but because you are a remarkable woman, and I don’t deserve you.