Chapter Twenty-One
James
“Women and children only?” James repeated. He swallowed hard, straightening his posture, though the moment his and Cassian’s foreheads were no longer touching, his very soul began to ache for that close contact. “Cassian, what are we to do?”
Cassian muttered a harsh curse word to himself.
“We will make it onto one eventually,” Cassian said. “Really, they can’t release the entire reserve of lifeboats with women and children only.”
James exhaled a shuddered breath, his body beginning to tremble.
He wanted to reply, wanted to beg Cassian to promise that his statement was true, but he couldn’t make himself speak.
Instead, his next inhale rattled in his chest, and for the first time since he’d stepped onto the boat deck, he registered the frigid chill in the air.
“We’ll freeze,” he managed to eke out after another ragged breath. “We’ll die.”
“No.” Cassian pulled James closer and rested their foreheads together again.
“Somehow, we will make it off this ship.” His grip on James’s arms tightened, and he shook James slightly.
“Are you listening to me, James Thomas Morrow? It’s still early.
If Titanic is sinking—which, regardless of the relative tranquility and order up here, I believe is happening—then whatever that sudden lurch was occurred over one hour ago.
Which means that she is sinking slowly. We have time.
We will find a boat that will let two, strong, capable men on board.
I swear to you, we will. Do you understand? ”
James nodded vaguely.
“Good. Now, we must compose ourselves so that we can escape here with our lives.” In one, fast motion, he released his hold on James’s arms and straightened his posture.
Afterward, he let out a long breath of his own.
“Come with me to find Ethel. Our next task is to see that the most important women here on this ship—the ones who mean something to me—make it onto a boat.”
It took James a moment to register Cassian’s instructions. He supposed he’d be carrying out the orders he’d received from one of the head stewards after all.
“Yes, right. Let’s go encourage Ethel and Mrs. Barrington to board one.”
Together, James and Cassian walked over to meet Ethel and Mr. Quinn, who were hovering a few meters back from where the officers were loading people into a lifeboat.
Ethel’s mother, Mrs. Helena Barrington, was even farther back, perhaps only just within earshot, her facial expression both skeptical and severe. Maybe even a smidgeon irate.
All throughout the time that James had spent with Ethel and her mother earlier that night, James had sensed some tension between them.
He hadn’t had the wherewithal to really linger on it before, so concerned he was with where Cassian had run off to.
Now, though, he suddenly remembered Cassian’s broken engagement, and he wondered whether that might have had something to do with it.
How petty it seemed. Petty and yet monumentally important to someone of Mrs. Barrington’s stature, even in the middle of the calm chaos.
If only the woman knew how serious this situation truly was.
“Ethel, we need to get you onto a boat,” Cassian said the second he and James reached them.
Ethel’s eyes flitted between Cassian’s face and Mr. Quinn’s a couple of times. And then, finally, her gaze settled on Mr. Quinn’s.
“I-I can’t board one.” Letting out a breath, she smiled weakly, and then, in a softer voice, she said, “I won’t board one. Not without you, John.”
James’s eyebrows shot up, and his eyes widened.
“You must board one, miss,” Mr. Quinn implored. “It’s the Captain’s orders. It’ll make me nervous not to follow them. Even if it is only a precautionary measure.”
Cassian opened his mouth as though to protest, but precisely then, Mrs. Barrington walked over, speaking to her daughter as she came close.
“Come aboard a boat with me, dear.” She pointed over to the lifeboat. “Look, some of the women we know have already entered this one.”
Ethel narrowed her eyes.
“You only want me to board one because John cannot,” she said. “But I’m staying here with him, Mother. And once we reach New York . . .”
She took a pause and looked over at Mr. Quinn. In that brief instant, it was as though the two of them had a whole little conversation solely with their eyes, and then Mr. Quinn’s mouth curled into a sweet, shy smile as he nodded. Ethel smiled back a bit and lifted her chin higher.
“Once we reach New York, John and I will be getting married,” she said, her voice imbued with a sort of shy confidence that James hadn’t heard from her before.
Mrs. Barrington sighed.
“Dear, you cannot marry Mr. Quinn.”
“Why not? John is a fine man,” Ethel said.
“He isn’t the sort of man who you are meant to marry.” Her expression hardened even more. “You will not marry your fiancé’s valet, Ethel. I forbid it.”
All at once, every bit of Ethel’s resolve seemed to crumble.
Her eyes fell as she lowered her head, her shoulders curling forward as though she was making herself smaller.
James hated to see it. He’d only known Ethel for a little while, but he knew what it was like to feel the need to make yourself small.
He’d felt like that around his family as a child.
He’d never been able to please them. And they’d never thought much of him, either, no matter how hard he’d tried.
It was one of the reasons that he had left home to become a hall boy and then a footman.
Cassian interjected.
“Helena, Ethel will marry John if that’s what she chooses,” he said.
“Let her live her life. Heavens, if anyone should be upset about her relationship with my valet, it’s me.
But as you can see, I’m very much not upset.
I want Ethel to be happy. Even if it’s not with me.
And you ought to want that for her too.”
Mrs. Barrington let out a soft huff.
“I cannot believe you have poisoned poor Cassian’s mind like this,” she said to Ethel.
“He chose you, dear. Out of every other woman who was available to him at the time, Cassian Penn Livingston chose you. I thought that you realized how lucky you are. Or how lucky you were, rather.” Shaking her head, she continued.
“Once this is all over and we are safely brought back on board, I won’t be speaking with you for the remainder of our trip.
” Her eyes flickered to Mr. Quinn, and she sneered.
Then her expression softened as she turned to Cassian.
“And as for you, Cassian, perhaps the only reason you are being so blasé about breaking off your engagement is because you are under the impression that the scandal of it all will only hurt Ethel. But I have to believe that you haven’t truly considered how bad it will look for you to have your fiancée leave you for your valet.
You’re a lovely boy, Cassian. Don’t be so foolish as to think that you will not be marked by this, too. ”
“I know I will be,” Cassian said without hesitation. He shrugged. “And I’ve made peace with it.”
Mrs. Barrington stared at him, appearing somewhat stunned, for several long, uncomfortable seconds.
Then, the woman let out a small sigh as she left for the nearest lifeboat.
Boarding it, she smiled a practiced smile at the officer who helped her in, as though she hadn’t been in the middle of a very personal confrontation mere seconds before and wasn’t likely still inwardly fuming from the outcome of it.
It still stunned James sometimes to witness how easily certain people, especially members of high society, could behave so falsely and continue to carry themselves with such practiced poise, even in times like this.
After Mrs. Barrington was seated in the boat, the officer called out, “Anyone else?”
Cassian looked over at Ethel who subtly shook her head.
He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.
James could almost feel frustration wafting off of him.
He wished he could help somehow (without inciting panic, of course, since from where they were standing now, closer to the lifeboats, more people were nearby to hear them).
“It really would be best to board one. Especially now, especially before there are larger crowds,” he tried. “Some people, they’re hovering back as though they’re too afraid to enter one, maybe. But lifeboats aren’t so scary. I went in a rowboat once. It was fun.”
“I’m not afraid of the boats, exactly,” Ethel replied. “But I’d rather not be separated from John. And what if something were to happen to the boats out there on the sea? Won’t the ocean be too rough on those little things? One of them could roll over.”
“I’d keep you safe, miss,” Mr. Quinn said warmly.
Ethel’s lips curled into a small bashful-looking smile for a moment, but it faded fast. Exhaling a little huff, one so similar to her mother’s, Ethel shook her head.
“But that’s precisely my point,” she said. “I trust John to keep me safe. And so, I’d like to wait here with him until they begin letting men onto the boats, too.”
“Keep you safe,” Cassian repeated through a mocking laugh, one that was imbued with irritation. “Keep you safe, keep you safe. A lifeboat will keep you safe. It’s in the Goddamned name! Our ship, she is—”
Cassian stopped mid-sentence, seemingly catching himself. He took hold of Ethel’s hand and pulled her aside, away from the small crowd. Mr. Quinn and James followed. And then, in a pressing-but-whispered tone, Cassian continued.
“Titanic is sinking. I witnessed an influx of water with my own eyes. On E-Deck.”
Gasping, Ethel cupped a hand over her mouth.
“Sinking?!” she repeated. “But how? I thought that . . . No, it can’t be. It’s been heralded as some sort of engineering marvel. One of those brochures said that the ship was practically unsinkable.”
“Yes, practically unsinkable,” Cassian said. “Earlier, when we felt that slight lurch and the rumbling that followed, we must have struck something that inflicted enough damage to warrant these lifeboats. Not as a precautionary measure or mere drill, either. I’m sure of it.”
“Could there be another ship coming?” Mr. Quinn said.
“Because that can happen sometimes, can’t it Mr. Livingston?
Err, sorry. Cassian? Our crew members here, maybe they called for help.
Everyone still seems so calm. I mean, the officers are moving with urgency, but that’s how they’re trained.
I was a cadet for a little while as a boy.
Not on a ship nearly as large as this one, but still, I remember how frightened we were when we hit a storm once.
” Frowning, Mr. Quinn paused to think. “If we really are sinking—sinking without some sort of help nearby—I’d have imagined that Captain Smith might have issued some sort of ship-wide warning.
‘Abandon ship!’ ‘Evacuate at once!’ That sort of thing.
But, look, Titanic, she is still seemingly level.
” He looked around. “Or, well, mostly level. I think.”
James took a moment to consider this. He was putting more of his weight on one foot than the other. He hadn’t even realized it before. By God, the ship—she wasn’t level anymore, not even to a man like him, a man with no experience at sea.
Just then, a rocket shot up into the sky. It exploded and produced a shower of white stars. Everyone looked at one another. And James knew that they must have all been thinking the same thing.
The RMS Titanic was, indeed, sinking.