Hearts That Survive Part 15

Just in her head. And in her heart.

Even in this ridiculously impossible situation she still had one thing.

Choice.

And so she drew little Henry closer beneath her coat. She forced her trembling, freezing mind to think of the little warm body next to hers. He dozed, then awakened to cry for Phoebe, and she would pet him and say, "I'm here, Henry. Be quiet and go to sleep."

He'd doze, awaken again, terrified, and Caroline soothed him, as she'd done in orphanages, in volunteering in baby wards at the hospital, with friends' children when their mothers were at their wit's end and Caroline knew, believed she could be a better mother than they.

The silence stopped her thoughts.

She saw bodies floating like ice.

She no longer wondered how many were crying for help, raising their hands, wailing, pleading, screaming, G.o.d help, Jesus save me.

How many were crying now?

None.

How many were in these boats? A few hundred.

Which meant that out there, floating, silent, freezing, frozen, were over two thousand.

Spread out for miles were hundreds.

She tried counting how many hundreds on her icy fingers. One hundred, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

She didn't have enough fingers for them all.

She'd have to count twice.

And then each hundred was made up of one person at a time.

One, two- William was just one.

The losses were how many Williams?

And as the seconds, the minutes, the hours droned on with only the sound of oars rippling the water, she counted how many were losing someone and didn't even know it.

She was one.

She had parents. William had parents. There were distant relatives. Business a.s.sociates. Friends. Acquaintances. They all lost tonight. And how many of those could she count? No, not enough fingers or toes. Perhaps she'd count them by the brilliant sequins in the sky.

And dear Bess, who leaned against her to give any warmth if there happened to be any. There wasn't. But it gave comfort. Who would miss Bess?

Did she have anyone to care one way or another?

Yes. She had one. She had her.

Caroline looked up.

Were there even enough of those stars?

Yes. There were enough for all the losses, and more.

Someone intruded on her contemplation. "We should pray."

Those able to speak, agreed. They debated how and settled upon the Lord's Prayer.

They all knew the words and spoke them in unison.

That was a ritual in the church she'd often attended.

Our Father which art in heaven.

Had that ever been an a.s.surance? or a hope? or was it just words?

She kept her eyes on the stars. Was He above, beyond that?

Give us this day our daily bread.

They had none. Nor water.

But this wasn't really asking for anything. It was a eulogy.

Amen.

Nothing changed. The pa.s.sengers on the way to nowhere remained silent. The men and women took turns rowing to stay warm, as if there were a destination. The sea remained calm. The air still. Caroline thought of them as freezing figures suspended in a twilight of uncertainty.

Until there appeared the first gray light of dawn. She felt no elation when the thought came.

She thought she wasn't going to die.

But she didn't know why.

28.

Monday, April 15, 1912-Nova Scotia Armand Bettencourt awoke to an aggravating buzzing that disturbed his warm, comfortable state of being. Unwilling to open his eyes, he turned on his side and pulled the covers over his head. Ah, that stopped it. Then it started again.

Groaning, he lowered the covers and peered out at the dim room. Gray, foggy mist dared not enter through the open window out of respect for his sleep.

Squinting at the black hands on the white-faced clock, he thought it too early in the morning for anybody to call. Not here, anyway. This country home in Bedford was his haven. His office knew he was taking today off, and n.o.body but close a.s.sociates and friends knew where to find him. That's why he kept only one phone in the house, and it was downstairs in the kitchen, near where he liked to cook.

Tomorrow he'd have one installed upstairs so he could pick up the receiver, put it back down, turn over, and go to sleep again. It was probably a wrong number or somebody who hadn't learned how to operate the relatively new contraptions.

"All right, all right." He sat up, switched on the lamp, and made his way out the door, across the hall, down the stairs, past another hall, and into the kitchen. He could have done it with his eyes closed. Just follow the persistent ringing.

He reached into the small nook in the wall and lifted the receiver. "Yes?"

"Mr. Bettencourt?"

Resisting the urge to ask if that's who the caller wanted, he replied blandly. "Speaking."

"This is Jarvis."

Jarvis. Yes, one of his young interns, who came to the office early to bring the mail and to be ready to run errands by the time the others arrived. Didn't that boy know the sun might be coming up in the city, but here in the country things moved more slowly? Looking at the fog-laden window, he thought about the cool mist that would be rising from the lake. A light breeze would be blowing through the trees, and he liked to walk in it. A little later in the morning, however.

"I took today off," he reminded Jarvis, in case he hadn't gotten the word. He'd had a long day on Sat.u.r.day, with several of his neighbors having a dispute with a railway company over a property line. Then Sunday had been church and rest and fishing. Well, rest and fishing were just about one word. Certainly one activity. He'd stayed up late reading and had looked forward to sleeping in this morning.

He heard Jarvis's deep breath. "Have you heard about the t.i.tanic?"

Now that penetrated Armand's sleep-laden mind. "Everybody in the world has heard about the t.i.tanic, Jarvis."

"I mean, there's been an accident."

Armand turned from the window and lifted the candlestick base of the phone from the nook, then set it on the small table in front of the window. He pulled out a chair and sat.

"Accident?"

"The radio says the t.i.tanic hit an iceberg. She got a little banged up. Since Halifax is closer to them than New York, the ship's coming here."

Wondering if he were dreaming, Armand ran his fingers through the curls that fell across his forehead and which felt as disheveled as his emotions. "The pa.s.sengers are going to disembark here?"

"I guess so. Otherwise they wouldn't need to send the report, would they?"

Armand supposed not, unless they needed to wait until the ship was repaired or they could get on another one. He tried to calculate. The t.i.tanic was due in New York on Thursday. It would arrive here maybe late Tuesday or Wednesday. There was time to find out more and help where needed.

"Let me know if you learn any more. Thanks, Jarvis."

"Yes, sir."

By the time Armand had his coffeemaker perking on the stove, the phone rang again.

"Me again," Jarvis said. "Now the word is that White Star chartered trains for friends and family of pa.s.sengers to come here. They'd expected to meet them in New York."

Armand could hardly comprehend this. Almost three thousand pa.s.sengers were coming to Halifax by ship. Who knew how many by train? Maybe Jarvis had taken up drinking. "Why are you calling about this, Jarvis?"

"I was told to. The other attorneys in the office are trying to find out what they need to do. People will need places to stay."

Armand spoke his mind. "This is not making a lot of sense."

"Nothing is. Some reports are that everything's fine. Another says the t.i.tanic is badly damaged."

Armand sighed. "I'll come in. Maybe I can make some sense of it."

Before he had finished the cup of coffee he took upstairs to drink while dressing, the phone rang again. He didn't go down to answer, but instead listened to the radio broadcasts. They were as mixed as Jarvis had said.

Armand called the pastor of the little country church and then proceeded to dress in his business suit. He was the attorney for the Marstons, a couple of church members traveling on the t.i.tanic.

The Marstons had been friends of Armand's parents and were a great comfort to him after his parents were killed several years ago in a train wreck. As difficult as that had been, it had conditioned him for a worse catastrophe. But this wasn't the time to be thinking of that.

Shortly, Rev. Oliveera arrived in his carriage. "What you've heard is all they're reporting on the radio." The man's tone of voice revealed his own effort to comprehend such news.

They rode in the carriage, with the horse driven at racing speed, to the Bedford station and boarded the train to Halifax. The pastor was as befuddled as other pa.s.sengers, pa.s.sing information back and forth, finding it difficult to believe a great ship like the t.i.tanic could be in trouble. "If it is, the people will need us. Sounds like we might be getting about three thousand people coming into Halifax Harbor."

Armand nodded. That was among the more heartening of the reports.

Others on the train seemed equally hopeful, saying if people couldn't be safe on a great ship like the t.i.tanic, who'd be safe on any ship at all?

As soon as they arrived in Halifax, they heard other reports from people gathered at the station and in the streets. Armand and the pastor hurried to Barrington Street and into a two story building much like others on the block that had been turned into offices. Bettencourt Law Firm took up the entire first floor. Armand's town residence was on the second. He stayed in the office, where he could receive telephone and wireless messages.

Armand had a direct connection with the Cunard Line, which wired that White Star had sent the message that the t.i.tanic had hit an iceberg but all was well. As he conveyed the message to the pastor, both breathed a sigh of relief. The damage wasn't as bad as some reports made it out to be.

He began making and receiving calls immediately. Halifax would need to take care of the ship's pa.s.sengers until they could be transported by another ship or by train to New York. He didn't know what he could do, but he'd be available.

n.o.body believed that there was any real trouble. The t.i.tanic was the greatest, grandest mode of transportation ever built.

Other than the one Noah built, Armand thought with a trace of humor. But G.o.d had directed that one down to the kind of wood and the size. He'd have to look into it and see which was larger, the Ark or the t.i.tanic.

But he wasn't trying to make a point. For all he knew, G.o.d had instructed Andrews and Ismay and each worker about how to build that ship. Noah's problem was rain. The t.i.tanic's was an iceberg.

Both floated, apparently, because the next message came that all the pa.s.sengers were safe on the Parisian and the Carpathia. Because of ice encountered on the way to Nova Scotia, they would be taken directly to New York.

The train trips were cancelled.

It looked like their initial scare was unfounded. They wouldn't have to find available s.p.a.ce for thousands of ship and train pa.s.sengers.

But the crew would need their help. The t.i.tanic was being towed by the Virginian to Halifax.

29.

Time didn't mean anything anymore, and Lydia wondered if they were all dead and this was a forever place. There was nothing to scream about now. A stillness lay in the air and across the smooth sea.

All of a sudden someone found a voice. And another.

"We're saved. We're saved," rang out over the ocean. She couldn't imagine that that boom and light on the horizon represented safety. An irrational crewman lit a piece of paper and a woman's hat to wave above his head as a signal. That would make no difference.