CARPE DIEM
Chapter Eighteen
I was dry, warm, and…I opened my
eyes. I stood in Thomas’s embrace, still in the corridor, but not as we had
been. Full sunshine poured in the port side window and each window afterward,
reflecting off the white walls, in delicate brightness, and I…I looked upon it,
without my glasses, without throbbing on either side of my head. The light fell
in rays upon the wood floor, dust particles illuminated, danced slowly through
it. But the water? And the night? Thomas, astonished, not comprehending,
released me, gaze darting round, finally settling on my face. I shrugged, as
confused as he.
"Nice night for a morning,
isn’t it?" A voice came from down the corridor, past us, behind Thomas. A
steward walked towards us, sharply dressed in a White Star Line uniform,
grinning as if he had never learned how to frown. A man of average height and
non-descript features, a young man, broom and rain jacket in hand. Thomas
turned at the voice, stepped away from the doorframe, in front of me,
protecting me from what, neither of us could say.
"Who are you?" Thomas
demanded, looking around, at the even floor boards, the dry bulkhead, the
white, billowing clouds visible through the windows lining the side of the
hallway. He waved a hand in the air indiscriminately. "And where are
we?"
"And what is all of
this?" I muttered, reaching up, touching my face, tearless, noting again
that I wore no dark glasses. And yet, not only could I see, I could see well! I
touched Thomas’s arm, on tiptoes peeked over his shoulder. I could see the
emblem on the young man’s shirt pocket. I could see the color of his eyes, the
impression on a signet band he wore on the first finger of his right hand. My
head no longer ached. My eyes no longer pained. I felt younger by a dozen
years, and giddy. Who cared what sort of madness this was? I whispered, with
amazement and ecstasy, "Thomas, I can see…I can see everything."
He half-turned, his expression
betraying long-forgotten hope and a question in the same gaze. Did I speak
earnestly? I nodded quickly, biting my lip slightly as a smile began to steal
over my lips. I struggled to repress it.
"But this is
impossible." Thomas turned back and faced the steward directly, stated his
determination with conviction.
"Nothing’s impossible, Mr.
Andrews," the steward chided pleasantly, opening a broom closet at his end
of the hall and leaning his broom against the back wall. He took out a wire
hanger, placed the rain jacket upon it, bent over and lifted out an old
suitcase, black leather, with two latches and a wooden handle. The steward
looked at me, his gaze piercing, cornflower blue, wise beyond his years,
familiar. "Nor is it ever too late, Miss Ismay."
"But how do you know…we
were…the water and the iceberg…sir, this ship is sinking," Thomas
sputtered, unable to form a coherent thought. The young steward shook his head,
smile as yet undisturbed.
"It is a mathematical
certainty, yes?" He shook his head, then sighed. "Well, I never
thought much of mathematics anyway." He shut the door of the broom closet,
took out a pocket watch from his pants pocket, a silver timepiece on a short
chain. He noted the time, replaced the watch. "I’ve never like boats much
either, not really a seaward sort of chap. But you, Mr. Andrews? You look like
a man who couldn’t live without his ships. Am I right?"
Thomas, caught off balance by his
own words hurled back at him, and no less confused than he had been a few
moments before, struggled to answer the man’s question.
"Well…I mean, I suppose…it’s
a living," he finished lamely, but then, almost in anger, continued,
"I don’t see how that..."
"Oh, but it’s more than a
living to you, sir, isn’t it? Shipbuilding is all you ever wanted to do, all
you ever saw yourself doing? Like children to you, these ships you’ve created,
aren’t they?"
"But how do you…what is that
to you?" Thomas would not take much more of this. He did not understand
this man’s line of questioning and would not stand for it, no matter how
pleasantly the man asked. He clenched his right fist in frustration. I placed
my hand on his arm, restrained him.
"Please, sir, just indulge
me." The young steward had a firmness of voice that lent itself well to
commands. And Thomas, unable to reconcile…well, anything that had transpired in
the last few minutes, was left with little to counter. He answered in silence,
but the young steward seemed willing to wait patiently, suitcase on the ground
beside his feet, smile ever present, gaze direct, unyielding and all-knowing.
Defeated by relative ignorance, Thomas complied.
"I enjoy my work. Yes,
that’s true." Thomas spoke frankly, adding, "Are you satisfied?"
"Not at all," the man
answered, turned his piercing blue eyes on me once again, but still addressing
Thomas nonetheless. "Would you give it up, would you be willing to never
build another thing in your life, but instead work in a field, toil under a hot
sun, wrestle with insects, blight, and foul weather, if it meant you could have
married a young woman by the name of Mary Catherine Ismay ten years ago?"
I had met the man’s gaze
half-heartedly, more intent upon casting my line of vision on everything in
sight, distracted by the flecks of color in the adjacent stateroom’s painted
wall and the seam on Thomas’s shirt. But when my name slipped off his tongue
without precursor, I brought my gaze back fast, met the young steward’s
unshakeable grin with a frown borne of what struck me as pure, cruel mockery.
The unbridled happiness and joy I’d irrationally been adopting dissipated as
fast as it had been created. What was this place? And who was this man? And
what did he want? I looked up at Thomas to find him staring down at me with
somber eyes and a steady expression. I tipped my head, unsure of his scrutiny,
wondering why he didn’t press the man further. Surely, he…
"I’d give more than
that," Thomas whispered, his words for me and me alone. I didn’t trust my
voice, but didn’t release his arm either, couldn’t tear my eyes from his face.
No soul closer to my own. The steward began speaking again, but I barely heard
him.
"Listen, folks, I’ve got a
train to catch. Places to go and people to see, you know?" He laughed
gaily, "Ha! A train, imagine that? Remember the days of…oh, no, I suppose
you wouldn’t."
He drifted off, and steps
retreated down the hallway. Thomas declined to call out after him. I failed to
notice his absence, intent upon other things.
"Thomas, I…" I
hesitated before saying words I should have said a thousand times before. I
shook my head slowly, "Thomas, I don’t think I…was meant to live apart
from you."
Not ever.
Let no man put asunder…
Mary Catherine, are you
coming?
There was a rush of wings then,
like so many pigeons alighting from the steps of a cathedral. I saw darkness,
then a myriad of colors reflected in water, and then nothing at all. I heard
wind chimes. Someone knocked at the door.
Someone knocked at the door? The
sound startled me on my way up the staircase and I almost dropped the day’s
post on the second floor landing…the day’s post? I looked up through
dark-tinted glasses, found myself facing the grandfather clock that stood in
the upstairs hallway of my brother’s house in London. A quarter past ten in the
morning. The pendulum swung incessantly.
"Inès!" My
sister-in-law’s voice carried from the back parlor, from where she instructed
the girls, my nieces, Evelyn and Annette, in needlework and the virtues of
discretion. They would learn her lessons well, grow into reasonable young
women, cool-tempered and passionless. As their mother, as their aunt. The
raven-haired chambermaid appeared from the kitchen, stone-faced, demurely
walked towards the door. The letters I held fell from my hands, scattered on
the stairs after all, sealed with wax, postmarked 1905.
The French mademoiselle would not
answer the knocking this day. It would be the first of several instances to be
amended. Before she reached the door, Thomas Andrews opened it himself, bouquet
of wildflowers held loosely in his left hand, blue phlox and aster picked from
the roadside between here and Manchester.
"Oh, Thomas…" I cried
and laughed at the same time, my hands upon my face, dragging the small, dark
tinted glasses from my twenty-one-year-old eyes. He smiled openly, without
reserve, sans melancholy, handed the flowers to Inès, absently, without a
glance in her direction, and met me at the foot of the staircase, where I
collapsed into his arms gladly.