After the tour, the Futrelles again climbed to the boat deck, where orchestra leader Wallace Hartley and his little group were giving an open-air concert of ragtime and other lively popular tunes. Before long the sun was low in the horizon.
“Is that France?” May asked from a polished wooden railing. It was just May and her husband, the Harrises having already gone in to get dressed for dinner.
The coastal chalk cliffs glowed in the reddish sunset, as if they had somehow caught fire, and yet the effect was strangely soothing. At the end of a long breakwater, a structure was making itself known as a lighthouse.
“That’s France,” he told her.
They stood watching the dying sun’s rays reflecting across the breakwater’s gentle swells. The ship’s speed slackened; the great ship would soon be dropping anchor to take on more passengers.
“I’m tempted to get off, and continue our second honeymoon there,” she said.
The city of Cherbourg lay ahead, spread along the low-lying shore, dwarfed by the Mount Roule, purple in the twilight. The lights on deck winked on.
“Believing the bad omens, darling?”
“No, no, Jack… France is just so romantic.”
The wind was kicking up, waves getting choppier, the sky dark with more than just approaching night.
“I think a squall’s coming,” Futrelle said. “Let’s get inside and change for dinner.”
“Oh yes,” May said, holding on to her feathered chapeau. “Oh, Jack-what about the terrible man you were going to meet? You didn’t strike him, did you?”
“No, dear,” Futrelle said. “I didn’t strike him.”
DAY TWO
FOUR
Like their previous stop, Cherbourg, the Irish port of Queenstown ahead was too small to accommodate the Titanic; so anchor would be dropped offshore, for the arrival of the final batch of passengers and the taking on of mail sacks (the R.M.S. in R.M.S. Titanic did, after all, stand for “Royal Mail Ship”).
From the starboard boat deck, where Jack and May Futrelle sat side by side in deck chairs, blankets wrapped about their already coat-clad bodies, the morning seemed an exceptionally lovely one, blue cloud-fleeced sky, wind rather high but the blue-green waters surprisingly calm. They were unaware of the full Atlantic swell crashing against the ship’s port side, deceived by the ship’s uncanny ability-even on the boat deck-to emulate terra firma.
Last night, in the First-Class Dining Saloon, the Futrelles and their tablemates had found themselves paying less attention to their plates of endless, wonderful food (course upon course), and more to the new crop of passengers arriving, courtesy of the Cherbourg boat train. The subtle clatter of silverware on fine china was drowned out by the nearby bustle of stewards porting luggage, table talk trumped by the buzz of conversation of new arrivals.
Rene and Henry would point out this luminary and that one-here John Jacob Astor, his young bride and their rambunctious friend Maggie Brown; there Benjamin Guggenheim trailing behind his mistress, the glamorous French singer Madame Pauline Aubert, as if fooling anyone that they weren’t together (an effort that would be short-lived).
But these were just glimpses of famous faces and opera-house fashions, and at the orchestral evening that followed in the lounge (selections from Tales of Hoffmann and Cavalleria Rusticana), the newcomers were nowhere to be seen. Nor did they appear in the smoking room later, where Astor and Guggenheim might be expected to drop by for a Cuban cigar and a snifter of brandy.
Of course, both millionaires had boarded with beautiful young women, and Futrelle was of the opinion that Cuban cigars and snifters of brandy came in a distinct second and third in a contest involving the late-night company of such beauties.
And none of it seemed to be happening on a ship, rather in some landlocked hotel; only those nearest the windows could have suspected that outside, on deck, a gale was blowing.
Now the gale was a memory, the morning clear, as the Irish coastline showed itself, the gray mountains of Cork bobbing above the horizon.
“There it is!” May said, pointing. “The Old Head of Kinsale!”
The rocky promontory, peaked by a lighthouse, was a familiar and comforting sight to well-seasoned transatlantic travelers like the Futrelles.
“Cork Harbor’s just around the bend,” Futrelle said.
And, as if at Futrelle’s bidding, the great ship began its long, easy turn to port.
The married couple had taken a late breakfast-pressing ten-thirty-in the exquisitely continental a la carte restaurant, nicknamed the Ritz after the Ritz-Carlton dining rooms of White Star’s German rival, the Hamburg-Amerika Line. They had spent an at times spirited, at times tranquil morning in their stateroom, doing the sort of things a healthy, loving couple on their second honeymoon tend to do.
Two miles offshore, within the shelter of twin forts guarding the harbor, the Titanic dropped anchor, as twin tenders-the Ireland and America-drew alongside her with passengers and mail. The waterfront of Queenstown-a quaint seafaring village not unlike Scituate, the Massachusetts home of the Futrelles-was lined with sightseers, tiny well-wishers whose waving could barely be made out, whose cheering could scarcely be heard.
“Good morning!”
The voice belonged to J. Bruce Ismay, standing tall and thin, a handsome Ichabod Crane in a dark blue suit with gray pinstripes and matching gray spats, and, brisk breeze or not, no topcoat or hat.
As the blanket-bundled Futrelle and May stirred, Ismay urged them, “Don’t get up, please don’t get up on my account!” Before Futrelle could make introductions, the White Star Line director bowed to May. “J. Bruce Ismay, madam-I presume you’re the lovely Mrs. Futrelle.”
“If I’m not,” she said, “the lovely Mr. Futrelle has some explaining to do.”
Ismay laughed, once-he used laughs as punctuation, having enough of a sense of humor to know where to place them, though no more. “I understand you’re an author yourself.”
“A novice compared to Jack, here, I’m afraid.”
“But published.”
“Oh yes. Several times.”
“An accomplishment I envy. May I sit?”
“Please,” Futrelle said, and Ismay pulled up a deck chair on the husband’s side.
“Would it be bad form, sir, to ask if you’ve had time to consider my proposal?”
“Not at all.” Futrelle nodded toward his wife. “I have discussed it with May. She’s favorably disposed toward doing a mystery set aboard your ship.”
He beamed so widely at her, the ends of his mustache threatened to tickle the corners of his eyes. “I’m grateful, madam. I was not at all convinced your husband would say yes.”
“I haven’t said yes,” Futrelle reminded him.
“I hope that isn’t ‘no,’” Ismay said.
“I haven’t decided, but I am leaning in your direction, sir.”
“Splendid! What can I do to aid you?”
“We’ve had a tour of the ship, thanks to your personable purser, Mr. McElroy.”
“Wonderful chap.”
“Yes he is. But we may wish to take a closer look at the Titanic, from the crow’s nest to the boiler room. As a newspaperman turned fiction writer, I find the more truth I can build my tale around, the better.”
Ismay was nodding at the good sense of that. “Well, tonight at the captain’s table, I’ll introduce you to Mr. Andrews. I’m sure he’ll take you anywhere on the ship that you wish, and he has keys to everything.”