Mirror Image, page 32
Victoria had lunch alone that day, and it was unseasonably warm as they entered the Celtic Sea and the stewards opened every possible porthole in the dining room, and many of the first-class cabins. By the end of lunch, people were going to their cabins to get changed. Land had been sighted, and they were a mere dozen miles offshore, just south of the lighthouse at Old Kinsale, Ireland. There was an atmosphere of celebration and excitement. They'd made it.
Victoria went out on deck after lunch, and she was standing at the rail, looking out to sea as they headed toward Liverpool when a thin white trail raced just under the sea to starboard. She happened to look down at it as she listened to the animated strains of the "Blue Danube, " and wondered if it was a fish of some kind coming at them.
She was wearing a red dress Olivia had bought her ages before, and she had left her hat downstairs, as the sun shone down on her, and suddenly the entire ship jarred, and she was flung against the rail as a column of water shot up all the way to the bridge deck, and the whole bow lifted right out of the water. It was the most extraordinary thing she'd ever seen, and she stared at it as she clung to the rail, wondering vaguely if she'd be thrown overboard, but she wasn't. She was wearing high heels and she felt unsteady on her feet as the bow of the vast ship settled down into the sea again as a blinding cloud of steam shot up, and they headed straight toward the lighthouse in the distance.
But within minutes as people exclaimed about what they saw, the ship began listing severely to starboard. Victoria's cabin was on B deck, and all she could think of was getting back to it for her life vest and her money. But there were huge crowds of people everywhere suddenly, and as soon as she started downstairs the ship began listing even more severely to starboard. It was extremely difficult to walk now.
"We've been hit! .. ." she heard someone say. "Torpedo! " An I t i . =.
alarm sounded somewhere and the noise was deafening, and beyond it she could still hear music, and all she could think of suddenly was Susan on the Titanic.
"Not now, " she said to herself, as she hurried downstairs, fighting to keep her balance as she fell against the walls of the ship repeatedly.
It was slowly turning sideways. But she reached her cabin in time to grab her life vest, her wallet, and her passport. She took nothing else.
She had brought no jewels with her, and she had nothing of value, except her passport, and the funds she'd brought to sustain her.
She struggled to put her life vest on, as she left her cabin again and rushed upstairs, and in the distance she could hear people screaming.
There were people panicking all around her, and when she reached the stairs, she almost collided with Alfred Vanderbilt, carrying his jewel case.
"Are you all right? " he asked, perfectly calm. She wasn't sure if he recognized her or not. As usual, he was smiling and courteous.
He seemed completely unruffled and he had his manservant with him.
"I think so, " she said in answer to his question. "What's happening?
" She hadn't even had time to panic. It was all so confusing. But as she spoke to him, they both heard the sound of another explosion far below them.
"Torpedoes, " he said pleasantly, "lots of them. You'd best get up on deck quickly." He urged her forward and she went ahead of him, and then lost sight of him. They had already swung the lifeboats out in their davits, but as the ship listed ever more heavily to the starboard side, the boats on the port side were useless. They dangled above the ship at a crazy angle, and those on the starboard side were dipping rapidly toward the water. The Lusitania looked like a child's toy, about to turn entirely on its side in the bathtub. But this was no toy, and they were just far enough out to sea for a real disaster.
Victoria glanced toward the shore, suddenly wondering if she could swim it. They could see the shore from where they stood, and the people of Queenstown could see the bow of the Lusitania go down sharply, as the stern rose in the air.
And the. screaming on the ship sounded almost like seagulls.
And as the ship began to slide down, the many portholes that had been opened nullified the watertight doors, and took in the rushing water.
Victoria was watching the scene of utter chaos around her, her high heels cast aside by then, her stocking feet on the deck as soot and smoke enveloped them, and she suddenly had trouble breathing. She wasn't sure if it was smoke or panic, but the nose of the ship was well down, and she had to fight to keep her balance. People were literally falling into the sea as the radio antenna fell, nearly killing several people.
People were leaping off the ship, and then shouting for help, children were crying and mothers were frantically trying to get them into lifeboats. And then she saw Alfred Vanderbilt again, helping children into the boats. She saw him take his own life vest off and give it to a little girl, and as she watched him she pushed her wallet deep into her dress, secured by her life vest.
And as Victoria watched the lifeboats lowered, she saw the first two overturn and heard people screaming, just as one of the giant funnels fell and engulfed a woman. It was like a scene from hell, as a little girl slid right past her legs on the deck and into the ocean.
Victoria screamed, reaching for her, but it was too late, and the child tumbled down and drowned as Victoria watched her.
"Oh my God .. . oh my God .. ." she said, turning away from the horror of it as the blonde curls bobbed for only an instant and then the child lay facedown in the sea beneath her, and a voice behind Victoria told her to get into a lifeboat. Oddly enough, it sounded like her sister, but she never knew who it was, and there was a terrible roaring sound as she headed toward them. It had only been five minutes since they'd been hit, but the ship was going down rapidly, as Victoria reached the lifeboats. For a moment it looked as though there wouldn't be room for her. There were only two boats left and there seemed to be children all around them.
"Take them, not me, " she shouted at the young officer helping them into the lifeboat, swinging crazily.
"Can you swim? " he called out, and she nodded and he called back to her again. "Grab a deck chair, we'll be down in a minute, " he said, and with that, took off without her, and she followed his advice and grabbed a chair and literally slid off the ship as it went down only an instant later, and she suddenly found herself in a sea of bobbing mattresses, bits of wood, statues, deck chairs, and bodies.
It was a hideous conglomeration of things that were literally shooting up from the ship as it hit the bottom, with a series of dull, terrifying explosions, and she screamed as two corpses bumped into her.
Everywhere she looked were people screaming, dying, crying, children floating past her, women calling out, and she watched a woman drown as she clutched her dead baby. It was beyond unimaginable, and she went down beneath the surface more than once, but she always seemed to come up again to see one more horror, until finally her deck chair floated next to another one with a little boy in a blue velvet suit Lying on it.
He looked like a perfect little prince, sleeping there, except that he was dead, and so was his mother. It was the worst thing Victoria had ever seen or dreamt of. She kept closing her eyes and wanting the nightmare to end, but it wouldn't. And she couldn't believe it when she finally saw Captain Turner clinging to a chair, and Lady Mackworth, nearby, clinging to another. And in the distance there were a ship's officer and an old woman sitting on a grand piano.
But all around them people screamed, and everywhere they were drowning.
Victoria couldn't bear it anymore after a while, it was just too horrible, her legs were cold, she couldn't breathe from the shock of it all, and people all around her were dying. She held on to her deck chair as long as she could and then, finally, mercifully, she slipped under the water.
Chapter 22.
She could hear terrible scraping sounds, and people shouting, and birds screeching overhead, the sounds of hell, as she felt someone drag her along by her feet, her head bumping with each step. She wanted to scream but she couldn't. She knew she must be dead, but then she wasn't so sure, because every inch of her was hurting. She opened her eyes painfully to see who was pulling her, and found herself looking into the face of a man who was pulling her legs and about to drop her into a coffin.
"Oh my God, Sean, this one's alive .. . she's moving." She gave a horrible cough, and vomited what felt like gallons of water. Her hair was matted to her head and her lips were cracked. Her eyes ached, and her lungs felt as though they might explode, and as she looked around, it was nighttime and all around her were coffins, and the smell of death and the ocean. There were birds circling overhead, and Victoria didn't even have the strength to sit up as the man helped her. "We thought you were dead, " he said apologetically. "You looked it."
"I feel like I am, " she said and retched again, wondering what had happened to the others. But it was easier to see than she wanted.
What looked like thousands of corpses were laid out all around them, mostly children. It broke her heart to see it. They looked so sweet, still so beautiful even in death, some of them with their eyes open, others closed, and here and there sobbing mothers "The Jerries got your ship, " the man called Sean explained.
"Fair blew out the bottom. She went down in eighteen minutes.
That was five hours ago. We picked you up just outside the harbor, my brother and I. We've all gone out to get them. But there are damn few survivors, " he said with a brogue that would have enchanted her at any other moment.
"The subs have been out there for weeks, you know, rotten bastards.
They hang around the mouth of the harbor." She couldn't help wondering if Captain Turner had known that.
"Come on, " he said, "let me help you up, you're a lucky girl, " he said, pulling her gently to her bare feet. Her silk stockings were completely gone, vanished, along with most of her dress. She was wearing only what looked like a slip and panties, and a red blouse under her life vest above her waistband, but when she felt for it, she still had her wallet.
And she wasn't even embarrassed as the young seaman half dragged, half carried her into the local pub, where they were taking the survivors.
They had opened the church too, and the Queen's Hotel, the Town Hall, and the Queenstown and Royal Naval Hospitals. And there was a hot tea stand at the station. They were doing everything they could for the survivors, and Cunard had ordered two thousand coffins.
As Victoria walked into the bar, assisted by Sean, she looked around and saw one or two familiar faces, among them the captain. He had come into Queenstown on a small steamer called the Bluebell, which had also picked up Margaret Mackworth.
"Nice dress, " one woman said wryly, looking up at her. She was one of a few who still had both her children with her, but all three of them were naked. And in other corners of the room, women sobbed for their lost husbands and babies. They had seen them slip right out of their arms on the deck, watched them fall, or be hit by debris, or simply drown in the cold water. It was beyond belief, beyond anything Victoria had ever read about, or dreamt of. And all she could think of now was sending a telegram to her sister. She knew it was dangerous contacting her, but she also knew she had absolutely no choice. She had to tell Olivia she was alive, and had survived the disaster.
At midnight, the American consul, Wesley Frost, made the rounds of all the locations where the survivors were being brought and asked what he could do for each of them. She gave him Olivia's name and address and a cryptic message. She knew she would understand what it meant, and she asked him to confirm to her when he had sent it, and he promised.
He had more than his hands full that night. There had been 189
Americans on board, and there was no way yet of telling how many of them were dead, but he had hysterical people around him everywhere, of all nationalities, many of them severely injured. And all those who had survived were desperate to contact their relatives and reassure them.
"I'll take care of it as soon as possible, Miss Henderson, " he promised her, and handed her one of the blankets the local women had left them.
There were people all around them in rags, some of them completely naked, and no one even noticed.
"Thank you, I appreciate it, " she said, her teeth were chattering violently, and she still found it hard to breathe. She had taken in a lot of water. And as she sat leaning against the wall in the bar, sitting on the floor in her underwear, she thought about what had happened, all she had seen, the sheer horror of it, and wondered if Alfred Vanderbilt had made it. So far, she hadn't seen him. But it made her think too of Geoffrey who had survived a similar disaster on the Titanic, and watched his mother go down with her. Suddenly she had far more sympathy for what he'd been through and wished she could have put her arms around him at that moment, and her sister. She closed her eyes then, as though to shut out the images, especially of a woman, screaming, saying she was giving birth, just as she had become unconscious. But all she could see when she closed her eyes was Olivia sitting on the bed in her bedroom in New York and Victoria wished she could reach out and touch her. And with every ounce of her being she tried to concentrate and tell her she was all right, and prayed with all her soul that Olivia would know it.
Chapter 23.
When Olivia watched Geoffrey and Charles eat breakfast on Monday, May tenth, she thought she would scream if they took a moment longer.
She was still feeling ill, and she had had a fierce argument with Charles about reading the paper.
"The doctor said you weren't to upset yourself, " he reminded her, taking the paper away from her, and she grabbed it from him.
"Give it to me, Charles! " she shouted at him in a voice she didn't recognize herself, and he looked at her in surprise and then handed it to her as she apologized. "I'm sorry, I'm not myself. I just want to read about something and get my mind off Olivia, that's all."
"I understand perfectly, " he said curtly, and finally, mercifully, left for the office.
Even Geoff seemed to drag his feet going to school that day, but the moment he was gone, Olivia grabbed her hat and purse and ran out the door, hailed a cab and gave him the address of the Cunard office on State Street. But she was totally unprepared for what she found there.
There was a veritable human sea of wild, shouting people, screaming, throwing things, calling names, crying, begging for information, and when they didn't get it, they got ugly. Officials from the shipping line did what they could to stave off the crowd, with the help of the police, but in the end, it was obvious that they had very little information. They had staggering numbers of losses by then, well over the thousand mark they feared, perhaps l more, and Frohman's body had been found, floating near Queenstown, but other than that, there were only bits and pieces of information, and mostly terrifying rumors.
There was also word that there had been celebration in Germany over the victory of the U-boat, which enraged the crowd even further.
But after seven hours of standing there, Olivia still did not have what she had come for, the list of survivors. They had promised it for the next day. And her heart felt like lead as she walked back outside at four-thirty. She had been on her feet all day, eaten nothing at all, and had done everything she could to grasp at every scrap of information.
There were a few names, some lists of casualties. One young man had said the line was taking photographs of the bodies in Queenstown in order to identify them later. Just the thought of it made her shudder.
And yet, when she stood very quietly, it was as though she could hear Victoria talking to her. She didn't feel as though she were dead, whatever that felt like. Perhaps she would die too then. Maybe that was how she would know. She was so tired she was numb, as she walked all the way back to the house on the East River.
And as she walked up the front steps, her body aching as much as her mind by then, she happened to see a young boy in uniform, approaching.
He wore the uniform of Western Union, and as she looked at him, she felt her heart stop, and hurried back down the stairs to him. She grabbed his arm without thinking, and looked like a madwoman as she clutched him.
"Do you have a telegram for me? Victoria Dawson? " She knew that was the name it would come to if Victoria dared send it to her there, but she was sure Victoria wouldn't be cruel enough to leave her in silence if she were alive, and she was grateful she was right as he nodded.
"Yes .. . I .. . here, " he said, and almost ran away from her.
She felt like a witch as she snatched it from him and ripped it open.
Her hands shook so terribly she could hardly read what it said, and she felt herself gulp great sobs of air as she read it. The girl was crazy.
Absolutely nuts. But she was alive in Queenstown.
"Trip began with a bang. Stop, " it said. "Thank God for Mr. Bridgeman.
Stop. All well in Queenstown. Stop. I love you always.
Stop." Mr. Bridgeman was their old swimming teacher in Croton.
And Olivia stood whooping and crying on the steps as she read it, and she didn't care who heard her. There was no other information, no address, nowhere to reach her or find her. But Olivia knew her twin was alive and well and had survived the sinking of the Lusitania. It was all she needed to know now. And she crushed the message in her hand, and then hurried into the house, and burned the paper in the oven, although she suspected she probably should have saved it, but it was too dangerous to keep. Someone might have found it and figured out where she really was.
It had been the worst three days of Olivia's life, and she hoped she never had to go through anything like it again. She was so exhausted, she decided to take a bath, and filled her tub with hot water and bubbles. She didn't know what to do to celebrate, dance or sing or cry.
Instead, she ran into Geoffrey's room and hugged him, which he found unusual. He thought Victoria was definitely going crazy. His father had said something to him about her nerves, but he was beginning to think it was her mind that was all messed up now. But he had never seen her in such good spirits.
