Lusitania

April 29, 1915

Carrie Boxhall sat on the floor of the nursery in the home of her employers, Charles and Meg Ashton, keeping the children company while Meg and her good friend Kelly O’Connell visited in a nearby parlor. Even though Henry, Meg’s son, had a governess, Carrie didn’t mind. She often found herself spending time with Henry, Ruth, and Lizzie while Mrs. Pendleton took her tea in the same room as their mistress. It gave the governess a chance to visit with other adults, and it gave Carrie a chance to dream of having her own children, something she’d very much like to experience one day.
Henry, who had just turned two a couple of weeks ago, grabbed for the toy train Ruth was holding in her hand. Ruth, who was seven, told him, “You can’t just take things away from other people, Henry. Even if it is your train.”
“He’s so little,” Carrie said with a smile. “He doesn’t quite know how to share yet, Miss Ruth.”
“Someone should probably teach him,” the oldest child of the three replied in no uncertain terms. Her sister, Lizzie, who was three, was busy banging a toy pot with a spoon. Earlier, Carrie had been showing her how to stir it up and taste it, which had Lizzie in a fit of giggles. Now, she was more concerned about making sure Henry didn’t start to cry.
“Would you like this train instead, Master Henry?” She pulled a different locomotive out of a large basket full of toys and waved it in front of him. He laughed and bounced up and down a few times before taking it and doing his best to say train.
“He doesn’t even know how to talk properly,” Ruth said with a sigh.
“I bet you didn’t either when you were only two.” Carrie smiled at the girl.
“My mother says I was born speaking like a twenty-year-old woman.” Ruth pursed her lips together and straightened a lock of her red hair. “I’ve always been quite intelligent.”
Biting back a laugh, Carrie said, “Yes, I suppose that’s true.”
Just then, Lizzie wandered over to where Ruth had deposited a couple of her dolls earlier. As her sister’s hand came down to touch a pink frock, Ruth bolted over to stop her.
“No, Lizzie! Those are mine.” Ruth stood between her sister and the dolls.
Lizzie’s eyes narrowed, and she jutted out her bottom lip. “Me play whiff them.”
“No!” Ruth insisted, gathering them up. “No one touches them but me.”
“Would you like for me to put them up on top of the shelf in the bureau so she can’t reach them?” Carrie asked, standing to join the girls next to the rocking chair where they were still glaring at one another.
Ruth’s eyes trailed up to the highest shelf. “I don’t know,” she said, rearranging the three dolls in her arms. “Lilac and Charlotte would probably be fine, but Dolly New-Eyes doesn’t like to be so far away from me.”
“Dolly New-Eyes?” Carrie repeated. She’d seen Ruth carrying around the dolls before but couldn’t remember ever hearing their names.
“This one.” Ruth held the doll in question out for her to see. The eyes were shiny blue marbles. “It used to be Aunty Meg’s when she was a little girl, but the eyes fell out. Daddy put marbles in for me. Uncle Charlie said he could take her to a doll store to get her fixed up good, but she likes her pretty eyes.”
“I see.” Carrie smiled and bit back a laugh. “Well, perhaps we can put the other two up there, and you can keep a hold of Dolly.”
“Dolly New Eyes,” Ruth corrected.
“Yes, of course.” She reached out for the other two dolls, and Ruth handed them to her with a reluctant sigh. Carrie thanked her and situated the other two dolls out of Lizzie’s reach. “That one must be awfully special to you then, since your aunt gave it to you.”
“She is special to me, but not because of that.” Ruth sat down on the rocking chair and began to rock while Lizzie went back to the toys to find a different doll.
“Oh? Why is she so special then, Miss Ruth?” Carrie sat back down on the floor near Henry and handed him the train Ruth had been playing with earlier. He grinned and took it from her, running it over the wooden floor, making a sound like a motorcoach.
Ruth muttered under her breath about how that wasn’t right before she answered. “Well, she was on the big boat with me, the one that sank,” she explained as if it wasn’t anything at all that she almost drowned aboard Titanic. “Thanks to Uncle Charlie, we both survived. Now, I keep her with me all the time.”
“I see.” Carrie now remembered hearing stories about how Ruth had slipped away and gone looking for her doll. She hadn’t put two-and-two together to realize this was that doll—until now. “That must’ve been very scary. For both of you.”
“It was,” Ruth said with a nod. “But we had two hours to get off our boat. You’ll only have eighteen minutes.”
Carrie’s eyebrows furrowed as she tried to understand what the child was saying to her, but just then, Ms. Meg, Ms. Kelly, and Mrs. Pendleton came into the room, followed closely by Jonathan Lane, Mr. Ashton’s liegeman who was a favorite of Ruth’s in particular. She darted out of the chair to rush over and hug him. Jonathan scooped her up and tossed her into the air as she giggled.
“Don’t you dare drop my daughter on her crown, now, Mr. Jonathan,” Kelly said in her thick Irish accent as she crept toward Lizzie. “That one is the brains of the family. You knock the sense out of her, we’re all in trouble.”
Jonathan stopped tossing Ruth and set her down. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” he assured the mother who was clearly only teasing.
Carrie smiled at the lot of them as they settled in the room, but it seemed clear there was something amiss. Ms. Meg sat on the edge of her seat rubbing her baby bump, a letter in her other hand. Her brows were furrowed as she looked at her son playing at her feet, almost as if she were seeing him, but none of it was registering.
“Is everything all right, Ms. Meg?” Carrie asked, handing Lizzie a toy she’d dropped.
It took Meg a moment to answer. She blinked a few times and then said, “What’s that? Oh, yes. Everything is fine, Carrie,” with the same easy smile she often wore on her face, though it was strained more than usual.
“Hardly.” Kelly shook her head, sitting on the rug by the children and Carrie. “Of all the times for your mother to raise her ugly, selfish head.”
Immediately, Carrie’s interest perked as her eyebrows shot up. It had been ages since anyone had mentioned Mrs. Mildred Westmoreland in the Ashton home. For Kelly to do so now, Carrie knew something drastic must have transpired. “What is it?” she asked.
Ms. Meg drew in a deep breath through her nose and slowly let it out. “She’s dying.” She shrugged, flipping the letter around a bit before lying it down on a table next to her.
“The nerve of some people,” Jonathan joked, clearly trying to lighten the mood.
Ms. Meg narrowed her eyes at him but then continued. “She’s dying, and she wants me to come to Southampton to retrieve a package.”
Carrie let that set in. When Ms. Meg had traveled back to Southampton last, not too long after the Titanic disaster, Carrie had accompanied her. It had been her first, and only, trip across the sea—not counting the return trip, of course. She’d enjoyed her time aboard the Mauritania, but she wished her mistress had been more keen on getting out to explore the ship. She understood why Meg preferred to stay inside, but it hadn’t been quite the adventure she wished to have enjoyed.
The idea of going back across now intrigued her. For a moment, she imagined herself sailing across the wide blue ocean, the sun setting off in the distance, the promise of a star-filled sky above her on the horizon.
But, it was evident that Ms. Meg wouldn’t be going anywhere in her current state. It wouldn’t be safe to sail across the ocean in her condition. Carrie let the disappointment wash over her slowly, trying to contain her expression.
“I would go for you,” Kelly began, “but Daniel would have my head. And these two little ones don’t need another voyage like the last one.”
“It won’t be like the last one,” Ruth chimed in, though no one was paying her much mind. She picked up the train from earlier and made an exploding sound. Carrie stared at her a moment, but when Ms. Meg began to speak again, her attention was averted.
“I would never ask you to do that,” Ms. Meg said to Kelly. “You either, Jonathan.”
“I don’t mind so much,” the liegeman said. He perched on the edge of a desk across the room. “It’s only, I might not be able to make my way back across the pond.”
“What do you mean?” Ms. Pendleton asked with an amused expression. With Jonathan, one could always assume a witty joke was coming.
“I’d likely kill the old bat and get locked up in a British gaol,” he said with a chuckle.
The women laughed as well, but Carrie could understand why he’d say such a thing. Mildred Westmoreland had been a horrible person. She’d abused Ms. Meg and allowed her brother-in-law to do even worse. While Carrie hadn’t been privy to every bit of discussion from their last trip, she’d fallen under the impression that perhaps Mrs. Westmoreland had actually been responsible for Ms. Meg’s father’s death. Who would murder their own husband?
“Ms. Carrie likes boats.” This time, Ruth’s soft voice cut through the silence of the room.
The other adults in the room turned to look at her.
Carrie cleared her throat and straightened her gown. “Well, that is true,” she said. “I wouldn’t mind at all going across the ocean to get the box from your mother, Ms. Meg. That is, if you’d trust me to do such a thing. I assume that the box must be quite important that this is even under discussion.”
“It is,” Ms. Meg confirmed. “In her letter, my mother says that it contains some of my father’s prized possessions, items I assumed she’d destroyed or sold long ago.”
Carrie nodded. “Well, then, I’d be willing to go.” Once again, images of herself on the boat came to mind, but this time she wasn’t alone—a tall, handsome man stood next to her. Carrie felt her cheeks flame, just thinking about such a possibility. It was silly, but a woman could dream.
“It’s a bit dangerous right now.” Jonathan’s tone was much more serious this time. “Germans have been seen in the waters between here and there.”
“Germans?” Carrie’s stomach knotted slightly as she considered what he was saying.
He nodded, adjusting his lean slightly. “In submersibles.”
Carrie had some idea what that meant. Germans in boats under the water that were difficult to detect—carrying bombs, no doubt. She cleared her throat. “Well, that does sound a bit dangerous, but then, people get run over by motor coaches here in the city all the time, don’t they?”
Ms. Meg and Ms. Kelly exchanged a puzzled look before Ms. Meg said, “Yes, I suppose so.”
“So, it’s possible for anyone to get hurt or killed at any time, isn’t it?” Carrie concluded.
Meg held a thoughtful look for a moment before she said, “While that is true, I wouldn’t want you to put yourself at risk for me, Carrie.”
“I don’t feel that it’s a risk,” Carrie concluded quickly. The urge to travel, to have a bit of an adventure, called to her. “I will happily go for you.”
“You can’t go on your own,” Jonathan reminded her. “It wouldn’t be safe for a lady to travel alone.”
“I’m no lady,” Carrie reminded him with a snicker.
“You are a lady,” Jonathan disagreed, “and you cannot go alone.”
Feeling as if the possibility of adventure was being torn away from her again, Carrie thought up a protest, but before she could speak the words aloud, Jonathan added, “I’ll go with you.”