overboard where he swam until he was smuggled onto another ship. In his shame, the Captain of the Cutty Sark then killed himself. In Conrad’s hands, the scandal, which was reported in every paper and discussed in every port, becomes the tale of two men in their sleep suits whispering in a ship’s cabin, and this dreamlike scene recalls Ismay in his pyjamas, hiding in the doctor’s cabin on the Carpathia, plotting with Lightoller how to escape the inquiry without anyone noticing. Lightoller, like Conrad’s captain, is caught between personal conscience and corporate duty. Will the officer prove ‘faithful to that ideal conception of one’s own personality every man sets up for himself secretly’?
Lightoller (who shares his own secrets with his wife, whom he met on board a White Star ship) is not Ismay’s only secret sharer. Wherever we find him, Ismay is one half of a whispering partnership. He whispers side by side with Harold Sanderson, his secret replacement at the IMM; he whispers over dinner with Lord Pirrie when they plan to upstage the Lusitania with the Titanic; he whispers with William E. Carter, who jumped into his lifeboat at the same time; with Captain Smith, who handed him the Marconigram from the Baltic; with J. P Morgan, whose involvement in the finances of the White Star Line would come as a shock to the British inquiry; and most importantly he whispers with Mrs Thayer. He is mired, Ismay reveals to her, in the moment of his jump; he is lost and can only find himself again in her. Ismay and Marian Thayer form, he feels, a part of one another. It seems that everyone, except Florence, is Ismay’s secret sharer.13
To Ismay’s family it was Kipling and not Conrad who best described his internal struggle, and Bruce’s sister- in-law sent him a copy of Kipling’s ‘If’ because ‘it reminds me so of you’. First published two years earlier in the collection Rewards and Fairies, Kipling had written the verse in 1895 in celebration of Dr Leander Starr Jameson, a British colonial statesman who, with the secret support of the British government, had assembled a private army outside the Transvaal to overthrow Paul Kruger’s Boer government. The uprising, known as the Jameson Raid, was prevented by the Boer forces and Jameson was forced to surrender. His much-publicised trial took place in London where he was lionised by the press as ‘the hero of one of the most daring raids in all the annals of border warfare’. Jameson held his tongue throughout about the involvement of the government under whose auspices he was now being tried, and presented himself in court as ‘a quiet, modest gentleman, in faultless and fashionable dress, with civilian stamped upon him from head to foot’.
If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream — and not make dreams your master; If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools— If you can do these things and more, Kipling concludes, ‘you’ll be a Man, my son’. To his family, Ismay was shouldering the blame with the stoicism of a soldier.
Ismay’s next letter to Marian Thayer is written on the last day of the year. Their previous letters have crossed in the post; she has sent him Emerson’s essay on ‘Compensation’ and two books of prayer, Out from the Heart and I Thank Thee. They all, Ismay says, ‘contain so much that is true and helpful’. She has also written to Florence to ‘make inquiries’ about Ismay’s health following a story in the American press. The article was groundless — based, Ismay supposes, on rumours about his imminent retirement — but Mrs Thayer, who now realises that Ismay has misunderstood their relationship, is in rapid retreat. He must not be allowed to talk about his ‘attraction’ to her or ‘where our friendship would have taken us’ had the ship not hit the iceberg. As far as she is concerned, they are simply two unhappy survivors who have shared a ghastly experience. Florence is pleased to hear from Mrs Thayer and shows her husband the letter. It is unlikely that Ismay reciprocates the gesture.
Christmas with the Ismays is particularly grim. He finds it ‘impossible to get through’ and imagines that Marian will be feeling the same. She was in his thoughts ‘constantly… I wonder if you felt it?’ He is filled with self- loathing, and now that Mrs Thayer has woven his wife into her world of connections he feels licensed to talk about the difficulties of his home life. Rather than creating a distance between herself and Ismay by writing to Florence, Mrs Thayer has inadvertently encouraged Ismay to clear his throat and move the conversation on. He has, he now reveals, ‘such a horrible, undemonstrative nature. I cannot show people how fond I am of them and not doing so hurts their feelings and they imagine I do not care for them. What can I do? Of course, one cannot hurt other people without hurting oneself.’ It is unlikely that the account of his failings he gives Marian Thayer has ever been expressed to Florence, that Ismay has ever told his wife how agonising he finds it to watch himself hurt others or that the silent person she is currently living with bears no relation to the person he feels himself to be. ‘Very often,’ he continues to Mrs Thayer, ‘a word would make things right, one’s horrid pride steps in and this causes unhappiness. I wonder if you know all I mean.’ Mrs Thayer, who seems never to have suffered from horrid pride, may not know all he means, as Ismay suddenly sees. ‘I can hear you saying what a horrible character and I agree. I absolutely hate myself at times. Tell me what I can do to cure myself.’ She has told him in an earlier letter not to ‘lock’ himself ‘up tight’. Ismay is amazed that Mrs Thayer can have picked up on this aspect of his character: ‘When did you notice that this was another of my failings? Do you know that I always put my worst side forward and very very few people ever get under the surface? I cannot help it, can you help me to change my horrid nature?’ He still has ‘awful fits of depression’ and wishes he ‘could make something of the life that remains’. Perhaps, he now writes to Mrs Thayer, ‘something may turn up. My wife says it will but I am very disheartened.’ He asks to be remembered to Jack, and wishes that he could ‘have a talk with you. It would be a great help to me.’ While Ismay has not yet been over to Ireland to see his new house, a friend visiting on his behalf reports that the place is primitive and unmodernised and needs a good deal of work.
In February the nation is gripped by the tale of another voyage out when the body of Captain Scott is found frozen in the Antarctic. The explorer was, according to the Daily Mail, ‘a true and spotless knight’ and the journey to the South Pole an example of ‘modern chivalry’. The failure of Scott’s party to be first to reach their goal is redeemed by the nobility of their deaths. Ismay must seem the only Englishman to ever return from a voyage alive. He continues to send Mrs Thayer letters on the White Star mail ships, but she now no longer replies. By the end of the month Ismay tells her that ‘it is ages and ages since I have had a word from you’. He has no idea of her ‘doings’ or her plans for the summer. Perhaps, from what Florence tells him, she has ‘not been very well lately?’ Marian corresponds with Florence more than she does with Bruce. He tells her that he has been over to Ireland to see the house, which he fears that Florence, who loves London, will find dull. Never mind. He can personally no longer bear the city, and they have let their London house until the end of July. He is currently in Liverpool, where his ‘business career is drawing to its close’. He still has ‘mixed feelings’ about life without work.
He next hears from Mrs Thayer in April, a week after the first anniversary of the Titanic’s sinking. He has by now ‘almost given up waiting’. She has been unwell and is thinking of going to Switzerland; she asks if he has read the books she sent him and which ones he likes best? He tells her that ‘they were all so nice and comforting. You have been much in my thoughts.’ He asks God in his prayers to give her strength to bear her loss. ‘It is awfully difficult at times to realise the awful thing that has happened.’ He
