A Good Woman

Annabelle asked, instinctively reaching for the newspaper. Blanche hesitated for a long instant and then handed it to her. Annabelle saw the banner headlines as she unfolded it. The Titanic had sunk during the night. It was the brand-new ship her parents and Robert had taken home from England. Her eyes flew open wide as she quickly read the details. There were very few, only that the Titanic had gone down, passengers had been put in the lifeboats, and the White Star Line’s Carpathia had hastened to the scene. It said nothing of fatalities or survivors, but only that one could assume with a ship that size and that new that the passengers had been taken off in time, and the rescue would have been complete. The newspaper reported that the enormous ship had hit an iceberg, and although thought to be unsinkable, it had in fact gone down several hours later. The unimaginable had happened.

Annabelle flew into action immediately, and told Blanche to have the car and her father’s driver brought around. She was halfway out the pantry door to run upstairs and get dressed, as she said that she had to go to the White Star office immediately, for news of Robert and her parents. It didn’t even occur to her that hundreds of others would do the same.

Her hands were trembling as she dressed haphazardly in a simple gray wool dress, put on her stockings and shoes, grabbed her coat and handbag, and ran back down the stairs again, without even bothering to pin up her hair. She looked like a child with her hair flying, as she dashed out the front door and it slammed behind her. The house and everyone in it already seemed frozen in a state of anticipated mourning. As Thomas, her father’s driver, took her to the White Star Line’s offices at the foot of Broadway, Annabelle was battling a wave of silent terror. She saw a newsboy on a street corner, calling out the latest news. He was waving a more recent edition of the paper, and she made the driver stop and buy one.

The paper said that an unknown number of lives had been lost, and that reports were being radioed from the Carpathia about survivors. Annabelle could feel her eyes fill with tears as she read. How could this have happened? It was the largest, newest ship on the seas. This was her maiden voyage. How could a ship like the Titanic go down? And what had happened to her parents, her brother, and so many others?

When they reached the White Star offices, there were hundreds of people clamoring to get in, and Annabelle couldn’t imagine how she could push her way through the throng. Her father’s burly chauffeur helped her, but it still took her an hour to get inside. She explained that her brother and parents were first-class passengers on the illfated ship. A frantic young clerk took her name, as others went to post lists of survivors on the walls outside. The names were being radioed by the radio operator of the Carpathia, assisted by the surviving radio man from the Titanic, and they had boldly written at the top of the list that at present it was still incomplete, which gave many hope for the names they did not see.

Annabelle held one of the lists in her trembling hands, and could hardly read it through her tears, and then near the bottom she saw it, a single name. Consuelo Worthington, first-class passenger. Her father and brother were nowhere on the list, and to steady her nerves, she reminded herself it was incomplete. There were startlingly few names on the list.

“When will you know about the others?” Annabelle asked the clerk as she handed it back to him.

“In a few hours, we hope,” he said as others shouted and called out behind her. People were sobbing, crying, arguing, as more outside fought to come in. The scene was one of panic and chaos, terror and despair.

“Are they still rescuing people from the lifeboats?” Annabelle asked, forcing herself to be hopeful. At least she knew her mother was alive, although who knew in what condition. But surely, the others had survived too.

“They picked the last ones up at eight-thirty this morning,” the clerk said with somber eyes. He had already heard tales of bodies floating in the water, people screaming to be rescued before they died, but it wasn’t up to him to tell the story, and he didn’t have the courage to tell these people that lives had been lost by the hundreds, and maybe more. The list of survivors so far was just over six hundred, and the Carpathia had radioed that they had picked up over seven hundred, but they didn’t have all the names yet. If that was all, it meant over a thousand passengers and crew members had been lost. The clerk didn’t want to believe it either. “We should have the rest of the names in the next few hours,” he said sympathetically, as a man with a red face threatened to hit him if he didn’t hand over the list, which he did immediately. People were frantic, frightened, and spiraling out of control in their desperation for information and reassurance. The clerks were handing out and posting as many lists as they could. And finally, Annabelle and her father’s driver, Thomas, went back to the car, to wait for more news. He offered to take her home, but she insisted she wanted to stay, and check the lists as they updated them over the next few hours. There was nowhere else she wanted to be.

She sat in the car in silence, some of the time with her eyes closed, thinking about her parents and her brother, willing them to have survived, while being grateful for her mother’s name on the list so far. She didn’t eat or drink all day, and every hour they went back to check. At five o’clock, they were told that the lists of survivors were complete, with the exception of a few young children who could not yet be identified by name. But everyone else that had been picked up by the Carpathia was on the list.

“Has anyone been picked up by other ships?” someone asked. The clerk silently shook his head. Although there were other ships recovering bodies from the freezing waters, the crew of the Carpathia were the only ones who had been able to rescue survivors, mostly in lifeboats, and a very few from the water. Almost all of those in the icy Atlantic had died before the Carpathia arrived, although the rescuers had been on the scene within two hours after the Titanic went down. It was just too long for anyone to survive the frigid temperature of the ocean.

Annabelle checked the list one more time. There were 706 survivors. She saw her mother’s name again, but there were no other Worthingtons on the list, neither Arthur nor Robert, and all she could do was pray that it was a mistake. Maybe an oversight, or they were unconscious and couldn’t say their names to those who were checking. There was no way to get more news than they had. They were told that the Carpathia was due into New York in three days, on the eighteenth. She would just have to keep faith until then, and be grateful for her mother’s survival. She refused to believe that her father and brother were dead. It just couldn’t be.

She stayed awake all that night, after she got home, and still ate nothing. Hortense came to visit her, and spent the night. They said very little, just held hands and cried a lot. Hortie tried to reassure her, and her mother had come over briefly to comfort Annabelle as well. There were no words to soften what had happened. The whole world was shocked by the news. It was a tragedy of epic proportions.

“Thank God you were too sick to go,” Hortie whispered as they lay in Annabelle’s bed together after her mother left and went home. She had suggested that her daughter spend the night, and in fact stay there until Annabelle’s mother returned. She didn’t want Annabelle to be alone. Annabelle only nodded at the comment, feeling guilty for not having been with them, wondering if her presence could have helped in some way. Maybe she could have saved one of them at least, or someone.

For the next three days, she and Hortie roamed the house like ghosts. Hortie was the only friend she wanted to see or speak to in her shock and grief. Annabelle ate almost nothing, despite the housekeeper’s exhortations. Everyone was constantly crying, and finally Annabelle and Hortie went for a walk to get some air. James came and escorted them, and he was very kind to Annabelle and told her how sorry he was about what had happened. The city, and the world, could think of nothing else.

There was still relatively little news from the Carpathia, except the confirmation that the Titanic had indeed sunk, and the list of survivors was complete and firm. Only the unidentified babies and children were not on the list, and would have to be identified by family members in port, if they were American. If not, they would have to be returned to Cherbourg and Southampton to their anguished families there. Half a dozen of them belonged to none of the survivors and were too young to say their names. Others were taking care of them in the absence of their parents, and there was no way of telling who they were. But everyone else, even the sick or injured, was on the list, they’d been assured. Annabelle still didn’t believe it as Thomas drove her to the Cunard dock on the night of the eighteenth. Hortie didn’t want to go with her, as she didn’t want to intrude, so Annabelle went to Pier 54 alone.

The waiting crowd saw the Carpathia steam slowly into port, with tugboats, just after nine P.M. Annabelle could feel her heart pounding as she watched her, and the ship startled everyone by going to the White Star docks at Piers 59 and 60 instead. And there, in plain sight of all observers, she slowly lowered the remaining lifeboats of the Titanic, which was all that was left of her, to return them to the White Star Line, before the Carpathia docked herself. Photographers were crammed