Titanic: The Long Night by Diane Hoh Read Free Book Online Page B

the girl as they walked. And she, almost his height, was gazing at him with interest, as if she were hanging on his every word.
    If the girl was traveling first class, someone—a mother, an aunt, a close friend?—should have given her lessons in what to wear while at sea. Elizabeth felt a sudden, sharp stab of shame. That was exactly what my mother would think, she thought, disgusted. Am I becoming like her? What difference does it make what that girl is wearing?
    Others strolling the deck were not so tolerant. There were many questioning glances sent in the direction of Max and the girl. Neither took any notice.
    Finding the sight of the apparently happy couple unsettling, Elizabeth turned away and strode to the rail. Perhaps the girl was someone he’d known in Paris, someone who had boarded with him at Cherbourg.
    Just a short while ago, she had willed the ship to slow down, give her more time. Now, as she strained to see the approaching shores of Ireland, she found herself wishing the trip were already over and Max Whittaker had disembarked, out of her life forever.
    Elizabeth’s blue eyes were bleak as she stood at the rail staring out across the sea.
    In Queenstown, waiting at Scott’s Quay to board the small tenders that would carry them out to the Titanic, Katie Hanrahan was so excited she could hardly contain herself. She strained to get a look at the ship itself, anchored in the distance, but all she saw was a great white lump sitting near the Light Vessel standing guard over Cobh Harbour. It looked enormous, but Brian had already warned her that its size would seem intimidating. “You’ve never been to sea before, Katie-girl,” he’d said as they made their way down the hill to the quay. “I’m warnin’ you, if the advertisin’ ain’t a joke, the size of the Titanic is goin’ to be a bit of a shock. Don’t be frightened of it, girl. ’Tis only a ship, like every other ship.”
    Rubbing sleep from his eyes, Paddy, whom Brian had had to drag from his nice, warm bed, said hoarsely,” ’Tisn’t like every other ship, or there wouldn’t be all this fuss about it. And ’tisn’t its size I’m worried about, ’tis the weight of it, man. Shouldn’t be floatin’ atall, somethin’ that big.”
    “Hush!” Brian had ordered, his eyes on Katie. “You’ll be scarin’ the girl to death. It got here from London, didn’t it? Didn’t sink on the way, did it? I tell you, the Titanic is unsinkable. If you really have a need for somethin’ to trouble yourself about, trouble yourself about how you plan to support yourself in America.”
    Brian had a trade. He was an experienced dairy farm worker. Everyone in Ireland knew that America had the largest, grandest farms in all the world. His plan was to travel from New York to Wisconsin, where he would hire out on a dairy farm, save his money, and one day buy his own small farm.
    Paddy, on the other hand, had never stuck to any one trade long enough to learn it well. He had tried fishing with his father, farming with Brian at the Hanrahans’, where he’d met Katie, and had even waited tables briefly until a customer had aroused his anger to the point where Paddy had deliberately upended a cup of coffee in the man’s ample lap.
    Now, he claimed that once in America, he was going to become a famous writer. Which worried Brian no end, since he was of the mind that it took many years to become a writer, and what was Paddy to live on during those many years? “Here’s the truth of it,” he’d told his younger brother in the jaunting cart while Katie listened. “If you had it in your mind to become a writer, why is it that you didn’t pay more attention to your grammar lessons from the good nuns?” Paddy’s excuse was that he hadn’t known then that a writer was what he wanted to be.
    Although Katie found his grammar deplorable, she had learned during the long trip to Queenstown that Paddy told a good story. Perhaps in America there would be some kind