—
The rooms were cramped and depressing: each had a dresser with a mirror hanging above it, a narrow bed with two nightstands, and beyond that, a small sitting area with a lumpy chair, fireplace, and a single blacked-out window. The wallpaper was faded Victorian, the rugs threadbare.
Hank chose room two, while Ellis and I took five and six respectively. Although Hank didn’t spell out why he’d chosen that particular room, it wasn’t hard to figure out.
Despite everything we’d just been through, he was plotting a romantic conquest. I was already incensed on Violet’s behalf—I was pretty sure Hank never had told her we were leaving—but at that moment I was close to outrage. Then it occurred to me that maybe Hank didn’t think a dalliance with Meg would count as an infidelity. Perhaps he simply felt entitled, that he had the droit du seigneur over servants.
Various rumors followed Hank around, including one about a pregnant kitchen maid his mother had tried, unsuccessfully, to frame for stealing, and who disappeared shortly thereafter, presumably with a large sum of money. The highlight of the story had always been how Hank’s mother had stashed an entire set of Georgian silver in the girl’s room and then called the police. The actual cause of the situation was glossed over, dismissed with the vague explanation that “boys will be boys.” In the narrative, the maid herself never quite seemed real to me, nor did the child. I wondered now if either ever crossed Hank’s mind.
“I’m going to lie down,” I said, leaving the men to deal with the luggage.
My room was the final one on the left. I lit the candle on the dresser and fell on the bed, shoes and all, waiting for them to bring in my things.
“The door at the end we thought was a closet?” said Hank, dragging in a trunk. “It’s a bathroom. Thank God.”
“Shared!” came Ellis’s voice from the hallway.
“With running water!” Hank called back. He looked at me and winked. “Wait for it,” he whispered, holding a finger to his lips. “Wait…Any second now…”
Out in the hallway, Ellis mumbled something inaudible.
Hank laughed uproariously. “He always gets the last word. Or so he thinks. Anyway, the bathroom. It’s indoors, and it’s right next to you, you lucky thing.”
As much as I felt like collapsing, I had to at least get the soot off my face and scour my teeth. I revived myself enough to dig through my luggage and find what I needed—no easy task, since I’d undone all of Emily’s good work in my panic to consolidate for the trip. We’d been warned that our storage space on the freighter was limited—an irony if I’d ever heard one, since the ship’s raison d’être was storage. In the end, I’d found myself throwing things in randomly, frantically, sure that whatever I didn’t bring would turn out to be vitally important.
As I left my room, I banged into the corner of the dresser so hard I cried out, and a horrible thought struck me. What if the waves never did stop? What if I was going to be like that forever?
When I returned from the bathroom, Ellis was at the far end of my room, poking the empty grate with a fire iron.
“Empty, of course, and the radiators are off. A class act all around. No electricity, one bathroom, no heat. I’m going to get some wood, or coal, or dung, or whatever it is they’re burning downstairs.”
“Please don’t,” I said. “The fellow who let us in seems sensitive about fuel.”
“So what? I can see my breath.” He presented his profile and exhaled, loosing a gossamer wisp of vapor.
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “There are lots of blankets. And I can always wear my robe to bed.”
“Are you sure? I don’t mind dealing with Blackbeard.”
“Yes. I’m sure. Anyway, we’d probably burn the place down.”
Ellis cracked a slow smile. “You mean like Hamlet House?”
During our honeymoon in Key West, an unattended cigar of Ellis’s had nearly caused a catastrophe at an historic painted lady we’d nicknamed Hamlet House because the Prince of Denmark was a fellow guest. The prince, along with everyone else, was forced to change hotels, but since no one was hurt, the incident became funny in the retelling, a part of Ellis’s and my shared repertoire, a story we trotted out at parties.
I knew that by bringing it up, he was trying to stir a fond memory and make things better between us, but what he didn’t realize was that remembering the fire in Key West just made me think of the horribly burned men I’d seen carried off the ship only a few hours earlier.
“Yes, like Hamlet House,” I said.
“We didn’t burn it down. Merely scorched a few rooms,” he said whimsically.
I climbed into bed and shuddered.
Ellis furrowed his brow, then set the poker in its stand and came to my side.
We’d made a fragile peace after finally outrunning the U-boats, a truce that consisted mostly of giving each other as much space as possible in a situation where there simply wasn’t any, and talking only when absolutely necessary. But that didn’t mean my breakdown on the ship hadn’t happened, or that I wasn’t aware of how horrifyingly quickly proximity had bred contempt, or that I wasn’t still terrified and furious about being dragged along on this half-baked escapade. It was the stupidest and most dangerous thing we’d ever done.
It was also pointless. I’d realized it the moment the driver commented on the life belt that remained around Ellis’s waist, and again when the bearded man asked why he and Hank weren’t serving, and I knew that it would keep happening. The very thing we’d tried to escape had followed us across the Atlantic.
I opened my eyes and found Ellis staring down at me, his misery obvious. I knew he wanted comfort, a sign that things would go back to normal between us, but I couldn’t give it to him. I just couldn’t.
“Please, Ellis. I don’t mean to be harsh, but I’m completely and absolutely desperate for sleep…”
His lips stretched into a sad line. “Of course. I know you’re exhausted.”
He leaned over to kiss my forehead, and in that instant my resentment shattered, leaving behind an awful, piercing regret.
No one had put a gun to my head and forced me to board the ship. I bore as much blame for my predicament as anyone else. He and Hank may have told me that nothing would happen to us, but I was the one who’d chosen to believe them.
“Ellis,” I said, as he turned to go. “I’m sorry.”
“About what?” he asked, stopping.
“The things I said.”
He laughed quietly. “Which ones?”
“All of them. I was just so frightened.”
He came back and sat on the edge of the bed. “No need to apologize. I just hadn’t realized I was married to quite such a firecracker.”
He laid a hand on my cheek, and my eyes welled up. I hoped I was wrong about how people over here would perceive him, but if I was not, I hoped I could somehow protect him from their judgment, make him unaware, or better yet, not care.
“I wasn’t myself,” I said.
“None of us was, my darling.”
“Except Hank,” I said, sniffling. “Hank was himself the entire time.”
“Ah yes. Dear old Hank. Ever the pill,” he said, getting up. “Speaking of which, do you think you need one?”
“No, I’m all right.”
That was my cue to offer him one, and I would have, except that I had no idea where they were and didn’t have the energy to look.
“Sleep tight, my darling. Tomorrow, Hank and I will find a decent hotel, and then all you’ll have to worry about is regaining your strength.”
He picked up the candle and went to the door. I rolled to face him.
“Ellis,” I said as he stepped into the hallway, “this feeling of still being at sea—do you think it’s normal?”
He paused before answering. “Perfectly,” he said. “It will be gone in the morning. You’ll see.” He closed the door.
As I lay in bed, I could no more stop the waves than escape the images and sounds of the wounded being marched down the gangplank, one after the other, in a seemingly endless line.