Chapter 2: Ocean

“The ocean’s out there,” Jonathan Lane probed with a small nudge.

With a slight blush, Charlie Ashton pulled his attention away from the young lady who had caught his eye and shrugged. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I was lost in thought.”

Jonathan shook his head knowingly. “I understand this isn’t where you expected to be, but we may as well make the most of it. It isn’t everyday one finds himself on the maiden voyage of the greatest vessel ever to sail the seven seas.”

Charlie laughed, picking up on the sarcasm in Jonathan’s tone. “God Himself could not sink this ship,” he replied, quoting the often repeated phrase.

“Aye, but The New Yorker might,” Jonathan stated, gesturing at the wayward steamship floating aimlessly away from the docks. “Come on, let’s go over here where we can get a better look,” he insisted, placing his hand on Charlie’s shoulder and guiding him across the deck.

With one more glance at the Third Class passengers below, Charlie complied, despite the paradox in the situation; Jonathan was his liegeman after all. However, given his current disposition, he was inclined to acquiesce. Beautiful girls were nothing but trouble, regardless of station. Of that, he was quite certain. Best to leave the woman with the haunting blue eyes and long blond tresses behind, as he had been so recently abandoned, and follow his manservant in the pursuit of adventure.

* * *

Hours later, lying on an uncomfortable bunk bed in the bowels of the ship, one arm tucked beneath her head, staring up at the unsightly underbelly of the bunk above her, memories invaded Meg’s thoughts. Despite the fact that she should be focused on the future, where they were headed, what she would do next, who she would become, the ghosts of the past clung to her thoughts, and she could not shake them.

Kelly and Daniel had taken Ruth back to the Third Class promenade deck once their youngest daughter, Lizzy, who was just eight months old, had fallen asleep, and Meg had insisted on staying with her while the rest of the family set out to hopefully catch a glimpse of Cherbourg. Meg had visited France many times, Kelly at her side as her lady-in-waiting, but the young girl and her father had never left England, and though Daniel’s exuberance was somewhat muted, Ruth was bubbling over with excitement. She had been completely wound up all morning, ever since her parents finally revealed their destination to her, and several attempts at rocking Lizzy to sleep had been spoilt by her bigger sister bouncing around the diminutive cabin.

Meg glanced across the small space to the sleeping baby, whose hair was a slightly lighter shade of red than the fiery hue of the other ladies in her family, her father’s light coloring seeping in a bit to produce strawberry-blonde locks. Lizzy sighed, her mouth instinctively sucking a few times before she swatted at her nose and stuck her thumb between her thin, pale pink lips. How she wanted to stretch a hand across and brush the hair off of the sweet child’s forehead! But she dared not risk awakening the precious darling. Instead, Meg returned her focus back to the underside of the bunk above her, absently twirling a lock of golden-blonde hair as she did so.

The idea of her own baby had crossed her mind several times, this past year especially. Though at first the idea of becoming a mother had been considered as a malicious testimony to what would be her most scandalous transgressions, once she was certain she would soon have an independent life of her own, she began to let the possibility invade her thoughts frequently and realized just how much she longed for her own child. At twenty, she could have easily been considered past her prime by many members of her class if she had not been engaged to marry for these past three years to one of society’s most elite bachelors. For one reason or another, the wedding was pushed off—as was every planned encounter—until Meg’s mother had put her foot down at last and insisted that the nuptials occur before Meg’s twenty-first birthday in September or else. Meg was never quite sure what her mother’s “or else” would be in this instance. After all, most of the stalling of the years had actually been instigated by Meg herself, and Mildred Westmoreland certainly had no power or control over the Ashtons, but whatever she had told John and Pamela Ashton of New York high society had been sufficient, and Charlie had embarked on a trip across the Atlantic to meet her in person at last.

But that never happened, and now here she was in the Steerage quarters of a passenger liner headed for Charlie’s hometown, buried beneath the same socialites and high class ladies her mother so insisted she emulate.

And she had the stature to do so, despite the fact that the funding for such a parody was written on rubber banknotes, any semblance of cash in the coffers diminishing quickly over the years after her father’s death. In her mother’s eyes, however, none of that would matter once she wed Charlie. Then, there would be money again, and the family name would be restored. Charlie would take over her father’s company as well, as part of the agreement, and her uncle (even the thought of him made Meg shudder) would retire, leaving whatever was left of her father’s empire in much better hands.

None of that would happen now. The sigh that escaped Meg’s lips was almost as restless as the one Baby Lizzy had released moments ago. The choices she had made, the recent ones as well as the rebellious ones of her former youth, had all compiled, bringing her here. Despite the uncertainty of what lie ahead, she was certain of one thing: if this boat could take her away from those who had imprinted her soul with the black stains that lingered there now, then the hesitations of her journey were well-worth the anxiety she currently felt.

And yet, she could not help but ponder the inexplicable idea that Charlie Ashton was also aboard the Titanic, which could easily end her entire charade and bring the newly constructed scaffolding of hope crashing down around her.