Promise Me This (7 page)

That was when Michael’s eyes narrowed to take in the dark lump in the gutter where they’d fought. It looked for all the world like the kit of a ship’s crew member.
There’ll be a purse!
Hope tripped his heart. A purse could mean a new shirt and trousers, a room with a meal and a bath.

A sudden gritty determination for Mr. Bealing’s steady job fought for attention in his brain. He could imagine the weight of the pound notes and coppers sagging against the leather as he reached into the gutter and rummaged through the kit. A shirt, a coat, to be sure, but what he had hoped was a purse was flat and hard and held no notes at all.

Michael’s throat thickened. It was nothing but a book. What use had he for a book? He opened it beneath the gaslight and frowned. In the yellow glow he read the letters slowly—the name, the occupation. He tried to grasp what he held in his hands.

Not a wallet filled with pound notes to set him on his new road in England, but a stoker’s fair lifeline lay in Michael’s hands. A seaman’s book—a “Certificate of Continuous Discharge” belonging to one Mr. Hart, assigned to
Titanic
.

Michael tacked layers of cork to the soles of his hobnails and padded their heels with the same, adding two inches to his height. He stuffed the shoulders and sleeves of the coat he’d pulled from the crewman’s kit with newspapers scavenged from a rubbish bin. Michael pulled his cap low and his collar high. If anyone clapped a hand on his back, he’d be done for, but from a distance and in the dim light before dawn, he looked the part of any fireman or trimmer boarding
Titanic
.

Michael knew his uncle Tom would be one of the last to head for the ship after his hours in the pub. By boarding and unloading his gear before the other crewmen, he gambled that he could stow away somewhere in the ship’s dark bowels—maybe find a hiding place in the cargo area—long before the eight o’clock muster.

He dared press his luck no further. His disguise would never make it through the ship’s medical inspection. By leaving the seaman’s discharge book on a bunk with Mr. Hart’s gear, Michael figured it more a case of borrowing than stealing. It would surely make its way back to him someday. Michael pushed back the nagging guilt of such a notion.

How he’d manage for food or water during the voyage Michael didn’t know, but he would sort that out as it came. He figured that since he’d stolen aboard in Ireland and walked ashore in England, he could surely find his way ashore in New York.

The trick was to avoid Owen until they docked. But if he could find Owen once they’d landed, if he followed him to the place called New Jersey, maybe Owen would give him a job in his family’s gardens. If not . . . well, he’d be no worse off than he was now. And wasn’t America the “golden land of opportunity”?

The bells had not tolled five o’clock when Michael followed the first man aboard who looked a member of the black gang. He kept his face low and trailed slowly through the mess, the stokers’ general room, and into a large cabin lined with bunks. As the seaman stowed his gear, Michael tossed his kit and discharge book onto the nearest bunk, as though he’d done it every working day of his life, then disappeared down the first stairwell he found.

Annie stood at her dormitory window and swiped tears from her eyes with her apron.

Owen had taken his last good-byes before breakfast. He’d told her to stay behind with Miss Hopkins, to help in any way she could during the days before school resumed, then to faithfully attend classes, to mind her studies.

She’d begged and wheedled to go to the docks to wave him off, but Owen had held firm.

“It’s hard to leave you, Little Sister. I need to know you are safe and warm and cared for. I need to go with this picture of you in my mind—here, with Miss Hopkins—not shivering and tearful at the docks. Do this for me, Annie.”

Unhappily, Annie had finally agreed, though only to bring peace to Owen’s brow. He’d kissed her good-bye so tenderly. She’d bitten her lip to keep from crying, for love of Owen. Still, her body had shuddered, and he’d held her until she breathed evenly. And then he had walked away.

Annie had watched the clock tick off its painfully slow minutes, then wished them back. Red-eyed, she’d toyed with her breakfast, excusing herself from Miss Hopkins at last on the pretense of not feeling well.

I cannot polish woodwork or read novels and pretend nothing is different about this day. I cannot!

Annie let the window curtain fall into place. She untied her apron and threw it upon her bed, grabbed her wrap, and snuck down the back stairs and out the door.

Miss Hopkins would scold her, surely, by every right. But Annie would have her way in this one thing. If lucky, she’d not only see
Titanic
leave port but catch a parting glimpse of Owen.

Annie reached the docks at last and headed directly toward the four gigantic funnels that towered above
Titanic
. She dodged a thousand waving handkerchiefs as she wove through laughter, squeals, and cheers that rippled the crowd. Well-wishers of every class and station swarmed the quays to see the magnificent ship set sail. And though she could not see the band, a ragtime tune, cheerful and snappy, charged the event.

Annie scanned the hundreds of faces lining
Titanic
’s decks, desperate to find Owen’s. But he must not see her—she’d never have him believe that she counted his wishes as unimportant.

She jumped at the ship’s triple whistle blast, signaling its departure. Then ugly shouting cut in—not from passengers or well-wishers, but from what looked to her like a gang of angry crew members. The gangway had been lowered and swung away. But a cluster of rough crewmen, apparently late and stranded on the docks, raised their fists and bellowed to be let onto the ship. Clearly the officer saw them but refused to send the gangway back and let them board. The men continued to rage and curse, some running the length of the dock, though it did them no good.

One of the stranded men stopped short, gaping at something or someone on board the ship. From where Annie stood, she saw the brute of a man rage purple and thunder with both fists, shouting words she’d never heard in all her life, words that made her insides quiver.

Her eyes followed the brute’s tirade to a teen who leaned against the railing. Frozen to the spot, he looked for all the world like the dark-haired boy Owen had helped, the one he’d said had run off last night without a word. What was his name? Annie tried to remember. His eyes spread wide and skin wrapped tight round his skull. He stepped sharply back into the throng of passengers. “Tim,” Annie whispered, “what are you doing . . . ?”

Titanic
’s blue peter flew up the mast; her whistle triple-blasted again; her forward funnels belched steam, as her tugs, belching smoke, made taut their hawsers.
Titanic
’s mooring lines fell away, hauled ashore by dockhands, and the liner, intent on her maiden voyage, was pulled slowly, carefully from her berth.

Annie forgot Tim and pushed along the dock, twisting between elbows and shoulders, between ladies’ hats and feathers, between umbrellas and walking canes, purses and packages, between small children and their parents, frantically searching for a glimpse of Owen. At last she spotted a brown leather cap lifted high in farewell along the railing—a strong arm and a cap that might have been Owen’s.

In that moment a hundred thousand flowers filled the air, a joyous farewell from the passengers aboard
Titanic
. But for Annie, the shower of Bealing’s buttonholes and pert nosegays—so many lovingly grown and tended by her brother—beat against her face in a stinging rain, a million petal tears to mingle with her own, flung high and swept into the sea.

No sooner had Michael found refuge in the driver’s seat of a fine new automobile in the hold than a steward spied him and unceremoniously shoved him up the stairwell. “If I find you here again, I’ll throw you to the sharks! Now get back to your parents and be quick about it!”

Michael had raced to the deck, mingling with third-class passengers, just in time to stare into the purple face and fists of Uncle Tom, stranded opposite the gangway.

Breathless, Michael stumbled back into the cheering throng, clutching both arms to stop the tremors running the length of his limbs.
But now I’m sailing—and Tom Auld is left standing on the docks of England.
Michael shook his head and drew a breath, intent on steadying his nerves, unable to fathom the luck or the wonder of it—to be rid of his uncle forever.

As he wove through the jumping, waving crowd, a sharp cracking broke the revelry on ship and dock. A thousand heads swiveled toward the commotion. Sturdy lines from the ship
New York
snapped free of their moorings in its sudden struggle with the portside backwash from
Titanic
’s gigantic propellers.

Titanic
, ordered full astern, turned its mighty bow slightly but was too slow to steer quickly from the path of the smaller ship. A cry swelled from the docks.

Michael couldn’t see, but he could imagine that the heavy, snapping lines from the
New York
had lashed among the crowd, and he winced to think of the sting.

He could not hear the directions of the ship’s officers, but the clamor and gasps of passengers ran the length of the ship. Most stepped back, but a few surged forward, craning their necks far over the railings.

“She’s broken loose! She’ll smack us broadside!” A young man swore.

“A collision,” whimpered a woman from the deck above Michael, “and we’re not even clear of port!”

“Don’t be an alarmist, Isabella,” the man beside her chided. “She’s only drifting. They’ll pull her out before she hits.”

“But that ship is headed straight for us!” And she was. The smaller ship looked like a match coming to strike
Titanic
’s stone.

Michael squirmed a path across the deck in time to see a small tug toss its lines to the seamen of the
New York
. The first line snapped again, but the second held and the little tug valiantly pulled the
New York
from
Titanic
’s path, with only feet to spare. A collective cheer went up from the deck. Whistles and waves from ships and shore responded.

“A bad omen, that,” a man on the deck above Michael vowed. “A bad omen, indeed.” He turned to the woman beside him. “Do you love life?”

“I love it!” she responded.

“Then get off this ship at Cherbourg. That’s what I’m going to do.”

The man moved along the deck, and Michael could hear no more.

But a woman beside him took up the pace, speaking to no one in particular. “I overheard a man, a respectable gentleman, say this very morning that God Himself could not sink this ship!”

Michael stepped back. The pit of his stomach churned. He didn’t know if he believed in omens or premonitions, but he knew better than to challenge the abilities and sovereignty of the almighty God.

Titanic
had not cleared Southampton Water before her passengers’ heads turned to better hear and see the ship’s bugler as he roamed the decks, bugle lifted.