The Lost Sister by Kathleen McGurl (i can read book club .TXT) 📕

‘Yes, the one I never knew about. I wonder if this was why Gran never mentioned her. Perhaps it was too painful, having lost her on the Titanic. She was crew – look. A stewardess, like Gran.’

‘And she never made it onto a lifeboat. That’s so sad. You said your gran’s sister died young – you don’t think she was referring to Ruby, then?’

‘God, I don’t know! I’m so confused about it all now – I wish more than ever I could just go back and ask her, or find a diary in which she tells all, or something.’ Harriet shook her head. It was hard to believe that her great-aunt had died on board the Titanic, and no one in the family had ever spoken about it. Had her mother known? Or had Gran just kept quiet for ever?

‘And look,’ Sheila was saying, pointing. ‘Emma Higgins, also a stewardess, is on the survivor’s list.’

‘Wow. Well, I never knew she’d worked on the Titanic,’ Harriet said. ‘Another thing that was kept quiet.’

‘Perhaps the memories were too painful,’ Sheila said gently. ‘The family lost Ruby when the ship went down, so I can imagine they never wanted to talk about it again.’

‘You could be right,’ Harriet said. ‘If they were both working on the ship, how come one survived and the other didn’t? You’d think they would try to stick together as the ship was sinking.’

‘Perhaps they had duties to attend to, passengers to help, and got separated. It must have been horrible for the survivors. That must be why it was never spoken about.’

Harriet nodded. ‘So now I want more than ever to find out more about them all. As you said in the car – in the future my grandchildren might thank me for doing the research and writing it all up.’ She was supposed to be concentrating on moving house, but it would be good to spend a little bit of time on this project too. Especially as there wasn’t much more she could do on the house move until she had a firm offer on the table. And writing up the research for her granddaughters was a nice idea. Would Autumn and Summer ever see it, she wondered? Would there come a time when they, perhaps as adults, would read her research and wonder about this grandmother they’d never known? Or perhaps they would come to know her, eventually. Perhaps after they were 18 they might track her down – Davina would not be able to stop them then. Or perhaps, and she had to cling on to this hope, at some stage Davina might soften and allow Harriet to visit, or bring the girls to Harriet …

‘You OK?’ Sheila was asking. ‘You look miles away.’

‘Sorry, yes I was. Just thinking about families, generations, loss …’

‘Wow, all that, just then.’ Sheila looked at her with sympathy. ‘You look like a woman who needs another cuppa. And a cake. Yes, cake is prescribed. If you’ve seen enough, shall we go to the café? We can always come back in if you like.’

‘I think I’ve seen enough. Still processing the fact that the great-aunt I only discovered I had a few weeks ago, died on the Titanic.’

‘It’s terribly sad. And all that’s left of her is her name on that board, and the photo you have of her. She was the cheeky-looking one, wasn’t she? The one with a defiant look about her, as though she was daring the world to try stopping her from doing whatever she wanted.’

‘Yes, that was Ruby. The middle sister. Prettiest of the three.’

‘Died on the middle sister of the three sister ships. So tragic.’ Sheila took Harriet’s arm. ‘So, then. Tea?’

‘Yes please!’ Harriet followed her friend out to the café, where they decided to have a late lunch as well as a cup of tea and cake, before heading home. Harriet had so much to think about, and found she could barely wait to get on with some genealogical research. She wanted to phone Sally later, to tell her what she’d discovered, but then thought better of it. Sally had enough on her plate at the moment. She might be upset by Harriet spending time doing something so trivial – looking into the past – when poor Jerome’s whole future was hanging by a thread.

Chapter 18

Emma, 1912

Another hour, maybe two or three – Emma no longer had any idea of the passage of time – elapsed before her lifeboat was finally secured at the hull of the rescue liner. The day was fully light by then. RMS Carpathia was written on the ship’s side, and she recognised it as belonging to the Cunard company. One by one the occupants of her lifeboat were helped on board, either climbing a rope ladder lowered down the ship’s side, or for those too weak to do this, hoisted up in a sling. They were met by members of the Carpathia’s crew who issued each survivor with a blanket and told them where to go to get hot drinks and food or have any wounds attended to. Carpathia’s crew looked as disbelieving of the situation as the Titanic passengers were.

‘How could it have sunk?’ she heard one steward say. ‘There’s just no sign of it at all. We thought we’d arrive to see it taking on water, listing a bit but that would be all. But look, it’s gone. There’s only ice.’

No one from the Titanic answered him. They could not explain it either, even if they’d had the energy to try.

‘What are you going to do with the child?’ Emma asked Violet, as Violet was hoisted up, still clutching the baby in her arms.

‘I don’t know,’ came the response, but by the time Emma had boarded the Carpathia Violet was no longer holding the child.

‘Where did the baby go?’

Violet shrugged. ‘A crying woman came and grabbed it from me. I think it was hers. She didn’t even say