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

Another ship escorted the Carpathia for the last leg of the journey, up the Hudson river. She was manoeuvred into the docks, after dark that evening. There were crowds of people waiting on the quayside, but the atmosphere could not have been more different to that of less than a week ago when the Titanic had left Southampton. There were shouts and cries, some from journalists on board small boats who were shouting questions at the passengers. Emma hated it all. Couldn’t they just leave the poor survivors in peace for a while, until they’d come to terms with it all? And then she thought of how people would want to hear the news, would want to know the details of what had happened, would want to know the names of all those who’d been lost. Newspapers would be printing lists of names, once they had them, she supposed.

Ma, Lily. If the news had reached them, they must be in anguish waiting to hear if she and Ruby had survived. Emma could not bear to think about what they must be going through.

When the ship docked, Emma and the other survivors were helped onto the quayside. Dry land! Solid, beautiful, blessed land. ‘I don’t know about you,’ Mary said, ‘but once I get back to England I am never going to sea again. I shall find myself another job.’

Emma felt exactly the same. ‘I agree. That’s it for me. I’ll need to stay at home with Ma, anyway.’

‘She’ll be heartbroken about your Ruby, but very glad to see you, I imagine,’ Mary said.

‘I was supposed to be looking after Ruby.’ It was the thought Emma could not stop herself returning to, over and over again.

‘You did your best. You did all you could,’ Mary said quietly. ‘You must not blame yourself.’ Mary hugged her, as they made their way into the terminal building.

Inside there were tables of old clothes. It looked like a jumble sale, and Emma was confused for a moment, until she realised that it was clothes donated by the people of New York for the Titanic survivors. Some had been in their nightclothes when they’d evacuated the ship. Some children were clothed only in rough smocks hastily stitched together from the Carpathia’s blankets.

‘Do you need anything?’ Emma said to Mary, indicating the tables.

‘Clean underwear,’ Mary said, and the two women rummaged through to find something suitable.

Arrangements had been made for the Titanic’s crew to be put up in hotels for a few days, so that they could give their statements. And then they were assured that White Star would take them back to Southampton, and that there would be no loss of pay for this voyage. ‘No loss of pay! I should think not!’ Emma had said, outraged. But the more experienced Violet told them that normally if you did not complete a voyage, even if it was due to problems with the ship, you would not get your discharge book stamped and therefore would not be paid.

Emma and Mary were billeted together in a room in a downtown Manhattan hotel, awaiting their voyage back. As far as possible Emma tried to avoid the reporters who thronged the hotel’s lobby as soon as they realised there were Titanic crew staying there. She gave her statement to the investigators, detailing her actions from the moment she’d heard and felt the impact with the iceberg to the time she’d boarded the Carpathia. Other than that, and for meals, she and Mary mostly stayed in their room, sitting silently but appreciating each other’s presence. Emma tried not to think about the plans she and Martin had had, for their stay in New York on this trip. If only that iceberg had not been there, if only the Titanic had made its turn a little sooner and avoided the impact, if only there’d been enough lifeboats, if only that first ship they’d spotted on the horizon had come to the Titanic’s aid – if any of these had been true Martin and Ruby might be here with her now. She and Martin would be walking arm in arm through Central Park, or along Fifth Avenue, gazing through the shop windows, planning a future together. Ruby would be … well, who knew? Beginning to make a future for herself here in New York, perhaps. Emma would have helped her, she knew now. She would have done anything in her power to help her sister start a new life.

If only they’d signed on to sail with the Olympic again, not the Titanic. If only she hadn’t encouraged Ruby to take a stewardess’s job. If only Ruby had never met Harry Paine …

At last word came that passage home to Southampton had been arranged for the Titanic crew members on board the White Star liner Lapland. The ship would thankfully sail by a more southerly route, avoiding all risk of ice, in deference to its passengers who had suffered so much.

As Emma boarded the Lapland clutching her small bundle of belongings – mostly second-hand clothes donated by the good people of New York – she told herself that it was the last time she ever would go to sea, no matter what the future held.

Chapter 19

Harriet

Harriet had a clear day, the day after her visit to the Titanic exhibition with Sheila. Sally phoned in the morning to say Jerome was poorly but stable, and that the search for a bone marrow donor was ongoing. She also told Harriet that, as they’d sadly expected, Harriet had not turned out to be a match.

‘So we are relying on the people on the bone marrow registry,’ Sally said, sounding resigned.

‘Someone will be a match. There are hundreds of thousands on that registry,’ Harriet said, trying to sound positive and convincing.

‘I know. They are all heroes. Every single one of them. But there are apparently millions of different combinations of tissue type. Anyway. All