Based on the true story of the Fortune sisters, three young women each at a crossroads when they boarded the RMS Titanic in the spring of 1912 –and how that maiden voyage would transform their lives in profound and unexpected ways.
Fans of The Second Mrs. Astor by Shana Abé and Patricia Falvey's The Titanic Sisters will be captivated as USA Today bestselling author Anna Lee Huber expertly weaves real historical figures and events into this vivid, surprising, emotionally powerful novel about the longing for independence and love—and the moments that irrevocably change even the best laid plans . . .
“Lush with sumptuous historical details and riveting as the events of that fateful voyage unfurl, readers will love this one!” —Madeline Martin, New York Times Bestselling Author of The Keeper of Hidden Books and The Last Bookshop in London
“Vividly detailed and painstakingly researched, Sisters of Fortune threads fact and fiction into a compelling story.” —Bryn Turnbull, author of The Paris Deception and The Woman Before Wallis
“Filled with luscious detail of the Titanic’s maiden voyage and spot on depictions of its many passengers, from the grand to the ridiculous…absolutely riveting until the very last page!”—Shelley Noble, New York Times Bestselling author of The Tiffany Girls
April,1912: It’s the perfect finale to a Grand Tour of Europe—sailing home on the largest, most luxurious ocean liner ever built. For the Fortune sisters, the voyage offers a chance to reflect on the treasures of the past they’ve seen—magnificent castles and museums in Italy and France, the ruins of Greece and the Middle East—and contemplate the futures that await them.
For Alice, there’s foreboding mixed with her excitement. A fortune teller in Egypt gave her a dire warning about traveling at sea. And the freedom she has enjoyed on her travels contrasts with her fiancé’s plans for her return—a cossetted existence she’s no longer sure she wants.
Flora is also returning to a fiancé, a well-to-do banker of whom her parents heartily approve, as befits their most dutiful daughter. Yet the closer the wedding looms, the less sure Flora feels. Another man—charming, exasperating, completely unsuitable—occupies her thoughts, daring her to follow her own desires rather than settling for the wishes of others.
Youngest sister Mabel knows her parents arranged this Grand Tour to separate her from a jazz musician. But the secret truth is that Mabel has little interest in marrying at all, preferring to explore ideas of suffrage and reform—even if it forces a rift with her family.
Each sister grapples with the choices before her as the grand vessel glides through the Atlantic waters. Until, on an infamous night, fate intervenes, forever altering their lives . . .
Release date:
February 20, 2024
Publisher:
Kensington Books
Print pages:
320
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Flora Fortune was grateful for the steadiness of Mr. Beattie’s arm as they hurried along the platform at London’s Waterloo Station, slicing a swath through the sea of humanity separating them from the first-class special boat train bound for the new London & South Western Railway facilities at Southampton’s berth 44. A cacophony of sounds echoed off the soaring ceiling of the station—whistles and escaping steam, grinding wheels and the slam of doors, raised voices and pounding feet. Flora didn’t even attempt to speak.
In any case, she needed all her breath to keep up with the porters hastening ahead of them, carrying poor Mr. Ross on a stretcher. He was so weakened from dysentery that he couldn’t even walk to his train compartment, but nonetheless he was determined to return to Winnipeg. She couldn’t blame him. Being ill was miserable enough without being so far from the comforts of home.
Flora hunched her shoulders against the icy breeze that whisked through the station. She hoped the temperatures were more favorable along the coast in Southampton, for they had woken to a decided chill in the air. After spending months in the warmer climes of the Mediterranean and southern Europe, their bodies were no longer acclimated to the cold, forcing them to pull topcoats and hats from the depths of their trunks. Father had even jested about donning his old buffalo coat, matted and moth-eaten though it was, and far from gentlemanly in appearance. Fortunately, Mother had been able to convince him to wear a dark woolen coat instead. Though Father had then insisted on taking up valuable space in the trunks bound for their ship cabins rather than those tagged NOT WANTED, which would be stored in the holds until they reached New York.
Flora exhaled in relief as they spied Mr. McCaffry and his brown overcoat in the doorway to a compartment just ahead. He was the last of the trio of Winnipeg gentlemen who had accompanied the Fortunes on their grand tour. Mr. Beattie, Mr. McCaffry, and poor Mr. Ross, now relegated to his stretcher. A fellow traveling companion had genially dubbed them the Three Musketeers, and the ridiculous sobriquet had stuck. Not that the bachelors seemed to mind. They were often lumped together.
Mr. McCaffry had hurried before them to ready the space for his sick friend, while she and Mr. Beattie waited for the porters to see to Mr. Ross. Mr. McCaffry stepped to the side, stroking the sides of his light mustache as he watched the porters begin the delicate work of maneuvering the stretcher and its occupant into the train.
“Won’t be much longer, Hugo,” Mr. McCaffry told him encouragingly. “Thomson, why don’t you escort Miss Fortune to her family,” he suggested. “I’ll see Hugo settled.”
Mr. Beattie nodded, turning their steps. “This way.”
Accepting there was nothing more she could do, Flora allowed herself to be guided into the train, carefully maneuvering the broad rolled brim of her picture hat through the doorway. The confection of silk, ribbons, and feathers might be the height of fashion, as was her smart plum-and-cream traveling suit, but that didn’t mean it was practical.
Exchanging nods with fellow passengers, they strode down the aisle to her family’s compartment. It wasn’t difficult to find. The Fortunes had never been a staid or quiet bunch. Even without the two eldest of the six children, there was no lapse in discussion or laughter, and Mr. William Sloper’s presence helped fill any gaps there might have been. He had met their party at the station and been invited by their mother to join them in their compartment. It was his voice she heard as Mr. Beattie opened the door for her.
“My friends will all be green with envy when they hear I’ve sailed home on the Titanic. I suspect I shall be dining out on it for weeks,” Mr. Sloper declared, laughing at himself.
In all honesty, none of them had expected to sail home on the maiden voyage of the White Star Line’s new flagship. It had been their father’s last surprise. Initially they’d been scheduled to sail the third week of April on the Mauretania, but several members of their party had been exhausted and anxious to return home, including poor Hugo Ross.
Flora sat next to her nineteen-year-old brother, Charlie. “They say she made twenty-one and a half knots during her sea trials,” he chimed in, his blue eyes alive with enthusiasm. “And they say once she’s at sea, with all her boilers lit, she may be able to go as fast as twenty-four knots.”
“That may be so,” Mr. Sloper countered. “But she was never built for speed. The White Star Line is all about size and luxury. After all, Titanic is fifty percent larger than Cunard’s Mauretania. She can’t hope to best her.”
“I don’t care how fast she goes as long as we arrive safely,” Mother declared, opening the book that rested in her lap. As ever, Mother dressed for comfort as much as style. She had been raised on the plains of Manitoba, one of fourteen children born to her Scottish mother and father. She said that when you grew up understanding what it meant to be well and truly chilled to the bone, you never forgot it. As such, she’d eschewed a picture hat for a more sensible black velvet cap with a chinchilla band accented by a gold brooch sporting two ostrich feathers.
“And she will.” Mr. Sloper turned to Alice, the middle Fortune sister, seated on his right in a dress dyed the shade of fresh raspberries beneath her aubergine coat. “Lest you should worry. They say she’s unsinkable. The safest ship ever put to sea.”
“I’m not worried,” Alice replied, looking wholly unperturbed, but perhaps now a little annoyed.
Mr. Sloper had been separated from the Fortunes since they’d departed Cairo, having taken a different itinerary during his travels, but upon their meeting again in London, he’d professed his intentions to sail home on the Mauretania. However, as soon as Alice mentioned the Fortunes had booked passage on board the Titanic, he’d exchanged his ticket as well. When he’d returned to tell them so, Alice had reminded him of the Egyptian fortune teller’s prediction, jesting that she was a dangerous person to travel with.
Their brother Charlie now spoke up once again. “When the Olympic—Titanic’s sister ship—collided with the Hawke last September, it ripped a twelve-foot and a seven-foot gash into her side and damaged the starboard propeller blades, but she never even came close to sinking.” This remark was presumably meant to reassure Alice.
“I just said I’m not worried,” she retorted.
The blast of the train’s whistle signaled their imminent departure, spurring a flurry of emotions inside Flora. There was excitement, yes, for how could she resist her siblings’ enthusiasm, especially since Titanic was supposed to be such a magnificent ship and they would be some of the first passengers to sail aboard her. There was also the familiar flutter of nerves that began in the pit of her stomach before starting any journey and a touch of sadness that their grand tour was nearly at an end.
But lurking amid it all was also a disconcerting sensation of dread. Not for their safety. Flora had never believed in superstitious nonsense like fortune telling and séances, and she wasn’t about to start now. No, this dread had more to do with what was waiting for her back at home. She’d tried to forget about it, to push it to the back of her thoughts, but now that their feet were actually turned in the direction of Winnipeg, it pressed on her ever more insistently.
She clasped her hands in her lap, trying to quiet her mind as Father returned from speaking with Mr. Beattie to sit on her other side. Father sank into the plush leather with a sigh that reminded her that at sixty-four, he was no longer young, and this trip had undoubtedly been more exhausting for him than it had been for those who were decades younger.
“Mr. Beattie and Mr. McCaffry are going to attempt to exchange their cabin for one closer to Mr. Ross,” he confided to her while Charlie and Mr. Sloper continued to expound on Titanic’s merits. “Given the circumstances, I presume the purser will be happy to accommodate them if he can.”
“Is the ship fully booked?” Flora asked.
“We’ll have to wait to find that out.” He reached over to pat her hand where it was resting in her lap. “You and your sisters are free to visit Mr. Ross if you wish. I assume he would welcome the sight of your cheery faces. But I don’t want any of you playing nursemaid.” His voice and his gaze were firm. “Beattie and McCaffry and the stewards will be there to help him, as well as the ship’s surgeon, so there is no need. I want you to enjoy yourselves, not spend the last few days of your tour trapped in a cabin with a man with a violent stomach complaint. Understood?”
She nodded, recognizing why he’d directed this speech at her and not her sisters, for Alice, with her past health troubles, would never be allowed to nurse Mr. Ross in the first place, and the youngest sister, Mabel, would never volunteer.
“Good.” He patted her hand once more before removing his hat to sink his head back against the seat. A sparse covering of brown hair threaded with silver clung to the sides and back of his head—a match to his thick mustache—but the top was bald.
Seeing him thus, with his frame grown to portly, it was difficult to imagine him as the young, adventurous man who had set out for California to pan for gold. Two years later, Mark Fortune had found himself in Manitoba at a fortuitous time, acquiring a thousand acres along the Assiniboine River, where a few years in the future, Portage Avenue, Winnipeg’s main thoroughfare, would be built. By the age of thirty, he had become not only a wealthy man but a well-respected one. He was a Freemason and a member of the St. Andrew’s Society. He’d served as a city councillor and as a trustee of Knox Presbyterian Church. And just the year before, he’d built the family a thirty-six-room Tudor-style home in one of Winnipeg’s finest neighborhoods. But despite the changes physically, Flora could still see the determination and brash self-confidence glinting in his eyes that had propelled him from a man with barely two cents to rub together to a millionaire.
“I know we asked a great deal of you by urging you to postpone your wedding and chaperone your younger siblings, but I hope it proved to be worth it,” he said.
“Of course it has,” she assured him.
He closed his eyes. “Once we return, you and Campbell set the date as soon as you like. I’ll make it happen.”
She felt she should say something, but her throat closed around any response. Fortunately, her father didn’t seem to require one.
Last autumn, when she’d informed her fiancé, Crawford Campbell, that she wanted to delay their wedding so that she could take this grand tour with her family, he hadn’t seemed to mind in the least. Worse still, she hadn’t minded. In truth, it had felt like a reprieve. A sad thought, indeed.
It wasn’t that she didn’t like Crawford. He was handsome and courteous, and a rising Toronto banker. Her parents certainly approved. Her father had been the one to introduce them, and they had promoted the match every chance they could. Perhaps because, at twenty-eight, Flora wasn’t getting any younger. It would be a comfortable marriage, a sturdy one.
The trouble was, she didn’t feel anything stronger for Crawford, and she was fairly certain he was the same. At least, his actions thus far and his dearth of correspondence led her to believe that. If absence was supposed to make the heart grow fonder, it hadn’t worked in either direction.
In stark contrast, Alice and her fiancé, Holden Allen, had exchanged dozens of letters, at great difficulty, in some instances. More than once, Holden’s letters needed to be forwarded on to them at their next destination or held in anticipation of their arrival. Meanwhile, Flora had received one note from Crawford, and a rather dry one at that. She understood that, in general, men weren’t purported to be very good correspondents, but all the same she couldn’t help feeling disappointed and uneasy.
She looked up at the sound of Alice’s bright laughter, finding her head tilted toward Mr. Sloper to hear whatever he’d said that was amusing. Another muffled whistle pierced the air, and the train lurched ahead with a small jolt as the brakes were released, and they began to roll forward.
“Not concerned about Sloper, are you?” her father murmured.
She turned to find him peeking at her from beneath one eyelid. It unnerved her to think he might have been observing her this whole time. “No,” she replied honestly. “Alice is devoted to Holden.”
The youngest Fortune daughter, Mabel, on the other hand, seemed to wield the name of the ineligible ragtime musician from Minnesota she had formed an attachment to as a blunt instrument, usually when their parents were within hearing. Mabel knew perfectly well that their parents had hoped separating her from Harrison Driscoll for the duration of their grand tour would sever the connection, and she seemed determined to let them know every chance she could get that they’d failed. But Flora had noticed that Mabel rarely mentioned Harrison’s name unless their parents were within earshot.
“Mr. Sloper is simply an inveterate flirt, and Alice is indulging him,” Flora informed her father.
“And enjoying it,” her father asserted with a chuckle. “But I agree.” He settled himself more comfortably, lacing his fingers together where his hands rested in his lap. “In any case, Sloper isn’t strong-willed enough for your sister. Though one can’t fault him for admiring her.”
Flora had to agree. She would be the first to admit how beautiful Alice was, with her delicate porcelain features, blue eyes, and cloud of sandy hair. Most people took one look at her lovely face and petite figure and all but sighed at the ethereal picture she presented. Just as they couldn’t help but smile in approval at Charlie, with his similar coloring and clean-cut good looks. Which wasn’t to say that Mabel didn’t possess a beauty of her own. It was merely bolder. A fact she enhanced with the deep colors she chose for her garments, such as the rich admiral blue of her suit, with its cardamom trim. They complimented her dark mahogany hair and wide gray eyes and softened the effect of her large mouth and pronounced chin. Of all the daughters, Mabel resembled Mother most. Which might explain why they butted heads so often.
Being constantly compared to her striking sisters, Flora might have been pitied and dismissed, but for two redeeming qualities: her height and her figure. It was difficult to ignore a woman who stood as tall as some men, but with a decidedly shapelier silhouette. A less confident woman of such features might have slumped or slouched, but Flora had learned that the key was to hold her head high and package it in elegant, expertly tailored clothing.
The next few hours seemed to crawl by as the train made its way southwest. The English countryside, while lovely, couldn’t hold their attention or properly be appreciated while their thoughts were bent on the mechanical wonder they were steaming toward. Even Flora, despite her conflicted emotions about returning home, couldn’t stop checking the watch pinned to her bodice or noting their progress as they passed through each successive station en route. Their entire party was all breathless anticipation as they entered Southampton and the train began to slow. They crowded by the window, straining to catch their first glimpse of the ship as they neared the docks.
Charlie was the first to spot her. “There!” he cried. “You can just see her between the buildings.”
They were but fleeting glances, but he was right. Her black hull was a steadily growing mountain in the distance, with her four black-and-gold funnels piercing the flat gray sky. It was all Flora could do not to gawk. The others chattered excitedly, but she was too awed to speak, for the Titanic was enormous! Hadn’t Charlie said she was the largest moving object ever built? She could well believe it. When the train finally pulled to a halt on the tracks running parallel to the ship’s side, she positively towered above them.
But there wasn’t much time to sit marveling over its size. Not when there was luggage to gather, tickets to check, and family members to be counted as they joined the flow of passengers exiting into the large shed nearly seven hundred feet long constructed next to the tracks. An army of porters bustled beneath the skylights, wrestling with the cargo and steamer trunks to be transferred to the ship and directing passengers toward a set of stairs.
Flora spied Mr. Beattie speaking with one of the porters, likely asking for assistance with the ailing Mr. Ross. She wondered if she should offer her assistance but then remembered Father had ordered her to leave the matter in Mr. Beattie’s and Mr. McCaffry’s capable hands. Having dawdled, she had to hasten to keep up with her family and Mr. Sloper as they began climbing the stairs, which led up several flights to an enclosed balcony. Here they joined the queue to present their tickets, and then were being ushered over a gangplank toward the ship itself.
At the edge of the balcony just before she stepped into the open air, Flora hesitated, feeling at the precipice of something monumental. The cool sea breeze kissed her cheeks, toying with the tendrils of copper-brown hair that had escaped their pins to curl against the nape of her neck. She squinted against the sudden glare of the brilliant white superstructure before her and realized the sun had peeked its head through the heavy clouds, as if it, too, couldn’t resist the urge to gawp and stare at the magnificent ship. Turning her head to the side, she realized at what a dizzying height they now stood, and they weren’t even crossing into the uppermost deck. Two more levels soared above them.
Below on the dock, bystanders milled about, pointing up at the riveted hull and waving to a few people far above them on the ship’s decks. A larger mass of people had congregated near an aft gangway, presumably waiting to board in third class. On her same level, about five hundred feet or so aft, stretched another walkway, where she supposed the second class were crossing into the ship. The chill in the air they’d first felt in London had not abated with their journey south, and the wind fluttered the flags hung from the ship’s masts—a Blue Ensign, the American flag with its forty-six stars, and the swallow-tailed White Star house flag. Seagulls wheeled about the snapping tails, their cries competing with the growl of the crane engines at either end of the ship still hard at work loading cargo.
Perhaps it was the disorienting height. Perhaps it was the grandeur of the ship herself. Or perhaps it was the tumult of emotions their journey home aroused in her, and the fact that once she stepped aboard, once they cast off, there would be no turning back.
Whatever the reason, didn’t matter. And after but a moment of wavering, she took a deep breath in and plunged forward, grasping the sides of the gangway and keeping her eyes trained through the doors at the end of the walkway and not on the intimidating clifflike sides of the Titanic.
The first thing she noticed as she entered the ship was the scent of flowers. It was like walking into a floral shop or a garden in full bloom, and entirely unexpected after the salty bite of the sea air. A few steps later she understood why the rooms had been so liberally embellished with blossoms, for the sharp smell of fresh paint began to pierce through the haze of gardenias and hyacinth. The crew must have been working until the last moment to ready the ship for its first passengers.
Stewards and stewardesses in crisp uniforms stood waiting in the white-paneled vestibule beyond the teak-framed doors, as well as several of the officers. Father had paused to speak with them and shake their hands, while Charlie and Mr. Sloper allowed a pretty young stewardess to give them a flower for their buttonholes. A couple entering before the Fortunes was directed to the location of the kennel on the Boat Deck for the dog trailing along behind them on a leash. His claws clacked against the black-and-white-patterned floor, the sheen of which was so lustrous that at first Flora mistook it for marble.
One of the stewards peeled away to escort Mother and Father through one of the sets of doors into the Entrance Hall foyer, at the center of which stood the Forward Grand Staircase. Constructed from solid oak, it boasted hand-carved panels and balustrades of the highest craftsmanship and sturdy Tuscan columns. Tucked into a corner of the hall sat a four- or five-man orchestra, playing a lively tune that Flora couldn’t quite identify, but it certainly lent a festive atmosphere to the proceedings.
Just forward of the staircase stood a trio of lifts, their lift boys ready to ferry passengers to their assigned decks. At the moment, there was a line waiting to use them, but the Fortunes’ steward informed them that their cabins were on C-Deck, just one floor below where they currently stood on B-Deck, so they opted to take the stairs instead. They said farewell to Mr. Sloper, whose cabin was located above on A-Deck, and turned to follow their steward. Flora couldn’t resist trailing her hands over the smooth finish of the wood, astonished by the sheer splendor and size of everything around her. She found herself grinning almost stupidly, but then her brother and sisters were doing much the same thing.
Emerging on C-Deck, they discovered a foyer much like the one above, and found another crowd clustered before the Purser’s Enquiry Office to the left, on the starboard side of the ship. The Enquiry Office was always a hive of activity on sailing day. It was there that people went to deposit their valuables for safekeeping, to exchange foreign currency, to rent steamer chairs or rugs for the duration of the voyage, and to arrange a specific table assignment in the Dining Saloon for their meals, among other things. As they passed near the front of the line to turn down the forward starboard corridor, Flora heard a woman in a fur stole arranging for a rebate since she intended to take all her meals in the À la Carte Restaurant on the Promenade Deck rather than the Dining Saloon.
“Well, aren’t we flush,” Mabel quipped under her breath, for only the wealthiest of passengers chose to dine in the restaurant, since it cost an extra tariff.
“Don’t be crass,” Flora scolded.
“We’re all thinking it,” her youngest sister replied, undaunted. “I’m simply the one brave enough to say it.”
Flora stopped herself from retorting that some things were better left unsaid. It would only be a waste of breath. Mabel viewed plain-spokenness as a virtue, but often confused candor with impudence.
The Fortunes didn’t have far to walk, finding their cabins C-23, 25, and 27 grouped together as a suite with a private bath. The steward paused before a short corridor leading toward starboard, explaining that the sisters’ and Charlie’s staterooms would be just off the next passage, before leading their parents to their door. True to his instructions, Charlie found the door to C-23, an interior cabin, while the sisters entered C-25, an exterior one.
Flora felt the bedroom was everything they could ever want in a floating palace. A small chandelier illuminated two brass beds covered in rose-pink eiderdowns, two mahogany wardrobes positioned in opposite corners, a dressing table, and a folding washbasin. Three-armed candelabras were mounted throughout the room and pastoral scenes graced the walls. The first bed was positioned before the curtain-draped porthole, while an upper pullman berth was fitted over the second. Mabel immediately moved toward the first bed, but Flora blocked her, plunking down on the firm mattress.
“I’ve been more than fair in sharing accommodations with you both the past three months, but in this I will not be budged from exerting my privilege as the eldest sister.”
Mabel scowled down at Flora.
“She’s right,” Alice agreed, fingering the white daisies and lavender chrysanthemums overflowing the vase placed on the table at the center of the room, and drawing Mabel’s ire. “I’m sure all the beds are just as comfortable. I’ll even take the upper berth if you wish.”
“And have Mother scowling at me for risking your delicate constitution?” Mabel retorted. “Oh, no. I’ll sleep on top.”
“If you wish,” Alice repeated as Mabel stomped across the cabin to the other beds. The tiny smile that played across Alice’s lips made Flora suspect that had been her intention all along.
Flora didn’t care which bed her sisters slept in as long as it wasn’t this one. She reached across to twitch open the rose-printed curtains to peer out the porthole at the steel-blue waters. Multiple tugboats idled nearby, billows of smoke emitting from their stacks, waiting for the signal to be given and the Titanic to be cast off so that they could pull her away from her berth.
A light rap sounded on a door across the room from the one through which they’d entered. “Come in,” Flora called.
The dark-haired steward who had shown their parents to their cabin opened the door. “Pardon, misses. Is everything to your liking? Do you have any questions?” He spoke with a slight accent and flashed them a merry grin that revealed both a gap between his front teeth and the fact that he was slightly younger than she had first assumed. “Your bath is just through here,” he said, gesturing behind him.
Charlie strode past him with his hands tucked into his pockets. “Through my cabin.”
“Or you can circle around to the door on the interior corridor,” the steward added. He nodded to the trunks already on the floor—those they had wanted for the voyage rather than the rest they’d stored in the hold. “A stewardess will be in shortly to unpack your things.”
Father had decided there was no need to bring a maid on the trip, since the sisters could act as one for each other and their mother, and every ship and hotel in which they stayed would have staff to see to those needs beyond simple dressing, such as laundering and unpacking.
All the sisters and Charlie listened attentively as the steward explained how to utilize some of the room’s features, including the electric heater and a metal panel of bells and electrical fixtures affixed to one wall that would enable them to summon him, among other things.
“What’s this for?” Alice asked, pointing to the green mesh bag hanging on the wall next to her bed.
“That’s for your valuables, miss,” the steward replied with a grunt as he lowered the upper pullman berth at Mabel’s request. “Those you don’t want stored in the safe in the Purser’s Office, that is. You can tuck your watches and whatnot inside at night, so they don’t fall to the floor and get lost.”
He meant if there were rough seas, but Flora had to wonder if they would even feel it on board such a colossal vessel.
As Mabel clambered up to her bed, the steward stepped back, scrutinizing the cabin, as if searching for any detail he’d forgotten to share. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“If the Titanic is unsinkable, why on earth are there life belts on top of the wardrobes?” Mabel taunted, clearly having just spied them from her loftier perspective.
The steward’s grin returned. “Purely a matter of precaution, miss. She’s got to follow the same rules as everyone else, now, don’t she? But have no fear. All those watertight compartments. She’ll never founder.” He opened their outer cabin door to depart, and Flora rose to see him out. “If that’s all, then. My name’s Ryan, miss. Ring if ye should need anything.”
“We will. Thank you.”
He bowed his head before departing, closing the door behind him.
Flora turned to find her brother Charlie bending over to peer through the porthole over her bed. His sandy hair appeared almost ashen in the muted sunlight. “Are Mother and Father getting settled?”
“Mother said she had a letter to write before we depart and then she wishes to lie down for a spell.” He straightened, forcing her to look up to meet his eye, something she was still growing accustomed to even six months after his graduation. For all her life, her little brother had been . . . well, littler than her. But at some point during his past two years at Bishop’s College School in Quebec, he’d grown over six inches, rivaling their older brother Robert for tallest. “I’m going up on deck to watch her depart.”
“I’ll join you,” Mabel declared eagerly, hopping down from her berth.
One look at Alice told Flora she also didn’t want to miss the excitement.
“Why don’t we all go,” she suggested, as Mabel pulled a half dozen flowers from the vase.
“To throw to those watching,” she replied in answer to Flora’s arched eyebrows.
Alice smiled at her and reached out to take half a dozen for herself.
Alice could hear bells clanging as she and her siblings once more avoided the crowds clustered around the lifts and took the stairs up to the Boat Deck, enjoying the sights and sounds of the glorious ship. She had been impressed before, but she couldn’t withhold an actual gasp as they reached the foyer on A-Deck. A cherub figure perched on the central newel post of the Forward Grand
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