later learned was “The White Star March.”
In the meantime, the New York was still drifting free; however, the tugboats were steaming into position to take care of that, and the Titanic was coming to a premature stop, till all this could be sorted out.
“You’re right, dear,” Futrelle said.
May looked at him, relieved but dazed. “Pardon?”
“This is exciting.”
She smirked and hugged him, but Futrelle—writer of suspense that he was—could not shake a sense of foreboding. This near miss—actually, it was a near hit, wasn’t it?—was an inauspicious start for such a grand voyage.
On the other hand, if he ever wrote that Titanic mystery for Ismay, he had a hell of a first chapter, didn’t he?
THREE
SUNSET OVER CHERBOURG
SUN SPILLED LIKE MELTED BUTTER onto the boat deck, but topcoats were needed. The nip in the air came as a shock, though Futrelle—typically bareheaded—found it bracing, and May, swaddled in her black beaver coat, wanted to take advantage of the nice spring day, since the weather would only grow colder as they crossed the North Atlantic.
During the hour’s delay caused by the incident with the New York, the First-Class passengers had been summoned to luncheon by the ship’s bugler, who passed from deck to deck playing the White Star’s traditional call to luncheon, “The Roast Beef of Old England.” To American ears, it was like a cavalry charge.
Shortly after, D deck’s elegant First-Class Dining Saloon—its patrons looking decidedly underdressed in their departure attire in the massive white wedding cake of a room—had served up orchestra selections from The Merry Widow and a sumptuous buffet. May warned her husband not to overdo—the evening meal was reserved for that purpose—and Futrelle had passed up the exotic likes of corned ox tongue and galantine of chicken for some rare roast beef of old England (not wanting to disappoint the ship’s bugler).
Conversation in the Dining Saloon ran largely to talk of the New York incident, and of course introductions—the Futrelles sat with the Harrises and two of the latter’s Broadway investors, Emil Brandeis from Omaha, department-store magnate, and John Baumann from New York, a rubber importer. Rounding out the table for eight was the dignified old couple, Isidor and Ida Straus.
These were the assigned tablemates for all meals in the First-Class dining room (though the Futrelles would be guests at the captain’s table tomorrow evening), and it was no accident that these passengers—but for the Harrises’ traveling companions, the Futrelles—were all Jewish (though only the Strauses ordered the special kosher meals made available).
“That was a close call,” Brandeis had said, referring to the New York. He was a pleasant heavyset fifty with a walrus mustache and healthy appetite.
“I was impressed by how skillfully Captain Smith averted disaster,” Baumann said, touching a napkin to tender lips. He was a lean, bright-eyed, clean-shaven thirty.
“I agree with you,” Futrelle said, “but I’d be more impressed if they’d anticipated the problem.”
“How so?” Baumann asked.
“I fear it’s a sobering indication that no one’s quite sure what a ship this size can do.”
“It wasn’t so long ago,” Mr. Straus said in his softly resonant voice, raising a glass of red wine near his lips, “that Ida and I took passage on the New York’s maiden voyage.”
“The last word in shipbuilding, it was, they said,” Mrs. Straus added. She had lovely dark blue eyes in a smooth kindly face whose matronly beauty was accentuated by the backward sweep of her still mostly dark hair into a bun. Both the Strauses were conservatively dressed, but—witness Mr. Straus’s golden-brown silk tie and Mrs. Straus’s dark blue silk and lace shirtwaist—expensively.
“Did I tell you about that mysterious stranger who accosted me?” René asked suddenly.
“Did some man bother you?” Henry said, looking up sharply from his veal-and-ham pie.
Henry’s concern might have been a bothersome insect, the way René waved him off, continuing her tale in wide-eyed animated fashion: “Shortly after the incident, when we were coming down off the boat deck, still in a state of shock, a stranger… tall, with a trim mustache, and piercing dark eyes… you’d have hired him at once as a leading man, Henry B…. asked me, ‘Do you love life?’”
“My goodness!” Ida Straus said, cutting her corned beef.
May’s laugh was a tiny squeal. “And what did you say?”
Henry was frowning.
René giggled. “Well, of course I said, ‘Yes, I love life.’ And do you know what he said then?”
“Go ahead and tell us,” Futrelle said. “I can’t stand suspense unless I’m dispensing it.”
“He said, ‘That was a bad omen. There’s death on this ship.