grown up.
Virginia Futrelle Raymond, interviewed about her father and his death on the Titanic, passed along to interviewers a number of fascinating stories told to her by her late mother, May, who had survived the disaster. I noted that Mrs. Raymond, now a widow, lived in Scituate, Massachusetts.
And since I had a book tour coming up that would take me through Boston—twenty-five miles from Scituate—I made my own impulsive, out-of-the-blue telephone call to the daughter of Jacques Futrelle.
“I’m a fan of your father’s work,” I told her, “and I’d consider it a great honor if you’d consent to meet with me.”
She was easily ninety years of age, but her voice had the no-nonsense quality of a businesswoman, tempered by the musicality of a former professional singer.
“I’d be delighted,” she said. “I adored my father, and it’s a pity his memory, his work, has been so neglected.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
Her next remark seemed intended to set the tone for our meeting to come: “It will be nice to talk to someone more interested in my father than the tragedy that took his life.”
I asked where we might meet, wondering to myself if it would be a nursing home of some kind, although the fact that her number had been listed should have told me she was in her own home or anyway an apartment.
“It’s beautiful here this time of year,” she said.
It was April.
“And,” she continued, “you should have the pleasure of enjoying our lovely harbor. So—I believe I’ll let you take me out to lunch, young man.”
It was nice being called “young man,” even if I had to hang out with women in their nineties for that to happen. My wife accompanied me on the drive down Massachusetts State Route 3A, which was mostly inland and not terribly scenic.
But Scituate itself provided all the scenery landlubbing midwesterners like us could drink in, even on a cool overcast afternoon. Nestling on four cliffs, looking down on a gentle curve of coastline, Scituate was a small, quaint community whose antique Cape Cods and Colonial homes had us immediately discussing relocating.
Virginia (on the phone she had made it clear she was “Virginia,” not “Mrs. Raymond”) had suggested the restaurant—Chester’s at the Mill Wharf—which was on Front Street, on the town’s picturesque sheltered harbor, overseen by a nineteenth-century lighthouse. We were early, and sat in the rustic, nautically themed restaurant at a table by the window looking out on the busy harbor—bobbing with pleasure craft and a working fishing fleet—and an ocean so smooth and gunmetal gray it nearly blended with the overcast gunmetal sky.
When the daughter of Jacques Futrelle entered, there was no mistaking her. I had seen Futrelle’s photograph—he had a John Candy–like, round, boyish face, with dark wide-open eyes behind wire-frame glasses, and seemed at once alert and childlike, scholarly and cherubic, and was apparently rather thickset though by no means obese.
Based upon the one known photo of Futrelle aboard the Titanic, a full-figure shot of him on deck in a three-piece suit, his hair ruffled by wind, the author appeared to be fairly stocky, even short.
But Virginia Raymond was tall, close to six foot, with the big-boned frame of her father and a handsome face that echoed his, as well; at ninety, she still cut a commanding figure. She wore a dignified suit—a lavender pattern on top, with a solid lavender skirt (which my wife later described as “very Chanel”)—and she used a cane, though she strode otherwise unaided through the mostly empty restaurant. (We had chosen to dine mid-afternoon, when we would have the place mostly to ourselves.)
We rose, and I introduced my wife and myself, mentioning that both of us were writers.
“Ah, like my parents,” Virginia said, allowing me to help with her chair. “You didn’t know Mother was a writer, too? She and Papa collaborated only once, on a short story that frankly wasn’t very good. Well, of course, they collaborated on my brother and me, too.”
We laughed at that, as I took my seat right across from Virginia. Soon we ordered soft drinks, and chatted about the drive down, and this lovely scenic little city, and explained that we were in Boston making appearances at several bookstores, promoting my latest historical detective novel and an anthology my wife had coedited.
“Look how smooth it is today,” Virginia said, gazing out at the calm gray ocean. “That’s how they say it was, you know. My mother said the ocean was like a millpond, that Sunday night.”
I said nothing,