young seamen carry his body ashore, where he had remained for several hours before Vida thought to climb up on the rocks and see what was on the other side.
Nobody spoke of his reckless behavior now, of course. They lowered their eyes, polite even at the extreme edge of existence. Their heads bobbed along with Fitzhugh’s words as though they were the gospel truth.
In her old life—in a life where her hair was straightened and arranged, where she changed her clothes three to six times a day, where she kept a luminous and very full schedule of events, most of which involved the serving of many small golden plates topped with rare and elegant bites—Vida had been a master of such displays of etiquette, such upholding of customs amongst moneyed and prominent peoples. But that had all been a mask she wore so that she might do what she pleased. She certainly felt no compunction to wear such a mask now. While the others kept their gaze piously averted, she lifted her chin and took in the scene. For one thing, she could not stand to be looked at—not with her appearance so frightful. If anyone was going to look at her, she wanted to be ready with a warning expression. But also she felt so entirely impious about everything, and could not tolerate if, along with everything else, she had to pretend that the great Carlton Farrar had perished in some noble pursuit, when everyone well knew he had died on a fool’s errand.
There were thirty-nine survivors. Four children who with their mothers were traveling to meet their fathers (laborers on a sugar plantation in Hawaii), five members of the crew, six ladies—some of whom had been dressed for dinner, and some for a quiet night in—eight gentlemen, nine men and women who had been employed as servants to the first-class passengers, Fitzhugh, Camilla, Sal, Vida, and the celebrated gossip columnist, Dame Edna Sackville. Although she was tight-lipped about what had transpired during the sinking of the Princess, it was said that she had been among the last to evacuate because she had wanted to report the story of the event in all its gruesome detail.
(“A shipwreck on the first page is guaranteed to sell out,” Miss Flora Flynn claimed to have overheard her say, and she said it to her lady’s maid, Eleanor, who repeated it to Vida.)
The gentler amongst them had been warned that there might be more bodies. All afternoon, as the men had worked to build shelter, materials had been ferried in by the tide. Pieces of lifeboats, doors, trunks, and other debris. So it was possible that the people who had clung to these items in the final moments of the Princess would come, too. But the band of survivors tried to put this out of mind as they sought water, food, shelter from the sun—and from whatever came at night.
Through the afternoon, nobody had spoken of what might hunt them in the night.
Whether this strange island had residents who might prey upon their humble beach encampment. How the winds might roar, or the sea surge over their lean-tos.
When a search party led by Sal returned with fresh water, they all cheered, and said they had been saved.
When they had managed to turn over a damaged lifeboat, and prop it on boards to create a kind of gazebo, they said they had been saved.
And when the oldest of the children—Peter, a boy who had comported himself throughout the ordeal with a heartbreaking seriousness—managed to make a cross of two sticks, bound together with the dried centers of palm fronds, the whole band cheered that they had indeed been saved by God.
They had labored through the day to be ready for night. Now night was falling. But they did not speak of the uncertainties. No—they spoke of Carlton Farrar, who ruled the shipping concern to whom they had all entrusted their safety. The cross that Peter had made was used to mark Carlton Farrar’s final resting place, in the soft earth between the high rocks and a great gnarled tree, with roots that spread like an octopus from jungle to beach.
The sky blazed pink and purple as the sun mellowed to a great gold disc hazing into the watery horizon.
The breeze picked up, whipping the already messy hair of the assembled.
It was plain from looking at them who had worked during the day, and who had not, by the relative paleness of their skin. They