The Crossing Read online

  “What?” her sister Clarice asked.

  “Nothing,” Ettie replied glumly. She looked across at Lila, who was standing by her nurse, Miss Doyle, and clutching her hand. Lila had been a model patient since her release from the asylum, which the Hawleys insisted on calling a sanitarium. They had, however, engaged Miss Doyle to travel with them. There had been a debate as to how to refer to Miss Doyle. Nurse was out of the question, so they’d settled on companion, claiming that Lila had reconnected with her former governess at the sanitarium, which Miss Doyle had also been visiting for her health.

  Ettie had quickly retreated from this discussion. She had other more important things on her mind. Lucy! Progress had been made. Her uncles had believed her about the questionable nature of the note, its authenticity, and on this very day were making their way toward Thomaston, Maine, with their lawyer, Eli Berg, considered one of the best criminal lawyers in Boston. Berg had said he thought there was possibly a thin hope for declaring a mistrial or at least convincing the governor of Maine to grant a stay of execution. Most miraculous of all was that N.B. Lawrence had been found. Well, not found, exactly. Hugh had lost money on his Pinkerton endeavor because before the detective could get started Lawrence himself had shown up on Egg Rock. Ettie was of course furious that she had to leave in the middle of all the action. But then again, so does Hannah. But Hannah doesn’t have to! The thought boiled in Ettie’s brain.

  They had all begged Hannah to stay behind. But she had refused. She promised them that she would do nothing precipitous; that she would not marry Stannish. Hannah had a plan in mind for when they arrived on the southwest coast of England, where Stannish had been engaged to paint the portrait of the new young Baroness of Pynte. They would be put up in a cottage a mile or so from the main house, close to the sea. She would be able to sneak away for a swim. They might be there as long as two months. This would be Hannah’s opportunity to prove to Stannish that she could indeed still keep a small part of her sea life. She would be discreet and always cautious, and by the time she had proved her point they would be married. “It’s all really very simple,” she declared brightly. There was an unnerving, almost enameled cheeriness to her manner, as if she were not just trying to convince May and Ettie but herself as well.

  Ettie scanned the throngs of people on the other gangplank, the one for those people not traveling first class, but she saw no sign of Hannah. But directly ahead on the first class gangplank she spied Stannish Whitman Wheeler. He was just turning around. She couldn’t stand him! It was not simply that he had betrayed his own kind — mer — but he was so arrogant and controlling. What would he do when he found out that he was on the same ship with the Hawleys? He’d hated them ever since Lila destroyed the painting. She just prayed that Lila would not catch any glimpses of Hannah. Of course Hannah looked very different now with her newly dyed — and, in Ettie’s mind, hideous — hair. But if Lila saw Hannah or Wheeler, for that matter, the calm would be over and there was no telling what storms might follow. The slashes in the portrait by Stannish Whitman Wheeler were still as vivid in Ettie’s mind as the night it had happened. That had been canvas, just canvas. Though the paint was hardly dry, nothing bled.

  May had been ecstatic when she received the telegram from Gar telling her that N.B. Lawrence had appeared at the lighthouse on Egg Rock. He existed! The man who believed in their existence was still alive. As soon she could, May sent a message to Ettie, who in turn contacted her uncles. And thus the three gentlemen with the lawyer Eli Berg were now meeting in the small parlor of the Hotel Montrose in Thomaston, Maine.

  Eli Berg rubbed his chin and began to explain the intricacies of filing an emergency appeal. “Godfrey, Barkley, you have to understand that it will be difficult. The judge denied our motion for a mistrial. We can now go to the court of appeals and file an emergency appeal.” He peered at his well-manicured fingers for several seconds. “The Maine court of appeals has not — how should I put it? — been disposed toward declaring mistrials after motions have been denied by the trial judges. In the last ten years they have not declared a single mistrial. Our only hope is the exclusionary rule.”

  “Yes, “ Barkley said. “That’s got to be it. The way in which they collected that evidence was ridiculous. It has to violate every single rule of collecting evidence. That evidence must be inadmissible, particularly the note. There was no search warrant when they collected it.”

  “The problem is, there was no intention to collect the poison,” Eli Berg said. “It was purely accidental that it was found. And it was not found by the arresting officer but indeed by her father, who stepped over to help her on with her shawl, and as it has been reported he first took a small lady’s handbag that was hanging on the same hook as the shawl. From it a dusting of powder that was later identified as rat poisoning was scattered.”

  “But it was a plant. Henrietta said she is sure of that!” Godfrey pounded his fist on the table. “And the note! The note!”

  “Henrietta is a twelve-year-old girl, and she was not even present at the time,” Eli Berg replied calmly.

  “But Lucy Snow said she knew nothing about it. That she didn’t know how it got there,” Barkley said persistently.

  “That might be true, but the point is that the collection of this evidence was not done purposefully in violation of the law. So it does not mean that the exclusionary rule is a sure bet by any means, but I’ll try it.”

  “We can only hope, I suppose.” Godfrey laced his hands over his ample girth.

  Hope, hope isn’t enough, Nathaniel Lawrence thought. He had to do something, anything, to save this girl even if it meant risking … risking what? He had lost everything — his brother, his brother’s dear wife, his reputation, his career. He was not going to see this girl lost. Hanged.

  “You haven’t said anything, Doctor Lawrence. Do you have an opinion?”

  He hesitated to say too much. The explanation for his presence was that he was a very distant relative of the girl, and seeing as her parents seemed to have abandoned her — well, the father had died suddenly in New York and the mother, the reverend’s wife, seemed to have simply vanished — he was all that Lucy had left. But an idea had started to take shape in his head.

  “I wonder if it is possible that I might visit her. I understand that she is quite ill, and being a doctor and next of kin I would think they might allow me.”

  “Certainly,” Eli Berg replied. “This would qualify as a visit of compassion. I don’t think they would turn you down.”

  “Good. Might you arrange for that as soon as possible?”

  “Indeed.”

  Nathaniel Burton Lawrence had never broken a law in his life. But he was about to. He could almost feel the tumblers in his brain clicking over as he worked out his plan for rescuing Lucy Snow. She could not weigh too much. Laurentia probably had weighed no more than a hundred and ten pounds. Of course in her mer form it would have been more. The tails of merfolk were heavy, heavy and powerful. But that would not be the case with Lucy Snow. She would be light, suffering from a terrible dehydration, and weak. Would she even be able to swim if he got her out?

  THE LEONIDAS WAS the largest and most luxurious ocean liner built to date. There was a grand mahogany staircase that led to the first class lounge, a state-of-the-art hospital, an indoor swimming pool. There were five different decks, and the first class cabins had access to a promenade deck.

  The Hawleys’ lives aboard the Leonidas had fallen into a comfortable order. They were veterans of trans-Atlantic crossings, and this was their fifth trip aboard the Leonidas. They were treated royally and often invited to dine at the captain’s table. Ettie Hawley had taken her first trans-Atlantic voyage when she was a scant six months old. She had played her first game of quoits, a popular shipboard sport, on the promenade deck when she was two, using the child-size lightweight rings to toss on the pegs. She won her first championship when she was five in the eight-year-old-and-under division. By the time she was ten s
he was participating with the grown-ups and won the all-ship competition. But now, at twelve, she had set aside these “childish games,” as she thought of them, and turned her attention to more pressing matters.

  Ettie, unlike other rich and very privileged children, had not absorbed the standard behavior toward servants that had been inculcated into the ruling classes since they were quite young. The prescribed conduct toward those who served was a polite disregard. Expressions of gratitude were sparse and limited to small monetary compensations at the end of a voyage for nonhousehold servants — such as porters, waiters, and cabin attendants. The eyes of the wealthy travelers of first class as well as their children’s eyes would glaze over if they chanced to pass a ship’s laundress in a corridor delivering laundry or a cabin attendant bringing tea on his way to the promenade deck. Not so with Ettie. She would smile, say hello. If the ship was rocking a bit she might compliment them on how steady they were with a tray. Her parents had warned her repeatedly that this sort of conduct bordered on unbecoming and even outrageous. But their remonstrances had no effect, and by this time — Ettie’s twenty-first crossing — they had simply given up. Again they were wholly consumed with Lila, where there was always the potential for her to go off the rails or whatever one would say for oceanic travel. The “companion,” Miss Doyle, seemed vigilant, and they were keeping Lila “gently sedated.”

  Ettie had never enjoyed so much freedom as she had on this passage. And thus she made it her business to learn the names of as many crew members with whom she came in contact as possible. She smiled, she nodded, she asked them where they came from, what ships they had served on, what were their scariest moments at sea. She devoted many hours to making elaborate charts listing these crew members and their various duties. Probably more times than any other passenger, she had been invited to take a tour of the bridge from which the captain and his officers directed the operations of a vessel. She was especially taken with the Marconi room, where two wireless operators sent and received telegrams to and from other ships. The previous summer she had mastered in a matter of weeks Morse code. It fit in perfectly with her dreams of being a Pinkerton detective.

  She was determined to make best friends of the Marconi operators. The first night at the captain’s table she had managed to find out the names of these men from the captain himself, a Mr. Lionel McCurdy and a Mr. Solomon Mintz.

  While Ettie studied her lists of crew and officers, her parents, when not monitoring Lila, devoted their time to perusing the first class passenger list. There were two Astors, a Rockefeller, and a Vanderbilt. Marston, their butler, always traveled with them, functioning on board as Mr. Hawley’s valet. On this trip he had communicated to the steward of the dining room that it would be an awkward situation if the Hawley family were seated at the same table with Stannish Whitman Wheeler. So that “disaster at sea” was averted, and Wheeler was always seated on the far side of the dining room.

  On this particular morning they were awaiting luncheon in their stateroom. They often took their midday meal en suite.

  “No Bellamys, darling,” Edwina Hawley announced. Horace Hawley looked over the top of his newspaper at his wife as she bent over the cream-colored booklet. “No Bellamys, no Forbeses. Very much a Newport crowd,” she continued. She scratched her head. “Horace,” she said slowly, which always signaled that she was pondering a subject deeply.

  “Yes?” He folded his paper.

  “Horace, do you think that Clarice is too young to wear her hair up in the new French style?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, I don’t know, Edwina. I am hardly an expert on such things. That’s what you’re supposed to be.”

  “She’s not too young,” Ettie said quietly, looking up from one of her innumerable charts. “You let me wear mine half up to the Forbes wedding. Clarice is fourteen.”

  “Now, don’t be pert, Ettie,” her father said, rising from his chair.

  “You’re far too young to have any opinions,” her mother said.

  Ettie gave a dark, smoldering look. “But when I get to be forty like you, Mummy, I can have an opinion on hair, right?”

  “Ettie! My age is not a part of this discussion.”

  “I’m not talking about age; I’m talking about brains.”

  “Now, now, ladies!”

  Ettie could see that her father, although seemingly calm, was disturbed. Whenever he said “Now, now, ladies,” that was a symptom as well as a signal to settle down. Horace Hawley just hated these outbursts. Lila, of course, got away with such eruptions because she was sick. This did not seem fair at all to Ettie. However, Ettie was steady. Her father often called her Steady Ettie. A terrible burden from her point of view. But she had to admit that maybe her steadiness helped to make her father listen to her uncles, who were urging him to consider sending Ettie to Radcliffe. Her mother, however, was firmly against it. “They are grinds! That’s what they call those Radcliffe girls. And they never marry.”

  “Henrietta, dear,” her mother continued, with a tight smile. “It is just not attractive to have too many brains.”

  “Well, unfortunately, Mummy, I can’t give them back.” She got up and trounced out of the sitting room.

  “There’s shuffleboard on the promenade deck, Ettie,” her father called after her. But Ettie was hurrying down the corridor. She wanted to visit Hannah. She had with her, in a deep pocket, her trusty toothbrush. It proved invaluable for opening the grills between first class and the lower-deck classes. Of course going from first to second or steerage was not a problem. It was coming back and ascending the scale of classes. She had discovered the toothbrush trick on her last voyage on the Leonidas. The tumblers in the grill locks were very forgiving. Antonio, a cabin attendant, had shown her this. She missed Antonio as he was not on this voyage.

  Aboard ship, the stratification of society was lateral as well as vertical. There were smoking rooms from which women were excluded just as they were in taverns on land, where they dared not enter. Then there were the ladies’ lounges and a music room, where women dominated, and the rare male visitor prompted the exchange of bemused glances. There were, of course, several other rooms where the genders mixed, such as the ballroom and the French café designed to look like a Parisian street bistro.

  A bell sounded, announcing that the cart with their luncheon trays had arrived. Mr. Marston appeared. “Madam, would you like to be served in the stateroom parlor? Or perhaps on the promenade deck? The weather is fine.”

  “Oh, that would be lovely,” Edwina said. “It’s nice and sunny. I’ll get my fur wrap. That should suffice.”

  “Excellent,” Mr. Marston said. “I’ll get Gaston to help us wheel the tray out.” Gaston was the steward of the starboard side, A Deck staterooms.

  “Lovely! Lovely!” Edwina said rapturously. “The food on this ship is just delicious. And Marston, do find Ettie. We ordered her favorite — toasted cheese. Imagine ordering toasted cheese when you could have pressed pheasant. But that’s Ettie. Where is that child?”

  Ettie arrived a few minutes later. In an effort to make amends to her youngest daughter, Edwina leaned over and patted her head. “Look, Ettie, your favorite — toasted cheese.”

  “But I like it cut in triangles,” she said grumpily, not caring that she sounded like a petulant child. If her parents were going to insist on treating her like a brainless nitwit, then she wouldn’t worry about acting like one.

  “Well, we can send it back to the kitchen, Miss Ettie,” Marston offered.

  “No, then it will get cold. I can do it myself but not with a butter knife.”

  “Well, here, my Ettie, use mine,” her father said as he looked down at the place setting. “My word, I fear my cutlery is incomplete. No meat knife for the pheasant. Marston, would you alert Gaston that we need two more knives? We are short.”

  Mr. Marston’s brow crinkled. “Odd, isn’t it. Must have slipped off the cart. Well, I’ll go now, sir.” He bowed and left the family to search for Gaston
.

  The Hawleys, like many wealthy people, traveled with a small retinue of servants. In addition to Mr. Marston, there was Roseanne and Mrs. Bletchely, their cook. These servants also had comfortable quarters in first class but were consigned to eating in the maids and valets’ dining mess. Ettie, once the knife was delivered, had eaten quickly and excused herself. She pleaded that she was a bit queasy.

  “Well, no wonder. You bolt your food, Ettie,” her mother said, frowning. “And I might add you chew too loudly.”

  Ettie looked away so her mother wouldn’t see her rolling her eyes. Queasy! Why did I say queasy? More like “mal de mer”! And she nearly laughed out loud at her clever pun on the French phrase for seasickness. Oh, Uncle Bark and Uncle God would have gotten a tremendous kick out of that one. Why couldn’t they be aboard? Everything was always so much more fun with them along.

  She had excused herself and was now scurrying by the servants’ dining mess on her way to a stairwell that led directly down to E Deck, to Hannah’s cabin. Ettie had visited Hannah every day since they’d set off, but unfortunately, the same could not be said for Stannish. Yesterday, Hannah had admitted that although they were into the third day of the voyage, Stannish had not been down to visit her once. Hannah had tried to excuse her fiancé’s behavior, claiming that it was difficult for a first class passenger to justify a visit to steerage unless he was traveling with servants, and that Stannish wouldn’t want to rouse suspicion, but she hadn’t been able to hide the hurt in her eyes. Ettie could only hope that he’d made an appearance that morning.