Margaret

A woman and her baby are traveling on the Titanic. They wake up in a different world.

Margaret

 

Mrs. Margaret Wheeler‘s  memory of her  last night on the Titanic was at best blurred.  From the time she boarded it to the moment she left Margaret  never walked its open decks.  She had remained deep within steerage hugging the warmth of her tiny cabin that she shared with three other ladies.   She ventured out only as far as the lavatory and  the  dining room on F Deck. when not immobilized by seasickness. She was also dogged by  homesickness for her parents in Somersetshire.  A country girl this was her first long trip away from home.

Margaret like most girls from poor families had left school at thirteen to work on her family’s farm.  She had liked school, reading and writing. She had especially admired the world map decorated with red splotchers showing how great the British Empire was. It had made her proud to be English and had shown her how much there was to be seen outside of her county.  At sixteen wanting to see a little more of the world and to help her family she had taken a job as a kitchen maid in Shrewsbury.   It was then that she had met James Wheeler.

Baby Judy and the thought of meeting Jim helped her through her time at sea.  As she lay in the lower mattress of the bunk bed and felt the engines vibrating  she thought of the home they would build together in America a home far from this horrible ocean. Jimmie would meet them in New York.  He would take them to a place called Detroit where he worked for a Mister Ford, making automobiles.  Five dollars a day, almost a pound.  A gentleman’s wage.

Margaret Wheeler shared her cabin with three other women Irish girls seeking work as domestic servants in New York;   Mary and Elizabeth Clare shared the other bunk.  Above Margaret slept Bridget O’Toole.  The three had boarded at Queenstown, bound for New York to seek work as domestics, the Clare sisters as maids, Bridget as a cook.  Margaret has been hesitant at first with sharing her cabin with them speaking with. they were Irish and Catholics. However they were also  they were good tempered sand adored baby Judy.  Their willingness to look after the baby while Margaret suffered through seasickness soon won her over and they became  good friends .  Bridget being in her thirties was a quieter woman. Friendly but somewhat more reserved in manner, she spent much of her time reading and knitting.

Just before midnight April  14  The four ladies were wakened by a firm knocking at their cabin door.

Mary Clare opened the door to see a white-jacketed, ginger-haired steward holding four life jackets.  “Apologies madam.  We’ve developed some engine.  Captain would like steerage passengers to gather in the dining room F Deck. Just as a precaution.  Make sure you dress warm.”  He handed Mary the life jackets.  Once dressed and with Judy wrapped in a warm blanket and nestled in her mother’s arms the ladies joined a stream of people flowing towards the dining room. As she stepped into the room a surge of nausea gripped her stomach.  Attributing this to the lingering effect of sea sickness she looked around for the person in charge.

In the centre of  each dining table were large pots of tea and mounds of sandwiches. Later, much later, she would think about the sandwiches and tea.  Everything had been so well prepared.  At the time however she found them reassuring.  People gathered around the tables drinking tea and munching as they considered what might be happening.  An officer came with a clipboard checking people’s names.  Everything seemed very  efficient.  Whatever was happening could not be that serious.  After all the ship was unsinkable.  She sipped some tea, sampled a cheese sandwich, nursed Judy and waited for the officer to tell her what to do.

 

At a quarter to three the officer hurried into the dining room. He nodded at the waiting faces and smile.  “ladies and gentlemen.  Again my apologies for any inconvenience caused.  The difficulty with the ship has been resolved.  We will soon be on our way again.” He paused to allow for sighing and whispering.  He then continued. “For now return to your cabins and get some sleep, which (he smiled)  is what I plan to do.”

Relieved and warmed by the tea Margaret returned to her bed.  As she lay in her bunk she strained to hear the engines starting.  They were still silent when she closed her eyes and slept.  When she woke the engines were still silent.  Turning over she looked at Judy asleep  in her crib.  The other bed was empty.  Only she and Judy were in the room. Margaret closed her eyes and went back to sleep.  She dreamt that she was in another room on land somewhere.  The weather was warm.  A soft breeze wafted through a curtained window.   Next to her bed stood Bridget O’Toole but a Bridget different from the one that she knew. Dressed in a white shirt and white trousers and wearing a green  that covered her hair.  Bridget leaned over her. Cap.  She whispered in a voice different from her normal Irish brogue.

“Sleep child.  Time enough for waking later.”

That night Margaret dreamed strange dream. Hours later the soft chirping of a bird by her bedroom window caused her  to stir. Then she remembered.  There were no songbirds in the north Atlantic.  There was no window in her steerage room.  She sat up to find herself in a strange bed. She must be in America. She looked for Jimmie to see a woman sitting in a chair, A woman that reminded her of  go away.  Bridget O’Toole.  “Bridget?”

The woman smiled.  “I was. People change over time, you know.” Then her voice turned serious.  “Just before midnight on the 14^th of April 1912 the Titanic struck an iceberg.  Within two hours it sank. Thirteen hundred souls were lost including you and your daughter. I don’t expect you to understand what I am trying to tell you.”

“I am dead?”

“No. No you’re not.”

Margaret nodded. ”The soul lives on I know.”

“No. It’s not a question of soul.  You never died. When you stepped into the dining room, you and all the others, you left the ship.  Someday you may understand.”

“I left …? What are you talking about?”  This was all part of a strange dream. “Then ..if I’m not dead then I will see Jimmie again.”

“No. No. You can’t.”

“Of course I will. He’s waiting in New York. When do we get to New York?”

“You’re not going to New York.”

Margaret snuggled against her pillow. “Of course I’m going to New York. Jimmie will be  there.”  The dream would pass.  She would wake in her real world and in three days perhaps she would be with Jimmie.

Morning light filled the room.  Margaret stirred and opened her eyes expecting to see the bottom of Bridget’s bunk.  Instead she saw a white ceiling.  She blinking think that it would go away. It did not. She turned and looked for Judy.  She found her asleep in a crib covered in pink silk.  Satisfied that her baby was sleeping Margaret walked through the strange wondering where she was and how she would get back to Jimmie.  The woman who had once been Bridget sat at a kitchen chair. 

“So it wasn’t a dream” said Margaret.

“No.”

“The Titanic?”

“Is at the bottom of the Atlantic.”

“You saved our lives.”

The woman nodded.

“What is your name?”

“You can call me Louise.”

“What do we do now?”

“You can start by meeting your neighbours.”

“New York?  My husband?”

“Some things we can do.  Some things we can’t.  I’m sorry.  You can never go there.  You can never see him again. But you have your child, your life, this house.”

“This house?”

“Yes.”

“What do you want from me?”

“Want?  Life.”

“ Are you missionaries?”

“Mission..?  No. Not as you understand it.  We just prefer life to death where it’s possible.”

“Where possible?  What about the others, the ones who died.  You knew what would happen and you did nothing to help them.”

“There was nothing we could do.  We cannot change history.”

“You saved Judy and I and the others.”

“You were all listed as missing.  Your bodies were never founded.  As far as history was concerned you had ceased to exist. That was why we could save you.  Before the ship struck my friends and I sought out where the missing where.  Those were the ones  we assembled.  No one else.”

“All the others?”

“No one else.”  The woman stood.  “I have to go.  Tomorrow you and the others who we chose you will meet together. Plan your lives.”

“And you?”

“I will not be there. Maybe later.”

“What happens tomorrow?”

“You will meet with the others and plan your new lives.  That will be for you to decide.  Not me.  Each family has been provided with a house. Every house is stocked with food. There is land, the sea, your hands, your intelligence. There is also a library and a medical clinic.   Make of them what you will.”

The air behind the woman shimmered. She smiled, nodded, stepped back and disappeared.

Bewildered Margaret continued to sit half expecting Louise to re-appear.  Then not knowing what else to do she returned to the bedroom to check upon Judy.  Satisfied that the baby was asleep Margaret curled up on the bed and went to sleep. As she lay in bed she imagined what would happen tomorrow.  People would meet. The men would form some kind of council. Whoever these strangers were, no matter if they were well-intentioned they had no right to interfere with God’s creation. She then thought of Jimmie feeling him cuddling next to her as she thought about the house in which she lay.  Men must have built it. They must have installed the water and electricity.  They must have bought  the food. 

Judy’s crying woke her.  Margaret knew she had to change the baby and find her milk. Her place in time or space did not matter as much as the need to tend to her baby. . After that she would have to feed herself.  On the dresser she found a pile of clean white cloths and in a jar safety pins.  She walked through the house at last coming to the kitchen.  Here she found an ice box that contained milk, butter bread and  a large chunk of cheddar  cheese.  Near the icebox was a pantry stocked with flour, sugar and canned goods.  There was even a canister filled with Earl Grey tea.  She made herself a cheese sandwich and a mug of tea.

Turning  a tap marked H she filled a kettle and placed the kettle on a stove.  She did not wonder how the water came out or who had constructed the plumbing or where the water came from.  Her concern was her baby and then herself. She wondered how to ignite the gas until she found a box of matches.  Soon the kettle was whistling.   Then, having breakfasted, and hugging Judy to her breast  Margaret stepped out onto the street.

***

 

Glistening elevator doors slid open Louise stepped out. As she had descended Louise had  decided to be sixty again. She liked being sixty, not too young yet not too old.

 

A balding, portly spectacled man wearing a suit and narrow tie, the type fashionable in  the 1960’s.

“A friend of  ours?”

“James William Wheeler. He was an executive with Ford Motor Company, He died of a heart attack in 1977.”

“So?”

“We took his wife and daughter off the Titanic.  They were supposed to meet him in New York.”

“Don’t tell  me you’re thinking of trying to reunite them?”

“No. It can’t be done.  He died surrounded by family.”

“That’s the way it usually is. You know that.”

Louise flicked off the picture.  “Yes” Every night before sleep she would sit and remember the ones she could not save.  In Margaret’s eyes she had seen a question she had seen so many times before.  If  you could save us, why not them?  Why not just one more? Margaret and Judy had been lost to History. Not so Jimmy.  It would always be this way. Louise sighed, turned off the monitor and went to bed.

Author's Note

Canadian English.