He was feverish, Dr. Schuyler had warned about fever, and Nora was going to call for the hotel doctor whether William liked it or not. After all this, she was not about to lose him to a fever.
She held him until the shaking and gasping stopped, and he slept quietly. She held him a bit longer, giving him her warmth and comfort, making sure he was fully asleep, and then she eased herself out of the coil of their bodies and slipped out of bed. Wrapping herself in a robe provided by the hotel, she went to the sitting room, picked up the telephone, and rang the switchboard.
“Good evening. How may I direct your call?”
“Hello. I’m calling from ...”—she tried to remember—“the Central Park Suite.”
“Yes, ma’am … Mrs. … Lady Frazier, yes. How may I help you this evening?”
“My husband is ill, running a fever. There’s a doctor on staff, I hope?”
“Of course, my lady. Dr. Gunther. I’ll send him up immediately. Is there anything else I can do?”
“No, no. Thank you very much.”
“You’re welcome. I hope Mr. Frazier is well soon.”
Nora hung up and went back to the bed. William slept deeply, but his breathing seemed too loud, and too fast. She brushed his hair back from his forehead. He really was warm.
Since she’d been brought to him on the Carpathia, Nora had felt a steady pulse of worry under the powerful current of her relief and elation to be reunited. When Dr. Schuyler had told her to be prepared for William to be different, she hadn’t known, nor cared, to imagine what that meant. She still didn’t care. They were together, and he knew her, knew them, and all would be well. But she was worried nonetheless. William was like half of himself—but it was worse than that, because she could see that he knew the other half was missing. He was distracted and disconnected, from everything but her, as if he kept his attention inward, searching. Nora knew what that was. She was worried because she understood what it felt like to be lost and to know it.
Dissociation, Dr. St. John had called it.
When the women had come to him on the deck that evening. William had stared at them as if they were some kind of strange species of beast. He didn’t remember them at all, and what was more, he couldn’t understand what he’d done—or at least not the impact of what he’d done. He’d been confounded and dismayed by their gratitude.
Nora had been both profoundly proud and steaming mad. It didn’t surprise her at all that he’d helped women and children board lifeboats while other men tried to steal their places. But each time he’d helped someone else had been a chance for him to be sure to come back to her, and he’d chosen the risk every time, until there was nothing but risk.
Would she have wanted him to force a child to stay behind with the ship? Of course not. She loved him for his good heart and selfless spirit, and she couldn’t have loved a man who’d do otherwise. But he’d almost left her alone. He was sick now, and wounded, because he’d put others before himself. Before them.
A knock on the suite door sent her hurrying into the sitting room, making sure her robe was modestly closed. “Yes?” she asked through the closed door.
“Dr. Gunther, my lady. You’ve called for me?”
She opened the door. “Yes, yes. My husband. We were … we were on the Titanic. He was in the water. They pulled him from the water. He’s …” She didn’t know everything she should say as they walked toward the bedroom. “He’s feverish now.”
Dr. Gunther was young, perhaps William’s age, but not older. He’d come to her in nightclothes and a robe, his blond hair at all ends, but he had his medical bag with him. He turned back the covers and set his hand on William’s forehead.
“Yes, he’s feverish. Before I wake him, tell me everything you can about his trauma.”
“I don’t know everything. The doctor on the Carpathia, Dr. Schuyler—he said he’d been pulled from the water, and was almost … almost dead. Hypothermia. He didn’t wake until he was on the ship and his body was warm again. He’s different since he woke.”
“Different how?”
Nora thought how to explain it. “He’s quieter. He’s a good speaker. Not a windbag, but eloquent and thoughtful. Now he barely speaks, and almost never in sentences. He often seems confused. Dr. Schuyler said there could be … losses.”
“Yes, there could be. From what I understand about the event, there could be profound losses for anyone who survived in that water. But he knows you, knows who he is, what his life is?”
“Yes. Yes. He’s just quiet … and distracted.” She thought about telling him how he’d reacted to seeing the ocean but decided against it. “When we got to the hotel, he was sick. He began to shake, very strongly, and his face was hot.”
“All right, thank you.” He turned back to the bed and put his hand on William’s shoulder, and Nora remembered that she’d stripped him naked. Because Dr. Schuyler had said that skin-to-skin contact was warmer and more soothing.
“He’s … not wearing any clothes.”
Dr. Gunther smiled back at her. “It’s not a concern, my lady. There’s little modesty in the medical profession.” He shook William’s shoulder. “Mr. Frazier? Mr. Frazier, can you wake up?”
William groaned and stirred, and Nora ran to the other side of the bed and climbed on, so he would see her first. Dr. Gunther shook his shoulder again, harder, and William’s eyes finally opened. He groaned again. “Nora?”
“I’m here. The doctor is here. Can you wake up and let him examine you?”
Confusion racked his brow. He turned his head. Seeing the doctor, he rolled to quickly to his back. “No!”
The doctor was unfazed and professionally firm. “Mr. Frazier, you’re running a high temperature. Your wife told me what you’ve been through, and it wouldn’t surprise me if you’re developing pneumonia. With the work your body’s been doing already, it will need help to fight any new illness off. I can provide that help.”
William stared at the doctor in that baffled way. He turned to Nora. “Nora?”
He was behaving as he had when she’d first been brought to him. Was he losing more of himself? Was the fever taking more away? “It’s all right, my love. Let him help you. For me.”
He stared at her for a few seconds more, then nodded and turned back to the doctor. “For Nora.”
Dr. Gunther lifted his eyes to Nora. He understood what she’d tried to describe. William wasn’t himself. Half of him was lost.
“His lungs sound clear. That’s very good news. His heart rate is a bit fast, but that’s likely the fever, and it’s not in the danger zone. We’ll need to keep close watch, but I don’t think it’s pneumonia, not yet. Most likely, he picked up an infection on the ship, and his body was too weak to fight it off. His temperature is one hundred and two, and that’s a bit concerning. But there’s a lot of good news, my lady. The greatest concern is that he’s already weak from the trauma at sea. So keep him in bed, not too flat, keep him comfortable, and I’ll stop in regularly and check on him. I’ll arrange for a menu for him as well.”
“Thank you, Doctor. And … and his confusion?”
The doctor’s expression had been reassuring. Now it turned serious. “I’m afraid I don’t know enough about how he was after the rescue to judge if he’s lost more. But I’m sure you’ve had fever in your life. You know how it can cloud your thinking. If he was already feeling cloudy—
“Gauzy.”
“Excuse me?”
“Gauzy. He calls it gauzy.”
“Well, that itself is a very good sign, that he’s aware of it and can describe it metaphorically. My best advice, based on what you’ve told me and I’ve observed, is to keep talking with him, encouraging him to speak in whole sentences. Maybe read to him. The important thing is to keep working at it. New losses can be remedied much more easily than old ones.”
“Thank you, Doctor.” She offered him her hand. Dr. Gunther was the first doctor, the first male doctor, she’d trusted since she’d known enough to be suspicious.
He took her hand and squeezed. “You be sure to get good rest, too. You’ve had a trial as well, and he needs you to be strong. I’ll arrange his menu before I go back to bed myself, and I’ll be up after breakfast. In the meantime, call if you need anything.”
Then he left, and Nora stood alone in the suite’s sitting room. William slept in the room beyond. She stood alone in the Central Park Suite of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New York City.
New York, New York. The United States of America. America.
She turned and stared at the wall of windows, their draperies still open. William had collapsed so quickly that they hadn’t had a chance even to notice the room. Crossing over the lush carpet on legs that had forgotten how to bend, she went to the windows and looked out at the nightscape of this storied city. A park, it must have been Central Park, spread out across the street below. Central Park. New York City. America. This was to be the place of her rebirth.
Eighteenth—no, nineteenth April. Just a few hours less than exactly nine days ago, she’d woken in a hotel in Southampton, with a grand adventure and a whole new life before her. She’d turned her back on her past and leapt forward into her future with her beautiful new husband.
And had fallen into the middle of the ocean.
As she stared down at the dark trees of the park, her own mind began to slip and shift in that horrifyingly familiar way, and she dropped her head to the glass with the thud, hard enough to shake her thoughts back to their proper places. No. There was no room, or reason, for despair, no need to run from this reality. William was with her, just a few feet away. He was every bit the breathtakingly strong, honourable, kind man she’d always known him to be, and he would be well. They had survived that cataclysm in the ocean—and she knew precisely what a miracle that was. She’d watched the tragedy play out before her own eyes, sitting helpless in a boat while hundreds and hundreds of people died and that massive, marvelous floating city was devoured by the sea. She’d been witness to the terrible silence that fell over the world mere seconds after the last of the ship submerged. From howling horror to deathly emptiness in a blink. She knew how lucky they were.
Lucky. Miraculous.
They hadn’t been lost at sea. They’d landed exactly where they’d aimed, only a day later. There was a compelling unreality in that, a tendency in her mind to try to make the sinking nothing more than a nightmare. That horrible rift in the world that had destroyed so many lives, torn so many families apart, had made almost no difference to her material life, or to William’s once he was well. If her memories of the night hadn’t been so replete with sensate impact, if she hadn’t been reliving the smells and sounds and even the taste—of salt and oil and metal and ice—as well as the feel and sight of it with every reminder, she wasn’t sure how she’d reconcile the truth of that horror with the reality of her wellness.
William didn’t remember the sinking. Except in his dreams, his last memory was of the hours before.
Nora turned and looked through the open bedroom door. She could see him, sleeping, lying on his back now, propped up on pillows. The doctor had given him an injection, saying it would help him rest comfortably so his body could do its work against the infection.
She understood why he was confused, why he was lost, what he searched for. And she thought she knew how she could help him. She turned out the sitting room lights and went to bed, sliding naked under the covers and curling up against her husband.
“Nora,” he sighed in his sleep, and his hand found hers.
The next morning, William was a bit better. He was still feverish and weak, but a good rest in a good bed had restored much of his sense, and he was enough himself to grumble at the breakfast of oatmeal and tea the doctor had arranged. He wanted coffee.
Nora kissed his cheek and denied him. The doctor had sent up tea, so tea he would have.
He slept again right after breakfast, and Nora used the opportunity to get some important tasks completed. She called down to the desk and told the concierge everything she needed, and a few minutes later, still in her robe because she had no clothes—one of her day’s tasks—she sat in the sitting room with a hotel secretary, who helped her make and execute an agenda.
First order of business: she wrote telegrams to send to Aunt Martha and William’s mother. They read nearly the same in their important part: We’re both safe in New York. Taking some time to rest before we continue to California. Will keep you apprised. To her mother-in-law, she added some light detail about William’s health to explain their delay. She would write longer letters when she had time, but for now, the important thing was to get word to their families that they were safe.
Next was clothing and possessions, of which they had none. The clothes William had been wearing were nothing but salt-stiffened tatters and a donated pair of worn broughams. Her own clothes had fared better, but she wanted to keep not one single piece. She’d lost her bag of gifts William had given her, and those were the only lost things she’d have wanted. She still had her engagement and wedding rings, on her finger where they belonged. She still had her medal and her Kensington Rose. Everything else that she’d worn on that night could be burned.
Which meant they needed new wardrobes and personal items, at least enough to get them to California. With no idea how such purchases would work in America when they couldn’t go to the shops in person, she asked Miss Calloway, the secretary. It turned out to work not unlike in England, when one had enough means. Miss Calloway made a note to contact the proper shops, and she assured Nora that those shops would send representatives and samples up to the room.
Finally, Nora wanted copies of all the papers. She wanted to know everything that was said anywhere about the Titanic—every description, every opinion.
“On that point, my lady,” Miss Calloway said as she took her shorthand notes. “We’ve got a ‘do not disturb’ notice on your suite, but there have been quite a number of calls from reporters looking for you and Mr. Frazier, as well as a representative of the White Star Line, and even someone from the United States Senate. It’s our policy to let no one through, no matter who he might be, but I’d like to suggest that you should think about how you and your husband will speak, officially, about what happened.”
“My husband is ill.” William would be mortified to have it known that he struggled.
“I understand. We’ll keep the room blocked. But maybe we could draft a statement? I think that would, at least, calm the papers.” She smiled. “There’s talk, you know, that your husband is a hero.”
“He is. And that’s why he should be left alone. He doesn’t want acclaim, and he’s already done his part. He’s ill because he helped so many without regard for himself.” She’d snapped at the secretary, and there’d been no call for it. With a sharp sigh to rein in her temper, she added, “A statement is an excellent idea. Let’s prepare that, and I’ll trust you to know where it should be directed first.
“Oh, the Times, my lady. Certainly the Times.”
“This one.”
William picked up the Herald, and Nora took it and began to read the front-page story. Miss Calloway had brought back issues of the papers as well, chronicling the catastrophe from the first stories, when people out in the world had no clear understanding of what had happened in the middle of the ocean. From the first story a few hours after the sinking, before Nora and William had been reunited, the Titanic had dominated the front page of every paper in New York, and likely across the world. Those first stories told wildly different accounts, all of them conjecture based on faulty and incomplete information.
The very first stories suggested that there had been no casualties, but thereafter, the one thing later accounts got right was the tremendous loss of life. Barely more than seven hundred Titanic passengers had been conveyed to New York on the Carpathia. There was not yet an official casualty count, but there had been more than two thousand people on that ship.
She finished the front page story, where it carried over inside. Below that, she found another, and she was immediately so absorbed she forgot to read aloud.
“Nora?”
“Sorry. William, this is about you. See the headline?” She turned the paper so he could read: TITANIC HERO: RAILROAD SCION SAVES WOMEN AND CHILDREN.
“Shit. Read it?”
Another odd feature of his struggles was that he swore much more often than he had before. At least, she’d rarely heard him swear before. She didn’t mind, but she’d noticed and wondered if it was significant, or if he was simply too distracted to temper his language around her.
“Nearly a dozen women,” she began, “have come forward with stories of a debonair savior, a handsome man in elegant dress who helped them onto lifeboats, sometimes beating off the panicky attacks of other men to carry women and children to safety. Most of these women know him only as their mysterious knight, but one woman, Miss Mabel Morris, of New Jersey, told this reporter that she encountered him on the Carpathia and thanked him in person. He is, she reports, Mr. William Frazier. Examination of the passenger manifest shows that there was one William Frazier on board the Titanic, and only one: Mr. William John Frazier, the only son of J. Henry Frazier, and heir to the Scot-Western railroad fortune. While this tragedy has taken from us some of the most important men in our country, we can take heart to know that one of the greatest among them survived.”
When she finished, she looked over to see William staring at the paper like it had had sprouted tentacles. “I did that?” he finally asked.
“Of course you did. William, let me ask you. Right now, if you were on that ship right now, and had the choice to help someone else or yourself, what would you do?”
His eyes came to hers. She wanted to see more of his sharp intellect and keen wit in those hazel orbs. “You know what you’d do. You’d help. That’s who you are.”
“Be with you.” He grabbed her hand. “I wanted to be with you.”
“And here you are. With me.” They were making progress. If he wasn’t remembering the event, he was at least beginning to understand it. To the extent it could ever be understood, by anyone. “Shall I read some more?”
As Nora read story after story and William voraciously absorbed every word, something fascinating happened. Fascinating—and painful and wonderful as well. She could see that all this reporting, even when it conflicted or was full of gaps and inaccuracies, connected in his mind with the fragments of remembered images that built his nightmares. She could see the pain as his sense grew, but the wonderful something was in that. He needed the pain. She knew that well. Running from painful thoughts could fracture one’s mind. You had to feel pain before you could overcome it.
This was what she’d hoped—that she could read to him, as Dr. Gunther had suggested, and bring to him the truth of this reality. This had happened. It had happened to them. Though they sat snuggled together in a soft bed in an elegant suite of a grand new hotel, they had gone through a wrenching horror. They had survived.
Still feverish and hesitant, but well rested and fed, and more grounded, William felt well enough the next afternoon to sit with her while the best shops in New York presented their offerings. They each chose enough clothes to get them through a month or so of quiet living, and were measured for their new wardrobes. They ordered luggage and the personal items they’d need. William was quiet, still speaking as little as he could, but he spoke competently, and he took over the transactions and negotiated their terms.
Engaged in that transaction, arranging what and when and how much, listing the other items they’d need, entrusting the shop agents to fill in any important items they’d forgotten, he was nearly himself. Nora was practically giddy to see it, and she understood the next important step in his recovery—he had to get back to his life.
This hotel was merely the next waypoint on their detour. They were still in the middle of the ocean, still traveling in limbo, not yet truly back in their reality. When they were in California, starting the life they’d planned, William would find his way through his churning waves.
After their private shopping excursion, he was exhausted and shaky, and she put him back to bed. She called and arranged for tea—no, it was dinner here; Americans didn’t have tea time—and Miss Calloway brought up the evening papers, as well as the stack of messages that had amassed.
“I’ve arranged them in order of importance, I think. This big batch here is all the press. I think we can ignore most of these, if you’d like, since we’ve sent the statement to the Times—I’ve got something to show you about that—but we’ll not be able to hold off the White Star Line or the government much longer. They need to interview you. How would you like to arrange for that?”
“Can they come here, to us?”
“I’m sure they will. No one wishes to make this difficult for the survivors.”
“Then let’s do that. Can we sort it for tomorrow afternoon?” When that was finished, Nora could put all of her attention to bringing William back to himself, and getting them westward.
“There are these as well, my lady.” The secretary handed her two sealed envelopes. “Wires from home, for you and Mr. Frazier both. Replies to our messages. I’ll leave you to read them in private. And then there’s this.” She handed over the papers and tapped the Times on top, folded to a story with William’s name in the headline. “The statement we sent them is here. The reporter would like an interview as well.”
“I have to talk to William about that.”
“Of course. Let me know. Do you need anything else?”
“No, thank you. You’re a tremendous help, Miss Calloway. I wouldn’t have known how to accomplish most of this on my own.”
“There’s no reason you should have had to do it alone, Lady Nora. I’m here to assist you however you need.”
Nora knew Miss Calloway was simply an employee of the kind of hotel that endeavored to meet its guests’ every need and desire. She acted out of duty, was only doing her job. She wasn’t even a secretary Nora had retained personally. And yet, right here and now, she felt almost like a friend. Nora had had precious few of those in her life.
“You’re busy today.”
Sitting in bed beside William as he’d been asleep, Nora now smiled down at his open eyes. “How are you feeling?”
“Better. Clearer.”
She smoothed her palm over his forehead, brushing his hair back. More grey had sprung up at his temples, as if he still carried with him some ice from the ocean. “You’re cool. I think your fever broke. I should call Dr. Gunther.”
“Later.” He tapped the papers in her hand. “What’s this?”
“Telegrams from home. From Christopher and your mother. And your aunt.”
“You wrote your brother?”
Without her prodding, he was speaking in sentences. Not complex, but complete.
“No, I wrote Aunt Martha, but she must have gone to him at once, and he wrote back.” She handed him the telegram, which read simply THANK GOD – STOP – ALL SICK WITH WORRY – STOP – LOVE YOU SO – STOP – LOVE TO WILL – STOP – CHRISTOPHER.
“That makes you feel?” William asked as he handed it back.
Nora shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m glad I wrote and eased their minds. I forgive Christopher now, I do. And I love him. But not like I did. I don’t know how to get that back.”
William picked up her hand and kissed her palm. “Time. It takes time.”
“You do feel better, don’t you?”
“Still gauzy, but yes. You … anchor me.”
“And you me. I love you.”
For the first time since the sinking, since she’d brought him back to her with a kiss, like a fairy tale, William moved to kiss her. He hooked his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her close, and he kissed her fully, his mouth open, his tongue searching. She gave him what he sought.
“Love you,” he said when the kiss was done. They rested together, forehead to forehead and basked until Nora remembered the telegrams still in her hand.
“Your mother wants us home as soon as we can be, and your aunt has a lot of instructions.”
William sat back. “You said I was sick?”
“Well, yes. You are, and they needed to know why we weren’t coming straight west.”
“You’ve let them loose. I’m surprised my mother isn’t on her way.”
“Well,” Nora giggled, and that felt good. “I think she almost was. There were two wires from her. One that she was coming and another later, that she wasn’t.”
William chuckled, and that felt even better. “Between those stands my father.”
There was humor in his tone. He was joking. Nora could have clapped. All would be well. Their future was coming.
She used the chance to bring up an idea she’d had that afternoon, as she’d read the news to him. “Do you feel up to discussing something?”
“I’ll try.”
“I’ve been thinking since we’ve been here how strange it is that our lives are almost as they were before we left England. It’s hard to believe what happened. My head wants to tell me it’s just a nightmare.”
He frowned and looked away. “Yes. It’s … it slips.”
“I know. I understand. Reading the papers helps a bit.”
“Yes.”
“But other people on the ship, they weren’t as lucky. There were people in third class who had everything they owned on the ship with them. They have nothing now. Many of the survivors lost all their family and have absolutely nothing left, not even love. The nightmare won’t ever end for them.”
He turned to his back and stared up at the ceiling. “Yes. We’re lucky.”
“We are. So lucky. We’re blessed, William. I was thinking … I know it’s presumptuous, because I have nothing of my own, but … might it be possible to help them? To set up a fund for them?”
He turned his head on the pillow and studied her. “Fund? To pay for …”
“I don’t know. To help them find a place to live, some clothes, things they need. Food and shelter until they can get on their feet. They can’t stay at the Ritz and call the shops up for a private showing like we can. They need help. I know it’s your money, but—“
“Ours. Our money.”
She smiled. “Our money. Is there something we can do to help?”
How many times had Aunt Martha argued that money was important, that money did work human bodies could not, and made the work of human bodies possible? Nora had never fully understood, even as William had agreed with her aunt. Giving money was safe. Real work was risk.
The kind of risk William had undertaken on the Titanic. She herself had done little to help—he’d forced her onto the first lifeboat, and she’d sat stunned and watched the disaster happen. On the Carpathia, she’d been too distraught at first, and then too focused on William, to even think that she might help the survivors. All she’d thought of was him. William had taken on all the action for both of them.
Now, it was money that survivors who’d lost everything most needed. It was money that had made their own return to the world so gentle, and it was the lack of it that would make others’ suffering continue.
“Yes,” William said. “Good idea. We’ll make a fund. An—“ He stopped, and Nora watched him search for the word he wanted. “Anonymous.”
She thought of his alarm when the woman had clasped his hand, and his utter dismay when the next woman had knelt before him and kissed his shoe. “Anonymous. That’s exactly as it should be. To help, not for acclaim.”
He smiled. “You are a wonder.”
“No. I’m just someone you’ve saved.”
She put her papers aside and snuggled down into bed, setting her head on his beautiful, strong—and not too warm—chest.
He folded her into his arms and combed his fingers through her hair. Nora smoothed her hand over his bare chest, delighting in the soft tickle of his hair brushing her palm as she swirled circles on his beautiful body.
Speaking softly into the companionable quiet, William said, “I wanted to show you New York. Boston. Chicago. The whole country.”
“I’ll see the whole country from the train. And we’ll come back to New York someday. When we can enjoy it properly. Right now, all I want is to be home with you.”
“Home. Yes,” he murmured and held her tight.