The White Hunter Page 15

  For all its size and bulk, the Titanic was a tiny microcosm, a small dot, on the enormous expanse of the Atlantic. Yet it was also a cosmos with all the order and pomp and circumstance of an earthly kingdom, even such as ancient Rome itself. It was a little world with its own royalty, Captain Smith being the king. The nobility included the extremely wealthy who had never known want in their lives. There were the poor, the peasants, packed into steerage with little more than the clothes on their backs. The workers were ranked from those who scrubbed the decks to the officers who executed the complicated maneuvers necessary to move this small world through the waters. Overhead the stars did their great dance at night and the sun ran his race each day, coming as a bridegroom out of his chamber. Time moved on, and around the world revolutions came, and plague laid its grim hands on nations. People died and babies were born, but the Titanic surged through the cold waters secure in itself, every heart full of confidence and hope, looking forward to the next day and the day that followed that and to the time that would roll on without perturbation. There were no comets to warn of disaster such as came when Caesar died, but only the cold glitter of the stars overhead that had witnessed the tragedies and the triumphs of earth since the beginning. That, and the hard blue-gray sky punctuated by the yellow sun that stared down impassively on the ship as it plowed steadfastly forward toward its destiny.

  ****

  Jeanine could not forget what Clive had said earlier that day at the table. She moved about her stateroom, glancing over from time to time at Annie, who was taking a letter down on her pad. Jeanine finally snapped, “Oh, I can’t think tonight! We’ll take care of these letters tomorrow. We can’t mail them until we get to New York anyway.”

  Annie folded her pad and asked quietly, “What did you think of what Clive said?”

  Jeanine had been standing at the porthole staring out into the dark night. Some of the darkness seemed to seep into her. Annie was unusually sober, and this disturbed her. Whirling quickly, she said, “What do you mean?”

  “I mean about his intention to serve God from now on in a better way.”

  Annie’s question seemed to trouble Jeanine. She did not answer for a moment but moved over, poured herself a drink, and took a sip. She toyed with the glass nervously, then shrugged her shoulders, saying with some trace of irritation, “That’s fine for him! I wish him the best.”

  “I think he means it. He’s one of the finest men I’ve ever known.”

  “In spite of the fact that he’s been carrying on an adulterous affair with a fallen woman?”

  Annie held Jeanine’s gaze for a moment, then shook her head. “Don’t talk like that.”

  “It’s true enough! Why shouldn’t I say it? You Puritans all think if you say things it makes them worse.”

  “I think it’s good to know who you’ve been and what you’ve done, but I don’t think it’s good to shut the door to a change that can come. And I think Clive has changed.”

  Annie’s simple words brought a pang to Jeanine Quintana, for they were true. She was an intelligent, perceptive woman, and she had seen the change that had come to Clive. There had always been a gentleness in him, but in the latter part of their affair, she had seen something more than that. She had liked Clive more than she had ever liked any other man, yet being firmly committed to living her own life, she had walked away. She knew, however, that she did not walk away whole, for there was something in her heart for Clive Winters that had never been there for another man.

  She stalked up and down the cabin and finally flung her arms out in a strange gesture. “What do you want out of me, Annie? You want me to say that I’m glad that he’s going to live a good Christian life now? All right. I’m glad.” She stood there daring Annie to speak.

  When she did not respond, Jeanine walked over and slumped down in a chair. The spoonback armchair was outlined in a dark, highly polished mahogany, had scrolled feet, and was upholstered in light green and ivory damask. She ran her hand over the richness of its fiber without thinking, then she looked up and said abruptly, “You know what he said? He said he loved me more than life.”

  “Did he, now?”

  “Yes, he did, and what’s more, he meant it. Other men have said things like that. I’ve never put any stock in them, but I know somehow that Clive meant it.”

  “That troubles you, doesn’t it? The fact that a man could love you in that way.”

  “I don’t want love like that. I don’t believe in it.”

  “Do you believe he meant it?”

  With more agitation than Annie had ever seen, Jeanine paced around the room. Annie saw that her hands were unsteady, and she knew that something was going on inside of Jeanine Quintana that was new, that was different, that was almost startling.

  “I don’t know. I don’t really believe in love like that. He may think he loves me more than life, but if it came down to it, it couldn’t be true.”

  “Jeanine, there was a very famous man years ago who said, ‘Inside every person there’s a God-shaped blank, and that person will never know peace until God fills it with himself.’ ”

  The words seemed to strike Jeanine like a blow. Her face turned pale, for she had long known that there was an emptiness inside of her. She had tried to fill it up with pleasure, with those things that money can buy, with a frenzy of activity, but she well knew that something was missing deep inside her. She was so moved, she could not speak. Without another word she turned and left the sitting room, entered her cabin, and shut the door.

  Annie sat there praying for Jeanine. “Lord, she doesn’t know who she is. She’s confused. She’s unhappy and miserable. Her money hasn’t done anything for her except to rob her of that which is valuable, and that’s you, Lord Jesus. Now I pray that even now you would convict her heart. Bring her somehow, whatever it takes, to the throne of grace.”

  Jeanine stopped inside her cabin. Her mind was racing, and a disturbance swept through her like a storm. She moved over to the liquor cabinet, poured a fragile glass full of champagne, drank it down, then set the glass on the marble top.

  And at that moment something happened. The glass did a tiny dance. Jeanine stared at it. She felt the vibration through her feet, but she watched as the little glass, almost weightless, bounced across the dark green marble.

  This had never happened before, and it frightened Jeanine. She suddenly thought about how fragile the Titanic truly was. For all its bulk and size, and for all the steel that had gone into her, she was just a ship. And under the ship, she instantly became aware, were thousands of feet, or perhaps even miles, of dark, cold water. The thought of what lay beneath the hull of the Titanic swept through her. She had always been afraid of the dark and hated the cold, and beneath her was the coldest, darkest spot on the face of the earth.

  She watched the glass, and finally it stopped trembling. To quiet her fear, she picked up the bottle, poured the glass full, and held it up. She repeated a toast she had heard one of the passengers say: “God himself couldn’t sink this ship.”

  She started to drink the champagne but then stopped. The thought of the cold, dark waters and the depths with unknown creatures below frightened her. She put the glass down, went over to the bed, and sat down on it. She bowed her head and saw that her hands were trembling, so she clenched them tightly together. She had been afraid of little in her life, and now fear gripped her heart with cold fingers. And to her shock, she began to weep.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Kiss of Death

  Sunday morning, April 14, 1912, began calmly enough on board the Titanic. Captain Smith led the church service for those who were interested in such things. It began at eight o’clock, and for the most part, the passengers in first class were sleeping peacefully as the mighty ship plowed through the gray waters, headed for America. John Jacob Astor, the richest man on board, was rarely seen, except for brief appearances in the restaurants. He did not appear at the service that morning, but Benjamin Guggenheim was there.

/>   Annie, who had offered an invitation to Jeanine and was surprised when the young woman accepted, sat beside her employer and Guggenheim. He was alone, but everyone knew that his young French mistress, a “Madame” Aubert, was no secret. Guggenheim’s face was calm, Annie noted, and she wondered, What must it be like to have all the money that one could possibly use? Mr. Guggenheim could buy any piece of land, or any house, or any carriage anywhere in the world. I wonder if that has gotten old for him? What is really going on inside his heart? It was a question she could not answer, for Guggenheim’s face was placid, and he seemed to be half-asleep during Captain Smith’s reading of the Scripture and prayers. Indeed, there was an air of somnambulism over most of the congregation as Smith read from the fortieth chapter of Isaiah, one of Annie’s favorite passages.

  “Have ye not known? Have ye not heard? Hath it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in: that bringeth the princes to nothing. . . .”

  Annie shot a quick glance again at Guggenheim and thought of that last verse, “that bringeth the princes to nothing.” I wonder if he has ever really heard the Gospel? Annie thought. Doesn’t he know that even kings and princes must stand before God? Has he ever thought about that?

  The reading of the chapter went on, until finally the last three verses came, and Annie moved her lips with those of Captain Smith as he read in a sober tone. “He giveth power to the faint: and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles: they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

  Captain Smith closed the Bible and read a prayer, then dismissed the service.

  “Captain Smith isn’t much of a preacher, is he?” Jeanine said as the two women left the dining room that had been used as a chapel. “I trust he’s a better captain than he is a preacher.”

  Annie did not answer, although she agreed with Jeanine. She hated to speak against anyone trying to do the will of God and finally remarked only, “I think it was nice of him to hold the service. He’s not a preacher, of course, but that Scripture he read has always been one of my favorites.”

  “I couldn’t make much out of it.”

  “It says that God is all-powerful and that we are helpless and weak. I’ve always liked that last verse: ‘But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.’ I’ve had to lean on that verse a lot, and I know that it will become even more real when I get to Africa.”

  The two were walking along the promenade deck. The sun had broken out in the east and shattered itself in beams of light along the choppy waves. The sea was neither blue nor green nor gray, but a murky combination of all. Overhead the sky was a dead slate color, and the clouds that scudded along were tattered and looked like dirty swabs of cotton strung out along the horizon. It was not a cheerful, sunny morning as they had known before, and it depressed Jeanine.

  “I’ll be glad when we get to New York,” she said abruptly, turning and leaning against the rail. “Every time I go to Europe, I’m always glad to get home again.”

  “I’ll be glad to get home, too,” Annie said. She looked down at the choppy waters that swirled around the steel sides far below and remarked, “Look how far below it is! It looks like it would kill one just to jump from this height, even into water.”

  Jeanine looked down and suddenly a shiver ran over her. “I’ve been having bad dreams, Annie.”

  “What sort of bad dreams?”

  “About the ocean.” She shifted uneasily and her violet eyes became half-hooded as she stared down at the water. “I keep thinking about how far it is to the bottom, how awful and dark and cold it is. What it must be like for sailors to fall into that water and drown.”

  “I don’t think much about the depth of it. You can drown as well in six feet of water as you can in a mile, I guess.”

  “I suppose, but still, it’s not what I like to think about.” She turned suddenly and said, “You’ve been a nuisance to me, Annie.”

  The sudden words spoken almost vehemently shocked Annie. “Why . . . what do you mean, Jeanine?”

  “I mean it’s impossible to be around you without thinking about God and about . . . hell.” It seemed an effort for her to speak the last word, and she said, “I don’t know if we can go on together.”

  Annie knew then that God was dealing with Jeanine. She also knew that she must be very careful, so she said quietly, “I don’t think it would help to get rid of me—although that’s your choice. The only help for any of us is to allow God to come into that empty place that we all have inside of us. And it isn’t hard, Jeanine. What’s hard is living a life without meaning. I don’t want to be personal, and I’ve really tried to keep from preaching, but just look at your life. It’s one round of parties, of men, of pleasure, and I know for a moment that seems good. But there are bound to be times when it seems awfully futile and empty.”

  “That’s all I have.”

  “It doesn’t have to be,” Annie said, and her eyes glowed, for she felt a new surge of love for this woman who had treated her so badly. “When you give yourself to God, suddenly there’s more meaning to life than you ever thought. Your life counts. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And when we become part of His will, we are eternal creatures, not just like flies that I read about that are born in the morning and live their life out and die at night.”

  Annie’s words seemed to strike Jeanine. She closed her lips tightly and shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said as she turned and walked away.

  Her back was straight as she disappeared down the passageway beyond, and Annie knew that Jeanine had come to that fork in the road that all human beings come to, when they must once and for all eternity choose between God and the world. She hurried to her cabin, went into her room, fell on her knees, and began to pray for Jeanine.

  ****

  “And where is your home, my dear?”

  Annie turned and smiled at the elderly woman who sat next to her. She had come down for lunch with Jeanine and Clive, and they found themselves seated at one of the tables that held half a dozen travelers. She had met Mr. and Mrs. Isidor Straus and knew only that they were extremely wealthy. “I was brought up in the West, Mrs. Straus,” she said.

  “Oh, indeed!” Interest flickered in the other woman’s eyes, and she studied Annie carefully. “That must have been rather exciting. Did you ever see any Indians?”

  “Oh my, yes! I grew up on a ranch, and several Indians worked for my father.” Annie found Mrs. Straus fascinated by this, and her husband, Isidor, listened in also. He was a heavy man in his middle sixties, and both were dressed as if for a royal coronation. Mrs. Straus was wearing a floor-length, dark blue silk tunic gown with a kimono bodice of white lace and matching long sleeves. She had on a pair of lace gloves and a large wide-brimmed hat with flowers and feathers around the crown.

  Her husband was equally well dressed. His three-piece suit was dark brown, single-breasted, and was worn open. His matching vest covered a white shirt with a high wing collar, and around his neck was a knotted black tie. His pants were straight-cut and had turn-up cuffs at the ankles.

  Across the table sat Benjamin Guggenheim, the wealthiest man on board except for John Jacob Astor himself. Guggenheim had been speaking with Clive about the game of cricket, but now he turned and listened to Annie. When she finished, he shook his head. “You must be an admirer of Teddy Roosevelt. He’s the consummate cowboy.”

  “Yes, indeed. I think he’s the finest president we’ve ever had.”

  “Well, he’s certainly no Abe Lincoln,” Jeanine asserted. She looked up as the waiter began to bring the food, whic
h consisted of lamb, roasted squab, asparagus salad, and pâté de foie gras. Of course waiters were on hand to serve wines of all sorts.

  As they began to eat, Guggenheim asked, “What did you mean by that remark, that Roosevelt is no Lincoln?”

  Sipping the champagne from the curved goblet in front of her, Jeanine replied, “Why, I simply mean that Lincoln came from the earth, born in a log cabin. It’s become almost a requirement in America. A man has to be born in a log cabin.”

  Clive grinned suddenly. “I read somewhere that one of your presidents was born in a log cabin that he built with his own hands.”

  A laugh went around the table and Isidor Straus roared heartily. He was a genial man and much attached to his wife. They were, Annie noticed quickly, a loving couple indeed. Mrs. Straus seemed to be constantly reaching out to touch her husband, and at her touch he would always turn to her with warmth in his fine, brown eyes.

  “Is your remark derogatory, Miss Quintana? Are you opposed to having wealthy men from good families serve as president?”

  Jeanine smiled quickly. “Not at all. I don’t believe having money disqualifies a man for public office.”

  “I’m happy that you think that way,” Guggenheim nodded. “It’s getting so bad that when a wealthy man wants to run for president, he has to take lessons.”

  “What sort of lessons?” Clive asked curiously.

  “Oh, how to act small! I have a friend who ran for governor of Connecticut. He had never been on a farm in his life, but he had to learn how to go around and shake hands with farmers and talk about pigs and plowing and picking cotton. Things of that nature.” He laughed suddenly. “He made quite a spectacle of himself, I’m afraid. It didn’t take them long to find him out. A man’s what he is, and if he has wealth and position, well, he needs to make the most of it.”