The Girl Who Came Home Read online

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Part Two

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Part Three

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Part Four

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Part Five

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Part Six

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  P.S.

  About the author

  About the book

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to the memory of

  the Addergoole Fourteen and all those who lost their lives

  on Titanic on April 15, 1912

  EPIGRAPH

  Never since the dawn of history was such disaster known

  Fifteen hundred human bodies on the waste of waters thrown

  Ah! The loss of the Titanic is deplored in every clime,

  And the story sad recorded even to the end of time.

  —FROM A POEM BY MITCHELL O’GRADY,

  CONNAUGHT TELEGRAPH, MAY 25, 1912

  And as the smart ship grew

  In stature, grace, and hue

  In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

  —THOMAS HARDY, FROM “THE CONVERGENCE OF

  THE TWAIN”(LINES ON THE LOSS OF TITANIC), 1912

  PART ONE

  Marconigram message sent from Julie [Jules E. Brutalom], New York via Cape Cod, to Miss Dorothy Gibson, on April 16, 1912

  CHAPTER 1

  Ballysheen, County Mayo, Ireland

  April 10, 1912

  Maggie Murphy stood alone and unnoticed on the doorstep of the thatched stone cottage that three generations of her family had called home. She twirled one of her rich auburn curls around and around her index finger, the way she always did when she was anxious, and watched as the day she had been dreading dawned in the sky above the distant mountains.

  Narrowing her usually wide blue eyes against the glare of the early morning sun, she wrapped her arms around herself for warmth as she quietly observed her friend Peggy Madden. Peggy’s laughter was carried on a light breeze as she vigorously scooped up armful after armful of cherry blossoms and, giggling like a schoolgirl, threw them into the air. The pale pink and white petals cascaded down onto the heads of her cousin Jack and his wife, Maura, whom Peggy had caught kissing under one of the trees a few moments earlier.

  “Just like your wedding day, Maura,” she cried. “There’s confetti enough here for all of us to be brides, and then maybe there’ll be some kissing for us too.”

  As the two women laughed, Maggie shivered in the cool morning air and wondered how they could be so carefree when her own heart was so heavy and troubled.

  Unseen, she continued to watch her fellow travelers for a few moments longer, Peggy fussing with the new hat she had bought especially for the journey to America (Peggy Madden will arrive in America as she means to live among the American people: as a lady, with style, she’d said) and Maura placing a hand protectively over her swollen belly, clearly visible beneath her coat even though her baby wasn’t due for another few months yet. Maggie was fascinated by it, by the fact that an actual person was growing in there. She wondered how Maura would fare on their long journey. She’d heard talk of the strain that a crossing of the Atlantic could place upon a person, and for a woman in Maura’s condition she was certain that it couldn’t be such a good idea. She’d expressed her concerns to her aunt Kathleen a few days previously.

  “You certainly don’t need to be worrying about Maura Brennan, I can tell ye,” Kathleen had replied, brushing Maggie’s naïve fears easily aside. “She’s crossed that ocean more times than most men ever will, and a baby in her belly won’t make one bit of a difference. Anyway, we’re sailing on the Titanic, the biggest ship in the world. Unsinkable, y’know. No better crib for any of us.”

  Her aunt’s words hadn’t really reassured Maggie. Neither had the adverts in the Western People, which Peggy had insisted on showing to Maggie and their good friend, Katie Kenny, during the previous weeks.

  “Look, girls,” she’d enthused, hurling herself down onto the grass between them as they sat by the lakeside, shoving the pages of the local newspaper under their noses. “It’s amazing, isn’t it? Listen to what it says: ‘The queen of the ocean, Titanic, the finest steamer afloat, over forty-five thousand tons of steel and triple screws.’ Can you believe we’re going to be sailing on that? They say it stands higher than Nephin Mór and that there’s a hand basin in every cabin—even the third-class ones!”

  Peggy’s enthusiasm about the journey to America and the fancy new ship they were to sail on was hard to ignore. Maggie knew that most of the fourteen who would be leaving their small parish that morning had never been on a train or a boat. Were it not for the fact that this journey didn’t come with a return fare, they might have been quite excited at the prospect. As it was, most of them—herself included—knew that this would probably be the last time they would see the sun rise over their homes in Ballysheen. It was a thought that cast a dark cloud over many of their hearts.

  For Maggie, the prospect of leaving Ballysheen and traveling across the vast expanse of the Atlantic Ocean toward a new life in Chicago filled her with a sense of sorrow and dread. There was nothing she could do, or say, to alter her circumstances. After the death of her mother—her only surviving parent—that winter, her aunt Kathleen had returned to Ireland as Maggie’s guardian, and arrangements were quickly made for Maggie to travel to America that spring with her aunt. Her fate was sealed, despite the ache in her heart and the doubts and worries that raced through her mind.

  Not wanting to dampen Peggy’s excitement and well aware that her pragmatic aunt Kathleen had no time for the silly notions and unfounded worries of young girls, Maggie hadn’t mentioned her doubts or anxieties about the trip to any of her fellow travelers. Not even last night, when Joe Kenny had read the leaves in his sister Katie’s teacup and told her she would drown.

  “For the love of God, Joseph Kenny, don’t be tellin’ me stuff like that, you great eejit,” Katie had hissed at her brother, hoping that Maggie hadn’t overheard. “Especially not in front of Maggie, she’s nervous enough as it is.” But from her perch on the butter churn in a dark corner of the Kennys’ cottage, Maggie had heard, and wished she hadn’t.

  Maggie was very fond of Peggy and Katie. They were like the sisters she had never had, and she took some comfort from the fact that, along with eleven others from the parish, they would be making the journey to America together: Peggy to join her cousin in St. Louis, Missouri, and Katie to join her sister, Frances, in New York.

  Peggy Madden, renowned for her sharp sense of humor and flighty notions, was the perfect balance to Maggie’s reflective, cons
idered nature. She was also renowned for her good looks, with a pretty, heart-shaped face, long blond hair, and full lips, which the boys seemed to especially like. Maggie was envious of Peggy’s hair, which she would leave to hang loose about her shoulders whenever she could. Maggie would often frown in the mirror at her own unruly auburn curls, which barely reached her shoulders, brushing and teasing them to try to make them lie sleek and flat like Peggy’s hair. They never did.

  Katie Kenny was a blue-eyed, rosy-cheeked girl who was well known in the parish from her job at O’Donoghue’s shop and well liked for her caring and kindhearted temperament. Maggie knew how much Katie missed her sister, Frances, who had been in America for the last three years, and knew how much she was looking forward to seeing her.

  Although she couldn’t share in their optimism, Maggie enjoyed listening to her two friends’ romantic notions of America, where they imagined lives of wealth and independence waiting for them. Peggy and Katie aspired to the American way of life, which they saw in the likes of Maura Brennan and Maggie’s aunt, Kathleen Dolan; women who seemed to bring back more than just a strange lilt to their accent whenever they returned to visit their relatives in Ballysheen. The self-assurance and poise displayed by Maura, Kathleen, and others who had seen America for themselves was undeniably inspiring to the naïve younger girls of the parish, and they could often be found gawping at the “American ladies,” whispering remarks to each other about their fancy hats and shiny brass buttons.

  Maggie often wished she could join in with her friends’ enthusiastic conversations, share in their excitement, and dream about the prospect of a new life in America, but all she wanted, with all her heart, was to stay in Ballysheen, with Séamus by her side.

  The sound of laughter outside caught Maggie’s attention again, and she smiled as she watched Peggy adjusting the precious new hat on her head. “As fashionable as you might find in any store in St. Louis,” the shopkeeper in Crossmolina had told her. It was olive green, wide-brimmed with a silk ribbon and organza detailing, secured with a fancy peacock-feather pin. The gloves were of a matching olive green: suede day gloves, with three dainty silver-tone buttons at the wrist. Peggy carefully brushed some dust from them as the strengthening breeze caused the slender cherry blossom trees to sway easily.

  There were fourteen trees in total, flanking the lane between Maggie’s stone cottage and the lake. Fourteen, she thought. One for each of us who will make this journey. She had loved these trees and their candy-colored blooms since she was a young child, loved watching the fragile petals as they fluttered like snowflakes to the ground. Over the last year, she had developed a particular affection for the sixth tree on the lane, as it was there that she and Séamus met every Wednesday after market. It had been his idea, and the arrangement had suited them well. She thought about him now and wondered whether he might change his mind and come to see her one last time. She almost didn’t dare hope and closed her eyes to stop the tears coming.

  “Right so, Maggie, the traps are ready. It is time.”

  Maggie jumped at the sudden sound of her aunt Kathleen’s clipped voice behind her, her heart leaping in her chest and her breath catching in her throat. This was it then. It was really going to happen.

  “Fetch the others, will you?” Kathleen continued as she busied herself, wrapping the still-warm bread rolls in muslin cloths before placing them in the top of her trunk, where she could easily reach them during the several hours of journeying that lay ahead of them to the port of Queenstown in County Cork. “And tell them to hurry. We still have to collect our tickets from Mr. Durcan in town, and we don’t want to be late for the train.”

  Eager to please her aunt, as always, Maggie walked out of the narrow doorway to inform the others that it was time to leave. Shivering in the cool morning air, which easily penetrated the calico fabric of her dress, she pulled her green woolen shawl tighter around her shoulders as she stepped over the cat, which was curled up on the doormat. She envied its ignorance of the events unfolding around them.

  “And never mind the train,” her aunt called after her. “I doubt whether that big ship will wait on us either.”

  Maggie turned.

  Aunt Kathleen stood in the doorway, filling the space with her ample frame. Her hands were placed on her hips, an authoritative stance she often took, even when she was chatting casually with a friend. Her long black skirts skimmed the top of the stone step, the billowing tops of the leg-of-mutton sleeves on her fashionable white blouse touching either side of the doorframe, her thick chestnut hair swept up impeccably around her angular face in the American style. Maggie thought she could almost detect a smile at the edges of Kathleen’s thin lips. Her aunt wasn’t usually a woman to express emotions, other than a sense of satisfaction for a job well done, so the slight smile was somewhat surprising.

  For Kathleen and two other women—Maura Brennan and Ellen Joyce—who were among their party, this was a journey without the uncertainties that preoccupied Maggie’s imagination and the sorrow that troubled her heart. For them, this was a journey back to their American homes as much as it was a journey away from their Irish ones: her aunt would be returning to the sister and the Chicago home she loved; Maura and Jack Brennan were heading out to join members of their family in Pennsylvania, where Jack had the prospect of a good job; and Ellen was returning, along with her substantial wedding trousseau, to marry her beloved fiancé. No wonder these women could afford a moment of carefree laughter under the cherry blossom trees or a wry smile on the doorstep of the home they might never see again.

  Almost as quickly as the smile had crossed her aunt’s lips, it faded, and Maggie watched her turn back into the house, with a swish of her skirts, to fetch the last of their belongings.

  Maggie walked hesitantly over to Peggy and the Brennans.

  “It’s time,” she whispered, noting how beautiful the cherry blossoms looked in the early morning light.

  Her words caused the others to stop their games, and a more somber mood fell over them immediately. It was Jack Brennan who spoke.

  “Right so, Maggie, we’ll be right there.”

  She nodded at him in reply before stooping to pick up a few petals, admiring their fragile construction and breathing in their sweet scent. She absent-mindedly put them into her coat pocket and went on her way. She walked briskly, her sturdy black boots feeling unusually heavy as they crunched on the shale and stones that formed the rough road through their village.

  Maggie felt an eerie stillness about Ballysheen that morning as she walked from house to house, knocking at the doors and quietly telling those inside that it was time. It was as if the village, and all its inhabitants, had taken in a deep breath and was afraid to let it out.

  Her duties complete, she started to make her way back up the road, watching a solitary cloud drift across the pale blue sky, casting a shadow over the sheep that grazed in the fields at the foot of the mountain. The men were already at work in the lower fields. She imagined their hands muddied from cutting the turf and sowing the potatoes. Taking in the scene around her, Maggie was struck by the thought that to anyone passing through, this would seem like an ordinary, unremarkable spring day in a small rural village. How wrong they would be.

  Walking on, she turned the bend in the lane that would take her back to her own home.

  And then she saw him.

  CHAPTER 2

  Southampton, England

  April 10, 1912

  Harry Walsh studied his reflection in the mirror above the fireplace, checking one last time for good luck. The crisp white jacket, brown waistcoat, blue serge trousers, black shoes, and White Star Line cap suited him, making him look taller somehow. He had slicked his dark hair, parting it down the center in the fashionable style, and was clean-shaven for the occasion. He was pleased with how he looked and turned to his mother.

  “I don’t scrub up too badly really when I try, do I?”

  Helen Walsh was a short, slight woman with a permanent ai
r of dissatisfaction about her. She fussed around her son now, brushing flecks of dust from his trousers and stray hairs from the shoulders of his jacket. He smiled at her, glad of the attention she paid to him and pleased to see the unmistakable look of pride on her face, pride in the fact that her son was to work as a steward on Titanic’s maiden voyage from Southampton to New York.

  “Not bad, love, not bad at all . . . for a Walsh,” she replied, tugging at his waistcoat to remove a slight pucker and pulling at his cap to straighten it. “Now, you remember to work hard, Harry Daniel Walsh,” she chided, “and mind that you look after those third-class passengers just the same as you would any of those wealthy Americans. The poor might not have the hats and the fancy shoes, but they deserve to be treated good ’n’ proper, you hear?”

  With her family roots set deep within the working-class society of Southampton’s docks, Helen Walsh had no time at all for the stuck-up American millionaires and socialites who, it was believed, had chosen to sail on Titanic to make business contacts or to give them something to boast about at one of their dinner parties. Nevertheless, her background didn’t prevent her from being a proud mother, and she was absolutely delighted that her son was going to be one of the three hundred stewards who would work on this much-talked-about ship, taking great pleasure in telling all her friends and neighbors about it. And although the gossip-loving, spying-on-the-neighbors part of her would have quite liked to know exactly how ostentatious the first-class accommodations were, she was especially pleased that Harry had been assigned to steerage class, to look after people like themselves.

  Despite his mother’s obvious delight that it would be Titanic that he would sail on, it hadn’t actually been Harry’s intention to work on the ship at all. He’d originally been assigned to work on a smaller liner, the Celtic, which should have left Southampton a week ago. As a result of the coal strike, she had been berthed, along with most of the other transatlantic liners. Harry had got word, just a week ago, that he had been reassigned and would now work a round trip on White Star Line’s impressive new ship, Titanic.