Authors: Suzanne Weyn
B
lythe was free for the day because her family, the LaRoches, were boarding at Cherbourg, France, in the evening. Mimi was also available since Ninette was coming on board in France, as well.
Around noon, a bugle blew, announcing that lunch was being served. The twins, Li, and Blythe went off to the dining salon that both first- and second-class passengers could use, hoping it was too soon for anyone to realize that the twins didn't belong.
"I'm meeting Victor for lunch," Mimi told us. "Something tells me you don't want company," I guessed.
"If you don't mind," she said.
I turned to Thad and asked if he was free for lunch and he said that he was.
"No, I don't mind. Go see the love of your life," I teased Mimi. Truthfully, I was happy to be alone with Thad.
"Where's Tesla?" I asked as Thad led the way to one of first class's several restaurants.
He wasn't sure. He speculated that Tesla might be in the cargo hold guarding his prototypes. "Most of his inventions could fit in your pocket," he said. "But he brought something on board as big as a wardrobe."
"What is it?"
"He worked on it this whole month while we were in England waiting for Astor to show up. There wasn't much for me to do, since he wouldn't even let me in the same room with it. He said it was too dangerous. The thing was all crated up to travel before I finally got into that rented lab."
"Will he show it to Colonel Astor?" I asked.
"No," Thad said. "He's just bringing that one back to America."
"Can't you tell me what his inventions are?" I pleaded, dying of curiosity.
"You won't write about it in one of your journalistic articles?"
"I swear!" I said, meaning it.
We were standing in front of the Ritz restaurant. Glancing inside, I saw it was extremely fancy with stained-glass windows, caned chairs, glistening dishware, and starched, white linen napkins folded into cone shapes. "Where can we go? I don't want to be overheard," Thad told me.
A thrill ran through me -- Thad was going to tell me Tesla's secret... which meant he trusted me.
"I know where we can go," I said. Stepping inside the restaurant, I asked the man at the front podium if we could have our meal delivered outside onto the first-class deck, and he assured me that would be fine. Thad ordered the grilled mutton chops with mashed potatoes and I requested the chicken a la Maryland.
We went out and settled into side-by-side deck chairs where we could talk in private. We sat facing each other, our knees touching. "Tell me what he's going to present to Astor," I said in a whisper as I leaned so far forward that my ear was almost to his lips.
"All right, here it is," he agreed. "His first idea is to use his Tesla coil to create a magnifying transmitter which would beam up frequencies between New York and England over the seas. The transmitter would get the frequencies vibrating and it would create a natural luminescence. It would create an artificial effect like the Northern Lights."
"He'd create lighted shipping lanes for the ships to follow," I realized.
"Smart girl!" Thad praised me.
Not only smart,
I thought mischievously.
"Ships would be able to see where they were going at night like never before. The chances of them colliding would be greatly reduced," he continued.
"How brilliant!" I remarked.
"That one would require a big investment of equipment,
even though he knows how to do it. His second idea, though, fits in your coat pocket. It's a small little machine that can shatter anything it's aimed at. Tesla told me that if he set it to the right vibratory frequency, he could split the world in half."
I suddenly knew what it was. "The earthquake machine!" I whispered excitedly.
"Yes, right! You saw it for yourself."
"What use does it have?" I asked. "Why would Colonel Astor want to invest in it?"
"It would change the face of ocean travel -- make it incredibly safer," he said. "The North Atlantic is a maze of icebergs. Ship captains have an awful time navigating through them, especially at night. Some of the icebergs are much wider under the ocean, and the navigators can't even know how massive they are under there."
"How would the earthquake machine help?" I asked.
"It could shatter icebergs," he revealed. "By setting the machine to the proper frequency measured by approximate size and distance, a ship could shatter any icebergs in its path."
This was so thrilling -- to be here on the first-class deck of the greatest ocean liner in the world, with Thad entrusting to me secrets of immense importance. We were so close, both emotionally and physically, speaking in low tones. I couldn't imagine ever being apart from him again.
Overhead, the squawk of a seagull diverted my attention for the briefest moment. As I turned and my eyes flickered up to the bird, I caught sight of nearby movement and a man ducking behind a door.
It took no more than a second for me to realize why the man seemed familiar.
The door was still ajar and Thad was still talking. "The trick to calibrating it correctly is to measure the distance times the velocity at which the ship is traveling and then to --"
I cut him off by abruptly leaping into his lap and covering his mouth with a kiss. I couldn't allow Thad to continue speaking for a second longer.
His lips were warm and tasted of the salty ocean air. At first he pulled back a little, startled. But in the next second he put his hand flat on my back to draw me closer while he returned the kiss.
It would have been tempting to forget the man lurking at the door, but I knew we couldn't. Nuzzling Thad's neck with my nose, I whispered to him. "Don't look, but the man who threatened me and Tesla in the park is hiding behind the door."
While we were talking, our backs had been turned away from the door. I'd caught sight of the man lurking there only when I'd turned to glance at the seagull. The moment I moved, he ducked back behind the door.
It was still open a crack. I guessed he was still there.
Drawing out of our lovely kiss, Thad eased me off his lap and then suddenly sprang at the door, yanking it open. There was no one there, but I heard the clatter of the man retreating quickly.
In a flash, Thad was off after him, chasing the man back into the ship.
I followed Thad, nearly knocking down the waiter who was approaching with our lunch on a tray. "Sorry! We'll be right back," I told him as I dashed away.
For a few minutes, I could see Thad, running full out. Then he turned a corner. I ran to keep up, but it was no use. When I turned, he was not there.
In the next moment, though, Thad returned, panting hard. "I lost him," he told me breathlessly. "How much do you think he heard?"
I admitted that I didn't know. Thad wanted to go to his and Tesla's room. "The device is there," he confided. "I think I locked the door, but I want to be sure."
He took hold of my hand and we hurried together toward cabin C-93 where he was staying with Tesla. The door was closed but unlocked. When we realized this, we exchanged a worried look. Cautiously, Thad pushed it open, motioning for me to stay back.
The cabin had been ransacked. Clothing and bedding were tossed all over; drawers hung open.
I hovered tentatively in the doorway as he crept stealthily into the disheveled room, lunging at drapery,
dramatically throwing wide the twin doors of the wardrobe, flinging open the washroom. When he was satisfied that no one was there, he waved me inside. "Lock the door," he said as he knelt and took a metal case from under the dresser.
I sat on one of the torn-apart twin beds and watched as Thad unlocked the case with a tiny key and lifted out an alarm-clock-sized mechanism very similar to the one I'd seen Tesla smash so long ago. "It's still here," he noted with obvious relief.
"Thank heavens for that," I said.
"Me and my big mouth!" Thad rebuked himself. "Why did I have to go blabbing all that stuff to you in such an open area? I wonder how much that guy heard."
"You were speaking quietly," I said, which was true.
"Good thing you stopped me. I like the way you did it, too."
I could feel warm embarrassment rushing into my face. "It was the only thing I could think of. I guess, if our lunches had arrived sooner, I could have shoved a dinner roll in your mouth. That would have worked, as well."
"I'm so glad you didn't," he said with a smile. "But I'd like to check something, if you don't mind."
"What?"
Stepping close, he wrapped me in his arms and bent to kiss me again. I melted toward him, returning his kiss, matching his intensity.
This was our real first kiss, and it was everything I'd imagined during the drawn-out, cold months I'd been longing for him.
When we drew apart, he kept me close, looking into my eyes. "What were you checking for?" I asked softly.
"I wanted to see if kissing you was really as wonderful as I thought it was out there on the deck."
"And?"
"Even better."
I pressed my forehead into his shoulder as he held me close. I was flooded in happiness as we stood there in the ransacked room, momentarily forgetting everything but each other.
"I should lock this up with the valuables in the ship's safe," he said after a few more moments of this bliss.
I looked up at him and smiled. He smiled back. "You're right. We should do that right away."
After we had done that, we went to the cargo hold to find Tesla. He was dressed in the long coat and cap I'd seen him in on deck. Scribbling busily in a notebook, he was sitting on a wooden crate marked ORANGES beside a much larger, rectangular crate. I assumed it was the secret device Thad had told me about. It was marked: FRAGILE.
USE EXTREME CAUTION IN HANDLING. DO NOT OPEN UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.
"Ah, Jane, that
was
you I saw on deck. I was lost in thought and only realized I might have passed you
much later," Tesla greeted me pleasantly. "What a coincidence that you are aboard this vessel, though the controversial psychologist Carl Jung would prefer to think of it as
synchronicity,
a converging of events in a seemingly random overlap which, in an actuality we do not yet comprehend, has an underlying meaning or purpose. Someday I would like to attempt an algebraic calculation of synchronistic coincidence. At any rate, what brings you here?"
I explained to him the events that had brought me and my sisters onto the ship. "It sounds silly, I know," I concluded.
He arose and began to pace agitatedly. "No, not silly in the least; a warning picked up from a distant dimension is never to be taken lightly. I know of Mr. Stead, a greatly respected gentleman. You say ice figures into his premonition?"
"He thinks he will die because of ice," I confirmed.
Tesla nodded thoughtfully. "He might, if I do not act."
Thad gave him the news about their cabin being ransacked and the thug on the ship. "I've locked the device in the ship's safe now," he added.
"Well done. This confirms that no time can be lost," Tesla stated with resolve. "I will make myself known to Colonel Astor tonight after he boards at Cherbourg. Perhaps a predicted disaster can be altered by judicious action taken in time."
"That's almost what Mr. Stead said, though in different words," I remembered.
Tesla wanted to discuss their plans with Thad, so I went to find my sisters.
I saw Mimi on deck talking to the same handsome, dark-haired man I'd seen with Mr. Guggenheim and Ninette at the Waldorf-Astoria. Based on looks alone, I could see why she was in love. He was as breathtakingly handsome as I remembered him.
Victor noticed me hovering and bade Mimi good-bye with a quick kiss.
"Mimi, I'm sorry we fought," I said. "I just miss you so much. I really want you to be happy."
She hugged me. "I'm sorry, too."
"How are things going?" I asked her.
"Oh, I love him, Jane," she answered. "He says he loves me, too, and I believe him."
"That's great!" I cried.
"I still haven't told him about my background, though."
"He won't care, Mimi. If he really loves you, he won't care. Are you sure he really loves you?"
She nodded uncertainly. "He just now asked me to marry him," she revealed.
I gasped, my hand flying over my gaping mouth. "What did you say?"
"I will give him my answer tomorrow."
"What will your answer be?"
"I don't know. I have a lot of thinking to do."
***
That evening we came to port at Cherbourg. The ship didn't actually dock, but rather, smaller boats carried passengers out to it.
Blythe stood on deck with Mimi, Emma, Amelie, and me, looking for the LaRoche family. Mimi was fairly confident that she would recognize Mrs. LaRoche when she saw her again and, indeed, she did, excitedly pointing the woman out to us. She was attractive, with dark eyes and nearly black hair piled on top of her head. When she caught sight of Mimi, her face lit with a lively smile.
We hurried over and they hugged like old friends. Mimi introduced Blythe first and then the rest of us.
Speaking English with a heavy French accent, Juliette LaRoche reached behind her full skirt and drew out a little girl who was so petite and precious she might have been a doll come to life. She had the same olive skin and dark hair and eyes as her mother. She wore a lacy white frock with a matching bow. The lace on her little white socks matched that on the collar of her dress. "This is Simone," Juliette said, and the girl smiled shyly. "Louise, my younger daughter, is with my husband," she explained.
Just then a handsome man with a mustache and in a long, dark coat joined her. He held a precious little girl in his arms who was a slightly younger version of Simone. "This is my husband, Mr. Joseph LaRoche," Juliette said.
I tried not to stare. Emma and Amelie remained composed also. Mimi and Blythe, though, could not even make a pretense of calmness. Their flabbergasted expressions gave them away instantly.
"I see that you are surprised that my husband is a black man," Juliette said, taking it in stride. "Is this a problem for you?"
"Not at all," said Blythe, recovering from her surprise enough to take Louise from Joseph LaRoche. "Not one bit."
Mimi, for once, was speechless. I could tell it was anything but a problem for her.
This seemingly happy couple was, perhaps, a view of her own future.
***