April 12, 1912 5:02 pm
Helen alighted down the stairs with a graceful hesitant air. Her long gown fluttered lightly with each step. "Not bad for a mailing ship, eh?" Maggie smiled and patted her on the back.
"Mail ship?" Helen repeated
"The R.M.S. Titanic is a Royal Mail Ship, officially responsible for delivering mail! We have a Sea Post Office with five mail clerks. I nipped in and had a conversation with them. They have 3,423 sacks of mail! Can you imagine?" Maggie laughed.
"Good to see you again. Come on, meet the others." She flashed her infectious smile and lead Helen to a small group gathered near the bottom of the stairs, by an ornately carved gold cherub. Maggie tapped a young man on the shoulder. "This in John Thayer. The third." The man turned around and Helen recognized him as the one that asked Ismay about the fake funnel
"Call me Jack, please. Everyone does. This is Milton Long. We boarded together and have been friends since." Helen smiled and shook their hands. Maggie turned her attention to an older gentleman and a very young woman. "Late again JJ? No matter. John Astor. I want you to meet Dr. Magnus."
"Dr. Helen Magnus?" Astor asked in surprise.
"You've heard of me?" Helen asked. She didn't think she had much of a reputation outside of the abnormal groups.
"A friend of mine in New York. He's mentioned you a few times."
"If you're referring to Tesla, Darling" The woman with him giggled. "He doesn't stoptalking about you."
"You know Nikola?" Helen repeated. It wasn't like him to consort with 'ordinary humans' since he discovered his vampire heritage.
"...The man is a genius." Astor was saying. Helen blinked and realized she hadn't been listening. "Invents all kinds of marvelous electronics."
"An inventor? Well hell that's somethin aint it?" Maggie smiled. "They make all kinds of incredible gadgets."
"Tell us, where did you meet Professor Tesla?" Astor's accompaniment asked with interest.
"He was in oxford. We went to school together." Helen replied as Astor's eyes lit up with curiously.
"Really? What was he like?" Astor asked with the hint of a smile.
Helen curled her lip remembering all the promises he broke. Leaving her behind for Budapest. Going to New York and leaving her to rot in England. The plans, promises and secrets they had shared. And then to have him cut her from his life. Not writing to her, not even to tell her he was imprisoned.
"He was an arrogant, selfish, smarmy bastard." She said coldly.
Astor and his companion laughed merrily. "He hasn't changed a bit then. Did he have the same fascination with pigeons?"
Helen felt her lips turn up in a smile in spite of herself. Many an afternoon was spent in the park. Nigel and James cataloging flowers for chemistry, John reading Helen poetry and sonnets wile Nikola chased tirelessly after pigeons. He believed some might know the whereabouts of Bhalasaam, the secret vampire city.
"And wine." Helen nodded. "He liked the highlife. I hear it got him in trouble."
Astor nodded sympathetically. "Yes I heard of that. Debtors' prison. I offered the money. He would be far more useful to the world finishing his work rather than sitting in a tiny prison cell. But he declined. Said he was responsible for getting himself locked up, he insisted on getting himself back out. Besides, he hates owing people."
Helen smiled more warmly Nikola really hadn't changed.
A week after being recruited into the Five, Nigel had been working on an experiment with a new method of bonding carbon to other elements. For whatever reason he had enlisted Nikola to assist him. Exactly what happened to cause the resulting explosion, Helen never learned. But upon her careful questioning, Nikola admitted he confessed his to the Dean on the same day what his involvement had been. (She didn't learn until much later he had been able to keep Nigel's name out of it.)
"So. Are we going to stand here gabbing all night? Let's get a table." Maggie's voice cut through Helens musings. She smiled at the rustic socialite and nodded in agreement.
"Madeline my dear?" Astor smiled to his companion and took her arm in his. She smiled at him adoringly. Helen smiled, recognizing a woman in love. Maggie led them to a table where three men stood up. Helen recognized Ismay and Andrews.
"Mrs. Brown, Mr. and Mrs. Astor. It's good to see you again." Ismay smiled and shook hands. "Hello- Dr. Magnus." he added carefully to Helen. She saw Andrews trying not to smile.
"Permit me to introduce Mr. William Campbell, another member of my guarantee group. He's with me to make any improvements on the ship when we dock. "
Campbell smiled and shook hands as Thayer and Long were introduced as well.
"So Ismay? You're the man who made the ship?" Thayer smiled and shook his hand.
"Oh hardly. That was Mr. Andrews here. History will remember him as the man responsible for all this. He's the one who made all this happen."
"Oh not just me. I had my entire team to help me. And Alexander Carlisle. . He was at one time head of the drawing office and had been involved with the design of Titanic. And Lord Pirrie"
"I heard something about that. Was it about lifeboats?" Milton asked.
Titanic carries 20 lifeboats, enough for 1178 people. The Board of Trade requires a passenger ship to provide lifeboat capacity
for 1060 people. Titanic was designed to carry 32 lifeboats but this number was reduced to 20 because it was felt that the deck would be too cluttered. We still have 20 life boats. That's four more than the board requires for a ship our size."
"But that would only be room for 0ne thousand one hundred seventy eight people!" Helen exclaimed. "There are two thousand two hundred on board!"
"Titanic also carries 3500 lifebelts and 48 life rings and with the compartments and double hull, the ship is built to stay afloat. She can't sink." Ismay insisted. "Really Miss Magnus. Women worry themselves into a fret over nothing."
Maggie brandished her salad fork at him threateningly. "Watch it buster. That was almost an insult."
The table erupted into nervous laughter. Madeline turned innocently to her husband. "John. Why don't you tell Dr. Magnus how you know her friend Mr. Tesla? It's a veryfascinating story."
"Arrogant little sneak." Astor exclaimed "he took my money and ran off to Colorado." He laughed. "We met in the world's fair. The Chicago World's Fair of 1893 He could light the entire city with his alternating current. I sent him a book I had written he sent a letter back telling me he would always keep it. As an interesting and pleasant memento of our
acquaintance"
Helen laughed. Nikola was secretly obsessed with the idea of aliens. It was part of why the sourceblood appealed to him.
"And now he's back in New York. Maddie my darling I think we should pop in and say Hello." John smiled.
Helen looked up in surprise. "I thought he was in debtors' prison?" She asked.
Astor shook his head. "Out on probation. Seems he came up with a lot of what runs on the Titanic. He'll collect the money and pay his debts off once we dock in New York." He explained. "In the meantime, he's on probation. He can go to work and he can stay home with his pigeons."
Ismay nodded. "Yes well that isn't so bad. I understand he was a complete shut in before he was thrown in jail."
"When it suits him." Helen returned. "Other times he takes off halfway around the world without any warning."
Astor nodded. "I think it's the freedom of having the choice."
"I would go positively mad!" Madeline exclaimed dramatically. "I love to travel and I love seeing the world. We were in Cairo last week. But we decided to cut our trip short." she smiled secretively up at her husband who moved a glass of wine away from his wife.
"We thought it best to head home. For medical reasons." Astor agreed.
"JJ you rascal!" Maggie gave a crowing laugh. "Congrats! You're having a baby."
Madeline blushed but she smiled pleasurably.
"I think a toast is in order then." Thayer smiled and raised a glass. "To the richest man on the ship, the expectant father. And to the blessed woman, mother to be."
Maggi raised her glass with the others. "To the growing Family."
"To the growing family" Helen echoed with the others. She smiled remembering a similar toast held in her honor. How John smiled almost boastfully. The way his eyes sought even the smallest hint of the baby growing in her. Nikola spent a month insisting Helen be carried everywhere she needed to go.
The others (to her embarrassment) had agreed wholeheartedly and passed her around the room. James read book after book after book about name entomology. Nigel plied her with vegetables and fruit that had the best vitamins for expectant mothers.
Madeline rested her head on her husbands' arm Helen felt a small stir of jealousy but quelled it and finished her Waldorf Pudding. The men stood up and said goodnight as they retired to the smoking room.
Madeline stood and stretched. "I had a lovely time, but I think I'll head up to bed. I quite agree. It's late. I should rest as well. "
Helen stood as well. "Let me escort you to your room. As a doctor."
Maggie smiled and took Madeline's elbow. "No is not an option I'm afraid dear." she said, guiding the much younger woman to the door. "What a trip eh Doc? I tell ya, this lap of luxury thing sure is the life." Maggie smiled. "My husband would have loved this."
"How did you meet Mr. Brown?" Madeline asked politely.
"I moved to a small mining town called Leadville when I was about 19.I met J.J. Brown, a mining engineer with plenty of grit and no fortune. We spent the summer together and then we were married on September 1, 1886. We moved up to Stumpftown, closer to where J.J. was working. Leadville miners and their families often lived near the mines, particularly in the winter months when the journey to town could be cold and treacherous." Maggie chuckled to herself.
In 1893 when everything came tumbling down in the Silver Crash. Then my J.J., working as a mine superintendent, discovered gold in the Little Johnny Mine. The owners of the Little Johnny rewarded us with significant shares in their company, the Ibex Mining Company, and we became millionaires. We found ourselves on separate sides and split up a couple years ago. Make better friends I reckon."
"And what about you?" Madeline asked Helen. "Were you ever married."?
"No. I was engaged but we called it off." Helen said elusively. "It didn't work out."
"Good riddance. Madeline here got the last good man." Maggie nodded.
"Well I wouldn't say the Lastgood man." Madeline said with a soft glint in her eyes. "Isn't Mr. Tesla single?"
Helen caught the implication and shook her head. "Not in one hundred years. Good night ladies."
She peeled off and turned into her own cabin. Maggie and Madeline giggled scandalously behind her.
Hobbits notes
The real Nikola Tesla was actually very good friends with Astor.