Chapter 43
Nellie
Carpathia
April 16, 1912
The weather on the Carpathia's journey had reflected the mission the ship was on. The skies had been overcast and raining, abandoning all hope of an early spring while the fierce seabreeze tore through them on deck.
Nellie had been loaned a plain, black dress. There was little reason for any of Titanic's passengers to celebrate their miraculous survival as they made their way to New York. Nellie hadn't met a single survivor who hadn't lost a husband, a son, a brother…
Jock.
They had left him. Nellie had watched as the last lifeboat was boarded onto the Carpathia, and without another word the ship had hummed to life and left. Nellie had begged one of the crewsman to return to the wreckage to search for her brother, but he told her they were at full capacity. They couldn't afford to take on any bodies.
The word had stung. How could they possibly know if Jock was dead if they hadn't even bothered to look for survivors? But there had been an officer from Titanic, Fifth Officer Lowe, who had overheard their conversation. He had told Nellie he had gone back to the site of the sinking and pulled every person alive he could find out of the water.
That was when Nellie knew.
She had grieved with Leana, who knew Jock well as anyone from Dumfries did. The two women had taken turns caring for Isla until Leana had become sick. Nellie had taken her to the first class dining saloon to be seen by a doctor when Leana was diagnosed with hypothermia. She was confined to a cot for the rest of the voyage to New York, ordered to rest and move as little as possible.
Callen had withdrawn from Nellie when she had told him Jock was dead. He stopped calling her maman. In fact, he stopped speaking at all, choosing to spend his time either lounging the decks of Carpathia or disappearing altogether. More than once she had caught him staring blankly at the sea for hours.
Callen's denial of Jock's death had led Nellie back to Tommy. The last she had seen him was when he was brought aboard. Between the news of Jock's death and caring for Isla, Callen, and now Leana, she barely had time to search for him anyway among the hundreds of survivors.
Callen had been the one to find him in the second class dining saloon early Tuesday morning, where Tommy was still lying in a cot unconscious. Callen had been shooed away only to return later with Nellie and Isla.
"This man is in critical condition," the doctor had said, looking at them suspiciously. "He's suffering from hypothermia and I suspect a concussion as well. I'm afraid he might be confused when he wakes up. I can only allow family to be with him."
"I'm his wife," Nellie had responded, not missing a beat. Callen had looked at her with surprise from her blatant lie, but Nellie knew they would be ushered away if she didn't lay claim to him.
After this, Nellie spent every spare moment she could checking in on him. All morning she would come to his side, only to find his eyes still closed and his body unmoving. His pocket watch remained in the folds of her skirt. If he woke up and didn't remember who she was, maybe the watch would jog his memory.
Nellie had finished nursing Isla and was putting her down for a nap just after luncheon. A kind stewardess offered to keep an eye on her so Nellie could go check on Tommy once more. When she had seen him just an hour earlier, his hands had been twitching and he had briefly opened his eyes. She prayed he would be awake when she returned to the dining saloon, as she was in desperate need of his companionship. In the past few years, he was one of the very few people who seemed genuinely interested in what she had to say, rather than the many roles she played as wife, mother, and sister.
"Nellie! Nellie Milroy!"
She turned, squinting through the floods of people on deck. Many of Titanic's able bodied survivors chose to spend their time outside on the decks, despite the cold weather. There just simply wasn't enough room for everyone to remain inside. Besides, these were survivors still looking for loved ones by roaming the decks nearly two days after the sinking.
A man with disheveled hair and a dinner jacket was pushing through the crowd towards her. At first, she thought it was Jock. She ran towards him, before stopping mid step and her smile immediately disappearing.
Caledon Hockley took her by the shoulders, studying her. "I'm so glad to see you're alright and unharmed. How is your family?"
Nellie wasn't sure how to respond. This was the same man who'd tried to lure her into his bed just days before, insulting Tommy, and threatening her when she refused. The images of him pushing people away from his lifeboat burned in her memory, hardening her heart.
"My children and nursemaid are fine," she said flatly, pulling away from his grasp. "My brother didn't make–"
She couldn't finish the sentence, her voice catching in her throat. Cal ran a hand through his hair. He looked terrible, his stench confirming he still had not bathed since the sinking and still wearing his first class tails. The sleeves of his jacket were torn and his shirt was untucked.
"Mrs. Bukater is with me," he said. "I'm only out here on the decks because she can't bring herself to believe Rose is dead."
Nellie's thoughts immediately flew to Jack and Rose. If Rose was gone, then Jack must certainly be as well. The last thing she remembered of the duo was them leaving Tommy, Fabrizio, and her at the sight of the collapsible boat to seek safety on the other side of the ship.
Nellie now knew how that adventure must have ended.
"I'm sorry," Nellie said, her voice softening.
Cal shrugged, running a hand through his hair again. "It's probably better this way. She was going to leave me for a man she found in steerage." He broke into an unsettling laugh. "A man she just met on the voyage! To give up her entire life just to get away from me! How she must have hated me…"
Nellie's met his gaze as his voice trailed off. His stare was blank and cold, clearly relieved to not have to deal with the problem of his fiancee. His eyes were scanning the decks, almost as if he had been lying about believing Rose was dead. But he brought his attention back to her, shrugging off his dinner jacket and putting it around her shoulders.
"Come inside," he said, motioning to a nearby door. "They've given me my own second class room. It has a nice fire and I can order tea anytime I want."
Nellie took a step back. His jacket stank, like dirty seawater. She shrugged it off her shoulders and held it back out to him. "No, thank you. I'm on my way to visit someone."
Cal's nose wrinkled at this statement, as if he was realizing for the first time how badly his clothes smelled. "Leave your children for just a moment," he said, continuing to coax her to the door. "You must be exhausted taking care of everyone. Come have a rest with me."
Nellie took another step back. "You remember how this conversation went last time, don't you? Yet this time you're more eager upon learning your fiancee is dead!"
Cal came close to her, bending down to whisper in her ear. "But why not, Nellie? Now there's no rules to break after what happened to us. You and your children could come back to Pittsburgh with me. I could give you a very comfortable life."
Nellie couldn't help but push him away, causing him to fall backwards and attract the attention of those around them.
"There are still rules," she hissed. "And you're not the type of man I'm willing to break them for."
Cal fixed his shirt that had come completely untucked at her shove, putting on his disgusting jacket once more. "And what can that Irishman give you?" Cal said, his eyes narrowing. "You're better than this, Nellie. Don't make the same mistakes as Rose. If she had chosen me, she would be alive right now."
Nellie could hear her father's voice in Cal's words. Nellie had been trapped after her mother's death, forced to be the maternal figure for her siblings so her father could continue on in his life. She had no opportunities to meet men between her duties at home and working for the glove mill where she had met Mary. Her father deemed that no one in town was good enough to marry a Hume. Nellie had no escape.
Until she began working at the hotel.
She had wanted to get out of the mill at both her and her father's insistence. Her father felt the girls at the mill were a bad influence, but Nellie knew that her best chance of getting away from her father was to get a job where she could work around men. She had started off as a cleaning maid but was quickly promoted to a receptionist. She had been surprised that the person she had taken in wasn't one of the many guests that came through in their travels north, but the hotel owner.
Callen Milroy was on the better off in Dumfries. His father almost considered the Milroys to be in the same social circles as himself. They had a house connected to the hotel just a couple of streets down from where the Humes lived. It was a convenient walk for Nellie and she had gotten the job because the late Mrs. Milroy had been her mother's friend before they both had died.
Mrs. Milroy had died a couple of years after Nellie's mother, leaving behind Callen to look after their five year-old son by himself. He had been a friendly man, but as Nellie got to know him during her time as a receptionist, she could tell his wife had left a void that he desperately needed filled.
Less than a year after she was made a receptionist, Callen went to her father asking for his permission to marry her. It had come as a great surprise to Nellie, as Callen and she had merely had only polite conversation together. But when her father granted his permission, Nellie wasn't about to pass this opportunity up. Callen Milroy was one of the only men in Dumfries her father would consider letting his daughter marry, and Callen was a good man. Nellie may not have loved him, but she knew he would treat her with respect and kindness, something she got little of at home. He lived close enough to her family that she could check on her siblings to make sure they were alright when she left home. There had been more than one occasion when Nellie had let Grace or Kate sleep in a spare room in the hotel because of a row at home.
Callen's death had thrown Nellie for a loop. She was just beginning to learn to adjust to married life and she suspected Callen had started to fall in love with her. Now, she was left with a teenage stepson and a newborn, left to run the hotel with hardly any experience and her father trying to get his hands on the money Callen had left her.
No. She would not return to that life. Tommy Ryan had given her everything her family and late husband couldn't: the freedom to make her own choices.
"Good day, Cal," Nellie said, stepping around him. "I give my condolences to Mrs. Bukater."
She could feel Cal's eyes on her until she darted inside. She leaned on a nearby wall, panting and feeling the pounding of her heart. She prayed that was the last time she would see Cal on this voyage.
She also prayed Tommy would never find out about what just happened.
