Danielle Steel - A Good Woman

Thomas drove Annabelle to the Cunard dock the next morning, in time to get her three meager suitcases on board. The Saxonia was a large fifteen-year-old ship built for passengers and cargo, with four towering masts and a tall funnel. She was built for size and not speed, and would be traveling across the Atlantic at fifteen knots. She was not luxurious, but comfortable, and a moneymaker for the line because of the cargo, which reduced the passenger area considerably. And first class had been eliminated entirely since the outbreak of the war. She was by no means as prestigious as the other ships Annabelle had previously traveled on with her parents, but she didn’t care, and had booked one of the larger staterooms in second class.

Two young sailors escorted them to her cabin, and Thomas gave her a warm hug when he said good-bye. He was going to put her father’s car up on blocks in a rented garage, and the bank had been instructed to sell it. Thomas was already looking for another job, since Annabelle had no idea when she’d be coming back.

He was still standing on the dock, waving at her, as the ship slowly pulled away from its moorings half an hour later. People on deck were looking serious, knowing the risks they were taking in braving the Atlantic. Those who were going had good reason to do so. No one traveled these waters for pleasure anymore. It was far too dangerous with all of Europe at war.

Annabelle stayed on deck until the Statue of Liberty glided past. She saw Ellis Island and felt her heart ache, and then she went back to her cabin. She took out one of her medical books and began to read it, trying not to think of what would happen if they were torpedoed. It was the first ocean voyage she had taken since her father and brother had gone down on the Titanic, and she was tense as she listened to the ship groaning, wondering how close to American waters the submarines might be and if they would attack them. Everyone on the ship was having the same thoughts.

She dined alone in her stateroom, and lay wide awake in her bunk that night, wondering if they’d arrive safely, and what she would encounter when she got to France. She was planning to make her way to the area where she’d been told her services would be most needed. With America not participating in the war in Europe, there had been no way for Annabelle to volunteer from the States, although she knew her Astor cousins had financed a field hospital and one of her Vanderbilt cousins had volunteered. But after news of the divorce had spread, she didn’t dare to contact them. She was going to find her own way when she got to France. She had to figure it out there.

Once at the hospital that was her destination, she would do whatever they assigned her. She was willing to undertake the most menial tasks, but from all she’d heard, the trenches were full to overflowing, and the hospitals even more so, with wounded. She felt certain that someone would put her to work, if they managed to survive the trip over.

She had learned a great deal from the doctors and nurses at Ellis Island and was continuing to study her medical books every day. And even if all they let her do was drive an ambulance, at least she knew she would be of greater use than hiding in New York from the gazes of an entire world of once-familiar people from whom she was now excluded.

Although Josiah had meant well, now all her respectability, reputation, propriety, and ability to make a new life had been destroyed by the divorce. He didn’t understand. It was like being convicted of a crime, for which she would never be pardoned. Her sentence would be forever, her guilt a certainty to all. And under no circumstances would she ever divulge Josiah’s secret. She loved him too much to do so, and what he was hiding was even more shocking than their divorce. The revelation of his longtime love affair with Henry, and the syphilis they now shared would have completely decimated his life. She couldn’t do that to him. She still loved him. His secret would die with her. And without meaning to, he had sacrificed her.

It was a relief to be going to France, where no one knew her. At first, she didn’t know whether to say that she was a widow, or had never been married. But if anyone knew Josiah, which was possible even in Europe, they would know that he was alive, and she was a liar, to add to the rest. Eventually she decided that she was going to say that she had never been married. It was simpler that way in case she met anyone who knew him. She was Annabelle Worthington again, as though the two years with Josiah had never happened, although they had and she had come to love him deeply. Enough to forgive him for the frailties he couldn’t help, and the illness that would ultimately kill him.

Perhaps, she thought to herself, as the ship rolled gently the first night, she would be killed in France, and she wouldn’t have to suffer another loss or bereavement. She knew that even after her divorce, when he died, it would break her heart again. All she had wanted was a life with him, a happy marriage, and to bear his children. Hortie didn’t know how lucky she was to have a normal husband, and all her babies. And now Annabelle no longer had her either. She’d been shunned and abandoned by all. Hortie’s rejection of her cut her the most deeply after Josiah’s. And what it all meant to Annabelle was that, as the Saxonia made its way cautiously through the Atlantic to France, she was absolutely, totally alone in the world. It was a terrifying thought for a young woman who had been protected all her life, first by her family and then by her husband. And now all of them were gone, along with her good name and reputation. She would be branded as an adulteress forever. As she thought of it again, tears slid from her eyes onto her pillow.

The ship ran into no problems that night. They had doubled all the watches in order to watch for mines. There was no telling where they might turn up, or how close to land the German submarines would dare to come. There had been a lifeboat drill within the hour they left the dock. Everyone knew where their lifeboat station was, and their life jackets were hanging in plain sight in the cabins. In peacetime the life vests were stowed more discreetly, but since the sinking of the Lusitania in May, the Cunard Line wasn’t taking any chances. Every possible safety precaution was being observed, but that only heightened the atmosphere of tension on the trip.

Annabelle spoke to no one. She had looked at the list of passengers, and saw that there were two acquaintances of her parents on board. Given the tidal wave of scandal her divorce from Josiah had caused in New York, she had absolutely no desire to see them, and risk getting snubbed by them, or worse. She preferred to stay in her cabin for most of the day, and go out for a solitary walk around deck at nightfall, when everyone else was changing for dinner. And she dined alone every night in her stateroom. In spite of the books she had brought along for distraction, her father and brother’s deaths on the Titanic were much on her mind. And the stories from the sinking of the Lusitania had been almost worse. She was tense and anxious much of the time, and barely slept, but she got a lot of studying done during her long waking hours.

The stewardess who took care of her rooms tried to no avail to urge her to go to the dining room for dinner. And the captain had invited her to dinner at his table on the second night out. It was an honor most passengers would have leaped at, but she sent him a polite note and declined, saying she wasn’t well. The seas had been a little rough that day, so it was believable if she had been a poor sailor, which she wasn’t. She felt fine the entire way.