Titanic Ashes Read Online Free PDF

about his qualities, and perhaps most important
of all, securing for him what he may one day need more
than anything else: the benefit of the doubt.
    “What are you thinking of now, Father?”
    So deep is Ismay’s unhappy concentration upon the
browned mushrooms, mashed potato and dark game, it
takes a moment for him to focus properly on Evelyn.
When this happens there is no concealing the fact he has
been elsewhere. Her knife and fork are lying across her
plate and she is like a statue, watching him. This is a trick
picked up from her mother: several years ago she started
to react to his mealtime silences by calmly giving up on
her own food and waiting; when at last he emerged from
his thoughts, she would let him guess how long she had
been sitting there motionless.
    An expression somewhere between concern and exasperation now struggles on Evelyn’s face. When she speaks,
her voice is quiet, almost conspiratorial. “Don’t you think
you deserve simply to enjoy yourself without brooding
about things, Father?”
    The question is invasive. He can feel it carving into his
chest cavity, slicing close to his heart. Julia, his wife,
knows how to choose a specific detail of his business;
most likely these days it would be something to do with a
bequest in his will, the inability of his solicitor to get the
wording just right to cover all eventualities. But Evelyn
has left her meaning gaping with her use of the word things , and by her ominous, overly tender tone.
Paradoxically, because it specifies nothing, it can have
only one meaning: the Titanic .
    He feels annoyance rising to anger, but falling just asquickly to nothing. How could he really expect anything
different? The Titanic is, after all, the knot at the centre of
all their lives. She hasn’t named the event, poor girl. She
doesn’t need to.
    Evelyn, he suspects, was hoping to keep their conversation this evening to the subject of Basil Sanderson.
Ismay knows Evelyn and Basil plan to marry. He knows
also that his own approval would mean a great deal to
her, but that she is looking for far more than a consent he
has already implicitly given. Some kind of dynastic sentiment among his family, touchingly ancient and impractical, longs for healing through marriage lines. With Basil,
the White Star Line’s likely future chairman, and Evelyn,
the house of Ismay would once again be realigned with its
proud maritime heritage. Through this plan—and Ismay
has no doubt all the appropriate bonds of affection and
love came before the other serendipitous aspects of the
match—Evelyn and perhaps Julia and Margaret expect a
great balm to be applied to the disgrace suffered by
himself and the family. In short, they expect it to make
him better again.
    Ismay tries to greet his daughter’s question with an
amused smile. “My dear, I am enjoying myself immensely.”
The sentiment, coming with a genuine-sounding surprise,
almost convinces even him. Evelyn sighs gently and smilingly raises her eyebrows. It’s the expression of a teacher
who has just failed to catch her pupil in the act. They bothknow of the misdemeanor, the look says, but as it cannot
be proven she will drop the matter. Ismay smiles once
more, is about to drop his gaze to his plate, when something—an exclamation, a flitting shadow and the clink of
glass—makes him turn first to the Palm Room entrance,
then to the opposite end of the hall, where there are fresh
shrieks and gasps. Evelyn cranes her neck too, catching
his eye, questioning. More diners react, looking upward, it
seems. Cutlery clinks. The band stops playing. Laughter
comes in a wave and a waiter positions himself, silver tray
dangling from his hand as though for a catch on the rugby
field. All heads turn again in unison, and Ismay, trying to
follow the cause of the interest, catches the flick of wings
overhead, the darting brown body of a sparrow as it sinks
into the foliage of the palm tree closest to them. Some of
the men are now on their feet. Three