A Life Unknown Pt. 01

At first the water did not appear to be too cold, and I was able to swim albeit slowly away from the ship. I was possibly a hundred yards away when about ten minutes after I jumped the stern of the ship disappeared into the water. And then I became aware of the cries and screams of hundreds of people who were in the sea with me. I do not know how long I clung to the buoy but slowly the noise around me subsided. I had started to become very cold when I was fortunate enough to spot a collapsible raft onto which I hauled myself and upon which I lay sprawled and sodden. Around six o'clock in the evening I was found by a fishing boat and taken aboard. This boat had come from further up the coast than many of the rescue vessels and had arrived late at the scene. The deck was like a charnel house with possibly twenty dead bodies of men, women, and children of all ages lying on the deck. It was an awful site.

Besides myself they had found only two other survivors, both middle aged women, who were sitting in front of a stove in the cabin wrapped in blankets. One of them was in some pain and appeared to have broken her arm. An elderly fisherman gave me two dry blankets and left the cabin to give me a little privacy to slip out of my torn wet clothes and cover myself, before he returned with a cup of warm, sweet, and rather weak tea which I gratefully accepted.

"Get that down your throat girl. Are you hurt?"

"No. But she is."

"We'll return shortly and get Mary attention. But first we need to see if there is anybody still alive in the water. What do we call you?"

In that moment I realised that I didn't want George to see my name on a list of survivors and I did not want to use the name I had used to buy my ticket in New York. I used the first name that popped into my head.

"Victoria Cameron."

"Well Vicky, shall I take your wet clothes?"

"No. They're all I have left."

He paused, lit himself a cigarette, and went back onto the deck returning with a piece of torn fishing net which he passed to me.

"Tie them in this."

***

I was put ashore at Queenstown around eight o'clock. Once again I was lucky, being one of the first survivors to land at the waterfront. It was still light, and I was met by a Cunard representative who introduced me to the wife of a local doctor who offered me accommodation. Mary, with her broken arm, was taken for medical attention. The other lady, whose name I had never learnt because she had been struck dumb, was taken to a local hotel. The dead bodies were laid out in a row on the wharf.

I was taken to the doctors home where I was provided with a skirt, undergarments, and a blouse to replace my ruined clothes and my coat was rinsed in fresh water and placed in front of a stove to dry. Dr O'Reilly (I think that was his name) remained at the wharf side until after eleven o'clock when the last of the rescue boats had docked. Mrs O'Reilly served me a meal of stew and potatoes and sat with me. She couldn't control her anger.

"Oh those poor people. How could they do such thing, They were waiting for you. Damned Hun."

I didn't feel anger then. It was too early. I felt surprisingly calm and very much alive and found myself telling her about life on board ship. I am sorry to say that I lied to her and omitted any mention of my flight from George. I told her of my concern about the fate of The Jeffersons but remarked how lucky I was not to have a loved one on board with me.

Late at night Dr O'Reilly returned. He looked exhausted. I saw Mrs O'Reilly look enquiringly at him, but he simply shook his head and reached for the whisky. He poured himself a large glass and without asking gave another large glass to me.

Shortly afterwards I was shown to bed and in borrowed nightclothes I fell into a deep dreamless and exhausted sleep. When I woke it was light and I could hear activity in the kitchen. It was Mrs O'Reilly moving about. The doctor had already gone to see if his services were needed.

My coat had almost dried and was still wearable although it felt as though it might have shrunk a little. I asked whether I might have a needle and a thread to perform a few repairs and the ever helpful Mrs O'Reilly was happy to provide this.

Back in my room, I ran my finger along the lower hem of my coat, and then when I felt what I was looking for I unpicked the stitching. And out popped a large red ruby. I sighed with relief that my stitching had held. Next I ran my fingers around the hem and counted the jewels that remained undisturbed and was even more pleased to count a further eight of them.

I might have lost 21 Jewels to the deep, but the nine largest stones were safe. There was no room for them in the bottle, and I have always believed the proverb about "not putting all your eggs in one basket."

Having determined that the stones were safe I stitched the stone back in place and then reinforced the stitching holding the others safe and hidden.

I was alive, healthy, and still wealthy, but I didn't have any money.

***

I walked into Queenstown a little later and joined the queue at the Cunard Offices. I wore my woollen coat. After a wait of about an hour I was seen by a harrowed looking representative who looked to have had little or no sleep. He informed me that if I wished to purchase new clothes Cunard would underwrite their purchase from the local shops. He also offered me passage to Holyhead in Wales on a boat train travelling via Dublin, This would leave that afternoon and from Holyhead I would be able to travel directly onward to London Euston reaching there on Sunday morning.

A number of other survivors had been offered this option but had refused. They had not wanted to cross the 67 mile stretch of water between Ireland and Anglesey so soon after the sinking, but I wanted to complete my journey, so I accepted.

In the confusion, even thought there was no Victoria Cameron on the passenger manifest leaving New York nobody doubted my identity and Cunard gave me an advance of five pounds and arranged for me to send a telegram to my mother. It read.

Was onboard Lusitania. Am safe unhurt. Expect arrive Ripley Sunday. Victoria.

On the wall outside the Cunard Office a list of the survivors and dead who could be identified was listed. My spirits lifted when I saw Edward had survived but I was saddened to see Mrs Jefferson listed as known dead. Mr Jefferson appeared to be missing.

So I went back inside and hurriedly wrote a note addressed to Mr Edward Jefferson and left it for him at the office. It was brief.

I am sorry about your ma. I hope you find your pa alive and well. Victoria, Cranbourne House, Ripley, Surrey

I spent the morning shopping for undergarments, a skirt, blouse, jacket, and hat. Then I walked around Queenstown breathing God's clean air and felt happy to be alive. I was surprised at myself and wondered if I was quite normal to be so calm and content in the midst of all this tragedy. I was starting to get a glimpse of the real me.

The streets were crowded with people, some of them survivors in ill-fitting clothes. Many were seeking lost relatives and visiting local beaches where the bodies of the dead were stilling being washed ashore. Others were just wandering aimlessly with blank expressions and dull eyes. And notices were starting to appear in shop windows with descriptions of missing passengers and pleas for any information that might be known about their whereabouts.

Here and there newspapermen and their photographers could be seen, and I gave them a wide berth. Once when I saw a photographer approach I turned away and put my hands deep into my pockets, and that was when I found the key. The lining at the bottom of my pocket had ripped and trapped the key to the house in New York. I had dropped it in my pocket as I had made my getaway, and miraculously it had stayed there ever since.

It seemed like a lifetime since I had closed the house door and locked it, but it was only a week since then.

I thought to throw the key away but realised that the coat, jewels, and the brass key were all I had from my life in America and soon I would sell the jewels and probably give my ragged coat to a beggar in the street. I would keep the key as a reminder of my folly.

When I returned to the doctor's house Mrs O'Reilly gave me a piece of string and I tied the key around my neck. She insisted that I ate before my journey and fried me some ham and eggs. In the early afternoon I took my leave of her and thanked her and her husband for their kindness, but she waved my thanks away. As I left she handed me a brown paper parcel tied with string.

"Bread and cheese for your journey. God bless."

As I walked away, for the first time I had tears in my eyes.

***

The steamer reached Holyhead in Anglesey just after midnight. The crossing from Dublin had taken around three and a half hours and many of the survivors who could still walk spent the crossing standing nervously on deck wearing life belts. I was not amongst them, preferring to sit in comfort in the cabin. Nonetheless I admit to feeling a sense of relief when we disembarked at The Admiralty Pier.

We were met by railway workers and Cunard employees who shepherded us into the waiting railway carriages and given mugs of tea, sandwiches, and biscuits. I was given a blanket to keep me warm and a little after one o'clock in the morning the train started to roll, travelling first to Liverpool and then on to London.

I slept fitfully at first but after leaving Liverpool I fell asleep and dreamt of Edward. Once again I saw his beautiful male body with his muscular thighs and taut bum, and I felt him inside me. I was disappointed when my dream was interrupted by our arrival at London Euston just after half past six in the morning.

There was a large crowd waiting at the station and each one of our names was announced in turn often eliciting cries of relief and joy in equal measure from waiting friends and family. My name went unnoticed, but I could not avoid being photographed as I tried to slip unobtrusively away.

My journey to Ripley was uneventful. I took a cab to Waterloo station and then a train to Guildford. At Guildford, another horse drawn cab took me the five miles "home."

***

I tugged on the bell chord outside the front door and almost immediately it opened. I had expected Morton the butler to be greeting me but instead it was Emily.

"Victoria. Thank goodness you're safe.! I'm so glad you've come. How could you know? Come in. Come in."

We embraced and then.

"know what?

Emily started to cry. "James is dead. We got a telegram weeks ago. It was too much for mother and she has had a stroke."

I took off my coat and hung it on a stand, turned, took a deep breath, and followed Emily into the drawing room.

"Start from the beginning Emily."

"David and James both enlisted and were sent to France. Last week mama received a telegram. James died in Ypres in Flanders last month. When she had read the telegram her mouth started to droop and she started to dribble and now she can't move her right arm or leg. She's mad with grief and doesn't talk but just sits and stares out of the window. And now this has happened to you. You poor thing. It must have been awful. I'm so glad you're safe. If you died it would finish mother off."

She stopped talking and started to sob. She took out a handkerchief and wiped her eyes and then continued.

"I'm sorry I'm being stupid and selfish. You must be hungry and exhausted. Would you like something to eat and a lie down? The cook has prepared something, and I've had your room made ready for you. Mother doesn't know you're here. I haven't told her about the Lusitania. She didn't need any more worry."

Emily's words had poured from her mouth like a river, and I held my hand up to quieten her.

"I'm fine Emily. Really I am. It must have been terrible for you having to deal with all of this on your own but I'm here now and we'll all get through this together. I'd like to freshen up and then see mother and then have a bite to eat if that is alright? Can you tell mama I have arrived from America?"

Shortly afterwards I entered my mother's room. My mother sat in a high backed upholstered chair with a blanket on her lap and was looking expressionless out of the window. In the corner a young serving girl sat quietly with her embroidery. I crossed the room stood in front of my mother, bent down, and kissed her on the cheek. And for a moment I thought she recognised me, but she remained motionless and said nothing.

"I'm home I said."

Then I sat beside her holding her hand as a tear rolled down her cheek.

***

That evening Emily and I sat down to talk of more practical things. We were very similar in size and shape so Emily offered to lend me clothes until I could buy a wardrobe for myself. Mother could still make her mark and sign cheques, so cash was not a problem.

I had unpicked the hem of my coat and hidden the rubies under a loose floorboard in my room. I said nothing to Emily but handed the coat to a servant to give to the poor. Then I told her the big lie.

"George has died of pneumonia. He wasn't as rich as he made out and there was nothing left."

Two days later a telegram arrived addressed to Victoria Latham.

"It's for me," I said.

Emily gave me a questioning look but said nothing.

Very happy you are alive. Ma and pa gone. Funeral 11 am May 14 ^th Brookwood Chapel. Edward.

Later she asked who Edward was and I told her that Edward was a young man I had met with his parents on the Lusitania. And that I planned to attend out of respect to his parents. He must have got my surname wrong.

"Jamieson? Latham?"

I could see that she wasn't convinced but Brookwood Cemetery lay only twelve miles from where we were sitting and was not far to go for the funeral.

Two days later in a hired horse and trap I travelled to Brookwood. It was a cloudy, windy day and was not warm. I wore a long black coat over my black dress with black gloves and a black lace mantilla. I reached the chapel twenty minutes early and took my place at the back. Mourners started to arrive a few minutes later and by the time the service started there were maybe thirty mourners present. Precisely at eleven o'clock the pallbearers entered carrying the coffins and accompanied by Edward. He scanned the congregation as he entered, and I thought I saw a sign of relief as his eyes lighted on me.

He looked much older than when I had seen him last, almost a week earlier, but he was still incredibly good looking in his well-tailored black suit. My heart went out to him as he stood with his head bowed and we prayed. As the coffins were carried out of the chapel and we sang "Abide with me" I realised I very much wanted to see him again.

I was frightened I would remind him of something he would rather forget, but I need not have worried. After the burial we congregated in a nearby pub for the reception and we were able to talk briefly. He told me that he had got his parents into a lifeboat, but it had capsized, and they had been thrown out before he and a few others were able to right the boat. His mother was taken dead from the sea and his father washed up ashore two days after the ship sank. He had tears in his eyes when he thanked me for coming to their funeral.

I looked hard at him.

"The last time we spoke you asked me a question and I gave you an answer. But a lot has happened since then and life is short. I'm married but my husband is on the other side of the ocean, and I want to see you again. I have already told my sister my husband is dead. I'll be in London staying at The Savoy next Monday night. Why don't you join me for dinner?"

Of course he agreed.

***

The following Monday morning I travelled up to London by steam train. I told Emily I planned to go clothes shopping and visit the Cunard office on Regents Street to repay my five pound loan but did not tell her of my intention to visit Hatton Gardens with just one of the rubies. My first port of call was The Savoy Hotel on the Strand where I booked a suite and made reservations for dinner. Following that I visited The Cunard Offices where I was informed that the advance provided to Victoria Cameron had been officially written off as a courtesy.

In Hatton Gardens I visited three different diamond dealers with my ruby and accepted the best offer of the three. This dealer offered me two thousand pounds for the stone, an eye watering amount, and I was happy to take payment in diamonds, namely fifty high quality diamonds which he valued at forty pounds a stone. I would be able to liquidate these anonymously and easily one by one as I needed money.

As a courtesy the diamond merchant provided an escort who accompanied me, by Hansen cab, back to The Savoy where the diamonds were signed into the hotel safe.

After that I went out and bought a low cut red satin evening dress and red leather shoes. I had a hairdresser come to my room and cut and style my hair, I had my nails manicured, and I shaved under my armpits. I was determined to look good.

By half past seven I was showered, dressed, and as horny as hell. It had been two weeks since I had been fucked by Edward after a year of abstinence and I had no intention of being celibate for that long ever again.

At eight o'clock, as arranged, I met Edward in the hotel foyer. He was so handsome in his dinner jacket, but he was no longer the innocent boy I had met two weeks and half a lifetime ago. He now moved and held himself like a man and he still had that slightly haunted look that I had seen in the eyes of some of the survivors I had seen walking the streets of Queenstown.

***

I'm not clear what we ate for dinner. Edward devoured me with his eyes from the moment we sat down, He had told me how beautiful I looked as soon as he saw me and the unspoken desire we had for each other hung in the air. I told him my story of survival and of the death of my brother and my mother's illness. He told me that he had been approached by an old friend of his father's from the foreign office and a fellow Oxford graduate and had been offered a job. He was rather vague about its nature, and I didn't press him. I was glad he had given up the idea of enlisting in the army.

After dinner I went to my room first and showered and got into bed naked. Ten minutes later Edward arrived. He already knew I liked to be clean when I made love; quite possibly because George was a malodorous pig. He quickly showered and returned to the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. He stood next to the bed and pulled back the sheet to reveal my naked form and then I reached across and pulled the towel away.

"You're beautiful," he said.

Ever the romantic, I replied, "Just fuck me!"

He didn't need to be asked twice and he climbed into the bed beside me and cupping a breast in one hand he kissed me hard on the lips. As our tongues danced and flickered on each other I felt his fingers find my bud and gently start to move in circles on it. I reached down and took his penis in my hand and slowly moved his foreskin back and forth.

He was rock hard and very soon I was sopping wet and desperate to feel him inside of me. He looked into my eyes and saw my need and as I lay on my back he lay between my outstretched thighs and slowly pushed his erect penis between the swollen lips of my cunt. He thrust into me grinding against my clitoris with each stroke, as I dug my fingers into the tight muscles of his gorgeous buttocks.

I heard myself wailing in ecstasy and this drove him on as his balls banged and slapped against me and soon I took my first orgasm. It was long and hard. My thighs tightened and my toes curled as I drove my pelvis against him and writhed and bucked during those indescribably beautiful moments.