Justice Done

Miscalculation

“All set?” Ada asked. “Of course you are. There isn’t a Girl Scout in the world who took ‘be prepared’ as seriously as you did, Sarah.”

“From the size of that trunk I saw poor Mr. Parsons carrying out of here, I’d say you’re the one who’s over-prepared,” Sarah Milington replied. “Really, Grandmother, we’re only staying on the Queen Mary overnight.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” her adoptive grandmother said, embracing her as she reached her. “And it’s likely I still haven’t brought half of what I really need. You’re the one who’s best at details. If you would come to live with me again-”

“Grandmother…” Sarah warned.

“Never mind, I won’t pester you about that now. I think a trunk makes it seem so much more like a real cruise-Oh, here’s Robert,” she said, seeming so pleased that Sarah had to tamp down an annoying little flair of jealousy. More irritating, she was fairly sure Robert Parsons had noted her discomposure.

Although he was always polite to her, Sarah had yet to feel completely at ease around Parsons. Some of this unease was undoubtedly due to her grandmother’s delight in surrounding both Parsons’s background and his position in her household with an air of intrigue, but Sarah knew this was only part of why she felt self-conscious when Parsons was near.

For all his own quietness, his presence in this house caused a great deal of talk. He was the inspiration for plenty of local gossip-gossip that undoubtedly pleased Ada Milington. Robert Parsons-good-looking, broad-shouldered, and not more than thirty years old, had been part of Ada’s household for nearly a year now.

At first, Sarah had believed that the rest of the staff, all much older than Parsons and notoriously protective of her grandmother, would rebel at his presence. In this she was mistaken. Parsons, she now reflected-recalling that he had just carried the largest trunk she had ever seen out to the van-was undoubtedly a godsend to the aging servants. He seemed more than willing to do heavy lifting and to take on any task, no matter how arduous. And, she was forced to admit, he gave every sign of being sincerely devoted to her grandmother.

Sarah knew she had no real personal complaint to make of him. Long accustomed to her grandmother’s love of outrageous behavior, she decided that it was not her place to interfere. Ada had survived four husbands, and if she now wanted to have a fling with a man almost fifty years her junior, Sarah would not be the one to object.

Ada turned to the rest of the staff, which had gathered in the entry. “We’re off on our cruise!” she announced grandly, waving a kiss at them. Amid tossed confetti and their boisterous cheers of “Bon voyage” and “Many happy returns!” she took Parsons’s arm and allowed him to lead the way to the van.

He hadn’t loaded the luggage very efficiently, Sarah thought with a frown, seeing that he had strapped the huge trunk to the long rack on the van’s roof. By simply removing a seat, he could have fit it inside. The wind resistance would have been lower, and she would have obtained better gas mileage. She was considering this problem when Parsons, after gently helping Ada into the front passenger seat, surprised Sarah by opening the sliding door to the side of the van and seating himself in the back.

No wonder he had left the seat in place! She felt herself blush at the thought of her grandmother marching up the Queen Mary’s gangplank with this virile-looking male in tow. And if Robert Parsons was sharing a room with Ada-but then, she quickly reminded herself, that was none of her business.

Ada’s smile told her that her grandmother was waiting for a challenge, but Sarah merely started the van and began the drive to Long Beach.

She couldn’t help but feel herself an injured party, though. She had wanted to talk privately to her grandmother, perhaps even to confide in her about the dream she had had last night-a recurring, claustrophobic dream from her childhood, of being locked in a closet. That was certainly not possible now. She could picture Robert Parsons’s amusement over that.

“A little ridiculous to have Bella and the others throwing confetti,” she said aloud. “It isn’t really a cruise, after all.”

“I’m pretending it is,” Ada answered. “It’s the closest I can come to a cruise. You know I get seasick.”

“I know nothing of the sort. You’ve been on real cruises.”

“And got sick on the last one. Never again. I do love the ocean, I just don’t want to be feeling it pitch and roll as I blow out my candles. So this will be my cruise-perhaps my last one.”

“It’s not a cruise,” Sarah repeated obstinately.

“Technically, no.”

She might have left it at that, but when she glanced at the rearview mirror, she saw that Parsons was smiling. Smugly, she thought.

“Technically, it isn’t even a ship,” she added.

“No?” Ada said, turning to wink back at him.

Sarah felt her fingers tighten on the steering wheel. “No. It’s officially classified as a building now, not a ship. It’s permanently moored at that pier. It doesn’t move. It doesn’t go anywhere.”

“You don’t say,” Ada replied.

“It’s afloat,” Robert said. “It moves with the tide.”

Sarah fell silent.

After a moment, Ada said wistfully, “I saw her sail once, long ago. Back in the days when she did sail, when she was definitely a ship.”

“You saw your first husband off to war,” Robert said.

He sounded bitter, Sarah thought. Was he jealous of Ada’s previous husbands? It seemed absurd. Perhaps it was only this first husband, she thought. Elliot. She was fairly sure he had been the first. Or was it Arthur?

Sarah knew little about any of Ada’s husbands. Ada was someone who lived, by and large, in the present day, seldom discussing her past. And by the time Sarah had come to live with Ada, the last of Ada’s four spouses had been dead for more than twenty years.

Sarah tried to remember the little she had been told. There had been an Elliot, an Arthur, a Charles, and finally John Milington, Sr.-the father of the man who had adopted Sarah. Yes, that was the order. She remembered that Ada had married the first one when she was eighteen, and that he had died in World War II.

Bella had once let it slip that Ada had a son from that marriage, a son who so disliked Ada’s third husband, mother and son had become estranged. Sarah frowned. Or was it a son by the second husband who disliked the third? Sarah could not remember. She couldn’t even recall Ada’s eldest boy’s name. She did recall Bella’s warning never to mention this son to Ada. Not wanting to cause Ada pain, or to make trouble for the old housekeeper, Sarah had kept her silence.

She glanced at Ada, and saw that her grandmother was frowning. It was then that another implication of Robert’s remark came home to her.

“If you said good-bye to your first husband that day, he must have sailed on the Queen Mary when she was used as a troop ship, during the war.”

Ada nodded. “I never saw him again.”

“But being on the ship again-won’t it be sad for you?”

Ada smiled and shook her head. “No, Sarah dear. Not at all. I was never actually aboard the ship, of course. We said good-bye at the dock. And the ship doesn’t even look the same on the outside now. She was painted a dull gray then, and her portholes were blackened. She was called ‘the Grey Ghost’ during the war.”

“I read about that period of the ship’s history,” Sarah said. “The Queen Mary was able to cross the Atlantic in four or five days, which made her the fastest ship on the sea-capable of outrunning German submarines, if need be. She was even faster than German torpedoes.” She paused, frowned, and added, “Faster than the ones used at the beginning of the war. There was a bounty on her. Hitler promised he would give a quarter of a million dollars and Germany’s highest honors to the submarine captain who sank her.”

“My, you have read up on her,” Robert Parsons said.

Sarah responded as she always did under stress. She turned to numbers. “Yes. The ship made a great contribution to the Allied efforts. During the war, the Queen Mary carried over seven hundred and sixty-five thousand military personnel over half a million nautical miles.”

She saw that Parsons was smiling again, until Ada said, “One of those three-quarters of a million was mine.”

“Yes, of course,” Sarah said. “I’m sorry.”

Robert reached forward and took Ada’s hand.

Ada, never one to brood, soon changed the subject.

She began to recite the guest list for the party. Sarah stayed silent, only half-attending as local dignitaries and old friends were named. While a woman of Ada’s wealth and influence would never have trouble finding guests for her parties, it was her reputation for holding lively, out of the ordinary celebrations which made her invitations much sought after.

At last the Queen Mary came into sight. Sarah, seeing the long, sleek giant before her, its trio of mammoth red stacks cuffed in black towering above them, quickly realized that all the reading she had done about this historic vessel could never do it justice.

“A building?” she heard Robert Parsons ask.

“No,” Sarah said quietly. “A ship, a beautiful, beautiful ship.”

“Nothing like her in the world,” he agreed. “Wait until you’re aboard.”

“You’ve been on the Queen Mary before?” she asked, surprised.

“A few times,” he said, but Ada began directing her to the hotel entrance before Sarah could ask more.

As they were welcomed by the staff at the registration desk, Sarah’s eyes roved over the Art Deco lines of the ship’s interior, the etched glass and shining brass, the rich exotic woods that surrounded her-crafted into curving, sumptuous, smooth surfaces and marquetry unlike any she had ever seen.

She was recalled from her admiration by Ada’s voice. “The small bag to Mr. Parsons’s suite, please. The trunk and the rest of this group to mine, all except those two very serviceable but dowdy bags, which I’m sorry to say, belong to my granddaughter.”

Sarah followed mutely as they were shown to their rooms, noting that like Ada, Robert was staying in one of the royalty suites. Each suite, Sarah knew, featured a large sitting area separated from a spacious bedroom, a private bath, and an additional small bedroom with a single twin bed in it-servant’s quarters. In the ship’s glory years, the luxurious suites had been occupied by the wealthiest of first class passengers, who paid the equivalent of an average Englishman’s annual wages for round-trip passage-a large sum, even with the servant’s fare and all meals included.

Robert’s suite was near Ada’s, but not adjoining it. Having braced herself for the likelihood that Ada would make the most of such a romantic setting, Sarah was surprised by this arrangement. He had been given a room that certainly placed his status well above that of hired help, but an adjoining room would have made assignations much easier.

Ada had offered a suite to Sarah, but Sarah had opted for one of the staterooms. Not as grand as the suites, it was nevertheless spacious, and like the suites, had many original furnishings in it. Sarah opened the two thick portholes, which provided a view of the Long Beach shoreline and downtown skyline. Taking a deep breath of cool air, she soon put aside her questions about her grandmother and Parsons. She spent the next half hour exploring her own luxurious room.

Soon her toiletries had been neatly arranged, her clothes hung in one of the closets, and nearly every other item she had carried with her stowed in an orderly fashion. She was just deciding where she would place a pair of books she had brought-about the history of the ship-when the phone rang.

“Sarah? Be a dear and run along to the Observation Bar, will you?” Ada said. “I told Robert I would meet him there, but now I’ve learned that Captain Dolman will be here any moment.”

“Captain Dolman? Is he the ship’s captain?” Sarah asked.

“No, no, an old friend. An army captain, retired for years. Now be a dear and don’t make Robert wait there alone-some young wench might look at his handsome face and decide to lead him astray. A man like that, drinking alone in the bar-the consequences are not to be thought of.”

“I don’t-”

“Think you can find it? Of course you can. It’s near the bow of the ship, on the Promenade Deck. Thank you, dear, it’s such a relief to know I can depend upon you.”

Sarah bore this with her usual good grace. She climbed the stairs to the Promenade Deck and moved quickly through the ship’s shopping gallery to the cocktail lounge. Stepping into the curving, multi-level room, she saw before her a row of tall windows with a view of the main deck and bow, and the harbor beyond; nearer, in the room itself, a nickel-colored railing made up of a mixture of creatures real and mythological. She turned; above the mirrors behind the bar, she saw a painting that, up until now, she had only seen in black-and-white photographs of this room. For several long moments, she forgot all about looking for Robert Parsons.

The painting stretched across the length of the bar, and depicted a street scene. More than two dozen figures were caught in motion. They were people from all walks of life, dancing hand-in-hand: sailors, bakers, and men in top hats cavorted with stout matrons, elegantly clad ladies, and women in everyday dress. All were laughing as they circled round and round in celebration. Pennants fluttered above them; one of the revelers had lost her footing, but this was forever that moment before the others would notice.

“Makes you want to join them, doesn’t it?” a voice said from just behind her right ear.

Startled, Sarah turned and found herself nearly nose-to-nose with Parsons. “No, Mr. Parsons-”

“Robert-”

“No, Mr. Parsons,” she said, taking a step away from him. “It doesn’t. They’re all about to stumble over the one who has fallen.”

He looked up at the mural and smiled. “They’ll help her to her feet and carry on with the dance.”

“At best, they’ll step over her and continue without her.”

He shook his head, but said nothing.

“The banners carry the insignia of St. George,” she said quickly, fixing her eyes on the painting.

“In honor of King George the Fifth’s twenty-fifth year as king,” Parsons said, “which is being celebrated by the dancers. The work was painted by A. R. Thomson-and is called ‘Royal Jubilee Week, 1935.’ ”

She turned scarlet.

“Oh, now you’re angry with me. I’ve spoiled your fun. Let me buy you a glass of wine.”

“I don’t-”

“You can toss it in my face if you like. I’ll present myself as a target.”

“No, no I’m sorry. It’s a bad habit of mine, spouting off facts and figures nobody cares to hear.”

“But you’re wrong-I’m very interested in what you have to say, Miss Milington.”

“Please, let’s go back to Sarah and Robert.”

He smiled. “All right.” He motioned to a doorway. “I’m sitting outside, but if you find it too chilly there for you-”

“No, I prefer it,” she said truthfully.

She was seated at his table, shielded from the afternoon breeze by a row of Plexiglas panels. Belatedly, she remembered to deliver her message.

“It was kind of you to walk all the way here to tell me,” he said, “but Ada is so seldom on time, I don’t think I would have worried.”

“I think she sent me as your chaperone,” she admitted.

He laughed. “No, no, I doubt that. Tell me, have you had a chance to see much of the ship yet?”

“No, I’ve only just unpacked.”

“Hmm. Then you must let me show you some of the more interesting sights-”

“I’m not sure-”

“You aren’t afraid of me, are you?” he asked. “I promise you won’t come to any harm.”

Not unaware that this was the longest conversation she had ever had with him, she said, “Oh, no, I’m not afraid. It’s just that Grandmother may not like me to dominate so much of your time.”

“Trust me, she’ll be delighted. Besides,” he added quietly, “she’ll have other demands to make of me later.”

Again Sarah felt herself blush.

“You misunderstand-” he began.

“It isn’t any of my business,” Sarah said quickly, relieved to see Ada approaching, accompanied by two elderly gentlemen, one on each arm. The men seemed to be doing their level best to keep up with her. Sarah, acquainted with most of Ada’s friends, did not know either of these men. But as they drew closer, she thought one of them did seem familiar.

Ada came to their table with long strides, flamboyantly garbed in a hot pink and turquoise jogging suit, wearing a white turban. How does she manage, Sarah wondered, to wear such silly outfits and still look great?

“Sarah!” Ada called out, “Meet the congressman!”

“Oh, not yet, not yet!” the taller of the two men exclaimed. “A mere state senator at the moment, but with your grandmother’s generous help, I may trade Sacramento for Washington, D.C.” He extended a hand. “Archer Hastings, my dear, at your service.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Senator,” Sarah said, now realizing why he seemed familiar. She was sure she had seen him on the evening news once or twice. He wasn’t the senator for their district, but Ada had many political friends, not all of them her own representatives.

When Ada introduced the second man, Gerald Dolman, the retired army captain turned crimson and nodded in Sarah’s direction, but did not meet her eyes. He was a thin man with a prominent Adam’s apple. It bobbed as he swallowed nervously. She wondered why he was so flustered over meeting her, but soon decided he was merely shy-he would not, in fact, look directly at any of the others, and the blush which had stolen over his neck and face remained throughout the time he sat with them.

Archer Hastings had no such reticence. He gave the others a quick biography of himself, a sort of résumé from the time he was a paperboy in the 1930s. He spoke at length about his enlistment in the army, his service (mostly behind a desk) during World War II. By the time he was telling them about his return to California and his establishment of an accounting firm, the drinks had arrived. What a pompous ass, Sarah thought, but Hastings was only warming up.

“Have you had a chance to tour the ship?” Ada was asking him.

“Yes, yes. Wonderful! Wonderful place for this lovely lady to celebrate her birthday,” he said to the others. “I’m certainly looking forward to that party tonight. The Grand Salon. Used to be the first class dining room. Largest single public room ever built on a ship. You could fit all three of Christopher Columbus’s ships in there and still have space left over. Have you seen it yet, Sarah? No? Oh, you must see it. Probably won’t let you in while they’re getting ready for the big to-do, but”-he winked conspiratorially-“you have friends in high places. Then of course, you will see it tonight, won’t you? Yes, a grand ship.”

Captain Dolman was making quick progress through his drink as Hastings went on.

“A symbol of triumph over the Great Depression, that’s what it was to the British,” the politician said.

“Yes,” Robert Parsons said, “she was a symbol of hope.”

For reasons Sarah could not understand, this caused Captain Dolman and Ada to look at him sharply. But Hastings was oblivious.

“I’ve always liked the British,” he was saying. “Don’t you like them? Sure. Like to do things on a grand scale-just like you, Ada. Say, did you know that if you measure from the Queen Mary’s keel to the top of her forward funnel, this ship is one hundred and eighty feet tall? That makes her eighteen feet taller than Niagara Falls! Now, that’s something, but her length is spectacular. If you could stand this ship on end, it would be taller than the Washington Monument. Taller than the Eiffel Tower, too. In fact, the Empire State Building would only be two hundred feet taller.”

“Two hundred and thirty feet,” Sarah said without thinking.

Parsons smiled, Ada laughed, and Captain Dolman nervously rattled the ice in his glass, which he was studying intently. Archer Hastings seemed taken aback until he noticed Ada’s reaction, then burst into hearty guffaws. Sarah felt her own cheeks turning red, and wondered if her complexion now matched Captain Dolman’s.

“I warned you, Archer,” Ada said. “She’s a wonder with numbers. As addicted to facts and figures as you are.”

“Really?” Hastings seemed unable to resist the challenge of testing this claim. “I suppose you know about the anchors?”

Sarah hesitated, but seeing Ada’s expectant look, answered, “There are two eighteen-foot long anchors, each weighs sixteen tons. The anchor chains are each nine hundred and ninety feet long. Each link of an anchor chain weighs two hundred and twenty-four pounds.”

“Very good, very good,” he acknowledged, although Sarah thought he did not seem to be truly pleased. “Your grandmother told me you had an excellent head for figures. Numbers have always been a specialty of mine. Making good use of them, not just dithering around with some theoretical nonsense. Of course, one can’t expect a young lady to have an appreciation of statistics; rare enough to find one who has any kind of brain for mathematics in the first place. No wonder your grandmother is so proud of-”

Sarah fixed him with a narrow glare, but it was Robert who interrupted, saying, “Mrs. Milington is proud of her granddaughter for a great many reasons, of course. Her abilities with mathematics and statistics are just one source of that pride.”

Hastings seemed to finally become aware Ada was looking at him in a way that seemed to indicate that subtraction-from the amount he was hoping to receive from her for his campaign-seemed the most likely piece of arithmetic to be going on in her mind.

“Oh, Sarah, I apologize,” he said quickly. “I behave just like a crotchety old man on some occasions. You are clearly an exceptional young lady! I am astounded at your knowledge of the ship.”

“I haven’t seen much of it,” she confessed in some confusion, still amazed at Robert’s defense of her, and uncomfortable with all the praise Hastings had heaped upon her.

“But she’s read a great deal,” Robert said.

“Ask her anything about it!” Ada said.

Sarah noticed a particular gleam in his eye as he said, “All right. What type of fuel did the Queen Mary burn?”

“Bunker C oil,” she answered promptly. “The ship averaged thirteen feet to the gallon.”

Ada gave a crow of laughter.

“Thirteen miles to the gallon?” Hastings asked.

“No, sir. Feet, not miles.”

Hastings, skeptical a moment before, now became fascinated by Sarah’s love of data and would not be side-tracked from his game. He asked for statistic after statistic, and Sarah answered accurately every time.

She could not help but feel a glow of pride, and her original appraisal of Hastings mellowed considerably. But just as she was saying that there were over six miles of carpet on the ship, she happened to glance at Robert Parsons. He was frowning at Hastings, and his fists were clenched on the table.

I’m boring him, Sarah thought, all the pleasure suddenly going out of the game. Her voice trailed off, and she stared down at her hands, too humiliated to continue. Robert was obviously wishing that Hastings would stop encouraging her. She probably hadn’t amused anyone other than Hastings and her grandmother; Robert and Captain Dolman, she was sure, were wishing Ada had left her at home. She had been an obnoxious, unbridled know-it-all.

She was about to apologize when she heard Robert say, “I have an extra pass for the next guided tour, Sarah. Would you care to go on it?”

She had not thought she could be more deeply mortified, but she was wrong. So he wanted to send her off on a ship’s tour, as if she were a child not ready to share the company of adults. Well, and why not? She had just behaved as if she were the kid in the class who waves his hand and shouts, “Me! Me! Call on me!”

“Thank you,” she managed to say.

“Yes,” her grandmother agreed, “an excellent notion.”

So even Ada was defecting, she thought, as Robert, ever the gentleman, stood and helped her from her chair. She was a little surprised when he continued at her side, but she said nothing. She crossed the bar and took the exit to her left, and still he followed. As they passed two of the larger shops along the passageway, he said, “These were once the first class passengers’ library and drawing room. Winston Churchill was given use of the drawing room when he was aboard the ship during World War II. He and other leaders finalized plans for the invasion of Normandy while on this ship, probably in that room.”

Sarah glanced into the rather barren souvenir shop that now occupied the space.

“Don’t worry,” he said, reading her thoughts. “Not all of her dignity has been lost.”

“Where does the tour begin?”

“The port side of this deck,” he said.

“I’m sure I can find it,” she said.

“Undoubtedly. But I’m going with you.”

“But you’ve been before…”

“Yes,” he said, “but much of the ship can only be seen on the tour. You don’t mind if I join you?”

“Of course not.”

The tour (she couldn’t prevent herself from counting the group-eighteen sightseers, including the two of them) was led by a retired naval officer. Parsons stayed at her side, but did not touch or crowd her. She soon relaxed and began to thoroughly enjoy the tour itself, fascinated by the grandeur and history of the ship.

When the tour group reached the cabin class swimming pool, she heard a woman say, “I’ve heard that it’s haunted.”

Sarah looked around the room of beige and blue-green terra-cotta tiles, the etched wire-and-glass image of an ancient sailing ship behind her, the glimmering mother-of-pearl ceiling above, the empty, sloping bottom of the pool itself. There were no windows or portholes, but the room was large enough to prevent her from feeling claustrophobic. Nothing about any of it struck her as particularly scary, nothing sent a chill down her back. But when she turned to make a joke to Robert about ghosts who had turned green from chlorine, she saw that he was pale, and had a strange, intense look on his face.

The guide was making light of the woman’s remark. “Do you mean the woman in the mini-skirt or the one in the bathing suit? I’d settle for a glimpse of either one.”

“There’s more than one ghost?” the woman asked.

“Oh yes, the ship has long been reported to be haunted,” the guide said lightly. “If you believe in such reports, this ship is loaded with ghosts. Myself, if I see one, I hope it’s one of the young ladies who rove in here.”

The group laughed and began to move after the guide as he went on with the tour. Robert, however, remained motionless, and continued to stare into the pool.

“Robert?” Sarah asked. “Are you feeling ill?”

When he seemed not to hear her, she touched his sleeve. “Robert?”

He turned to her with a start. “Oh-I’m sorry, we’ve fallen behind. We’d better catch up with the others.” They were not far from the group, though, and once they reached it Sarah asked again if he was feeling ill.

“No,” he said, “I’m fine now, thank you.”

She did not believe him, and glanced back at him several times as they made their way to the next area, along a catwalk over one of the cavernous boiler rooms. He was still pale.

By the time the formal tour was finished, though, he seemed himself again, and Sarah happily allowed him to accompany her to the other shipboard exhibits. He seemed to enjoy her enthusiasm as she was able to see the anchor chains and lifeboats and all the other parts of the ship she had read about. She lost her self-consciousness over her study of the ship’s statistics and decided her knowledge gave her a better appreciation of what she was seeing how.

Not that her appreciation was limited to the ship’s physical power. There was nostalgia, pure and simple, to be relished. She lingered over photos of Winston Churchill, Queen Elizabeth, Clark Gable, Marlene Dietrich, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Spencer Tracy, and other famous passengers. She tried to take in every detail of the displays of passenger accommodations and dining rooms.

Robert, cheerful through most of their exploration of the ship, grew solemn when they reached the wartime exhibits on the Sun Deck. The subject matter deserved solemnity, Sarah thought. His mood, however, seemed to remain grim even after they left the exhibit. She felt much more at ease with him by then, which gave her the courage to ask him what was troubling him.

He hesitated, then said, “Did you see how the soldiers were forced to live aboard this ship?”

Sarah, recalling the photos of thousands of soldiers crammed together on the decks of the ship, shuddered. “Yes, it was very crowded-”

“Crowded? You like numbers. The ship was designed to carry about two thousand passengers. On one of its wartime voyages, it carried over sixteen thousand men.”

“It carried sixteen thousand, six hundred and eighty-three,” Sarah said. “The largest number of people ever to sail on any ship-a record that still stands.”

“Sarah, think of what that meant to each of those sixteen thousand!”

She had seen some of this in the exhibit, of course. Tiers of standee berths-narrow metal frames with a single piece of canvas stretched over them-six and seven bunks high, each only eighteen inches apart. The men slept in three shifts; the beds were never empty. Soldiers were given colored badges to be worn at all times; the badges corresponded with a section of the ship where the soldiers were required to stay throughout the voyage.

But for Sarah, who had struggled for years with a fear of confined spaces, thinking about what it actually meant to each soldier was nearly unbearable to her. Suddenly, she felt dizzy, unable to breathe.

In the next moment she heard Robert Parsons saying, “My God, I’m so sorry! I forgot! Let’s go outside, onto the Sun Deck.”

She raised no objections, and found herself feeling a mixture of relief that she was once again in the open air and acute embarrassment that her grandmother had apparently informed Robert Parsons about her problem.

When he tried to apologize again, she said, “I do believe you’re much more upset about this than I am. I’ll be all right.”

“When did it start?” he asked.

“My claustrophobia? Didn’t Grandmother tell you that, too?”

“No. She’s never said anything about it. I’ve noticed it before-at her dinner parties. Too many people in the room and you have to go outside. On nights when it’s too cold to be outdoors in an evening gown, you step out for a breath of fresh air.”

She was quiet for a moment, not sure what to make of his observation of her. Then she said, “I don’t know why this memory has been so persistent, but when I was about four, at the orphanage, I was once punished for something by being shut up in a closet. I don’t remember what I had done wrong, or even who put me in the closet. I just remember the darkness, the sensation of being confined, the smell of the coats and mothballs. I was terrified. I remember counting, singing a song about numbers to stay calm.”

He put an arm around her shoulders, gave her a brief hug. But he seemed to know not to hold on to her-not when she was feeling so close to the memory of that closet. He let her be. As she felt herself grow calmer, she ventured a question of her own. “I’ve been thinking-the way you responded to the wartime exhibit-do you have problems with claustrophobia, too?”

He shook his head. “No, I don’t.”

“But it was personal for you somehow, wasn’t it? You’re too young to have fought in anything other than the Gulf War-”

“My grandfather went to war on this ship.”

“Oh! You have something in common with Grandmother then.”

He smiled slightly. “Yes. Ada and I have a great deal in common.”

Not wanting to pursue that subject, she said, “So your grandfather told you about traveling on this ship?”

“No,” Parsons said, looking out over the railing, toward the sea. “He died before I was born. Even before my father was born. My grandfather died aboard the ship.”

“Aboard the ship?” she repeated, stunned.

“Yes. He was a young soldier, newly married. His wife was pregnant with their first child, although he didn’t know that when he left for war. He was, by all accounts, a bright and talented man with a sense of humor; he used to draw cartoon sketches of his fellow soldiers and mail them home to my grandmother. He went off to war, not willingly parted from her, but willing to fight for his country.” He paused, then added bitterly, “He was murdered before he had a chance to reach his first battle.”

“Murdered?!”

“Yes.”

Sarah’s own thoughts raced. It was not difficult to see that under the crowded wartime conditions aboard the ship, tempers might easily flare. She suddenly knew without a doubt that his grandfather had been killed near the swimming pool; this, she was sure, accounted for Robert’s reaction when they were in that area of the ship.

“I’m sorry, Robert,” she said. “What a terrible blow for your grandmother.”

“She didn’t learn exactly what happened until many years later. She thought he had been killed in action.”

“Was the killer punished?”

“No. He got away with it. Listen, I shouldn’t be talking to you about this,” he said. “You’re here for a pleasant occasion and Ada would tan my hide if she knew I was-”

“Ada doesn’t entirely rule my life,” Sarah said. “I’m glad you told me. Does she know about your grandfather?”

“Oh, yes.”

“And she still insisted on bringing you here!”

“Sarah, as I’ve told you, I’ve been here before.” He smiled. “And not just to lay my family ghosts to rest. I’ll admit that was why I made my first visit, but I found I couldn’t dislike this ship-she’s not to blame for what happened to my grandfather. I suppose I fell in love with her style and elegance. She was built for pleasure-a thing of beauty, not death and destruction. And she’s a survivor. Of all the great luxury liners built before the war, the Queen Mary is the only survivor.”

They resumed their tour of the ship. He had saved the art gallery, one of his favorite rooms on the ship, for last. As they left it, he said, “Ask Ada to tell you what sort of relationship I share with her.”

“Why don’t you tell me instead?”

“I promised her I would leave that to her.”

They soon reached the stateroom. As he was about to leave her at her door, he paused and said, “Something was troubling you this morning.”

Her eyes widened.

He shrugged. “I saw it. In your face, I suppose. Your eyes.”

“It was just-just something silly,” she said. “Just a dream.”

“A nightmare?”

“I dreamed of that closet-the one at the orphanage.”

“You’re all right now?”

“Yes. I’ll be fine.”

He started to walk off, then turned and said, “Thank you for taking the tour with me.”

“My pleasure,” she said softly.

When she had finished dressing for the party, Sarah knocked on her grandmother’s door. Ada opened it herself, beckoning Sarah in as she returned to her dressing table. To Sarah’s surprise, Ada was nearly ready, and she was attired not in one of her wild ensembles, but in a very simple but elegant black dress.

“Are you feeling all right?” Sarah asked.

Ada gave a shout of laughter. “It’s best not to let everyone become too sure of what I’ll do next. Do you like it?”

“You look fantastic.” She gave her a kiss. “Happy birthday, Grandmother.”

“Thank you, my dear. How was your afternoon with Robert?”

“Very pleasant. He said I should ask you about your relationship with him.”

She raised an eyebrow. “He did, did he?”

“Yes. Now don’t tease or put me off, Grandmother.”

Ada smiled into the mirror as she fastened an earring. “Do you like him?”

“Grandmother!”

“I’ll tell you this much. He’s not my employee.” She grinned wickedly, then added, “And he’s not my lover. Oh, don’t try to look innocent, I know what’s being said. But he’s not. I have no romantic interest in him-none whatsoever.”

“But you seem so close-”

“We are very close. But that has nothing to do with the price of eggs, so get off your pretty duff and pursue the man.” She turned and gave Sarah a quick kiss. “You were very sweet not to offer your old granny any competition for that young fox.”

“Grandmother!”

“You’re attracted to him, Sarah. Have been from the day you met him.”

“What utter nonsense.”

“Is it?”

Sarah opened her mouth to protest, and closed it again.

Ada laughed and turned back to the mirror. “I thought so. Well, my dear, you have my blessing.”

The birthday party was wildly successful. Sarah, returning from one of her frequent strolls on one of the upper decks, saw Ada dancing an energetic fox trot with Captain Dolman-who was an excellent dancer, but still seemed very nervous. Ada, she noticed, had spent a great deal of time with Captain Dolman. Although Sarah had been dreading another encounter with Senator Hastings, she had not seen him since the first hour of the party, when he had been talking to Robert. Surprised that he would pass up an opportunity to work a crowd this wealthy and influential, she was, nevertheless, pleased that she had been spared another round of quizzing.

She hadn’t seen much of Robert, either. She had danced with him once, but he had seemed so preoccupied that she had difficulty holding a conversation with him.

“I’m terrible company tonight,” he said as the dance ended. “May we try this again, another evening? Just the two of us?”

Telling him she would consider that a promise, she resolved not to make a nuisance of herself to him.

Now, several hours later, she strolled near Ada’s table. Although the invitations had said, “No gifts,” a few of Ada’s friends had ignored these instructions. When her grandmother returned from the dance floor, Sarah offered to take the packages to her room.

“Thank you, Sarah!” she said, “How very thoughtful of you.” She gave Sarah the key to the room and turned to accept an offer to waltz with one of her other guests. Captain Dolman offered to help Sarah, but as there were only five boxes to be carried, she politely declined his assistance.

As she came down the stairs, her arms full, she was surprised to see Robert leaving his suite, his face set in a forbidding frown. He did not see her, however, and quickly moved off in the opposite direction, toward the elevator. She nearly called to him, to ask what was troubling him, but decided not to delay him, as he was so apparently in a hurry.

She managed to open the door to Ada’s suite, only to discover that she had entered through the servant’s door, rather than the main door, which opened into the sitting area. This part of the suite-this small room, and beyond it the bathroom and large bedroom, were closed off from the sitting room, and except for the light from the hallway behind her, it was in darkness. Sarah tried to reach for the old-fashioned light switch, but couldn’t manage it with her arms full of boxes and holding the key. She decided to lay the boxes on the twin bed. But as she stepped inside, the door closed behind her with a loud click. The small room was plunged into nearly total darkness. Panicking, blindly rushing back to the door, Sarah whirled and stumbled over something. The boxes went tumbling from her arms as she fell, and she heard the flutter of papers, felt them raining down on her. She scrambled to her knees, ran her hands wildly over the wall, and found the switch.

For a moment, she could only catch her breath and wait for her heartbeat to slow. Gradually, she noticed that she had knocked over an old leather briefcase. It had opened, and its contents had spilled across the room.

Gathering the gifts first, she was relieved to see that none of them were damaged. She placed them on the bed. She then went to work on collecting the scattered papers.

Most seemed to be old letters bearing three-cent postage stamps. Among them, she saw an old photograph; the smiling young soldier in it looked familiar to her, she thought, picking it up. The back of the photo bore an inscription in a neat masculine hand. “Give me a kiss goodnight, Ada-I’ll return every one with interest when I come back home to you! Love, Elliot.”

Her grandmother, Sarah realized, had brought a photo of her first husband taken on this ship, where she had last seen him. Moved by this, she carefully returned the photo to the briefcase. But it was as she gathered the scattered envelopes that she received a shock. The letters, postmarked during 1942, were addressed to Mrs. Elliot Parsons.

Parsons. Elliot Parsons.

Robert was related to Ada. He was her grandson. She knew it as surely as she knew anything. Her mind reeled. Robert was Sarah’s cousin-her adopted cousin, at any rate. And all this time-all this time!-Ada had made a guessing game out of her grandson’s identity. Why?

Mechanically, Sarah began putting the letters away. She came across one other item, a drawing. A cartoon. The subject of the cartoon had aged, but he was easily recognized. The Adam’s apple was exaggerated of course, and so was the blush. “Capt. Dolman, our fearless leader,” was scrawled at the bottom of one corner of the drawing.

The room seemed to be closing in on her and she stood up and made her way into the sitting room. She turned the light on, and moving to the portholes, opened one, and took a deep breath of the cold air. She sat down in a nearby chair. She was glancing at the carpet, noting a pair of parallel lines on it. Wheel marks from a dolly or handcart, she thought to herself, just as she heard a key sliding into the lock.

She braced herself for a confrontation with Ada, but it was not Ada who opened the door. Robert Parsons stood before her.

“Sarah? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“Ada’s worried about you,” he said, closing the door behind him, crossing the room to sit near her. “She’s been waiting for you to bring her key back. Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked, glancing at the open porthole.

“I’m fine, cousin.”

He stiffened. “She told you-and apparently didn’t do a very good job of it.”

“No, I found out quite by accident. By being clumsy. I knocked over a briefcase full of letters from your grandfather. I didn’t mean to snoop, but… well, I didn’t read the letters.”

“Sarah, I’ve never wanted to hide anything from you. Ada insisted, and I let her talk me into it. I never should have gone along with it.”

“Why? Why didn’t she want me to know?”

He hesitated, then said, “For two reasons. The first is that she didn’t want you to get hurt. She was afraid-after the way the Milingtons treated you-she didn’t want you to feel as if I were more important to her than you are. I’m not Sarah-honest to God, I’m not.”

When she didn’t reply, he said, “You’ve been her granddaughter for years. If you don’t want to share her, I’ll understand.”

“Oh, it’s not that!” she said. “It’s just-just a lot to take in.”

“Yes, it’s a lot for me to take in, too, and I’ve had a year to get used to the idea. She didn’t even know I existed. I managed to track her down when I was trying to learn more about what happened to my grandfather-to Elliot Parsons. Ada and my father were estranged.”

“Because of his stepfather? Ada’s next husband?”

“Yes. So you know about that?”

“Not much.”

“When my dad died, I wanted to learn more about his side of the family, and meet this grandmother of mine. I also wanted to know more about my grandfather. At first, I just wanted to find out if my father’s story was true, that his father had died aboard the Queen Mary, while on the passage to Europe. I learned much more. And I told Ada what I had learned.”

“About his murder?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the second reason she didn’t want to tell me?”

But before he could answer, there was a knock at the door of the suite. “Robert? Sarah?” they heard Ada’s voice call.

Robert opened the door to admit Ada and Captain Dolman.

“Here’s your key, Grandmother,” Sarah said.

Ada studied her as she took the key, then rounded on Robert. “You told her!”

“No,” Sarah said, and explained how she had learned that Robert was Ada’s grandson. “And he is just about to tell me the second reason you didn’t want me to know about it.”

“Nonsense!” she said firmly. “Now, although the party was wonderful, I’m completely exhausted, so all of you will please leave my room. All except Sarah.”

“Ada-” Robert began.

“Now,” she said, giving him a look that would have sent an emperor running. It was more than enough for Captain Dolman. For several long minutes, it seemed that Robert would refuse to obey.

“I’ll be all right,” Sarah said. His frustration evident, Robert finally followed Dolman’s lead.

But in the meantime, Sarah had given some thoughts to the events of the day, and when the door closed behind Robert, she asked, “Where is Senator Hastings?”

“How should I know?”

“You know. Why did you invite him?”

“He practically invited himself.”

“I don’t believe that. He’s not running in your congressional district; he’s not your state senator. And he is certainly not the type of person you would back in either race.”

“Whom I invite to my own birthday party-”

“A party on a ship where, according to Robert, your first husband was murdered-”

“Robert will have to learn to keep quiet. Although I daresay you might receive more of his confidences than anyone else would.”

“I should hope so. I’m his cousin.”

“He doesn’t think of you in that way, Sarah. I can guarantee you that much. And that is not to say that he doesn’t want to be related to you.”

Blushing, Sarah said, “Don’t try to change the subject, you wily old woman.”

Ada smiled, but didn’t reply.

“You invited two men I’ve never heard you mention before, and you were with both of them before the festivities began. One of them disappeared not long after the party started. The other man hasn’t been three feet from your side all night; you have a funny little caricature of him drawn by your late husband.”

“What you think you’re getting at, I’m sure I don’t know,” Ada said.

“I think you were getting at something-or rather, someone tonight, Grandmother. Maybe it’s too late for justice-legal justice. But you’ve arranged for revenge, haven’t you?”

Ada said nothing. She moved to the porthole, looked out at the harbor.

“Grandmother, you can trust me. I-I may not be family, but I love you as much as-”

“Don’t talk nonsense!” Ada said, her voice quavering. “Of course you’re my family. I don’t want you to come to any harm, don’t you see? And you wouldn’t like this particular brand of revenge.”

Sarah took a deep breath, and said, “Have you murdered a state senator, Grandmother?”

Ada turned to look at her. “You think I’m capable of that?”

“No,” Sarah answered.

“Thank God for that, at least.”

“Well, if you haven’t killed him-” She looked around the room, an idea suddenly occurring to her. Horrified, she said, “Grandmother-the trunk! You’ve locked him in the trunk!”

“Yes,” Ada said.

“Where is it? Where’s the trunk?”

“Sarah-”

“It’s in Robert’s room, isn’t it? That’s why Robert had the other key to your room-you didn’t give it to him, he already had it.” Her eyes went back to the carpet. “The wheel marks-that’s what made them. Oh, Grandmother! It isn’t right.”

“Where are you going?” Ada asked in alarm, as Sarah hurried toward the door.

Sarah didn’t answer.

She could hear the phone in his room ringing, even before she got to the door. It was quiet on the ship now; most of the guests had turned in for the night.

When he answered the door, she said, “I don’t care what Grandmother said to you just now-”

“Come inside,” he said, glancing up and down the passageway.

Once the door was closed behind her, he said, “She only wants to protect you, Sarah. I’m in too deep now, but you don’t have to be involved. It would be better if-”

“Remember that painting?” she interrupted. “The one of the dancers, in the Observation Bar?”

He nodded.

“I don’t want to be an outsider, Robert. We’re all in this together. Please, Robert-”

“All right,” he said, “but Sarah-”

She heard a muffled thumping sound, and pushed past Robert into the bedroom.

The trunk lay near the foot of the bed. She heard the thumping sound again. Her face pale, she turned to Robert and said, “Let him out!”

“In a moment, when Grandmother and Captain Dolman arrive.”

But images from her own nightmares surrounded her, and when she heard the thumping again, she turned to Robert with such a look of horror on her face that he relented, and began unfastening the trunk’s latches.

As he lifted the lid, she saw that Hastings was bound and gagged. His face bore an expression that quickly passed from relief to anger.

“Wait in the other room,” Robert said. “I’ll bring him out.”

A few moments later, an irate Archer Hastings was led to a chair in the sitting room.

“You’re out of that box thanks to Sarah,” Robert said. “But if you raise a ruckus of any kind, you’ll go right back into it.”

Sarah saw the fear in Hastings’s eyes.

“The trunk is custom made, isn’t it?” she said to Robert. “It’s built to be the same size as a soldier’s berth on the ship.”

“Yes.”

There was a knock at the door, and in another moment, Ada and Dolman had joined them.

Hastings glared angrily at Ada.

“You’d like to see me arrested, wouldn’t you?” Ada said to him.

He nodded vigorously.

“The feeling is mutual.” She turned to her granddaughter. “Do you know how Elliot died?”

Sarah shook her head.

“Tell me, Sarah, was the Queen Mary air conditioned?”

“Not all of it-not until later years, after the war.”

“And before the war?”

“Not on all decks. It wasn’t necessary. The ship was built for travel on the North Atlantic. The electric fireplaces in the first class cabins-”

“Never mind the fireplaces,” Ada said. “You just made an important point. The ship was built for North Atlantic crossings.”

“You knew that, didn’t you, Mr. Hastings?” Robert said.

Hastings made an angry sound behind the gag.

“Oh, pardon me. I’ll remove the gag, but I’ll expect you to keep your voice at a conversational level. If you don’t-” He nodded toward Captain Dolman, who held a gun aimed at Hastings. “I’m afraid Captain Dolman, who is an excellent shot, will be allowed to fulfill his fondest wish.”

“Now see here,” Hastings said as the gag was removed, “I’ve heard for years about Ada Milington’s crazy parties, but this is too much! Let me go now, and we can forget this ever happened.”

“As you’ve forgotten what happened to those men you murdered?” Ada asked.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Sarah,” Ada said. “How many standee berths were placed in the cabin class swimming pool?”

“One hundred and ten,” she answered promptly. “Was that where Elliot was assigned while on the ship?”

“Yes,” Dolman answered. “My unit was sent to that hellhole.”

“It was crowded for everybody!” Hastings said. “There was a war on, remember? We needed to get troops to Europe and the Pacific.”

“And that was your responsibility,” Robert said.

“Yes, of course it was. I made this ship ten times more efficient for the transporting of troops.”

“The numbers got bigger and bigger, thanks to you.”

“That’s right. That’s why you didn’t grow up speaking German or Japanese, sonny boy.”

“I fought against them,” Dolman said, “but they were the enemy then, and the war was on. But you weren’t supposed to be our enemy, Hastings. Troops weren’t supposed to die because of you.”

“You’re insane! All of you! I worked at a desk job! I didn’t kill anybody. Sarah-” he pleaded, turning to the one person who seemed inclined to show him mercy.

But Sarah had been thinking about the questions that had been asked so far. “The ship has no portholes in the pool area,” she said, frowning. “The room is completely enclosed. During the war, the pool was drained, but that would mean that the temporary berths were positioned…” She looked at Robert.

“Yes, you’ve guessed it.”

“Directly above one of the boilers,” she finished, staring at Hastings now.

“We crossed the damned Equator in a ship built to go from Southampton to New York,” Dolman said. “The tropics, Hastings. Do you know what it’s like to watch men dying of the heat? Suffocating to death? No fresh air, just the stench of people getting sick and sweating and some of them dying. Temperatures over a hundred and ten degrees-and that’s on the upper decks. Down where we were, it was a damned oven, Hastings. I say we put you in that trunk and we heat it up until you feel your blood boiling. You should have had to watch men like young Elliot Parsons die. I had to, Hastings, and I’ll never forget it!”

“There was no way I could have known-” Hastings pleaded. “We were just trying to do our best to fight the war.”

“Until now,” Dolman said, “I didn’t know who made the decisions about how we were going to be loaded in there. There wasn’t any escape for us then, and there shouldn’t be any for you now.”

“You aren’t going to kill me! Not for something that happened so long ago! Not for a simple miscalculation!”

“What do you want from him?” Sarah asked.

“Withdraw from the Congressional race,” Ada said.

“What?”

“And resign from office,” Robert added.

“You’ll never get away with this!”

“People get away with things like this all the time. You’ve been getting away with murder for over fifty years.”

“It wasn’t murder, I tell you! We didn’t know.”

Sarah frowned. “But you must have known.”

“What?”

“The voyage Elliot Parsons sailed on-it wasn’t the first voyage to cross the Equator.” She looked at Hastings. “You didn’t miscalculate. You accepted the fact that some men might die on the voyage.”

There was a long silence, broken only when Robert said, “Bravo, Sarah.”

“We can prove all of this, Hastings,” Ada said. “Retire as a State Senator, or lose an election in shame.”

“Do you think anyone is going to care about what happened then?”

“Put him in the trunk again!” Dolman said. “He’ll have just as much room to move around as we did. Let’s see him win an election from there.”

“No-no! I won’t run for office. I swear I won’t. Just let me out of here!”

“Don’t trust him!” Dolman said.

“There’s another alternative,” Robert said, opening a drawer in a built-in desk.

“What?” Hastings asked, apprehensively.

Robert didn’t answer right away, but when he turned around, he held a syringe.

“What’s in there?” Hastings asked.

“Oh, you’ll just have to trust me,” Robert said, “maybe it will give you a fever-something that will make your blood boil, as Captain Dolman says-or maybe it will just help you to sleep.”

When State Senator Archer Hastings awakened, he was hot, unbearably hot, and thirsty. He was still on the ship, he realized hazily. The damned ship. And, he realized with alarm, he was not in his bed, but in an enclosed space-the trunk. He pushed against the lid-it flew open.

Shaking, he crawled out of it, onto the bed. He was still hot, miserably hot, and the terror of the trunk would not leave him.

He reached for the phone next to his bed, and said thickly, “Help. Send a doctor in to help me. I’m ill.”

Not much later, a doctor did arrive. He stepped into the room and said, “Are you chilled?”

“Chilled? Are you mad? I’m burning up!”

“So am I,” the physician said, and turned down the thermostat. “Open the portholes and you’ll be fine.”

“Those damned people!” Hastings exclaimed.

“Which people?” the doctor said, in the tone of one who has encountered a lunatic.

“Mrs. Ada Milington-is she still aboard?”

“Oh no. I’m the last of Ada’s party still on the ship. She said you’d had a bit too much to drink last night and asked me to make sure you got off the ship all right. She was in a rush.”

“I’ll bet she was.”

“She asked me to give you a message. She said for you to remember that you have an open invitation to a pool party.”

Hastings frowned. “Where’s she off to? I need to talk to her.”

“Oh, I believe she’s well on her way to Glacier Bay by now-one of the Alaskan cruise lines. She said something about her grandchildren getting married at sea. Quite eccentric, Ada,” the doctor mused, as he was taking his leave. “Yes eccentric-but I’d take her seriously, if I were you, sir.” He paused before closing the door. “Shall I ask the hotel to send someone to help you with that trunk?”

“No! I don’t want the damned thing.”

The doctor shrugged and left.

Hastings brooded for a moment, considered the odds of convincing anyone that he had been kidnapped by Ada Milington. He would retire, he decided. There was a sense of relief that came with that decision.

All the same, he continued to feel confined. He hurried to a porthole, opened it and took a deep breath.

For Archer Hastings, it offered no comfort.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Although Archer Hastings and all other characters in “Miscalculation” are entirely fictional, the Queen Mary statistics in this story are real. Under the control of Allied military personnel, the ship made an enormous contribution to the war effort. However, conditions were extremely crowded, and soldiers did die during voyages into the tropics-most often in the cabin class pool area above the boilers. This story is dedicated to memory of those young men.