Titanic Ashes by Paul Butler Page A

undeniable jingle to it, a flighty,
feather-swift quickening of the pulse in time to the
ragtime rhythm of the band, a timorous excitement at the
flutter of a lady’s fan as she passes. Free at last, she thinks,
and inwardly she congratulates herself.
    All evening, since spying Mr. Ismay, she has been too
afraid to leave her seat, but her mother’s declaration
made hiding impossible. There was suddenly only one
course she could take. She must draw out the accuser and
get it all over with. And what surprised her most was the
sudden thrill of the idea, nestling within the terror like an
exquisite blossom within a pile of broken glass. If she
could get through a confrontation, if she could outface heryounger self, disown it with some kind of apology, some
sign of recompense, it would be like eradicating a poison
that has sapped her strength for so long she can barely
remember life as it was before.
    She knew she would be followed. She understood the
subtle transfer of energies that existed in public spaces—
who noticed whom, who was drawn to whom—and
assumed it must be something in her blood, a trait she had
inherited from Mother. Actors and actresses understood
people, had a sense of the magnetic-like forces that
commanded attention and spurred excitement. There was
something inherently dishonest, even cowardly, about the
retreat designed to draw forth a pursuer and give oneself
the opportunity to relent. And the moment the Ismay girl
came through the bathroom door, shimmering ivory dress
bluish in the bathroom light, she felt both ashamed of the
device and excited by the power of her own instinct. It
was a courtship of a kind, an ancient pattern known in
classical and medieval rhymes, the hunter disguising
herself as the hunted, and she partly despised herself for
it even while she basked in the relief of her success.
    Miranda catches sight of her mother, whose eyes shine
with that strange guarded pleasure as she speaks to her
prospective son-in-law, and suddenly wonders what else
she might have inherited from her. Miranda knows herself
to be quite unlike her mother in the more obvious ways,
reticent in company while her mother seems formidable,boyish and sober in dress while her mother veers toward
the flamboyant and feminine. Tonight, only, Miranda has
made an exception with silken green, a compliment of
sorts to her mother’s mint green sewn with onyx
gemstones. Though her dress is plainer than her mother’s
garb, she rather regrets even this much compromise as it
draws more eyes than she is used to.
    The differences between mother and daughter are
notable enough, Miranda thinks. But a shudder of fear
moves through her as she sits, catching her mother’s
inevitable half-questioning, potentially disapproving
glance, and shrinks under its influence. She is, and always
has been, terrified of the woman known to the outside
world as Agnes Grimsden, has always personified her as
an awaiting catastrophe. The sparkle of gold, diamond,
and pearl seems uncannily akin to the carefully arranged
glasses and dinnerware on board the Titanic itself; she
imagines the dreadful buckling, twisting, smashing
sounds building to a cacophony were her mother to tip
from her chair and slip to the ground.
    But her mother is only part of Miranda’s terror. It’s also
the manifold similarities between them that might be
hidden beneath the surface. Shyness is not a character
trait; it’s merely an absence of words in a given situation.
If one were to remove her inhibitions, who is to say what
other differences might evaporate? Dressing boyishly, for
instance, is as much the fashion today as adornmentswere in Mother’s era. She shares her mother’s frightening
ability to read people, to know what will lure them, and
what scares and depresses them. And when Miranda did
act that one time against the Ismays, it was her idea, not
her mother’s, even though the sentiments may have been
borrowed from her parent.
    Even while Miranda tries to seek