Free Every Man for Himself by Beryl Bainbridge Page A

as if I thought she should have chosen to jump from a third class rail rather than a first.
    Rosenfelder’s face was wreathed in smiles. From the way he looked at her he was already taking measurements. Embarrassed, mostly on my own account, I said, ‘It is most distressing for you, but hardly worth dying for.’
    ‘Few things are,’ observed Scurra, and laughed heartily. To my astonishment she joined in, though whether it was to keep him sweet or because she was hysterical I couldn’t judge. He seemed to think she was in her right mind, for he offered to escort her back to E deck. Foolishly, I blurted out that it would look pretty rum if one of the stewards saw him with a steerage passenger.
    ‘What an extraordinary chap you are,’ he said. ‘What does it matter what anyone thinks?’
    I was mortified at having let myself down. I wanted his approval even more than my dinner and became wretchedly unctuous, offering my assistance to the woman, boasting of my connections, my influence aboard ship. When I’d finished making a show of myself she thanked me, the way one thanks a small child who offers to shoulder a bag it can scarcely lift. Rosenfelder, meantime, had fetched needle and thread and sewn her coat together. He addressed her as Adele and promised that in the morning he would find her some buttons. Then she covered that glorious hair with her hat and went off with Scurra.
    We were late sitting down at the Duff Gordons’ table. Rosenfelder was all for grovelling until I explained it wasn’t good form to apologise. The Carters and Bruce Ismay were there, together with an English journalist called Stead who appeared to command respect. At President Taft’s invitation he was on his way to make the closing speech at a convention bent on inducing businessmen to take an active part in religious movements.
    ‘Great God,’ murmured Ismay when he caught Stead’s drift.
    I knew how he felt. My uncle was a regular, even fanatical church-goer, as were most of his associates on Wall Street, and they too would have considered it sacrilege to mix scripture with commerce.
    I began to enjoy myself, which I hadn’t expected. I found Lady Duff Gordon entertaining – I soon forgot to call her Mrs Morgan – and forthright to an extent that might have passed for coarseness in a younger woman. She had a long thin face and a haughty expression, but that was just her style. Almost the instant I sat down she said she was glad to see I hadn’t inherited the Morgan nose. I couldn’t see any point in telling her there was no reason I should have; instead I dwelt on the trouble my uncle’s notable facial protuberance had caused him in his younger days, meaning he’d suffered agonies of self-consciousness over its size.
    ‘It’s not the only protuberance that’s given him trouble,’ she dryly remarked.
    She was extremely good at dealing with people. Twice she adroitly punctured one of Ismay’s more impatient utterances, without being offensive. And she took a positive shine to Rosenfelder, which endeared her to me. He, poor fellow, though delighted, perspired copiously under her attentions. He was having no luck with the barber’s miracle lotion, his hair curling more wantonly by the minute.
    ‘I am head of the dress firm of Madame Lucile,’ she told him. ‘You may have heard of it. You must come and visit me in New York.’
    ‘Mrs Duff,’ I heard him reply, evidently confused by the multiplicity of her names. ‘That I should be given such an opportunity!’
    I spent five minutes engaged in a stilted exchange with Bruce Ismay, whom I knew quite well and didn’t care for. Unlike most Englishmen, he lacked apathy. He asked me if I had enjoyed my time at Harland and Wolff.
    ‘Yes, indeed,’ I said. He had put the same question many times before and received the same answer. I asked him whether he thought we were going to break any records on our maiden voyage, and he replied something to the effect that heads would