Between Two Worlds by Iona Grey

A velvet night scattered with sequin stars. The Queen Mary is a floating kingdom, suspended between two worlds. On its deck a man stands with his wife, looking out across the dark ocean. Their faces are turned away from the country they have left – their home – and towards the distant promise of America.

The man has already travelled a long way. He has travelled from Switzerland to England, from tragedy to success, from Fritz Butzer to Frederick Belmont. He has left behind loss and grief, and found love, fulfilment and a new family in his thriving business, bringing exquisite Parisian confectionary to the people of Yorkshire. As he stands at the rail of the opulent ship with his wife Claire beside him, he is content.

A little distance away stands a woman. She is alone, wearing a thin dress, elegantly cut in the latest style but insufficient to keep out the night’s chill. Like them, she looks forward, her face tipped into the sea breeze which ruffles her fashionably shingled hair. She is poised and composed, her expression unreadable in the glow of light from the saloon. They wonder who she is; where she’s come from, where she’s going. An American heiress, returning home, they speculate. An aspiring actress, heading to Hollywood.

Over the days that follow they see her on the sun deck, by the staircase, always alone. A Russian aristocrat, they hazard; a Parisian seamstress on her way to work for a New York socialite. She is not, like them, a first-class passenger. Her stockings have a darn, Claire notices, and her hat has been re-trimmed. A lady’s maid? A Russian aristocrat who has fled with nothing? They have not heard her speak and wonder if she has no English. Frederick, who is fluent in German and French, imagines speaking to her, but something holds him back. The suspicion that it would be an intrusion, perhaps. A wish to preserve the mystery.

To each of them she represents something different, something compelling. To Claire she is the embodiment of freedom and independence: a woman striking out alone to experience the world on her own terms without the small concessions and compromises that come with marriage. To Frederick she represents courage, determination. He senses suffering behind her self-possession and her solo voyage on this sumptuous ship reminds him of his own journey; his quest to make something beautiful in the ashes of tragedy.  She is the spirit of his beloved Bettys.

On the last night they venture to the Starlight Club, which opens in the Verandah Grill in the late evening. The room is transformed, the long mural that runs along one wall lit up, bringing the exotic figures to life like performers on a stage, making the fur of the tiger ripple, the lithe panther seem poised to jump down and prowl through the couples on the dancefloor. A pianist plays and the air is smoky with Turkish cigarettes, perfumed with Mitsouko and Macassar oil. As they are shown to a table they spot her, dancing with a silver-haired American gentleman with whom they have shared a table at breakfast. She is wearing a dress in rose-pink silk that shimmers as she moves, and long rose-pink satin gloves. She holds herself at a careful distance, her back very straight. The pianist plays The Very Thought of You and, as she turns, they see that her expression is wistful. Her eyes are fixed on the curve of windows, as if she can see through the heavy velvet curtains and is looking at the place where the dark sea meets the night sky; the horizon they have left behind.

They lose sight of her as the kaleidoscope of dancers shifts and, ordering sparkling Starlight Club Cocktails from an impeccably-dressed waiter, they are swept up in the music and the glamour of the evening. Frederick takes in all the detail – the clean lines, fluted columns and etched glass; the marquetry dance floor beneath the shifting feet of the couples – and is dazzled by dreams and possibilities as he sips the pink-hued drink. Such modern opulence, such fashionable elegance – could he recreate it in one of England’s most ancient cities? Spearing the cherry in her glass, Claire sighs with pleasure and remarks that the champagne cocktail tastes like a marriage of their Engadine Japonaise and a raspberry joconde cake. In other words, exquisite.

A little later they see the woman in the pink dress again. She is alone, and as she nears their table she opens her little silver evening bag to look inside. At that moment a florid-faced man pushes his chair back to get up, knocking her arm so she drops her bag. The contents scatter on the carpet around her pearl-grey shoes.

Frederick leaps to his feet to help. Younger and more agile than he, she has already dropped down to gather up her things, brushing off the florid man’s apologies. Frederick retrieves the last item, which has rolled a little distance away. There is no time to register properly what it is as he hands it back. A lipstick perhaps, or a small perfume flagon? It is surprisingly heavy; cold and smooth between his fingers, and he has a fleeting impression of two eyes looking up at him.

The woman thanks him as she quickly takes it from him. Her voice is slightly breathless and her fingers, in the rose satin gloves, curl tightly around the object as if she is protecting something precious. For a moment their eyes meet, and then she is gone.

She is neither a Russian aristocrat nor a Parisian seamstress. She is not American. Her accent, Claire remarks in astonishment, is Yorkshire! Frederick nods absently. He is thinking about the object she dropped from her bag. He understands now what it was, though he cannot fathom its meaning.

Why would a woman, sailing to the new world, carry with her a carved stone ghost?

The End