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it? Look! Over there! Do you see the young woman in the home-made dress! She must have wandered up here from steerage. Do you think I should tell the stewards?’
    ‘No, don’t,’ came another woman’s voice. ‘It is too delicious. I only hope she goes into the dining-room. I am longing to see if she knows which cutlery to use.’
    ‘She’s probably more used to eating with her fingers, don’t you think so, Carl?’ came the first voice.
    Emilia’s spirits sank. It was bad enough to be humiliated, but to be humiliated in front of Mr Latimer was worse.
    ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she heard him reply. ‘I dare say she knows how to use a fork and spoon, although I must admit she’s unlikely to use a knife as efficiently as you, Ida.’
    There was a stunned silence from the ladies, and Emilia laughed. Looking up she caught his eye in one of the gilded mirrors. He inclined his head, and she inclined hers in reply. He had been bested in the matter of her stateroom, and she had been routed when trying to help his mother, but it seemed a truce had been declared between them.
    She only hoped it would last until she disembarked in half a day’s time.
     

Chapter Three
     
     
    ‘There are ten floors on the Titanic , miss,’ said the waiter helpfully as Emilia studied the breakfast menu the following morning. ‘There are the state rooms, of course, then there are the sitting rooms, the libraries, the cafés, the Turkish baths and the exercise rooms. The gymnasium is just off the boat deck, and the swimming pool —’
    ‘Swimming pool?’ asked Emilia in surprise.
    ‘Yes, miss. It might not be filled yet. The water’s too dirty close to shore and we have to wait until we’re in the open sea, but it will soon be ready for use. Then there’s the squash court, and of course it’s very pleasant up on deck.’
    ‘I won’t have time to see half of it, or even a quarter,’ said Emilia. ‘I’ll be leaving the ship at Queenstown. We dock at lunchtime, I think?’
    ‘Yes, miss, that’s right.’
    ‘I will just have to see how much I can fit in before then.’
    She had managed to see the reading room and the library the night before, and she had eaten in the dining-room, where not even the titters of some of the ladies at the sight of her home-made dress had been enough to dim her enjoyment, but there were still plenty more things she wanted to see.
    After a breakfast of fresh fruit, poached eggs and soda and sultana scones, with Norborne honey and Oxford marmalade, she carried on with her explorations. Just as she came to the Grand Staircase, however, she saw a familiar figure. It was the elderly lady she had glimpsed through the stateroom door the day before, Mrs Latimer. Mrs Latimer was sitting on the bottom step, looking most unwell.
    Emilia went over to her in concern. ‘Are you feeling all right?’ she asked.
    ‘No, dear, I’m feeling a bit queer,’ said Mrs Latimer in a weak voice. ‘Can you help me up, do you think? It’s my legs. They won’t do what I want them to.’
    Emilia felt a rush of guilt. She had told Mr Latimer there was nothing wrong with his mother, and had suggested the elderly lady be encouraged to go on deck, but she had been quite wrong. She only hoped it was not her own words that had caused the present situation. If Mrs Latimer had heard her talking in the stateroom the day before, and then been encouraged to go out alone with such disastrous results, Emilia felt she would never forgive herself. Why had she interfered? she asked herself in mortification, as she put her hand gently beneath Mrs Latimer’s elbow.
    ‘Is your companion not with you?’ she said, as Mrs Latimer, half risen, fell back on to the stair again.
    ‘No, dear. She’s feeling poorly so I left her behind. She doesn’t travel well on ships. It’s the throbbing of the engines. They make her feel sick. Thank you,’ said Mrs Latimer, as she finally managed with Emilia’s aid, to rise to her feet. ‘You’re a