Aunt Kathleen arranged the lodgings for us all, speaking with one of the runners at the station who found this place, the ‘McDonnell Rooming House at The Beach’. Kathleen is familiar with boarding houses, running one of her own in Chicago and all and seems pleased because this one is close to the cathedral for Mass in the morning.
We are split up across three rooms, the two boys and Jack Brennan sharing one, Maura Brennan, Eileen Brennan, Katie, Peggy and Ellen Joyce in another and myself, Kathleen, and four of the other girls in this room. I heard Ellen telling Pat that it has cost 7s 6d each for the night’s lodgings. Pat told me that’s practically a week’s wages and that the owner must be making a fortune. She seems like a nice enough woman but she breathes heavily when she goes up and down the stairs and an awful smell of sweat comes from her. Thanks be to God we only have to stay for one night.
Poor Peggy is in a dreadful state. I don’t know how it happened ‘cos not a one of us saw him, but she says that a strange man dressed all in black approached her at Queenstown train station. He appeared from nowhere and tapped her on the shoulder. She says she leapt nearly ten feet into the air, not knowing who the man was at all. She tried to pass him a few pennies from her purse, thinking he must be a traveller, but he refused them and told her that she was going on a long journey and there would be a terrible disaster but she would survive. He then disappeared into the crowds. She’s a bit shaken up with it all. What with this and Joe Kenny’s tea leaves, I’m almost beside myself with the nerves now. Kathleen says we’re letting our imaginations run away with us and reminded us that we couldn’t be sailing on a safer ship.
I’ve been thinking about Séamus a lot since we left Ballysheen and wondering what he says in his letters. I have them in my coat pocket for safe keeping - I haven’t opened the packet yet. I think I should wait until we’re far out at sea before I read them – I’m half afraid that if he has written too fondly, or offered a proposal of marriage I might do something silly and run off to be with him again. Kathleen wouldn’t be best pleased if I did something like that so I’ll wait until we’re on the ship. I can be sure I won’t be doing any running off to him when there are miles of cold, dark, ocean stretching between us.
Kathleen says that Titanic will be on her way from France by now, and should arrive to Queenstown by mid-morning. All going well, we should be sailing by mid-afternoon. I can’t imagine what it will feel like to be on the water - I’ve never seen a steam liner, other than the pictures Peggy showed me in the newspaper. I wonder what I’ll think of this ship after all the talk and the fuss. It is only a ship when all is said and done. I might not think much of it at all.
Anyway, it’s getting late now and Kathleen is fussing about getting a decent sleep for the journey tomorrow so I’ve told her I’ll be finished in a few minutes. Most of the others are already asleep, tired out from our journey today. It already seems to have taken so long to get here and New York is another week away. How in the name of God we are going to fare on a boat for seven days I do not know.
CHAPTER 6 - Queenstown, County Cork, Ireland, 1912
‘For the love of God girl, would you look at the time, it’s gone eleven. Put that book down, whatever it is you’re scribblin’, and get some sleep now. We’ve an early start in the morning and there’s plenty more miles to be travelled yet before we reach America.’
Although tired from the long day of travelling, Kathleen Murphy was restless herself. She was relieved to have finally started their journey but anxious to be back in her comfortable home in Chicago with her familiar belongings and just her sister and her niece for company. She didn’t mind most of the others in their party - with the exception perhaps of Ellen Joyce who she found a bit superior - but large groups were not something Kathleen usually surrounded herself with. She found them a bit unnecessary.
It was no surprise to those who knew Kathleen that it was she who had galvanised the group of travellers to make this journey to America, that it was she who had brought back tantalising tales of prosperity and opportunity which had captured the imaginations of the women and men of Ballysheen who wished for more in life than failed harvests and employment in the cotton mills of England, that it was she who had mentioned, quite matter-of-factly, that the Titanic would sail from Queenstown in Cork on 11th April and anyone who wished to be aboard could obtain their ticket from the local White Star Line shipping agent, Thomas Durcan of Castlebar, at a cost of £7 15s. Kathleen Murphy was a formidable force when she set her mind to something.