MR. BAXLEY PUTS A PLEASE CALL AGAIN SIGN UP ON HIS DESK AND escorts me into the special archives section. Excitement gathers inside me as we walk past familiar doorways and delve deep into the bowels of the library toward areas students aren’t otherwise allowed. By the time we reach our destination, I’m nearly jumping out of my skin. The anticipation is too much.
We enter a locked room under harsh white lighting where equipment covers lab tables.
“What is all this?” I ask, a bit awed as I examine our surroundings.
“Document authentication, restoration, and preservation.”
I resist the urge to let out an excited squeal. I doubt Mr. Baxley would appreciate losing the use of his eardrums.
“Over here,” he says, and my gaze follows his gesturing hand.
On a table, inside a clear plastic bag, is a leather-bound book. It’s warped and tattered and looks like it was flushed down a toilet a hundred years ago.
“A friend of mine recently had access to a collection of artifacts from the Victoria that have never been on public display before. This journal was among them.”
I turn toward him, my jaw gaping wide. “This was on the Victoria?”
“Recovered from the wreck.” He bats my hand away when I reach for the precious book. “I can’t let you handle it. However, she did agree to provide me with photos of its entries. These were among them. I suggest you read the top entry first.”
“Am I allowed to include these in my paper?”
“Indeed. These copies are for you.”
Mr. Baxley hands me a stack of printed papers featuring close-up photographs of the yellowed journal pages.
“There’s almost no water damage,” I say, marveling at the legibility of the handwriting.
“The journal was kept in a safe. It remained remarkably watertight for years on the ocean floor. They suspect the seal had only recently begun to fail when it was recovered. Just a small amount water had been inside, according to the report at the time. Much of the damage is the result of depressurization when the safe was brought up and opened.”
My heart is pounding as I lower my gaze to the page Mr. Baxley indicated.
The journal entry is short. Written by a noblewoman on her way to America aboard the Victoria, it describes an evening on the ship at the captain’s table. With a rather dry wit, she provides observations about members of her dinner party.
A banker distracted by the wife of the British general who had excused himself from dinner due to a bout of seasickness.
The stage actor she suspected was spending his last precious pennies to travel first class to America in hopes of reviving his fading career.
A railroad magnate who wouldn’t stop talking the captain’s ear off about steel and Irish labor.
None of it seems to be of much relevance until she mentions bumping into a young man on the main deck after dinner. A young man who happened to be the middle son of her good friend, Duchess Tulley.
A young man called William Tulley.
Who was joined by his lovely young bride, Josephine.
They had just eloped and were setting off to America to begin a new life together.
I look at up at Mr. Baxley’s expectant smile.
“Eureka,” he says.
I rock backward, utterly winded by the discovery. I feel like someone swung a sledgehammer at my chest. Along with the elation of discovering who Josephine chose, I feel a sudden pang of loss. Heartbreak. Josephine followed William and his wanderlust across the ocean only to perish beneath the icy black waves. Their love was a tragedy, and they’d been driven to their deaths by class and circumstance. Rivalry and expectation. Cursed.
But maybe it’s also romantic. What little time they had together, they seized it, undeterred by the unknown. She and William left the safety of his wealth and everything she’d ever known for whatever trials lay west. They fled as a married couple, eager to meet the challenges of postwar America together, with their love and fortitude to guide them.
Yes, their young lives were cut short, but they left this earth together, and maybe that’s enough. It’s certainly more than a lot of people get.
And much more than many of us will ever attempt.
Mr. Baxley leads me out the door, back through the archives toward the main room.
“Is it the answer you hoped for?”
It’s the first thing he’s said since I finished reading the journal entry, as if he knew I needed time to absorb it all.
I inhale a slow, pensive breath. “Do you think she ever regretted her decision?”
He questions me over the rim of his glasses.
“When the water was pouring in over the side and filling the hallways. Do you think she wished she’d never heard the name Tulley?”
“I’d like to believe”—Mr. Baxley takes off his glasses and pulls a small handkerchief from his breast pocket to wipe them—“in our final moments, we think of the people we love and what we leave behind. That it’s far too late for regrets.”
“Thank you, Mr. Baxley,” I tell this odd, serious, perceptive man who has become a friend. “For all your help.”
“My pleasure. I presume you have what you need?”
“I think so. Now I just need to write it all down.”
Which is the first thing I do when I get home an hour later. I’m still riding a high from the discovery, so pumped full of adrenaline that I race upstairs, grab my laptop, and start writing. My paper will finally have the resolution it so desperately needs. The closure I need.
I update the last section, sourcing the journal entries from the Victoria, my thoughts flying out faster than my fingers can accommodate. I type like a madwoman, revealing Josephine and William Tulley’s ill-fated journey, the tragic ending to their love story.
After I hit Save, I stretch out my fingers and crack my knuckles, damn pleased with myself. I’m done.
No.
Fuck. Maybe I’m not done, I amend, suddenly remembering the emails I received earlier in the week from the shipping company and Ruby Farnham. I totally forgot to go over them.
Damn it.
“Lee,” I call out toward the hall. I can hear him puttering around in his bedroom.
“Yes, my love?”
“Can I send something to your printer? It’s…ah, looks to be about eighty pages. Is that okay? I’ll buy you a new box of paper tomorrow.”
“No problem. I’ll turn it on for you.”
Thirty minutes later, I return to my room with a crisp stack of printouts courtesy of Lee’s color laser printer. The paper is still warm to the touch as I flop back on my bed, flipping through pages. I start with the documents courtesy of Steve from Global Cruise Initiatives, which seem boring at first, until something catches my eye and wrinkles my forehead.
It’s a minor detail. Or maybe a coincidence. I’m not entirely sure yet, so I shift my focus to the family papers provided by Ruby’s cousin Catherine.
I go through them one painstaking page at a time until it becomes glaringly evident I’m not dealing with a coincidence here.
Gripping the last page, fingers trembling with excitement, I stare at the unmistakable truth. Right there on the page.
“Oh my God,” I breathe.
