The Death of Edith Evans

Georgina Garrison looked down at the piece of paper that had been given to her at the entrance to the exhibition. Edith Evans. Thirty-five. Unaccompanied. First class. Georgina laughed. Two out of three wasn’t bad.

Wandering between the artefacts, Georgina was unfazed by her designation of passenger on the RMS Titanic. She knew enough about the disaster to know that all but four first class women survived the sinking. One stayed behind to perish with her husband. The others, who knew why those poor souls perished in a time when their gender and class should have all but assured their survival.

When Georgina reached the wall with the list of the passengers, she immediately sought Edith’s name among the survivors. She wasn’t there. Georgina checked again, even looking for Edith under her middle name. Nothing. Eventually, Georgina looked among the lost, and there she was. Edith Corse Evans, one of the four first class women to take her final breath under the icy Atlantic Ocean.

Georgina travelled home with a heaviness she found irrational. There was no reason for her to care about Edith Evans; certainly no more so than any of the other 1500 people who died in the early hours of 15 April 1912. Yet, as soon as Georgina arrived home, she was researching the woman who had gained an inexplicable hold on her.

The first thing Georgina noticed was the errors. Edith had been thirty-six when she died and had boarded the Titanic at Cherbourg, not Southampton. The other information appeared true, but the most exceptional part was what hadn’t been written on the card. Edith had not just perished, but willingly given up her chance to live. All to ensure the survival of her friend Caroline Brown.

Like nearly everything associated with the Titanic, there was no one account of what happened to Edith, except that she insisted Caroline go in the last lifeboat to be successfully launched from the Titanic ahead of her, so that Caroline may be reunited with her children. Some reported that lifeboat was all but full, just one place to be divided between two friends. Others said it was lowered prematurely with more than thirty empty seats. Leaving behind those who could have lived, like so many of the lifeboats that night.

Some said Edith insisted she would take the next lifeboat. It was reported she seemed calm while icy water gathered around her feet as the Titanic sunk lower in the ocean. One article even suggested Edith had made it to the collapsible lifeboat A and stood upon its upturned hull until she finally succumbed to the cold.

Georgina slipped off her jumper and track pants, leaving her standing in her swimmers in the cool morning air. As she stepped into the water, she forced her mind to ignore the chill that was swamping her, but today she could only think of Edith. Winter water temperatures in Sydney would never match that of the Atlantic. Georgina knew that within a few laps of the ocean pool, she would be warm enough that it would be harder to get out than stay in.

Even in the depths of winter, on the coldest of mornings, Georgina would never be able to recreate the pain of being flung from the Titanic’s deck. Yet as she waded after her swim, Georgina tried to determine if she would’ve give up her chance to live for another. As an unmarried woman with no children, just as Edith was, would her mother friends be worthier of rescue than herself?

So much changed after Titanic. Lifeboats for all. A near-classless society. Moves towards gender equality. Georgina wondered if she would expect a man to step aside for her, for no other reason than that she was a woman. It seemed heartless, yet so did the concept of a man, or any other person, forcing her aside so they could live, damning her to death.

Two-thirds of the passengers and crew died that night, when there was more selfishness than heroism. Boats half-full. Few going back for survivors. Perhaps that was what made Edith’s sacrifice so noteworthy. Heroism in the face of overwhelming self-interest and cautiousness.

The wind picked up as Georgina stepped out of the pool. Normally Georgina would’ve rushed to dry off and warm up, but today she stood there, her body chilling quickly. Edith Evans. Calm. Accepting of the death she believed foreseen by a fortune teller. Comforted by the knowledge of her friend’s survival. But how long could that calm have lasted?

Edith’s body was never recovered. Her final moments never documented. They were the details that tortured Georgina’s mind as she stood shivering in cold winter air. When the Titanic finally slid under the Atlantic, was Edith dragged down with it, or was she left bobbing on the surface in her life jacket? At what point did panic set in? Or was the water so cold that all thought was extinguished?

If there was one thing Georgina had always feared, it was drowning; opening her mouth, knowing nothing but water awaited her lungs. As a child she had been told it was a peaceful death, but the more she considered it, the more she believed it to be one of the worst ways to go. Almost certainly conscious until the end, there would be nothing but terror until the moment that last breath was taken.

Edith was one of more than 1500 to die that night. No more special or loved than any of the others lost. Probably not even the one with the most in common with Georgina. But though rank and social standing determined who made it into the lifeboats, the ocean took the rest with fearful equality. Perhaps that was why Georgina felt such a bond with Edith Evans, because side-by-side in the ocean that night, they would have been indistinguishable, nothing able to save them from identical deaths and sinking into the icy depths of the Atlantic alongside the Titanic.