A Moonless Night: A Moonless Night - Chapter Three Photos and Information

On Titanic's second day of sailing, she sailed overnight from Cherbourg, France to Queenstown, Ireland (now known as Cobh, pronounced "cove"). Titanic arrived in Queenstown at 11:10 a.m., where some passengers disembarked, as they were just "cross-channel" passengers - that is they were only sailing from Southampton or Cherbourg to Ireland. This is where many of the known photographs of Titanic have come from, most notably from Francis M. Browne, a thirty-two year old teacher who sailed from Southampton to Queenstown. He was travelling with the Odell family, who also are credited with many of the known photographs that exist. The Odells and Mr. Browne disembarked at Queenstown, where they went on to tour the Irish countryside by motorcar.

Anchored off of Roche's Point, Titanic unloaded her cross-channel passengers and outgoing mail, while tenders ferried on more mail, Irish linen, lace and souvenirs, and loaded mostly third-class passengers. At 1:30 p.m., Titanic pulled anchor and steamed west along the southern coast of Ireland and by sunset, had reached open sea; by nightfall the Irish mountains could faintly be seen in the distance and many emigrants on board realized that this would be their last sight of Europe - perhaps forever.

During the Edwardian (and Victorian) era, there were rules for how to dress at all times of the day and for different activities and events. For informal activities, like breakfast, women would wear what was called a "wrapper" or morning dress; usually something that could be worn without a corset but was still acceptable to be seen in while at home.

Back view of Bella's morning gown

Side/front view of Bella's morning gown

After breakfast, ladies would then get dressed for the day, either for whatever activity they had planned or in a day or afternoon dress/gown - sometimes called "tea" gowns/dresses.

On Titanic, there were several options for first and second class passengers who wished to take a walk on deck: both classes had open air promenades and enclosed promenade decks. First and second class shared space on the Boat Deck, with signs and barricades keeping them separated.

Second class promenade on the Boat Deck - at the right, far back you can see the barricade that separated first class from second. On the left in the foreground, you can see the second class entrance.

First class enclosed promenade on B Deck - no photographs exist of the second class enclosed promenade on C Deck, but it's safe to say that they were very similar.

Bella's day gown

peridot earrings

Silk shawl

Esme's afternoon dress

For those unfamiliar with afternoon tea and what it is comprised of, this is a great article about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afternoon_tea#Afternoon_tea Tea was a light meal, usually served between luncheon and dinner, around 4 p.m. There was tea (of course!), sometimes coffee or hot chocolate, finger sandwiches, small cakes or cookies, scones, etc.

Here's an example of a tea set (I'm lucky enough to have two complete sets just like this that belonged to Hubward's great-grandparents):

From left to right: top row - tea pot, chocolate pot, coffee pot
bottom row - slop bowl, sugar bowl, cream pitcher

On Titanic, the meal schedule was as follows: Breakfast at 8 a.m., Luncheon at noon, Tea at 4 p.m. and Dinner at 7 p.m. In second class, the passengers had most of the same luxuries as first class (in fact,they shared the same galley), though dress at dinner varied from suits and afternoon/suit dresses to tuxedos and evening gowns. Since the Cullens are somewhat upper middle class, I've chosen to reflect this by their manner of dress - Carlisle wears a tuxedo to dinner and the ladies change into evening gowns.