Sam,
You know this is an easy deduction to make, and unfortunately you're not alone in feeling as you do, but the view of Lady Duff Gordon as self-absorbed is just plain unfair and incorrect. People believe that because that's what's always been said, looking in from the outside, if you will.
I made a point to find out more and over years of research have come up with the conclusion that this extraordinary woman was indeed often spoiled, vain, judgemental, temperamental, and selfish, but I also discovered (to my own initial surprise)that she was an affectionate, warm-hearted, giving, emotional, lively, humorous, out-spoken, fair-minded, ambitious, talented, intelligent, hard-working, inspiring person whom people not only greatly admired but greatly loved.
It is always a fallacy to characterize someone's life by one trait, negative or positive.
For myself, I don't see her as self-absorbed at the crucial moment you speak of. She was seasick in an open boat in the middle of the ocean in the middle of the night and was trying to make small talk with her secretary to pass the awful time - that's how I see it. Her comment was about Miss Francatelli's night gown, obviously a gift from her employer which "Franks," as she was nicknamed, had been very proud of. To me that shows she was a generous employer who cared for her young assistant. She by the way did not complain about losing her own possessions.
For the record, Franks remained devoted to Lucile; even years later she wrote to Walter Lord complaining that his intrepretation of the "nightdress" incident was all wrong - that it misrepresented Lucile grossly, and moreover that it did NOT occur - this is an important point - as the Titanic sank. Also, Lucile in her memoirs says the statement took place some time later when they were all trying to make feeble jokes and talk just to hold their wits together. Her words were also not, according to her, the sweeping "There is your beautiful nightdress gone" which is a powerful sound-bite (& has been much quoted in books)but was rather less dramatic. The words as she recalled them were said to Franks after surveying the grab-bag assortment of clothes she had flung on in haste: "Just fancy, you've actually left your beautiful nightdress behind." Not such an odd statement for a woman (especially a fashion designer!)to make, though surely a trivial one in such a moment.
Also nobody ever takes into account that the sailors in boat 1 were bemoaning the fact that they had lost THEIR possessions - to the point where Sir Cosmo finally offered them some money to keep them until they found a new post. This was of course misconstrued.
I won't go on anymore. This will be an endless debate.
Believe whatever you want to - we all will anyway.
Thanks,
Randy
