I do not own Titanic. If I did, Cal would have died, not Jack.
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The gleaming superstructure of the majestic Titanic stood towering before the thousands of people in the swarming crowd. Beyond its white and shiny railing, its huge four buff-colored funnels stood like great pillars against the ever-blue sky, acting as symbols to represent the greatness of the steamer. The crewmen on the decks looked like tiny ants to the crowd below, dwarfed completely by the awesome scale of the luxury liner.
It was April 10th, 1912, in Southampton, England. Today was the day Titanic would set sail for the very first time on its maiden voyage at twelve o'clock sharp, and all of England, rich and poor, young and old, family and friends, had come to see their loved ones board the magnificent, unsinkable ship that would take them to America. The crewmen on the dock moved rapidly in all directions. Although most of the passengers were already on board, there were still lots for them to do. Many were securing the luggage that passengers from first-class had brought with them, and loading the extra cargo that was being brought aboard. Several crewmembers were slowly lowering a beautiful, burgundy Renault car that was hanging from a loading crane, aboard. Others were in charge of providing last-minute health inspections to third-class immigrants. They were checking them for all types of maladies, but mainly for lice. No one in first-class would tolerate sharing the great Titanic with lowly immigrants they could possibly catch lice from.
One man in line to be inspected along with his family, scooped up his daughter so she could get a better view of the ship, and said, "That's a big boat, huh, Cora?"
"Daddy," said the little girl known as Cora Cartmell, "It's a ship!"
"You're right," said her father with a chuckle.
Meanwhile, a fancy white Renault followed by a silver-gray Daimler–Bene were currently navigating through the crowd, honking repeatedly so people would clear a path for them. When they finally came to a halt, the driver of the white Renault hurriedly got out and opened the door. A young woman of seventeen stepped out. She was dressed in a stunning white and purple dress. Her beautiful, curly red hair was pinned back in a low bun, and hidden completely underneath a splendid feather hat. Her emerald green eyes studied the ship with cool appraisal. This regal, first-class woman was called Rose Dewitt Bukater.
A man who looked to be in his early thirties climbed out behind her. He was her fiancé, Caledon Hockley. The heir to the Hockley Steel Corporations in Philadelphia. Despite being extremely handsome and wealthy, Rose knew him to be extremely arrogant.
"I don't see what all the fuss is about," Rose said coolly, unable to bear listening to everyone around her look at the ship in awe. "It doesn't look any bigger than the Mauretania."
Cal laughed. "You can be blasé about some things, Rose," he told her, "but not about Titanic! It's over a hundred feet longer than the Mauretania, and far more luxurious. It has squash courts, a Parisian café… and even Turkish baths." He turned to help her mother, Ruth Dewitt Bukater, out of the Renault. "Your daughter is far too difficult to impress, Ruth."
Ruth let out a small, refined laugh, one that Rose knew quite well. It meant she was displeased with her. Then she gazed up at the ship.
"So this is the ship they say is unsinkable," she said.
"It is unsinkable!" He said with pride. "God himself could not sink this sh–"
"Sir!" said one of the White Star Line porters as he scurried over to them. "You'll have to check your baggage through the main terminal. It's around that way, sir."
Cal merely reached into his pocket, and brought out a fat wad of bills, which he gave to the porter. "I put my faith in you, good sir. Now, kindly see my man," he gestured to his personal bodyguard, Spicer Lovejoy.
The porter stared at the enormous tip he had been given before crying out, "Oh, yes sir! My pleasure, sir! If I can do anything at all–"
"Oh yes," said Lovejoy, leading the poor porter around the car to show him all of their luggage. "All the trunks are in this car here, twelve from there," he pointed to the silver Daimler, "and the safe, to the parlor suite rooms B-52, 54, and 56."
Cal checked his pocket watch. "Ladies," he said, "we'd better hurry." He led Ruth, Rose, and her personal maid, Trudy Bolt, toward the gangplank, leaving Lovejoy to continue dealing with the porter.
As they weaved nearer to the gangplank through the jostling crowd, Rose couldn't help noticing a well-dressed young man was cranking the handle of a new wooden "cinematography" camera that was mounted upon a tripod. She recognized him to be Daniel Marvin, the son of the man who had founded the Biograph Film Studio. He was filming his wife, Mary, in front of the Titanic. She stood very stiffly, and her smile was very self-conscious.
"Look up at the ship, darling," Rose heard Daniel call out to his wife. "That's it! You're amazed! You can't believe how big it is! Like a mountain! That's great!"
Rose couldn't help but wonder if Daniel Marvin was blinded by his love for his wife to realize that she did not have a single acting fiber in her body, considering the horrible Clara Bow pantomime she was currently doing with her hands raised.
Rose frowned as she paused momentarily to watch them. Being a moving film actress had once been one of her own dreams, until she remembered her place in high society. Girls like her didn't become moving film actresses. They were to marry at a young age to wealthy and successful men, and then spend the rest of their lives providing their husbands with sons to take over their businesses when they were older. In her opinion, it was fate worse than death.
Rose was brought out of her daze when Cal forcefully grabbed her arm, and dragged her toward the gangplank. As he did, two yelling, excited steerage boys, shoved past him as they ran toward the gangplank. He was bumped again a moment later by a man who looked as though he was their father.
"Steady!" he yelled, affronted by the small collisions.
"Sorry, squire," the man said before running after his children.
"Steerage swine," Cal scoffed as he brushed himself off. "Apparently missed their annual baths." Ruth sneered at the small family.
"Honestly, Mr. Hockley," she complained. "If you were not forever booking everything at the last minute, we could have gone through the terminal rather than running along the dock with the squalid immigrant families."
"All part of my charm, Ruth," he said with a haughty chuckle. "And at any rate, it was your darling daughter's beauty rituals that detained us."
"You told me to change," Rose reminded him, using all her willpower to keep her tone tactful.
"Well, I couldn't let you wear black on a sailing day, Sweetpea. It's bad luck."
"I felt like black." She replied curtly. Cal chuckled again.
"Here I've pulled every string I could to book us on the grandest ship in history, in the most luxurious suites… and you act as though you're going to your execution."
Rose just smiled politely to him before glancing upwards. The enormous hull of the Titanic seemed to loom over her small being like a great iron wall. Cal motioned them forward, his arm possessively around hers. Rose felt a horrible sense of overwhelming dread wash over her as they went up the gangway to the doors on D-deck.
Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams to the rest of the world, but to Rose, it was the farthest thing from it. This ship was acting as a slave ship to her. It would take her back to America bound and chained to Caledon Hockley. The moment they docked in New York, Cal and her mother would have her on the first train back to Philadelphia for the Engagement Gala, and then they would be married within the next week. To the world around her, Rose was everything a well brought up girl should be: sophisticated, poised, well-mannered… but on the inside, however, she was screaming at the top of her lungs to be freed from the cocoon of her sheltered, limited world…
Several blocks away, the Titanic could still be seen from the window of a small, dingy pub. Even from a distance the ship still looked incredible. It completely towered over the small terminal building, and it looked ever so refined, set so perfectly as it was against the blue sky. For one person, however, the sight of the great ship gave mixed feelings. A little eight year-old girl had both her hands pressed up against the window and was staring at the ship fearfully with her bright blue eyes. The words, 'God himself could not sink this ship,' frightened her to no end. In her mind, saying such boastful things was no different than cursing the luxury liner before it even set sail on its maiden voyage. And the story she had been told once by her mother didn't quell her fears… On the other hand, though, that ship was going to America. America was her and her older brothers' home. If she and her big brother were to board that ship, they would be going home for the first time in over three years. That was why she was in that pub, waiting for her fate to be determined.
"Sis, stop looking so glum," said an all too familiar voice behind her. Her blonde hair whipped around her as she whirled around, a joyful smile replacing the uneasy frown she had been wearing. Behind her, sitting at one of the taverns' tables in the middle of a serious poker game, was her one and only eighteen-year-old older brother. Jack Dawson. Like her and their good Italian friend, Fabrizio De Rossi, who was also playing, his clothes were somewhat dirty and rumpled from sleeping in them. And, like her, his hair was blonde, too. It was a little longer than the style was currently, and shadowed his blue eyes slightly. He smiled to the girl.
"C'mon, you don't have to stand there all by yourself, sis. Come, sit next to me and be my good luck charm!"
The girl nodded with a giggle, and skipped over to the empty seat beside him. As she sat down, she noticed what was in the small pile on table as the winnings for the game. Four sets of currencies, an expensive pocket watch, a Swiss pocketknife, three 3rd class tickets for the RMS Titanic, and, to her complete shock, a nutcracker. Her nutcracker.
"Big brother," said the little girl slowly, doing an excellent job at masking her rage. "Why exactly is my nutcracker in the winnings pile? I do not recall saying you could bet him!"
"I'm sorry, Clara," Jack apologized. "Blame Mrs. Future Sven over there," he pointed at the Swedish woman sitting across from them at the table with the other two Swedish men, whom he and Fabrizio were playing against. "She saw it and demanded for it to be added into the pile, or else she'd take the tickets out."
"I don't care!" said Clara angrily. "My nutcracker is not going to be used as a winning for this stupid game! Tell her that, Jack, Fabrizio, right now!"
"I already tried, Clara," said Jack sympathetically. "I told her that it wasn't mine to bet, and that it means the world to you. She wouldn't listen."
"Si," said Fabrizio sadly with a thick Italian accent. "I tried to tell as well."
"Well, then she's about to understand, right now!"
Before Jack or Fabrizio could stop her, Clara leapt on top of the table and seized the nutcracker. The three Swedes roared in anger. Hiding their cards, the two Swedish men roughly grabbed her as the women tried to pry the nutcracker out of her grip while Jack and Fabrizio tried to yank Clara away from the table and the out of the hands of the other men. But Clara wasn't about to give in without a fight. She screamed and kicked and bit the woman whenever her hands came close to reaching her precious nutcracker.
After several minutes of fighting, Jack and Fabrizio succeeded in prying her off the table and out of the grips of the two men, though she still had the nutcracker and the Swedish woman was still trying to snatch it away from her.
"You can't have him!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, tears cascading down her cheeks. The woman, surprised by this sudden outburst, paused to stare at Clara. "He means everything to me! Take our money! Take anything! Just leave my nutcracker! Mommy and Daddy gave him to me! Please don't take him away from me!"
Although the woman didn't speak English, she could tell how much the little girl in front of her loved the little toy. Hesitantly, she stepped away from Clara and said something in Swedish to the two men. They nodded, and then everyone slowly sat back down to resume the game.
"That was a very stupid thing to do, Clara," Jack reprimanded. "You could have been seriously hurt!"
"Better to be stupid and happy then miserable and wise," she mumbled back, hugging her nutcracker tightly as she dried away her tears.
"Jack," said Fabrizio suddenly. "You are pazzo! Now aside from nutcracker, you bet everything we have!"
"Well, when you got nothing, you got nothing to lose," he retorted.
"You moron!" the three of them managed to decipher from one of Swedes out of the little bit of Swedish they knew. "I can't believe you bet our tickets!"
"You lost our money!" the other one snapped. "I'm just trying to get it back! Now shut up and take a card."
The first man did as he was told and took a card. Then Jack turned to the other. "Sven?" he asked.
He hesitantly said, "Hit again," before taking a card. Then Jack silently made a hit, too. His face was completely neutral as he stared at the new card. Not even his eyes betrayed his thoughts. Before anything else could be said, the Titanic's whistle sounded. Final boarding had just been signaled.
"All right," Jack said, looking around the table with a placid expression. "The moment of truth. Somebody's life is about to change." Clara squeezed his free hand tightly with one hand, and hugged her nutcracker to her chest with the other. The tension was making her nervous. "Fabrizio?"
With a defeated sigh, he flopped his cards down.
"Niente?" he asked.
"Niente." Fabrizio confirmed.
"Olaf?" the first Swede tossed his down, too.
"Nothing." Jack turned to the last man. "Sven?"
Looking very smug, the second man set his cards down on the table proudly. Jack frowned.
"Oh... two pair…" he sadly turned to Fabrizio and his sister. "I'm sorry, Fabrizio, Clara."
"Che sorry, ma vaffanculo!" Fabrizio shouted. "Did you bet all our money?"
"How are we going to eat big brother?" Clara cried. "You even threw in the emergency cash–"
"I'm sorry," he continued, silencing them both. "That this will be the last time either of you see Europe for a long time…" Seeing their confused looks, his face broke into a wide grin as he shouted, "'Cause we're going to America!" He slapped his cards down, displaying three red aces, and two black fives. "Full house, boys!"
The first Swede looked livid enough to breathe fire, he was so angry.
The second Swede could only stare at Jack's cards in shock.
The woman grabbed her beer glass and doused it on her idiot of a fiancé as she ranted on in Swedish.
Fabrizio grabbed the tickets, kissing them with excitement as Clara jumped up and down with joy. "You did it, big brother! You did it!" she shouted, hugging him tightly. "You won! You won!" Her anxiety about the great liner had disappeared for that moment. Right then, she didn't care if that ship was indeed cursed from the constant praises by the newspapers all across the globe. All she cared about was the fact that she and Jack were going back to America. She and Jack were going home.
"Dio mio grazie!" Fabrizio cried.
Jack started to collect their winnings, when the first Swede suddenly grabbed him by the collar of his jacket. He raised his huge farmer's fist to clobber him in a whirlwind of savagely bruising punches. He was quickly joined by his cousin's fiancé, who looked about ready to commit murder, she was so pissed. Jack was about to brace himself when Clara scrambled between them with her arms outstretched.
"Don't hit him!" she cried fearfully. "He won fair–"
She cut herself off, roaring in laughter with the rest of the pub. Instead of attacking Jack as everyone had presumed, the man and woman pounced on the third Swede, who lay helplessly on the ground as they continued their assault, their tongues flapping rapidly in furious Swedish.
"Come on!" Jack said, turning to Clara and Fabrizio.
"Ah, porca Madonna!" Fabrizio exclaimed as Jack took the tickets and kissed them.
"Clara, we're going home!" he shouted.
"We're going home…" Clara echoed, climbing up onto her chair, "to the land of the free and the home of the real hot dogs!" The three of them shared a group hug. To onlookers both inside and outside the pub, the three of them looked as though they had just won the lotto, they were so happy.
"We're going home…" Jack trailed off, hugging Clara even tighter.
"Capito!" Fabrizio suddenly declared to all of the bars' patrons. "I go to America!"
"No, mate." Jack, Clara, and Fabrizio stopped celebrating and turned to the pub keeper, who was standing behind the bar. "Titanic go to America," he said, "in five minutes." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. On the wall behind him was a clock that read five minutes until twelve.
"Shit, Fabri, Clair!" Jack swore. "Come on, come on, here!" The three of them started hastily swiping all their things aside from Clara's nutcracker off the table, and into their bags. "Fabrizio! Can you take care of our bags?" he asked.
"Si, si!" Fabrizio cried.
"Clara!" Jack said as he bent down to her level, his back facing his her. "Get on! Quick!" She didn't have to be told twice. She leapt onto his back; her left arm wrapped around his neck to hang on while her right hugged her nutcracker securely to her chest.
And without another word, Jack dashed out of the pub with Clara clutching onto him as tightly as she could to stay on, and Fabrizio chasing after them.
"We're riding in high style now, big brother!" Clara shouted over the roar of the crowd as they sprinted across the pier. "You, me, and Fabrizio? We're a couple of regular swells!" They laughed.
"Yeah!" Jack shouted back. "We're practically goddamned royalty, ragazzo mio!"
"You see?" Fabrizio called out behind them. "It is my destino! Like I told you both, I go to America to be millionaire!"
"Look out!" Clara screamed. A horse and buggy came hurtling through the crowd straight toward them.
"Whoa, whoa!" Jack cried, narrowly dodging it as he somehow managed to keep a firm grip on both Clara and the tickets.
"Bastardo!" Fabrizio spat at the driver as they ran past. "Jack, you are pazzo!"
"Maybe," he shouted back. "But I've got the tickets!" Clara laughed.
"Hurry up!" she shouted to them, seeing the door to the boat close. "I thought you two said you were fast!"
"Aspetta, Clara!"
"Whoa! Hey, wait!" Jack shouted, setting Clara on the ground before running up the gangplank, her and Fabrizio hot on his heels. "Wait, please, wait! We're passengers! Passengers!" He handed the tickets to Sixth Officer Moody, breathing heavily with Clara and Fabrizio.
"Have you been through the inspection queue?" he asked.
"Of course," Jack lied. "Anyway, we don't have any lice. We're Americans, all three of us."
"Right, come aboard." No sooner had the words left his lips did Jack, Fabrizio, and Clara dash straight past him, entering the grand steamer. All three of them were grinning from ear to ear.
"We must be the luckiest people in the world!" Clara said as they hurtled down the third-class corridor, startling many other passengers. "You know that, Jack, Fabrizio?"
"Si!"
"You bet, sis!" They ran up a fight of stairs to reach the upper decks.
The ship's horn gave a blasting honk as workers on the pier uncoiled the large ropes from the pilings, freeing the esteemed ship from the docks. Men, women, and children stood by the railings, cheering wildly as the ship made its departure. Jack, Clara, and Fabrizio forced themselves out of the steel stairwell, and ran past them to a small gap in the mini crowd on the poop deck, and up to the railing, waving madly to the people on the docks.
"Goodbye!" Jack shouted, scooping Clara up to have her sit on his shoulders to say her own farewells to Southampton with them, before leaning over the railing to wave as well as the Titanic pulled away from its port. "Goodbye!" Fabrizio and Clara turned at him, puzzled.
"Jack, do you know somebody down there?" Clara shouted over the cheering crowd.
"Of course not," he laughed, "that's not the point!" He turned back to the pier and continued to wave goodbye. "Goodbye, I'll miss you!"
Grinning, Fabrizio joined in, feeling the exhilaration of the moment amongst the thousands of people both on and off the luxury cruise ship.
"Goodbye!" He called out. "I will never forget you!"
"Don't worry!" Clara shouted, hugging her nutcracker with one arm and waving to the crowd with the other as she joined them in their mock farewells. "We'll be sure to write, and we'll come back again someday! We promise! Until then we'll miss you all! Goodbye, goodbye!"
Jack and Fabrizio laughed at the eight year-olds excitement of the moment, and kept waving heartily with the other passengers to the crowd of well wishers down below as the black, metallic wall of the Titanic's hull moved past them, gathering speed with every passing second. To the crowds left on the Southampton pier, the passengers on board looked like impossibly tiny figures, waving their centimeter-sized arms from the gleaming rails as the world's largest, and most luxurious ship, sailed away. Both crowds kept waving goodbye until the other was no bigger than a tiny speck on the distant horizon. The waves caused from the tip of the bow spread against the great, mighty plow of the steamer's hull, and dragged all the way down the body of the ship, leaving a trail of unsettled, rippling water behind the stern, marking the beginning of the maiden voyage of the prestigious Titanic as it sailed down through the ocean toward the English Channel to reach Cherbourg, France, its next stop before sailing on to Queenstown, Ireland.
The decks slowly emptied. Now that they had left port, there was no reason to stay outside when they could have fun and enjoy themselves in the many fine facilities that the Titanic had to offer, or even relax in their rooms. In Jack, Clara, and Fabrizio's case, they had to find their room, first.
They squeezed their way down several narrow corridors, lined with doors to the temporary lodgings on either side. They were having difficulty finding their room with all the confusion going on around them. Mother's and fathers were struggling to keep an eye on their children as they wandered among the great labyrinth of endless hallways, and immigrants everywhere stood helplessly before every sign in the corridors, trying to decode what they said from their pocket phrase books.
Jack wasn't worried about Fabrizio losing them in this crowd. He knew he could easily catch up to them if he wound up getting lost. Jack's main concern was Clara. She was just a little girl in this jumbling crowd. One shove from one of the confused immigrants, and she could easily end up being swept away from him and Fabrizio by accident with some other family.
"Stick close to me, Clair," Jack said as he took hold of her hand, and started to drag her down one of the hallways with Fabrizio following them. "It looks as though it'd be easy to get lost in this crowd."
"'Kay, big brother," she said, nodding as she gripped her nutcracker tighter so she wouldn't lose it. Jack turned his attention to the room numbers before the doors, trying to find their room.
"G-60… G-60… oh, excuse us," he said as they turned a corner, bumping into a small Norwegian family. Fabrizio paused, turning around to smile at their daughter. She was certainly very pretty. "Oh, right here." Jack said, opening the door. The three of them went inside.
Their 'room' was more of a small cubicle than an actual livable room. It had been freshly painted enamel white, and furnished very simply. There was a floor-length mirror in the far corner, two sets of steel bunk beds, and a single nightstand. There was also a bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling. Like the people they had won their tickets from, the two men already inside were Swedish, too, and stared at them as they came in, puzzled.
"How you doing?" Jack asked, walking up to them with Clara in tow. She stayed behind Jack, hiding slightly from the two men as Fabrizio dumped their bags on the bed. "I'm Jack," he continued. "Nice to meet you. Jack Dawson. And this is my kid sister, Clara." He nudged her forward slightly so she could introduce herself.
"H-hello," she said shyly. Jack stretched out his hand to one of the Swedes to shake hands. Staring at them as though he was a first-class passenger, he hesitantly shook it.
"How you doing?" Jack said, turning back over to Clara and Fabrizio. "Hey, who says you get top bunk, huh?" He said, laughing with Fabrizio.
"I want top bunk!" Clara said giddily. "Let me sleep on top!"
The two Swedes just kept on staring at the three of them for several more moments. Finally, the one that had shaken hands with Jack turned to the other.
"Where's Sven and his fiancé?" His companion shook his head and shrugged.
In the first-class Millionaire Suite, Cal was being escorted around his cabin by one of the room-service stewards. "… and this is your private promenade deck, sir," said the steward, bringing the tour of the rooms to a close as Cal breezed past him without a second glance to look out one of the windows. "Will you be requiring anything?" He shook his head and waved the steward away, sipping at his glass of champagne. What could he possibly require? He had a beautiful fiancé, and was a first-class passenger on board the grandest ship to ever be made by all mankind. Not to mention the richest, at least for the next few hours until John Jacob Astor boarded with his wife Madeline later that day at Cherbourg. He couldn't help but smirk slightly. He felt ever so smug. He intended to spend every moment this afternoon boasting to the other first-class men on being the wealthiest man aboard later on over cigars and a large brandy once lunch was over.
Rose, on the other hand, was in the Sitting Room. With the assistance of Trudy and another maid, she was sorting through the new paintings she had purchased while in France. One of the few, scarce things she was permitted to be able to enjoy as a young, aristocratic young woman, was art. Art was the only thing Rose could use amongst not only her society, but also her mother and Cal, to escape from her confined lifestyle from time-to-time.
"This one?" Trudy asked her, holding up one of the Cubism paintings.
"No… it had a lot of faces on it…" Rose sifted through the packaging they had all been stored in and selected another painting. "This is the one."
"Would you like all of them out, miss?" Trudy asked.
"Yes," she replied. "We need a little color in this room." Lovejoy, who had been ordering the stewards where to put the different pieces of luggage, interrupted them when he saw another one of the stewards enter with a large trunk.
"Put it in there," he directed, pointing down the hall to the bedroom. "In the wardrobe."
"God," Cal said, coming back in from their private deck, "not those finger painting again. They certainly were a waste of money." Rose didn't give him the honor of seeing her anger. Instead, she said to Trudy as she gave her the Cubism painting,
"The difference between Cal's taste in art and mine is that I have some. They're fascinating… like being inside a dream or something. There's truth but no logic."
"What's the artist's name?" Trudy asked her.
"Something Picasso…" Rose replied uncertainly as she selected a painting an artist known as Degas had made of a ballerina.
"Something Picasso," Cal sneered, drinking more of his champagne. "He won't amount to a thing. He won't, trust me," he called after her as she and Trudy walked to her bedroom with the painting of the dancer. Then he added quietly so only Lovejoy would hear him, "At least they were cheap."
Another steward came in, wheeling inside Cal's private safe. "Put that in the wardrobe." Lovejoy instructed.
Rose looked around the bedroom, searching for the perfect place to display the painting. Her eyes came to rest upon the vanity. She gently set it down as Trudy started to unpack her clothes.
"It all smells so brand new," she exclaimed, "like they built it just for us. I mean… just think that tonight, when I crawl between the sheets, I'll be the first!" Rose chuckled slightly. Trudy was the only person she could actually consider her friend. She had always put her friendship with her mistress first, and her duties as her personal attendant second, and so long as she pretended to do vice versa whenever Cal or her mother was around, Rose would always be a good and caring friend to her, just as how Trudy was with her.
"And tonight," a new voice interjected. "When I crawl between the sheets, I'll still be the first." Rose and Trudy turned around. Cal was standing in the doorway, studying Rose with lust in his gaze. Trudy blushed at the innuendo in his words.
"Excuse me, miss," she said, giving a short curtsy before leaving the room. Cal smirked and shut the door behind her. Rose could only blush as she turned toward the mirror, unable to look him in the eye.
"The first and only," he said silkily, walking up to embrace her from behind. If it had been meant to show affection, Rose didn't feel it. She just felt like another possession to him. She was, after all, going to be his trophy wife. "Forever," he whispered in her ear. Rose wanted nothing more than to jerk away from him. The idea of him touching her… of him being inside her… the thought repulsed her. But she didn't let him see her discomfort. Instead, she simply gave him a quick peck on the cheek. She knew what he was like when he was angry, after all…
It was late in the afternoon when the Titanic docked in Cherbourg later that day to collect more passengers. Rose and her mother were just going down for dinner when they saw the new additions to first-class come aboard. Rose almost immediately recognized the Astor's and Mr. Guggenheim with his mistress, but she didn't recognize the next woman. Her mother must have, though, because she noticed that her entire body became rigid, and her smile became even more fake.
A broad-shouldered woman who appeared to be in about her mid-forties, dressed in a red fur coat and an enormous feathered hat, came shuffling through the door, and, to Rose's surprise, she was carrying her own luggage. A porter came running in after her, mumbling his apologies for not collecting her bags once brought aboard.
"Well, I wasn't about to wait all day for you, sonny," said the woman in a Southern accent, setting down her bags. "Here," she said, giving him one of them. "You think you can manage?" She didn't wait for a reply. She just walked on, the porter struggling to catch up with her again while still keeping hold of her luggage. The woman smiled a genuine, friendly smile to her and Ruth as she passed. It wasn't a smile Rose was used to seeing amongst her society.
"Mother," Rose said in a quiet voice once the woman was out of earshot. "Who was that, exactly?" Ruth wrinkled her nose in refined disgust.
"That," her mother said distastefully, " was Mrs. Margaret Brown, though she usually insists on being called Molly." Rose glanced back in the direction she saw Molly Brown go.
"She's appears to be rather… interesting…" Rose said carefully, making sure not to let too much of her wonder and admiration of the guts Molly had shown into her voice. Her mother nodded snippily, thinking Rose meant that her behavior was inappropriate for a lady in first-class.
"Oh yes, that's because she's one of the 'new money' people in society," Ruth explained. "Her husband apparently struck gold out west somewhere. She isn't like those of us that have always had money. She still has bad habits from being born poor." Rose nodded, hiding her disappointment. Her mother would surely do everything in her power to keep her away from people like Molly Brown. Rose thought for sure she could have made friends with her…