Hello everyone, I am back with something new and continuing. I was going to wait until New Year to post but I need to kick up bum to write more. This is completely original and will NOT be featuring the Titanic, just the characters. I want this to be completely different and hope you can follow it and love it as much as I do writing it.
Hope everyone had a brilliant Christmas and a happy new year if I don't post before 2022!
Hickory estate, Hockley House, Derbyshire.
Spring 1912
The call bell sounded again in the servants' quarters and Mrs. Ball looked at it as though it was nothing more than a slight speck of dust, ignoring it she carried on polishing the crystal glasses which had been used at dinner the evening before when her ladyship entertained some friends who were in the village from London. It was a mere twenty seconds before the bell rang again, this time it felt incessant and ringing through the entire small room like a drill.
Jack Dawson, the tall, almost innocent and somewhat handsome footman, dressed in his black liveries, came to face with Mrs. Ball in front of the pantry. His eyes went to the call bell in a query.
"Should you not answer that, Mrs. Ball?"
"No, I should not. Not right away. I've one pair of hands and they're currently scrubbing away and polishing glass."
Jack winced beneath her snapping voice and was about to leave via the servants dining room when it went again. Jack glanced to Mrs. Ball who had continued shining the wine glasses and had started humming a tune in distraction.
"Go on about your business, you damned American and don't you go thinking about reporting me to Mr. Lovejoy, he's got all on wiping his lordships arse!"
Mrs. Ball was as sharp in tongue as she was in features. Pinched cheek, small narrowed hazel eyes and thin, pursed lips which only showed a hint of pink as she spoke. Her hair was shoved beneath her head housekeepers black cap and she didn't even bother to look back to Jack as he watched the corridors for any other sign of the lady's maid, Trudy or the cook, perhaps even another servant. For tonight, he knew that he was the only footman on duty and left with her—the head house maid. The rest of them had gone to the fair which had arrived in town the day before and the staff had been allowed the night off in order to attend whilst the lady of the house was thought to be resting and her husband was still up in London on business.
"I wouldn't dream of it." Jack replied, mostly beneath his breath on the threshold of the servant kitchen and the corridors which led to the main house. "Besides isn't Mr. Lovejoy with his lordship in London?"
Mrs. Ball glanced up from her polishing in either astonishment or surprise. "Yes he is." She responded calmer but still with the senior edge. "So I am in charge about here, at least until the return next week."
Jack nodded and Mrs. Ball went back to her polishing just as the call bell went again. "Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" She cursed.
"Should I go to attend her ladyship?"
With wide sharp eyes, Mrs. Ball immediately replied. "Good god no! You're a footman, Mr. Dawson, not a lady's maid or you were the last I checked. Now go find something worth doing or if you fail then you may retire! You do not call on her ladyship, no matter how much she calls. I shall tend her in fifteen minutes. She probably has a hair in her teacup and I do not have time to make another pot about now. I am left alone to serve…"
Mrs. Ball filtered out as the bell went again, Jack noted it was from her ladyship's bedroom located if he recalled at the very top floor. Two rows of bells sat upon the back wall ahead of the servants table, with each labelled of where about in the household the bell was been pulled from.
''What have I bloody told you?'' Mrs. Ball broke Mr. Dawson's pondering and he raised his brow, caught her sharp glance.
"You told me to retire if I had no other work."
"Well off you skip, use the thing God put between your ears if he gifted you with such an instrument and off you go."
"Yes, Mrs Ball."
Jack hesitated, watching the call bell on the threshold as though he anticipated that it would go again. He felt the sharp gaze on his back.
''Off with yer, damned American. Do you not understand what I say?''
Leaving the mad woman scrubbing at glass, Jack could only wander out of the dining quarters and to the crossroads where the staircase going up led to the main house. Relieving himself of the collar which Mr. Lovejoy had shown him to wear upon hiring him back in April, he was only aware of his own feet shuffling down a corridor and the now dim signs of the call bell still going. Despite the absolute urge within his stomach to go in search of her ladyships' quarters, he was also aware of the importance of his job—and his neck. Upon arrival, Mr. Lovejoy had introduced him to his lordship and her ladyship and Jack had found them to be exactly as he had expected and detested...trifle eating, tea drinking, pompous and the absolute masters of their own universe. Despite been American themselves and having found themselves settling in the countryside after his lordships cousin had passed on and the only living heir happened to be his lordship, who had just that week married his young bride after just several weeks of courtship. Rumour had it, well amongst the servants at the time, that her ladyship had quickly gotten with child out of wedlock but a pregnancy had apparently not materialised, that had been in the summer of 1911.
Holy shit, what an idiot he had slowly become but there was nothing else to do at night time other than polishing your boots for the next day and listening as the servants passed around snippets of gossip like pieces of silver. They were valuable to some but to him, he didn't care. He was just a guy on his way home when he found a steady job which he hoped to leave by the end of the British summer and be on his way. He could only keep his head down and out of trouble until then. Besides, it wasn't a hard job. He was the third footman, so he would stand and offer things like vegetables or potatoes to the fancy guests or to his lordship and her ladyship when taking their evening meal. As if one couldn't simple serve themselves like the simple people they appeared to be. Mrs. Ball had almost accused him of not having a brain, or at least how to use it, but at least he was a man capable of shaving himself, feeding himself and correctly dressing in clothes fit to make him almost feel like a gentleman. Almost.
The call bell echoed again down the corridor and Mrs. Ball's faint and unladylike curses followed it. There truly was not another soul about. It had surprised Jack that so many servants had been allowed a night off, although with his lordship out of town and her ladyship been the one in charge, it was hardly surprising. The woman seemed to barely make a decision herself and so when left to make one; she was probably assuming that there would be more than two people left. Or she just that ill prepared to make a decision. Her husband was the one who ordered her food, he chose the colour palettes of her wardrobe, the flavour of her tea and how many lumps of sugar. Shaking his head, Jack noted to not listen to the servants gossip anymore, there was only Trudy; her ladyship's personal maid who seemed to never speak to a soul or if she did, it was polite and proper. Jack had tried to be that way, but it seemed he was served the same glare of contempt that Trudy was and he knew that it was due to the fact that they were all American. The other servants were local to Derbyshire and their Yorkshire dialect was even harder than trying to pick up Parisian or Italian. Almost a language itself but now, Jack had managed to grasp it enough to buy a pack of tobacco or a loaf of bread and give the right coinage without making a fool of himself. More than once he had questioned why he had chosen to settle here and knew that it was because the small village was similar to his hometown and whilst he had not known a soul, now some locals were shouting Yorkshire ayup's or 'ow's tha doin' when he ventured into town on his Sunday's off. Miners drank with him in the pub; all working men who detested the snobs and made fun of them alike. There was a kinship amongst the working class regardless of background or ethnicity and that was what appealed to him the most. And then, there was the times he took himself walking by the river and lost himself in the stars smoking endless cigarettes and recalling the days when he would draw anything which sat still long enough for him to put it onto paper. Now, those materials were stored under his rickety single bed and hadn't seen the light of day since arrival. There just wasn't time. Or very little about to draw.
Finally, as Jack had reached the main house, he walked down the plush carpeted main hallway and raised his brow at the adorned walls of oil paintings and gold mirrors. High ceilings and chandeliers. It was like something from a great dream; a grand one. He had never been there alone before, only under supervision from Mr. Lovejoy or when serving the evening meal and one barely had time to glance about when carrying plates full of hot food. Hickory House was "T" shaped with the servant's quarters forming the upright. The main block, forming the cross-bar, was 2-storey rectangular range having 9-bay frontage. There must have had more than thirty rooms with grand receptions rooms and then what was perhaps the most beautiful part of the house; in the middle of the hall was a gracefully curving staircase, its balustrade supported by light scrollwork of iron with occasional touches of bronze, in the form of flowers and foliage. Above all a great dome of iron and glass threw a flood of light down the stairway, and on the landing beneath it a great carved panel gives its note of richness to the otherwise plain and massive construction of the wall.
It was almost uncomfortably voyeuristic to be viewing a home as beautiful as this with such ease and walking about as though he was the man of the manor. Although it was endlessly beautiful, he found no comfort in the feel of thick Aubusson rugs beneath his feet, or bright electric lights above his head. The servant's quarters even had electric lights and one small fire in each room; that in itself was pure luxury to a man like Jack who had spent almost five years sleeping under bridges and riding the rails alone. Taking a decision to ascend the staircase, his feet clattered and echoed about as he went up the marble to come face to face with a beautifully carved grandfather clock. The time was nine p.m almost, in about a minute. As though on cue, it started to chime that it was, indeed, the hour, and Jack smiled, reaching his hand out to feel the smooth carving of two angel's either side of the time piece.
Upon reaching the upper landing, he was greeted by what looked to be maybe fifteen portraits of different faces spanning across an age of time.
The first several were men; all obviously descendants with similar dark features and tanned face. Perhaps his lordships hailed from these parts and emigrated to the States at some point before returning. Who knew how the history worked? Studying the oily features of each person, they were all almost the same with varying clothing of the time period. Jack hadn't realised that the lights had dimmed upstairs and perhaps the electricity had been switched off; only smaller oil lamps allowed him a brief glance of the final portraits and it was obvious that even in almost direct darkness that they were of his lordship and her ladyship. He was handsome; tall and dark with the similar darker features of his descendants. Rumoured to be about thirty-five and his bride was almost two decades younger; it had apparently ruffled society's feathers, another reason that it was rumoured he had brought his new wife to live in another country away from prying eyes and where he would have proper authority. The final portrait was dripping in colour; beautifully painted so much that it had almost stolen Jack's breath away. Whilst travelling Paris, he had come across Monet himself through a keyhole in Montmartre, and had stared rudely at the façade of colours created upon a canvas but it was nothing compared to the woman before him on the wall. There was a tumbling, endless wave of fiery red hair, with a white and translucent skin with bright eyes which were not either blue or green and then full, still lips. Her ladyship was deathly pale most days, rarely showed a hint of her face from beneath the largest and most ridiculous hats, mostly stuffed with enough feathers to cloth an entire ostrich or peacock and when her hair was seen poking out in a simple strand, Jack had noticed that it was red. Once, he had seen her sad eyes but could never determine the colour due to the dark and dreary day and the concealment from her large headpiece but this—vision before him, seemed to be another person from who he had visualised her ladyship could possibly be. Yes, there was still the sad lines in her face, especially when a woman who was newly married and in love was anticipated to be happy, but Jack's stomach flared with a damned curiosity which he now knew wouldn't dampen until he had stoked the cause of the fire.
Jack knew that Mrs. Ball had not yet tended to her ladyship as he would have heard her approach, she may have thought herself to be as quick and as sly as a cat chasing a mouse but she was neither. Her footsteps were as clunky, her breathing heavy and she liked to mutter musings beneath her breath as she went and Jack thought that she must not know that she was doing it but all others did, and it was how they would know of her presence nearby and all things ceased which were wrong to do, such as this which Jack seemed to be doing as he followed his own heavily beating heart to the end of the upper landing and crossed a large red carpet with a balustrade to peer downstairs to the centre of the reception room. Down the next corridor seemed to be about five or six doors and he knew that they would be the guest bedrooms. His lord and ladyships rooms were said to be on the highest floor. Suddenly, he was almost a spy in a terrible Nickelodeon and found his way to the bottom of another staircase; this one curved upwards and again, was decorated with family portraits and bizarre sculptures of horses and dogs. Jack would have been interested in the art if he wasn't strangely led upwards and onwards by the flare in his belly. Moving his hair from his eyes, he let his sight adjust to the darker area and at the top, he found a single landing with two doors which one assumed led to the adjoining rooms of the new bride and groom. Off to the right, there were other rooms with the doors ajar; possibly a bathroom or a dressing room.
Jack stood as straight as he could and remembered that he had pulled his collar off and was suddenly conscious of his open neck, but something told him to discard that and so he took a single step closer to the ornately carved oak door and knocked just once. It was silent. So silent that he could hear his own heart pounding. The wind outside didn't rattle the glass of the window up here like it did downstairs. There wasn't even the sound of moving feet or clattering of objects and so, he knocked again but louder and the sound echoed about the bland, plastered walls and then it went deathly quiet again. Breathing out his tension, Jack dropped his shoulders and licked at his lips. Perhaps, her ladyship had gone out in search of another cup of tea. Perhaps she had fallen asleep. Perhaps she was no longer within her room. Perhaps-
-and then, Jack heard it. Something so primal. So unmistakable. Something so—heart-stopping that he did the unthinkable without a second thought. He entered her ladyship's bedroom with his hand upon the door handle, he pushed it forward and was enveloped by the most peculiar smell. Sound. And sight.
Her ladyship was knelt, well, hunched, upon the wooden floor, clinging to the counterpane of the bedding with her upper body leaning against the large, four poster bed. She made the same guttural, painful, sound again and it flared Jack's stomach more. Her hair was mattered and sweaty. Her face no longer pale but red and shielded from seeing just that anyone had entered the room. In her mouth appeared to be a flannel, which she must have been using to muffle or gag the screams and the only colour which surrounded her was red. Splattered across the counterpane, her dress, the chair and then, in a darker pool beneath where she hunched.
Jack came to her, in an instant, instinctively, kneeling right at her side and placing both of his hands onto her forearms where he squeezed her gently to make her aware of his presence. As her face raised, the flannel fell from her lips and he was facing a face so young, so fragile and a pair of green and blue eyes so staggeringly frightened that his own heart ripped right open there and then. Her ladyship was no more than eighteen years old, alone and bleeding so endlessly that she would no longer be living if it continued. She shivered, shaking and trembling and then, the sudden quaking became more violent as she crushed her fingernails into his forearms and was suddenly against his chest, using him for support in her absolute frail condition. For about ten seconds, he felt the pain of her body, it was like a demon taking over her and she screamed into his shoulder as the white shards of lightening stabbed at her body. It had barely finished before it started again, more intense; he could feel it. There had to be a cause of it, but he was too fearful to even move in case she collapsed right there from the outstanding agony. He felt sick. More blood trickled onto the carpet and in seconds, her ladyship was trying to breath, pulling at the heavy silks of her skirt and heaving it upwards to reveal two, red stained legs and then, she was kneeling upwards, pulling at the counterpane again. Jack used the second to move behind her, hoping to help her onto the bed or provide more stability, perhaps until he found help but then, it all came together, in crystal clear clarity. As her ladyship continued to struggle to hitch up her skirts, she had revealed a very small but visible protruding stomach. Sobbing into the bed, she struggled to even breath and Jack could only stare wide eyed as a horror so candid came to claim him.
''You're-you're having a child.'' The words were so distinctly clear to them both and turning, with those beautifully frightened eyes swimming with rapid tears she could only nod before another white-hot pain speared through her abdomen, or so it appeared to be the local source of pain.
It was only a millisecond of thought that Jack had towards her husband; of pure hatred for leaving the woman he supposedly loved all alone when she was about to give birth to their child but that disappeared off in a flash and suddenly, God seemed to provide him with multiple answers of just what to do. He removed his blood-soaked jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his pure white liveries.
''How-how long have you been in such pain? Was that why you called Mrs. Ball?''
''Y-yes.'' Her teeth clattered as her fingers became caught in her skirts.
Jack came onto his knees beside her and suddenly, retrieving a knife that he kept in his boot to fend of potential attackers, he was hacking away at the skirts upon her lower body and tearing them away in large sheets. She was about to reach for the flannel again when his voice stopped her right away. ''No,'' she was frightened, her eyes wide as they sought his. He softened. ''Scream if you wish. Howl like a wolf. Never suppress yourself.''
Jack told her out of anger, of hatred and of upset. How could a young girl be left to deliver a child alone? Ignored. Intentionally. Faster and faster, he pulled away the layers before finding her undergarments. He hesitated just a second.
''I am going to need to remove them.''
Her ladyship barely nodded, finding his left hand a source of relief for her pain and she grasped onto it; kneading, twisting at the skin and roaring out the pain of her contractions. It only propelled Jack to work faster and suddenly, faced with the sight of a woman's bare bottom, leaning across the bed, he only cursed as to how he had gotten here. Jack Dawson; the son of a farmer, growing up in Wisconsin and then, it was suddenly clear. It wasn't God who had given him the instincts but perhaps, they were already intact. How many times had he delivered lambs back home? How many horses or sheep had he witnessed come into this world? Perhaps this wasn't dissimilar.
Her ladyship sobbed, pulling at the counterpane and his own hand and it was clear that she was trying to stand. To climb to the bed.
''Do you wish to move onto the bed?''
''Y-yes.''
Jack noticed how her teeth clattered together, her body was completely shaken and how much blood was pooled onto the floor. Finding her frightened eyes, her soul disappeared as another contraction ripped through her. Quickly Jack used both of his hands to support her waist, and he became her strength for the time as using his entire core he propelled her onto the bed so that she was lying on her front. Instinctively, she turned and Jack was about to find a blanket to protect her modesty when he was faced with the soft tufts of beautiful hair crowning about to come into this world.
''You're-its coming. You have to keep pushing, all right?''
Her ladyship had rolled her head back onto the softer pillows and when the contractions ripped at her, she was writhing about again but this time, there was only the sobs. The cries.
Jack came onto his knees, between her legs and gently pushed them apart the best way that he could.
''Trust me, all right. I have only delivered farm offspring back home, I come from Wisconsin.'' He watched as her face glanced down at him bizarrely. Jumping from the bed, he found a pile of fresh towels and brought them over to the bed. ''Wisconsin is a state out-''
''I know where it is!'' She snapped, completely suddenly ablaze with energy.
Jack nodded, apologetically. ''I'm sorry, you just-'' he was about to say would seem to be more of an indoor girl, but was then faced with the child's head slipping out just a little further. Placing his left palm gently beneath the soft mass of hair to cradle it, he watched in awe as a woman's body did what only it could when giving birth. ''The head is almost out.'' He smiled, as an encouragement and suddenly, between her writhing pain, she tried to reach down to feel between her legs at the infant about to be in this world. Jack took her hand with his right and softly guided it to the head, where she stroked at the hair. Tears swarmed her face and it was in that moment, no matter what, he knew that she would be all right. She had to be. He would make sure of it.
''You have to work with the contraction, when your body urges you to push you have to do the same. Come on, you can do it. I've got your darling's head and I won't let go, I can only guide the baby out, you have to do the rest.'' Jack spoke to her in the same soft crooning voice that he had used on the farm; hushing and muted. Soft and calm. Encouraging words his own father had used when tending to the birthing lambs during soft spring mornings.
In another push, the entire head was within Jack's palm. A swollen and puffy face followed along with the widest part of the body.
''That's it, I can see your child's beautiful face now, you just need a little longer for the shoulders. Come on.''
That must have urged her because in one final push, a slippery and smooth baby was thrust into Jack's hands followed by the squashed afterbirth and a gush of blood. Quickly, with the umbilical cord still attached, Jack quickly wrapped the tiny, silent infant into a blanket and started to rub at the skin.
''You have a child.''
Her ladyship had flopped backwards, against the pillows. Completely arrested by the sight and the state of her, Jack could only quickly work to ensure the child was breathing and then suddenly, a piercing wail filled the airs and they both gasped with such a relief that even Jack felt a watery line fill his gaze. Wrapping a pure white towel around the infant, he felt the same warmth he had after delivering the young to its mother in the barn. The same rush of adrenaline that one could feel only when the arrival of something beautiful came into this uncertain world. The warm bundle continued to wail as Jack lowered it to its mother's bare chest and then ceased. Jack felt her weakness as she struggled to hold the baby and simply allowed the precious thing to lay on her skin.
''Is-is it a son?'' Hesitantly, her frail voice asked, somewhat hopefully.
Jack, for a reason unknown, touched her ladyships glimmering and sweaty forehead just once, hoping to provide some comfort that her husband never had.
''No, you have a daughter.''
The gasp wasn't unnoticed and soon, trembling hands were searching into the beautiful bundle and she pressed her nose to the infant's tiny tuft of dark curls. ''Oh, you belong to me, you will only ever be mine.''
Her ladyship faded out some time after that and Jack only recalled fear and adrenaline propelling him to fly downstairs to Mrs. Ball and inform her that her ladyship had given birth.
Jack's memory faded out about then, too.