Chapter Five

Rose looked at the drawing in its tray of water, confronting herself across a span of eighty-four years. Until they could figure out the best way to preserve it, they had to keep it immersed. It swayed and rippled, almost as if alive.

Rose's ancient eyes gazed at the drawing.

In her mind's eye, she saw a man's hand, holding a conte crayon, deftly creating a shoulder and the shape of her hair with two efficient lines.

She looked at the woman's face in the drawing, dancing under the water.

Once again, her memories focused on the man's eyes, just visible over the top of a sketching pad. They looked up suddenly, right at her. Soft eyes, but fearlessly direct.

Rose smiled, remembering. Brock had the reference photo of the necklace in his hand.

"Louis the Sixteenth wore a fabulous stone, called the Blue Diamond of the Crown, which disappeared in 1792, about the time Louis lost everything from the neck up. The theory goes that the crown diamond was chopped too...recut into a heart-like shape...and it became Le Coeur de la Mer. The Heart of the Ocean. Today it would be worth more than the Hope Diamond."

Rose shook her head. "It was a dreadful, heavy thing." She pointed at the drawing. "I only wore it this once."

Lizzy looked at the picture. "You actually believe this is you, Nana?"

"It is me, dear. Wasn't I a dish?"

Brock interrupted. "I tracked it down through insurance records...an old claim that was settled under terms of absolute secrecy. Do you know who the claimant was, Rose?"

"Someone named Hockley, I should imagine."

"Nathan Hockley, right. Pittsburgh steel tycoon. For a diamond necklace his son Caledon Hockley bought in France for his fiancée...you...a week before he sailed on Titanic. And the claim was filed right after the sinking. So the diamond had to have gone down with the ship." He turned to Lizzy. "See the date?"

Lizzy leaned forward, looking closely. "April 14, 1912."

Bodine broke in, "If your grandmother is who she says she is, she was wearing the diamond the day Titanic sank."

Brock turned to Rose. "And that makes you my new best friend." He went to the table across the room. "Over here are a few things we've recovered from your staterooms."

Laid out on a worktable were fifty or so objects, from mundane to valuable. Rose, shrunken in her chair, could barely see over the tabletop. With a trembling hand she lifted a tortoise shell hand mirror, inlaid with mother of pearl. She caressed it wonderingly.

"This was mine. How extraordinary! It looks the same as the last time I saw it." She turned the mirror over and looked at her ancient face in the cracked glass. "The reflection has changed a bit."

Rose picked up an ornate art-nouveau hair comb. A jade butterfly took flight on the ebony handle of the comb. She turned it slowly, remembering. Rose was experiencing a rush of images and emotions that had lain dormant for eight decades as handled the butterfly comb.

Lovett spoke. "Are you ready to go back to Titanic?"

*****

Bodine started a computer animated graphic on the screen, which paralleled his rapid-fire narration.

"She hits the berg on the starboard side and it sort of bumps along...punching holes like Morse code...dit dit dit, down the side. Now she's flooding in the forward compartments...and the water spills over the tops of the watertight bulkheads, which unfortunately don't go any higher than E Deck, going aft. As her bow is going down, her stern is coming up...slow at first...and then faster and faster until she's got her whole ass sticking up in the air, and that's a big ass, maybe twenty or thirty thousand tons. Now, the hull isn't designed to deal with that kind of weight, so what happens? She splits...right down the middle. Skrrt! Now the bow swings down and the stern falls back level...but the weight of the bow pulls the stern up vertical, and then the bow section detaches, heading for the bottom. The stern bobs like a cork, floods, and finally goes under about 2:20 AM. Two hours and forty minutes after the collision."

The animation then followed the bow section as it sank. Rose watched this clinical dissection of the disaster stoically, showing little sign of the emotions within her.

Bodine continued. "The bow pulls out of its dive and planes away, almost a half a mile, before it hits the bottom going maybe 12 knots. Kaboom!"

The bow impacted, digging deeply into the bottom. The animation then followed the stern.

Bodine, delighted with his handiwork, grinned. "Pretty cool, huh?"

Rose just looked at him. "Thank you for that fine forensic analysis, Mr. Bodine." Bodine had the grace to look sheepish. "Of course, the experience of it was somewhat...different."

Brock pulled out a tape recorder. "Will you share it with us, Rose?"

Her eyes went back to the screens, showing the ruins far below them. The image of the doors to the first class dining salon appeared on one of the monitors, and Rose looked at it, seeing in her mind's eye a steward opening the door for her as well-dressed people walked about inside the brightly lit room. Remembering, she could almost hear the soft waltz music playing.

Abruptly, she snapped back to the present. The doors were covered with rust, enshrouded in darkness. Rose put her hands over her face, gasping against other memories that flooded her mind. Lizzy rushed up to her.

"I'm taking her to rest." She tried to escort Rose away.

"No." Rose's protest was almost feeble.

"Come on, Nana."

"No!" The feeble old lady was gone, replaced by a woman with eyes of steel. She sat down next to Lovett.

"Tell us, Rose."

Rose closed her eyes for a moment, then began. "It's been eighty-four years—"

Lovett interrupted her. "Just try to remember anything, anything at all."

"Do you want to hear this or not, Mr. Lovett?" Lovett looked at her in consternation. "It's been eighty-four years, and I can still smell the fresh paint. The china had never been used. The sheets had never been slept in. Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams. And it was. It really was..."