Introduction: 30 years later
1942. England is fighting in the war against Germany. Winfred Morrill, now age 42, and known as Mrs. Weldon, reads about the Nazi invasion in Poland. She sits at home wondering if her husband John is seeing action on the battle field. A sudden knock bangs heavily on her door.
"Come in." She says taking off her reading glasses and placing them on a cherry-wood coffee table that once belonged to her grandmother. A delivery man comes walking through the door and hands her a letter.
"Miss." He nods his head toward her then walks out the door slamming it on his way out.
"What is it mamma?" Her daughter Jane asks, walking over from the doll house she was playing with.
"It's from your grandma. Let us open it and see." She rips the envelope gently, fearing she would accidentally rip the letter instead.
My Dearest Winnie,
A great sickness has come over our house. Servants have fallen ill, and are dead. I can't figure out the cause to it. The doctors can find no antidote. I myself have fallen ill. Edward had arrived yesterday bringing his family. I wish to burn the house, and all that remains inside. Please come if you wish to claim any items. I will burn the house on April 15, 1942 . At 2:20 a.m. in honor of your father. Please call.
Forever yours,
Your loving mother Alexandria Corte Fairfield Morrill.
Winnie brushed the tears away forming in her eyes. The last place in the world she wanted to go to was her home in Southampton. The place where she had spent her most happiest of all days.
Winnie arrived one hour later at her mother's house, with her daughter Jane. Her blond curls bouncing as she ran up the stairs to see her grandmother. Winnie putting her coat on a coat hanger smiling at her daughter.
"Jane, slow down or you'll fall down those stairs." Falling. She had felt that feeling before, but blocked it from her memory.
"Is that my older sister." A familiar voice assumed coming from the parlor. Winnie turning to a mirror bedside the coat hanger fixed her bangs falling into her eyes. Clutching her beaded purse, she made her way into the parlor.
"Edward." She dashed toward her brother, gathering her in his arms.
"Is she alright?"
"Oh, mother. You know she can fight anything." He walked over to a small end table, picked up a cigarette and pulled out a lighter from he is left breast pocket. "Want a smoke."
"No thank you."
"You can go see her." Lighting it. "She wants you to." He lets out a puff of smoke.
"I am going to." She stares at her brother with a long glance as he sits down in a arm chair by the fireplace smoking a cigarette. He was nothing like the old porker she remembered him to be.
After Titanic he became cheerless and short tempered. He began to drink at age fifteen, and came home with bruises. He began taking drugs, and was dictated to gambling. He even used a large amount of his wealth and bought a gambling boat.
Now, Winnie can't imagine seeing the man he has become before her own eyes. His orange hair slicked back, with a derby cap on top of his head with an ace card sticking out the side. Bags under his eyes from restless nights of sleep. He was thin, very thin. So thin in fact he could fit through a toilet bowl lid. So very different from his sister.
Winnie put on a little weight after WW1. Her hair became a dull brown with some gray in it. Her eyes still had some twinkle in them, but are now ever fading. She had bags under her eyes from the dreams that haunted her. No one could read her expression, because it was always blank. And no one absolutely no one could commit to memory, when she was ever happy. Her brother noticed her staring.
"What are you looking at? If you want to go see Mum, then go to her." Winnie rolling her eyes walked out of the parlor and up the stairs toward her mother's room. She sometimes occasionally glanced over at the familiar rooms that where once full of happiness.
She past be Edward's room, that now was storage once again. The brilliant paint that once reflected dreams was peeling down the gray wall. She walked into the room turned around slowly trying to grasp that moment of happiness when she last stood in the room. She then faced the window that was once a lovely scene. It was now broken, some shattered pieces lay on the floor. Servants never bothering to pick them up.
She closed her eyes searching… searching. Opening them, it was like stepping back in time. She saw the shatter pieces fly up back toward the window. It began to become whole again, and looked new. She saw the paper peeling up into the astonishing merles they once where. The pram, the rocking horse appeared. Then she saw…. Herself?
It was her. At age twelve. 30 years ago. She was dressed in one of her mother's fanciest gowns. A big grin on her face. "I must be going insane. I finally cracked." She gulped. She turned around to leave the room when she heard a little voice, thin but clear.
"Winnie? Me boat?" She turned around quickly on her heels (She has gotten better at that). There standing right in front of her was Eddy. When he was a porker.
"Yes Eddy. A large boat. A ship. The SHIP OF DREAMS." The young Winnie jumped off the bed (the one that once belonged to Lulu) and grabbed her brother by the arms. "And us… the very essence of the dream. It will take us to America, the land of the free. And I… we'll meet the lady liberty herself." Then she started to qoute one of her poems:
On This Wondrous Sea
On this wondrous sea
Sailing silently,
Ho! Pilot, ho!
Knowest thou the shore
Where no breakers roar --
Where the storm is o'er?
In the peaceful west
Many the sails at rest --
The anchors fast --
Thither I pilot thee --
Land Ho! Eternity!
Ashore at last!
(By Emily Dickinson)
Winnie not believing what she was seeing gave a shriek. Then if on queue, the memory came crashing down, and everything went back to the way it did when she entered the room.
"I do so hate when that happens. A happy memory slips away from one's grasp when you want so much in the world to keep it. Fate is a harsh thing."
Winnie turned around and saw before her a women in a wheel chair. Her long gray silvery hair flowing down her sides. She was fragile. Like a doll. One drop and you would brake it forever. The women was tiny. Her hands and feet curved and crumpled. Her face sagging, the skin loose. Her two different color eyes where kind and shinning. Hope. That was what was left in them.
"Mother?"
"Hello Winifred. About time you came. Jane, and her cousin are playing in my room." She pointed a bony finger towards her door. "In there." She gave a shrug. "Don't be shy, give your poor mother a hug." Winnie walked over to the women, or now she found out her mother and gave her a hug. "There we are, a nice hug. Very nice." Then she looked down at her hands. "They were once beautiful strong hands. Beautiful strong hands." Her mother had tears forming in her eyes. "I should have held on tighter." Tears began falling down her cheeks. One by one the tears slide into her mouth. "We can never choose our destiny, for destiny chooses the person."
"Mother? I don't under-"
"Your father always said that. He always told me. Now he can tell me again. George is coming for me, you will see he is coming to get me. Then will be together." That moment a nurse came running down the hall.
"Mrs. Morrill, Mrs. Morrill. There you are. The doctor said not to get out of bed you knotty women." Winnie's mother turned to the nurse.
"Betty have you meet my daughter Winnie? She's a good girl." She patted her daughters arm.
"I bet she is Mrs. Morrill, but we have to go back to bed now. Doctors orders."
"Damn doctors orders I'm fine." She began waving her hands in the air.
"I bet you are. Now, come along bed time." The nurse grabbed the wheel chair and started wheeling Winnie's mother back to her room. She turned around, "Goodnight Winnie, I love you! See you tomorrow."
"Goodnight Mother. Sweet dreams." Winnie walked back downstairs and started looking for things she could take back with her so they wouldn't be destroyed when the house was burned. Which wasn't that soon.
Winnie's mother died the night before. Edward, her, and what was left of the servants left Mrs. Morrill's body to burn with the rest of the house. Winnie watched as the flames consumed the house, unlike her brother. She watched as her happiness was to disappear forever.
Hours after the burning, Winnie decided to look through the remains to see what was left. (Her daughter went with Edward, and his family back to his home in London.) When Winnie finally decided everything was lost… she stepped on something.
She picked it up, and whipped off the dust and ashes covering it. As the dust and ashes fell to the ground she started scrapping off a red substance. Rust? When she finally uncovered it she gave a gasp, and dropped it. Thud. The object opened.
"Could it be…? So many years?" She clasped a hand to her mouth, and slowly picked it up. "Oh my lucky stars!" She started flipping through the pages, of indeed her journal. When she had gotten to the last entry something shiny, but rusted fell on her lap. "Oh my heavens! My bracelet!" Tears came. "Oh my… how, why?" Her mother's words came back into her head.
"We can never choose destiny, for destiny chooses the person." She remembered now. All of it. Her life, in her hands, waiting…. Waiting to be finished.