12 April 1912
"Wait here for five minutes and then meet me in the Reading and Writing Room."
He had whispered the request to her with a gentle voice, larking, before he kissed her hand again and slipped away from her like water through her fingers. Never had minutes and seconds moved so slowly for Rose. She clenched her dress in her fists until her knuckles went white and pressed her teeth together until her jaws began to ache, trying to curb her frustration as the clock seemed to taunt her, You are at my mercy, now suffer while I take my time.
When the minute hand finally showed her an ounce of goodwill and slithered over the first elegant numeral, it took everything within her not to seize her skirts in her hands and run up the two flights of stairs and down the deck, straight to their meeting place.
No, she told herself. You have waited this long for happiness, for someone who understands you. You can conduct yourself as a lady for five more minutes.
She took a breath, inhaling until her corset began to dig painfully into her skin and her breasts were squished back into her chest. With its release, she let go with it every sense of apprehension that tainted her heart's sweet melody with a foul note, as well as any guilt she felt towards betraying the wishes of those who had never done her any kindness but carve her into a hollow sculpture of what she was expected to be. She tried to imagine Cal, disappointed in her deeds of sneaking away with the Shipbuilder with whatever intention he had for them that evening. His face did not appear behind her eyes. Instead, it was Mr. Andrews, holding her hand with that sweet, kindly smile on his lips, speaking to her as if she were the most beloved thing in the world. With this thought, she walked, straight-backed, one foot in front of the other as she had been taught since infancy.
Ladies and gentlemen passed by her, speaking her name in greeting, but she paid them no mind and did not burden her brain with trying to remember what their names were or to what fortune they were heirs or heiresses; she simply nodded in acknowledgment as she sauntered on, sober of face, a strange strike of joy crashing in her bosom like lightning when they smiled approvingly at her.
Oh, how little they knew.
If only they knew that beyond her superficial gentility, in a roaring mind hidden behind embellished gowns and proper breeding, she imagined herself and Mr. Andrews in the shadowy Reading and Writing Room, kissing until their lips were ruby red and swollen and the only sound that disturbed the silence was their panting breaths, her fingers entangled in his canescent hair, his falling dangerously low on the small of her back in sure betrayal of shy Mr. Andrews's true conduct. She was forced to bite her lip to keep from grinning like a madwoman.
The air upon the A-Deck was frigid and had Rose not been warm of body from her imaginings she would have wished she had her shawl. The ocean air was thick with salt, sticking to her skin like a thousand little kisses of ice. Overhead, the stars blazed as if winking at her, congratulating her on her escapade with their own impish kind of approval. There was no moon, she noticed; there was simply a lunar glow where it should have been, the slightest sliver of gold if she squinted her eyes like a curved scar in the sky. She felt as if she were navigating a room without a candle and she walked on blind but determined. It almost felt as though the entrance of the room gleamed with an absent light, like it was leading her to it, to her future and the fate she so desperately craved for herself all wrapped up and tied together in a kind Irish man waiting within the doors for her.
At last, free from prying and unwelcome eyes, she sprinted, throwing open the door and coming to a stop inside the black room, heaving for breath against her corset. She turned her head, unaware if he was there waiting for her.
She felt no presence nearby, did not feel the warmth of another body anywhere close to her, but yet she remained planted in the same spot, waiting. Distantly, in some corner of her mind, she wondered if he were playing a cruel prank on her like she were a dog and he was waving a bone before her face and so suddenly ripped it away. Her breathing quieted at last and it was silent, far too silent for there to be someone else in the same room. Panic bloomed in her chest, quickly bleeding together with shame.
"Young Rose," came the sharp whisper as her hand was suddenly grasped. Rose exclaimed, crying out louder than she intended, and would have fallen in surprise of her arm and hand were not quickly grappled with tight but soft fingers. She noted distantly that the hold upon her limb was exactly what she felt when she had nearly slipped to her death off the stern of Titanic and the hands which held her felt just the same; loving, affectionate, creative. Thomas Andrews was before her, she was sure of it.
"Mr. Andrews!" she lowered her voice to a low mutter, laying her hand atop his. "You frightened me!"
"Forgive me. I did not mean to."
They unhanded each other and she straightened her back. Her eyes began to ache trying to make out his dark silhouette. She laughed and looked to her slippered feet as if embarrassed, despite knowing he could not see her any better than she could see him.
"Is this the party you spoke of, sir? Because this is quite a soulless party if it is," she jested.
"I'd expect you to have more faith in me, Young Rose. No, this is not it. I simply thought we should meet here lest people see us walking together through the Reception Room. This is the Reading and Writing Room. It's hardly used and hasn't been since the second day of the voyage so I said to cut off the lights to save power. I suppose I shall have more staterooms built instead."
"That is a shame. From what shapes I can make out, it's a beautiful room."
They both guffawed at that. She had made him laugh! Sometimes the smaller wonders of life made their heart fly higher and faster than anything else, and Rose figured hers was flying so quickly it would reach New York before they did.
She heard him shifting as he went to the door, looking both ways before she barely saw him wave her over. He smiled, his teeth gently illuminated by the lanterns out on the deck, and took her hand with slight hesitation.
"Are you ready, Rose?" He asked conspiratorially, murmuring it to her as if they were about to commit a bank robbery.
She laughed. "Of course I'm ready, Mr. Andrews."
Without another word, he rushed out, pulling her with him as they both chuckled. She bunched her skirts within her hands as they raced down the promenade and down the stairs to the stern. By now she was utterly confused, and she displayed this on her face as they were now both in the light and could see clearly each other.
"Have you been down to the third class, Rose?"
"No, of course not! Mother would have a fit!"
"Well, in that case, perhaps you shouldn't. I wouldn't want to cause an argument."
It clicked within her head; they stood before the stairs leading to the second and third class cabins and he intended to take her down there, improper as it was. Oh, the devilish delight that filled her!
He looked afraid, lips turned downward in disappointment, refusing to look at her and gazing instead at his folded hands. Though she knew he would rather be caught dead than be seen going into the third-class cabins, Rose again could not help but imagine the situation if he were Cal. If he had been, she would have been dragged down there no matter how much she protested, even if her arm was being ripped from its socket and she was crying in pain. To Cal the only pleasure that mattered was his and she was simply collateral damage in the pursuit of it. And yet, she stood before this man, bashful and quiet and modest, who was allowing her a way out. And, what's more, she thought, he wants me to go with him!
She could not bear to keep him waiting any longer and she grabbed unscrupulously his hand, intertwining their fingers as she had been dreaming of doing. Mr. Andrews looked up to her, shining with hope. They spoke no words but communicated through glimmers in their eyes, and within a moment beaming grins spread across their faces as they laughed in their mutual private understanding before he tugged her tenderly down the stairs.
It felt like more than a doorway to a section of a ship to Rose; it felt like a threshold was being crossed and she was transforming as a person, privy to the ways of those with whom she felt most at home, unthreaded from the rigid knots of tradition. And she realized there was no one else whose hand she would rather be holding at that moment than Thomas Andrews's hand.
The fiddle was the first thing to reach her ears, graduating from a dull thumping vibration beneath her feet to the merry confluence of the bow to the strings. Next, she heard the half-drunken, rowdy raving of the steerage passengers, shouting and clapping and stamping their feet in delight; Irish accents, Swedish and English and Austrian all blended with one another in a glorious gallimaufry of fraternization.
Rose grinned; standing among these dear loutish people celebrating life simply for the fact that they were alive and living it, surrounded by clumsy but jubilating music and the earthy smell of beer with Thomas Andrews's arm entwined with hers was all she had ever wanted and needed and never knew until that very moment.
Some looked shocked at the obviously aristocratic girl walking apprehensively into the Third Class General Room, but rather than sneer at her, they looked almost overjoyed at the prospect of such exalted company. There were no snobbish glares over pinched noses and raised chins at an outsider entering their domain; Rose, in all her silken and laced glory, was smiled on. Her attire and highbred mannerisms were insignificant and her accompaniment by the pariah of the elites for his unbiased and nonpartisan kindness to all solidified her in their good graces.
"Well, I'll be goddamned!" A zesty, boyish voice shouted over the loud Irish folk music being played with much enthusiasm by the band, and Rose heard the firm clap of his hand to Mr. Andrews's shoulder. "I know you said you'd come, Mr. Andrews, but I never woulda guessed you were telling the truth!"
"Ah, Jack! I think I should be insulted by your doubting me. Never doubt an Irishman when he gives his word!" He laughed, fondly looking at the young man.
"Do me eyes deceive me? Is that Thomas Andrews I see?" A brogue even stronger than Mr. Andrews's became louder as the owner of it approached them. "Aye, I told you he'd come! Better pay up, Dawson. You owe me two quid!"
"See? The Irish never doubt the Irish!" The man bellowed.
He turned to Rose who looked incongruous and patted her arm to get her attention. "Rose, I'd like to introduce you to Jack Dawson and Tommy Ryan. Call them friends of mine. Jack, Tommy, this is Miss Rose DeWitt Bukater."
Standing before her were two men of roughly of the same height, one lithe and blonde with playful eyes, the other bulky and defiant with a kind and welcoming smile and a mop of auburn curls resting under a bowler hat. She wanted to wrap them up in her arms and kiss them repeatedly for looking at her so familiarly, as if she were a childhood friend they had not seen for a number of years but with whom they shared a special kinship that time did not alter.
"A pleasure to meet you, Miss DeWitt Bukater," The blonde, Jack, was the first to reach for her, tugging on her arm just hard enough that it seemed he wanted to embrace her but refrained.
"Rose, please. Wonderful to meet you, Mr. Dawson."
"Agh! None of that Mr. Dawson crock! It's just Jack."
"Hi. Lovely to meet ya, Rose," said Tommy, smoothly shaking her hand, holding it for a few moments longer than what she was used to.
"Ah! Ah! He come! He come!" A nearly indecipherable shrill Italian timbre exclaimed as an olive-skinned man came over and punched Jack in the collarbone. "He come. You pay."
"I know, I know! You'll get your money, boys," he raised his hands in surrender. "Fabrizio, meet Rose. She's our new friend."
"Ah, Rose!" He exclaimed, seizing her by the shoulders and kissing her animatedly on each cheek, catching her positively off guard. "E una ragazza così bella da avere con noi stasera!"
"What did he say?" She asked Jack.
"Nevermind." He laughed. "I've long since given up on trying to understand him."
The song ended with a final note, applause coursing about the room in varying degrees of vigor. Only a slight pause lasted before they began again, a faster-paced melody that made one want to do nothing but gambol and cheer along.
A little girl, no older than six, adorned with brunette ringlets and rosy cheeks skipped up to them and tugged on Jack's rolled-up shirtsleeve. "Cora, my best girl! You ready for our dance?"
Cora bashfully nodded, taking his proffered hand and intertwining their fingers. Tommy departed to engage in an arm wrestle with a large and intimidating looking Swede and Fabrizio was leading a blonde lady in a fumbling attempt at a jig. Mr. Andrews took her hand, bringing Rose's attention back to him. They lost each other in a gaze for a moment, swimming with affection heightened by the surrounding utopia, before he grinned and said, "May I have this dance, Young Rose?"
She felt the blood drain from her face and her light smile blew from her lips like a tree in a cyclone, suddenly afraid. "B-But...I don't know the steps."
He chortled, maneuvering her into position despite her determination to protest, one of his hands laced with hers and the other on the small of her back. "Nobody does, Rose. Don't think, just move with me."
He draped his dinner jacket over the back of Tommy's chair before he swept her within his arms and brought her to the middle of the floor. A single peruse about the room told Rose that Mr. Andrews had been correct; there was no set dance, and every couple was doing something different; some jumping, some spinning and waltzing, but no chosen movements to which everyone else was confined. He led her, galloping and capering in circles about the room, passing by others like motorcars and horses on the streets of Philadelphia. It felt so right and settled in her veins like lifeblood; this informality, this waltz with no real steps, the sweat shining freely upon her skin as she was pressed far closer to Mr. Andrews than her mother would ever be able to bear should she have seen them. It was like a lifetime of pent-up strain was finally being relieved and she pressed her forehead in a ghost of a touch to his shoulder, letting her body shake with laughter. Just barely she made out the rumble of his own chuckles brushing her ear like a loving caress.
A new round of hoots and hollers reached her ears and she dared to look up, seeing Fabrizio and Helga atop a makeshift stage, front and center, twirling about each other as the steerage passengers below lauded and clapped, the band beginning to play louder and faster. A look upon her partner told Rose that Mr. Andrews had noticed them as well, and the simper growing on his face made her suddenly nervous.
"Come with me," he said, stopping them in their tracks and catching her as she fell forward, entwining their fingers again and pulling her up to stand next to the couple.
She looked at the expectant yet kind eyes all upon her and she felt herself shrink back, tempted to jump back down and run, but the grin on Mr. Andrews's lips stopped her in her tracks. Suddenly, he broke out into an Irish step dance, quick and complicated footwork the likes of which she had never seen at any silver-spoon gala or party to which she had ever been.
She marveled at him. He moved with an ease that could only be equated to the jubilation of an Irishman when just enough good spirits and lively music were blended. His steps were fluid and reminiscent as if displaying with each touch of his feet to the floor a memory from his days in Ireland about which Rose so craved to know. The look on his face was one of pure felicity, dancing the dance of his true people. She realized that this was the real Thomas Andrews, the Thomas Andrews unburdened and unburied by the confines to which they were both doomed, uninhibited and absolutely, undeniably free. As he moved to the tune of the jig playing behind them and the stamping of the steerage men's boots and the rhythmic applause of the women watching him, she realized he loved this dance, these people, this life, more than he loved even Titanic.
He stole a look at her, cheeks red (with exertion or shyness, Rose could not decipher) looking for a sort of approval as he was so wont to do.
Her heart raced as, instead of speaking, she quickly pulled off her slippers, throwing them to Jack who stood just below, watching them with Cora at his side. She lifted her skirts and, with clumsiness and naivety overwritten by her sheer determination, mimicked with her stockinged feet his same moves. Mr. Andrews watched her carefully, keeping scrutinizing eyes on the movement of her feet, smiling slightly at her daredevilry and agility. She smirked at him, daring him with mirthful eyes and he danced again before they took turns in a duel of dexterity, the quintet playing faster still.
Both smiling, mentally declaring the other the winner of their battle, they joined hands tightly and began spinning in a circle with the end of the tune approaching, moving in tandem with Fabrizio and Helga and the rest of the courageous upon the stage. They looked into each other's eyes, brown fighting blue-green for the dominance of sweltering and simmering affection and admiration, laughing and gabbling in jubilation.
The jig ended in a flourish, the entire room erupting in a drunken and thunderous ovation. The musicians smiled, nodding their appreciation, thanking the crowd before beginning again. The architect of the RMS Titanic held politely his first-class companion as they stepped down from the stage, allowing the rest to continue in their increasingly bungling polkas.
"Excuse me, sir," Jack tapped Mr. Andrews, speaking in a faux posh English accent. "May I cut in and have a turn?"
"Certainly, sir," he played along with a chuckle, looking down to Cora hiding behind the boy's legs. "And may I have a turn with your favorite girl, here?"
"Sure thing, but don't you sway her to your side, Andrews!" He shook a finger at him and turned to the girl. "You're still my best girl, Cora, don't worry! And don't let him tell you any bad things about me!" Cora smiled and giggled, nodding her head with a flush of her little cheeks.
Jack stepped forward and politely laid his hand upon Rose's waist, taking her hand in his, damp with perspiration from a night well spent. She twinkled at him, looking over his shoulder as the next jig was just beginning, seeing Mr. Andrews kneel before the sweet-looking girl and offering his hand to her with a kind, "May I have this dance, Miss Cora?" to which her face mantled and she shyly nodded, taking his hand and stepping her small feet onto his boots as they broke out into a waltz.
Rose's bosom could hardly handle how her heart swelled in tenderness. The true and honest smile on Mr. Andrews's lips as he stared lovingly down at this child he hardly knew but admired simply by her spirit, and the happiness upon Cora's face when normally she would have fled from any stranger save Jack was more beautiful to her than any of the paintings at which Cal had thrown money and hung on her walls. It was all the confirmation she needed to know that Thomas Andrews was winding and weaving his way into her guarded heart in a way no one ever had or attempted, whether she liked it or not.
She had not even noticed they had begun their circles about the room until she heard Jack say her name. "Hey! Earth to Rose!" With a start, she blinked and looked to the blue-eyed man, startled at his knowing smirk as he laughed. "Hey, I know I'm no Harold Lockwood, but couldn't you at least try to make a man feel wanted, at least for a single dance?"
"Forgive me, Jack. I don't know where my mind was just now," she flushed.
"Oh, I know exactly where it was. It was on Mr. Andrews over there. You couldn't be more obvious if you tried, Rose."
"I don't know what you mean," she jutted her chin out and set her lips.
"Oh, yes, you do. You're smitten with him, and who could blame you? He's good lookin' and he's a damned genius. It's just an added bonus that he feels exactly the same way about you as you do about him."
Rose gasped, her jaw dropping so quickly pain pricked at her, "Why, don't be absurd! I don't feel that way for Mr. Andrews and he certainly doesn't feel that way about me! You must be mad! We're simply friends, is all!"
Jack snorted. "Yeah, because friends all but drool when looking at each other. I suppose I've been looking at my friends all wrong this whole time."
Sputtering, she said, "W-Well...maybe you have!" "Well, for what it's worth, I think you and Mr. Andrews are perfect for each other. You're not stuffy with first-class rules and neither is he, and that's real hard to find, Rose," he replied with a genuine smile and a shake of his head.
She was through with folly, looking up to him with sparkling eyes, aghast. "Y-You really think so?" Jack hummed his assent and she finally relaxed to a smile, and the rest of the dance was spent in happy comfortability as, next to being near Mr. Andrews, Rose had never felt more at home in anyone's arms than she did in Jack Dawson's.
When the jig ceased and Rose had jumped and skipped until her body and mind were unfettered and slackened, the blonde man bowed to her, kissing her hand with a waggish wink, jerking his head slightly in the direction of Andrews kneeled before Cora. She was warmed to the very core of her heart when she saw the girl grin brightly and wrapped her young arms around his neck with something he said, and he was unashamed in returning the gesture, holding her for a few brief moments before Jack cut in and the child was once more distracted.
Mr. Andrews righted himself, scanning the crowd until he saw her standing alone.
He smiled as she walked back to him, heart pounding incessantly, wondering if the love with which it thrummed was soon to be claimed.
Tommy was still sitting at the table, closely flanked by men of every nationality, the need for speech supplanted by the intensity of their arm wrestle. Mr. Andrews skillfully, with the same sleight of hand he used in slipping Rose his note, reached between them and grabbed two untouched tumblers filled to the brim with stout. He handed one to Rose, expecting her to take dainty sips by force of habit, and was stunned stiff when she chugged the beer faster than he did, downing the entire glass before he had finished half. She looked at him, smirking at his raised eyebrows and slacked jaw.
"What? You think a first-class girl can't drink?" She attempted to look affronted but broke out into giggles as she heaved for breath.
All was silent about them until the bigger man wrenched his and Tommy's arms over the table, knocking over half-full glasses and erupting the men and women about them into cheers. "Two out of three, two out of three!" The Irishman exclaimed, cigarette hanging stuck to his bottom lip.
The two of them were just about to wrestle anew when Rose walked forward, placing her glass with a loud emphasized thump on the table between their joining hands.
"So," she exclaimed over the music and bellowing of the crowd, reaching forward and audaciously swiped Tommy's cigarette before taking a drag. "You think you're big tough men? Let's see you do this."
She backed up next to Andrews again, taking her skirts and shoving them into his hands. "Hold this for me, Mr. Andrews, please. Hold it up!"
The Master Shipbuilder complied, inclining the fabric in a show of black and coral as the girl closed her eyes, taking a deep breath and assuming a first position stance. He nearly laughed at the engaged and utterly confused faces of the people before them, waiting for whatever it was she was going to do. She lifted herself onto her toes, pushing until all of her body weight was upon her halluces.
Their jaws dropped in tandem, eyes bulging in shock and amazement as Rose's face screwed up in pain. She held the stance for a few seconds before crying out with a loud, "Ow!" before falling forward into Andrews's arms, the cigarette still clasped between two fingers.
How close they suddenly were, his warm hands upon her back and hers around his neck, and only a few unseeable inches did they need to move for him to kiss her. Their smiles disappeared in realization and her heart thudded so roughly in her chest she could barely breathe. He was going to kiss her!
He was moving his hand to touch her cheek as he had been thinking of for the past days, and enough boldness which he would have never normally possessed, kindled by the thrills of the night as well as alcohol and pure desire, had accumulated within him that he was going to kiss her at long last. And by the look upon her face, hooded and smoky eyes, flushed cheeks and parted lips, she wanted it just as terribly as he did. He would do it. He would.
Alas, their reverie was destroyed by the stunned applause of the group around them, one woman crying an astonished, "Jesus, Mary and Joseph!"
Rose nearly sobbed as she tightened her arm around his neck, as if holding him closer would somehow rekindle the moment in which they had been so happily existing, just on the brink of culmination. He smiled sadly at her and said, "Are you alright?"
She giggled despite herself. "I haven't done that in years!"
They did not unhand each other for some moments, laughing in each other's arms, forgetful of every other soul around them who posed an interruption to their passion. So caught up were they that they did not notice the scowling face of Lovejoy standing upon the stairs below the door to the well deck, scanning the crowd like a searchlight for a head of fiery hair. He caught sight of them, her hand laced with Thomas Andrews's as they joined in a chain dance, laughing and galloping with the rest. He squinted, watching them for some minutes. They were none the wiser, and, with an inimical smile, he shut the door again.
The night was frigid and the deck empty, and Rose and Mr. Andrews walked peacefully and unashamedly, heading towards the First-Class entrance, the strike of midnight to their carriage, when all they wanted to do was turn and go back to the group below. Andrews was humming a familiar tune as they passed by the lifeboats.
"What is it you're humming?" She asked him, tugging on his arm.
"Come Josephine in My Flying Machine."
"Why, I must say I am surprised, Mr. Andrews! I never would have taken you for a man who listens to popular music!" Rose jested, crippling forward in a fit of intoxicated giggles.
"As I hope I have demonstrated clearly enough tonight, Young Rose, I am a man full of surprises," he smiled kindly down at her, their eyes furious with the magnetic connection once again, loathe to break it.
"Come Josephine in my flying machine, going up she goes! Up she goes!" She chanted, throwing their joined hands together up to the sky and swinging their arms in the icy wind.
"Balance yourself like a bird on a beam, in the air she goes! There she goes!"
They paid no mind to the White Star Line seaman standing aside who raised an eyebrow at them as they passed by, and Rose snickered into his ear after they walked past before they sang together again.
"Up, up, a little bit higher! Oh, my! The moon is on fire! Come Josephine in my flying machine, going up, all on, goodbye!"
The alight entrance to first-class stood in front of them like the stocks below the blade of a guillotine. They froze, reluctant to move, reluctant to enter. The sophisticated melody of Wally Hartley's orchestra spilled through the doors, hauntingly beautiful in its confinement. Rose wondered how Mr. Hartley would fare below decks, what kind of music he would play with his prized violin, how he would conduct himself free from elite rules. She got a thrill at the thought of him sitting beside the fiddle player, them drawing the bows frantically across the strings as they stamped their feet to the rhythm in a way he had never been allowed. After all, he looked like a man who was bubbling with mischief just like she and Mr. Andrews; perhaps that's why she liked him so very much.
Rose grabbed hold of one of Mr. Andrews's prized davits and leaned her head back to stare at the constellations in the frozen sky. "Isn't it magnificent? So grand and endless." She walked as if on air to the rail, leaning over it towards the black ocean which she had not truly done since the night the man behind her rescued her. This time, she was not filled with hopelessness or a yearning for all of life to stop; she wanted now for life to go forward more than ever, blazing with more ferocity than it ever had, roaring and unceremonious as she had briefly experienced that night.
"They're such small people, Mr. Andrews, our crowd," she spoke as if in a dream, voice wistful for something she had never truly known. "They think they're giants on earth but they're not even dust in God's eye. They live inside this tiny champagne bubble and someday the bubble's going to burst."
There was nothing he could think to say; she knew already by now that he shared in her sentiment and he could not bear to lie and refute her as if the aristocracy were untouchable in its perfection and she was wrong to bear the grievances she did. He walked beside her, extending his forearms out, the side of his hand barely brushing her own.
She clenched her eyes shut, taking a deep breath. There was that feeling inside her again; the crackling and hissing of desire and melting affection, the sensation that her soul had finally found in him the key to its chains and with the slightest fleeting touch of flesh it spouted golden wings and soared freely to the cosmos.
Rose gasped as she threw her head back. "Look! A shooting star!"
The silvery star, unburdened by the glow of the absent moon, cut obliquely a gaping streak into the continuous and rhythmic sky. The sky was downtrodden with the same punctilios as they, the pattern unchanged and undisturbed, and to Rose, that shooting star symbolized herself and Mr. Andrews. They were a joined force of dissent, burning brightly while they ripped through the orthodox as they had while they danced their hearts out until happiness unlike any she had ever known was captured and adorned her like a royal mantle.
"That was a long one," Mr. Andrews mused. "When I was a lad back home in Ireland, my father used to say whenever you saw a shooting star, it was a soul going to Heaven."
She smiled. "I like that. Aren't we supposed to wish on it?"
"What would you wish for, Young Rose?" He finally turned to her, noticing how they had unwittingly moved closer until the heat of their respective bodies could be felt on the other.
She smiled with sad eyes, "Something I can't have."
He could almost hear her shivering in the cold ocean wind. They were almost as close as they had been in the general room, and their lack of touch somehow alighted the moment to a more fiery ache of the heart, dragged further from what they desired. There was not a soul around; he could, in an instant, before she could consider what was happening, sweep her into his arms and kiss her with the ocean as their only witness. The boldness, though dulled by the cold and sobering night, returned to him. He would do it. He would.
"Andrews!" A bellowing, shrill voice cut on the tension surrounding them like a knife to a teacake. It was Ismay. "For God's sake, man, what the hell do you think you're doing?"
Rose and Mr. Andrews whipped around, gripping the railing for purchase, guilty without a crime. Their mutual eyes were wide, staring at the fuming man, his brows furrowed that even backlit as he was the crease in his forehead and his lips downturned into a vicious snarl could be seen. Andrews could hardly believe that man was capable of such ire.
"Did you truly think you could continue these transgressions undetected? Are you mad?"
He was lost for words, opening and closing his mouth as if he were a fish. It felt as if their souls were abandoning their bodies as he and Rose saw Spicer Lovejoy walking up behind Ismay, comically villainous, an evil smirk on his lips.
The chairman of White Star Line stomped up to the Master Shipbuilder, blustering and shaking with rage. "You are a married man, for God's sake! What is Helen going to say when she finds out? And what about Miss DeWitt Bukater, hmm, Mr. Andrews? What do you suppose shall happen to you when Mr. Hockley discovers you've been cavorting with his wife-to-be? Good Lord, you may be a genius of architecture but as a man, you are as great a fool as I've ever seen."
Someone could have reached their hands through her flesh and ripped her heart straight from her breast and slapped her in the face and Rose would have been far less horrified and anguished. Married! Mr. Andrews married! How can this be? Oh, it couldn't be!
"You would truly risk your reputation for a dalliance? And with a girl so young? You're a fool, Thomas, a fool!"
Andrews tried to ground himself by gripping the railing until it pained his hands, but it did nothing. It was as if he had gone mute in the shame flowing from him and he could do nothing but stare at the deck forged by his own hands, too abashed to look at Ismay and preferring death to witnessing the betrayal on Rose's precious face.
"You will end this now, this instant. If you have no care for your own reputation, so be it, but I will not let you damage Titanic's image because you choose to be witless."
Without another word spoken, Ismay stomped away like a reprimanded child in a flurry of rage, disappearing beyond the doors of the first-class ingress. Oh, how Andrews wished he and Rose had walked through them when they had been afforded the opportunity.
Lovejoy remained, overjoyed at the spectacle as if he were sitting in the theatre watching a moving picture. He crossed his arms in smug satisfaction.
For once, the bitch of a woman he was forced to endure for the sake of his employment stood, bereft of speech, refusing to meet his eyes, shrinking within herself in such a way that if he did not know her as well as he did he would have figured she was demure in the wake of Andrews's deceit. She was exactly as a woman should be, instead of obstinate and perfervid as she insisted on being.
"Come, Miss Rose. I shall take you back to Mr. Hockley and your mother," his gentle voice fooled none of them, his natural arrogance sitting just underneath the speech like blood beneath veins.
"No, Lovejoy. I will come back when I'm ready," she did not look at him, staring at her folded hands before her, quiet as a mouse.
"Miss Rose, come on. It will do you no good standing out here with him."
"I said no! No, Lovejoy, no! I will come when I'm ready, I say!" she exclaimed, stamping her foot.
The dastardly man was unaffected as he shoved his hands in his pockets and, with a final antagonistic grin, sauntered callously away.
And so, the two with the raging affair of the heart and bereft forever of one of the flesh, were left in the dissipating fire of the explosion of truth, feeling as if they had just been skinned alive. Rose could not bear to look at him, less from anger and more from her hatred of the idea of this gentle man upset, even if such upset was brought upon himself.
"You're married," she said as a statement instead of a question.
"Yes," he croaked.
"And you kept that from me," Rose finally looked up, steadfast even as tears collected in her eyes, making them gleam in the light of the deck lanterns, just as they had when they were tiptoeing like thieves to true happiness just hours before.
"You don't understand, Rose. There is so much that you do not understand. It is not as simple as all that, you must believe me."
"How can I believe anything you say when I just discovered you're married? And from Bruce Ismay of all people! You're married and you...you...you were going to kiss me! I know you were!"
He furrowed his brow. "Yes, Rose, I was. And you mustn't forget that you are engaged to be married and you were going to let me."
She started and recoiled, truth washing over her, no warmer than if she had stripped down to her bloomers and truly had jumped from the side of the ship into the below-freezing ocean beneath them. How right he was, damn him. They were both as guilty as the other and their hearts throbbed in hatred of circumstance in tandem as they stood, never more divided. Rose almost felt seeking the solace of her unfeeling mother would comfort her more than being in the presence of this man, this man that just as little as a half-hour before she could have dared say she lo—
"You're right, Mr. Andrews," she emphasized his name and he understood, wincing as if he had been stabbed. "I...I wish you a good night."
He did not even attempt to call after her, even as he felt the tugging of the blasted string tied around his heart connected to hers. It felt as though it were pulling and pulling, and the animosity brought upon them was fraying it. It would fall apart and when it did, his heart would die.
His grip on the railing faltered and he fell to sit on the deck, suddenly sweltering in the bitter April night. He did not see her standing in front of one of the windows, watching him with eyes that were, albeit flooded with lifeless tears, filled with love that could only possess her when he was in her view, and that he could only feel when she was on his mind as she was in that moment and had been for the past two days.