Chapter 13
Two days ago, if someone had told me this would happen I would have called them stupid. But the stupid thing was I had trusted him. I had believed he was no more than an insight into the past and I had the soul intension of using him to learn what my mother was hiding. But it was I who ended up being used.
And as I huddled up in the corner of that dark, dusty basement I felt as if I deserved what I got. The bruises that were blossoming up my arms and legs were each penance to my mother, for all the grief I'd caused her. My numb fingers gently pressed the swollen tendons in my broken wrist. I winced, not from the pain but from the harsh cold voice that sliced the air.
"Get dressed." His voice was rough and ragged. He sat on an empty crate a few feet away, dabbing the sweat off his brow. The weight of his stare on my skin was almost too difficult to bare. I reached for my clothing only a few inches away and pulled it over my tangled mess of curls.
The skirt of my favorite navy dress was ripped at the seams, exposing a large patch of purple-white thigh. I couldn't remember seeing it tear, but I remembered the sound of the fabric ripping in his impatience to get it out of the way. I wiped the tears from my eyes in the memory of it. I fought back the will to let them cascade down my cheeks. I would never allow myself to cry in front of him. As I pulled on my shoes I noticed that dried blood ran like rivers down the inside of my legs.
"Shit. You son of a bitch. You made me bleed." I cursed silently, not intending for him to hear it.
"After all I did to you, your dwelling on a little blood." He smirked, taking a long gulp on whiskey and smacking his full lips in satisfaction.
I didn't retort back. Instead I tucked my knees into my chest, hugging my legs and I began to hum my mother's lullaby. Come Josephine in my flying machine, and it's up she goes, up she goes...
"Get up." He commanded, getting to his feet and throwing on his shirt. He let his shot glass slip from his fingers and shatter on the floor.
I pretended not to have heard him. I strained to bend my arm and plug my ears with my fingers. I began to rock back and forth on my heels, humming even louder to drown out the sound of his voice.
The sound of his heavy shoes against the floor over powered my soft humming. His thick fingers grabbed my bad arm and yanked me onto my feet. I bit my lip, so hard it bled just to fight back the scream building up pressure in my throat.
He opened the door to his study and threw me into an arm chair before the fire. I sank down into the soft leather cushion, burying my face in my hands. Cal sat down in the opposite chair. He reclined back and breathed deep, before letting out a long, drawn out sigh.
I'm very sorry." He lamented. It felt awkward to hear him speak so softly and so remorsefully, his voice had been so harsh before.
"I don't care." I snapped hoarsely. "I'm not taking your freaking pity. What's done is done. Just forget about it."
"Very well. As you wish." He said blankly. I wanted it to be over but I had to ask him.
"What do you think Nathan would say if he were to know about this?" I asked him, eyebrows arched in the same way my mother's did when she asked a question she knew the answer to.
"He'd hate me." He said with a laugh. "Might even cuss me off. But if its violence you're searching for in Nathan you won't find it. Nathan is too good a man to use violence against anyone. He could never hurt me. He fears me, Eliza."
"How can you say that?" I said sharply. "He is your son! Children should respect their parents, not fear them. My dad taught me that a long time ago. Not that anyone could find a reason to respect you." I added coldly.
"You love your daddy. don't you?" He said with a smirk, his voice turning nasty. "Of course you do, your father is a good man. Far better than I can ever hope to be. I was raised differently than him, as was your mother. We were raised believing as long as we were wealthy and acquired reputable social status we would always be respected. That as long as we men had a beautiful, social wife we would have a happy marriage, love be damned. We look down on the poor for their ignorance and pride but in reality we should be looked down upon, for our callousness."
"Does your wife love you?" I asked wearily, the image of Mrs. Hockley's porcelain face appearing in my head.
"In a way, I suppose her does." he sighed. "She loves me because I was good to her son. I gave them a good home and an upstanding family. But I do not believe she loves me in the way your mother loves your father. In fact, I think she resents me for what I did to her son."
"Her son?" I asked, knitting my eyebrows together in confusion.
"Nathan...is not my real son." He said, a bit of a sob in his voice. "Madeleine was engaged before me to a man named J.J Astor, the richest man in the world some say. He went down with Titanic and poor Madeleine had nowhere to go. So I propositioned her. I offered her financial stability, social status, a good home for her unborn child, more children if she wished...if she gave me the fortune Astor had left her and married me before the year was out."
"Oh my god." I gasped, uncurling myself to get a better look at his regretful face.
"Nathan was born in mid August 1912 as John Jacob Astor the fifth. We put out the child had died and hid him away until the appropriate time for him to be born, then of course we changed his name to Nathan Hockley, not legally though but it happened all the same." I couldn't say anything; my mind was frozen in shock.
"Anything else you'd like to share with me?" I asked, regaining a little of my superiority over him.
"You father was on the Titanic as well. Did you know that?" He said, reminiscing. "He was traveling in steerage and your mother and I were in the first class along with her mother, your grandmother. He met your mother rescuing her from falling of the back of the ship!" He laughed. "Anyway, they ended up having an affair later on." I wondered what memories of them he was revisiting in the twisted depths of his mind. "I was so foolish. I had him framed for robbery and that stupid girl went to rescue him instead of getting off that damn ship. I should have known interfering would only make her want him more."
I smiled to myself, picturing a younger version of my mother trudging through those icy hallways, axe held high above her head, racing to save my father. Even now, at the age of thirty one I could still imagine her doing the same.
"You are so like her, Elizabeth. In every way." he said affectionatly. I held an image of my mother's lovely face in my head and for a second I blushed with pride. But then I remembered our fight earlier that night. I remembered her cruel questions, her prying into my personal things and most of all her threat to tell my father. I burned with hate all over again.
"I am nothing like my mother." I stormed, clenching the loose fabric in my fists and digging my nails into the stitching. Cal looked taken aback; he shifted uncomfortably in his chair and looked away from my scorching stare. I knew it wasn't my actual words that startled him, but the intensity behind them. I was regaining my strength and he was beginning to fear the challenge of keeping me detained. But still not as much as I feared him.
"So are you gonna finish what you started?" I said finally. He looked at me, a curious grin spreading across his face.
"What do you mean?" He inquired. "Am I going to kill you?" he cackled harder this time, throwing his head back against his chair overwhelmed by the apparent amusement of my words. "I'm not going to kill you. Why would I do that? So I can ruin my good name and waste an already worthless life. There's no point to it."
"If I'm as worthless as you say then why does it matter?" I asked simply. "You could always hide the evidence."
"Because no matter how angry I become when I think about your matter, no matter how furious I get when I look at the product of her and that street rat I can't get over the fact that I did love her." he ran his fingers through his hair and messaged his temples as if the agony of admitting this was giving him a headache. "You're her little girl, Elizabeth. You're a part of her. Killing you would be like killing Rose. Besides," He added with a smile, "you were not meant to be beaten, Elizabeth Dawson, you were meant to be drowned."
I nodded, smirking at his last remark. Right then, I really couldn't understand how anyone could love my mother. So I accepted that I was meant to die some other day, and not here, tonight. Besides, I don't think I could bear dying alone with no one to hold onto as I left.
"Go home, Elizabeth." He said in his normal low, haughty tone. "And if you have any mercy for me and my family you will tell no one of what happened tonight. And of course if you want your family to remain intact." he added with an evil smirk.
"I won't breathe a word." I said quietly, untucking my legs and with my good arm hoisting myself onto my weak, shaky legs. "But the bruises, they just might say something." I left Caledon in his arm chair, staring off into the flames, his eyes glazing over with the remorse that I had searched for hours ago, before this even happened.
I didn't know how far my damaged body would carry me, I hoped it would hold out till I got to the safety of my home. Little did I know, there were more battles waiting for me there.