Chapter 22
New York City was nothing like I pictured it to be. In my mind I imagined a sprawling city beside the ocean, metallic skyscrapers gleaming in the brilliant sunlight. In reality, the buildings are dull against the ash grey sky. Narrow asphalt roads are crammed between the rows of massive structures. The air feels heavy with fumes. I cranked down the window of the taxi cab and looked up between the towers and imagined them swaying in the wind before collapsing on the people below. Then I pulled back in and rested my head on Nate's shoulder to keep myself from vomiting.
It didn't take long for Madeleine to corner me once we got to our new home, the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. She sent her children down to check on our suitcases and grabbed hold of my wrist as I went to follow them.
"May I have a word?" She asked politely.
"Of course." I walked over to the sofa and sat down, knees trembling. I had never had much luck with one on one talk with this family. She wouldn't take me all the way to New York just to tell me I couldn't stay?
She sat down next to me, her china blue eyes beaming at me under their thick shade of eyelashes. Her spindly fingers inched towards mine and grabbed my hand.
"I wanted to thank you, Elizabeth, for your courage. If it weren't for you I would have never have been able to break free of my husband." Her lips spread in to a beautiful smile as she smoothed the crimson flies that escaped the ribbon that tied back the rest of the red tangles. "I'm so glad my son found you."
"First of all Nate didn't find me, we weren't exactly looking, Mrs. Hockley. And second of all, you could have broken free of Mr. Hockley any time you pleased but you were afraid you'd lose everything. It was not my courage that empowered you; you just needed a legitimate reason. So tell me, why did you really want to speak to me?" In that instant her hand retracted, her face turned ashen and her eyes glazed over. Not because I had offended her but because she knew I was right.
"I wanted to warn you. Nathan has told me his plans to marry you once you both turn sixteen. Don't think I'm disapproving because I'm not. But I'm afraid people will find the match...well unsuitable under the circumstances." She heaved deeply as if her corset had been unlaced.
"By people you mean your people...wealthy people." I said slowly. "Is it because I'm poor?"
"Partly, and partly because you were the girl my husband supposedly assaulted." She tittered. "I know how it is. When I was young I fell in love with a man who had a wife and children and was greatly respected by everyone. And loving him and marrying him even after his divorce was..."
"Quite a scandal." I finished wryly.
"Yes." She flushed. "I can't let that happen to my son! I just phoned the Astor's and they're willing to let Nathan into the family, a scandal like this will ruin him! He be lost, he'll be nothing!" Her eyes shone with tears.
"So what are you going to do?" I asked flatly. "You can't change who I am. You just can't."
"Yes! Yes I can! I've been thinking about this for days now! You don't have to be Eliza Dawson from California. You can be Miss Elizabeth Dawson of Boston, Massachusetts." She jeered shaking my shoulders.
"What?"
"We'll change your identity. I'll teach you everything you need to know. How to look, how to behave, what you should know, what you shouldn't. People won't know the difference." She said calmly. "Come now, Elizabeth. Be my little protégé. Let me teach you how to be a proper young lady." She coaxed. "You'll be perfect. It is, after all, in your blood." Her eyes teemed with want and longing and part of me longed to be her daughter, to be doted upon by the beautiful porcelain figure that was Madeleine Hockley. But maybe that was because I missed being loved by my own mother.
"Okay. Teach me." I sighed, falling into her outstretched arms. "Just don't let me lose myself in the process."
"Oh, don't fret." She sang. "You'll always be Eliza on the inside. Just a different person on the outside. You'll be very happy from now on, I promise."
"Mrs. Hockley, who was the man you fell in love with when you were my age, was he Mr. Astor?" She nodded against my shoulder.
"Whenever I look at Nathan I see him." She said wistfully.
"He died, didn't he?" I said somberly.
"Yes." She choked. She squeezed me ever tighter, jamming my elbows down into my ribcage. I whimpered and she pulled me closer. "I'm so grateful for you Eliza. You're my little girl now." That's when I felt the cold hard chains slip around my wrists, shackling me for life.
December 1926
As it turned out I wouldn't need to use my alternate self until several months later, giving me time to bone up before going to battle. I read all the books on etiquette Madeleine had given me as well as all the poetry and novels I could cram in between school and ballet class. Fall came and went in a fleeting moment with Nathan and me attending different schools on the Upper East Side and Nate visiting his father's family in Newport every other weekend. The only time we spent together was those rainy nights when I'd sneak into his room and lay across his chest, his heartbeat lulling me to sleep.
What I didn't realize during the talk with Mrs. Hockley was there are rules to being rich. Nate and I could not show our affection in public. We could not hold each other's hand while ice skating in Central Park. We couldn't greet each other with a kiss as he waited for me outside my school we couldn't even glance across the table at each other at functions. Even in the privacy of our home we weren't safe. But between school and extra curriculars I became numb to it.
The morning before my big debut into the world of high society Mrs. Hockley took me to get my hair done. What was once a mess of shocking red curls was now a straight, flowing waterfall of cascading red gold hair. The hollows of my cheeks were dusted pale pink and my lips were painted a slick cherry red. Madeleine watched as the maid laced up the ties of my corset, hissing tighter as my ribs splintered and my usually non existed bust defined itself.
At the Christmas Party that night, held by none other than the Rockefeller's themselves I trailed behind Mrs. Hockley shaking hand after hand and turning in place for those old ladies who wished to examine me as if I were at an auction.
"I must say you do look familiar." Said one vulture like woman as she greeted us at the ballroom. Her friend tilted up my chin with one finger, turning my face from side to side.
"I agree most definitely." There was a sudden spark in her eye. "Are you perhaps related to the Dewitt Bukater's?"
I felt a sudden pang of guilt and regret. My eyes prickled with tears. It had been months since my mother had crossed my memory. I wondered what she was doing right that moment, what she was thinking. I hoped she was not thinking of me. Madeleine hand on my shoulder brought me back to this world and I shook my head no.
"Really. You know, you look very much like young Miss Dewitt Bukater. Poor dear, died several years ago in the Titanic disaster. She was just seventeen...oh, oh I'm sorry Madeleine." Said the other woman ruefully. "I know it's a sore subject. But she does look like her, I must say."
"Looks like who?" And older man strode up wearing an eyepiece and checking the time on his gold pocket watch. He peered over the woman's shoulder at me. I suddenly felt very small.
"Young Rose Dewitt Bukater, you remember her. She was engaged to Caledon before Madeleine. I remember she was very bright and absolutely lovely."
The man squinted hard. "Hmm, yes I suppose." He grunted. "But you know who I think she resembles. That little girl who went missing out of Los Angeles a few months ago. I was in San Fransisco at the time, read the article in the paper. Young girl, fourteen years old, red hair like hers. Simply vanished from her own home in the dead of night. No note, no explanation. No one claims to have seen anything and nothing from her room was missing which means she couldn't have run away. Personally I think the police should start searching the woods and the creeks for a body..."
Madeleine Hockley dragged me away from that group at light speed before whipping me into a corner, her face inches from mine.
"You didn't tell me you just left!" She hissed angrily. "I thought you told them! I thought you at least left a note!" She seized my shoulders digging her nails through the lace netting of my sleeves. "I will not be thrown in jail for kidnapping!"
"Relax, okay." I snapped. "We're three thousand miles away! Nobody knows where I am and if they do there not saying anything. Besides, look at me. Do I look like that little girl you first met at dinner a year ago? No. No one will ever guess. That stupid man was just using me to jump into another subject so let it go and move on." Madeleine stepped back thrown by my sudden attitude.
"I'm sorry. I completely lost my composure. Let us return to the party and maybe...if you get good reviews tomorrow at tea...I'll let you spend the night with my son...alone." I smiled and followed her back into the ballroom. We were starting to understand each other. I thought, maybe, just maybe despite being without the familiar comforts of home, I could be happy here. I was wrong.