Hiya! I wrote this for the 100 year anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic and I'm putting it back up again! It's a 3-parter so enjoy!
Fourteen: The Unsinkable Ship Part 1
April 12th 13.30pm
Emily Kirkland stood below her creation and grinned, the sunlight hitting her hair and eyes, making her almost glow.
It was perfect.
Emily never deemed anything as perfect, not in this world of madness. But if there was something she could define as perfection, this was it.
The RMS Titanic.
Ignoring the excited cries from passengers boarding the ship, she simply stood there, gazing in disbelief. It was finally finished. And was about to set sail. She reminded herself to buy Mr Andrews a very large glass of brandy later on in the evening.
Sensing another person near her, she simply sighed happily and turned.
"What do you think?" She asked nervously. She had one person to impress. If she managed to impress him, she would die a happy woman.
The man, who looked extremely like her, tilted his head to one side, analysing. He smiled.
"It is fantastic, my dear. I couldn't have done a much better job myself."
Emily gasped with joy, the glow in her face intensifying and the man beside her walked up to her and kissed her on the cheek.
"Shall we?"
Nodding vigorously, she looked up once again.
"We shall."
"Man, I cannot wait to get home!"
Looking out the window of his first-class cabin, Alfred Jones grinned. He could almost hear New York calling to him. His cousin, Allistor was lying on the bed, reading a book, glanced up at him and frowned.
"Can't wait to leave, can we?"
The man in question turned to his companion.
"Damn right. Don't get me wrong, I love England, but I miss New York. So it'll be awesome to get back there."
Allistor simply sighed and returned to his book. Being cousins with Alfred was sometimes tedious but he had offered him a first-class ticket on the Titanic so he could stay with him for a couple of weeks in New York. He wasn't going to pass that up.
Suddenly Alfred jumped away from the window and headed for the door.
"I'm going to check out the promenade deck; care to join me?"
The Scot, not looking up, mumbled something that sounded like, 'busy' so Alfred simply rolled his eyes and yelled, "Ok, catch ya later!" And disappeared from the room.
Bouncing along the deck which showed all the thousands of people below him, Alfred, not looking where he was going, crashed into someone.
"Geez, I'm really sorry!" Alfred gasped, jumping away from the person, whose long, blonde locks were covering his face.
"Mon Dieu…" The man muttered and Alfred sighed. Great. A frog. The man swatted at his handsome garments for a minute and then turned to the American.
"It's no problem, oui?" Eying him up and down, the Frenchman stuck his hand out,"Francis Bonnefoy. Please to meet your acquaintance."
Alfred, smiling, grasped his hand eagerly, pleased to have met someone so quickly. The ship hadn't even set sail yet and he had made a friend! "Alfred Jones. Nice to meet you."
"An American, hm?" Francis chuckled, "I assume that you are heading home, non?"
Alfred nodded, "Yeah, I've been here on business for a couple of months but it's all finished now so I can go home. Really excited to get back. And yourself? You speak excellent English!"
Francis looked smug at Alfred's complement and replied loftily, "Well oui, my girlfriend, she is Irish and my best friend English and he doesn't like it when I speak in my mother tongue so I had to learn. I do not mind. In fact, it is my 'Frenchness' that won my girlfriend over." He said silkily winking at Alfred.
"Don't listen to this fraud; he likes to lie to impress people."
Alfred jumped, and turned to see the two new people who had appeared.
A young woman of about seventeen leaned over and kissed Francis of the cheek while the man beside her frowned, looking away. They both looked alike, perhaps they were siblings.
"I believe you were telling this extremely handsome man about me?" The girl turned to Alfred and grinned while he flushed, embarrassed by her praise.
"This is Alfred Jones; I only met him a moment ago. Alfred, this is my fiancée Emily Kirkland; her company designed and created this wonderful ship we are currently on."
Jaw dropping at her name, he dozily shook her hand in awe.
"Y-you're Emily Kirkland?" He choked out. She grinned.
"The one and only," She nodded.
He turned slightly to the man standing beside her and Alfred's eyes widened. So if that was Emily then this was…
"Arthur Kirkland."
The blonde-haired man nodded gruffly at Alfred before turning to Francis.
"You idiot. You were supposed to meet us on the Captain's deck. We were waiting there for fifteen minutes."
"Keep your hair piece on, Mother. I was heading in that direction. But then I was bumped into." Francis flashed a grin at Alfred, who in turn winced, feeling he had wasted the Kirkland's time.
"No matter, no matter." Emily swatted at Francis and suddenly from under their feet the boat began to move.
The four of them rushed to the side of the ship and waved at the people below.
Grinning like a madwoman, Emily turned to the American.
"New York here we come!"
April 14th 13.40pm
Once out of the harbour, the ship sailed to Cherbourg and then Queenstown and from then on out, there was nothing but ocean surrounding the Titanic. The four companions, who had dined together every night and Alfred becoming fast friends with each of them, seemed relaxed and happy. Allistor was being his usual prickish self and refused to come out of the room unless for food.
Alfred found himself becoming closer and closer to Arthur Kirkland who was obviously Emily's brother and had funded the making of the Titanic. Alfred couldn't stop staring at him, he didn't know what attracted him to the British man so and he always flushed bright red when Arthur caught him looking.
After dinner, the four made their way to the promenade deck and sat down around one of the long tables. Alfred felt quite smug by the fact he was friends with Emily Kirkland. It seemed that everyone wanted to talk to her. It made sense, this was basically her ship. He was stunned however, when Thomas Andrews, the ship's designer and Bruce Ismay, the chairman of White Star Line and the person who thought to make titanic sat down beside them and introduced themselves.
"So they say that this ship is unsinkable?" Francis questioned, throwing an open looking at Emily.
"It is unsinkable!" Andrews proclaimed proudly, "God himself could not sink this ship."
"Jesus, man, don't jinx the damn thing!" Arthur snapped.
"Don't worry, Master Kirkland, I built you a strong ship, good and true."
Emily frowned as she added the sum once again in her head.
"Forgive me if I'm wrong, Mr Andrews but doing the sum in my head, I added the amount of lifeboats and the amount of people on board and, I know this seems ridiculous, but there isn't enough for everyone if tragedy strikes."
Andrews grimaced.
"Less than half, Miss Kirkland. I had added more room on the promenade deck for another 20 but some people," Andrews glanced up at Ismay who ignored him, "thought that the deck would look to cluttered."
Ismay suddenly stood up, looking at Emily and inclined his head towards the bridge- where the captain and most of his first officers were. Emily excused herself and followed him.
"Is there a problem Mr Ismay?" She questioned.
"Yes there is Miss Kirkland. It seems the captain does not want to put the ship into 'full swing' as it were. He refuses to push her up to 22 knots. I think it we made it to New York by Tuesday everyone would be astounded. Don't you agree?"
They had now reached the bridge and standing observing a map of their route was the captain, Edward Smith. Upon noticing the two, he smiled, walking over to the pair and kissed Emily's hand.
"Miss Kirkland, Mr Ismay. How can I be of service?"
"Miss Kirkland agrees with me on the matter of Titanic's speed. The press have got to get something new! We shall make the morning papers by arriving on Tuesday night."
"Excuse me Mr Ismay, but I did not agree with you. I find it perfectly understandable why the captain is choosing this speed and it is his choice whether or not to increase or decrease the swiftness of this ship. I hired him for that reason." Emily frowned at the chairman, "Let him do his job Mr Ismay."
Ismay glared at the young woman as a man came in, dressed in white star attire and handed a telegram to Smith.
"Captain, a telegram from the RMS Amerika, reporting it saw bergs, growlers and field ice."
The Captain gave an exasperated sigh.
"That's the third one today. First the Caronia, then the Baltic, and now this! If we get another warning we shall have to change course."
By the look on their faces, it seemed that both Emily and Ismay seemed alarmed. The captain gave them a reassuring smile.
"Do not worry, Miss Kirkland. We expect icebergs at this time of year. We shall be fine."
To be continued…
Aye, Smith. You'll be just dandy…Anyway, hope you liked, thanks, LucyMoon1992 x