A DEEP OCEAN OF SECRETS
Chapter Four
It was lunchtime on April 12,
1912. At the Palm Court Café, Ruth, Rose, Elisabeth, Cal, Molly Brown, master
shipbuilder Thomas Andrews, and the head of the White Star Line, J. Bruce
Ismay, were all sitting around a table, enjoying the food and the lively talk
that was going on.
Elisabeth was playing with her
fork, sitting next to Rose, staring at it pretty intensely. The silver, to her,
was so polished and clean, she felt as if she couldn’t eat from it. Not even
the silverware at her home in Philadelphia could really compare. Ruth noticed
her daughter and tugged on her sleeve.
"Elisabeth, have you lost
all sense? Stop playing with your silverware," Ruth said quietly, leaning
into Elisabeth, her eyes piercing right through her daughter. Elisabeth put the
fork down and listened to the conversation around her.
"She is the largest moving
object creating by man in all history," Ismay said, sounding like he was
bragging to Rose. She had no interest in being at the table, and was starting
to get hot, even with the windows of the café open. "And our master
shipbuilder here, Mr. Andrews, designed her from the keel plates up."
Mr. Andrews looked slightly
shocked by the sudden attention and didn’t really seem to enjoy it. "Well,
I might have knocked it together," he started, "but the idea was Mr.
Ismay’s. He envisioned a steamer so grand in its scale, so luxurious in its
appointments, that its supremacy would never be challenged. And here she
is!" He smacked the table softly. "Willed into solid reality."
He looked at Elisabeth, who half-smiled at him. He smiled back.
Molly grinned. "Why’re ships
always being called she? Is it because men think half the woman around have big
sterns and should be weighed in tonnage?" Elisabeth took a sip of her tea
to keep herself from bursting out laughing and ended up slightly choking. Rose
seemed to have no interest in the conversation whatsoever. "Just another
example of men settin’ the rules their way."
The waiter arrived to take
orders, and while Molly, Ruth, Elisabeth, Ismay, and Andrews gave their orders,
Rose pulled out a cigarette and lit it. She inhaled and blew out smoke across
the table. It drifted over to Elisabeth and she waved her hand softly in her
face, kicking Rose underneath the table. Rose gave her a death glare.
Ruth leaned in like she had done
with Elisabeth. "You know I don’t like that, Rose," she said,
sounding matter-of-fact, keeping her voice calm, but challenging anyone who
wished to challenge her. Rose arched an eyebrow at her mother questioningly.
Cal sighed. "She
knows," he said, and dabbed Rose’s cigarette out on her plate. Rose turned
to him, not understanding why he had done that. The waiter came and Cal turned
to him. "We’ll both have the lamb, rare, with very little mint
sauce," he said, speaking for both of them. The waiter left and Cal turned
back to Rose. "You like lamb, don’t you, sweetpea?"
Rose put on a phony smile with no
teeth and looked up at Cal. Molly watched the feud between Cal, Rose, and Ruth
and smiled to herself. She observed that the youngest, the beauty Elisabeth, obviously
tried to avoid the spewing between her mother, sister, and her soon to be
brother- in-law. Thomas Andrews was also observing her and breathed softly. She
was very beautiful to him and he was taken in by her eyes. She glanced at him
and saw him looking at her. They both blushed and looked away.
"Are you gonna cut her meat
for her there, too, Cal?" Molly asked, smiling at him. Cal looked at her
in an odd sort of way—rudely.
Elisabeth decided to change the
subject. "Who thought of the name Titanic? Was it you, Mr. Ismay?"
Ismay chuckled. "Yes,
actually," he said, blushing. "I wanted to convey sheer size. And
size means stability, luxury, and above all, strength."
Rose looked up from her plate.
"Do you know of Dr. Freud, Mr. Ismay? His ideas about the male
preoccupation with size might be of particular interest to you," she said.
Molly started to laugh, Mr. Andrews nearly spit out the tea he was sipping, and
Elisabeth actually did begin to choke on the breadstick she was eating—from
suddenly starting to laugh.
Ruth leaned back over like she
had before, and whispered, "What’s gotten into you?"
Rose threw her napkin down on the
table and stood up, nearly knocking her chair over. "Excuse me," she
said, and stormed out of the café.
Ruth was mortified. "I do apologize,"
she said to everybody. She whispered to Elisabeth, "Go see what is the
matter with her."
Elisabeth turned from the
direction Rose had stalked away to. She looked at her mother. "She’s your
daughter. Aren’t you supposed to find out what’s the matter?" Ruth looked
evilly at her second daughter and leaned back in her chair.
Molly smiled at Cal. "She’s
a pistol, Cal. Think you can handle her?"
Cal leaned back in his seat, not
really liking Molly Brown at that moment. "Well, I just might start having
to mind what she reads from now on, won’t I, Mrs. Brown?"
Ismay was confused. "Who is
this Freud? Is he a passenger?" Elisabeth looked at J. Bruce Ismay and
shook her head in disgust at his stupidity.
*****
Out on the B-Deck promenade, near
the poop deck, Rose leaned against the railing with perfect composure, staring
out into the deep, magical waters of the Atlantic Ocean. The wind hitting her
face seemed to calm her down a bit, enjoying the coolness against her flushed
skin. She felt someone watching her and glanced down below her. A man was
staring at her intently, his blonde hair flipping into his blue eyes. He looked
poor, but never turned away when Rose looked at him.
Rose turned away and continued to
stare ahead. But not being able to take it, she turned her head back to the
man, who was still staring at her with such interest that it sent shivers down
her spine. She kept eye contact for a moment, studying him, but then turned
when she felt a strong hand grasp her arm. Cal stood next to her and was furious.
"What did you think you were
doing in there? You embarrassed myself, your mother, and your sister!" Cal
said furiously.
Rose shook her head, knowing
that, if anything, she hadn’t embarrassed Elisabeth, but made her laugh.
"The only person I embarrassed was you particularly," Rose said.
"You want to show me off like some porcelain doll, and I tell you, Cal,
I’m not. I am a woman who speaks my mind and you have every reason to respect
me." Rose jerked her arm away from Cal’s strong grip and stormed across
the promenade deck and back into the corridor, heading off to her suite. Cal
stood there for a moment, confused by what had just happened, then stormed
after his fiancé across the deck.
Little did either of them know
that the same blonde-haired man was watching them the whole time, his icy blue
eyes never leaving the beautiful Rose DeWitt Bukater.
*****
When Rose entered she and
Elisabeth’s bedroom, Elisabeth was already there, sitting in front of her
vanity and brushing her hair gently. Her head snapped up when she saw Rose
enter, and she smiled. She turned back to the mirror, and said, "I liked
your speech at lunch today. So did everyone else, except for Mother and Cal, of
course," Elisabeth said.
"Would you call it a
speech?" Rose asked, falling back onto the bed.
Elisabeth set down her brush and
twirled around in her seat to face Rose, grinning like a little child.
"Oh, Rose, you were like that all the time before you met Cal."
Rose sat up. "Like what? Not
quick to hold my tongue? That’s you, I’m afraid." Elisabeth stuck out her
tongue playfully just as the bedroom door burst open. Ruth stood there, eyes
flaring like a million fires. She stormed in and closed the door. Rose sat there
calmly, not the least bit intimidated, not even casting a glance at her mother,
while Elisabeth sucked back a yelp, scooting back in her vanity seat, hair
falling across her shoulders. Ruth sent a look of daggers to Rose, but her
expression didn’t change.
"Rose DeWitt Bukater! What
were you thinking at lunch today? You embarrassed me, your fiancé, and your
sister!" Ruth nearly screamed.
"Actually, I found it rather
amusing," Elisabeth said, standing up. Rose knew she had only entertained
her sister. "Excuse me." Elisabeth scooted toward the exit and closed
the door with a thud behind her.
Ruth seized this alone time with
her oldest daughter. "You will never behave like that again. Do you
understand me?" she demanded, watching Rose with fiery, piercing eyes.
"Oh, Mother, that was the
exact same thing Cal said," Rose replied, her voice dull and flat, like
she was bored with her mother’s talk. And truly, she was.
Ruth was furious at this comment.
She stormed over to Rose and grabbed her shoulders menacingly. "You will
never behave like that again, Rose. Do you understand me?" she demanded
again, her voice full of death and force. Rose was starting to become a little
uneasy. She remained silent. Ruth shook Rose’s shoulders. "Do you
understand me?" she demanded again, even more intimidatingly.
Rose inhaled nervously.
"Yes, Mother," she replied.
"Good," Ruth hissed,
and turned and left the room just as suddenly as she had come. Rose exhaled
once her mother left and collapsed back onto the bed, thoughts swirling in her
mind, crying desperately to be let free. She was absolutely sick of her first
class life.