AFTER TITANIC
Chapter Ten
When Rose was pregnant with Abby,
her work was very important to her. And now that her baby was out, it was still
just as important. But there was one notable difference. Now that Rose was a
parent, her job had become, beautifully, just a job.
Every morning, Rose got up bright
and early and dressed herself and Abby and then went with her baby over to
Meg’s for breakfast. Then she walked to St. Martin’s School for Girls and
dropped Abby off in the nursery. She would teach her first class, take a break
to see her daughter, teach another class, and follow the same pattern until
lunch, which was taken at a long table with all the teachers--there were six
others--and all the students--of which there were about thirty. After a few
more hours, classes would be done with and Rose would pick up Abby and bring
her back to her classroom, where she would grade papers and plan lessons for
about another hour or so. During this time, a girl or two might drop by to talk
to her.
Rose had been back at work for a
few weeks now, and was really enjoying herself. She felt important. She was
well-liked by her students. Mrs. Dawson was no easy teacher. She was strict but
fair, and she was not afraid to scold her pupils, but she did it on good
authority and with such good humor that the girls didn’t really mind.
Rose had five classes, each class
divided by age, an English Lit class for children ages five to seven, eight to
eleven, twelve to fourteen, and fifteen to sixteen, as well as a beginner’s
class for French. To the older two classes, she would assign difficult books,
but give them plenty of time to read them and have in-depth discussions every
day. In her younger class, the girls were just learning to read, and some could
not at all. But Rose provided them with the individual attention required, and
then some. If a little girl could not figure out a word the teacher had written
on the blackboard, Rose would be patient with the mistake and show her how to
mend it.
The girls came to love Mrs.
Dawson. Rose made it clear that they could come and talk to her any time, and
many chose to exercise this. A handful of the girls had lost a parent, and Rose
was easy to talk to about such things. She would always listen and offer advice
and tell them comforting things. And since Mrs. Dawson was the youngest teacher
by a dozen years, she was the one the girls came to about the changes they were
experiencing.
And then there was Mary, with
whom Rose shared a special bond. Mary had been a loner, but Rose encouraged her
to try and make friends. She didn’t know what she would have done without Meg.
Mary tried, but she was just too shy around them. Then, a little girl of four
came to the school and was put in one of Rose’s classes. The little girl’s,
Elsa’s, father had died a few months back, and her intolerant stepmother had
sent her to St. Martin’s School. Mary was one of the first older girls timid
little Elsa had met, and Mary immediately took the little girl under her wing.
She would tuck the girl in at night and coo when she cried, even cut her meat
for her at dinnertime. Gradually, this helped Mary become less shy, and she
became friendly with a few other girls at the school her own age--though she
was still most fond of Rose.
Rose liked her job, and her life.