Cal was burning up. His clothes were plastered against his skin. Sweat trickled down the sides of his face. Trying to ignore the white-hot shards of pain searing in his right temple, he threw back the covers and groped for the whiskey bottle on his nightstand in the hopes that it might help to numb his agony.
He gulped from the bottle. Whiskey spilled, trailing down his chin, some of it sucked into his windpipe. Choking, he put the bottle back and slumped against the pillows. He shut his eyes and willed himself to stillness.
He wasn't conscious of anyone entering, but some time later he became aware of Edith, the head maid and nurse, wiping sweat from his forehead with a damp cloth and forcing a medicine cup to his mouth. The bitter, poisonous flavor of medicine washed over his tongue and he began to choke again. Edith smacked him on the back. She never seemed afraid to touch him or come too close, as all the other servants were.
He reached toward his nightstand for the whiskey bottle.
"Whiskey is not going to ease your symptoms, Mr. Hockley. A hangover will only intensify your head pains."
"No," he said, "it'll…help. An anesthetic…"
"Honestly, Mr. Hockley, if I am being perfectly up front as a trained nurse, I must say your drinking habit is no doubt contributing to your frequent migraines."
How…fucking…dare…she. Insolent wench—
She removed the bottle from his nightstand and gently pushed him back down into a resting position. "What you need now is rest," she said, pulling the curtains closed to block out the angry sunlight.
He retreated into his darkness, where all he could see were Rose's beautiful eyes, sultry and piercing, gazing up at him frozen from inside the sketch.
They had been focused on him for that brief moment, and they always were when he pictured it in his mind, but none of that mattered…because the immortalized Rose would never be focusing her eyes on anyone but Jack Dawson no matter who else happened to stare at her, at the soft curves of her body that were perfection, the seductive look on her lovely face.
Had she looked at him that way when they made love? No doubt he had felt her trembling against him, heard her whimper in pleasure…
Was it worth your life, Dawson?
I hope you enjoyed yourself.
*****
"You look in good health, my dear."
Sitting beside her at the dinner table, Cal noted Rose's insincere smile. She did indeed look in good health; she had been haggard and gray when she first returned to Pittsburgh, but she'd since put on weight and re-acclimated herself to the necessity of careful grooming. Her auburn hair had regained its luster. Her complexion glowed. Cal suspected that this improvement was deliberate. If she hadn't been so hell-bent on nurturing the seed of Dawson, then he was certain she would have stopped eating some time ago and allowed herself to waste away.
The woman speaking to Rose—a wife of one of Cal's business associates; he had forgotten her name—smiled with much more force than Rose had and chattered on. "How have you been managing your condition? You must be due in March or a little later, correct? You're already beginning to show a bit, dear, aren't you? Best watch yourself. You wouldn't want to gain too much weight too early on."
Rose shot Cal a quick glance and said, "About March, yes."
If she actually did deliver early he would curse her. Damn if it was beyond her control, but no one would believe that she'd conceived after their wedding if she gave birth five months earlier than she was supposed to.
"I was so stricken to hear about your mother's illness, dear. You poor thing, you've experienced so much loss at such a young age already. You have my sympathy."
"Thank you," said Rose, and she unfolded her fan and began fanning herself as though she were suddenly overheating. Cal saw something stir in her eyes.
"And I could scarcely believe it when I saw the headlines about the Titanic! To think you never made it into a lifeboat! Why were you all by yourself?"
"There was such a panic, keeping track of your own became almost impossible," Cal answered for Rose, noticing that she had averted her eyes. "But this is a rather dismal topic of conversation—I'm certain we could find something more appropriate to discuss—"
"Of course! Of course we could! Mr. Hockley, last month—I was shocked to hear! Company finances! Some business my husband mentioned about your stockholders! You've taken care of that, I imagine?"
"Naturally."
"Pardon me," said Rose, pushing back her chair and rising to leave. Her head was down as she crossed the banquet hall and vanished outside into the courtyard.
Cal stared after her.
"Is she feeling quite well?" the woman queried, more curious than concerned.
"Probably just a little overheated. You'll have to excuse her."
"Of course! But as I was saying—"
Cal smiled and got up, gesturing for her to hold the thought, before he went after Rose.
In the dim candlelit courtyard she sat on a bench among the dying flowers, her face buried in her hands. When she heard him say her name she bolted upright and turned her face away in an attempt to hide the fact that she had been crying, but it was all too obvious.
"What is it now, Rose?" Cal asked, a little impatiently.
She wiped tears from her eyes. "Nothing," she said in a shaky voice. "I just needed some fresh air."
He sat on the bench next to her and stared out at the garden in the falling dusk. Summer's last bloom was fading and drying out; the end of a lifecycle and, in some odd way, it felt like the end of an era as well.
"That was very childish, running off from the table," he said after a minute.
Rose wiped at her eyes again. "I just hate this," she whispered. "All of it…I hate it…"
Cal's first impulse was to tell her that she ought to stop complaining, but he didn't. "That doesn't mean anything," he said. "There's a certain standard by which you have to conduct yourself in public, regardless of how happy or unhappy you are."
"But that ridiculous Franklin woman wouldn't shut up…"
"She was only making polite conversation."
"She was being tactless."
"If you won't engage anyone, you can't expect them to do anything except ask questions."
Rose looked up. "It was still tactless! Telling me I've gained too much weight, going on and on about how sorry she feels for me…"
Her eyes filled with tears again and she raised a hand to her mouth to muffle a sob.
"Come now, Rose, don't you think you're being a bit dramatic—"
"I want my baby to know its father," she interrupted in a whisper.
She was looking at him now—her stare was the vision that haunted him—and this time her eyes were focused on him and not on Jack, but there was nothing lustful or loving or grateful in the way they shone with tears…
"I just can't stop thinking about how things would have been…how they were supposed to be. Not like this, Cal. We were supposed to travel to Santa Monica together. I was supposed to be an actress—"
God, she was naïve.
A love-swept little girl who had been shielded from the harsh realities of life and couldn't cope now that they'd finally caught up to her.
He was almost sorry for her.
Almost.
She shook with sobs. "He would have made such an amazing father. He was so full of life and love. The room would just light up when he walked in. You saw it yourself…he was…such a sweet, genuine person, the most genuine I've ever met…"
Did she really think that he wanted to hear about this? Had she forgotten altogether that Jack Dawson was a subject he cared about bitterly, or did she just not mind that she was spitting in his face with every word she spoke?
"You know," she said, sniffling, "I think I knew the moment I saw him that he would be the father of my children. When we…when we made love and held each other after, I felt this rush…like a premonition…"
"Don't censor yourself on my account, dear," said Cal.
She blinked the tears from her eyes and stared up at him for a long minute in silence. And then, as though she had been in a trance, as though she had suddenly come to her senses, she sucked in a sharp breath.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I should have known better than to think I could confide in you, that you'd understand."
She stood; he followed her and grabbed her roughly. "I understand why you did what you did," he said, "but I do not understand why you find it either sensitive or appropriate to tell me in explicit detail about the spiritual revelation you underwent after you allowed yourself to be desecrated."
The look on her face was stunned.
He let go of her and gave her a bit of a shove away from him. "Go clean yourself up, Rose," he said, seeing streaks of makeup that her tears had trailed down her cheeks. "You're a wreck."
He turned and went back inside before she could say anything.