THE EDUCATION OF ROSE DAWSON: PART I
Chapter Twelve
Premonition
"What would you wish
for?" Jack asked, as
he and Rose walked along the Boat Deck of Titanic. It was the night of
April thirteenth all over again–exactly a week ago.
"You," replied Rose this time.
"But what about your
fiancé?"
"Help me leave him,
Jack."
"I’m afraid that won’t be
possible, Miss Rose."
The voice belonged to Lovejoy, who had been following them since they left the
steerage party. He advanced on Rose, determined to bring her back to Cal by any
means necessary.
"Run!" said Jack, and the two of them ran for
the entrance to the First Class section, where Rose had gone in when she left
Jack at the end of their deck conversation that night. "He can’t do
anything to us if there are others around!" he said.
But as hard as they tried to
sprint, they could only go in slow motion. They felt like they were trying to
go forward on a conveyor belt that was going backwards. At this pace, Lovejoy
was sure to catch them.
At last, Jack and Rose managed to
reach the entrance and go inside, where they saw some First Class passengers,
Rose’s mother among them, near the Grand Staircase. "Help!"
screamed Rose, but her cry was mysteriously subdued. No one seemed to notice
their presence. "Mother, help us!" Rose shouted again, but her
mother walked away, never even turning to look at her. Then she felt Lovejoy
seize her arm with one hand while picking up Jack by his neck with the other.
Everyone continued to be oblivious to their cries for help–except for one
person.
"Hold it right there,
buster!" The three
turned to see Mrs. Brown. Behind her were Cal and a couple of burly White Star
seamen.
What is Cal doing with Mrs.
Brown? Why is he not with Lovejoy? However, Rose was just glad to see one friendly familiar face.
Lovejoy grudgingly let go of Jack
and Rose. Then he was taken away by the seamen. Rose was ecstatic. "Thank
you, Mrs. Brown!" she said as she went over to hug her. Then she
looked at Cal suspiciously. "What are you doing here?"
"Rose, thank goodness
you’re safe!" Cal,
who displayed no anger whatsoever, gave her a hug and kissed her forehead. She
did not know what to make of this, and was afraid that Jack would think she was
lying about leaving Cal. But to her surprise, Jack and Mrs. Brown came over to
congratulate Cal. Then they walked away while her mother returned.
"Wait, Jack!" yelled Rose, but again, her cry was
barely audible even to herself. "Wait!" But he never looked
back. She tried to chase after him, but could not break away from Cal, who did
not grip her that tightly. Some kind of invisible force had apparently sapped
most of her physical strength, just as it did when she tried to run from
Lovejoy. She felt the tears run down her cheeks as her true love disappeared
once again.
"Jack!"
Rose immediately awoke from her
dream, her heart palpitating and her eyes wet from its near-nightmarish ending.
The room was dark–darker than even her final moments with Jack as they awaited
rescue in the Atlantic after the sinking. But instead of freezing, she was
perspiring. The weirdness of the dream confused her. Did Jack really love her?
Why did Cal behave so benevolently? Why did Jack and Mrs. Brown abandon her
when she needed them the most?
She wanted to dream about Jack,
and she got her wish. Thank goodness it was only a dream.
Or was it?
Jack, if you are listening,
please don’t do this to me again. Please don’t leave me to Cal, not even in my
dreams.
Rose’s instincts about sleeping
in her new room had proven correct. It was an eerie place. If Miss Howard were
still here, she could have checked to see what was wrong and offered her some
reassuring words. But she was on a train hundreds of miles away. What would she
have said to Rose in this situation? Then Rose remembered that Miss Howard had
already said it: "Stay strong. We can’t stop the world from
spinning."
The words of those who left her
continued to inspire, and probably more than when their sources were around.
But could Rose follow through on them? Being inspired was one thing; staying
that way every day for the rest of her life was another. She returned to sleep
in a slightly less apprehensive mood, but the contents of the dream never
strayed far from her.
*****
The chirping of birds outside her
window awakened Rose at dawn. She was surprised to see it was morning so soon
because the dream was fresh in her mind. But she welcomed the sunlight that
found its way into the room in the wake of the pitch darkness that had been
there just a few hours earlier.
She took some time to reflect on her
dream. For Jack to congratulate Cal was shocking enough, but that paled
compared to Cal suddenly turning into an angel. How did this come about?
She remembered Freud saying, in one of his influential works, something about dreams representing a
fulfillment of one’s wishes. She was so
interested in that work that she had someone translate it from German because
it was not available in English.
However, she did not achieve what she wanted in this dream. Each time she got close,
someone (Lovejoy, Cal, and even Jack himself) prevented her from realizing her
wish. This confused her.
In fact, she did have Jack, if
only for about nine hours–from sunset on the fourteenth to almost sunrise on
the fifteenth–but with interruptions. During this brief period, they
experienced enough ecstasy, turbulence, and heartbreak to last several
lifetimes. Either way, in both her real life and her dream, Jack left her, but
in very different ways. Did this mean they could never be together?
Speaking of angels, for Jack and
Cal to be friends seemed as farfetched as one of those winged residents of
Heaven flying out of someone’s buttocks, as Rose heard Tommy Ryan say during
her first foray down to Titanic’s Third Class dining hall. But she
remembered a point during the journey when the two could have forged a
friendship – after Jack had rescued her from falling off the stern of the ship.
As Jack was handcuffed,
To everyone’s surprise, Cal
invited Jack to dinner in First Class the next evening. For one very brief moment,
Rose thought that her future husband had resolved to reform his haughty
temperament by inviting an impoverished lad who had saved his fiancée’s life
into his social circle, albeit for just one meal. But that idea was almost
immediately quashed when she heard Cal suggest to Colonel Gracie how much fun
they would have embarrassing Jack at dinner. That was when she realized that
Cal would never view anybody outside his class with genuine respect.
Cal’s ploy backfired, so Rose now
wondered if her dream represented an alternate direction their lives could have
followed had Cal been sincerely grateful for her rescue by a Third Class
passenger and then gone on to change his view of the world. Certainly she would
have viewed him in a more favorable light and be less hesitant to marry him,
even if that meant not falling in love with Jack. But Jack was an honorable
man, and he probably would have congratulated Cal, just as he did in the dream.
This alternative, however, could still have been disrupted by the sinking.
Perhaps it really was God’s will
that things turned out the way they did.
Cal, if you had only taken the
other fork in the road. But it was probably not in your nature. We were never
meant to be together, and all the money in your family’s name can do nothing to
change that.
Still, the dream had some finer
moments. Mrs. Brown was truly a lifesaver, and it was great to see those two
muscular seamen drag Lovejoy away. Rose smiled modestly. Jack, at least
you went away happy in this dream, even if that meant shaking Cal’s hand.
She got out of bed to bathe
herself in the sunlight entering the window. It felt like that Saturday morning
aboard Titanic again, when the sun’s radiance gave her limited, but
renewed, hope that there was purpose in her life. Just as she grasped that
opportunity by going down to Third Class to find Jack, she vowed to make the
most of this new day.
*****
Rose washed up and changed before
reporting to the dining hall for breakfast. After she ate, she saw the other
guests preparing to attend church services on the premises. She nearly forgot
that it was a Sunday.
"Hello, Miss Dawson."
It was Brigadier Bown. "Did you sleep well last night?"
"Good morning, Madam Bown. I
am not sure if I slept well. I just had the most peculiar dream, and it was set
on the Titanic."
"Would you like to discuss
it with me? You don’t have to if it makes you uncomfortable."
"That is all right. I do not
know how to explain it, and that is what has confused me. There were happy and
unhappy moments in it. Some people I cared about and lost during the sinking
were in the dream, but at least they did not die this time."
"Are you afraid of death,
Miss Dawson?"
"Yes, I am. Even though I
survived the sinking, I still am."
"Death is a natural part of
life. None of us will be on this Earth forever. But what we do during our time
here matters. Don’t give up on your promise to make each day of your life
count."
"I have every intention of
keeping that promise, Madam Bown. But every time I think I have the courage to
do so, something comes along and brings me down again. Sometimes I feel that as
the only one left from my family, I have to carry on all our aspirations by
myself."
"Nobody who has ever lived
has gone through life all by himself–or herself. We in the Army have always worked
together to achieve results. Of course, God himself has intervened on our
behalf many times." Brigadier Bown smiled at Rose.
"I understand what you mean."
"I know you do, Miss Dawson.
Don’t treat the world as if it rests solely on your shoulders. It may seem
heartless sometimes, but you will always find people who are ready to help.
There are many things you’ll have to do on your own, but don’t be ashamed to
accept an offer of assistance occasionally. After all, if you were truly
prepared to strike out on your own, you wouldn’t be here, would you? But we are
glad to have you as our guest."
"You are right, Madam
Bown."
"Don’t dwell too much upon
the unpleasant parts of your dream, or else you’ll never find the time to make
each day count. If today were the last day of your life on Earth, what would
you want to accomplish before midnight? I don’t suggest that you conduct yourself
in a hurried manner, not when I made that fishing analogy yesterday, but I would
like to see you make well thought-out decisions, even when you have little time.
Remember, haste makes waste."
"A most excellent observation,
especially after I have already stared death in the face once." Actually
more than once. "I realize that life is something that should not be
wasted, and I have just been granted a new lease on it. It is a beautiful day
today, and I shall spend it productively."
In actuality, Rose really began
to live life when she was still on Titanic—in both good and bad ways. During
her last two days aboard the ship, she experienced life like she never experienced
it in her first seventeen years in this world. Jack had given her this gift, and
he would not allow even a tragedy on the scale of Titanic to prevent her
from continuing to do so. That was why he agreed to remain in the water instead
of trying a second time to board the piece of debris on which she floated. She
must not let Jack down.
"You’re on the right track,
Miss Dawson. Would you care to join us for Sunday services? They start at nine
AM. Or have you already made plans for the day?"
"I do plan to go out later,
but I can sit in and observe your services in the morning. Do you play music
during the services?"
"Of course. The Army tries
to incorporate music into all its events."
As Rose followed Brigadier Bown
into the room where the services would be held, a thought suddenly struck her. Jack,
it was as if you were speaking to me through Madams Bown and Booth. Thank you.