FALLING STARS
Chapter Four
November 13, 1912
Rose stood in front of the mirror in her
wedding dress, examining her reflection critically. She had done a good job on
her dress, she thought, examining the seams and the bit of embroidery around
the neckline. She had worked on the dress every day since she had purchased the
materials, and had just finished it last night. The white cotton was a little
thin for November in Wisconsin, but Rose didn’t plan on being outdoors very
long, and the fabric had been inexpensive.
She had embroidered a series of yellow and
red roses around the neckline, intertwined. Embroidery was one of the skills
she had learned as a child, and she had always had a talent for it.
Rose stepped back, examining the way the
dress hung on her. She had chosen an empire waist style, both for comfort and
to disguise her expanding girth. While she wasn’t quite waddling yet--Jack had
been right about that--she didn’t quite look like most brides on their wedding
days. Not only was her mid-section swollen, but she had gained a little weight
with her pregnancy, and her face was a bit fuller than it had been. Still, she
thought, she didn’t look bad, and she thought that Jack would appreciate her
efforts.
Rose tucked one last hairpin into her coif
and left the bedroom, hurrying out to where Jack was waiting for her in the
front room. It was going against tradition, to see him before the wedding, but
they had already broken most of the rules regarding courtship and weddings, so
she didn’t think it would make much of a difference.
Jack was sitting on a wooden chair in the
front room, nervously readjusting his tie, when Rose emerged from the bedroom.
He took in her appearance appreciatively, noting the roses she had embroidered
on her dress. Yellow to symbolize him, and red to symbolize her, he guessed.
Rose saw him fidgeting with his tie and fixed it for him.
"You ready?" he asked her, getting
to his feet and reaching for both their coats.
"I’m ready," she told him, her eyes
lighting up for the first time in days. This was her wedding day, the day she
had dreamed of since she had been a little girl, and she was marrying the best
of men.
Jack helped her into her coat, taking care
not to wrinkle her dress, and took her arm, escorting her to the door. Rose
smiled at him, a happy smile that could light up a room.
Her smile faded a little as they stepped out
the door and she saw the person that Jack had talked into driving them to the
church--Harold Calvert, an old friend of Jack’s--and one of those who had
looked her over speculatively.
She eyed him warily as she and Jack climbed
into the old carriage he was driving, but he appeared not to notice. Of course
not, Rose thought. He wouldn’t want Jack to know that he’d been ogling his fiancée.
The ride to the church was quiet. Jack put
his arm around Rose’s shoulders, and she smiled, forgetting about Calvert. Even
if this was an untraditional wedding, it was still very special to her, and she
was happy. Settling back, Rose thought about what her wedding to Cal would have
been like.
It would have been much sooner, to start
with. The wedding had been scheduled for June, but Rose’s "death" had
put an end to those plans. Rose had never contacted her mother after the
sinking, to let her know she was alive. Of course, her mother wasn’t stupid,
and she might well have made the connection between Rose DeWitt-Bukater and
Rose Dawson, but Rose wasn’t about to contact her and find out. She had no
intention of being dragged back to Philadelphia to marry Cal. She might contact
her, though, Rose thought, after she and Jack were legally married. She
couldn’t be married to two men at once.
When they arrived at the church, Jack and
Rose went their separate ways. It was only a short time until the ceremony, and
Jack would be waiting for her at the altar.
Rose stood at the back of the church, patting
her hair to make sure it was still in place. Someone handed her a bouquet of
flowers, and Rose turned, surprised, to see Louise.
She scowled, irritably. Who had appointed
Louise her bridesmaid? But she was glad that someone had thought about flowers.
She had been so busy sewing her dress, and taking care of the house and
worrying about the townspeople’s reaction, that she hadn’t even thought about
flowers. She wondered where Louise had gotten them. Not many flowers bloomed in
Wisconsin in November.
The strains of the wedding march sounded
through the church, and Rose began making her way up the aisle. Louise slipped
into a seat at the back, allowing Rose to walk up alone. Rose glanced around
her as she walked, noting the few people who had come to the wedding--Louise,
Harold Calvert, the elderly couple that Jack had rented the house from. They
looked on approvingly as Rose made her way to the altar, pleased that Jack was
doing the right thing by Rose.
Two other people were present to witness the
wedding--a woman who ran a small restaurant in town and had little respect for
other people’s opinions of what women should and should not do, and the man who
owned the store that Rose had purchased the materials for her dress at. He had
seen her selecting the fabric for her wedding gown, and had heard the women
gossiping about her, so he had decided to attend the wedding, both out of
curiosity and to support one of his better customers. Rose had come into his store
several times, and she never left fingerprints on the fabric, or placed items
where they didn’t belong, or criticized the items being sold in a loud, rude
voice. She always paid her bill promptly, and didn’t have small children that
she let run amok with scissors or other sharp objects.
The last strains of music faded away as Rose
made her way to where Jack stood. He reached for her hand, smiling, as she came
up the few steps to the altar. Rose took his hand and came to stand beside him.
As they turned to face each other, the minister began speaking the words that
would make them husband and wife.
As the minister spoke, both Jack and Rose
thought about the events that had brought them to this moment. Jack thought
about the fire that had killed his parents five years earlier, leaving him on
his own, about the years spent wandering, doing a variety of jobs and
practicing his art, about traveling to Europe and eventually winning his ticket
for the Titanic, and then meeting Rose and falling in love with her. They had
been separated when the ship went down, but had found each other again when the
boat had come back to search for survivors, and they had both been rescued.
Rose, too, thought about the events that had
brought them here. She had been charmed by Cal initially--he could be very
charming when he chose--but after her mother had arranged the engagement, she
had grown disenchanted with him. It wasn’t that Cal was such a bad person, but
he was arrogant and condescending, and far too concerned with what the other
members of society thought. He was willing to go to great lengths to keep what
he thought rightfully belonged to him--such as the way he had framed Jack in an
attempt to put a stop to Jack and Rose’s budding relationship--and, while he
usually kept his temper under tight control, when he did lose it he out of
control. Rose could still hear the sounds of smashing china as he had
overturned the breakfast table in a fit of temper over her dancing with Jack.
She was well rid of him.
After she and Jack had been separated in the
water, Rose had found a piece of wood to lie on, while Jack had been found
holding onto a life preserver. It was Rose who had seen Jack, half-frozen and
barely able to move, holding onto the life preserver a short distance from the
crowd of people. He had looked up when she called his name, and the rescuers in
the boat, who had at first thought him dead, had pulled him into the boat. Rose
had pulled him close, wrapping the oversized coat around both of them and
pulling two blankets around them. After they had boarded the Carpathia, they
had both been taken to the ship’s hospital, where both had been found to be
suffering from hypothermia but were otherwise fine. They had spent about a
month in New York after the Carpathia had docked, and then headed for Chippewa
Falls.
Rose snapped back to attention as the
minister spoke to her. "Do you, Rose DeWitt Bukater, take this man, Jack
Dawson, to be your lawfully wedded husband? To love, honor, and cherish, for
better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, until
death do you part?"
Rose responded without hesitation. "I
do."
She had been a little surprised when the
minister had told them that he would not use the word "obey" in the
wedding ceremony. She knew that Cal would have expected her to be obedient, and
while Jack seemed to respect her mind and her judgment, she had assumed that it
was a wife’s place to obey her husband, even against her better judgment. But
Jack had agreed with the minister; he felt that Rose was very intelligent, and
could think for herself without his telling her what to do. The minister
himself had long been of the opinion that all people were equal--his parents
had been abolitionists and supporters of women’s suffrage, as had his grandparents,
and they had passed the ideals of freedom along to him--and this opinion had
been strongly supported by his wife, who had been a working woman before their
marriage and had later taught herself the complex task of playing the organ,
proving that women, too, could be intelligent.
The minister turned to Jack, repeating
basically the same words that had been said to Rose. Jack’s response was the
same. "I do."
"Then by the power vested in me, I now
pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride."
Jack and Rose embraced, their lips meeting in
a gentle kiss of love and promise. Then they turned and walked back down the
aisle together.
Rose beamed, her joy in the moment overcoming
any irritation she felt at the presence of Louise and Harold. It had been a
small wedding, but it had also been a happy one, just as she had wanted.
Looking up at Jack, she saw that he was smiling, too, his face as happy as
hers.
Once outside, they waited for a few minutes,
greeting the people who had come to see the wedding, and got an unexpected
surprise--the woman who ran the restaurant offered them a free wedding dinner
that evening.
Jack looked at Rose, gauging her opinion. She
nodded, agreeing to the idea. The woman who had made the offer, Mrs. Karen
Allen, was one of the few who hadn’t looked at her askance for her
unconventional lifestyle, and Rose was glad for her support.
It was only a block to the restaurant, so
Jack told Harold that he could leave, much to Rose’s relief. She felt
uncomfortable in Harold’s presence, although she hadn’t told Jack why. Jack and
Harold had been friends since childhood, and Rose didn’t want to ruin that just
because Harold couldn’t keep his eyes to himself. She and Jack were married
now, anyway, and most men would consider her taken.
Mrs. Allen had the one waitress in her
restaurant set up a table in a small private room for Jack and Rose, and served
their meal herself, stopping to chat between courses. She was a warm, friendly
woman, with an open mind and a quirky sense of humor, and encouraged them to
come back to her restaurant, mentioning to Rose that she would probably be
needing a new waitress around February--after Rose’s baby was born--and that
Rose might be a good candidate. Rose liked the idea--she wanted to help support
the family financially, and if she was working they could save enough money to
leave Chippewa Falls sooner. She had found some people in the town that she
liked, but she still wanted to leave before her child bore the brunt of the
less tolerant people’s criticism. Mrs. Allen was amenable to the idea of Rose
bringing the baby to work with her--she could leave it to sleep in one of the
small rooms next to the kitchen--and that way Rose could work and care for her
child. Rose mentioned that she and Jack might be leaving in the spring, but
Mrs. Allen waved off her concerns. She wanted to give Rose a chance, and she
could probably find someone else to wait tables after Rose was gone. There was
always someone looking for work.
Rose told her that she would consider the
offer, and then she and Jack left for home. It was a cold, clear night, but
Rose hardly felt the cold, snuggled warmly into her coat with Jack’s arm around
her as they walked.
It was a long walk back to their house, but
neither complained. They talked quietly as they walked through the darkness,
discussing their coming baby and their plans for the future. They still wanted
to do all the things they had talked about on the Titanic, but now it would
take them a little longer, and they would be sharing those experiences with
their child. Still, the future looked bright, and, for the moment at least,
they were content.