A LADY NAMED ROSE
Chapter Two
Meg didn't return for several hours, leaving
Rose with far too much empty time on her hands. A doctor did stop in briefly to
examine her and declare her well enough to be discharged later that afternoon.
She was certain that he didn't require a longer stay because he took one look
at her and thought she was indigent and couldn't pay.
When the muttering and moans of pain from the
other patients set her teeth to grinding, Rose sought escape in sleep, only to
awaken within minutes, shaking and clutching the blanket in an iron grip. She
couldn't remember the horrors she must have seen in her dream--only that there
was water.
And Jack was there.
"Oh, Jack," she whispered.
"Jack Jack Jack Jack Jack." The tears came, unbidden, and she let
them.
It was the first time she had allowed herself
to cry since the terrible ordeal ended, the first time she had let herself
realize the full impact of her loss. Ten days ago, she didn't know Jack Dawson.
Now, she didn't know if she could live without him. Yet she'd already survived
a week, and the miracles kept coming.
First and foremost: her rescue from the midst
of the wreckage and certain death. Then, somehow, she had come within a hair's
breadth of being discovered by Cal on board the Carpathia, and yet he never saw
her. Then, she encountered the thugs in the alley...
"Hey, looka here!"
Rose had been in such a hurry to flee the
pier where the Carpathia had docked, its passengers surrounded by newspapermen
shouting questions and popping flashbulbs, she hadn't paid attention to the
deserted and somewhat seedy neighborhood she'd wandered into. She found herself
in an alley lined with warehouses--not the safest place for a female traveling
alone at night.
In an instant, three large men blocked her
path.
"Where ya headed so late at night,
little lady?" The speaker, the tallest of the men, stunk of whiskey.
Rose tried to bypass him, but he swiftly
moved in front of her. The others flanked her on either side. One, a short slob
of a man who reeked worse than his accomplice, grinned malevolently. He was
missing a front tooth.
"I said, where ya going so late, and by
yerself, too?"
Rose drew Cal's coat tighter around her body,
and tried to respond, but all that came out was a gasp.
"Can't you talk? Or is you too
scared?" The tall man smiled, slowly and confidently. Easy prey, this one.
Please, God, Rose prayed silently. I need
you, just one more time.
"Nice coat. What you got in there?"
The third man had a frightening scar zigzagging over his left eyebrow, and,
unlike the others, was not smiling. "C'mon, empty them pockets."
He sprung at her, grabbing at the coat, and
Rose instinctively let out a scream and backed away. But she was cornered
against a brick wall and there was no escape. Scarface reached into a trouser
pocket and Rose caught the gleam of something metal.
She closed her eyes and this time she was
able to speak. She said only one word.
"Jack..."
"Hey!"
Scarface, who at this point was holding the
knife dangerously close to Rose's cheek, spun around. The others followed suit.
A couple of men were running towards them,
shouting. The muggers didn't wait for a confrontation, but took off in the
other direction. They were gone as quickly as they had arrived, leaving Rose in
a daze, leaning against the wall for support.
"You all right, miss?"
The men were both young and sturdy,
dockworkers on their way home after an especially trying shift. The Carpathia,
the ship that bore the survivors of the Titanic sinking, had docked at Pier 54,
and the entire area was swarming with passengers' families, press, do-gooders
looking to help the many widows and their children, and curious bystanders.
All this they conveyed to a silent Rose as
they led her back to the street and towards the nearest el train station. They
assumed she was headed that way, too, and she simply followed them.
"How many did they say were lost?"
one of the men asked the other.
"Well, it stands at around fifteen
hundred, I do believe. That comes straight from my friend at the Times."
The other man let out a low whistle. Rose
paled.
Fifteen hundred???
She suddenly felt lightheaded and swayed on
her feet. The two men grabbed her under the arms as she fell.
*****
Rose had absolutely no recollection of how
she arrived at the Angels of Mercy shelter, or when her good Samaritans left
her. All she knew was that she was cold and soaked to the bone once again, this
time from the downpour that greeted the Titanic survivors in New York.
The kindly matrons at the shelter gave her a
bowl of soup and a clean, plain dress and shoes. Rose let them take away the
ruined clothing she'd been wearing since the night of the sinking (she
overheard them clucking about the quality of her evening dress), but refused to
part with her jewelry or the damp coat. Even when the sickness had crept up on
her, weakening her body and spirit, she held onto Cal's overcoat for dear life.
At the time, the priceless diamond she'd
hated because Cal Hockley had given it to her, now the only tangible link to
her precious Jack, was in one of the pockets. Was it still there?
As she struggled to focus on this latest
problem, Rose's tears dried. She dragged first one stiff leg, then the other,
over the edge of the bed and stood unsteadily.
That was when she saw the apparition waving
at her from the opposite end of the ward.
The figure disappeared as quickly as it had
arrived--so quickly that had Rose blinked she would have missed it. But she
didn't blink and she knew it was there. She also knew it was beckoning for her
to follow, and she did, walking faster with each step, knowing she had to
hurry, she had to see who it was...
In the hospital corridor, she froze.
The hallway was shrouded in a mist so thick
Rose could feel beads of moisture on her skin. When she inhaled, she breathed in
the scent of sea water. She could see no one, but she felt a presence very
close by, one that was comforting rather than scary.
She knew who the mysterious figure was before
he appeared, Cal's overcoat draped over one elbow and La Coeur de La Mer in an open
palm.
"Is this what you're looking for?"
Jack asked, and smiled.