LOVE LASTS FOR ETERNITY
Chapter Six
Rose's POV
I left the infirmary once Jack
was asleep and headed for the wireless room. There was a long queue of people
wanting to send telegrams, so I had no choice but to stick it out and wait. I
must have waited for about half an hour before I finally got to the wireless
room. I took a form from the pile and wrote out what I wanted to send.
Nathan. Stop. It's Rose. Stop.
Can a friend and I stay at your home for a while? Stop. Long story, sorry.
Stop. Will explain when we get there. Stop. Nowhere else to go. Stop. Again,
long story, sorry. Stop. See you soon. Stop.
Rose
I handed it over to the wireless
operator and he counted up the charge. "That'll be seventy-two cents,
please, Miss," he said. I fumbled in my water-stained pocket and found a
one dollar coin. Officer Lowe had taken pity on me after I told him I had lost
everything and everyone and he had given me a small handful of coins. Such a
selfless man--the only one to take his boat back to look for survivors. I had
been rescued and transferred to another boat so Lowe could go back one last
time with a fresh team of rowers. Thank God he had, or I really would be alone!
I left the wireless room and
decided to take a walk around the deck. I was halfway to the bow when a very
excited Helga came running up to me with the last person I expected to see.
Fabrizio! He was alive!
They came running up to me, Helga
shouting, "Rose! Rose! Fabrizio is alive! My love is alive!"
Fabrizio shouted, "Rose!
Ah…you have lived also! This is good!"
I hugged them both and said to
Fabrizio, "How did you survive?"
"Ah…is lucky I am here,
bella Rosa. I manage to climb on top of an overturned lifeboat as it was swept
off of the ship and very nearly had a large funnel land on me. Must hurt a lot,
no?" Then his eyes darkened. "Ah…I just wish my best friend would be
here to celebrate the living, too. I am sure he is not surviving. He is on no
list. I check many times." I smiled, delighted to be the one to tell him
the news.
"Fabri, Jack isn't dead.
He's alive! He's alive, Fabri!" I shouted. He looked at me, smiled, and
gave a loud cheer, picking up Helga and hugging her tight.
"Bellisima! The Lord above
us has spared me my friend! Grazzi!" He looked at me. "Where is he,
bella Rosa? Why is he not here if he is living?"
"He's in the infirmary and I
think he has been since we got here. He's got severe hypothermia, but the
doctor says he should be all right in a week or so."
"Ah…that is good news. He
shall be all right. But how did you survive? I go to the deck and the lifeboat
I am on is the last and you are not on it."
I explained the whole story,
about riding the ship down to the end of its life, finding the debris, and Jack
making me get on it.
"Ah…he was always noble,
even when we meet when he was sixteen," Fabri said.
I told him about the boat coming
back and thinking Jack was dead. I didn't feel good about telling Fabri this,
in case he thought I had allowed his best friend to die, but he didn't look
angry. I told him about Molly finding me with Helga and taking me to Jack, who
had told me how he had lived. Fabri was nearly in tears when I finished and,
after I explained it in French, so was Helga.
"Can we see him? I have not
seen my friend since I think him dead," said Fabri. I shook my head.
"Well, not yet. He was
sleeping when I left and the drugs they give him make him feel drowsy and
weak."
Fabri nodded understandingly.
"Ah…yes. We see him later, no?"
I nodded my head. I explained to
Helga, too, who asked me the same thing. Fabri shook his head a little.
"Ah…this is awkward. I love
Helga with my life, and yet I cannot speak to her. She knows my name and that I
love her, no more. I hate it. She speak French, not English nor Italiano. I no
speak French, too."
"Well, I could try to teach
her some English, and I know a place in New York where she can learn for
free."
Fabri looked grateful for my
help. "Ah…yes, that would be good. Thank you, sweet bella Rosa. You are a
good friend." He hugged me and I hugged him back.
I explained to Helga and she
nodded enthusiastically. She said that she very much wanted to learn English.
Fabri decided to go and get us something for lunch, so I stayed with Helga and
got right down to English lessons.
I first taught her how to say
simple words like yes, no, please, thank you, hello, and good-bye, which she
caught onto quite quickly. For someone who'd only spoken French all her life,
she grasped our language quite quickly. I hoped she would be able to speak
fluent English before long.
Fabrizio came back with tea and
sandwiches a few minutes later. By this time, Helga could say a simple sentence
in English very well. She said it over and over until she could say it
perfectly. When she saw Fabri, she ran up to him and said excitedly,
"Hello. My name is Helga Dahl."
"So, where are you and Helga
headed when the ship docks?" I asked.
"Well, we stay in New York
for Helga to learn English, like you said, and then we hope to move to Florida.
I wish to return to the heat and Helga does, too. Norway, where she was born,
and the part of France where she lived is always cold."
"That’s nice. I went there
for a holiday when I was fifteen. It's beautiful--not that I had the chance to
enjoy it." Fabri raised his eyebrows.
"Why is that? Did you not
stay long enough?"
"Well, no, it wasn't that. I
went with my mother and she just wanted to go to galas and parties and such, so
I didn't even get to set foot on the sand. I asked her, and she just said that
beaches were filthy and infested with animals. She hates anything that isn't
classy, you see."
Fabri nodded understandingly.
"Ah…your family is rich, no?"
I nodded. "In fact, Mother
went so far as to arrange my wedding, forcing me to marry Caledon
Hockley."
Fabri nearly choked on his tea.
"Did you say Caledon Hockley?" he asked.
"Yes. Why? Have you heard of
him?"
Fabri stamped on the ground
angrily. "Do I know him? I spit on the name of his family for what they
did to mine! Caledon Hockley is a bastardo!" And he starting raving in
Italian. When he finally calmed down, he explained. "He forced my family
off of the farm we owned and built a factory on our land. He is a heartless
bastardo!"
I couldn't believe my ears. How
could the Hockleys be so cruel? I knew they were cold-hearted, but I didn't
know they'd gone so far as to force a family out of their home and build a
factory on it. "I didn't know he'd go that far," I said, shocked.
"He was always building new factories and investing more and more money
into his business, but I didn't know he was so heartless. And I nearly married
the son of a bitch!"
"What was he like to you? I
cannot imagine him to be a loving fiancé."
I sighed. "Yes, he was
horrible. He was controlling, selfish, obnoxious, hit me a lot of times, and
pressured me to come to his bed many times."
Fabri looked shocked. "He
hit you? That is bad enough, but I cannot understand how he could ask you to
come to his bed before marriage! How could any foul demon do this to you, bella
Rosa?"
I was touched by how concerned he
was for me. "Well, that's the evil, heartless man he is. And that's not
all he did." I told Fabri the whole story about the Titanic, how Cal had
tried to keep Jack and I apart, how he'd framed Jack for the theft of the Heart
of the Ocean, how he'd chased us around the ship like a maniac, and how he'd tried
to bribe his way into a boat.
Fabri had more details to tell
me. "He was so evil, is true, but he did more, Rose. He bribe his way onto
a boat with a little child and when the boat was swept away, he try to push
people off with an oar, when so many were dying, me included. It makes me shake
with rage. He would not even let women and children into the boat."
Indeed, Fabri had clenched his fists and was shaking with rage. He suddenly
noticed the coat I was wearing. "Rose, that coat is not yours? It is a
man's coat, no?"
I hadn't given the coat a second
thought since boarding the Carpathia. I looked down at it and remembered who it
belonged to. I took it off and threw it on the deck. It made a unexpected thump
against the wood, like something was inside it, and there was the sound of the
rustle of paper. I bent down and looked inside the pockets curiously. I pulled
out the Heart of the Ocean. I gasped in surprise. So did Helga, and Fabri
dropped his sandwich.
"Oh, my God," I gasped.
Cal's most valuable possession was resting in the palm of my hand. I looked in
the other pockets and found large bundles of crisp banknotes. I emptied all the
pockets and found a total of around ten thousand dollars. I stuffed the money
back in the coat and sat back down on the bench.
"Whoa," was Fabri's gob
smacked response.
I was speechless, but eventually
managed to say, "I guess Cal kept the money for bribery. Or maybe he
wanted to smuggle it off the ship so he wouldn't lose any money. There's about
ten thousand dollars here and the diamond is worth millions."
"Well, Rose, you sell that
and you’ll be rich for life. Live in big house, have expensive things all your
life."
I shook my head. "No, Fabri.
I've lived that life since I was born, and it's not all glittery clothes and big
houses. It's a hard life. You are always expected to behave properly and you
can't do anything you want. No, I've left that life for good."
Fabri smiled. "Wise move. A
beauty and a good brain. Jack is a lucky guy." I smiled. Then I took out
half of the bundles of notes. I dropped the lot into Fabri's lap.
He looked at me like I was crazy.
"No, no, I cannot take your money. It is yours," he protested.
"No, Fabri. I want you to
have some of it for you and Helga so you can have a good life. That's more than
enough to get you to Florida and buy you a small house. There's still more than
enough for me and Jack. And he'd want you to have it, too." Fabri opened
his mouth to protest, but I held up my hand. "No arguments," I said
firmly. "Think of it as a gift."
He gave up and put the money in
his pockets. "Jack picked very wisely. You are beautiful, smart, kind, and
giving. Thank you, bella Rosa," he said, smiling at me.
I glowed with pride. No one had
ever complimented me like that. My father had given me the occasional
compliment, but he was always traveling, and I never really saw much of him. I
know he loved me dearly, though, not like Mother. Mother had always showered me
with scorn, forever telling me to smarten myself up or act like a lady. The
only compliments I got from her were about the clothes I wore, which she had
purchased. I had never been told anything so good about myself as what Fabri
had said.
We chatted for a while more until
it was nearly sunset. Fabri told me about his home in Italy, his family, and
how he had met Jack. He told me about traveling all over Europe with
him--Paris, just over the Spanish border, Holland--before crossing the channel
to Southampton. Jack had promised to take Fabri to America, a lifelong dream of
his. He told me how Jack had won the poker game and how they had only just
boarded the ship before it left the dock.
I laughed at most of the details
of their adventures and wished I could have experienced a life like that. Maybe
I would. Jack had said we would go to Santa Monica someday to ride horses on
the beach, ride the roller coaster, drink cheap beer, and spit like a man. I
smiled at the memories of spitting off the side of the promenade deck. I
couldn't wait to live a life like that. I thought of other places we could go.
I wondered if Jack would want to go back Chippewa Falls, his hometown. Surely
he had friends there who he hadn't seen since he left? Maybe he wanted to go
and see them one day. I was interested in seeing the place, what it was like.
As night fell, the three of us settled down on the deck for the evening. We
each had a blanket and managed to make a cozy spot for ourselves. I slept that
night peacefully, the melodic music of the waves echoing in my ears.
*****
I awoke the next morning to a
beautiful sunrise. It was the day we were due to dock in New York, and if I
looked carefully into the horizon, I could see the faint outline of land. We
wouldn't dock until midday, but it looked so close and so beautiful in the
golden sunrise. I stretched and yawned, waking myself up to face the day ahead.
Opposite me, Helga had just woken
up and was smiling at me.
"Good morning, Helga,"
I said, testing her memory to see if she remembered her English lesson.
She narrowed her eyes, wracked
her brain, and eventually said, "Morning good, Rose."
I said well done in French, but
told her she had said it backwards. She gave an embarrassed giggle that woke
Fabrizio, who was lying next to her.
"Good morning, Rose."
He yawned. "Ah…what a beautiful sunrise, no?"
I went off to get some breakfast
for us. I went to the common room and collected a stack of toast and three cups
of tea. I carried the lot in my arms to the deck and put it all on the deck,
where we picnicked on the food. We lounged around the deck for a couple of
hours after that, a little bored. Sometimes we strolled over to the railing and
admired the ocean and the steadily approaching black buildings on the horizon.
At around nine, we decided to go
to the infirmary and see Jack. On the way there, I ran into Molly, who I
immediately gave a huge hug. She laughed when I threw my arms around her.
"Aw…Rose, what was that
for?" she asked.
"For everything," I
said. "If it weren't for you, I'd still be believing that Jack was dead
and we wouldn't be together."
"Aw…darlin', that was
nothing. You two were meant to be together. Say, where are you headed when the
ship docks? You can always stay with me in Denver if you need." I shook my
head.
"Thanks, but no thanks,
Molly. We're going to stay with a friend of mine, Nathan, just outside New
York." Molly nodded.
"That's good. Well, I’d
better be getting back to first class now, get myself ready to dock. Oh,
and…" She leaned closer to me. "Your mother and Cal--I didn't tell
them you survived. Would you like it to stay that way, or shall I tell
them?"
I shook my head violently.
"No, Molly," I said firmly. "Please don't tell them. If they
know, it will ruin everything. Cal will take me away, and Mother won't exactly
pull him off of me."
Molly gave me an understanding
nod. "All right, darlin'. I won't tell ‘em if you don't want me to. But
your mother is really torn up right now, about you supposedly dying and all. If
you change your mind, she's stayin’ with me for now, so let me know if you need
me or anything. Here's my card." She handed me a small white card with a
telephone number written in italic letters on it. I gave her one last hug and
we said good-bye and parted ways.
We walked along to the infirmary
and walked inside. Jack was half-asleep when we arrived, but was immediately
wide awake when he saw Fabrizio. He looked just as shocked as when he'd seen
me.
"Fabrizio!" he shouted
when he saw his best friend.
"Jack! It is true! You are
alive!" Fabrizio shouted, running over to Jack. They embraced tightly,
overjoyed that they had both survived.
"How did you survive?"
Jack asked.
"Ah…is a lucky tale. I
escape on an overturned lifeboat, the last to leave the ship. But your tale is
luckier, no? Rose tells me of how you two ended up in the water."
"Yeah. I guess it was lucky.
Except for the hypothermia." I walked over and sat beside Fabri.
"Speaking of which, how are
you feeling?" I asked.
"Not too bad. I should be
better in about a week now. I can stand and walk some now."
"Great! I sent a telegram to
Nathan so he knows we're coming. The ship should dock about midday. You can see
the city on the horizon already."
Right on cue, the ship's whistle
gave an almighty blast to signal that we were on our way into the dock.
Fabrizio smiled delightedly.
"Ah…yes! I make it to America, just like I always dream. Bellisima!"
"Where'll you go?"
asked Jack.
"Helga and I stay in New
York for her to learn English, and then we go to Florida. We wish to be in the
sun and warm."
"Great, but where'll you get
the money for it?" Fabri looked at me and smiled.
"I’d better explain
that." I laughed, pulling a couple of stacks of bills out of the coat.
Jack stared at them as though the
money were completely alien. "Where the hell did you get that?" he
asked in a bewildered voice.
"A present from our dearest
Cal. Along with this," I said, pulling the Heart of the Ocean from my
pocket.
"And he gave you that, did
he?"
"Well, no. You remember when
he put the coat on me? The money and necklace were in there. I guess he forget
where he put it all. There was a lot more than this, but I made Fabri take half
of it for him and Helga."
"Yes, she did," said
Fabri. "Your Rose was very firm, would not let me refuse it."
"This is great! We've got
enough money to start out with!"
"Yes, we have. But I don't
want to be rich anymore. I don't want to live in a huge house with lots of
money and jewelry. I've had enough of that to last a lifetime," I
explained.
Jack smiled. "Well, that's
actually a relief, 'cause I don't want that life, either. I was actually kind
of worried you'd get tired of the lower class life and go back to Cal."
"Jack, how many times have I
said this? I don't want Cal. He made my life hell. I'm much happier with
you."
Before Jack could respond,
Fabrizio interrupted us. "Sorry to break up your little chat, but the ship
is docking in a few minutes."
Sure enough, the ship was
noticeably slowing down. Fabrizio and Helga ran outside and leaned over the
railing of the ship, eager to catch their first look at America.
"We have made it!"
Fabri said delightedly, hugging Helga and kissing her. It was touching to see
how much he loved her, even if they couldn't understand one another.
I stepped outside, too, and
looked at the oncoming land ahead. I thought back to the tenth of April, merely
a week ago. I had planned to return to my homeland to be locked in a forced
marriage, facing a life of torture being Mrs. Rose Hockley. Well, how different
could things be? I was returning to my homeland happy. Happy to be free and
with a man I loved, and who loved me, not a man who would treat me like a
prized show horse. I was approaching a new life of opportunities and the chance
to do anything I liked with my life. I could hardly wait.
When the ship docked a few
minutes later, Fabrizio and Helga raced to the gangway to get off the ship as
soon as possible. The first class and second class people got off first, and
third class went last. Fabri and Helga were among the first steerage passengers
to leave the ship and were just about the only two there who were smiling.
Once all the other passengers
were off, the infirmary was cleared out. Those who were still too weak were
taken to nearby hospitals, but most, including Jack, were strong enough to
leave. He was still a little wobbly on his legs at first, but was soon walking
fine. Fabri and Helga waited for us on the dock when we left the ship, huge
grins on their faces. I couldn't help but grin myself. I was back home, in a
country of endless freedom.