THE HEART NEVER LIES
Chapter Five
The rain fell onto the deck of
the Carpathia. I was wearing Cal’s coat and my thin, once elegant dress, now
stained and ruined, my hair hanging in rat’s tails. I was no longer the society
girl; I was just heartbroken and sad, a pathetic figure looking years older
than my seventeen years.
My gaze fell on the approaching
horizon of New York, the tall buildings standing majestically as the ship
sailed close to the harbor.
The nurse, Mrs. Baines, had
released me from the hospital wing of the ship once I awoke from my
drug-induced sleep. The news that my Jack was missing left my mind blank. I
just was so weary; all that was keeping me going was my promise that I would go
on. I owed Jack everything--my future and life. The night turned dark and the
ship steamed slowly into the port.
I looked up as we passed the
Statue of Liberty, tears blurring my vision, and I felt a steely determination
rising in me.
It’s all I have left--my
freedom, my liberty. Jack sacrificed his life for mine. We should have been
together. But I’ll live for you. I will walk off this ship my own person--no
Mother, no Cal.
Remembrances of Mother browbeat
me every day. "You must marry Cal. The money is gone." It made me
sick, so much hope placed on my unwilling shoulders.
Cal had been so utterly charming
and convincing, but after scratching the surface, all that was there was a
cold, cruel bully. I was his prize; if I disobeyed, he would use his fists to
talk. His touch made my flesh crawl.
In a daze, I walked down the
gangway from the ship. I tried to blend in with the crowds of people, wandering
dazed. Press flashbulbs went off, blinding me momentarily. The noise of the
distressed and displaced was loud and the rain was drenching everyone as it
fell steadily.
A White Star Line officer
approached me with a clipboard. He was holding an umbrella. He looked pained
and soaked. "Love, what is your name?" he asked.
"Dawson. Rose Dawson,"
I said firmly. Jack’s name was mine. It was all I had left of him.
"Thank you, dear," he
replied.
I absentmindedly placed my hand
in the coat pocket and touched a hard object. Frowning, I pulled it out. My
eyes widened in shock as I stared at the necklace.
"That damned necklace,"
Jack had called it. Here it was, cold and real in my palm.
I could see Cal placing it around
my neck; it was hard and heavy, cold against my skin. It felt like a slave
collar. I saw Cal’s smirking face in the mirror as he looked at me wearing the
Heart of the Ocean as he presented it to me.
"We are royalty," he
said in a pompous voice. God, he was so arrogant. Then he had planted it on
Jack to make him look like a thief. I could still see Caledon chasing us to
retrieve it, us nearly dying in the bowels of the ship. He had tried to shoot
us. Was he a piece of work or what? All for this horrible lump of diamond? I
would try to forget I had it; maybe I could sell it.
I dropped it back in my pocket
and checked the other pocket. To my relief, there was a handful of bills.
Obviously, Cal had stuffed them in there in a hurry.
I was on the quay side. I pushed
my way through the throngs of people, trying to decide what to do next. My head
ached and I was still cold.
I’ll find a hotel, then have a
bath and decide what to do. Get some clothes, look for a job?
As I stopped to think and to try
to be practical, someone suddenly grabbed my arm and spun me around. I gasped.
"Oh, my God!" I
shrieked, and I was face-to-face with Cal, whose whole demeanor was angry and
brooding.
"Are you going somewhere,
Rose?" he sneered, dark eyes like steel gimlets. "Or have you
forgotten that I own you? You’re still my fiancée, and you’d better have that
necklace!"
The grip tightened on my arm. I
started to struggle to get away. "Let go, you snake!" I shouted.
"Oh, no, you don’t,
Sweetpea," he hissed. "You’re coming with me. You owe me and your
mother, so be a good girl and come along."
"Get off me! I owe you
nothing! Let me go!" I cried frantically. "I don’t love you."
I tried to wrench my arm free;
everything in me was telling me to get away. I tried kicking back with my feet,
then stopped dead as I felt something cold and metallic dig into my back.
"I’ve got a gun," he
whispered maliciously. "So, you just walk quietly and I won’t hurt
you." He poked me hard with it. "Any funny business, you and your
idiot mother get it and that gutter rat you took up with, do you hear me?"
"Yes," I whispered. I
had no choice but to be pushed at gunpoint towards Cal’s waiting taxi.