MAKING LUCK
Epilogue
December 1, 1929
Whitehall, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Caledon Hockley leaned back in
his chair in his study, pensive. The stock market had crashed, just as he knew
it would. Thankfully, he had taken care of his monetary assets before it had
happened; now, he had only lost a fraction of what he had lost the first time.
And it was a good thing, too—daughters were expensive.
A knock on the door preceded
Gemma. She was carrying a bottle and two champagne glasses. She kicked the door
closed lightly behind her and set the bottle and glasses on his desk, uncorking
the bottle. "Thought you might want a drink."
"Champagne is celebratory;
this is not a happy occasion," Cal remarked. "After tonight, I won’t
know what’s going to happen. There could be another war, for heaven’s sake, and
I can’t warn you not to go to Europe because of it."
"Well, I felt like
celebrating," Gemma said flippantly, handing him his glass. "Besides,
Emilia’s engaged to be married; isn’t that reason enough?"
"True," Cal conceded,
smiling as she settled in his lap. They clinked glasses and drank.
The first time it had been 1929,
Cal had been miserable. This time around, he was utterly content. He had
remarried Gemma a year after Titanic; she had insisted on a spring wedding and
he was only too happy to oblige. Nine months after that, they had a daughter--Ruthie.
He never again saw Violet; the only tie he had to her was their son, Johnny. He
paid for his schooling and visited him every month, but he hadn’t seen Violet
for years. He preferred keeping it that way.
Jack and Rose had married less
than a week after docking in New York. The wedding was small; it was led by a
Justice of the Peace and the only attendants were Cal, Ruth, Emilia, Tommy,
Trudy, Fabrizio and his Norwegian girl, Helga. They had finally accepted money
from Cal after many arguments; with his help, they were able to set up an art
studio in Santa Monica. They had three children--Isadora, named for Rose’s
favorite dancer, Josephine, who was so bohemian that it worried even her
parents, and Thomas Andrew Dawson.
Fabrizio taught Helga English,
which was a feat in itself, considering he spoke no Norwegian and very bad
English. They married not long after and, after some work, opened up a
restaurant in Chicago. They had five children, all of whom were now spread all
over the country. One was even in Paris, studying to be a dancer.
Tommy had met another Titanic
survivor by the name of Angie whom he argued with constantly. They finally
married so as to have an excuse for their frequent quarrels. They had three
boys who had a penchant for wrestling and a girl who could punch about as hard
as any boy.
Ruth married a widower of a lower
social standing, but she loved him enormously. She became stepmother to four
children who adored her, and she them. Her youngest stepson, Eddie, used to
take Emilia’s dolls when they were children; in 1930, he married her. They had
seven children.
As Ruth could only afford to keep
Dinah in her employ and Jack and Rose could obviously not afford any help,
Trudy worked in the Hockley mansion until she met an aspiring singer. He never
did make it big, but the Hockley children always got excited when Uncle Max and
Aunt Trudy came to visit from Newport.
Violet never willingly spoke to
Cal again after he ended things with her in late April. She tore up all of his
photographs and moved on. With her son at the best schools, she became heavily
swept up in the flapper movement. She had several affairs that never ended very
well, but she finally settled down with a railroad heir.
Alexandra met Caledon Hockley a
few times, all the while never knowing that, in another time, she had been his
wife. She did have a brief fling with his oldest son, but that ended when he
was warned by his father about her mercurial temper.
Cal’s catharsis was perhaps as
revolutionary as Ebenezer Scrooge’s. He actually disgusted a few of his peers
with his newfound personality. Cal became a prominent benefactor to the Titanic
Relief Fund and even invited Margaret Brown to dinner on several occasions. He
still had his ugly moments, of course, but it was best not to dwell on those.
As for his children, Cal, Jr. and
Charlie both became the typical rich boys; in their Princeton days, they lived
for parties and girls. Once Prohibition stopped their fun, they found two nice
young ladies and settled down. Amelia, who had always been very rebellious,
nearly eloped with a boy at eighteen. They had made it to the train station
when she realized he was quite dull and, in tears, demanded to be taken home.
She married a horse jockey from Virginia seven years later. Ruthie was
considered the oddball of the family—at least to society. She married a
missionary and moved with him to China, where she became active with
orphanages.
Emilia, for her part, was spoiled
rotten and only occasionally showed signs of it. She was considered as much a
part of the family as if Gemma had given birth to her, as evidenced by the fact
that she regularly stole Charlie’s underwear whenever he made her mad. Emilia
had a very hot temper when it came to boys; when she was eleven years old, she
yelled at Eddie Townsend that she hated him and hoped he died. Precisely ten
years later, she vowed to love him and cherish him until death do them part.
Those who had been on the Titanic
never, ever forgot it. They still suffered nightmares of the freezing cold
water and the sinking ship for years after the event. Every April fourteenth,
they met up somewhere and stayed overnight. They are all of them dead now, but
their children and grandchildren and even great-grandchildren carry on this
tradition.
In memoriam
RMS Titanic
And all of its passengers, victims or survivors
Rest in Peace
The End.