THE
LAST TESTAMENT OF RUTH DEWITT BUKATER
Written by Karen
Lewis
Based on some situations originated by James Cameron.
Nichols, Frankel & Mitchell,
Solicitors
113 Reyes Court
Boston
MA 65391-456
November 11, 1931
For the attention of Mrs. Rose Calvert,
nee Dawson, I am writing to inform you that you are the sole beneficiary of the
late Ruth DeWitt Bukater’s last Will and Testament, and urge you to contact me
at your earliest convenience for details of the legacy. This includes property
on Madison Street in Boston, and our firm would be pleased to handle the sale
of this in accordance with your wishes.
Before her death, the late Mrs. Bukater
employed a private investigator to trace your whereabouts, and her last wish
was that the enclosed sealed letter be delivered into your hands.
I remain your faithful servant,
Alexander Nichols
Solicitor
*****
May 25, 1931
My Rose,
I wonder what you must have felt when you
saw the solicitor’s letter bearing both your new name and mine. Were you
momentarily afraid to open the envelope which accompanied it–did you see its
inscription, Rose, as my accusation from beyond the grave? Do not worry, my
Rose, we have made each other suffer enough to have done with all
recriminations now. This letter is to record my confession, for I will not rest
easy until you know everything. I honestly believed you had died that night. As
I watched the glittering bulwark slide slowly, inexorably, beneath the horizon,
all I could think of was your leap from the lifeboat to the deck, your arms
outstretched, your angry red hair flying as you chose between a life with me
and a death with–him. A boy you knew for only three days was worth more to you
than your fiancé and your mother. That hurt me at the time, Rose, but when the
ship began to break apart I imagined you afraid, suffering, freezing already in
that terrible cold sea--and all I could do was picture your suffering. By the
time the Carpathia arrived I was utterly empty. I had wept for hours in the
arms of Margaret Brown. There was nothing left for me to feel. My daughter was
dead.
For the next few days, I thought nothing,
felt nothing. I was inconsolable. I did not stir from the bed they provided for
me–the Carpathia’s first mate had given up his cabin for my sake, and Molly
Brown shared it with me and gave me solace whenever she could. When, that is,
she had time to spare from her ceaseless ministrations to those others who were
bereaved! The woman was a wonder, and I believe you would be glad to know that
I am intensely sorry for having misjudged her. She was a guiding light to all
of us who arrived in New York rootless and desolate, and by her efforts for the
Titanic’s widows she soon acquired the ship’s former nickname, Unsinkable. A
lesser woman would have given herself airs at the world’s recognition, but not
Molly–"Unsinkable?" she laughed once, slapping her sizeable girth.
"Sure, I am–it’d take ten torpedoes to sink this. Wouldn’t you say,
Ruth?" She was the only thing that made me smile, and she took care of me
when I had nothing left in the world–no home, no money, and not even the
cherished image of my daughter. Caledon Hockley had no reason to humor me any
longer, and his parting gift to me was a description of how you behaved in
those last few hours before the ship went down.
I told the arrogant fool that I didn’t
believe him, that it was impossible for you to have behaved in that manner. I
had brought you up with a respect for propriety, and though you were often
willful and insolent, you would never have done any of the things of which he
accused you. He told me that you posed naked for that boy Dawson, that you let
him draw you like that and left the drawing in the safe for him, your fiancé,
to find. He told me more about the relationship between you and Dawson, but I
screamed at him to stop and said that you would never have acted like a whore.
"Show me this drawing!" I told
him, close to slapping his face. "Give me one reason to believe you!"
And he sneered at me as he made his reply.
"You may not believe it, Mrs. Bukater, but believe me on this score--I’m
just glad that this disaster gave me a chance to see her true colors before I
made her my wife!" I replied that the mere fact that he lived when heroes
like Captain Smith went down with the ship was enough to show his true colors.
For a moment he looked ashamed at that, and I was pleased indeed to catch him
on the raw.
He died in 1929, by the way. Were you
aware of that fact? He committed suicide in the wake of his company’s collapse.
It was said of him that his company was the only sinking ship that the rat
didn’t have the foresight to desert. But I am getting ahead of myself, for I
need to tell you what happened to me after we disembarked from the Carpathia. I
lived in an annex of the Browns’ house in Boston for six months, and after that
the money given to Molly’s charity fund allowed me to find my own lodgings in a
modest area of the city. What mortification I felt at living in this manner–and
the unpleasant discovery that certain former friends treated me either as a
object for gossip or as an embarrassment--was entirely mitigated by the memory
of that dark night in April. When life itself is a gift, one no longer chafes
at straitened circumstances. In any case, White Star’s own compensation,
following a year later, allowed me finally to pay off your father’s debts and
accumulate my own nest egg for the future. I attended society dinners in aid of
Titanic’s victims, and now and then other events Molly saw fit to organize. But
even the dinner where I met Woodrow Wilson could not compare to the evening of
July 20, 1919. That was when I attended the Boston premiere of The Gypsy Girl
of Paris.
Did you think I would never see one of
your movies? One moment I was sitting in the darkness, doing my best not to
laugh at the absurd over-acting of the actor playing Quasimodo, and the next I
was in shock. Stricken by lightning. My hand flew to my mouth. It was all I
could do to prevent myself from crying aloud. Your face was older, sharper, but
your tomboyish grin was unmistakable and your eyes still held the same silent
laughter. You were on the screen for a few minutes only, but I knew it was you.
I don’t know how I made my way home, but I do remember that I was trembling so
much that Molly Brown asked me what was wrong. What could I have told her? That
for seven years my own daughter had me believe she was dead, when all the time
she was alive and working in Hollywood as a movie actress?
I went back the next day to confirm that
it was you, and this time there was no doubt at all–the credits gave the name
of Esmeralda’s companion as one Rose Dawson. I recognized his name immediately,
but after checking the records of those picked up on the Carpathia I found your
assumed name, but not his. He had not survived--but you had, and you knew that
I had survived, too. Why had you not contacted me? Why not a letter, a short
letter written to let me know that you were alive and happy? You would not have
needed to tell me where you lived, not if you still feared the anger of the
Hockley boy. He had been married for over three years by the time I saw your
film. I doubt he would have cared
had you reappeared in my life. You had seven years to let me know, and in that
time you decided to let me suffer. That was cruel of you, Rose, cruel. I gave
you a month, hungry all the while to hear from you, and when it was clear that
you did not wish to contact me, I contacted a private investigator from Los
Angeles to give me all the details of your new life.
He told me that you lived in a boarding
house with a female friend, had a range of male friends but no beau, had
started to smoke, and had appeared in five movies so far, with contracts to
appear in more. Your reputation was, in the words of your friends, rather
fast--which shocked me somewhat, as it gave credence to what Hockley had said
of you. I paid him to draw you into a conversation about your origins, but you
gave him no details beyond an early desire to appear on the wicked stage. You
had neither the need nor the desire to contact your mother, although she had
mourned your death every day for the past seven years. If it had been different
and it was your father, not I, who had survived the wreck, would you have kept
silent? Wouldn’t you have told him that you still lived and stopped him from
grieving? Of course you would have, Rose, and I hated you for it. My need to see
you became a wicked desire to hear you ask for my forgiveness. I gave that
investigator more of White Star’s money to make sure you never appeared in
another film again.
His method, I understand, was remarkably
simple--he sent letters to the directors with whom you had worked. Your details
were false, he told them, and would any woman falsify details who did not have
something to hide? Within three months no director in the place wished to
employ you for even minor roles. I waited then for you to use up the last of
your money and search for me. It was only after you disappeared from Hollywood
altogether that I realized that you would rather starve than ask me for
anything. Oh, Rose. I did it so you would turn to me. To me. Do you understand?
When you were a child, you always ran crying to your father, never to me. He
spoiled you and let you do as you pleased, whereas to you I was the nasty woman
who demanded you learn table manners, who punished you whenever you lied or
talked back, who slapped you whenever you threatened to lose your slender waist
by eating too many sweets. Yes, I pushed you into corsets. Suppose I had let
you run wild, let you grow fat and frowsy? Do you think you would have
attracted the eye of a millionaire’s son like Caledon Hockley? Do you think
this Jack Dawson would have looked at you twice?
After reading this letter and knowing how
I destroyed your career, you must hate me, Rose, but know this: for the last
ten years my nightly prayers have been reduced to a single sentence. I beg you,
Lord, please don’t let me die without seeing her one last time. Every night I
am torn apart by the thought of what I did to you. I thought that hunger would
force you back to me when love did not–and now I hope against hope that
curiosity might be the force that drives you to see your mother again. Every
evening when I go out I look carefully into the crowds, looking for your copper
hair amongst the women there. Maybe you spied on me in secret, Rose, and I
never knew it? Perhaps you tried to contact me and never succeeded–the postal
service is erratic. I know that only too well. Perhaps even now there is
something for me lying in a Dead Letter Office in some remote town, a letter
with photographs of you, mementoes, keepsakes? If I had the courage I would have
made some attempt to trace you after you left Hollywood, but I could not face
you with my last action weighing on my mind. I widened the distance between us,
Rose, and it is something I cannot undo. So I have set aside one hundred
dollars, the last of White Star’s compensation, for another private
investigator to search for you after my death. He has photographs of you and
with his reputation I am confident that this letter will reach you. Please,
Rose, accept what legacy I have left and try to forgive me for my wickedness.
If you are married, give my sincere blessings to your husband and children--if
you are not, I hope that this money will enable you to find a husband worthy of
you. Pray for me.
Your loving mother,
Ruth
The End.
