ROSE DAWSON: REBORN FOR THE BETTER
Chapter Nine

September 15, 1912

Luke walked through Central Park, lost in thought. It had been two months since Rose had told him her story, two months since he had left in anger over her supposed betrayal. But now that he had had time to think about it, he realized that there had really been no betrayal.

Rose hadn't known him when she had first introduced herself as Rose Dawson, and she was trying to escape her past, escape the life that she had lived, and make a new life for herself and her child. Could he really blame her for not immediately trusting him with the truth? She was trying to keep a low profile, and telling her story to a reporter for the New York Times was hardly the way to stay hidden.

Luke didn't know quite why he had never printed Rose's story. In his anger, it had been the first idea that came to mind—to print her story, and tell the world what she had done, to return her dishonesty with a betrayal of her trust.

But he couldn't. Maybe it was her pleading eyes, begging him not to tell anyone, or the trust she had placed in him when she told her story, or the fact that, deep down, he cared more than he wanted to admit. Whatever it was, he had been unable to write and publish Rose's story, no matter how angry he was with her.

Luke was pulled from his thoughts by the voices of several men. This small group, who called themselves the Brotherhood of Moral Righteousness, had recently established themselves in the park, harassing anyone they thought didn't measure up to their high moral standards.

In truth, the Brotherhood was little more than a group of idle men with nothing better to fill their time. Most people looked upon them with scorn, or amusement at best, but they had recently made headlines when they openly confronted a young woman in the park with two small children and no ring on her finger. The men had followed her through the park, harassing her and the children, even going so far as to throw garbage when they grew brave enough. The young woman had finally complained to her employer, one of the wealthiest men in the city, who had used his considerable influence to have the men arrested for threatening his children and their governess.

The group had disappeared for a few weeks, only to return in greater force once the scandal had died down. The attention from the newspapers had brought other equally disgruntled men to their cause, and the Brotherhood made parts of the park extremely unpleasant for anyone whose views or behavior differed from theirs, particularly women. Suffragists, working women, the poor and homeless, immigrants—all were easy targets for the bigoted, intolerant group.

In the main, these men still made more noise than anything else, but they had been growing bolder. Luke could hear them from nearly a hundred yards away, shouting and harassing some hapless woman.

"Whore!"

"Slut!"

"Daughter of Satan!" shouted one particularly bold man.

"You and your bastard are corrupting our society. You shouldn't be allowed to walk the streets!"

The voice that answered back was unsettlingly familiar. "My child is not a bastard! I'm a widow, and before you judge me, you should look to yourselves! How many of you have bastard children, or other skeletons in your closet? Hmm? Don't judge me, you worthless, self-righteous dogs!"

Her words only served to inflame their self-righteous anger more. Even as Luke began to run toward the sound of the conflict, the was a yelp of shock and indignation from the woman.

"Don't you throw garbage at me! You're nothing more than white trash, all of you. Human garbage, every single one!"

Luke rushed up just as the man who had called her a daughter of Satan scooped up a handful of gravel and threw it, hitting her and one of his compatriots who had been advancing on her. His friend stopped, turning to brawl with the man who had hit him with the gravel.

"What is going on here?!" Luke demanded, though he knew perfectly well.

"These sorry excuses for men finally got up the courage to speak their minds," Rose told him, sneering at her attackers. "They've been following me for days, every time I come here at lunch break."

Luke could well imagine why it had taken the men so long to go after her. They frequented this particular part of the park, but they were most interested in harassing those who would cower and give them the attention they wanted. Rose tended to turn her nose up at anyone she thought unworthy of her attention, ignoring them as though they did not even exist. It was a holdover from her years in high society, but she applied this snobbishness far more selectively now. The Brotherhood of Moral Righteousness, however, was been just the sort that she wanted nothing to do with.

He wondered what had finally made her react to their taunts, but before he could ask, someone else picked up a rock and threw it, hitting Rose in the shoulder. With a snarl, she advanced on the men, claws bared.

"You worthless bastards!"

Luke grabbed her arm and pulled him behind her as the men reacted, grouping together as though to defend themselves from her attack. Rose was brave, Luke had no doubt, but getting into a battle with six men was a losing proposition, one that was likely to cost her her unborn baby.

Rose tried to move around him, but he spoke up before she could renew her attack. "Why don't you find someone else to harass?" he suggested. "Someone who's actually guilty of something?"

"Don't try to defend her, Calvert," the ringleader of the group spoke up. Luke had been the one who had interviewed him after he had been arrested for harassing the governess. "She nothing but a little whore."

"How would you know?" Luke raised an eyebrow. "Do you know her?"

"I don't need to know her. She's in a family way and has no wedding ring. Obviously, she's not married. Besides that, she works. A woman's place is in the home, taking care of the house and children."

"You don't know anything about my life!" Rose shot back, still trying to get around Luke. "Don't tell me what I should and should not do!"

"She's a widow," Luke interjected, "with a child on the way. The men who killed her husband took everything of value—including her wedding ring. Can you really condemn her for being robbed, or for trying to survive?"

Rose's eyes widened at Luke's defense of her, but she hid her surprise, not allowing the men to know that the story had been made up on the spot.

"She should have found another husband to take care of her. Why, my wife would never consider working outside the home. And she would never allow anyone to take her wedding ring."

"If I was your wife, I would leave my ring on the table and jump in the river," Rose retorted, finally breaking free of Luke's grip. "My husband was a better man than any of you."

"If he was such a good man, why did he get himself killed? And why didn't he leave you enough money to live on?"

"Because that's not the way things were. Life doesn't always work out the way we'd like."

"It's a pity those thieves killed him instead of you. Women like you shouldn't be allowed to live."

"You unimaginable bastard!" Rose flew forward, ready to do battle.

An empty can bounced off her forehead, making her even angrier. Luke grabbed the sash on her dress to hold her back, but succeeded only in ripping it.

Suddenly, a loud whistle rang through the air as a police officer rode up. Dismounting, he demanded, "What is going on here?"

The six men who had been harassing Rose suddenly realized how much trouble they were in and tried to run, but they were so surprised and disorganized that they crashed into each other, trying to avoid the officer, the horse, and Luke and Rose.

The officer grabbed two of them and banged their heads together. Ordinarily, Rose would have been shocked at the brutality, but at the moment she believed the men were getting what was coming to them.

The other four men ran off, proving their cowardice in the face of adversity. The officer held tightly to the two men he had grabbed.

"Just what did you think you were doing? Didn't the judge tell you to disband and stay out of the park?" He snapped handcuffs on both of them.

"They were attacking me, sir, accusing me of being a whore," Rose told him, stepping up and smirking at the two arrestees.

The officer narrowed his eyes, looking as though he wondered if the men were correct in their assumption. Rose recognized the look and glared back at him.

"I am not a whore, sir, nor have I ever been. I am a widow. And no matter what, they had no call to attack me." She wiped at a streak that the garbage had left on her dress, then rubbed her shoulder where the rock had hit it.

"We have the right to assemble," one of the men argued, glaring at Rose, Luke, and the officer.

"You have the right to assemble peaceably," the officer told him, leading both men away. "Not to badger everyone you meet and attack women with garbage and rocks."

Rose couldn't make out what the man said, but she suspected it was something obscene, especially after the officer punched him in the back of the head, leaving him groaning.

As the men were led away, she turned to Luke, eyeing him warily. She had avoided him the past couple of months, not wanting to face him. Now, he had come to her rescue.

"I...ah...thank you," she stammered, not sure what to say. What had he been doing in this part of the park? He had been avoiding her, too.

"What happened? Why did they attack you?" He knew, from what Rose and the men had shouted at each other, that they had been watching her for a long time. But why did they attack her today?

"They wanted a reaction out of me, and I finally gave it to them. Cowards that they are, they couldn't stand the thought of being ignored, and they stared after me every day. But today, they finally got the courage to speak up and insult me and my baby. They can say what they want about me, but no one insults my baby."

"How did they know you were pregnant? You're still hardly showing—it could just be weight gain on your part."

"They've been watching, seeing how my stomach was slowly expanding. This dress is too tight, but it was the only clean one I had, so I wore it. They saw my middle straining against the sash and decided to protect society from me and my unborn baby." She saw a bench and headed for it, only now realizing how scared she had been. Her hands were shaking.

"Sit down." Luke helped her to sit on the bench, gripping her shaking hands. "Those men have been harassing women for months now, and they especially like this part of the park. Maybe you should find a new place to walk until things die down."

"I'm not going to let them drive me away. I have just as much right to be in the park as them. More, in fact. No judge has told me to stay out of the park. No, I'll be back tomorrow—though maybe I'll find someone to walk with." She pulled her hands away, tying her torn sash as best she could.

"I'll walk with you," Luke volunteered before he thought about it.

Rose forced a smile. "Thank you, but it's not necessary. You don't need to sacrifice your time for me. Thank you for defending me today, but—you don't have to walk with me. There's a new girl working in the shop—perhaps she'll walk with me."

"They'll harass both of you," Luke pointed out, "and possibly scare her away. I don't think they'll bother you if you're with me—especially not after today."

"Luke, I can take care of myself. I've been taking care of myself for five months. You don't have to sacrifice yourself."

"It wouldn't be a sacrifice. Look, Rose, I can't claim to understand you, or why you did what you did, but I'm not going to reject you for it."

"You don't have to. You already have."

"I was wrong to do so. And just so you know, I never printed your story in the newspaper, and I never will—unless you want me to."

"Thank you, Luke. I know you didn't. I've checked every day. For a reporter, you have a lot of integrity."

"Rose, you're no picnic yourself, but I like you. Don't ask me why, but I do. There's just something about you." He broke off, realizing that Rose was staring at him, wide-eyed. "What? What did I say?"

He was totally unprepared for Rose's reaction. Bursting into tears, she flung her arms around him. "Jack was right. He knew. He knew right from the start. That's why you were at Pier 54 that night, and that's why we met again. He knew all along what was going to happen."

"What do you mean? What are you talking about?" For all that Luke considered himself an expert on people and their emotions and reactions, this mystified him.

"Nothing. Nothing at all." Rose sat up, wiping her eyes. "Only that certain things were meant to happen, and we were one of them." She smiled brightly.

And deep down inside, Luke understood.

Chapter Ten
Stories