ROSE DEWITT BUKATER BEFORE TITANIC
Chapter Five
"Rose."
Ruth stood stiffly
from the horsehair chair she had been sitting in while waiting for Rose to
return home. Rose stopped in the parlor doorway, looking at her mother a little
nervously.
"Come
here."
Something in Ruth’s
tone warned Rose not to argue with her. She went inside, sitting in an
uncomfortable, straight-backed chair across from her mother, feeling as though
she were being interrogated.
"Mother, what
is it? What’s going on?"
"Rose..."
Ruth’s expression changed, growing stern and angry. "We need to
talk."
"About
what?"
Ruth crossed her
arms, staring at her daughter. "You know very well what we need to
discuss."
Rose’s heart
leaped. It must be the engagement to Cal that she wanted to discuss. Somehow,
her mother must have found out what had happened. Breaking the engagement would
be easier than she had thought. Even her mother wouldn’t countenance such
abuse.
"Oh, Mother—"
"Rose, I saw
Cal carrying you out of his room last night," Ruth interrupted. "Your
clothes were askew and your hair had fallen down. Don’t pretend not to know
what I’m talking about."
"I wouldn’t
dream of it. Mother, I’m so glad you found out—"
"After Cal had
taken you to your room, I confronted him. He told me exactly what had happened,
about how you had gone to his quarters with the intent of seducing him."
Rose’s face paled.
"Mother, no. It wasn’t that way at all—"
"I saw you
follow him upstairs, Rose. Don’t lie to me."
"He said that
he wanted to show me his quarters."
"That may have
been. You will, after all, be living here after the wedding. But you, Rose,
took it as an opportunity to dishonor a fine man, seducing him before the
wedding so that you might accuse him of improper behavior, thereby making him
look disreputable, and yourself unmarriageable. All this with no thought to our
situation, or to the future of either of us. Do you want your reputation
ruined, perhaps dragging our good name down with you? Because that is what will
happen, Rose, if word should get out. I am well aware that you don’t want this
engagement, but it is a good match with Caledon. It will ensure our
survival."
She paused, her
eyes boring into Rose’s until her daughter flinched and looked away. "Your
plan to get out of this engagement by behaving like a hussy has failed
miserably. Perhaps you could have found a way to break the engagement before—perhaps
through mutual agreement with Cal, or through a whirlwind romance with another
man of our class—but there is no chance of that now. A man expects his bride to
be pure, and you no longer fit that description. No, you will marry Mr.
Hockley, if only to protect your reputation. You’re lucky that he’s such an
honorable man—he won’t reveal what happened last night."
"An honorable
man! Mother, do you have any idea what really happened last night? I never even
thought about seducing him. He—"
"Not another
word, Rose. I won’t have you impugning the reputation of such a respected
man." Ruth looked at her daughter contemptuously. Before Rose could say
another word, she swept out of the room, her posture stiff and angry.
Rose started to
stand, then fell back in her chair, her shoulders slumping in despair. Her
mother knew, but she believed that Rose was responsible for what had happened.
Ruth was so blinded by Cal’s money and status that she wouldn’t believe that he
was capable of harming her daughter.
She turned her head
at a movement in the doorway, her face paling further as she saw Cal standing
there. His looked at her expressionlessly for a moment before slowly smiling, a
triumphant look briefly crossing his face.
Rose could only
stare back, her heart sinking further as she realized that he had planned the
whole thing.