Titanic Fic: Commiseration (1/3)
Title: Trudy
Fandom(s): Titanic
Rating: PG
Word Count: 8,386
Summary: She may be a maid who goes unnoticed, but she has a life too. And sometimes it's the unnoticed that make an impact.
Commiseration
Part I: The Help
Trudy McDervish had been working for the DeWitt-Bukaters since she was twenty, and every day for the following fifteen had to remind herself why. She awakened at 5:30 each morning and went to sleep at eleven at night, many times much later. She waited on Ruth and Rose-Rose’s father, Michael, too before he passed-and didn’t complain, except to the sympathetic manor cooks.
Every day when she served breakfast to her employers and heard their countless complaints, from Ruth particularly, she had to take a moment with her eyes shut and tell herself it was for the admittedly very decent money. That it would just be for a little longer until she saved up enough to break away from them. It certainly wasn’t for the pleasant company, that’s for sure.
Or…not all the time. There were a handful of instances where she would see the humanity, the vulnerability, in them. Not in Ruth, the woman being closer to an automaton than a living person, but in her daughter. Trudy, much as she wished to see the child in the same light, could not. There were times she would ascend the stairs to deliver clean linens or food to Rose and would have to pause because she heard soft but body-wrenching cries coming from behind the closed doors.
She never barged in, not wanting to cross that line, choosing instead to knock and wait for sometimes a full ten minutes when Rose would finally open the door. Most often Rose would just wordlessly take the tray or the linens from her and shut the door. But every now and then the disinterested mask would start to crack, her mouth would open as if she wanted to confess something, she would even lean the tiniest bit towards the maid as if to collapse in search of comfort she never received from her mother. But she never did. As quickly as the mask fell, before Trudy could make any motion towards her, the walls went back up and both mistress and maid pretended the incidents never happened.
Trudy couldn’t forget, though. From that first time on, no matter what Rose said to her-which wasn’t usually of her own volition, but a result from a snide comment or insult by her mother-she kept re-envisioning it. She couldn’t help but see Rose not as a hardened ten-, then twelve-, then fifteen-year-old wife-in-waiting, but as a child who had been required to grow up entirely too quickly. Who had never received the praise and support of a parent. Michael was kind enough, Trudy supposed, but constantly busy. His interactions with his daughter rarely consisted of more than idle chitchat or a kiss on the forehead. Rose cried at his funeral, but not many tears, for her mother swiftly, impatiently, wiped them away with a handkerchief.
Trudy didn’t get much free time, just a few hours on Sundays when the family would go to Mass, or the occasional evening when they would have a dinner party to attend. But during the time she did get, she befriended the man who tended to the horses in the barn down the road-Benjamin McDervish, she would find out later. Trudy came across him by pure happenstance initially; the stable was by the post office where she was required to pick up letters, most of which were invitations, for her employers. He was lunging one of the horses, a striking Palomino mare, and she stopped to watch, entranced by both horse and master’s movements. He caught her eye, and she quickly averted her gaze, hastening to the post office.
After that, however, their interactions became more than just chance. Conversations in person didn’t happen often, but soon he began to leave letters for her-for her!-at the post office, and they continued their friendship that way. Soon she found herself smiling and laughing more and more with the correspondence, and walked a bit slower as she passed the stables, daring to give him a grin and a wave of her hand. Faster than she anticipated, they evolved into something more, and one day when the DeWitt-Bukaters were to attend a cotillion a few counties over which would give her most of the day off, he invited her to have an actual conversation inside the barn. They had talked for hours, but when evening fell and she bid him a reluctant farewell, he stopped her and gave her a parting kiss.
Two months later they were given the same opportunity. Only this time, he grabbed her hand firmly-she noticed it was clammy with sweat but didn’t have long to wonder why-and knelt down, presenting her with a ring. It had no gemstone, not like Ruth’s massive rock, just plain gold, but it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Without thinking she nodded and he slipped on the ring, kissing her so intensely she felt her knees buckle and her body flush. She’d regretfully pulled away, but promised to find a discrete priest, somewhere, and wed as soon as possible. She didn’t want to wait.
As it turned out, the sous chef had been a man of the cross before he changed professions and was qualified to perform marriages. She set the date for the following week, as she knew the family was to have yet another social function, and began to compose a letter. When they left for Mass on Sunday, she wandered into Michael’s study and searched for the expensive stationery and fancy pen she knew them to have. They were much nicer than what she usually used, but she felt if there were any occasion to use such things, it was then.
She didn’t expect to be interrupted, which was why she wasn’t paying much attention to anything that might be going on in the house. The only possible footsteps or sounds would perhaps be another of the help watering plants or doing the dishes or the like. She didn’t notice the figure at the door until there was a pointed cough. She nearly smudged the half-finished letter, avoiding doing so just in time.
She looked up slowly to see Rose standing there, an unidentifiable expression on her young face. “M-Miss Rose,” Trudy whispered. “I-I-I thought you were at Mass.”
“I felt under the weather,” answered Rose. “Mother left without me.”
Trudy felt her throat close up and couldn’t respond.
“What are you doing in my father’s study?” Rose continued, stepping into the room. She noticed the letter Trudy had been writing and picked it up with a frown. Trudy squeaked in a sort of protest, but was still paralyzed in fear.
Rose glanced at her once, then moved her eyes to the paper. She said nothing as she read it, her face staying blank. Finally, after what seemed an eternity to Trudy, she stated, “You are to be married.” Trudy nodded. “To whom? The only men in our employ are already spoken for.”
Trudy swallowed and responded, “Benjamin McDervish, the master of the stables down the road. We…we have been in secret courtship.”
Rose glanced down briefly at the date topping the letter. “This Tuesday,” she read aloud. “You were intending that evening to have your wedding?”
“Yes-pardon, ‘were’?” Trudy frowned.
“The event has been canceled,” Rose answered. “There was a death in the family.”
The color drained from Trudy’s face, and she proceeded to rub her left ring finger which she only allowed to be adorned when she retired each night. “But-that can’t be…”
Silence fell once more. Then Rose noticed the nervous, subconscious movements of Trudy’s hand and surmised immediately a ring often rested there. Taking a breath, she said firmly, “Well then. We must devise a plan, mustn’t we?”
A breath of her own caught in Trudy’s throat. Surely Rose didn’t mean…
“My own future marriage will not be based on love, but on affluence, I know that,” Rose replied bitterly. “But you love this Ben, yes?”
“More than anything.”
The corners of Rose’s mouth ticked upward; the first true smile Trudy had ever witnessed. “That is reason enough,” she said. “Someone deserves to have a happy ending. You have served my family aptly since you came into our employ. You have treated me with kindness; I have noticed, despite being cruel to you.”
“Miss Rose, you haven’t been-”
“I have,” interrupted Rose, setting the letter back down on the bureau. “I have. Trudy, let me do this one thing for you.”
Prudence told Trudy she must insist upon the opposite, but something in Rose’s face, a determination, stopped her. She rose from her chair and took the young woman’s hands in her own. The dichotomy of her lye-roughened ones against Rose’s baby-soft skin did not escape her, but for the moment she didn’t feel like they were from two completely different classes.
“Oh thank you, Miss Rose,” she said. “Thank you.”
Rose smiled again. “I shan’t tell anyone of this, I promise.”
“But-how can this be arranged? Mistress Ruth does not miss anything that goes on in this manor.”
Rose shrugged, and Trudy nearly laughed at the unladylike maneuver. “I will figure something out. Fabricate some event in town. Something.”
She didn’t give herself time to consider the action before she threw her arms around Rose in a tight embrace. Rose was stiff for a moment-she hadn’t been hugged in a very long time-but then put her own arms around Trudy. It didn’t last long, Trudy pulling away with an awkward cough.
Rose gestured to the unfinished letter. “I didn’t see you.”
A wide smile spreads over Trudy’s face, a wry one on Rose’s, and then the young woman departed, leaving Trudy to go back to her letter, the meeting leaving her the happiest she’d felt apart from Ben’s proposal. She had been right about there being more to Rose than met the eye, she just hadn’t quite known how much more. She wasn’t sure how Rose kept her humanity coming from such a stone-cold woman as Ruth, but was immensely glad she had.
Trudy never did find out what excuse Rose gave her mother, all she knew was that at four o’clock, two hours before the wedding was to take place, the two women left the house. The only indication Rose gave to Trudy was a conspiratorial, barely noticeable smile before she straightened her back and followed her mother like a proper young woman.
The wedding turned out beautifully. Only a handful of people attended, filling up just one pew in the small local church. Her dress was much more elegant than she could afford, being an older one of Ruth’s that the woman had requested be discarded because it was supposedly out of style. Trudy had rescued it and was then extremely glad she had.
The chef, clad in the black robe and clerical collar he had kept from his time in the clergy, read an abbreviated version of the rites given to those of more means, but it didn’t matter. It had the same importance. There were tears of joy as the two fiancés read their vows, and then finally came time for the priest to pronounce them man and wife. Ben kissed her, more chastely than in the stable, and smiled at her with what even the blind could feel was love.
They had neither time nor money for a true honeymoon, simply made a promise that when they saved up enough, Trudy would finally extricate herself from the DeWitt-Bukaters and she and Ben could join each other verily.
The guests didn’t come from much either so the gifts were small, but the meanings behind them made up for it. Ben was to keep them for the time being, and with a last kiss and lingering gaze, she incredibly reluctantly separated herself from her now-husband and walked back to the manor.
She had barely entered the foyer when she heard the horses indicating her mistresses’ return, and she ran as fast as she could in her unfamiliar shoes, making it to her quarters just in time. She stripped herself of the dress and placed it delicately in a box and slid it under her bed, changing into her uniform.
She hurried back into the entryway to greet Ruth and Rose with a courteous nod. Ruth was preoccupied with removing her gloves and heels, which gave Rose a moment to motion urgently to her ears. Trudy reached up, realizing she still had on the glittering earrings that were Ben’s mothers, and dropped them and their matching necklace into her pocket. Ruth’s attention moved to Trudy in the next moment, who dutifully took their coats.
For once, Trudy was glad Ruth rarely noticed her. Though Trudy didn’t put much makeup on for the wedding, there was some, and she wasn’t sure she could come up with an excuse as to why.
“Dinner had better be ready by the time we dress,” Ruth snapped in her usual haughty tone. Trudy nodded demurely as Ruth set off purposefully to her bedchamber.
Rose knew she didn’t have much time before her mother would notice her lagging, but grasped Trudy’s hand in her own, admiring the ring that stayed there. “Congratulations,” she said.
“Thank you, Miss Rose,” replied Trudy.
Rose paused, and then continued in a more subdued voice, “Listen…while we were out, my mother informed me of a voyage she has already confirmed. We are to board Titanic, the as-they-say ‘grandest and most unsinkable ship in history.’ It is to take us to America in but a few days after which…after which I am to marry.”
“Mr. Hockley?” Trudy asked, not bothering to mask her relative horror. Caledon Hockley was wealthy and handsome, to be sure, but an otherwise desirable husband he certainly was not.
Rose nodded miserably. “Everyone who is anyone will be there,” she replied. “Everyone. And my mother will not listen to my objections.”
“I am sorry,” said Trudy. “What is it you ask of me?”
“Will you come?” she asked. Asked, not demanded. She was nearly begging. “I am not sure I will survive without a kind face. I will reimburse you, of course. All I ask is this trip, and afterwards I will grant you severance. Enough for you to get wherever necessary. I will find a way to get Ben on the ship as well.”
Trudy can’t keep her mouth from falling open. “I can’t accept that,” she said. Had she and Rose not cultivated their unorthodox connection, she would not be bold enough to say what she did next. “I have heard things…about your…finances…”
Rose flinched, but was not angry. At least not with Trudy. “Yes,” she affirmed. “But I had some useless heirlooms I’ve sold over recent weeks. Without Mother’s knowledge, obviously. I have the money required. And-and some left over.”
The meaning behind her words were clear. She, too, was planning on leaving. Trudy could not come up with an argument otherwise, and so merely said, “I thank you. You have done so much more than I could have hoped for. You are a fantastic woman, Rose. Permit me: you have the strength and intelligence your mother has never possessed. Whatever you choose to do, you will succeed. That I promise you.”
Rose smiled, another one of those genuine ones Trudy had seen only rarely, and gave her a swift hug.
“Rose!” Ruth’s voice echoed throughout the manor, causing Rose to gain years on her face.
“Coming, Mother,” she called back. Placing a hand on Trudy’s shoulder, she replied, “Give Ben my congratulations as well.”
“I will,” said Trudy as the women went their separate ways, Rose unwillingly to her mother to dress for dinner, and Trudy to set it out.
She couldn’t help but feel excited-nervous but excited-at the prospect of she and Ben finally being able to be together, all made possible because of the seventeen-year-old Rose. She couldn’t believe it. Even just two years ago it would have been absolutely unfathomable. But now…both she and Rose would be free. She swore to herself right then and there somehow she would repay her mistress, but for now knew her task was simply to set the table, and nothing more. For now, she and Rose would return to their expected roles.
Ben made it on the ship as Rose promised, though they were not able to speak with one another apart from a few hurried whispers of love and promises as Trudy had a few minutes while Ruth marveled at the size of the ship. Trudy was impressed by it as well, naturally, but she couldn’t care less in those precious moments. Rose had informed Trudy of the address where they were to stay in Philadelphia, which Trudy relayed to Ben. He would come to her, he swore, and then they would be free. They sealed it with a kiss, and then Trudy was called away.
Trudy didn’t lose her skills of observation after her marriage and the boarding of the ship. She sensed something was brewing even before Rose herself did. She was allowed to walk around the ship and its decks so long as she was at the DeWitt-Bukaters’ beck and call, and she was at the railing when Rose sought out the remarkable man named Jack Dawson. They had walked for what seemed like forever, and Trudy could not keep the smile off her face.
She saw in Rose’s the inevitable adoration there; it was hidden, but from her own experience Trudy anticipated what would happen. Jack’s was far from hidden; he was smitten from the instant he’d seen her. Jack reminded her of Ben in some ways, that lackadaisical but caring personage, the huge heart and desire to know each and every person he came across. Ruggedly handsome, too, in the way that men like Cal Hockley were not.
Trudy had been waiting outside the sunroom when Hockley had his outburst during tea, but she rushed in moments after he left in a furious huff and punched a wall as he stormed into his room. Rose was sitting on the floor, dishes shattered at her feet. Trudy knelt down, Rose shaking like a leaf and tears pooling in her eyes.
“We had a little a-accident-” she stuttered, heart pounding. “I’m sorry, Trudy. L-Let me help you.”
“It’s all right, Miss,” Trudy murmured, putting a hand on Rose’s back. “It’s all right, Miss.”
Even while at the manor, as close as they’d become, Rose had never fully let her guard down. Now, though, she lost her resolve and collapsed in the maid’s arms, which was testament to how frightened she was. Trudy set aside her surprise and held the young woman as if she were a small child.
She murmured meaningless comforts in Rose’s ear, brushing her fingers through Rose’s long curls. She could feel Rose’s unchecked tears soaking her uniform, but continued her ministrations unerringly. She wasn’t sure how long they sat there, the teacups and saucers still in pieces on the floor, but she was infinitely grateful Ruth or Cal did not end up coming in the room.
Finally Rose’s sobs subsided and she pulled away, tear-stained cheeks and bloodshot eyes searching. “I’m sorry,” she said immediately. “I didn’t-”
“Hush,” said Trudy. “Go clean yourself up. I’ll take care of this.”
“Thank you,” said Rose, her chest releasing a last sob.
Trudy smiled reassuringly and watched as Rose eased herself from the ground and made her way to the hall. Trudy’s smile faded then, and as she worked to pick up the expensive porcelain, she realized that, as nice as the ship was and as beautiful as the sunsets were, she couldn’t wait to reach America. Both for her sake and for Rose’s. She feared what would happen if Rose were forced to stay with Ruth and-worse-Cal for much longer.
At dusk the next day, Trudy took a stroll again outside, pausing at the rail and staring down at the lower deck, where Ben was sitting on one of the benches. Any onlookers wouldn’t take a second look at them. The two gazed at each other from their very separate areas, and oh how Trudy wished she could be in Ben’s arms again. She fingered the ring in her pocket and wanted desperately to be able to wear it all the time, to not be in a clandestine marriage. She knew Ben hated her still working for the DeWitt-Bukaters, but at the same time she knew he understood why.
Teatime came too quickly, and unwillingly Trudy waved a halfhearted goodbye and turned from her husband. As she was about to head inside, though, something caught her eye at the other end of the ship. Curious, she traversed the deck to get a better view. What she saw lifted her spirits: two figures, whose vestments told her exactly who they were, lit up by the fiery sunset.
They were not just standing at the bow, however, but connected at the lips, so passionately it Trudy’s cheeks flush. She couldn’t help but think of what Ruth would say-sputter, more likely-if she saw the two, and smiled vindictively at the picture.
Soon feeling like a voyeur, Trudy turned back around and entered the hallway, readying herself to serve the tea, and doing her best to eliminate the happy expression she knew she was wearing.
It would be the last time she saw them together.
It is but a mere handful of hours later when the beauty of the erstwhile unsinkable ship transforms into horrifying chaos. Trudy hadn’t been sure what the jolt meant late that evening, but felt in her core that it wasn’t anything good. Rumors spread like wildfire, the most common being that Titanic had struck an iceberg. Nearly all of the first class passengers refuse to believe it, but that bad feeling remains in Trudy’s chest, and the distressed appearance of the trustworthy and intuitive Molly Brown only confirms it. Trudy wants to deny everything it just as the rich are, but it would be a lie.
She is proven right soon after, when the ship starts to tip and water begins to lap up against the bow. Her first thought is a simple one: find Ben.
Ignoring propriety, she runs down the stairs to the lower deck, calling out for her husband’s name. It’s even more chaotic down here than it was upstairs, and her voice immediately gets lost in the crowd. It’s best described as a mêlée, people searching for loved ones and, most of all, panicking. Trudy tries not to do the same-panicking never does anyone any good-but the longer she goes without finding Ben, the more she feels her heart race.
She doesn’t know if it’s in real time or if her fear makes time seem quicker, but before she knows it, people are jumping off the sides of the ship into the freezing water, and the lifeboats are being filled. Half- or even quarter-filled, that is. Trudy never went to college, and math was never her strong suit, but she knows there’s not nearly enough room for everyone. Hundreds, perhaps a thousand or more, people will die. She tries to ignore the probability that she and Ben will be among them; fatalism will not help her.
As she frantically looks around the ship for Ben, she runs inside the grand hallway even though she can’t imagine why he would be there. Not paying attention, she nearly bumps straight into the man she vaguely knows as Thomas Andrews, the designer of the ship. He is as impeccably dressed as ever, but his face is a mix of resignation, regret, and even a little fear of his own. He notices her and soundlessly hands her a life jacket. She takes it numbly, hoping somewhere Ben-and Rose and Jack-had received the same.
Mr. Andrews gives her a sad smile and turns back to the clock he at which he was staring. She runs back out of the room, her shaking fingers trying to figure out the fastenings on the jacket. A sane part of her mind almost laughs at the reaction Ruth and her compatriots must have had when presented with the decidedly unfashionable devices.
Faces blur together as she hurries throughout the ship; some she thinks she knows, some she doesn’t, but she doesn’t stop to decide which. She even thinks she sees a head of red curls and perhaps a green-eyed steerage passenger, but as much as she cares for Rose and by extension Jack, she still has only one thought running through her brain.
The ship sinks quicker and quicker as the frigid salt water floods the compartments. The tons of steel groan under the pressure as people realize they likely won’t live to see the sunrise. Parents beg the few remaining lifeboats to take their children, or else simply cradle them and cry. Trudy watches as the captain retreats into his quarters, to go down with the ship he had controlled. She thinks it’s a noble thing to do, though it helps her not.
Her horror increases not but a couple minutes later, when she sees the angle at which the ship is rapidly increasing. She had been so preoccupied with finding Ben that she hadn’t recognized the danger she herself was in. She scrambles up the inclined deck in search of something to hang onto, but anything possible is far up. Miraculously, she feels a hand reach out for her, and she takes it blindly.
She glances up at its owner; a man with the same terrified expression as every other passenger, but one who clearly isn’t selfish. She nods at him, and he merely tightens his grip on her.
It isn’t long before the terror returns. Both their hands are slick with sweat and sea mist, and despite the unknown man’s continued efforts to hold onto her, she feels herself slipping. The man’s eyes widen as do hers, and though she’s never been much of a religious person, she finds herself saying a silent prayer inside her head.
The man says something to her she doesn’t hear, and in the next second her hand falls from his. Her stomach drops as she slides mindblowingly fast down the deck, screams emitting from her throat. She bumps into a number of people along the way, her fingernails scratching at the polished wood and bloodying as she tries to find purchase that isn’t there. Her body comes to a stop as she reaches the point where the bow once was. It isn’t there anymore, though, only the water.
It takes the breath right out of her, making the cold showers she always took in the manor seem like hot, luxurious baths. She forces herself to breathe, to try and block out the pain. It doesn’t do any good, but it keeps her mind working. The life vest keeps her afloat, for which she’s thankful, but then any semblance of a good feeling vanishes as she looks back. The boat sinks quicker and quicker, and though Trudy learned even less about physics than she did about math, she has a feeling it won’t be good to stay where she is.
So, summoning all of her strength and breathing through the ice coating her lungs, she swims as fast and hard as she can away from the wreckage. There are hundreds of people in the water around her, each screaming and flailing about, but she ignores them, just focusing on her strokes. Once she reaches a place where there are only a few stragglers, she finally stops and again looks back. Titanic has completely sunk by now, leaving only large ripples and suction where the liner used to be. She continues to bob in the water as she stares, unable to believe, even now, what had transpired.
Trudy looks around, her eyes slowly adjusting to the pitch darkness. The little bit of hope still left in her expects to see a rescue ship-she’d even take a lifeboat or two-but there is nothing. Just the endless black water and starlit sky. She sees the glow from the distant flashlights of the lifeboat operators, but knows there’s no way they’ll return.
She tries, too, to search for Ben, but knows if she couldn’t find him in the lighted ship, she’d have next to zero chance of finding him here. She refuses, however, to consider that he’s among the countless dead. She couldn’t bear the possibility.
She has no way of figuring out how much time has passed, but is afraid it hasn’t been very long at all. She’d never really considered herself as old, being just thirty-five, but right now she wishes she were younger; the young have a better chance of surviving, after all.
At that thought, Rose and Jack enter her consciousness, and she hopes with all her heart that they’re alive. She wants Rose to live a long life and, as Rose had told her once, spend forever with her love. She and Jack had only known each other for a short while, but Trudy is as sure of their love as she is of her own.
She realizes then that with that tangent she hadn’t kept her arms and legs moving, subjecting them to faster hypothermia. Urgently she does so, as much as her numb muscles protest. She notices that there are fewer screams that reach her ears, less commotion, which could only mean one sad thing.
Scoping the water once more, she sees a woman near to her who had clearly perished, but who had also found some piece of wood, perhaps of a deck chair, she’d grasped hold of. The woman hadn’t died only from the cold, though: Trudy spies a thick, dark crimson stain berthing from her scalp and marring her cheek. Trudy guesses she had been hit with something right before she was plunged into the sea.
Saying an apology under her breath, Trudy extricates the woman from the wood piece and takes her spot. It doesn’t hold up much of her, but some is better than nothing. She stares up at the navy blanket of sky dotted with winking pinpoints of light, mesmerizing in a way they shouldn’t be. After a while, she can feel no part of her body, knows her hair is stuck with ice to the wood, and that the eerie lack of noise despite there being hundreds of figures around her means they are now corpses. She imagines she must be on Death’s door, but for some reason her spirit won’t let her depart.
She’s certain the hypothermia has messed with her mind when she hallucinates a deep voice calling out for any survivors. Or…thinks she’s hallucinating. Turning her head lethargically toward the perceived sound, she finds that either her eyes are tricking her too, because it’s folly to believe that a lifeboat would come back for any of the living. That said…
They are within shouting distance, but as Trudy tries to alert them to her presence, she finds her voice is gone, only whispery squeaks answering the call.
Frantic that the boat will pass right by her, she wracks her sluggish brain for a way to signal them. No one that she can see has something she could use to make noise with, not a whistle nor a bell, nor anything. So she settles for the only thing possible-splashing. It’s far from graceful, but she hardly cares. All she cares about is making as much commotion as possible.
As she slips into the icy water again, it jolts her system, and as she continues to thrash to the best of her ability, her voice gets a bit stronger as well. She screeches as loudly as she can, words or simple sounds she’s not sure, hoping that they notice her.
“Is there anyone-” the officer starts again, before his colleague interrupts him.
“Wait-I think-”
“Where?”
“There.”
The officer’s flashlight shines right in her eyes and she squints against the sudden onslaught. They had seen her-they had seen her!-though, and she sighs deeply in relief. It seems an eternity before they carefully bring the boat towards her, but finally they arrive and pull her in, covering her immediately with warm blankets. There are a few other souls in the boat, but she can’t tell if they’re survivor or officer, and the moment she lays down, her brain shuts off and she falls into blessed unconsciousness.
Sometime later she’s awakened by shouting, and forces her eyes open. The lifeboat is being lifted upwards, and she catches the name of this new ship as it does so: Carpathia. Dawn has broken, coloring the sky an unassuming white-blue, the sun shining as if disaster had not just occurred. Officers from both the Carpathia and Titanic gently hoist the survivors out of the boats, laying them down on blankets, thin mattresses, or mostly-dry life jackets. There is a man rushing about, checking each passenger-a doctor Trudy presumes-and even in her delirium, she sees how frazzled he is, and feels pity.
Eventually he comes to her and must deem her to be eventually healthy, because he soon moves on to others. Trudy lies there for many more minutes, until her shivering has mostly subsided and she starts to feel her limbs again. Easing herself into a standing position, she inspects where she is, and almost wishes she hadn’t.
Many passengers, though far fewer than there should be, are begging officers to search their lists of survivors. Most of the passengers are women, some with small children hanging onto their arms, all of them in various states of crying. Some experience pure relief as the officer points in a certain direction where the loved one has been found, but so many more collapse in grief.
Trudy swallows, fearing the worst. She looks around the deck for Ben, but doesn’t see him. Tears prick her eyes and she’s about to join the grieving widows when she hears a voice behind her. “Trudy?”
She spins, and all the grief leaves her. Ben looks waterlogged like everyone else, but his embrace is as strong as it has always been. “I was afraid you were-”
“I’m okay,” he answers, pulling her closer to him. “I’m okay.”
It’s evening and raining when the statue comes into view. Everyone on board looks up at its magnificence, the lit-up torch held tightly in Liberty’s hand meant to be a signal of hope and freedom.
An officer gently taps Ben on the shoulder, and both he and Trudy look up. “Can I take your names?” he asks, face an attempt at calm kindness.
“Ben and Trudy McDervish,” replies Ben, the officer dutifully scribbling down the information.
He begins to leave when Trudy realizes something she’d forgotten. Someone rather. “Wait!” she calls.
The officer turns and predicts her question. “Are you looking for someone, ma’am?”
“Yes,” she replies. “A Ms. Rose DeWitt-Bukater.”
The officer nods and consults his pathetically short list. He checks it twice, the lines on his forehead deepening. “I’m sorry, ma’am, I don’t see her.”
Trudy opens her mouth to say something-what, she doesn’t know-but then pauses. Then she amends, “What about Dawson?”
The man consults his list again, running an ink-stained finger down the names. He stops at the end of the first page, eyebrows rising. “I do have a Rose Dawson,” he replies. “She should be down on this deck, actually.”
“Thank you,” replies Trudy, and the officer departs. He hadn’t said anything about Jack, but Trudy assumes he’d be with her, never mind the officer’s omission. Ben follows her around the deck, just as curious. She can’t help but smile, then, at Rose’s decision to take Jack’s name. It was both sentimental and clever; she doubts Ruth or Cal would think she would lose the prestigious name so willingly.
At first Trudy doesn’t see anyone resembling Rose-mostly just still-weeping women and children who had lost their husbands and fathers. Finally, though, she spots a figure staring up at the Statue, covered in a man’s coat with red hair falling to below her shoulders. Trudy would know her mistress anywhere.
“M-Miss Rose?” she tries, coming up on the woman.
The woman jumps and her head turns toward Trudy. Immediately Trudy’s suspicions are confirmed, and she sighs in relief. She throws her arms around the girl, but all Rose does is stand there limply. The smile that had graced Trudy’s expression quickly falls when she sees no such thing on Rose’s. She glances around, and sees no sign of Rose’s lover.
Her hands clench, not wanting to believe it, but she forces herself to ask, “Jack, is he…”
A single tear falls from Rose’s eyes that are bloodshot from both hypothermia recovery and obvious sobbing. It tells Trudy all she needs to know.
“Oh, Miss Rose…” she breathes, enveloping the broken girl in her arms again. “I am so, so sorry.”
Rose’s voice is hoarse when she says, “And Ben?”
Trudy feels awful given the circumstances, but cannot lie. “He’s…He’s alive.”
Rose nods in depression, and Trudy feels more helpless than ever, wishing she could do something. Anything. “That’s…that’s good,” Rose says. “That you have each other.”
Trudy exhales painfully. “If there is anything I can do…if I can help in any manner…if you need something…” Her voice trails off as she curses herself; the only thing Rose needs is Jack.
“No, thank you, Trudy,” Rose replies, falling back on the manners ingrained in her since she could walk because they are easier to focus on than what ails her. A memory coming back to her, she continues, “The severance is at the house in Philadelphia. When we dock I will retrieve it for you.”
“That’s not necessary, not after-”
“Please.”
The pain in Rose’s tone is so evident Trudy finds she can’t deny her anything. “I appreciate it,” she says instead. A moment of silence falls, and then Trudy asks, “What will you do?”
Rose shrugs bleakly.
“Stay with Ben and me,” says Trudy suddenly. “Until you can…figure things out.”
Rose meets Trudy’s eyes. “No, I-”
“Please,” Trudy insists, imitating Rose’s tone.
Rose’s expression doesn’t change, but there’s a flicker of life in her eyes that hadn’t been there before. “Maybe,” she says. “I-I don’t want to go back to that life.”
Trudy nods and puts her arm around Rose’s small body again. “You’re a survivor, Rose,” she says confidently. “You will survive this.”
Though Rose had clearly aged so many years in the few hours since the ship started sinking and she lost Jack, at Trudy’s words she abruptly regresses as she accepts Trudy’s compassion, reminding the older woman of just how young she really is. Rose’s hair is sticky and matted with salt water and her skin is still unsettlingly cold, but Trudy runs her hand over the girl’s hair nonetheless, just as she had when Cal had flipped the table at tea. Seems like such a lifetime ago…
A few minutes later, she sees a figure tentatively walking towards them-Ben. Rose’s eyes are shut tight against the pain as she lays in Trudy’s arms, and Trudy shakes her head imploringly at Ben.
Not now. She won’t be able to handle it yet.
Ben, blessedly perceptive, nods and makes himself scarce. Trudy wants very much to have his comfort, but she can’t be selfish. They’re both alive; Jack isn’t, and Trudy wouldn’t hesitate to say that a large part of Rose died with him. That she probably didn’t want to continue on living but that Jack had said something to make her do so. Trudy sure as hell can’t imagine living without Ben, and admires Rose’s strength.
Most of the hotels near the dock in New York are offering rooms for free for victims of the Titanic catastrophe, as well as warm meals, extra blankets, and laundry facilities. Few guests in the hotel offer their services as well-those who are psychologists or doctors, more than willing to assess the survivors. No one knows each other, but it’s the simple humanity, imagining the horror the people must have been through, that has them clamoring to help.
Trudy and Ben discretely turn them away, neither of them needing one, and knowing now is not at all the time for Rose to have someone ask her how she feels.
Soon after they settle into a room, Trudy heads downstairs to get some hot tea for the three of them, hoping it will at least provide a bit of heat. In the lobby she recognizes a woman she hadn’t had much time to talk to, but who from all accounts was someone you’d want to befriend.
“Mrs. Brown?” she asks carefully, just in case she’d gotten the wrong person.
Molly turns around at the voice and sends a sad smile Trudy’s way. “Trudy,” she greets without a trace of condescension. She motions with her head upstairs and adds, “I saw you with Rose. How…how is she?”
Trudy can’t quite form a response, and the corners of Molly’s mouth turn down in sadness.
“Such a sweet boy,” she reflects. “Reminded me so much of my Lawrence. Life is cruel.”
Silence falls, and Trudy begins to continue her search for tea, when she thinks of something. “Mrs. Brown,” she says, a bit sheepishly. “Would you be able to do me a favor?”
“Of course, anything.”
“There are a few things Rose has in the house in Philadelphia she, her mother, and Mr. Hockley were to stay in. She doesn’t want to see them” here, Molly snorts in agreement, “and so I have decided to do for her, but unfortunately neither myself nor Ben have access to funds for a taxi to get there…”
The words are barely out of her mouth before Molly reaches into a pocket of her coat and pulls out a few bills, holding them out to Trudy. “If you need more, just ask,” she says.
Trudy smiles, taking the money with gratitude. “Thank you,” she replies. “You are truly a great woman.”
Molly chuckles, and though their paths never cross again, her words turn out more than accurate.
When Trudy returns to the room with the tea, she proffers going to Philadelphia in place of Rose. It’s met with an immediate “yes,” Rose understandably not at all wanting to face her mother or Cal. Rose tells her the severance would be under the front mat, courtesy of a man who Trudy assumes owed Rose some kind of favor, but on whom Rose doesn’t elaborate. Rose also has the foresight to write a letter enabling Trudy to collect her things. “My mother will want proof,” she states blandly.
Ben offers to stay with Rose, knowing that he would be even more unwelcome to Ruth or Cal than Trudy. The taxi makes good time, reaching Philadelphia in just under two hours, and the cabbie dutifully stays in front of the house once he sees just how willing Trudy is to pay him.
She’s able to find the money and stuff it in the pocket of her jacket just in time, for right then the door opens, revealing none other than Ruth.
“Trudy,” she marks, alarmed. “I thought you perished. What are you doing here?”
Looks like some things haven’t changed, Trudy thinks caustically. “No,” she refutes simply. “I’m here because Rose asked me to get some of her things that were supposed to be shipped to this residence.”
“Rose?” If Trudy didn’t know better, she’d think that the concern and heartbreak on Ruth’s face was legitimate. “She’s alive? The officers on the Carpathia didn’t have a record of her…”
Trudy swears internally. “No, she…the sea claimed her,” she covers. “She requested this of me prior to the trip, and I plan on upholding those wishes.”
Ruth swallows heavily, and Trudy studies her face intently. “I am her mother,” says Ruth. “Her things belong with me.”
Trudy is immensely glad Rose had had the foresight to scribe that letter. She hadn’t written a specific reason, but anyone with half a brain could figure out why. Trudy wordlessly hands it to Ruth, whose lips thin with every sentence.
“This is obviously a fake,” says Ruth, but there is a waver in her voice.
“It is not,” Trudy replies. “She may not have confided in you, but she had plans all along to escape once the Titanic docked. To live her own life.”
“Not possible,” Ruth objects again. “My daughter would not do that. Not unless…”
“Jack Dawson had nothing to do with it,” snaps Trudy, surprised by her own vehemence. It’s also somewhat of a white lie-Rose may have had the intention all along, but it would have been Jack who perpetuated it. “You didn’t know your own daughter very well, Madam, not at all.”
Ruth’s eyes flash in fury and she has trouble forming words. “You-You-You insolent servant!” she seethes. “You have no right to speak to me like that!”
Trudy shrugs, a habit she picked up from Rose (of all people!). “I am no longer in your employ, I may say what I wish,” she declares. “And I too have had the intention to leave.”
“How exactly?” Ruth laughs. “You have no means.”
“I have a husband,” says Trudy. “We have saved up enough. You will have to find someone else to serve you tea.”
“A husband?” Ruth scoffs. “Surely you jest.”
Trudy stops herself from arguing back, knowing it wouldn’t do any good. “Never mind,” she says. “Just let me retrieve Rose’s belongings and I’ll be on my way.”
Ruth, for the first time that Trudy can remember, is struck dumb. She can’t figure out how to respond. So Trudy, once again surprised by her own brashness, steps past Ruth into the foyer. It isn’t quite as elaborate as the manor back in England, but still reeks of money Trudy could never dream of.
Going by pure guesswork, she climbs the stairs, glancing in each of the rooms. In the last one she checks, she identifies a few items of Rose’s sitting on a mahogany bureau. She enters and locates the closet, which contains a number of dresses as well as a pair of pants and boots she’d bet her life Ruth doesn’t know about. There are also a few suitcases on the floor which Trudy makes quick work of utilizing.
She’s glad she’d taken a cab as opposed to finding a car to drive herself, because she’s not sure she’d be able to lift all the baggage into the trunk without help. It’s enough of a struggle to haul them down the stairs and out onto the porch.
After she does so, she stares at Ruth, who hadn’t moved an inch. She can’t decide between choosing the high road and punching Ruth in the face, so she simply doesn’t say anything, just beckons the cabbie to assist her.
She’s down the steps with a few bags in her hand when Ruth’s voice stops her. “Trudy,” she calls. “Did-Did Rose say anything to you? Before we left? Or…after…?”
Trudy’s bleeding heart tries to convince her to say that Rose told her some good things about her mother or some such. But loyalty to Rose and to the truth prevents it.
“No,” Trudy replies. “She wanted to escape this life-and everyone in it-as soon as she could. If you ask me, her death was a blessing for her.”
“But-why?” Trudy raises an eyebrow, and Ruth fills in the blanks. “Dawson.”
“Yes, the sea claimed him as well,” affirms Trudy, this time not lying. “Shame; he was a good man.”
Ruth takes a shuddering breath, one that Trudy realizes belatedly might actually be real. “Yes…” she trails after a while, still bitter.
Trudy shakes her head in disbelief. For all Ruth knows, her daughter is dead, yet she instead she focuses on her irrational hatred for Jack.
Eager to finally say good riddance to Ruth, Trudy grabs the suitcases and turns her back, never to see the elder woman again.
As the taxi pulls back up to the hotel in New York and the cabbie assists her in taking out the luggage, Trudy feels energy drain out of her. Adrenaline had been pretty much the only thing keeping her going the last couple days, and now that the remnants of Rose’s old life are no longer in the picture, that adrenaline is rapidly depleting.
Ben helps her bring the bags into the room, and Rose looks up at Trudy’s entrance. “It’s taken care of,” Trudy answers the unspoken question.
Rose exhales. “Thanks.” She pauses, then, “I’ll be looking for a place of my own. You have your severance, I want you and Ben to have your privacy too.”
Immediately, Ben says without any room for argument, “Absolutely not. We are not letting you go out on your own until we know exactly what you plan on doing and where.”
Rose laughs caustically. “Mr. McDervish, you don’t know me.”
“True,” says Ben, “but Trudy does, and if what she says is even half true, you’re worth much more than what we can give. You are full of goodness and heart, Rose. Please, let me-let us-help.”
Rose glances between Ben and Trudy’s concerned faces, and then her eyes well up, tears soon falling. Without consulting with one another, Ben and Trudy sit on either side of the young girl, Trudy resorting to her brushing of Rose’s hair, Ben putting a steady arm around her shoulders.
“What is it?” asks Trudy softly.
Rose swallows. “You’re…you’re like…parents.”
Ben and Trudy look at each other sadly. “It’s about time someone acts as such,” says Trudy.
“You can see, then, why we don’t want you to go,” says Ben. Rose looks up at him with damp cheeks. “Stay, Rose.”
After a moment, she nods, and allows herself to be comforted by the only people who had, apart from Jack, showed her love. It’s a new sensation for her, but she finds she doesn’t want it to disappear. She knows she won’t stay with them forever, that she needs to get a hold of herself and set her sights on other ventures, but for the first time in her life, it’s her decision, and she isn’t on a deadline to make it.
Part II
Fandom(s): Titanic
Rating: PG
Word Count: 8,386
Summary: She may be a maid who goes unnoticed, but she has a life too. And sometimes it's the unnoticed that make an impact.
Commiseration
Part I: The Help
Trudy McDervish had been working for the DeWitt-Bukaters since she was twenty, and every day for the following fifteen had to remind herself why. She awakened at 5:30 each morning and went to sleep at eleven at night, many times much later. She waited on Ruth and Rose-Rose’s father, Michael, too before he passed-and didn’t complain, except to the sympathetic manor cooks.
Every day when she served breakfast to her employers and heard their countless complaints, from Ruth particularly, she had to take a moment with her eyes shut and tell herself it was for the admittedly very decent money. That it would just be for a little longer until she saved up enough to break away from them. It certainly wasn’t for the pleasant company, that’s for sure.
Or…not all the time. There were a handful of instances where she would see the humanity, the vulnerability, in them. Not in Ruth, the woman being closer to an automaton than a living person, but in her daughter. Trudy, much as she wished to see the child in the same light, could not. There were times she would ascend the stairs to deliver clean linens or food to Rose and would have to pause because she heard soft but body-wrenching cries coming from behind the closed doors.
She never barged in, not wanting to cross that line, choosing instead to knock and wait for sometimes a full ten minutes when Rose would finally open the door. Most often Rose would just wordlessly take the tray or the linens from her and shut the door. But every now and then the disinterested mask would start to crack, her mouth would open as if she wanted to confess something, she would even lean the tiniest bit towards the maid as if to collapse in search of comfort she never received from her mother. But she never did. As quickly as the mask fell, before Trudy could make any motion towards her, the walls went back up and both mistress and maid pretended the incidents never happened.
Trudy couldn’t forget, though. From that first time on, no matter what Rose said to her-which wasn’t usually of her own volition, but a result from a snide comment or insult by her mother-she kept re-envisioning it. She couldn’t help but see Rose not as a hardened ten-, then twelve-, then fifteen-year-old wife-in-waiting, but as a child who had been required to grow up entirely too quickly. Who had never received the praise and support of a parent. Michael was kind enough, Trudy supposed, but constantly busy. His interactions with his daughter rarely consisted of more than idle chitchat or a kiss on the forehead. Rose cried at his funeral, but not many tears, for her mother swiftly, impatiently, wiped them away with a handkerchief.
Trudy didn’t get much free time, just a few hours on Sundays when the family would go to Mass, or the occasional evening when they would have a dinner party to attend. But during the time she did get, she befriended the man who tended to the horses in the barn down the road-Benjamin McDervish, she would find out later. Trudy came across him by pure happenstance initially; the stable was by the post office where she was required to pick up letters, most of which were invitations, for her employers. He was lunging one of the horses, a striking Palomino mare, and she stopped to watch, entranced by both horse and master’s movements. He caught her eye, and she quickly averted her gaze, hastening to the post office.
After that, however, their interactions became more than just chance. Conversations in person didn’t happen often, but soon he began to leave letters for her-for her!-at the post office, and they continued their friendship that way. Soon she found herself smiling and laughing more and more with the correspondence, and walked a bit slower as she passed the stables, daring to give him a grin and a wave of her hand. Faster than she anticipated, they evolved into something more, and one day when the DeWitt-Bukaters were to attend a cotillion a few counties over which would give her most of the day off, he invited her to have an actual conversation inside the barn. They had talked for hours, but when evening fell and she bid him a reluctant farewell, he stopped her and gave her a parting kiss.
Two months later they were given the same opportunity. Only this time, he grabbed her hand firmly-she noticed it was clammy with sweat but didn’t have long to wonder why-and knelt down, presenting her with a ring. It had no gemstone, not like Ruth’s massive rock, just plain gold, but it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Without thinking she nodded and he slipped on the ring, kissing her so intensely she felt her knees buckle and her body flush. She’d regretfully pulled away, but promised to find a discrete priest, somewhere, and wed as soon as possible. She didn’t want to wait.
As it turned out, the sous chef had been a man of the cross before he changed professions and was qualified to perform marriages. She set the date for the following week, as she knew the family was to have yet another social function, and began to compose a letter. When they left for Mass on Sunday, she wandered into Michael’s study and searched for the expensive stationery and fancy pen she knew them to have. They were much nicer than what she usually used, but she felt if there were any occasion to use such things, it was then.
She didn’t expect to be interrupted, which was why she wasn’t paying much attention to anything that might be going on in the house. The only possible footsteps or sounds would perhaps be another of the help watering plants or doing the dishes or the like. She didn’t notice the figure at the door until there was a pointed cough. She nearly smudged the half-finished letter, avoiding doing so just in time.
She looked up slowly to see Rose standing there, an unidentifiable expression on her young face. “M-Miss Rose,” Trudy whispered. “I-I-I thought you were at Mass.”
“I felt under the weather,” answered Rose. “Mother left without me.”
Trudy felt her throat close up and couldn’t respond.
“What are you doing in my father’s study?” Rose continued, stepping into the room. She noticed the letter Trudy had been writing and picked it up with a frown. Trudy squeaked in a sort of protest, but was still paralyzed in fear.
Rose glanced at her once, then moved her eyes to the paper. She said nothing as she read it, her face staying blank. Finally, after what seemed an eternity to Trudy, she stated, “You are to be married.” Trudy nodded. “To whom? The only men in our employ are already spoken for.”
Trudy swallowed and responded, “Benjamin McDervish, the master of the stables down the road. We…we have been in secret courtship.”
Rose glanced down briefly at the date topping the letter. “This Tuesday,” she read aloud. “You were intending that evening to have your wedding?”
“Yes-pardon, ‘were’?” Trudy frowned.
“The event has been canceled,” Rose answered. “There was a death in the family.”
The color drained from Trudy’s face, and she proceeded to rub her left ring finger which she only allowed to be adorned when she retired each night. “But-that can’t be…”
Silence fell once more. Then Rose noticed the nervous, subconscious movements of Trudy’s hand and surmised immediately a ring often rested there. Taking a breath, she said firmly, “Well then. We must devise a plan, mustn’t we?”
A breath of her own caught in Trudy’s throat. Surely Rose didn’t mean…
“My own future marriage will not be based on love, but on affluence, I know that,” Rose replied bitterly. “But you love this Ben, yes?”
“More than anything.”
The corners of Rose’s mouth ticked upward; the first true smile Trudy had ever witnessed. “That is reason enough,” she said. “Someone deserves to have a happy ending. You have served my family aptly since you came into our employ. You have treated me with kindness; I have noticed, despite being cruel to you.”
“Miss Rose, you haven’t been-”
“I have,” interrupted Rose, setting the letter back down on the bureau. “I have. Trudy, let me do this one thing for you.”
Prudence told Trudy she must insist upon the opposite, but something in Rose’s face, a determination, stopped her. She rose from her chair and took the young woman’s hands in her own. The dichotomy of her lye-roughened ones against Rose’s baby-soft skin did not escape her, but for the moment she didn’t feel like they were from two completely different classes.
“Oh thank you, Miss Rose,” she said. “Thank you.”
Rose smiled again. “I shan’t tell anyone of this, I promise.”
“But-how can this be arranged? Mistress Ruth does not miss anything that goes on in this manor.”
Rose shrugged, and Trudy nearly laughed at the unladylike maneuver. “I will figure something out. Fabricate some event in town. Something.”
She didn’t give herself time to consider the action before she threw her arms around Rose in a tight embrace. Rose was stiff for a moment-she hadn’t been hugged in a very long time-but then put her own arms around Trudy. It didn’t last long, Trudy pulling away with an awkward cough.
Rose gestured to the unfinished letter. “I didn’t see you.”
A wide smile spreads over Trudy’s face, a wry one on Rose’s, and then the young woman departed, leaving Trudy to go back to her letter, the meeting leaving her the happiest she’d felt apart from Ben’s proposal. She had been right about there being more to Rose than met the eye, she just hadn’t quite known how much more. She wasn’t sure how Rose kept her humanity coming from such a stone-cold woman as Ruth, but was immensely glad she had.
Trudy never did find out what excuse Rose gave her mother, all she knew was that at four o’clock, two hours before the wedding was to take place, the two women left the house. The only indication Rose gave to Trudy was a conspiratorial, barely noticeable smile before she straightened her back and followed her mother like a proper young woman.
The wedding turned out beautifully. Only a handful of people attended, filling up just one pew in the small local church. Her dress was much more elegant than she could afford, being an older one of Ruth’s that the woman had requested be discarded because it was supposedly out of style. Trudy had rescued it and was then extremely glad she had.
The chef, clad in the black robe and clerical collar he had kept from his time in the clergy, read an abbreviated version of the rites given to those of more means, but it didn’t matter. It had the same importance. There were tears of joy as the two fiancés read their vows, and then finally came time for the priest to pronounce them man and wife. Ben kissed her, more chastely than in the stable, and smiled at her with what even the blind could feel was love.
They had neither time nor money for a true honeymoon, simply made a promise that when they saved up enough, Trudy would finally extricate herself from the DeWitt-Bukaters and she and Ben could join each other verily.
The guests didn’t come from much either so the gifts were small, but the meanings behind them made up for it. Ben was to keep them for the time being, and with a last kiss and lingering gaze, she incredibly reluctantly separated herself from her now-husband and walked back to the manor.
She had barely entered the foyer when she heard the horses indicating her mistresses’ return, and she ran as fast as she could in her unfamiliar shoes, making it to her quarters just in time. She stripped herself of the dress and placed it delicately in a box and slid it under her bed, changing into her uniform.
She hurried back into the entryway to greet Ruth and Rose with a courteous nod. Ruth was preoccupied with removing her gloves and heels, which gave Rose a moment to motion urgently to her ears. Trudy reached up, realizing she still had on the glittering earrings that were Ben’s mothers, and dropped them and their matching necklace into her pocket. Ruth’s attention moved to Trudy in the next moment, who dutifully took their coats.
For once, Trudy was glad Ruth rarely noticed her. Though Trudy didn’t put much makeup on for the wedding, there was some, and she wasn’t sure she could come up with an excuse as to why.
“Dinner had better be ready by the time we dress,” Ruth snapped in her usual haughty tone. Trudy nodded demurely as Ruth set off purposefully to her bedchamber.
Rose knew she didn’t have much time before her mother would notice her lagging, but grasped Trudy’s hand in her own, admiring the ring that stayed there. “Congratulations,” she said.
“Thank you, Miss Rose,” replied Trudy.
Rose paused, and then continued in a more subdued voice, “Listen…while we were out, my mother informed me of a voyage she has already confirmed. We are to board Titanic, the as-they-say ‘grandest and most unsinkable ship in history.’ It is to take us to America in but a few days after which…after which I am to marry.”
“Mr. Hockley?” Trudy asked, not bothering to mask her relative horror. Caledon Hockley was wealthy and handsome, to be sure, but an otherwise desirable husband he certainly was not.
Rose nodded miserably. “Everyone who is anyone will be there,” she replied. “Everyone. And my mother will not listen to my objections.”
“I am sorry,” said Trudy. “What is it you ask of me?”
“Will you come?” she asked. Asked, not demanded. She was nearly begging. “I am not sure I will survive without a kind face. I will reimburse you, of course. All I ask is this trip, and afterwards I will grant you severance. Enough for you to get wherever necessary. I will find a way to get Ben on the ship as well.”
Trudy can’t keep her mouth from falling open. “I can’t accept that,” she said. Had she and Rose not cultivated their unorthodox connection, she would not be bold enough to say what she did next. “I have heard things…about your…finances…”
Rose flinched, but was not angry. At least not with Trudy. “Yes,” she affirmed. “But I had some useless heirlooms I’ve sold over recent weeks. Without Mother’s knowledge, obviously. I have the money required. And-and some left over.”
The meaning behind her words were clear. She, too, was planning on leaving. Trudy could not come up with an argument otherwise, and so merely said, “I thank you. You have done so much more than I could have hoped for. You are a fantastic woman, Rose. Permit me: you have the strength and intelligence your mother has never possessed. Whatever you choose to do, you will succeed. That I promise you.”
Rose smiled, another one of those genuine ones Trudy had seen only rarely, and gave her a swift hug.
“Rose!” Ruth’s voice echoed throughout the manor, causing Rose to gain years on her face.
“Coming, Mother,” she called back. Placing a hand on Trudy’s shoulder, she replied, “Give Ben my congratulations as well.”
“I will,” said Trudy as the women went their separate ways, Rose unwillingly to her mother to dress for dinner, and Trudy to set it out.
She couldn’t help but feel excited-nervous but excited-at the prospect of she and Ben finally being able to be together, all made possible because of the seventeen-year-old Rose. She couldn’t believe it. Even just two years ago it would have been absolutely unfathomable. But now…both she and Rose would be free. She swore to herself right then and there somehow she would repay her mistress, but for now knew her task was simply to set the table, and nothing more. For now, she and Rose would return to their expected roles.
Ben made it on the ship as Rose promised, though they were not able to speak with one another apart from a few hurried whispers of love and promises as Trudy had a few minutes while Ruth marveled at the size of the ship. Trudy was impressed by it as well, naturally, but she couldn’t care less in those precious moments. Rose had informed Trudy of the address where they were to stay in Philadelphia, which Trudy relayed to Ben. He would come to her, he swore, and then they would be free. They sealed it with a kiss, and then Trudy was called away.
Trudy didn’t lose her skills of observation after her marriage and the boarding of the ship. She sensed something was brewing even before Rose herself did. She was allowed to walk around the ship and its decks so long as she was at the DeWitt-Bukaters’ beck and call, and she was at the railing when Rose sought out the remarkable man named Jack Dawson. They had walked for what seemed like forever, and Trudy could not keep the smile off her face.
She saw in Rose’s the inevitable adoration there; it was hidden, but from her own experience Trudy anticipated what would happen. Jack’s was far from hidden; he was smitten from the instant he’d seen her. Jack reminded her of Ben in some ways, that lackadaisical but caring personage, the huge heart and desire to know each and every person he came across. Ruggedly handsome, too, in the way that men like Cal Hockley were not.
Trudy had been waiting outside the sunroom when Hockley had his outburst during tea, but she rushed in moments after he left in a furious huff and punched a wall as he stormed into his room. Rose was sitting on the floor, dishes shattered at her feet. Trudy knelt down, Rose shaking like a leaf and tears pooling in her eyes.
“We had a little a-accident-” she stuttered, heart pounding. “I’m sorry, Trudy. L-Let me help you.”
“It’s all right, Miss,” Trudy murmured, putting a hand on Rose’s back. “It’s all right, Miss.”
Even while at the manor, as close as they’d become, Rose had never fully let her guard down. Now, though, she lost her resolve and collapsed in the maid’s arms, which was testament to how frightened she was. Trudy set aside her surprise and held the young woman as if she were a small child.
She murmured meaningless comforts in Rose’s ear, brushing her fingers through Rose’s long curls. She could feel Rose’s unchecked tears soaking her uniform, but continued her ministrations unerringly. She wasn’t sure how long they sat there, the teacups and saucers still in pieces on the floor, but she was infinitely grateful Ruth or Cal did not end up coming in the room.
Finally Rose’s sobs subsided and she pulled away, tear-stained cheeks and bloodshot eyes searching. “I’m sorry,” she said immediately. “I didn’t-”
“Hush,” said Trudy. “Go clean yourself up. I’ll take care of this.”
“Thank you,” said Rose, her chest releasing a last sob.
Trudy smiled reassuringly and watched as Rose eased herself from the ground and made her way to the hall. Trudy’s smile faded then, and as she worked to pick up the expensive porcelain, she realized that, as nice as the ship was and as beautiful as the sunsets were, she couldn’t wait to reach America. Both for her sake and for Rose’s. She feared what would happen if Rose were forced to stay with Ruth and-worse-Cal for much longer.
At dusk the next day, Trudy took a stroll again outside, pausing at the rail and staring down at the lower deck, where Ben was sitting on one of the benches. Any onlookers wouldn’t take a second look at them. The two gazed at each other from their very separate areas, and oh how Trudy wished she could be in Ben’s arms again. She fingered the ring in her pocket and wanted desperately to be able to wear it all the time, to not be in a clandestine marriage. She knew Ben hated her still working for the DeWitt-Bukaters, but at the same time she knew he understood why.
Teatime came too quickly, and unwillingly Trudy waved a halfhearted goodbye and turned from her husband. As she was about to head inside, though, something caught her eye at the other end of the ship. Curious, she traversed the deck to get a better view. What she saw lifted her spirits: two figures, whose vestments told her exactly who they were, lit up by the fiery sunset.
They were not just standing at the bow, however, but connected at the lips, so passionately it Trudy’s cheeks flush. She couldn’t help but think of what Ruth would say-sputter, more likely-if she saw the two, and smiled vindictively at the picture.
Soon feeling like a voyeur, Trudy turned back around and entered the hallway, readying herself to serve the tea, and doing her best to eliminate the happy expression she knew she was wearing.
It would be the last time she saw them together.
It is but a mere handful of hours later when the beauty of the erstwhile unsinkable ship transforms into horrifying chaos. Trudy hadn’t been sure what the jolt meant late that evening, but felt in her core that it wasn’t anything good. Rumors spread like wildfire, the most common being that Titanic had struck an iceberg. Nearly all of the first class passengers refuse to believe it, but that bad feeling remains in Trudy’s chest, and the distressed appearance of the trustworthy and intuitive Molly Brown only confirms it. Trudy wants to deny everything it just as the rich are, but it would be a lie.
She is proven right soon after, when the ship starts to tip and water begins to lap up against the bow. Her first thought is a simple one: find Ben.
Ignoring propriety, she runs down the stairs to the lower deck, calling out for her husband’s name. It’s even more chaotic down here than it was upstairs, and her voice immediately gets lost in the crowd. It’s best described as a mêlée, people searching for loved ones and, most of all, panicking. Trudy tries not to do the same-panicking never does anyone any good-but the longer she goes without finding Ben, the more she feels her heart race.
She doesn’t know if it’s in real time or if her fear makes time seem quicker, but before she knows it, people are jumping off the sides of the ship into the freezing water, and the lifeboats are being filled. Half- or even quarter-filled, that is. Trudy never went to college, and math was never her strong suit, but she knows there’s not nearly enough room for everyone. Hundreds, perhaps a thousand or more, people will die. She tries to ignore the probability that she and Ben will be among them; fatalism will not help her.
As she frantically looks around the ship for Ben, she runs inside the grand hallway even though she can’t imagine why he would be there. Not paying attention, she nearly bumps straight into the man she vaguely knows as Thomas Andrews, the designer of the ship. He is as impeccably dressed as ever, but his face is a mix of resignation, regret, and even a little fear of his own. He notices her and soundlessly hands her a life jacket. She takes it numbly, hoping somewhere Ben-and Rose and Jack-had received the same.
Mr. Andrews gives her a sad smile and turns back to the clock he at which he was staring. She runs back out of the room, her shaking fingers trying to figure out the fastenings on the jacket. A sane part of her mind almost laughs at the reaction Ruth and her compatriots must have had when presented with the decidedly unfashionable devices.
Faces blur together as she hurries throughout the ship; some she thinks she knows, some she doesn’t, but she doesn’t stop to decide which. She even thinks she sees a head of red curls and perhaps a green-eyed steerage passenger, but as much as she cares for Rose and by extension Jack, she still has only one thought running through her brain.
The ship sinks quicker and quicker as the frigid salt water floods the compartments. The tons of steel groan under the pressure as people realize they likely won’t live to see the sunrise. Parents beg the few remaining lifeboats to take their children, or else simply cradle them and cry. Trudy watches as the captain retreats into his quarters, to go down with the ship he had controlled. She thinks it’s a noble thing to do, though it helps her not.
Her horror increases not but a couple minutes later, when she sees the angle at which the ship is rapidly increasing. She had been so preoccupied with finding Ben that she hadn’t recognized the danger she herself was in. She scrambles up the inclined deck in search of something to hang onto, but anything possible is far up. Miraculously, she feels a hand reach out for her, and she takes it blindly.
She glances up at its owner; a man with the same terrified expression as every other passenger, but one who clearly isn’t selfish. She nods at him, and he merely tightens his grip on her.
It isn’t long before the terror returns. Both their hands are slick with sweat and sea mist, and despite the unknown man’s continued efforts to hold onto her, she feels herself slipping. The man’s eyes widen as do hers, and though she’s never been much of a religious person, she finds herself saying a silent prayer inside her head.
The man says something to her she doesn’t hear, and in the next second her hand falls from his. Her stomach drops as she slides mindblowingly fast down the deck, screams emitting from her throat. She bumps into a number of people along the way, her fingernails scratching at the polished wood and bloodying as she tries to find purchase that isn’t there. Her body comes to a stop as she reaches the point where the bow once was. It isn’t there anymore, though, only the water.
It takes the breath right out of her, making the cold showers she always took in the manor seem like hot, luxurious baths. She forces herself to breathe, to try and block out the pain. It doesn’t do any good, but it keeps her mind working. The life vest keeps her afloat, for which she’s thankful, but then any semblance of a good feeling vanishes as she looks back. The boat sinks quicker and quicker, and though Trudy learned even less about physics than she did about math, she has a feeling it won’t be good to stay where she is.
So, summoning all of her strength and breathing through the ice coating her lungs, she swims as fast and hard as she can away from the wreckage. There are hundreds of people in the water around her, each screaming and flailing about, but she ignores them, just focusing on her strokes. Once she reaches a place where there are only a few stragglers, she finally stops and again looks back. Titanic has completely sunk by now, leaving only large ripples and suction where the liner used to be. She continues to bob in the water as she stares, unable to believe, even now, what had transpired.
Trudy looks around, her eyes slowly adjusting to the pitch darkness. The little bit of hope still left in her expects to see a rescue ship-she’d even take a lifeboat or two-but there is nothing. Just the endless black water and starlit sky. She sees the glow from the distant flashlights of the lifeboat operators, but knows there’s no way they’ll return.
She tries, too, to search for Ben, but knows if she couldn’t find him in the lighted ship, she’d have next to zero chance of finding him here. She refuses, however, to consider that he’s among the countless dead. She couldn’t bear the possibility.
She has no way of figuring out how much time has passed, but is afraid it hasn’t been very long at all. She’d never really considered herself as old, being just thirty-five, but right now she wishes she were younger; the young have a better chance of surviving, after all.
At that thought, Rose and Jack enter her consciousness, and she hopes with all her heart that they’re alive. She wants Rose to live a long life and, as Rose had told her once, spend forever with her love. She and Jack had only known each other for a short while, but Trudy is as sure of their love as she is of her own.
She realizes then that with that tangent she hadn’t kept her arms and legs moving, subjecting them to faster hypothermia. Urgently she does so, as much as her numb muscles protest. She notices that there are fewer screams that reach her ears, less commotion, which could only mean one sad thing.
Scoping the water once more, she sees a woman near to her who had clearly perished, but who had also found some piece of wood, perhaps of a deck chair, she’d grasped hold of. The woman hadn’t died only from the cold, though: Trudy spies a thick, dark crimson stain berthing from her scalp and marring her cheek. Trudy guesses she had been hit with something right before she was plunged into the sea.
Saying an apology under her breath, Trudy extricates the woman from the wood piece and takes her spot. It doesn’t hold up much of her, but some is better than nothing. She stares up at the navy blanket of sky dotted with winking pinpoints of light, mesmerizing in a way they shouldn’t be. After a while, she can feel no part of her body, knows her hair is stuck with ice to the wood, and that the eerie lack of noise despite there being hundreds of figures around her means they are now corpses. She imagines she must be on Death’s door, but for some reason her spirit won’t let her depart.
She’s certain the hypothermia has messed with her mind when she hallucinates a deep voice calling out for any survivors. Or…thinks she’s hallucinating. Turning her head lethargically toward the perceived sound, she finds that either her eyes are tricking her too, because it’s folly to believe that a lifeboat would come back for any of the living. That said…
They are within shouting distance, but as Trudy tries to alert them to her presence, she finds her voice is gone, only whispery squeaks answering the call.
Frantic that the boat will pass right by her, she wracks her sluggish brain for a way to signal them. No one that she can see has something she could use to make noise with, not a whistle nor a bell, nor anything. So she settles for the only thing possible-splashing. It’s far from graceful, but she hardly cares. All she cares about is making as much commotion as possible.
As she slips into the icy water again, it jolts her system, and as she continues to thrash to the best of her ability, her voice gets a bit stronger as well. She screeches as loudly as she can, words or simple sounds she’s not sure, hoping that they notice her.
“Is there anyone-” the officer starts again, before his colleague interrupts him.
“Wait-I think-”
“Where?”
“There.”
The officer’s flashlight shines right in her eyes and she squints against the sudden onslaught. They had seen her-they had seen her!-though, and she sighs deeply in relief. It seems an eternity before they carefully bring the boat towards her, but finally they arrive and pull her in, covering her immediately with warm blankets. There are a few other souls in the boat, but she can’t tell if they’re survivor or officer, and the moment she lays down, her brain shuts off and she falls into blessed unconsciousness.
Sometime later she’s awakened by shouting, and forces her eyes open. The lifeboat is being lifted upwards, and she catches the name of this new ship as it does so: Carpathia. Dawn has broken, coloring the sky an unassuming white-blue, the sun shining as if disaster had not just occurred. Officers from both the Carpathia and Titanic gently hoist the survivors out of the boats, laying them down on blankets, thin mattresses, or mostly-dry life jackets. There is a man rushing about, checking each passenger-a doctor Trudy presumes-and even in her delirium, she sees how frazzled he is, and feels pity.
Eventually he comes to her and must deem her to be eventually healthy, because he soon moves on to others. Trudy lies there for many more minutes, until her shivering has mostly subsided and she starts to feel her limbs again. Easing herself into a standing position, she inspects where she is, and almost wishes she hadn’t.
Many passengers, though far fewer than there should be, are begging officers to search their lists of survivors. Most of the passengers are women, some with small children hanging onto their arms, all of them in various states of crying. Some experience pure relief as the officer points in a certain direction where the loved one has been found, but so many more collapse in grief.
Trudy swallows, fearing the worst. She looks around the deck for Ben, but doesn’t see him. Tears prick her eyes and she’s about to join the grieving widows when she hears a voice behind her. “Trudy?”
She spins, and all the grief leaves her. Ben looks waterlogged like everyone else, but his embrace is as strong as it has always been. “I was afraid you were-”
“I’m okay,” he answers, pulling her closer to him. “I’m okay.”
It’s evening and raining when the statue comes into view. Everyone on board looks up at its magnificence, the lit-up torch held tightly in Liberty’s hand meant to be a signal of hope and freedom.
An officer gently taps Ben on the shoulder, and both he and Trudy look up. “Can I take your names?” he asks, face an attempt at calm kindness.
“Ben and Trudy McDervish,” replies Ben, the officer dutifully scribbling down the information.
He begins to leave when Trudy realizes something she’d forgotten. Someone rather. “Wait!” she calls.
The officer turns and predicts her question. “Are you looking for someone, ma’am?”
“Yes,” she replies. “A Ms. Rose DeWitt-Bukater.”
The officer nods and consults his pathetically short list. He checks it twice, the lines on his forehead deepening. “I’m sorry, ma’am, I don’t see her.”
Trudy opens her mouth to say something-what, she doesn’t know-but then pauses. Then she amends, “What about Dawson?”
The man consults his list again, running an ink-stained finger down the names. He stops at the end of the first page, eyebrows rising. “I do have a Rose Dawson,” he replies. “She should be down on this deck, actually.”
“Thank you,” replies Trudy, and the officer departs. He hadn’t said anything about Jack, but Trudy assumes he’d be with her, never mind the officer’s omission. Ben follows her around the deck, just as curious. She can’t help but smile, then, at Rose’s decision to take Jack’s name. It was both sentimental and clever; she doubts Ruth or Cal would think she would lose the prestigious name so willingly.
At first Trudy doesn’t see anyone resembling Rose-mostly just still-weeping women and children who had lost their husbands and fathers. Finally, though, she spots a figure staring up at the Statue, covered in a man’s coat with red hair falling to below her shoulders. Trudy would know her mistress anywhere.
“M-Miss Rose?” she tries, coming up on the woman.
The woman jumps and her head turns toward Trudy. Immediately Trudy’s suspicions are confirmed, and she sighs in relief. She throws her arms around the girl, but all Rose does is stand there limply. The smile that had graced Trudy’s expression quickly falls when she sees no such thing on Rose’s. She glances around, and sees no sign of Rose’s lover.
Her hands clench, not wanting to believe it, but she forces herself to ask, “Jack, is he…”
A single tear falls from Rose’s eyes that are bloodshot from both hypothermia recovery and obvious sobbing. It tells Trudy all she needs to know.
“Oh, Miss Rose…” she breathes, enveloping the broken girl in her arms again. “I am so, so sorry.”
Rose’s voice is hoarse when she says, “And Ben?”
Trudy feels awful given the circumstances, but cannot lie. “He’s…He’s alive.”
Rose nods in depression, and Trudy feels more helpless than ever, wishing she could do something. Anything. “That’s…that’s good,” Rose says. “That you have each other.”
Trudy exhales painfully. “If there is anything I can do…if I can help in any manner…if you need something…” Her voice trails off as she curses herself; the only thing Rose needs is Jack.
“No, thank you, Trudy,” Rose replies, falling back on the manners ingrained in her since she could walk because they are easier to focus on than what ails her. A memory coming back to her, she continues, “The severance is at the house in Philadelphia. When we dock I will retrieve it for you.”
“That’s not necessary, not after-”
“Please.”
The pain in Rose’s tone is so evident Trudy finds she can’t deny her anything. “I appreciate it,” she says instead. A moment of silence falls, and then Trudy asks, “What will you do?”
Rose shrugs bleakly.
“Stay with Ben and me,” says Trudy suddenly. “Until you can…figure things out.”
Rose meets Trudy’s eyes. “No, I-”
“Please,” Trudy insists, imitating Rose’s tone.
Rose’s expression doesn’t change, but there’s a flicker of life in her eyes that hadn’t been there before. “Maybe,” she says. “I-I don’t want to go back to that life.”
Trudy nods and puts her arm around Rose’s small body again. “You’re a survivor, Rose,” she says confidently. “You will survive this.”
Though Rose had clearly aged so many years in the few hours since the ship started sinking and she lost Jack, at Trudy’s words she abruptly regresses as she accepts Trudy’s compassion, reminding the older woman of just how young she really is. Rose’s hair is sticky and matted with salt water and her skin is still unsettlingly cold, but Trudy runs her hand over the girl’s hair nonetheless, just as she had when Cal had flipped the table at tea. Seems like such a lifetime ago…
A few minutes later, she sees a figure tentatively walking towards them-Ben. Rose’s eyes are shut tight against the pain as she lays in Trudy’s arms, and Trudy shakes her head imploringly at Ben.
Not now. She won’t be able to handle it yet.
Ben, blessedly perceptive, nods and makes himself scarce. Trudy wants very much to have his comfort, but she can’t be selfish. They’re both alive; Jack isn’t, and Trudy wouldn’t hesitate to say that a large part of Rose died with him. That she probably didn’t want to continue on living but that Jack had said something to make her do so. Trudy sure as hell can’t imagine living without Ben, and admires Rose’s strength.
Most of the hotels near the dock in New York are offering rooms for free for victims of the Titanic catastrophe, as well as warm meals, extra blankets, and laundry facilities. Few guests in the hotel offer their services as well-those who are psychologists or doctors, more than willing to assess the survivors. No one knows each other, but it’s the simple humanity, imagining the horror the people must have been through, that has them clamoring to help.
Trudy and Ben discretely turn them away, neither of them needing one, and knowing now is not at all the time for Rose to have someone ask her how she feels.
Soon after they settle into a room, Trudy heads downstairs to get some hot tea for the three of them, hoping it will at least provide a bit of heat. In the lobby she recognizes a woman she hadn’t had much time to talk to, but who from all accounts was someone you’d want to befriend.
“Mrs. Brown?” she asks carefully, just in case she’d gotten the wrong person.
Molly turns around at the voice and sends a sad smile Trudy’s way. “Trudy,” she greets without a trace of condescension. She motions with her head upstairs and adds, “I saw you with Rose. How…how is she?”
Trudy can’t quite form a response, and the corners of Molly’s mouth turn down in sadness.
“Such a sweet boy,” she reflects. “Reminded me so much of my Lawrence. Life is cruel.”
Silence falls, and Trudy begins to continue her search for tea, when she thinks of something. “Mrs. Brown,” she says, a bit sheepishly. “Would you be able to do me a favor?”
“Of course, anything.”
“There are a few things Rose has in the house in Philadelphia she, her mother, and Mr. Hockley were to stay in. She doesn’t want to see them” here, Molly snorts in agreement, “and so I have decided to do for her, but unfortunately neither myself nor Ben have access to funds for a taxi to get there…”
The words are barely out of her mouth before Molly reaches into a pocket of her coat and pulls out a few bills, holding them out to Trudy. “If you need more, just ask,” she says.
Trudy smiles, taking the money with gratitude. “Thank you,” she replies. “You are truly a great woman.”
Molly chuckles, and though their paths never cross again, her words turn out more than accurate.
When Trudy returns to the room with the tea, she proffers going to Philadelphia in place of Rose. It’s met with an immediate “yes,” Rose understandably not at all wanting to face her mother or Cal. Rose tells her the severance would be under the front mat, courtesy of a man who Trudy assumes owed Rose some kind of favor, but on whom Rose doesn’t elaborate. Rose also has the foresight to write a letter enabling Trudy to collect her things. “My mother will want proof,” she states blandly.
Ben offers to stay with Rose, knowing that he would be even more unwelcome to Ruth or Cal than Trudy. The taxi makes good time, reaching Philadelphia in just under two hours, and the cabbie dutifully stays in front of the house once he sees just how willing Trudy is to pay him.
She’s able to find the money and stuff it in the pocket of her jacket just in time, for right then the door opens, revealing none other than Ruth.
“Trudy,” she marks, alarmed. “I thought you perished. What are you doing here?”
Looks like some things haven’t changed, Trudy thinks caustically. “No,” she refutes simply. “I’m here because Rose asked me to get some of her things that were supposed to be shipped to this residence.”
“Rose?” If Trudy didn’t know better, she’d think that the concern and heartbreak on Ruth’s face was legitimate. “She’s alive? The officers on the Carpathia didn’t have a record of her…”
Trudy swears internally. “No, she…the sea claimed her,” she covers. “She requested this of me prior to the trip, and I plan on upholding those wishes.”
Ruth swallows heavily, and Trudy studies her face intently. “I am her mother,” says Ruth. “Her things belong with me.”
Trudy is immensely glad Rose had had the foresight to scribe that letter. She hadn’t written a specific reason, but anyone with half a brain could figure out why. Trudy wordlessly hands it to Ruth, whose lips thin with every sentence.
“This is obviously a fake,” says Ruth, but there is a waver in her voice.
“It is not,” Trudy replies. “She may not have confided in you, but she had plans all along to escape once the Titanic docked. To live her own life.”
“Not possible,” Ruth objects again. “My daughter would not do that. Not unless…”
“Jack Dawson had nothing to do with it,” snaps Trudy, surprised by her own vehemence. It’s also somewhat of a white lie-Rose may have had the intention all along, but it would have been Jack who perpetuated it. “You didn’t know your own daughter very well, Madam, not at all.”
Ruth’s eyes flash in fury and she has trouble forming words. “You-You-You insolent servant!” she seethes. “You have no right to speak to me like that!”
Trudy shrugs, a habit she picked up from Rose (of all people!). “I am no longer in your employ, I may say what I wish,” she declares. “And I too have had the intention to leave.”
“How exactly?” Ruth laughs. “You have no means.”
“I have a husband,” says Trudy. “We have saved up enough. You will have to find someone else to serve you tea.”
“A husband?” Ruth scoffs. “Surely you jest.”
Trudy stops herself from arguing back, knowing it wouldn’t do any good. “Never mind,” she says. “Just let me retrieve Rose’s belongings and I’ll be on my way.”
Ruth, for the first time that Trudy can remember, is struck dumb. She can’t figure out how to respond. So Trudy, once again surprised by her own brashness, steps past Ruth into the foyer. It isn’t quite as elaborate as the manor back in England, but still reeks of money Trudy could never dream of.
Going by pure guesswork, she climbs the stairs, glancing in each of the rooms. In the last one she checks, she identifies a few items of Rose’s sitting on a mahogany bureau. She enters and locates the closet, which contains a number of dresses as well as a pair of pants and boots she’d bet her life Ruth doesn’t know about. There are also a few suitcases on the floor which Trudy makes quick work of utilizing.
She’s glad she’d taken a cab as opposed to finding a car to drive herself, because she’s not sure she’d be able to lift all the baggage into the trunk without help. It’s enough of a struggle to haul them down the stairs and out onto the porch.
After she does so, she stares at Ruth, who hadn’t moved an inch. She can’t decide between choosing the high road and punching Ruth in the face, so she simply doesn’t say anything, just beckons the cabbie to assist her.
She’s down the steps with a few bags in her hand when Ruth’s voice stops her. “Trudy,” she calls. “Did-Did Rose say anything to you? Before we left? Or…after…?”
Trudy’s bleeding heart tries to convince her to say that Rose told her some good things about her mother or some such. But loyalty to Rose and to the truth prevents it.
“No,” Trudy replies. “She wanted to escape this life-and everyone in it-as soon as she could. If you ask me, her death was a blessing for her.”
“But-why?” Trudy raises an eyebrow, and Ruth fills in the blanks. “Dawson.”
“Yes, the sea claimed him as well,” affirms Trudy, this time not lying. “Shame; he was a good man.”
Ruth takes a shuddering breath, one that Trudy realizes belatedly might actually be real. “Yes…” she trails after a while, still bitter.
Trudy shakes her head in disbelief. For all Ruth knows, her daughter is dead, yet she instead she focuses on her irrational hatred for Jack.
Eager to finally say good riddance to Ruth, Trudy grabs the suitcases and turns her back, never to see the elder woman again.
As the taxi pulls back up to the hotel in New York and the cabbie assists her in taking out the luggage, Trudy feels energy drain out of her. Adrenaline had been pretty much the only thing keeping her going the last couple days, and now that the remnants of Rose’s old life are no longer in the picture, that adrenaline is rapidly depleting.
Ben helps her bring the bags into the room, and Rose looks up at Trudy’s entrance. “It’s taken care of,” Trudy answers the unspoken question.
Rose exhales. “Thanks.” She pauses, then, “I’ll be looking for a place of my own. You have your severance, I want you and Ben to have your privacy too.”
Immediately, Ben says without any room for argument, “Absolutely not. We are not letting you go out on your own until we know exactly what you plan on doing and where.”
Rose laughs caustically. “Mr. McDervish, you don’t know me.”
“True,” says Ben, “but Trudy does, and if what she says is even half true, you’re worth much more than what we can give. You are full of goodness and heart, Rose. Please, let me-let us-help.”
Rose glances between Ben and Trudy’s concerned faces, and then her eyes well up, tears soon falling. Without consulting with one another, Ben and Trudy sit on either side of the young girl, Trudy resorting to her brushing of Rose’s hair, Ben putting a steady arm around her shoulders.
“What is it?” asks Trudy softly.
Rose swallows. “You’re…you’re like…parents.”
Ben and Trudy look at each other sadly. “It’s about time someone acts as such,” says Trudy.
“You can see, then, why we don’t want you to go,” says Ben. Rose looks up at him with damp cheeks. “Stay, Rose.”
After a moment, she nods, and allows herself to be comforted by the only people who had, apart from Jack, showed her love. It’s a new sensation for her, but she finds she doesn’t want it to disappear. She knows she won’t stay with them forever, that she needs to get a hold of herself and set her sights on other ventures, but for the first time in her life, it’s her decision, and she isn’t on a deadline to make it.
Part II