Titanic Embers

Blonde

The upper echelons of society are wont to rise late, taking luncheon as breakfast and exalting all-night revelry as a virtue.

After all, the gaudy, kaleidoscopic whirl of nightlife—where light fractures into shifting shadows and dazzling hues—drains both strength and spirit, demanding the morning for recovery.

April 12th, 1912.

Today, Carl rose early.

As early as a farmhand, all for the sake of offering thanks to the “little fellow who saved his fiancée’s life.”

Carl was well aware that he was a selfish, willful man.

When he fell for Ruth, he ignored his father’s objections, Ruth’s cool indifference, and the crushing debts of her family, binding himself to her in engagement, though he had far better prospects. Among the mansions of the wealthy and the parlors of high-born ladies, which prize could he not have claimed with ease? Yet his mind was set—he wanted Ruth, and Ruth alone.

In the end, even his father had yielded. Ruth might not love him now, but one day—of that he was certain—her heart would be his.

And so, the self-indulgent, self-absorbed Carl found himself bowing to a man barely half an inch taller than Ruth, a man from the lower decks. The thought weighed heavily upon him.

Jack lay sprawled on a deck chair, a coat thrown over him. His gaze wandered upward to the flawless blue sky, seamlessly joined to the sea, and in that moment it felt as though he were adrift among the clouds. His lips curved faintly, almost imperceptibly, as the cigarette between his fingers sent up slender threads of smoke—like pale, translucent water-serpents weaving their slow, spiraling dance upon the ocean air.

“Pondering the mysteries of the universe and of life itself, Mr. Dawson?” Karl drawled languidly, lighting a cigarette of his own.

Startled as though roused from a dream, Jack glanced up. Upon recognizing the speaker, his eyes widened in surprise, lips forming a perfect O. Nevertheless, he rose, smiling amiably as he extended his hand. “Jack,” he said politely.

Karl hesitated for a heartbeat before extending his own, their fingertips brushing fleetingly like a dragonfly skimming the surface of a pond.

In that brief contact, Karl discerned the texture of the man’s hand—neither large nor robust, the fingers not especially long, yet subtly slender. A callus crowned the first joint of his middle finger.

“Not curious to hear the tale of my heroics? Let’s walk and talk,” Jack said, as if addressing an old friend met in some seaside tavern rather than a titan of commerce and steel.

With a flick, he discarded his cigarette, unceremoniously took Karl’s silver case, lit one, and inhaled with easy nonchalance.

Karl, half-amused and half-exasperated, restrained his impatience and fell into step beside him, their aimless stroll carrying them along the deck.

“When I was fifteen,” Jack began, hands buried in his pockets, “I lost both parents. No brothers, no sisters, no kin at all. I drifted from place to place—call me tumbleweed, rootless and restless. I never went back.” Now and then, he let slip words Karl could not quite place—likely the coarse idiom of the lower decks.

“Hey, Karl, we’ve circled a full mile. Talked weather, talked Titanic, pried into my past—but I can’t imagine that’s how the heir to the Hockley fortune usually spends his time.”

“I wanted to thank you,” Karl said, his tone less rigid than before. “Otherwise, she might have fallen in.”

“I’m a strong swimmer. I’d have saved her anyway, but the water’s bitterly cold—far too cold for a young lady to endure.”

“How cold?” Karl asked after a pause, the question betraying a touch of naivety.

“Cold as ice. Ever been to Wisconsin? Winters there are harsher than England’s. My father once took me ice-fishing on Lake Wissota—cutting holes in the frozen surface to drop our lines.”

“A novel pastime. We have polo, yachts, hunting… never tried fishing on ice.”

“It has its charms—though, once, the ice was too thin. I plunged straight in. The water knifed into me from all sides—like a thousand blades at once. Couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think…”

Whether from the morning chill or Jack’s vivid imagery, Karl shivered.

“Still cold out, Karl,” Jack said lightly, shrugging off his coat and pressing it into Karl’s hands with quiet insistence. “It’s old, but clean. And in this bloody cold, you’ll need it.” Coarse though the words were, Karl did not refuse.

The fabric was rough yet warm, faintly scented with horse, tobacco, leather, and an unnamed liquor.

“Do I truly look so fragile and untested by hardship?” Karl arched a slender black brow, lips twisting faintly.

“Fragile? I’m not sure. But a capitalist—how could you not have seen hardship? Surely you know how to grind your workers?” Jack’s own smirk was sharper. “Anyway, let’s not dwell on that. Karl—Ruth’s your fiancée, isn’t she? She’s beautiful—like a goddess of the hunt.”

“Of course.” Karl lifted his hand to display the massive ring on his finger, pride in every syllable. “Five hundred invitations sent—Philadelphia’s finest will attend.” His chin rose in self-satisfaction.

“With that rock, if the ship went down, it’d drag you to the bottom.”

“Impossible! The Titanic is unsinkable. She carries more of my family’s steel than any vessel afloat.”

Jack’s smile was tinged with mockery.

“Your fiancée seemed in low spirits,” he said, smoothly covering for Ruth’s slip. “She came to the deck for air—that’s all.”

“Yes… she’s been unhappy. I don’t know why, and I won’t pretend I do.” Karl’s face darkened.

Why am I telling him this? The thought struck like an alarm bell—too late.

“Does she love you?” Jack asked, voice casual, almost careless.

“What?” Karl thought he had misheard.

“I said, does she love you? Is she a happy bride-to-be? What woman in the throes of love and on the brink of engagement would be… unhappy?” Jack shrugged.

“You—you’re insufferably rude!” Karl stammered in fury.

Yes—he had long known Ruth did not love him. Yet hope—perhaps self-deception—had sustained him. No one had ever spoken the truth so baldly.

“Such a simple question, Karl. Love is simple. Must you people make it so secretive, so contrived?”

The truth struck like a blade. The question he had evaded, the thought he had forbidden himself, now lay bare in the sunlight, searing and merciless.

“Face it, my friend. Man to man,” Jack said, his voice slower, but without pity.

“You… you damnable bastard!” Karl’s breath came quick, his fury barely leashed. “Mr. Dawson—we’ve only just met. Such questions are beyond rude. I came to thank you—well, I’ve done so—”

“And insulted me in the bargain,” Jack cut in with a sidelong glance.

“You brought it on yourself!”

Unruffled, Jack settled into a deck chair, opened his sketchbook, and with swift, assured strokes, set his charcoal to the page.

“From the first moment I saw you aboard Titanic, I wanted to capture you in my book.”

“You’re… an artist?” Karl exclaimed, incredulous, forgetting—or feigning to forget—their recent quarrel. There was something about this penniless young man, something elusive and magnetic, that drew him in despite himself.