The Explorer's Apprentice

29:To Making it Count

I still own no one but Belle.:)

Arabelle D'Ewes

Belle stands with her mother and her mother’s friends in the center of a stuffy, crowded room, feeling bored and sickeningly ashamed. She has no idea where Rose is, and she’d be bluntly lying to herself if she said she didn’t care. I shouldn’t have been so upset with her, she thinks sadly, regretful, Rose didn’t do anything wrong. She doesn’t know. It was Belle’s sudden and uncharacteristic frustration that has her standing alone in the midst of hundreds of people. Her mother, dressed in an explicitly tight array of shimmering pearls and flowing silk, does attempt to include Belle in current politics and gossip and whatever else she and her friends jabber on about, but of course this doesn’t satisfy Belle. She wants her friend, and she wants to apologize for her brash behavior.

It isn’t like they were doing anything, either, Belle reassures herself. No matter what she does, though, she just can’t seem to get the image of Jack and Rose holding onto the edge of Titanic, standing so close that their arms were touching. Belle can’t seem to forget his smile, either. How could she? And just the thought of his beautiful, heavenly grin directed at somebody other than herself makes a horrible feeling of nausea brew in the bit of Belle’s stomach. Belle has never felt this way about anyone before. She’s in love, and she knows it. When she starts thinking of Jack, she can’t stop smiling. She’s only known him for a few days, it’s true, but to her it feels like she’s known him for a lifetime. And isn’t that worth something?

She takes deep, even breaths. They weren’t doing anything. She’ll have to ask Rose about it later, right after she apologizes. Belle is just itching to hear Rose confirm it. I hardly know the boy, Rose will tell her, I only just bumped into him. Yes, Belle is sure of it. That’s what Rose will say.

The room is so grand, so great; it reminds Belle of how the ball in Cinderella might have looked. As a child, Belle has always idolized Cinderella, so the setting displayed out before her gives her a slight boost of confidence.

 Imperious pillars of dark, expensive wood soar over her head, to meet in the center of the domed ceiling in elaborate, swirling designs. The clean white walls take on a warm, comforting glow in the soft light of a billion sugar-spun chandeliers. Exotic plants line the walls, turning the room into a kind of elegant jungle. The air is an intoxicating bouquet of perfumes and colognes. The tables burst with spicy, sweet aromas of the finest sweets and fish; the people drip with jewels and tinkling laughter; light refracts of their champagne glasses and turns the floor into a carpet of diamonds.

Belle scans the room for a round face with red-headed curls and a head high above the rest, standing alone and looking as lost and lonely as Belle feels. The good thing about 5’10 Rose is that she always has a way of being easily spotted among a large group of people. What’s taking her so long?

“There’s the countess of Rothes.” A wonderfully familiar, soft voice whispers from a few feet behind her.  “And, um, that’s John Jacob Astor, the richest man on the ship. His little wifey there, Madeleine’s my age and in delicate condition. See how she’s trying to hide it? Quite the scandal.”

Belle turns around, and sure enough, there she is, completely oblivious to Belle. Rose is dressed in a tight red dress with a lovely, shimmering black trimming. Behind her flows a train of ruby silk. Her arm, though, that’s what bothers Belle the most. It’s linked in Jack’s, tightly, like a serpent and its pray. She leans up to him, every now and then, and they’ll laugh at something Belle can’t hear.