I rolled over in my bed and groaned. The last thing I wanted to do today was take a tour of some ship. Whoa there, missy! Not just any ship, The Ship! Don’t let Uncle Charles catch you saying that… Quite honestly, I could care less about the entity that had consumed my uncle’s life for the past five years. I did have to admit though, that my curiosity was beginning to pique over this fiasco that had taken my uncle’s precious attention away from me for so long. Heaving a heavy sigh, I decided to give in to the sway of the day and get dressed. Casting a quick glimpse outside told me the day was unusually bright and sunny for April. We hadn’t received much rain lately, but the sky had still kept a sickly pallor for some time. Turning and fumbling with my bureau, I tried to decide what would best suit a day of pretending to be intrigued and beguiled by a 45,000ton heap of iron.
Almost two hours later I was ready to join the living world downstairs. Uncle Charles had already arrived and was just sitting down to breakfast. He heaped biscuits and gravy onto his plate and carried on a lively conversation with my mother. My brother, Ashton, had apparently stepped out to take a drive with two of his friends. Ashton, spoiled brat that he was, was still a caring and doting brother. He was truly excited at the prospect of touring the ship before any passengers set foot on her. Having never stepped foot on a ship since I could remember, I was apprehensive about today’s adventure. With my stomach churning uneasily, I simply ate three pieces of toast to assuage my mother.
My family was disgustingly wealthy. That’s still putting it mildly. Stating an exact worth of our empire would be pointless. That much money is incomprehensible. My father, James Anton Alexandre DeMarquette was from a long line of French aristocracy and power. My mother, Lillian Joyce Jacoby-Blanchett was the daughter of a politician’s nephew in America. Ashton’s given name is James Anton Ashton DeMarquette for Daddy of course, and mine is Brenda Jacoby-Blanchett DeMarquette. In my opinion, our family had enough names amongst ourselves to dub an entire normal neighborhood. My name as a child had been almost as confusing as my mother’s lineage. The descent of wealth in her family was far more complex than my father’s money line. I never could keep track of who was related to whom on her side. Neither could I really ever remember exactly what my Uncle Charles did at the shipyard to have such pull there. All I knew was that he worked closely with William Pirrie and Thomas Andrews. Charles William Jacoby-Blanchett had immigrated to Belfast ten years ago to work for Harland and Wolff. When my father died five years ago, he moved us from London to Belfast so he could help my mother with the family business decisions. This weekend we were staying at his second home in Southampton to visit and so that he could catch up with mother and the latest financial reports. He was here instead of Belfast to oversee the launch of this megalith liner he kept thumping his chest about.
Once Ashton returned from his escapade with his friends, he joined Uncle Charles and myself to head out for the pier. The nervous pit in my stomach grew tighter the closer we got. I tried to divert my attention away from the ship until we reached it. I really didn’t want to see it until I had to. Something was eating away at me today, and I didn’t know quite what it was. When we finally stepped out of Uncle Charles’s traveling car, I knew I’d made a disastrous mistake.
Last year, we had accompanied Uncle Charles to Belfast to watch the same ship being launched from the slipway while her completed sister ship set sail for Liverpool. The event had caused massive amounts of spectators to clamor aboard small pleasure crafts and ferries to view the historic event. Remaining somewhat unimpressed, I stayed on the docks with my mother while Ashton and Uncle Charles hired a small private craft.
Perhaps staying on the dock with my mother that day had impaired my judgement of the great liner. When I looked toward the pier where the ship was docked, my immediate impression was that I was looking at the wrong spot. I seemed to be looking at the jet-black wall of just another building. As my eyes instinctively traveled upward, I felt my body begin to shake and my knees go numb with the shock of it. An eerie tingle of horror crawled up my spine as I tried to comprehend the size of the monstrosity in front of me. The black hull stretched higher than most of the buildings around me. It ended in a band of gold capping that segued into the immaculate white superstructure. The buff-colored funnels, seeming to rise up high enough to reach the very heavens above, were capped with the same jet black of the hull. My gaze traveled finally to the bow of the ship where the name had been meticulously painted. As I read it, the name sounded off a thousand warning bells in my mind and I knew I absolutely did not want to board that ship.
Her name was Titanic…
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Jasper Jacks positively glowed with anticipation. His personal assistant Adrian Miller was driving the luxurious Ford he’d had imported from America. Not that Jasper couldn’t drive himself around! It was more a practical decision on his part. This was his daily routine: After a long day of negotiating and raiding, Adrian would bring the car around and the two of them would drive to the docks so Jasper could take his walk. Up until two days ago he had taken his daily walks along the docks of Belfast. Yesterday he’d spent the day organizing and packing for his move to Southampton. Now he was here and ready to see the object of his rapture once again.
Jasper Jacks was the son of a self-made millionaire. His parents, John and Jane Jacks, had managed to turn a substantial oil find into a steadily growing dynasty of companies. They weren’t all oil-related which is what kept their fortune multiplying. Jasper had grown up, along with his brother Jerry, to become quite the corporate businessman. He had the sly tactics of his father paired with his mother’s uncanny ability to read people accurately. Through these skills, he and Jerry had managed to cultivate a small fortune of their own. Jerry was as much the roguish playboy as Jasper was the adventurous gypsy. He hated to be tied to one place for too long and felt it dulled his prowess in the office. This mentality had started his daily walks. The daily walks had resulted in a love affair that had subsequently prompted the move yesterday. So now he was here standing in front of the most beautiful thing he’d ever laid eyes on…
Titanic
His fascination with the ocean had started the whole thing. He’d set up shop in Belfast for a meeting with Reynolds Fabrics seven months ago. A particularly grueling day sent him in search of release and he had ended up at the oceanfront promenade. There a sight had dazzled him into speechlessness. Construction of an enormous ocean liner was underway, and it was the biggest ship Jasper had ever seen. It simply took his breath away. It appeared the liner was nearly finished, but he would later find out that the insides were still being completed and were a ways from being done. Still, she was a grand and magnificent sight. From that moment on, he’d watched her slowly take on her final resplendence and also the more interesting happenings that surrounded her. For one thing, a fourth funnel was added long after the others. Upon inquiry he’d learned it was a fake added for purely aesthetic reasons and contained only air vents. Another thing was the fact that she was moved three times to accommodate repairs on her sister ship Olympic. Every little change and incident pulled him further under Titanic’s spell.
Looking up at her now he realized just what a hold on him the ship had. He closed his eyes and smelled the salty air laced with the lingering scent of her freshly painted shape. He’d seen her through seven months of nurturing and tweaking. She’d been his sanity for the same length of time. Now that she was ready to take her first step into the vast Atlantic Ocean, he was determined to see that through with her as well. When she sailed from Southampton in six days, Jasper Jacks would be there at her bow to watch the land fall away for her maiden voyage...
