Rose starred aimlessly at the wall.

What am I doing here- she thought. All my life I've been doing, what others expected from me. All my life I've put others first, my father, my mother, Cal. I had expected love or at least respect in return. But what did I get? Neither love did I get nor respect, not even the slightest one.

Just once in her life she had felt free. Just once she had felt like a real person, not like a human being happened to be called a person. This one time was when she had met Jack, her beloved Jack. When she closed her eyes, she could still see him smiling at her und could feel him touching her. Once she had read that a happy childhood could make up for a hard grown up life. But she didn't even have a happy childhood. She didn't have a childhood at all. But those three days with Jack somehow made up to this youth she didn't have. Her eyes flickered open and she thought about having to get dressed. It was already half past six and dinner would be ready in half an hour. And then there would be her mother sitting her with her porcelain face and making her ever so useless conversation about clothes and society and society and wealth and...

The ballroom was filled with fashion's throng,
It shone with a thousand lights;
And there was a woman who passed along,
The fairest of all the sights.

And then there would be Cal. The year was 1929 and she had been married to him for almost seventeen years now. She remembered her mother scowling her about being selfish and she remembered Jack's touch afterwards. Oh how she would love to have him here at this very moment. Rose suddenly woke up from her day dreams, when Pauline, the maid, entered the room.

"Mrs. Hockley, don't you know what time it is? Hurry up; you must be getting dressed for dinner. You wouldn't want your husband to get mad at you. Now, would you?"

The hell I care about Cal, but to Pauline she said: "Of course not."

A girl to her lover then softly sighed,
"There's riches at her command."
"But she married for wealth, not for love," he cried!
"Though she lives in a mansion grand."

The only good thing was that her daughter would join them as well. Josephine was the only person Rose felt being loved by.

The maid came back with a dress.

"Mr. Hockley said you should be wearing this one."

"Alright."

The dress was orange, red, and green and blue all at the same time or so it seemed to her. It was everything she wouldn't expect from a costume. But she didn't care about the dress, she didn't want to be beautiful around Cal. Taste can't be bought with money, she thought as she put it on.

"Oh, how beautiful you look, Mrs. Hockley. Your husband will be so thrilled, when he sees you."

I stood in a churchyard just at eve,
When sunset adorned the west;
And looked at the people who'd come to grieve
For loved ones now laid at rest.

Rose felt sick. A sudden urge to send Pauline out and rip up the dress in thousand pieces came over her. But it was no use. It would've only gotten her more bruises and scars from Cal, so she just smiled at Pauline.

"What about jewellery? Did my husband give you any instructions?"

"He told me you should wear the Heart of the Ocean."

Just not this one, anything, just not this one Rose thought.

"Do I really have to?"

"If you don't want your husband to get angry at you, I would say, yes, you've to."

Reluctantly Rose sighed and let Pauline help her.

"Now you should hurry, Mrs. Hockley."

"Yes, thank you for your help, Pauline."

"No need to thank me. I mean, I get paid for it."

Rose wanted to tell her that she also wanted to thank her for being a friend. She was the only one in this house, who cared, besides Josephine.

…..

Dinner was just like every other dinner, boring. Cal talked endlessly about his business and her mother about society gossip.

"Did you hear that Mrs. O'Brian's daughter Clelia is pregnant?" Ruth asked.

"Pregnant by whom?" Cal asked back. Rose on the other hand didn't pay any attention.

"I've no idea actually. And what does it really matter? She isn't married and won't find a suitable husband now."

"Word has it that her family has run out of money."

"Well I don't suppose that she's pregnant by the Duke of Westminster. So this concern remains. "

Cal laughed at this joke. The Duke of Westminster was said to be the richest man in England, richer even than the King.

Rose instead thought of Jack.

"I guess it's some villain, who got her pregnant."

Rose could feel herself falling back into her day dream.

You've to promise me to go on. Promise me now, Rose, and never let go of that promise.

I promise you, Jack. I won't give up.

Oh Jack, why did you've to leave me?

Rose almost couldn't hold back her tears.

A tall marble monument marked the grave
Of one who'd been fashion's queen;
And I thought, "She is happier here at rest,
Than to have people say when seen:

"What is wrong with loving a person with little money?"

Everyone looked up at her. Nobody had expected her to say anything. Her mother almost choked out the food she was just eating and Cal starred at her with hatred in his eyes.

"Well sweet pea, if wouldn't know better, I would say who are thinking about a certain person here. Aren't you?"

Rose felt the tears forming up in her eyes. Josephine just sat there. She had never seen her mother this emotional.

"I'm not thinking about…"

But before she could say his name, Cal cut her in.

"Please don't, don't you ever speak this scum's name out loud again", he hissed.

Josephine was shocked by his reaction. She knew that her parent's marriage hadn't been a match made in heaven, but she still had never seen her father so aggressive towards her mother. Cal, feeling her eyes on him, pulled himself together. But Rose didn't.

"She's only a bird in a gilded cage,
A beautiful sight to see.
You may think she's happy and free from care,
She's not, though she seems to be.

"I will speak of Jack whenever I want. I'm a grown up person you can't treat me like a child."

The moment she had said those word she regretted them. Cal flashed her some evil glance only she noticed. She knew what would happen later.

"I…I…"

"Rose I suppose, you're done with dinner."

"Yes, mother."

Why can't you just shut up your mouth? She thought to herself. Cal is going to beat the hell out of me for this.

"Excuse me", she said as she left the room.

When she was out, Josephine asked: "Who's Jack?"

"No one, just no one, dear", her grandmother told her. "Now go on and eat, before everything is getting cold."

Josephine went on eating and while she did so she noticed the glances being exchanged between her father and her grandmother. Something was definitively wrong. This Jack wasn't just a no one this much she was sure of.

'Tis sad when you think of her wasted life
For youth cannot mate with age;
And her beauty was sold
for an old man's gold,
She's a bird in a gilded cage."1

1 Harry Von Tilzer (Harry Gumm), 1872-1946. Words by Arthur Lamb.