Come, Josephine

Chapter 16

1927

The Hockley Estate

   Rose awoke with a horrendous headache, or rather, migraine. She had always suffered from them, especially when entertaining socialites and ladies. Everything about them exhausted her dreadfully; from the galas to cotillions, and even the yachts, polo, the theatre- it was often too much. Something about the wealthy drained her.
Rose sniffed at something- Cal's cologne- and suppressed a retch. Even wealth couldn't buy good taste, and Jack's smell had always been softer and more earnest.
Yes, had, she thought to herself, had.
Jack had always been so honest, and serious in the best sense. He had understood emotional pain, and laughed at the things that made the aristocrats blush. He had been the opposite of Cal, who lived only to laugh at other's misfortune.
She was locked in Cal's room, she realised, as she took in the grotesque furniture and artwork. He had little taste in anything.
She tried not to focus too hard on the garish reds and greens throughout the room, or how the gold details made her eyes sting.
The bed she was in was wonderfully soft, at least, and the covers were delicately soft. Of course, she would trade his bed for Jack's, stuffed with straw. She would trade for a barn stall, if it came to it- or the streets.
"Fuck this," she muttered, sitting up and stroking the cream nightdress she was in-
"Who the fuck changed me?" She hissed, rising from the bed. She had thought herself to be alone- but there, at the window, was Cal.
He chuckled, still not bothering to turn. Fury raged through her; the bastard bathed in her rage. He would assault her again, no doubt, and she couldn't help but feel that it would not top the feat of murdering her family. Her family.
She ran at him, bold to stare death in the face. What would he do in retaliation? Kill her? She would saviour the damn moment. Relish in it-
Her weight crashed into him, and he had little time to turn. He only managed to turn his head slightly, enough to witness his attacker, enough to kill him.
As he fell, his head caught the windowsill in exactly the wrong place- the right place, in Rose's opinion. He deserved death, and deserved a slow, painful one at least, but she had no time to waste in tearing him limb from limb.
He rolled away, limp, and Rose assumed he had be knocked unconscious. She threw her weight back onto him, clawing at his face and chest, ruining him. She would scar him- destroy him- as if that could repay what he had done to her.
When he didn't so much as flinch, or take a breath, Rose shot to her feet. She starred down as him, eyes wide, realising what she had done, and laughed.
She tipped her head back, and gave a laugh of sheer surprise and wonder. No remorse could be felt. A bad man had met a fitting end; slaughtered by the girl he had so desperately tried to possess.
Rose's glee was interrupted by a knock at the door. She turned to see who it was, and heard a maid call, "Mr Hockley? I have come with the anti-hysterics Doctor Morse prescribed."
"Louise, is that you? Cal and I are preoccupied and not quite... decent at this moment- yes, darling, I'm sending her away- could you return in a moment?"
Rose knew the effect it would have, and the young woman stumbled and stammered over her words before leaving. Rose smiled to herself.
It was night, she realised, and time enough to flee. Under the cover of night, she could get far enough.
   She went to Cal's wardrobe, and found what she had expected: a grossly ornate dress, in a rich red, and decorated with an awful amount of black beads.
Rose realised that it must be cold outside, and shimmied it on over her nightdress. She found matching black pumps in the bottom of the wardrobe, and slipped those on too.
She shuffled through the rail until she found a thick, black fur coat to don. She draped it over herself and went to the widow.
Even if her family was dead, she realised, she would still survive. To spite Cal, and her mother, to say the very least. She would live to crush them.
Rose judged the distance to the floor- only a storey, and decided she could easily make it if she aimed for the small bush below. She wouldn't break anything, maybe stun herself, but that would be all.
Sliding the window open, Rose went to make the leap. She raised her leg over the windowsill, hiking up her skirts, and suddenly paused. Her hesitation was not from how her body ached, but from something else. Her eye caught Cal's body, still on the floor, and wondered if people would think she had killed him.
His body had not been marred noticeably by her malicious clawing, she noticed, and she could disguise his death as something else, she realised. Yes, she could most certainly pass it off as something else.
She didn't want to be hunted forever, she realised, so went to the dresser in haste. She found a pen and paper, scribbling out a note in Cal's hand, and placed it under his cologne bottle:
My darling Rose has fled, and I have come to terms with the matter that she shall never be mine. She has returned to New York, and there she shall remain.
If you wish to notify her of my passing, do so swiftly. Rose never did care for matters so trivial.
I find no use for my life, now that I am without a bride, and I now allow myself to enter God's kingdom.
~ C. H.
Then, she went to the widow, and struggled to raise his body from its position on the floor.
When she finally did, she struggled to heave it through the widow, and fought twice as hard to squeeze it through the gap. While Cal had aged surprisingly well- perhaps his obsession kept him young- he had gained a fair amount of weight.
She watched his body fall, hitting the ground with a harsh crack! and threw herself out of the window as well.
For a moment, Rose fell with such speed that she felt nauseous. Despite the short distance and speed, she seemed to hang in the air for a curiously long time.
When she landed heavily on top of the corpse, she recoiled at the noise it made. Her body stung with impact and she realised that she would be badly bruised. She struggled to her feet and dashed for the property's perimeter.
If she was to execute her plan flawlessly, it depended on haste.