Victoria's Misfortune
by RomanCEisdead
Prologue
Victoria was born to Charles and Mary Sessions on the 3rd of June 1894. She was named after Her Majesty Queen Victoria, stressing her parent's loyalty to the crown and to the establishment within the country.
Charles was a middle-class businessman, with pretensions towards becoming upper-middle class -- perhaps even gaining a title one day. His wife was the youngest daughter of a successful entrepreneur. Charles saw it as an opportunity to extend his contacts and to expand his own business, which was based upon the tailoring industry. He was always dressed in the smartest of suits in order to impress. Naturally, he insisted upon his wife being equally well dressed. He was used to her turning heads.
Although the couple had intended to have a large family (as expected in Victorian England), they were blessed with just the one child -- a daughter. Victoria grew up in a household with a Nanny and half a dozen servants in a town house in the not-quite fashionable area of Hackney. She was sheltered throughout her life, with a private tutor being brought in for her education. She showed a reasonable level of intelligence and took easily to reading and writing. As with her mother and father, she was always dressed in the most attractive clothing.
She was approaching her nineteenth birthday, when her mother began to talk about finding a match for her. Her father was determined that this should be a step up the social ladder, but he needed to find an opening to make this possible. Then, one day in 1912, he announced that he had worked out how to increase trade and make his move into the upper echelons of middle class England. Everyone who was anyone was going to travel to New York on the White Star Line's magnificent new liner.
The ship was due to depart Southampton on April 10th. Charles took the train from London and hired a taxi to transport him from the station to the White Star Line Dock, where he boarded shortly after 10am. He was shown to his suite by one of the stewards, while a young man followed along carrying his luggage.
The ship left its moorings at around midday and sailed off to meet its destiny (and an iceberg) in the North Atlantic four days later.
Charles Edward Stimpson Sessions was listed as missing presumed lost when the RMS Titanic sank.
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