By The Sea, Book One: Tess (11 page)

"Tess—A hansom cab will pick you up at the
corner of Bellevue and Ruggles at nine o'clock. Don't be late. Wear
the ordinary day-dress of a lady's maid, and by all means put on
the mask. I'll meet you at the entrance, and then we shall have
some fun. Yours, etc. Edward Hillyard."

Puzzled but intrigued, Tess held the mask
over her face and peered at herself in a small, bone-handled
mirror. The mask covered two-thirds of her face. Never before had
Tess gone to a servants' ball in masquerade. In England the balls
were simple, jolly affairs: on the day after Christmas, Boxing Day,
masters and servants changed places for the day, dancing together.
Probably that was too straightforward for Newport.

A sound in the hall had Tess slamming the
mask into a drawer, then sweeping the wrapping and the letter off
the far side of her bed. Maggie entered as Tess swung round on
her.

"Tessie, something is amiss in the laundry
room," Maggie wailed, oblivious to her sister's embarrassment.

"Seriously amiss? Or just the normal
amount?" asked Tess with a distracted smile.

"That's just it—I can't tell," Maggie
answered, her eyes wide with apprehension. "There was a new girl
poking about in the laundry rooms today. Bridget was taking her
everywhere, showing her everything—machines, tubs, racks. Why would
she do that if the girl wasn't coming to work here?"

"Which would be grand news for you, miss:
less work," Tess answered, knowing full well where her sister's
fearful logic was taking her.

"Less work, indeed! She's bound to be
replacing me, and then I'll have all the time in the world."

"Don't talk nonsense, Mag. We would have
heard."

"Well, it's not as though anyone else has
ever been given warning," retorted Maggie, and she threw herself
face down on the bed.

Tess sat alongside her sister and rubbed
small circles into her lower back. "Mag, this is the merest
anthill, and here you go making a mountain out of it. Couldn't the
girl have been a friend of Bridget's from another house?"

"No," Maggie answered in a blanket-muffled
voice, "or Bridget would've sworn me not to tell. No one's allowed.
You know that," she added wearily.

"True enough—but on the other hand, Mrs.
Bracken just spoke to me not half an hour ago and told me she was
quite satisfied with your work."

If the remark were less than half true, was
that a mortal sin?

Maggie rolled over onto her side. "Is that
really true?"

"Would I lie?" Definitely a mortal sin.

Maggie rolled the rest of the way onto her
back and sighed. "'I feel better, then."

"Good."

"Oh! Have
you
been given the night
off? Some of the chambermaids have, and the groom, and some of the
footmen and the under-cook and the scullery maid. It's very odd.
The house will be quiet tonight. Well? Have you?"

Obviously Maggie hadn't heard about the
ball.

"Ehh ... the truth is, I'm still working on
the lace appliqué. Another half-truth; another sin.

"Can't it wait? I have only one underskirt
to iron. It shouldn't take me more than three or four hours, and
then I'm sure I'll be let go for the night."

"No ... no. Miss Cornelia specifically asked
for the gown to be finished as soon as possible." Each lie spawned
another.

"Can you work on it here?"

"No. The light is better in her dressing
room." That was at least technically true. "I'm sorry, Mag," she
said when she saw the look of disappointment on her sister's face.
But she had to go to this ball. No matter what, she had to go. It
was as simple as that.

Tess changed the subject. "Come now; time
for Fellows Syrup and cod liver oil."

"I'd nearly forgotten why I was here,"
Maggie admitted, but she looked at her sister strangely as she took
her medicine with less then her usual grace.

For this Tess lied: so that for two or three
hours she might have an opportunity—no guarantee, just a chance—to
be waltzed around a floor in the arms of a man with whom she could
not possibly have a future. So far she had not even allowed herself
the luxury of pronouncing his name, and yet this was the man who
was quickly becoming her obsession.

"Edward." She whispered the name, shocked by
the intimacy of it. "Edward, please …."

What it was she was pleading for, she had no
idea. In an age when girls were very, very innocent or very, very
knowledgeable, Tess was a curious mixture of both. On the one hand,
Tess had never shared a romantic moment of any kind with anyone in
her entire young life. On the other hand, she did understand the
mechanics and the consequences of sex: the stableboy who had
fondled her at twelve had also, at about the same time, impregnated
one of the housemaids at the Meller estate. Although the girl was
sent away, she returned, utterly destitute, at the end of her term
and threw herself at the mercy of Lady Meller.

The baby was born on the estate but its
mother died. Young Tess, who had been sent to the midwife during
the delivery with extra towels, had managed to be in the room at
the moment when the two souls were delivered, one (as Midwife
McCrenna later decreed) to "eternal perdition." The mother had died
just before her baby was born, and in the panicky moments when the
baby was being eased the rest of the way into the world, no one
bothered with the young, wide-eyed girl who was hanging back in the
shadows. The last, heartrending screams of the mother and the
bloodied result of her labor had frightened Tess into a state of
permanent virtue.

Almost permanent. In the last two weeks the
memory of that traumatic childbirth had not so much dimmed as it
had ceased to exist for Tess. Her mind would not go near the event;
it skipped past it, much as a child, whistling resolutely, hurries
past a graveyard with eyes averted

Besides, Tess was eighteen now. Her body had
a will of its own, and kneeling on rice every night seemed to be
doing little to tame it. Tess understood, more or less, about a
man's love for a woman, but now she had a handsome face to picture,
a voice to recall, a touch to re-live. This was new, and she let
herself be drawn into the fantasy of it.

In a trance she pushed a chair against the
door, then returned to the dresser drawer, took out the silver
mask, and tied it around her face. In a trance she stared at
herself in the mirror, lost herself in her deep green eyes, fell in
love with herself as she hoped Edward Hillyard might. She became
caught up utterly in the dream that was Edward, whispering his
name, begging for more, more ....

"Tess! Mother of Mary, what is going on
here?" cried Bridget from the other side of the door. "Open up!"
She began rattling the doorknob back and forth without success.

Tess was up like a shot, tearing off the
mask, removing the chair. She lived in a blessed fishbowl!

"I ... needed the chair to kill a spider,"
she explained as Bridget marched through.

"And a very big spider it must have been,"
Bridget said with her usual sarcasm.

"The chair was to
stand
on, Bridget.
Were you looking for me or for Maggie?"

"You,
silly. Maggie's in the laundry,
finishing some smoothing. Has she told you a kind of holiday has
been declared tonight?"

"She did say some had the evening off."

"And now more of us as well. We're going
a-promenading in Freebody Park, even Maggie." Bridget lowered her
voice. "Something is up. Mrs. Bracken acted queerly when she saw me
a bit ago—but nobody can figure out what it is. We thought you
might know, being a lady's maid and all." She waited
expectantly.

"Miss Cornelia hasn't told me anything,
Bridget." When Bridget looked skeptical, Tess added, "Some sort of
entertainment is planned, I suppose."

Bridget's look turned frigid. "You don't
say. Well—we're all leaving in an hour," she said curtly and
left.

Was Tess the
only
one from Beau Rêve
invited to this stupid ball?

She made sure she was well away from the
servants' quarters when the round-up for the promenade took place.
Before long the house was quiet, and Tess left the safety of Miss
Cornelia's dressing room to get ready for what she could not help
feeling was a meeting with destiny. Hadn't Cornelia said "Anything
can happen at a ball"?

From nowhere visions of Edward Hillyard
sprang up before her. All she had to do was stroke the silver mask
and he was there for her, with his thick, shining hair and his
intense blue eyes. He was easily the most handsome man she'd ever
seen, and tonight—well, tonight.

No one was left to notice her as she slipped
out of the house and hurried to the corner of Bellevue and Ruggles.
There was indeed a cab, facing south. Tess had only the vaguest
idea where The Ledge was—she hadn't wanted to give herself away by
inquiring—and was prepared to be humiliated by the driver, but he
only said, "You the one's goin' to the Ledge shindig?"—and motioned
for her to climb in.

Her mask was in her bag; she had no idea
when to put it on. She was on such unfamiliar ground. Why the
secrecy? Why the impromptu holiday, if the servants hadn't been
invited? Tess didn't even know how much the carriage had cost
Hillyard. She'd only traveled by trolley—five cents—and reports
that a hired carriage cost two dollars or more simply staggered
her. Newport! So rich, so jaded, so desperate to do things
differently. How unlike the country houses of England. How unlike
Wrexham, where the tradition itself was part of the joy. As long as
Tess lived, she would never understand American society.

Her musings were interrupted by the clatter
of a coach pulling out alongside her cab to pass it. The coachman
wore the livery of Mrs. Hamilton Fish, one of the reigning queens
of Newport Society. lt was dark and Tess could not tell how many
were inside, but she was amazed to see an ordinary scullery maid in
her kitchen-cap lean out the window. Obviously some servants were
being given royal transportation.

Before long the hansom was pulling into the
driveway of The Ledge. An assortment of coaches and carriages
preceded them in the drive. Impressed by the kindness extended by
some employers to their servants, Tess watched as a motley crowd of
valets, chambermaids, cooks, butlers, and grooms descended
self-consciously onto the drive, laughing and poking one
another.

I wish Maggie had been invited,
Tess
thought with dismay, scanning the faces for someone she knew. But
it was too dark. She was the last to alight. Her cab left, Tess
tied on her mask, and then she was at the door, lifting the knocker
timidly. The door was opened, and Tess blinked. It was not a
footman on the other side of the door but a gentleman's valet, with
a feather duster in one hand and a kitchen pail in the other.

With utmost solemnity he bowed and said,
"Good evening, madame," and showed Tess inside. Behind the bizarre
costume the face looked familiar. A croquet lawn flashed through
Tess's brain as she stepped into the hall before him, uncertain
what to do.

He was eyeing her in a way no footman would
ever dare. "Who shall I say is calling?" he intoned.
"No—drat—
whom
shall I .... No, I was right in the first
place:
Who
shall I say is calling, madame? Or does madame
prefer to be known simply as Madame X?" he added, with a little
wave of his feather duster toward her mask. His look was roguishly
intrigued.

He was not wearing a mask, and neither was
anyone else among the servants flitting back and forth behind
him.

Confused and gripped by a sense of dread,
Tess answered, "I'm not Madame X. My name is Tess Moran." She began
to cast around for Edward Hillyard, but by now it had occurred to
her that
everybody
was in servants' dress. The
valet—obviously not a valet at all—was stroking his chin with his
feather duster, looking thoughtful. Then he snapped back into the
pompous attitude of a footman and said, "If Madame Moran will wait
here
un moment"
—and walked over to a heavyset chambermaid
who was polishing the floor behind him with broad sweeps of an
oversized mop.

Tess felt as though she'd dropped down a
rabbit hole into Wonderland. There was something grotesque about
everyone's behavior—children run amok in a nursery.

She heard the valet in a loud stage whisper
ask the chambermaid, "Have I invited a Miss Tess Moran?"

In a voice full of lemon peels the
chambermaid said, "Tess Moran
?
My dear, I'm sure you'd have
remembered. Shall we look her over?"

In the meantime another man dressed in
bizarre livery—his blue and gold breeches clashed comically with
his maroon waistcoat, and he wore his wig backward—came up to Tess
and offered to take her cape.

"Your cape, your cape, I really must have
your cape," he insisted, dancing around her like a monkey.

Tess whirled to face him, baffled and
frightened. He'd taken other coats, so he must be acting the role
of cloakroom attendant. But when he began to reach for the ribbons
of her mask, Tess backed away and her cape slipped to the floor.
These people are either drunk or quite mad,
she thought
wildly.
Where is Edward?

The valet put down his pail and came back to
Tess with his cohort the chambermaid. Together they stared with
blatant curiosity until Tess felt the hairs on the back of her neck
stand on end. Other servant-imposters passing gaily through the
hall, wondering what new sport was afoot, began to gather
around.

"I quite give up," the valet said, and
tossed the feather duster over his shoulder. "Have you an
invitation?" he asked bluntly.

"I ... no. I was asked by Mr. Edward
Hillyard—"

"Eddy!" squealed a servant whose dress
approximated that of a children's nurse. "However did he dare!"