By The Sea, Book One: Tess (17 page)

"Maggie doesn't say, but then she wouldn't,"
Tess admitted, oblivious to his sarcasm. "She would hate to alarm
me. The head laundry maid has decided to start up her own business
and wants Maggie. Of course, I should have guessed all this. Even
though Maggie is much too slow for a rush-around like Bridget,
Bridget will get around that—she'll pay Maggie by the piece and
Maggie will work 'til she drops. Oh, damn. Oh, damn."

"May I see the letter?"

Tess handed it over, her mind and heart
racing back to Newport. Aaron read it through and said, "Your
sister sounds far more spunky than you give her credit for."

"You don't know her. She puts on a brave
front."

"You're convinced that her health will
suffer adversely if she goes to work for this Bridget?"

"Of course. What was I thinking of?"

"Hold on, Tess. Rein in that Irish fatalism
for once. Send Maggie another letter offering her a job in your
millinery shop. Spell out the terms—her wages and responsibilities.
Be businesslike. Try not to sound like a mother hen, or a charity
warden."

Her face lit up with gratitude. "That's just
the right tone to take!" She reached across the table for his hand.
"Aaron—oh, Aaron, I seem always to need bailing out. Why do you
bother with me?" she murmured.

His look was steady. "Because I love you,
Tess. Don't you know that?"

"I never thought of you and ... of love,"
she answered quietly, taking up her fork again.

"There are all kinds of love, Tess. You said
so yourself."

She was afraid to ask which kind was his.
For now, it was enough that he loved her. Without him, where would
she be?

****

The
Enchanta
continued on her
rambling trek westward. Except for the time they put into New
London for supplies, the
Enchanta
had stayed to herself,
searching out quiet anchorages which lacked the amenities that
attracted the more glittering New York yachts. Tess rarely went
ashore; with no chaperone aboard, there was not even the illusion
of propriety. Besides, they were utterly content in one another's
company. Tess had much to learn, and Aaron, it seemed to her, knew
everything.

He liked things American: wine from
California; Herman Melville's romances; the Caribbean watercolors
of Winslow Homer. He railed against Newport's slavish and ignorant
devotion to Continental art and went to great pains to explain to
Tess that there was, indeed, life after the French Renaissance.
Some of it she took in, some of it she didn't; but always, always
she was in awe of him. And intensely curious: she never stopped
asking questions, and he never lost patience with her.

One afternoon, about a week after they left
Newport, the
Enchanta
was anchored in a snug, clear lagoon
behind Eaton's Neck, and Tess and Aaron were enjoying the
afternoon, she with her sketchbook, he with his ever-present
correspondence, when a large schooner-rigged yacht reached smartly
up the narrow channel, headed into the wind, and dropped its
anchor. Sails were lowered and furled, and a pretty little rowing
skiff put over the side immediately.

Aaron, watching through binoculars, said,
"It's the
Xanadu,
Jim McAllister's schooner. He's coming
over."

Tess stood up immediately, clutching her
sketchpad. "I'll wait below."

"No, you won't. Stay where you are. From now
on it's useless to hide." Aaron strolled forward to the gangway to
greet his friend.

From her wicker chair Tess heard a loud
voice boom out, "Pipe me aboard, you old son of a bitch! It was
damn lucky that it's a spring tide and I could see you over the
bar—and have the water to come in after you!"

"Lucky indeed," Aaron called down
ironically.

Irony was lost on McAllister. Everything
about him—from his bushy gray beard to his across-the-water voice,
was exaggerated; subtleties escaped him. Introductions were made.
He accepted Tess's presence implicitly. The wicker chair underneath
him groaned as he leaned forward and said in a half-threat to Tess,
"I suppose that like most women, you prefer steaming on an even
keel to the heeled-over thrill of a sailing yacht?"

Before Tess could answer Aaron said,
"Speaking of which, McAllister, that was some devilish sailing to
bring the
Xanadu
in here. It's a pity we won't be here to
see you beat out the channel."

"Oh? Where are you bound?"

"Sandy Hook, of course, for the Cup
Races."

"Why, man, you can be there in a day. Stay
on: fill me in on the craziness at Newport. Is it true that that
fool Lehr organized a dogs' dinner for a hundred canines? The
papers were full of it over here; I remember something about a
dachshund collapsed over its plate of
foie gras.
Have things
really sunk so low as that?" he asked, chuckling over his pun.

"Mac, you know better than to believe the
papers."

"It isn't true, then?"

"Not at all. In fact it was a plate of
stewed liver."

The men exchanged grins and tapped their
glasses together. It was obvious to Tess that they shared a
contempt for the summer absurdity known as high season in
Newport.

"Why are you a part of it?" she asked Aaron
later when the
Enchanta
was on its way again, steaming ever
closer to their destination. "You just spent an hour with that man
mocking the hollowness of Newport Society. So why do you share in
their rituals?" She had never really forgiven him for having been a
guest at the Servants' Ball.

"My Tess, a radical? I think I've told you
that among that decadent crowd are two or three whom I call
friends. And I confess I find Newport's vulgarity a refreshing
change of pace: it's amusing, in a rather stupid way. And
finally—well, I found
you
in Newport. It will always have a
place in my heart for that."

He took her in his arms then and kissed her,
despite the fact that they were standing at the stern rail in view
of some of the crew. "I begrudged McAllister's hour aboard, Tess;
it was an hour less I had with you alone," he murmured, burying his
face in her hair. "I suppose it can only get worse."

"Do we have to go to New York for the
America's Cup Races?" she asked in a small voice.

"I'm afraid so, darling. I've watched every
defense of the Cup for the last twenty-five years. It's become a
sacred tradition between me and some of my friends. I can't let
them down."

"In that case, can we hide the
Enchanta
somewhere until the day of the first race?" she
whispered, tracing the line of his brow in the deepening September
twilight.

"I don't see how. She's not
that
small a yacht."

"I dread having to face your friends, Aaron.
I can't expect them all to be as indifferent to my position as Mr.
McAllister was."

"Nonsense. Most of my friends are—call them
philosophers, Tess. They're a tolerant bunch."

The sun's red flames hid the flush in her
cheeks. "You mean, they all have lovers too?"

"It's not unusual, Tess. You see how it is
in Newport: the wives are busy running their three-ring circuses
while their husbands stay behind in the City earning the money to
pay for it all. After all, to spend half a million in Newport in
eight weeks is not unusual. Add to that, the marriages are almost
never love matches. Does it surprise you that the men take
lovers?"

"It surprises me that you speak of it so
easily," she said quietly. "When Mrs. Gould was alive, did
you—"

"Yes."

"Oh. And afterward—"

"Of course. But none, none like you. I sound
like a dotard, I know. Well, maybe this is what age and experience
have taught me: to know the real thing when at last I see it. But
you are so young. How can you know the sound of truth when you hear
it?" he asked her sadly. "I love you, Tess."

"You love your friends as well," she
countered.

"There are many kinds of love, Tess. Do you
care for Maggie any less because you are with me?"

"I suppose I must," she answered, staring at
the dark, rippling wake of the
Enchanta.
"I'm taking from
her to give to you."

"That's your head speaking, Tess, not your
heart."

"It may be. No doubt it's my head that tells
me I must make choices while you seem not to have the need."

"Let's not travel that road, darling," he
said in a warning voice. Perhaps you should consider sending Maggie
more money; I can write a check—"

"Maggie needs more than money. Money is not
enough!"

"Money will have to do," he answered
quietly.

They went below after that, and supper was a
quiet affair.

At ten o'clock, when Aaron proposed going to
bed, Tess begged off with the excuse that she needed to work up an
inventory of materials for her shop. She stared resolutely at the
list before her as he said, "Don't tire yourself. We have a long
cruise tomorrow."

Two hours later, sleepy and unhappy, she
dragged herself off to bed. A light was burning low, enough for her
to see that Aaron was lying on his back, his arms cradled behind
his head.

She began to undress herself in silence.

In a calm voice Aaron said, "Do you want
Maggie to join us on the
Enchanta,
Tess? Would that make you
happy?"

Tess paused in her nakedness, holding a silk
gown to her breast. "I would die of shame," she answered.

"Do you want me to release you from your
promise to stay?" he asked, still staring at the overhead.

"I don't know," she whispered.

He rolled his head to look at her. "I can
have you put ashore in the morning. No apologies, no regrets."

She winced, then sat beside him on the bed,
the little French gown cast aside. "I have been so miserable
tonight, Aaron, more than I ever thought possible."

"Is the converse true? Have you been happier
these past few days than you ever thought possible?" he asked with
a wan smile, trailing a forefinger across the top of her
breasts.

"What do
you
think?"

"Well—at least you haven't thrown me off my
boat yet."

She sighed and bent over him, her rich red
hair tumbling over her shoulders. "How can you laugh when we have
so little time left together?"

"It's that or tear out my hair and rail at
the gods, Tessie. I don't mind being an old man, but I'd rather not
be a bald old man."

She smiled and climbed into bed alongside
him. "How old are you really?" she asked, testing his shoulder with
little bites.

"Ah. Old enough to have a daughter older
than you: two score and nine well-worn years."

"Am I like Vanessa?" Tess asked in a voice
muffled by the pillow.

"Not even a little bit. You're twice as
mature, twice as pretty, twice as clever, and—"

"Twice as rich?" she finished, laughing at
the absurdity.

"Maybe not yet. Give the stock a chance to
grow."

She lifted her head. "I don't own any
stock."

"Ah, but you do. I've put together a little
nest of eggs for you. Shares in Standard Oil, American Telephone
and Telegraph, Consolidated Edison, J. P. Morgan, Homestake
Mining... Atlantic Richfield of course, and one other—ah, yes, U.S.
Rubber. I should also do something for you in banks; I really
should ...."

Tess became quiet. "I wish you hadn't told
me that. I wanted to tell you that I love you, but now the words
will sound cheap and forced."

He placed two fingers on her lips. "Save
them, in that case—for after we've made love. They will sound dear
and unbidden."

The
Enchanta
and her half-dozen
guests bobbled aimlessly on the water with the hundreds of other
yachts, steamers, and tugboats gathered around Sandy Hook Light for
the start of the first race of the 1895 America's Cup defense. The
winds were light and public fascination with the event was high:
the result was a huge spectator fleet, including scores of small
daysailers which had no real business out on the ocean—so, at
least, said Captain Oberlin as he slewed the
Enchanta
first
to port, then to starboard, to avoid a twenty-foot sloop whose
overladen, open cockpit was filled with cheering, waving young men
and women.

The atmosphere was that of a carnival: sixty
thousand spectators had taken to a small patch of the North
Atlantic to see the American yacht
Defender
do battle with
the English yacht
Valkyrie III
. Anything that could be made
to float, had. There was much bailing in the smaller boats; more
than one sank out from under naïve owners who then had to be
rescued by sturdier craft. Hairbreadth escapes from collisions were
routine, as small, quick sloops darted under the bows and bowsprits
of the larger, less agile yachts; fists that weren't raised in
salutes were raised with hearty curses.

The air was filled with smoke from the
stacks of double- and triple-decked excursion and ferry boats whose
captains, plagued by the floating riffraff, seemed to be giving as
well as they were getting. The din of horns and bells—and even, on
one yacht, of bagpipes—made it difficult to hear or speak. Hopes
were high for a repeat of the last race of the 1893 defense, which
the American yacht
Vigilant
won over the Earl of Dunraven's
Valkyrie II
by a mere forty seconds, a race that
The New
York Times
had stated was "probably the greatest battle of
sails that was ever fought."

America was eager to win again, and nobody
liked the Earl of Dunraven anyway.

That was the consensus of the four men who
hovered around Tess on the afterdeck of the
Enchanta
, three
of whom kept elbowing one another for the privilege of bringing her
up to speed on the recent history of the America's Cup.