By The Sea, Book One: Tess (5 page)

It was late morning. Tess had thrown open
the windows of the Blue Room and had emptied and rinsed the pans,
scrubbed the basin, removed and cleaned the slop pail, and was in
the process of shaking and turning the featherbed before placing
the mattress back on top of it. It was an awkward job, better done
by two; but Tess was making the best of it when a voice from behind
her said, "Oh, blast! I've come at the wrong time, have I?"

Still clutching the ungainly featherbed,
Tess turned to look behind her. "Oh, I'm sorry, sir," she said,
surprised to see a guest in his room at that hour. She recognized
the gentleman instantly: impossible to forget the dark, thick
mustache and the alert, friendly blue eyes that had prompted poor
Maggie to smile and wave. Besides, Tess had listened to Cornelia
and her sister speculating at length one night about their
houseguest. It was decided that Edward Hillyard could charm a
hummingbird away from its nectar; but as for money, he had not
enough.

The handsome guest made no move to enter the
room, but only stood watching Tess with a somewhat distracted
look.

"I ... I'm running a bit late," Tess
explained. "Is there a convenient time when you'd like me to
return?"

"No, no, stay right where you are," he said
quickly, lowering his voice. "The plain fact is, I'm hiding from
that insufferable ... well, never mind. But do me a favor, would
you? No one can possibly think to look for me here, with you
turning out the room. I'll just sit quiet as a churchmouse in that
corner with my copy of
Town Topics,
until you've done. They
ought to be well away on their picnic by then." He favored Tess
with a quick, almost shy flash of white, even teeth.

"Ehh ..." It was an Irish syllable, a
stammer of indecision which she'd been trying desperately to purge
from her speech pattern. "Ehh ... I ... don't think I ought to
stay, sir. Truly ...."

"Nonsense! I'm going to neither bite nor
compromise you, young woman. Stay and finish your work. I'm a
fugitive from society just now, utterly desperate for a quiet
moment. Do go on."

And that ended the matter. Mr. Hillyard took
up a position in a frail-looking Louis XV chair, crossed his legs,
opened the pages of his newspaper, and appeared to immerse himself
in the latest Newport scandals.

Tess, at a loss for what to do, resumed her
plumping of the featherbed. She was nearly finished with the room,
but still, it was awkward—doubly so, since the man was the same
who'd caused her the spasm of mortification on Bellevue Avenue.

Eventually the impatient crinkle of turning
pages ceased, and Tess felt rather than saw his gaze addressed to
her. It was a very different feeling to be stared at by a
well-dressed gentleman while you worked than it was to be the
object of a footman's gaze. Peter Boot's ardent intensity had been
predictable, and also indiscriminate: he would stare at most anyone
with a pulse. But when a gentleman noticed that you weren't just
another piece of furniture—it was flattering. She colored,
intensely self-conscious of the movement of her breasts as she
fluffed and shook the cumbersome featherbed.

"Here, let me help you with that," he said,
tossing his paper aside and approaching, despite her protests.
"What's your name?"

"Tess, sir, and I'm managing quite well
myself, thank you," she said in a gentle rebuff.

"Of course you are, but you'll never last at
this pace. I've heard about the servants' mutiny last week—is there
a house in Newport that hasn't been convulsed by one this
summer?—and I'm willing to lay odds that you're doubling up as head
coachman on Tuesdays and Thursdays."

That brought a grin of appreciation from
Tess, although she cut it off almost as soon as it formed. "You're
very kind," she said as she smoothed the featherbed into place with
his help, then lifted the second mattress and placed it atop the
featherbed.

He ambled back to his seat and took up the
newspaper, but immediately he put it down again. "Surely I've seen
you out and about somewhere. You haven't always been a chambermaid,
have you?"

"No, sir," Tess answered as she smoothed the
rest of the bedding over. "I'm only helping out for the moment. I
attend to Miss Cornelia—although before that I did do work as a
laundry maid," she added with scrupulous accuracy.

"Ah, Miss Cornelia's maid—of course. It was
you who brought Cornelia her cape after the sea breeze set in
during croquet the other afternoon. How could I have forgotten?"
His blue eyes narrowed appreciatively at the memory. "At first I
mistook you for one of the guests as you glided across the lawn
with the cape on your arm. You quite outdazzled your mistress,
Tess. I'm amazed the vain Cornelia has the confidence to keep you
near," he said with a short laugh.

"Please—it's not for me to hear this," Tess
said quickly. His idle chatter was giving her immense pleasure, but
it had the odd effect of making her unsatisfied and unhappy. And
fearful that he might be heard. Tess began gathering up her things;
she was done.

For a moment the dark-haired guest said
nothing. Then he stood up once more, and in two strides across the
room had her hand in his. As Tess stood mesmerized, her look
fastened on the elegant hands that held hers, Hillyard said
quietly, "I hope you'll forgive me, Tess," and bent over her hand,
dropping a light kiss on it. "I spoke remarkably out of turn. Thank
you for putting me in my place. How unlike a woman of your
situation not to smile and look flattered!"

He let go of her hand while Tess, feeling
despairingly humble, juggled pails and rags and dirty linen.

"It's extraordinary," he said, more to
himself than to her. "One who'd add luster to the Court of St.
James itself is wasted here making beds, while all around her flit
idle creatures with pasty faces and hearts like steel. Tess,
your
heart is warm, I'm sure of it," he cried, inviting her
assent.

Tess, by now staring openly at the earnest,
impulsive guest standing between her and the doorway, said, "I'd
like to think it is, sir."

He smiled reassuringly. "And I'd like to
think there's intelligence, too, behind those green eyes. Is there,
Tess? Or are you like the females you've caught me hiding from—all
of them hop-hop-hopping along, never thinking why," he said in a
voice filled with sudden bitterness.

When Tess said nothing, but waited patiently
for him to move, he added in a tone that puzzled her with its
earnestness, "Answer me, Tess."

"Answer you
how,
sir?" Tess demanded
in frustration. "You see my situation. Whatever the level of my
intelligence, it can hardly affect the daily comings and goings at
the Court of St. James, can it? As to a warm heart, your bed will
be made equally well whether I possess one or not. Now, if you'll
excuse me, sir," she said, brushing past him, "I have to go
hop-hop- hopping along."

Afterward, Tess was appalled by her
impertinence. A lady's maid ought above all to practice patience
and discretion; she had shown neither. On the other hand, she'd
been put to the test while wearing her chambermaid's cap, and the
nobler virtues do not come easily to lesser domestics, she told
herself wryly.

And why had Edward Hillyard fastened his
attention on her in the first place? She relived the encounter yet
again: the way he'd burst angrily into his room, eager to escape
his friends; the way he'd seemed determined to see Tess as their
equal; the kiss—it could not have been done in jest—that he'd
bestowed on her hand. Tess was young, but she was not simple. She
knew full well that chambermaids were an inevitable temptation for
male guests. Newport hostesses adorned the upstairs rooms with
their most presentable females, just as they lined their drawing
rooms with handsome footmen; the malformed were kept downstairs. In
such a situation, a certain number of seductions were inevitable.
But few guests would be so indiscreet as to toy with a lady's maid.
And Mr. Hillyard did not seem to be the type to trifle, in any
case; he was far too ... earnest. It baffled her.

"Tessie, you're very quiet," Maggie said as
the two lay in their little cots that night.

"I know, Mag. I'm a bit tired." She sighed
and rolled over on her side.

"You know what the matter is, don't you,
Tess? You're like a candle with both ends lit. And it's all because
of me," Maggie added sadly.

"Put the thought right out of your head,
Mag. I've told you I can handle everything easily." Tess turned
back to her sister. "Any better today? You look better."

"Oh yes, I think so. Definitely better."

It was an act of hope, a prayer recited by
the two girls together, for there was nothing for them to do but
hope.

"Tess—Will was by today," Maggie said after
a pause.

"Is something wrong, then?" Tess asked
quickly.

"Well—yes and no. It looks as if Father will
get the smith's job down at the wharves, though the pay is less
than he'd hoped: Will says sixty cents a day to start. It's only
part-time. But there's a bit of a snag. Mr. Needham insists that
Father and Will be settled in someplace, and not to be staying with
friends. They need eleven dollars for two months' rent. Have we
that much, do you think?"

"Of course not, Maggie. Bring your head back
down from the clouds, would you?" Tess snapped.

"Oh! I didn't—" Immediately Maggie fell into
a fit of coughing, a racking, dry, utterly painful sound that
brought Tess to her sisters side like a shot, stroking her damp
black hair and holding her flushed cheek close to her breast.

"I'm so sorry, Maggie. Of course we'll find
the money. Somewhere ..."

"Oh, Tess," Maggie moaned between coughs,
"It's worse, it's worse, it's worse. I'm going to die, Tess."

"Shhh. Maggie Moran, you are not going to
die. I won't let you. Shhh. Tess bit back her tears and cursed
herself for her candor in front of Maggie, who no longer had any
tolerance for cold reality.

"Poor Maggie," Tess crooned as she lulled
her sister to sleep. "Poor sad little raven. Wouldn't it be the
grand tour that you need just now?"

She began to describe, in great detail, the
trip Maggie would someday take to the glittering resorts of Europe
and the exotic spas of South Africa and Australia—as soon as they'd
put "just a bit more by." It was a nourishing fantasy for the
ailing sister, an amalgam of fact and Tess's vivid imagination.
Tess dressed her sister in shimmering gowns, laced her round and
round with diamonds and pearls, and piled bouquets of jasmine and
violets and roses in her lap, pledges from her many adoring swains.
Every one of the beaux was inordinately handsome, divinely rich,
and every one of them was desperate to marry Maggie. And at every
stop of Maggie's imaginary tour, the air was sweet and warm and
dry.

But the reality of Maggie's life was that
the laundry room was killing her.

"Oh, Tessie, haven't you learned anything in
the last two weeks? Pull me in tighter, you stupid creature!"

Miss Cornelia's face was bright red, but
whether it was from excitement in preparing for Gertrude
Vanderbilt's coming-out ball, or whether it was a result of Tess's
having laced in her mistress's lungs to about half their former
capacity, Tess couldn't tell.

"Tighter!"

It was Tess's first attempt at manhandling
her mistress, and she would've liked to have practiced before an
event of such magnitude as tonight's, but it couldn't be helped:
Marie's fiancé had arrived by ship a day early, and that morning
Marie, with Gallic imperiousness, had announced that she would not
be available to Miss Cornelia in the evening. Some of Cornelia's
steam was still being vented, and Tess had the scald marks to show
for it. One thing was certain: Cornelia's waist would be somewhat
over the eighteen-inch mark which was
de
rigueur
for
debutantes. Cornelia's midsection had been thoroughly compressed
and artfully redistributed, and still there were three or four
inches left over.

"I do believe," Tess said, gasping, "that
there's nothing more to be done in that line, Miss Cornelia."

Cornelia stared stonily at her
satin-corseted image in the full-length gilded mirror. "I shall
never forgive Marie for this. Never," she said through clenched
teeth.

It seemed to Tess that Cornelia's waist was
less Marie's fault than it was too many of the summer ices and
sweets for which Cornelia had a passion, but she said soothingly,
"Your gown will hang on you like a flour sack if I lace you any
tighter, Miss Cornelia."

"Do you think so?" Cornelia demanded
petulantly. "Oh, and look at my
hair,"
she wailed. "It's
gone all droopy."

"The curling iron is heating, ma'am. You'll
be good as gold when you step into the brougham. Now—shall we
continue?" Tess asked dryly.

The wire bustle was belted on, nicely
balancing the pneumatic bust—Cornelia had none, to speak of, of her
own—that had been strapped on earlier. The physical adjustments and
compensations to Cornelia's imperfect form were complete: she was
ready for her gown.

Her dress was the latest and best that Paris
had to offer, shipped at God only knew what expense to Newport with
the waistline merely basted so that a final, perfect fitting could
be made. The adjustments had required a great deal of Tess's time
and skill, but the result was so outstanding that Cornelia, in a
fit of rapture, had presented Tess with a tiny cloisonné box from
France as a token of her gratitude. The locking mechanism was
broken, but the floral pattern was rich and colorful and had given
Maggie much pleasure.

One thing was true of Cornelia: she
understood perfectly the nuance of color. Her straw-blond hair,
which had been rinsed and re-rinsed with a special blend of tea
leaves to produce gold highlights where once there were none, and
her pale-pinkish skin were exactly suited to shades of blue and
green. The iridescent gown was both, or either, depending on the
light. By moonlight—Cornelia and Tess had tested it the night
before on the loggia of the Beau Rêve—it shone blue; but by
candlelight, green. The quandary was: sapphires or emeralds?
Cornelia could not make a decision.