By The Sea, Book One: Tess (7 page)

"Tess! Are you all right?" asked Livia,
helping her to her feet.

Tess wasn't all right, but she lied, forcing
a smile through her pain.

"Good. I do have to go. Mistress gets a
little wild with impatience before a ball."

"And Miss Susan will want to know why the
mare reared up," Sarah chimed in. "Oh, there, look at her face—oh
lord, she's furious," she moaned, suddenly less confident. "And all
because of some stupid rabbit."

They scurried to their mistresses like small
gray squirrels, leaving Tess to manage for herself. As she stood
with her weight on her good foot, hesitant to step on the injured
ankle, distraught lest she attract attention, one gentleman broke
from a nearby pack enjoying their cigars and approached her.

"Good evening, Tess," said Edward Hillyard.
"I saw what happened." His voice, like his dress, was more formal
than before. "It seems I find myself once more offering
assistance."

"And once more I find myself grateful but
managing nicely, thank you, sir," Tess answered, resolutely
allowing her weight to fall on the injured ankle. She gasped but
did not falter.

"Tess, you
are
hurt," he said,
concerned. "Take my arm."

"Oh Lord, sir, I couldn't!" This was
horrible. Hillyard's friends were staring curiously. And where was
Miss Cornelia?

"You can and shall, my fair lass. Or would
you rather I gathered you up in my arms and carried you through the
Great Hall and past the receiving line—or in this case, throne?
Have you ever dreamed of making a grand entrance, Tess?" he asked
in a warm, teasing voice.

It electrified her. "I will take your arm,
sir," she agreed quickly. Hesitantly she took a step, her hand
barely touching his sleeve.

"Lean on me, dammit."

"I don't dare."

"Do drop this obsession with caste.
Lean."

She did, and was grateful for his aid. His
handsome form towered over her in the dark night, and for one
split, hallucinatory second Tess pictured how it might be, if he
were her partner at a ball.

Insanity.

Although the pain in her ankle was sharp,
with every step she was becoming more used to it, and at the end of
a dozen steps she said, "It isn't so bad as I thought, sir. I'm
fine now." And with what was left of her strength she let go of his
arm and hurried through the oak entrance doors to catch up with her
mistress.

Inside she was dazzled by a vast expanse of
spotless marble floor which led to another set of doors, these of
massive wrought iron, beyond which was a second entrance hall.
Cornelia was there, talking with friends. When she spied Tess she
pounced. "You at last! Did you break your leg, that you idle so?
Oh! You can be infuriating," she hissed.

Cornelia ascended a short flight of steps,
and Tess, limping behind her, saw by the set of her shoulders that
if for any reason the night was not a success,
she
would be
at fault.

My days at Beau Rêve are numbered
,
Tess thought bleakly
.
And Maggie's
as well. Where
will we go?

Now they were in the Great Hall, about which
Tess had heard so much. Rumors had not done it justice. It was
soaring, cavernous, beyond ornate. Four crystal and bronze
chandeliers, each large enough to hold several footmen, hung thirty
feet from the ceilings, and still they towered high over the
guests. A balcony of massive wrought iron railings completely
encircled the hall, allowing guests to look down on the new
arrivals from a height of several stories. The hall floor, of
polished marble and covered with a vast red carpet, was dotted with
a dozen and a half silver-buttoned footmen in maroon livery who
were positioned there for no other reason than to direct traffic.
Awestruck debutantes were led to a vast, curved marble staircase
leading to dressing rooms off the balcony above; their beaux were
directed to a staircase descending to rooms below.

Cornelia, clearly staggered, did her best to
affect a jaded response. "Such cleverness all around, don't you
think?" she was saying to a young friend her own age. "See how
they've worked the Vanderbilt acorn motif onto every possible
surface. There are acorns everywhere: gilt, bronze, marble, wood.
It does seem a bit too much," she added in a lower voice, "but then
...." And she lifted her eyes heavenward in a sweeping indictment
of the excesses surrounding them.

The young friend tapped Cornelia's wrist
with her fan. "Cornelia, you're such a cat," she chimed.

The two women took chairs at adjacent
dressing tables and their maids got down to business. Owing to the
skill with which Tess had arranged and pinned Cornelia's hair, it
was holding up remarkably well. Cornelia's friend was not so lucky:
her brown hair, very fine and distressingly limp, trailed off
exhausted in different directions, and not until Tess got drawn
into the reconstruction did an appealing effect result.

"Marvelous!" gushed Cornelia's friend.
"Cornelia, hold onto this one, or I'll snatch her from you the
first chance I get!" she warned.

Cornelia managed to look amused, but Tess
saw the telltale vein in her temple begin to throb. "Yes ... if
only her manners were as nimble as her hands," Cornelia said with a
languid look at herself in the mirror.

Maid and mistress exchanged glances: Tess's,
calm and apparently unruffled: Cornelia's, pouty and angry. The two
debutantes rose to rejoin their partners and be announced by the
butler to the dazzling assembly circling to the music of two
orchestras in the glittering gold and white ballroom. Tess was on
her own.

The night, as ball nights go, was in its
infancy; Tess and hundreds of other attendants had a long wait
ahead of them. The more seasoned of the maids had retired to quiet
corners or to the servants' hall with their needlework, conserving
their energy. The younger, livelier ones jockeyed for glimpses of
the new arrivals and dissected their gowns with cruel deliberation.
Tess, as usual, did not feel comfortable in either camp, and
besides, her ankle, though better, was still painful.

For an hour or two she sat quietly, mulling
over the future of the Morans, until at last an older maid, Mrs.
Nevins, came up to her and said, "Tess, you look quite done in. Are
you ill? Too much excitement?" She was a matronly woman, plump and
kind and well liked, even by the younger, ruthless ones.

"I am
a bit ... off, just now," Tess
said with a tentative smile.

"You come with me, my dear. A cup of tea and
a breath of air is what you need."

Tess, limping slightly, let herself be led
downstairs; the idea of tea sounded irresistible.

"You ought to have that ankle wrapped, you
know," Mrs. Nevins said after Tess explained the coach
accident.

Tess refused, but Mrs. Nevins was
unimpressed. Her satchel contained repairs for any emergency, and
she produced a bandage and a collapsible tin cup. "Now wrap the
spot up snugly—go on, right over your hose is fine. And while
you're doing that, I'll get you tea."

Tess did as she was told—it was heavenly,
being attended to, for once—and in a few minutes Mrs. Nevins had
her settled in nicely on a long bench of pine in a quiet corner of
the servants' hall, sipping tea.

"I'll return your cup when I'm done," Tess
promised as the woman took her leave.

She's a saint,
Tess thought.
Something about her reminded Tess of Lady Meller, and tears of
homesickness welled in her eyes. She did not want to be stared at,
so she took her little tin cup of tea and slipped outside for a
little air. Although most of the footmen were out in the Vanderbilt
stables with the coachmen exchanging stories, a dozen or so of the
bolder maids and younger men were lounging near the servants'
entrance, laughing and flirting in the dark.

Tess stood a little away from them, nursing
her hurt, nursing her sense of injustice. She despised herself for
giving in to self-pity, but still the tears welled. Amid the gaiety
around her, her tears seemed unbearably stupid; she brushed them
away angrily.
It's my time of month, that's all 'tis. It's true,
what they say; it
is
a curse.

When she brought herself under control and
looked up, he was there: talking to a footman, being pointed in her
direction. Even in the dark there was no mistaking him, or escaping
him. Quite irrationally, the thought that he was pursuing her left
her devastated. One of Mr. Pearson's foxes might have felt the same
as it found itself trapped in a rotted log, the sound of barking
dogs clamoring in its ears.

"Ah, there you are, Tess," Hillyard said
pleasantly. "What an elusive sprite you can be. I've inquired
everywhere after you."

"Is your room not perfectly in order then,
sir?" she asked dryly.

"I didn't deserve that, Tess. His voice was
calm but slightly annoyed.

"In that case, sir, please accept my
apology. Naturally I assumed that any inquiries on your part would
be of a professional nature." She had drunk the last of her tea;
now, with great deliberation, she collapsed the tin cup down, down
on itself.

"Well, you assumed wrong. My inquiries are
of a simple, humanitarian nature. Good God, Tess—Diamond Jim Brady
doesn't get his dukes up as quickly as you! Now: is your ankle any
better or not, dammit?"

There was such frustrated good will in his
tone that Tess was barely able to keep the smile out of her voice
as she answered, "Well—not to say worse, sir. I think it's better.
I'm standing here with you, after all."

She
was
standing there with him. Not
only did Tess not feel any pain, she felt suddenly a little
lightheaded and free-floating besides.

"I'm delighted, Tess—on both counts."

The aroma of good cigars clung to his
jacket. His dark hair was smooth, unmussed. Somehow he did not have
the look of a man who had spent the last two hours in compulsive
merriment; that pleased Tess, somehow.

"Is the dancing as splendid as the
Vanderbilt's new 'cottage,' sir?"

"You're asking the wrong man, Tess. I've
scarely noticed. It's just another ball," he added. "Same
orchestras; same roses; same silly cotillion danced by the same
frivolous debutantes. Same family fortunes being compared and
merged. Same idleness. Same emptiness."

"Same shortage of men, sir?" she asked
mischievously. It was a notorious problem at Newport balls.

"Ah, Tess, you've hit on it there. They may
not need me to break any hearts, but they
damn
well need me
to keep the ballgowns twirling."

Surprised at his bitterness, she said, "And
yet there seem to be a great many naval officers present."

"Ah, yes, the military. Neat, precise; can
be counted on to smile pleasantly and round out the guest list—same
class of fellow as me."

"You're being very hard on yourself,
sir."

"Not nearly hard enough. I shouldn't even be
here," he said flatly.

"Oh, I know
,
sir," she agreed,
misinterpreting his remark. "It was very kind of you to inquire
about my—" She paused to remember which part of her had been
injured, it seemed so long ago. "—my ankle; but of course I
understand."

"No, no—not here with
you.
I mean I
shouldn't even be in Newport. It's an absurd, irritating town: a
matriarchal society, run by and for women."

"Excuse me, sir. 'Matriar ....'"

"The men in Newport society, Tess, have
neither dignity nor, for all I know, the right to vote. That's what
'matriarchal' means. It's demeaning to move about in such company.
And the women here
are
insufferable: insensitive, callous.
Shockingly ignorant. Inarticulate."

"Why do you stay on, then?" she asked, taken
aback. It was fashionable to speak of boredom with one's set; but
this ....

He shrugged. "I stay because people ask me
to. I've been with various acquaintances—I dare not call them
'friends' after that little diatribe—for the last several weeks.
But it's pointless to stay on. I've been invited to New York to
view the America's Cup races next month, but since there is no
greater abomination than wallowing aimlessly in the ocean as part
of a spectator fleet, I think I'll pass. I'll probably finish out
the season in Saratoga."

"Oh. You have a house there?"

"I have a friend there."

"Oh. Are ... are the ladies in Saratoga so
much more clever than in Newport, then?"

She had not meant the question to amuse him,
but apparently it did, because he tapped her nose lightly with his
forefinger and said, "In a strange way they are, lass. There is
less hypocrisy. The men have their horses and their women-friends
and—well, their amusements, in short. And their wives either put up
with it or they don't set foot in the resort."

"Does that mean that Saratoga is pa ...
patriar-chal?" she ventured timidly.

His dark eyes lifted over a smile. "Right
you are, Tess."

"Mrs. Winward would never go there then, I
suppose," she said wistfully. Mrs. Winward was definitely
matriarchal.

He laughed out loud, which made the
footmen's heads turn and Tess blush a shade of red nearly as deep
as her hair.

"Out of the mouths of babes ..." Hillyard
began. "Ah, Tess, you're a southwest breeze, fresh and cool from
the ocean. I'd love to stay and talk to you all night, but I dare
not miss the next cotillion." He pulled out a gold watch on a fob
and angled it toward a lighted window. "Oh damn, late! Hell to pay
now. Tess—" He took Tess's hand, and she yanked it away instantly,
which made him laugh again. "A true sou'wester, you are. I must
talk to you again. Soon. I'm delighted you don't hurt anymore. Good
night."

Even before his form was swallowed up by
darkness, one of the maids, young, rippling with envy, sidled up to
Tess. "Aiming our bow a bit high nowadays, aren't we? Peter Boot
will be interested to know of this little tit-a-tit, I think."