Fateful (14 page)

Myriam’s not in our cabin, but the Norwegian ladies are. They’re sitting together on a lower bunk, looking through a tattered old scrapbook. We give each other the friendly, uncomprehending smiles we’ve settled on as our main form of communication. Then I get to work.

No uniforms at all for a few blessed hours. I first reach into my bag for what I’d planned to wear today, which is what I usually wear on my afternoons off: a simple dark blue dress that I sewed for myself, with a high neck and a fit loose enough to keep my father from suggesting that I’m a sinful woman likely to follow my sister’s damnable path. It would have been fine for whiling away a few hours on the third-class deck.

But now I will be in first class. With Alec. Nobody would remark if I wore this, but I don’t want to.

Instead I dig deeper into the bag, to the very bottom, until my fingers touch lace.

One of the few perks of being a ladies’ maid is that you sometimes get to keep discarded items of their clothing. I have a pair of Irene’s old leather gloves, a cheery red, even if the fingertips and palms are worn. She provided my good warm coat, too, when it went out of style; I don’t care about that in mid-January. And then, a few months ago, Lady Regina decided this dress, the lacy one now in my hands, wasn’t the sort of thing she wanted her daughter to be seen in.

But Lady Regina and I have very different ideas of style.

The satin is rose-colored, a deep, vivid shade. The beaded lace overlay is almost the same color, but slightly darker, so that the contrast better outlines the figure. The overlay drapes over the slim sleeves that end just above the elbow, providing a soft silhouette. A high waist, just beneath the bust, and neckline deep enough to attract attention but not so deep as to attract gossip. It’s as beautiful a dress as I’ve ever seen, and I’ve only worn it the once, when I tried it on in my attic to make sure I could really keep it. The only alteration I had to make was to the hemline—Irene’s shorter than I am—but there was enough extra satin at the hem to let it out. I took it mostly because I thought it was too beautiful to throw away; I never imagined having an occasion worthy of wearing it.

Dare I wear it on deck? To stand up for the first time and declare myself as something more than a servant? Yes, I decide. I dare.

First things first. I take a comb to my hair and give it some meaningful attention. Most days, I just pull it up under my linen cap, because with that thing on my head, there’s no point in doing much else. But I’ve been styling Irene’s hair for a while now, and I know my job. It’s a little different, doing this to my own hair by feel, instead of to someone else by sight. But before long I’ve gathered my ample curls into a loose bun at the back of my head, fluffing up the front so that I have a perfect Gibson Girl do.

Now, my face. No decent woman paints her face, only prostitutes and actresses. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t a few tricks to try. This morning, I surreptitiously “borrowed” a couple of Irene’s pink papers—little sheets of blotting powder that keep the skin from becoming too shiny. The powder is gently tinted pink to add some bloom. I pat one of the papers across my nose, chin, and forehead until I no longer look pale and drawn in my reflection in the porthole. Of course, the smile on my face might have something to do with that too.

Really, I don’t have proper shoes, but the dress is long enough to hide that. I slip into the gown. Now, if I can only get the buttons done up. It’s hard because they’re in the back, but usually I manage.

Then one of the Norwegian ladies steps up and fastens the buttons. Her hands shake a bit with age. I smile at her over my shoulder and say, “Thank you.” No doubt she understands my meaning, if not the words. She just nods.

The other lady goes through her bag until she comes up with a knotted lace handkerchief. She unties it to reveal what must be her most precious possession—a pair of real pearl earrings, and not small pearls, either. Lady Regina herself would envy them. Then she holds one up to my ear and nods.

“Oh, I couldn’t!” But they insist, screwing them onto my ears themselves. I’ve never worn any jewelry before, much less anything fine. Their style is extremely dated; they must have been handed down for generations. But I think I like their simple lines more than the ornate clips that are all the rage these days. The weight of the pearls feels strange on my earlobes. And yet it’s a thrill too. When I go to first class, I’ll look as if I belong there.

I feel a surge of defiance. All these years of tending to other people’s hair and clothes, always feeling that I could outshine any debutante or socialite in the world if only I got the chance—well, now I’ve got it.

There’s no mirror in the room, but I don’t need one. I know how I look from the smiles on the old ladies’ faces.

“Thank you,” I whisper again. From the pocket of my uniform I withdraw my felt purse with my savings, and I press it into the hands of the one who has loaned me the earrings. It’s my way of saying,
You trusted me with your most valuable possession, so I’ll trust you with mine
. And I know she understands.

When I travel back to first class in the lift, the operator boy stares at me, his jaw slightly open. Obviously he’d like to ask about the transformation, but he doesn’t—even the appearance of wealth makes people treat you differently, I realize.

That becomes even more clear to me when I walk to the grand staircase. I’ve done it before, trailing after Irene or Lady Regina a couple of times. But then I was in servant’s clothing and therefore invisible. Now I am myself. And I am seen.

Women’s eyes examine the fashionable gown and the pearl earrings, and I can see them asking themselves who I am, whether they should have noticed me before, and trying to connect me to various fine families from
Burke’s Peerage
. Men’s eyes—that’s different. Before, they either ignored me or sized me up the way they might a piece of meat. Their appreciation is less crude now, and yet more avid, because they think I have a title or a fortune to match my beauty. It might impress me more if I hadn’t seen the other side of it. Whispers follow me along the staircase, tracing my path.

As I reach the bottom of the steps, one of the doors to the deck opens and Alec walks through. He wears a pale gray suit, as beautifully tailored to his body as the others he owns. The sea breeze tousles his unruly chestnut curls. He glances around the hallway, looking for me. It takes him a moment to recognize the well-dressed woman walking toward him, but I know the second he does.

It’s less as if he sees me and more as if . . . something happens to him. Some of the loneliness falls away. Whatever it is, it happens to me too. The change in me goes deeper than my clothes; when I’m with Alec, I’m someone new, someone more like the person I always wanted to be. The space between us closes, and not only because we’re walking toward each other.

“Obviously there’s more to you than meets the eye,” he says, instead of hello.

“That makes two of us, doesn’t it?”

Alec laughs, half in surprise. “May I escort you to luncheon?”

It’s as if he doesn’t remember that this is about keeping me safe. But I can’t blame him for it—I’ve all but forgotten myself. I put on an imitation of Lady Regina’s prim face, which makes him grin even wider. “I would be delighted.”

Alec offers me his arm, and I take it as if I had done so a hundred times before. I don’t remember that I’m playing a role; I don’t remember the danger Alec represents. Mikhail is banished to the realm of bad memory. I’m lost in the moment, and in my companion.

Instead of dining among the first-class passengers at the formal luncheon, we go to the à la carte restaurant. This allows us to order whatever we want from the menu, and have it delivered shortly thereafter—quite fancy. We sit at a table spread with linen and china as a waiter lays out a proper luncheon for us. I give the server a smile, though it’s awkward; normally servers are ignored by the served, and both parties like it better that way. But I know only how not to be noticed—it’s impossible for me to pretend a servant’s not visible.

Soon, though, I can pay attention only to Alec. We have no need of small talk; we’re so far past that already.

“I suppose you would have run your father’s steel business someday, if you weren’t—if you weren’t going to live on the frontier.”

“That was never what I wanted,” Alec says as we sit together, watching the brilliant blue sea out the window before us. It’s almost uncommonly still. We seem almost to be suspended in the sky rather than floating on the water. “Dad supported me, too, God bless him. So many fathers want their sons to fit into the mold they define for them.”

“Not only fathers.” I think of how Lady Regina puts Irene down for what she isn’t, instead of appreciating her daughter for what she is. “Well, if you weren’t going to take over Marlowe Steel, what would you have done?”

Alec seems almost shy. “My whole life, I grew up around my father’s work, but it was never running the mills or selling the product that inspired me. It was seeing the blueprints and plans they would bring him. The idea that you could measure the weight and dimensions of a building that didn’t yet exist, and then will it into being—that was like magic to me. So I’ve been studying architecture. First back home in Chicago, with a man named Frank Lloyd Wright, and then at Columbia University. In Paris, I tried to keep it up—even got to meet with Gustave Eiffel, but it wasn’t the same.” He smiles, though there’s sadness behind it. “I had wanted to work with steel, just in a different way. I wanted to—bend it into arches. Sink it deep in the earth to hold up a building taller than anyone’s ever seen before. Architecture is the best of art and the best of business. The marriage of beauty and purpose.”

I feel his love for it as though it were my own. “You mustn’t give it up.”

“What choice do I have?”

“You were able to study in Paris, weren’t you?”

Alec looks away from me, staring resolutely at the Atlantic. “I can’t repeat my mistakes in Paris.”

I remember the rumors about his romance with the actress Gabrielle Dumont. Did he break her heart, or did she break his? “You did your best—”

“My best wasn’t nearly good enough.” Guilt shadows his features now, so deep he looks almost sick. Does he regret breaking Gabrielle’s heart? “I can never fall into the trap of living among people again. Of—hurting them. Others had to suffer for me to learn that lesson.”

How he must have loved her. Stupid of me to be jealous, so I try hard to put it aside and stick to the subject. “You could design buildings no matter where you lived. Couldn’t you simply mail them the blueprints?”

“It’s not the designing I can’t do. It’s—making business contacts. Going out and winning new clients. Working in a noted studio. None of those will be possible when I’m in Montana or Idaho or wherever else I wind up.”

“If only you knew someone connected to the construction industry,” I say innocently. “Say, maybe, one of the world’s leading suppliers of steel.”

He half laughs at the joke but doesn’t yet turn back to me. “I didn’t want to use my father’s name to get ahead. I wanted to make it myself, without any unfair advantages.”

“Spoken as only someone with advantages can.” I gesture at him with my fork for emphasis. “Listen to me. If I had a rich father or connections that would help me do whatever I wanted in life, do you think I’d be polishing Miss Irene’s shoes? As far as I can see, in this world, you’re a fool for not using whatever gifts you’re given. It’s not as though you lied or cheated or stole to get Howard Marlowe as your father. That’s who he is; that’s who you are. You got dealt a bad card when you were bitten—so use one of the better cards you have in your hand to make up for it.”

He finally looks at me once more, and his eyes search mine. “You don’t talk like a girl who plans to be a ladies’ maid her whole life.”

“I don’t.” I’m glad I admitted this to Myriam before; it makes it easier to say now. “I’ve saved enough money to give notice once we arrive in New York City. It took me almost two years, but I did it.”

“That shows real courage, Tess. Real determination.” Alec nods slowly as he picks up his tea, and the admiration I see in his face makes me feel warm and giddy. “I think you’re a remarkable woman.”

“And I think you’re a remarkable man.” I sound positively brazen. So I hasten to add, “In ways besides the obvious, I mean.”

He laughs again. Did I say before that it felt as if we were suspended in the sky? That’s not right at all. It’s more like soaring.

We leave the restaurant to stroll along the deck, which turns out to be much more pleasant when I’m not following Lady Regina with shawls in hand. Alec doesn’t point out anyone “worth knowing”—instead we talk about songs we both like (“On Moonlight Bay”), and buildings in New York I must try to view (the Candler Building, under construction, and he is wild to see it himself). I share some funny stories from my time in service. Though Alec doesn’t find all of them as funny as I do.

“Wait, it’s so cold in your attic that the water freezes at night?” He can’t wrap his head around it. “They don’t have heating there? Even a fire?”

“Who’d waste firewood on the servants?” Honestly, it never occurred to me to wish for a fire. Getting one was so obviously out of the question.

“But that’s cruel. Who would do that to people, particularly those who live in your home with you?”

“Your family must have servants. Do they all have fires?”

I expect this to cow him, but it doesn’t. “The three servants who live with us have decent quarters, heated by the same furnace that serves our rooms.”

Surely I didn’t hear that correctly. “Three?”

“The cook, the driver, and the housekeeper. My father and I don’t need anything more, and honestly, I’m not sure what the driver’s been doing with himself the past couple of years.”

“But—how do you get dressed in the morning?” I think of Ned’s grumbling about how picky Layton has become during his interminable preparations each day.

Alec laughs out loud. “I put my trousers on one leg at a time, and it works perfectly well, I promise.”