“Beatrice!” he called out as I walked out of the Manor toward Clarissa just a few feet ahead of me. “Darling.” He waved me toward him. I looked from him to Clarissa, but she was getting farther away.
We were barely speaking to each other, Harry and I, except to put on a show in front of others at dinners. The only consistent communication between us was the envelope of cash he left for me at the front desk before he took the train back to the city on Sunday evenings. But for him to call me over when no one else was paying attention made me uneasy.
“Sweetheart.” He was all smiles as I approached. I looked around uncomfortably to see who was watching us and whom he was trying to impress, but everyone seemed distracted. “We need to talk,” he said. I hadn’t seen him smile for a long time. His eyes were bright and his teeth gleamed, his mouth relaxed, not the clenched, false smile I saw during dinners and deals and lies. He put both hands on my shoulders and rubbed them. I wanted to shake him off; his touch felt intrusive. “Let’s talk tonight before the party,” he said, trying to get his eyes on my level, to hold my gaze.
“It’s busy around here today,” I said, glancing back to Clarissa. “There are things to do.”
“Come on; let’s have a drink, just you and me,” he said, “before we make our entrance.”
I pointed to the group of women standing on the other side of the front lawn. “I have to get back,” I said. “But we can try, if there’s time.”
I walked briskly across the grass to check on the outdoor decorations. What could he want? If Jeanie had said something about Thomas, or even hinted, he would be furious, enraged. He wouldn’t be acting like this. There had to be some reason for this sudden change of attitude. It was probably the Fisher deal, I tried to reassure myself. Perhaps he wanted to make sure I’d say the right things to the right people as it was coming to a close. Or maybe it was the end of the summer that cheered him up and he was hoping we could go back to our normal lives in the city, where I had complied with more ease, and we could leave this rough patch of our marriage behind in Montauk. The more I tried to reassure myself, the more my stomach clenched with uncertainty.
* * *
It had been a week since I’d seen Thomas on the fishing pier, our longest spell of time apart, and I was desperate to see him. I couldn’t get the thought of our meeting out of my head and found myself playing out what it would be like to tell him the news, about the baby and our life together. I needed to tell him now. I had to see him first, before Harry.
Toward the end of the afternoon when everyone began to slip away to get ready for the evening ahead, I stopped at the front desk still hoping for a letter from the doctor’s office, but depending on it less and less because I already knew the answer.
“I don’t suppose I have any mail that came in late?” I asked the front desk clerk.
“Let me check, Mrs. Bordeaux,” he said. “No mail, I’m afraid. The post office did deliver a telegram, but your husband already picked it up.”
“Oh.” I barely got the word out, trying to catch my breath. “A telegram?” I had begged the nurse to send word of my pregnancy by telegram, but she’d refused. Surely she wouldn’t have done so now. The telegram would have to be something else, something to do with Harry’s investment; that’s all it could be, nothing to do with me. I took a deep breath, nodded and thanked him and began to walk away. Then I turned back. “You don’t happen to remember who it was from?” I asked over my shoulder.
“I believe,” he said, looking down to his message book and tapping his finger on the page. “Ah yes, it was from the office of Dr. C. Rosenberg in Manhattan.”
* * *
I called the doctor’s office from the downstairs telephone box and confirmed that they had sent news of my pregnancy by telegram.
“The doctor had clear forgotten to send the note in the mail,” the nurse said cheerfully. “I was sure you’d be happy to get the news as quickly as possible by telegram.”
I hung up the phone, and as I sat down on the stool a feeling of dread hit me.
* * *
After pacing my room, dressed, made up, trying to think where I could escape to, knowing it would be too risky to go to the lighthouse now, at this hour, dressed as I was, I decided to go to Elizabeth’s.
I sat in the back of the car sick with fear, queasy with each bump in the road. I caught a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror: bright red lips, perfectly waved hair, pulled back at one side with a crystal comb. But my face looked sickly, ashen grey skin, forehead furled with worry.
George tried to make small talk about the party preparations, but I couldn’t speak. I looked out of the window and tried to calm the thoughts in my mind. The nurse must have sympathized with me after all and sent a telegram to make up for the doctor’s delay. I ran my hand down the front of my dress, imagining a slight roundness that no one could possibly notice but me. But now Harry knew. If he thought the baby was his, it would explain the smugness, the smile, the talking. His slick grin and rubbing of my shoulders was his way of congratulating himself. He probably assumed it had been the night he forced himself on me. He was proud of himself for that. But I would never let him have the satisfaction.
Dear God, how would I escape him now? If he thought he had a child, a possible heir to his family name? I couldn’t see him. I couldn’t talk to him or tell him anything, not before I spoke to Thomas. I wished I hadn’t waited. Thomas would know what to do.
“Here we go, ma’am,” George said, coming round to my side and opening the door. “I’ll be right here for you.”
“Actually, George, I don’t think they are ready to leave immediately. I’m a little early and I know you have others that you need to pick up for the party. Why don’t you drive back over here in half an hour or so?”
He frowned. “But what will you do, ma’am, while you wait? You can wait in the car until they are ready.”
“It’s okay, George.” I managed a smile. “They’ve never been to anything like this before and I promised to offer advice on what to wear.”
“Oh,” he said, “my wife would have loved to have your nod of approval before coming tonight.”
“Please introduce her to me later. I’d love to meet her.”
It occurred to me that not a day had passed that summer when George hadn’t been standing at attention or polishing the car at the front of the Manor or chauffeuring guests around town. I’d seen him as a permanent fixture at the Manor and suddenly I realized we might soon be neighbors. His wife and I could become friends. I had thought of Thomas and me and our baby tucked away at the lighthouse. I hadn’t thought so much about making friends, buying groceries in town, sending our child to school with the other local children when he or she was older.
Walking among the lobster traps and soccer balls and crushed shells, pressed and trodden into the dirt, and up to Elizabeth’s doorway, I smoothed my elegant lavender silk dress down. Tiny violet rosettes formed cap sleeves just skimming my shoulders. I felt a bit ridiculous in this dress at this house, with this huge secret inside of me. Soon everything would change.
* * *
Elizabeth had tiny white feathers in her hair when she opened the door.
“I sent the boys out to find them,” she said. “They came home with a handful of seagull feathers, long and stiff.” She laughed. “So I sent them back out to find smaller ones. Kept them busy long enough for me to finish off the hem of this dress.”
She wore a white gown she had made herself, intricate and delicate, layered with various textured fabrics. You couldn’t tell that this was the result of not being able to afford a full four yards of any one fabric, instead piecing together scraps that her dressmaker friend had given her. But it looked as if it was meant to be.
“You look angelic,” I said.
“Oh no,” she said. “It’s going to be so different from everyone else’s.”
“That’s good. People pay a fortune to have a unique design. We must show your dress to
Dolly! She’ll love it.” I wondered if Dolly and I would remain friends or if it would be impossible to continue that friendship after making the drastic change I was planning. I wasn’t sure if there’d be a way to merge the old with the new.
“Most nights she’s been falling asleep mid-stitch with a needle in her hand,” Patrick said, coming into the living room dressed in a waistcoat, white shirt and trousers.
“Do we have to leave now?” Elizabeth asked, concerned.
“No, we’ve plenty of time. George is coming back in half an hour. Why? What’s the matter?”
“Oh, it’s nothing.” She shook her head.
“I brought you some lipstick,” I said. “And a few other things.” We sat down at the kitchen table. I draped a kitchen towel around her neck and shoulders and powdered her face slightly, blending a little rouge onto her cheekbones. I ran a soft powder puff across her brow. “Why are you frowning?” I asked. “Are you nervous about the ball?”
“No, no, it’s not that.”
“What is it?”
“It’s just that I got a new laundry job, someone recommended me to him and he’s paying really well, four times the amount that most pay me for the same job, except I pick up the laundry from his boat, so I suppose it’s a little more work to get there.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound like a problem.”
“No, but I washed his clothes this week, they were mostly fishing and sporting clothes, dark colored, and they were quite grubby, so I let them soak overnight in the bathtub.”
She looked like she might start crying.
“Elizabeth, surely you are not going to sob over some dirty laundry.” I set the makeup down. “What’s upsetting you so much?”
“Oh, it’s silly. It’s just that I didn’t realize there was some beautiful delicate lace lingerie in with the clothes, it looks terribly expensive, and I soaked it with the rest of his clothes and now it’s a horrible greyish-green, brown color. It must have cost a fortune and when he sees it I’m sure he’s going to make me pay for it.”
A tear actually fell from Elizabeth’s eye and she quickly wiped it up, apologizing for ruining the makeup. “It’s just that I’m sure I’m going to lose the job and it was really good money and we told the boys we were going to buy them each some new shoes this weekend. They start school on Tuesday. But now I reckon I’ll have to give the money back to pay for the damage.”
“Show me,” I said. “Maybe there’s something we can do to get the color out. I’ll bet it’s not nearly as bad as you think.”
She nodded and walked me out to the back where she had a maze of washing lines running back and forth across the yard. I’d never seen so much laundry in one place. There must have been seven families’ loads hanging out there, blowing gently in the breeze. We ducked under a few rows of trousers, shirts, undergarments and sporting vests until we came to the offending piece.
She was right; it was hideous. There was no way that a woman would intentionally buy a piece of lace lingerie that beautiful in that color. Elizabeth unpegged it from the clothesline and held it up.
“And the thing is, the first few times it had only been men’s clothing, hunting gear, I was washing for him. I assumed he wasn’t married, so I wasn’t on the lookout for more delicate pieces. I would always wash those separately.”
“You tried baking soda? My mother using baking soda for everything.”
“I already tried it.”
I took the sludgy grey-green teddy from her, an all-in-one. Suddenly the ground began to shake, a loud horn sounded and the train rushed past us just a few feet away from where we were standing. The clothes flipped up in our faces and we had to swat them away. I’d almost forgotten, while standing in the maze of washing lines, that the train track was so incredibly close to her house. I cut my way through the clothes to take a look at the train as it sped past me about a foot and a half from my face.
“My God, that scared the heck out of me; it’s practically in your backyard!”
“I know,” she said. “We’re used to it.”
I inspected the lace in my hands a little more, racking my brain for the methods my mother used, but they refused to come back to me, and besides, Elizabeth would know twenty times as many tricks and nothing had worked so far. I turned the lingerie over admiring the back.
“It is very beautiful; at least it would have been.” I tried to get Elizabeth to smile. The straps on the back crisscrossed all the way down in a very sensual manner and it reminded me of the all-in-one teddy I had purchased at the beginning of the summer with Dolly at Regine Brenner’s showroom. I looked inside and sure enough it was a Regine Brenner design, her subtle label sewn into the side.
“Wait a second,” I said, turning it to the front again and noticing a small rip of the top left where the strap met the bust. “I know this piece; it’s the Regine Brenner that Dolly had in her store. I remember looking at it when it was a very pale champagne color. That would explain why it absorbed so much color.”
“And I tore it, too.” Elizabeth pointed to the small tear. “I can’t believe I was so careless.”
My mind was ticking, I had seen the piece, with the slight rip, and then someone else had bought it. Jeanie.
“So is your new laundry customer Mr. Barnes?”
“No, his name is Mr. Aldrick. He’s kind, but he seems very particular about his clothes.”
I examined the teddy. It was definitely the one from the store: Dolly had said the new designs had snaps between the legs. When I had bought mine at the beginning of summer she only had step-ins. And Dolly had said there was only one.
“Winthrop Aldrick?”
“Yes, that’s him. Oh God, is he a friend of yours?”
“Not really,” I said. “So this was already in the bag with Mr. Aldrick’s clothes?”
“Yes, all the way in, tangled up with his clothes; otherwise I would have seen it.”
“Listen, I don’t think he knew it was in there. Don’t return it. Just drop off his clothes and don’t mention the lingerie. And if he does ask you for it, we’ll ask Dolly to get you a new one. We’ll figure it out.”
“But that’s stealing.”
“No, it’s being kind.”
“How so?”
“Mr. Aldrick is married and I’m almost one hundred percent sure that this does not belong to his wife. So actually you are doing him a favor, because if his wife found it then he’d be in real trouble.”
“Oh, gosh!” Elizabeth put her face in her hands. “This is too much for me.”
“You’ll smudge your makeup.” I pulled her hands away from her face. “Would you mind if I held on to it?” I asked. “I might need it for something.”
Elizabeth gave me a strange look.
“Please trust me.”
I was asking her to trust me and I knew she would, and yet I still hadn’t told her, explicitly, about my involvement with Thomas and I certainly hadn’t told her about the baby or my plan to leave Harry. In my heart I was sure that she and Patrick knew about Thomas and me and that their silence was a hushed blessing. Thomas’s injuries hadn’t been hindering his work for many weeks now and I still went up there regularly. They had to know.
It was just us, two women in a cocoon of white sheets and shirts. I felt safe, as though I’d escaped the part of my life that didn’t fit me anymore. This fit—this friendship, this life, this truth. I could tell her now. I trusted her completely. But then Patrick called.
“Ladies, the car is here; we’d best get going.”
I folded the silk lingerie into a tiny square and placed it in my pocketbook.
35
By eight o’clock Ella Fitzgerald’s voice spilled through the open windows and filled the night sky, pouring down to what must have been a desolate town. Everyone, locals and summer visitors, and even some who’d never been out this way before, descended on the Manor that night. The driveway was lined with parked cars, four deep extending down Manor Hill and parked in haste.
The main hall and verandas were ablaze with chiffon and silk and glittering with masks. Smoke and conversation curling from unknown lips below beautiful and mysterious disguises. Some were so extravagant they extended twenty inches high like flames rising up from the woman’s eyes. Others were adorned with feathers, emerald green and cobalt blue and jet black, so that the masked women had to walk sideways through crowds so as not to tangle their feathered feelers in another’s crystalline disguise. Dolly’s were smaller, made with felt and velvet, but still stunning in a variety of styles, most attached to a decorated stick that the women could hold to their face while the men’s could be tied on.
There were performance dancers and musicians. There were party dancers to get people in the swing of things, and a full jazz band and sopranists. Beauty and music were everywhere and there was wine. And champagne. And every imaginable cocktail being passed indiscriminately by tuxedoed waiters. Two bars were set up, each lined with gins and liquors and cordials, but we had no need to approach them; instead trays of cocktails floated throughout the crowds, constantly replenished.
My dress caressed the floor as I walked. It hugged every part of me and I knew in a few weeks I wouldn’t be able to wear a dress like it. Soon my figure would really curve and I’d be resigned to sailor collars and loose bodices. I wanted to lunge forward to those days. All style aside, I longed for my body to change.
While I was still stick thin, the masquerade was anything but. It was a voluptuous scene. Lanterns hanging from the ceiling, tables of strawberries and chocolates and smoked salmon roulade, just to whet the appetite. There would be two dinners, one near the start of the party and another after midnight. No one would go hungry or thirsty.
The Manor’s transformation made me feel slightly disoriented, as though we’d been transported into an unknown place and time. Where usually the lower level of the Manor was one enormous room, encompassing the lobby, the dining hall, the breakfast room, and divided in some areas into reading “rooms” or smoking “rooms” only by lounge chairs and armchairs and buffet tables, that night everything had been rearranged and divided into several separate and distinct chambers.
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