By The Sea, Book One: Tess

by Stockenberg, Antoinette

  "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.

  Chapter 5

  "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.

  Then, after the last hook was hooked, after the last drooping curl was twisted back into a sprightliness it couldn't possibly feel, given the warmth of the night—after Cornelia was made as lovely a vision as careful artistry could devise, she did what all young ladies do occasionally, and changed her mind altogether. No sapphires. No emeralds. Only the one, spectacular, most prepossessing piece of jewelry she owned, a gift from her parents at her own coming out: a huge dog collar thick with gleaming pearls and marquise-shaped diamonds, calculated to bludgeon competing young debutantes into a general feeling of despair.

  Around Cornelia's waist Tess fastened a chain of diamonds and hooked onto it a small, exquisite ivory fan.

  "Well, Tess," Cornelia asked, surveying herself carefully in the mirror, "will I do?"

  Tess, who'd been astonished by the thought and effort that Cornelia had poured into herself, smiled at the image in the mirror and said, "Yes, ma'am. I think you'll do."

  The vision turned pouty. "Really, Tessie, I call that striking an attitude, I really do."

  Tess opened her eyes wide. "An attitude, Miss Cornelia!"

  "Yes. It's not what you say, it's more what you don't say. And you're too tall," she said, irritated. "You make me feel squat."

  Tess bit her lower lip, trying not to smile. In Cornelia Winward's solar system, a personal maid was akin to a distant satellite of an outer planet. "I suppose I could try stooping a bit, ma'am," Tess said blandly, "if that would help."

  "What would help is if you'd be more like Marie and say pretty things to me once in a while, especially when I'm about to—I'm going to a ball, Tess. Anything can happen at a ball. I could become engaged tonight! The last thing I need is your ... attitude." Blue eyes above a turned-up nose glared at Tess through the mirror.

  Tess was getting used to Cornelia's little bursts of tension. It couldn't be easy, she thought wryly, being the younger sister in a family of immense wealth. At the moment, most of the Winwards' attention was focused on finding a title for Cornelia's older sister. An English baronet had begun to nibble at the bait, but much care and patience would be necessary to reel him in. That left poor Cornelia with little to do but wait her turn. In the meantime it seemed to her that all around the list of eligible peers was dwindling at an alarming rate.

  Her best friend Susy had landed an honest-to-goodness viscount, and a second cousin whom Cornelia absolutely despised had cast her dowry before some Slavic count and hauled him in like a five-pound bass. And of course everyone in Newport knew that Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt was about to buy the ultimate in peers of the realm, an English duke, for her scrawny stick of a daughter, Consuelo. Was there no justice in life? The question was often on Cornelia's lips.

  As Cornelia adjusted her choker so that the largest of the diamonds lay perfectly in the center of her throat, a now-or-never determination glinted in her bright blue eyes. Gertrude Vanderbilt's coming out was unquestionably one of the major events of the season, even though it was being hosted by two pious, hard-working, decidedly unglamorous millionaires. Still, Vanderbilts were Vanderbilts, and absolutely anyone worth knowing—or being engaged to—would be there.

  Cornelia instructed Tess first to turn down the gas lamps, then to light a dozen candles that stood in a gilded sconce from Tiffany's, in an effort to mimic the lighting of The Breakers' ballroom. If the success of a Newport debutante could be measured in her ability to extract the most out of face and form, then Cornelia Winward had done brilliantly. As each of the candles caught flame and danced, the facets of Cornelia's jewels took on a magical life of their own, winking and dazzling and spraying the room with shimmering rainbows. The taffeta of her gown promised blue, then slid mysteriously into green as Cornelia turned slowly round and round and round once more, a blond princess in a fairy kingdom of riches.

  And Tess? Tess, in her plain but exquisitely tailored soft gray dress, Tess, whose natural beauty glowed where Cornelia's artifice blinded—Tess was awestruck. She knew half a dozen woman servants as pretty as Cornelia; yet adorn any of them with this gown, those jewels, and the result would be laughable.

  Cornelia knew exactly how to stand, Tess thought. Exactly how to hold her head so that her chin line was smoothest, how to arrange her face so that her eyes looked roundest, how to force a dimple into her smile where none naturally existed.

  "You're quite wonderful, Miss Cornelia," Tess said, and she meant it. Whether Cornelia was born with such magnificence or whether she was trained for it from infancy almost did not matter. Either way, for Tess and her six pretty servant-friends, it was too late. If she and I had been switched in our cradles ....

  "Tess—wake up!" Cornelia demanded, snapping her fingers at the faraway look in Tess's eyes. "Miss Van de Stadt and the viscount will be here for me any moment, and so will the carriage for you. Where's my wrap, girl?"

  Within half an hour a stately brougham was pulling out from under the limestone porte-cochère of Beau Rêve, filled to bursting with taffeta and chiffon and peau de soie. The laughing, excited debutantes inside had allocated a patch of maroon leather seat for the many bouquets that had been arriving all day; all of their dance cards were full. In the soft, twilit evening the brougham eased into the parade of carriages on Bellevue Avenue, the luckiest among them bound for The Breakers, the fabulous new cottage on the southeast coast of Aquidneck Island, which was throwing open its massive gates for the first time tonight.

  In Tess's coach, which followed a little behind Cornelia's, the laughter of the maid-servants squeezed inside was no less excited, the gossip no less lively. Mostly it concerned The Breakers. By now everyone in Newport had heard about the water taps that we
re said to run saltwater and rainwater (both in hot or cold) and the priceless tapestries and oils that had been arriving from Europe by the crateload.

  Susan Van de Stadt's maid Sarah was by far the best informed. "I understand there are only thirty for Gertrude Vanderbilt's pre-ball dinner. That's cutting it daringly close, if you ask me. Mrs. Vanderbilt is not the lioness she thinks she is, for all her millions. She's bound to put some very prominent noses out of joint. Why, it's not enough anymore to look above you and make sure your Astors and your Oelrichs and your Fishes have been invited. You must look around and below you, too, because most anyone may be someone to be reckoned with tomorrow."

  "Especially if 'someone' happens to marry into nobility," another of the maids said slyly. "Would it be your mistress you're thinking of, Sarah?"

  "Miss Van de Stadt—soon to be Lady Dennison, it's true—has nothing to apologize to Miss Vanderbilt for," Sarah sniffed. "Her people were never in trade.

  "Anyway, if you ask me," she continued, "it's a relief that Miss Van de Stadt wasn't invited to the pre-ball dinner at The Breakers. Because I understand," she explained in a confidential voice, "that Mr. Vanderbilt would allow only the most churchgoing of his daughter's friends to come. I expect the dinner conversation will sound drearily like an Episcopalian sermon. Whereas his lordship," she said with emphasis, "moves with a much smarter set."

  "I've heard that some of the women in his lordship's set are breathlessly fast," the other maid said vindictively.

  "Well, that's as may be. But Miss Susan is nothing if not absolutely proper," Sarah sniffed.

  "And what about Miss Cornelia, Tess?" another maid asked, turning to Tess curiously. "Is she fast, or proper?"

  It was the kind of lurid speculation that Tess despised. "I couldn't say," she answered coldly.

  "You mean you wouldn't say, Tess," the maid retorted. "Ooh-la-la; Miss Cornelia must smother you in silks to wring such loyalty from you."