"Oh no, sir," Tess said in anguish, "you misunderstand—"
There was not a doubt in her mind that she was the only genuine article there; the rest of the party was made up of the usual collection of jaded society, who tonight had decided to ape the ways of simple folk. That was the masquerade.
"Come, come," her host was cajoling. "Take off your mask then, if you prefer, and let us bask in the beauty that promises to shine forth from behind it."
Tess found herself being led into an anteroom by the valet, while behind them trailed a giggling, whispering knot of elite society in shambling costume. This has to be a dream, she thought, utterly at a loss how to escape. A horrible, endless dream.
They were in the dining hall now. Half a dozen "servants" were arguing and chattering noisily over the proper way to set a table. Tess, still in an unnatural state of awareness, had begun to pick out and recognize faces. Tessie Oelrichs, Mamie Fish, Oliver Belmont—the gayest and most influential members of Newport Society were here. She saw Harry Lehr, the self-appointed major-domo of practical jokes and arbiter of high fashion, pouring wine: he knocked a stemmed glass over onto the tablecloth, and a red stain widened as one part of her mind took it in. My blood, she thought bleakly, mine and Maggie's.
Behind her she felt a light tug at the ribbons of her mask. Do unmask, Miss Moran; we're dying to know."
"Who is she, do you think?" someone whispered.
"Teresa Moran—the name means nothing."
Another tug.
"Harry, make her take it off."
One more try, and the mask fell from her face. A murmur of male approval went up among the guests. An equal but quite opposite murmur went up among the females: this was competition of a serious kind.
And then, from the other side of the room came a low, shocked gasp which was clearly her name.
"Tessie!" The word was vibrant with scandal, as though Cornelia Winward had seen her maid cavorting naked at the Sunday service.
Tess stood quite still, filled with a sense that she was; indeed, playing out the role destined for her. It would be too absurd for her to apologize, and equally absurd to rail at the cruel and insensitive trick that had been played on her. Not now, anyway. Not here.
"Ah, Cornelia. Come here and identify this mystery maiden for us," said the valet-host, but some of his urbane manner had left him.
Cornelia had dressed quite predictably as a lady's maid. She was wearing one of Tess's best black dresses and a white apron. Tess saw that the sleeves and the hem of her dress had been cut back to fit the shorter woman and the raw edges left to show. It was hard to say who was more amazed at that moment, maid or mistress.
"Tessie! How could you? I can't believe my eyes!" Cornelia went suddenly faint. She looked around helplessly at the company. "My maid …. This is so shocking …."
Several men rushed to her side.
There was no hope for Tess now. She knew it.
"The shock is all mine, I can assure you, ma'am," Tess said clearly for all to hear. Something exploded inside her. She felt like a bottle of champagne just blown its cork. "I suppose I was bid here as part of the evening's fun. I may not have amused, but clearly I have entertained." She threw her host a reckless smile, then lifted the hem of her dress and turned it out for everyone to see.
"My dress is hemmed and fits, you see; it's inexcusable for a lady's maid to have scissored hems or turned up cuffs," she added dryly.
With both hands on her hips she circled slowly before the astonished company. "This is how a lady's maid should look." Then she dropped into an offhand, graceful curtsy. "This is how a maid curtsies." Finally, she dropped her gaze in a discreetly modest look. "And this," she said with deadly softness, "is how a maid averts her eyes from spectacles to which she should not, would not, be privy."
Then she raised her look defiantly, blazing at each embarrassed guest around her. "Surely there are some among you with the wit and intelligence to master the fine art of domestic service. See what you can do."
She spun on her heel, her skirts whirling around her, and began walking away from them with a hammering heart and burning cheeks.
"The wench belongs on stage," someone laughed, but Tess didn't care.
To bloody hell with the lot of 'em, she thought furiously, and she turned for the hall door.
Chapter 10
But she had turned the wrong way. So much for the grand exit. She looked around her. There were no real footmen to direct her, of course, only the mincing, masquerading kind.
Tess retraced her steps and swept past them all. When she reached the door, it was held open for her by someone in a goatee and wearing a gardener's outfit.
"Allow me," he said. He was graying and rather slightly built and looked vaguely Mediterranean. He had a hawkish nose and carefully absent look. In one hand he held a small hand-rake.
She turned on him, ready for battle. "I don't suppose for a moment that you're a real gardener," she snapped.
"I'm a complete fraud, my dear," he agreed, closing the door behind them.
They were standing under a starless sky, and for the first time it occurred to Tess that she was several unlit miles from a house she dared not return to. No moon, and her new shoes hurt. A wave of despair, as sickening as her recent fury had been exhilarating, rolled over her.
"God. What now?" she whispered.
"I can hardly wait to see," the gardener offered.
She looked at him with contempt: another idle hanger-on, like Edward Hillyard. Newport was crawling with them. "Go away."
"Oh, my."
Was that a drop of rain? Tess hugged herself close. Her cape had been left behind, her best cape.
Let it rot.
She stepped gingerly into the drive. If only it weren't so dark. Her father would have to take her in, but she couldn't stay; there was no room. Tomorrow she would look for a job, but not in Newport. No one would hire her now, anyway.
"You understand that you'll be soaked through and run into a ditch before you're halfway to town, I assume," said the helpful gardener.
Portsmouth. There were large estates in Portsmouth. But no. Too close still. Providence. But how to watch over Maggie? Another drop of rain; and another.
"You might allow me to drop you off wherever it is you think you're going. At least you'll avoid pneumonia."
She turned to him in a daze. "I don't have pneumonia. What are you talking about?"
He was strolling beside her comfortably. "I'm talking about your prospects, my dear, which at the moment seem rather cheerless."
"Thank you so much for the information. I'm sure it will come in handy." She strode out ahead of him. He quickened his pace.
"All right!" he said, and stopped suddenly. There was such bedrock authority in his voice that Tess automatically stopped too. "You've had your moment in the spotlight, Miss Moran, and you were magnificent. Now it's time to face reality. You have no place to go and no way to get there. Short of striking out boldly into the night, do you have a plan?"
"Don't condescend to me," she nearly shouted. "I won't stand for any more of it. It's absolutely none of your business but yes, I do have someplace to go. My family lives on the harborfront."
"I'll take you there."
"Oh dear! And leave the merriment behind? I wouldn't hear of it!"
"I've told you," he said quietly. "The time for grand gestures is past."
He put his fingers between his teeth and whistled, a night-splitting sound that startled Tess, used to more genteel behavior in Newport. She jumped. She heard the droll smile in his voice as he explained, "It's the only way to get a cab back in New York."
Somewhere out of the blackness behind them a brougham emerged: black, shiny, unadorned by the family crests so favored by Newport's fledgling dynasties. The coachman wore no livery. Tess, whose father so recently had been a groom, was quick to see the spit-and-polish elegance of the rig, almost English in its understatement.
She turned to the man in garde
ner's clothes. "Just who are you, anyway?"
"My name is Aaron Gould. Yes, I'm from New York and no, I don't have a little gilded cottage in Newport. I do enjoy the town, however, whenever I can. I'm an observer, and Newport is filled with spectacle. Where would you like to go?"
"I ... all right. Waite's Wharf."
He gave his coachman their destination and helped Tess into the brougham. Coach lanterns threw a golden glow over varnished cherrywood and polished leather. It was a beautifully cared for coach and reminded Tess of Wrexham, where she'd sometimes helped her father buff and shine Sir Meller's coach.
"This is very nice, Mr. Gould," Tess said pleasantly, and then she burst into tears. It was all over for the Moran family. Maggie would be dismissed for certain, and they would all end up in the almshouse. Keeping up a defiant, brave facade was not only pointless now; it was impossible.
"As bad as all that, is it?" Gould asked, not unkindly.
"It couldn't be worse," she cried between bitter tears. "It couldn't be worse."
"Do you want to tell me about any of it?" he asked, handing her a fine silk handkerchief.
So she did. Everything. From her mother's troubles in Wrexham to her brother's cruel mishap. It came out in bits and pieces, with long stretches of weeping as Tess reexamined each bitter blow in turn. Everyone in her family had looked to her; she was the strong one, the steady one, and now she had failed them all. The silk handkerchief had practically dissolved under her repeated nose-blowings; Tess stared at the stringy wet rag with a look of horror, and Aaron Gould laughed.
"I don't mean to seem callous," he said quickly. "It's just that the last time I saw a look like that was many years ago, when our young governess dropped our little daughter on her head. The child survived, and so, I expect, will the handkerchief. "
The hint of a self-conscious smile played over Tess's tear-stained, swollen face. She was not used to crying and had not learned to transform the act into an alluring appeal for help and sympathy. "I'm being so stupid," she murmured, realizing that she'd just poured out her soul to a stranger. "I don't even know you."
"It may require a certain leap of imagination," he said dryly, "but think of me as a surrogate priest. You needed to get something off your chest, and regular confession probably isn't until next Saturday. So? Feel better?"
She nodded and tried to smile, but new tears welled up, this time for no particular reason. The brougham rolled to a stop. Apparently they were at Waite's Wharf; she recognized nothing through her tears and in the drizzling dark. Sudden panic took over as she thought of facing her family with the news.
"What will I tell them?" she wailed. "I can't let them see me like this."
"Do you want more time?"
"Oh, please."
Gould thought for a moment, then leaned out the window and said, "To the launch." The brougham clip-clopped south along cobblestoned Thames Street.
"I need a plan," Tess said, almost fiercely. "I don't mind telling them about tonight, if only I can hold out some hope for them."
"Admirable psychology. What are your options?" He was leaning back in his seat now, facing her. The fingertips of his hands were pressed together in a considering gesture; the hazel eyes above them flickered with a let's-hear-your-offer interest. He might have been buying a piece of Manhattan.
"My options? I'm ... not sure. I have to find work. I'm very skilled with a needle, but a position as lady's maid is impossible now. Once I hoped to have my own shop, but I have no money. I could try to find work in the Fall River mills, but that's too far from home, and jobs are scarce now anyway. I could try finding work in New York—I have distant cousins there—but then I'd never see my family. And without a reference anyway—"
"What kind of shop had you hoped to set up?"
She looked away. "A milliner's shop. That was a silly dream; I never should have mentioned it, only—well, I've told you everything else, haven't I?"
"Everything? You've scarcely touched on Edward Hillyard," he said calmly.
Surprised into a blush, Tess answered, "What is there to tell? I allowed myself to become attracted to a man well above my station. I got no more than I deserved."
"You don't believe that."
She sighed. "No—no, I don't. It seems a very cruel trick."
"You think it was cruelty on Hillyard's part; it wasn't. He's idealistic but poor, which is an unhappy—and perhaps unavoidable—combination. It makes for an angry young man. He can be ill mannered but, I'm sure, not with you: no doubt there's a note of regret calling off the rendezvous in your room at Beau Rêve."
"Do you think so?" Her bottle-green eyes lit up with hope. If everything was only a misunderstanding ....
Gould's smile was sympathetic. "He's a homosexual, Tess. You knew that, of course."
She stared at him blankly. Was this a word she should know, like "matriarchal"?
"It's a barbarous word, I know: it means he might well prefer my company to yours, Tess, though only God knows why."
Still Tess stared. Snatches of conversation from the Servants' Ball shot meteorically into her consciousness, illuminating nothing. It's only women he has no use for.
"It wasn't because you're a maid that nothing came of it, Tess," he explained patiently. "It had nothing to do with you. Some men are simply like that."
Some men .... A long-forgotten memory from her childhood returned, of a man who stopped her on the streets of Cork to ask directions in heavy, broken English. "Vich vay?" he had asked. His accent was odd but he looked even odder, with his brightly rouged cheeks and scarlet cravat, and Tess had giggled and run away.
"But … Edward Hillyard?" She said the name so timidly that Gould gave her a sad and reassuring wink.
Her breath broke from her in a rush; she shook her head slowly, incredulously. And yet so many things made sense now: he had never kissed her, for one thing. And he despised the women in Newport. She felt as if she'd been pushed violently on a dark street by some stranger who wanted nothing from her and had no reason to harm her.
"Why?" she whispered to Gould.
He shrugged. "Put it out of your mind."
"How can I?" she cried. "I made a fool of myself, ruined myself and my family—but not for love? There was never any chance for love?"
"You are young; you believe in the power of love. And you are Catholic," he added with a smile. "You believe in miracles."
"Yes! Yes, I do!" Her breath was coming fast, and a slow, angry flush drove out the tear-stained paleness of her face. "I think you can do anything for love, all kinds of love—anything!" Edward Hillyard could have loved her; he should have loved her.
"Well, you may be right," Gould answered coolly. "I wouldn't know." Glancing out the window he added, "Here we are."
Tess had no idea how long the coach had been stopped, or why. "I'm sorry. I'm taking up your evening—" she began.
"I've told you, I'm an observer of human nature," he said, climbing out of the carriage ahead of her into the rain. "Do you think a drama half so interesting is unfolding at The Ledge tonight? In any case, the guests will be preparing their own meal, and I think we deserve better than sliced tomatoes and onions on toast, don't you? I have a business proposition for you, which I mean to discuss over decent food."
He turned to the coachman. "That will be all, Fagan. Good night."
The coachman touched his whip to his cap and murmured good night, and before Tess could cry out or further embarrass herself, the horses were pulling away, leaving Tess and Gould at the entrance to a small alleyway that led to a pier at the south end of Newport harbor.
Tess was not exactly afraid: Aaron Gould struck her as neither violent nor impulsive. She was less than a mile from her father's waterfront shack; she could bolt right now if she wanted to. But she didn't want to. In half an hour this man had learned more about Tess than any other man on earth, and he had a business plan to propose. She waited cautiously to hear what he had to say.
He took her arm. "What a
n odd couple we are—me in my gardening get-up, you in the dress of a lady's maid, both of us getting soaked in the rain. I hope my crew allows us aboard, or we'll both end up in the street and starving."
"Aboard—what?" she asked, her heart leaping. "A ship?"
He was hurrying her toward the water. "No, Tess, not a ship. A yacht. My yacht."
A dark form stepped quickly out of the shadows, and Tess let out a little scream.
"Ah—there you are, Peterson."
"Beggin' your pardon, sir, if you'll wait here I can fetch some spare oilskins. Be but a minute, sir."
He left and Tess and Gould took up his place under the overhang of a closed-up shed. The rain was falling much harder now. A steady stream of water cascading from a break in the roofline above them was the only sound as they waited in silence for the crewman to return.
A business proposition. That could mean anything. His wife could need a lady's maid or his yachting blazer a spot of mending. He seemed kind; perhaps he knew of someone who needed a servant. Whatever it was, she would be glad to hear it.
The crewman returned with a black oiled cape-coat which he laid like a lead blanket on Tess's shoulders, and yellow oiled slickers for Aaron Gould. The three made their way quickly through the wind and rain to the west end of the pier, where a steam launch was tied up.
"Damn! I forgot about the tide," Gould muttered. "Can you climb down to the launch, Tess?"
Tess peered over the side of the dock. Ten feet below them, a sleek dark vessel pitched into the southwest chop. A ladder nailed to a pylon led down alongside the violently moving target. Tess nodded confidently, although it seemed to her a broken leg was the very least she could expect. She watched Gould scamper down the ladder with the ease of one who spends most days in a treehouse.
In for a penny, in for a pound, she told herself, and swung her wet skirts around to the top rung. The patent leather needle-tipped toes of her shoes caught on each rung as she descended carefully. She held the rungs above her head in a death-grip, and when she lost her footing on the green slime on the bottom rung, it was the strength in her arms alone that kept her from falling between the launch and the pylons.
By The Sea, Book One: Tess Page 9