"Let's not travel that road, darling," he said in a warning voice. Perhaps you should consider sending Maggie more money; I can write a check—"
"Maggie needs more than money. Money is not enough!"
"Money will have to do," he answered quietly.
They went below after that, and supper was a quiet affair.
At ten o'clock, when Aaron proposed going to bed, Tess begged off with the excuse that she needed to work up an inventory of materials for her shop. She stared resolutely at the list before her as he said, "Don't tire yourself. We have a long cruise tomorrow."
Two hours later, sleepy and unhappy, she dragged herself off to bed. A light was burning low, enough for her to see that Aaron was lying on his back, his arms cradled behind his head.
She began to undress herself in silence.
In a calm voice Aaron said, "Do you want Maggie to join us on the Enchanta, Tess? Would that make you happy?"
Tess paused in her nakedness, holding a silk gown to her breast. "I would die of shame," she answered.
"Do you want me to release you from your promise to stay?" he asked, still staring at the overhead.
"I don't know," she whispered.
He rolled his head to look at her. "I can have you put ashore in the morning. No apologies, no regrets."
She winced, then sat beside him on the bed, the little French gown cast aside. "I have been so miserable tonight, Aaron, more than I ever thought possible."
"Is the converse true? Have you been happier these past few days than you ever thought possible?" he asked with a wan smile, trailing a forefinger across the top of her breasts.
"What do you think?"
"Well—at least you haven't thrown me off my boat yet."
She sighed and bent over him, her rich red hair tumbling over her shoulders. "How can you laugh when we have so little time left together?"
"It's that or tear out my hair and rail at the gods, Tessie. I don't mind being an old man, but I'd rather not be a bald old man."
She smiled and climbed into bed alongside him. "How old are you really?" she asked, testing his shoulder with little bites.
"Ah. Old enough to have a daughter older than you: two score and nine well-worn years."
"Am I like Vanessa?" Tess asked in a voice muffled by the pillow.
"Not even a little bit. You're twice as mature, twice as pretty, twice as clever, and—"
"Twice as rich?" she finished, laughing at the absurdity.
"Maybe not yet. Give the stock a chance to grow."
She lifted her head. "I don't own any stock."
"Ah, but you do. I've put together a little nest of eggs for you. Shares in Standard Oil, American Telephone and Telegraph, Consolidated Edison, J. P. Morgan, Homestake Mining... Atlantic Richfield of course, and one other—ah, yes, U.S. Rubber. I should also do something for you in banks; I really should ...."
Tess became quiet. "I wish you hadn't told me that. I wanted to tell you that I love you, but now the words will sound cheap and forced."
He placed two fingers on her lips. "Save them, in that case—for after we've made love. They will sound dear and unbidden."
Chapter 13
The Enchanta and her half-dozen guests bobbled aimlessly on the water with the hundreds of other yachts, steamers, and tugboats gathered around Sandy Hook Light for the start of the first race of the 1895 America's Cup defense. The winds were light and public fascination with the event was high: the result was a huge spectator fleet, including scores of small daysailers which had no real business out on the ocean—so, at least, said Captain Oberlin as he slewed the Enchanta first to port, then to starboard, to avoid a twenty-foot sloop whose overladen, open cockpit was filled with cheering, waving young men and women.
The atmosphere was that of a carnival: sixty thousand spectators had taken to a small patch of the North Atlantic to see the American yacht Defender do battle with the English yacht Valkyrie III. Anything that could be made to float, had. There was much bailing in the smaller boats; more than one sank out from under naïve owners who then had to be rescued by sturdier craft. Hairbreadth escapes from collisions were routine, as small, quick sloops darted under the bows and bowsprits of the larger, less agile yachts; fists that weren't raised in salutes were raised with hearty curses.
The air was filled with smoke from the stacks of double- and triple-decked excursion and ferry boats whose captains, plagued by the floating riffraff, seemed to be giving as well as they were getting. The din of horns and bells—and even, on one yacht, of bagpipes—made it difficult to hear or speak. Hopes were high for a repeat of the last race of the 1893 defense, which the American yacht Vigilant won over the Earl of Dunraven's Valkyrie II by a mere forty seconds, a race that The New York Times had stated was "probably the greatest battle of sails that was ever fought."
America was eager to win again, and nobody liked the Earl of Dunraven anyway.
That was the consensus of the four men who hovered around Tess on the afterdeck of the Enchanta, three of whom kept elbowing one another for the privilege of bringing her up to speed on the recent history of the America's Cup.
"The Earl of Dunraven is a rotten sport," claimed Henry Smythe, a Wall Street colleague of Aaron's. "The man dragged the New York Yacht Club through two long years of hair-splitting negotiations over the conditions governing the race. Outrageous, I say."
"You can't blame him for trying to get himself dealt a fair hand by the New York Yacht Club," interrupted Malcolm Landis, who had his own reason for sticking up for the British yacht with its Irish captain (he had applied for membership to the exclusive club and had been rejected).
He leaned in toward Tess. "The way it was, the Americans held all the cards. Look how they rigged the game: the New York Yacht Club had their choice of boats to put up for each race; the challenger got only one. The New York Yacht Club could build in secret; the challenger had to submit detailed plans of its yacht a full ten months before the race. What's more, the New York Yacht Club could and did tear up the conditions governing the America's Cup Races whenever they chose! There are those on both sides of the Atlantic who say that what it amounts to is this: it's New York's ball and it's New York's bat, and if they don't like the way the game is going, they move the bases."
"Now wait. Now wait," put in Mr. Clyde Jarvis, a much older man who kept brushing Tess's arm not quite accidentally. "Whatever the Club's faults, the fact is they've made good on them. It's a reasonably fair contest now, thanks or not to Dunraven, and a more exciting one, what with both boats sailing over the line at the gun."
He turned to Tess with a gaze far too intense for the subject under discussion. "Probably you didn't know that up until two years ago, the yachts had two minutes after the starting gun to get over the line; the crossing time was calculated into the final result and—"
"For God's sake, Clyde, what does a young lady care about your dry technicalities?" Landis cut in. "All he means to say, Miss Moran, is that all hell breaks loose now, with both yachts mowing down the spectator fleet to get over the line at the sound of the gun."
Smythe took a gold watch from his fob pocket and noted the hour. It was nearly time for the ten-minute warning. "I have it on good authority," he announced, "that Dunraven considers the Americans quite capable of cheating. If you ask me, he shows all the symptoms of paranoia. It just isn't sporting," he intoned.
"Not at all like the English," agreed Jarvis. "But then, the man ain't English, even if the challenging club behind him is." He turned to Tess again with an appraising look. "Will you be cheering for your Irish countryman, Miss Moran?"
Her first trap. Up until now Tess had considered the day a success. She was dazzled by the fleet, curious about the races, pleased to be the treated with such gallantry. She was grateful to Aaron for having seen to it that another young woman came aboard, even though she had become seasick instantly and had gone below, where she remained.
"I have no wish to see the Americans lose," she c
ould in all honesty reply.
"Ho! Tepid but tactful!" cried Jarvis. "Aaron, this protégée of yours has her own share of Irish diplomacy."
"Do you think so?" asked Aaron innocently. He had just joined the company after conferring with his captain. Leaning against the rail, his arms folded across his chest, he gave Tess a look of soul-melting intimacy as he said, "I seem to find myself scorched more often than soothed."
Flushing, Tess said, "I ought to see how Miss Appleton is faring. Perhaps I can make her more comfortable. Excuse me please, gentlemen." With her eyes she curtsied to each as she passed them, leaving each man smitten in her wake.
As for poor Miss Appleton: she was still green, still moaning. She waved Tess away and buried her face in her pillow; the sailor's life was not for her. Tess pulled a light blanket up over the invalid and stepped quietly from the stateroom. In the passageway she met Aaron.
"Any better?" he asked.
"Not until she steps on dry land again, I think."
"Tess, this is impossible," he said in a low voice, brushing her lips with a kiss. "I'm ready to sweep the lot of them overboard to have you alone again."
"It was your idea to come see the Races," she said with a smile not entirely free of malice. "Besides, everyone has been very kind to me."
"Oh, yes. You're a smashing success. And I shall personally smash old Jarvis in the face if he drools on you one more time."
"He seems harmless," she replied, shrugging.
"The very rich are never very harmless," he grumbled.
"I don't see why you—?"
And then she did. "Do you mean, you're afraid he'll outbid you for me?" she asked Aaron dryly.
He cradled the back of her head in his hands and gave her a long, searching look. "Maybe I am," he admitted. "You don't realize—you're so inexperienced. So young, Tess."
"That's right. And I draw the line when a man needs a cane to get around," she answered curtly, offended by his candor.
She pulled away from him and returned on deck in time to see both hundred-ton yachts jockeying for position at the starting line. A gun had gone off, obviously, because the cheering was thunderous. But from the start it seemed, even to Tess, not a close contest. The Valkyrie III was majestic but outmatched. The first race of the ninth defense would in no way rival the last great race of the eighth defense.
"Well, Miss Moran, it looks as if the Cup will not be hauled away to the British Isles this go-around," said Malcolm Landis sympathetically. He actually sounded disappointed.
Tess suspected that he did not want America to lose so much as he wanted the New York Yacht Club to. "I think no matter how the race is resolved, everyone will have a good show," she said. "The yachts are thrilling to watch, are they not?"
They were. At nearly a hundred and thirty feet long, each carrying over twelve thousand square feet of sail and a practically unlimited number of crew, the two huge yachts were bound—just by having shown up at the line and engaged in combat—to impress most ordinary mortals.
Still, it was no contest. When the Irish nobleman's Valkyrie III finally crossed the finish line nearly nine minutes after the Americans' Defender, it was Aaron who ominously remarked, "Look out now; Dunraven likes to lose less than any man I have seen."
****
The cruise back to port was the usual march of triumph. Once again America was on her way: one down, two to go. She'd show England what was what. America had better boats, better sails, better technology. Naturally. She was a young country, an ambitious country, pitted against an old and complacent one. If the group aboard the Enchanta seemed annoyingly confident, who could blame them? England still viewed yacht racing as a nice old gentleman's sport.
The brash, upstart Americans knew better.
There wasn't room to swing a cat in Gravesend Bay, so a lunch-hook was dropped, and after a cold buffet, more America's Cup talk, and a final toast to the Races, to Tess and to the unfortunate Miss Appleton (who was still nowhere to be seen), the party broke up, to regroup on the day of the next race. The guests, including a still-woozy Miss Appleton, were run ashore in the launch, and Tess and Aaron, feeling very much like worn-out hosts, were left to put up their feet over a pot of tea and a bottle of brandy in Aaron's cabin while the Enchanta poked tiredly around the Bay, looking for space to bed down securely for the night.
"You were quite wonderful, Tess," Aaron said as he tamped tobacco in his Meerschaum.
Tess, in stocking feet and with eyes closed, was waiting for the tea to revive her. "I was not."
"Good Lord, Tess. Every man aboard fell in love with you today. Why do you say you were not?"
"Because I had too good a time! I found everything and everyone fascinating. I loved the Races, got caught up in the excitement—I didn't even have the decency to become seasick! In short, I behaved horribly unlike a lady," she said with a sigh.
"You're a disgrace to your sex," he agreed amiably.
"I mean it, Aaron. How must it have looked to the other yachts? Do you think I didn't notice the women aboard them? They appeared so fashionably bored, with now and then a condescending smile if they weren't too weary to manage it. I never saw any one of them venture anywhere near the sun—and look at me, burned to cinders!" She pressed her fingers to her hot pink cheeks. "I wanted you to be so proud of me, Aaron."
"Tess, you were toasted by two millionaires, a scion of one of New York's oldest families, and a tongue-tied artist who hardly got a word out all day, so enamored was he. Preston did manage to say, incidentally, how delighted he would be to paint you, but I discouraged him. He's not that good."
Tess replied: "The 'scion' you refer to has been disowned by his family; you told me so yourself."
Aaron sighed. "You hear only the parts you want to hear, my darling."
"Someone once told me," she said, still fretting, "that I could walk easily among society. It's not true. To society I look and act like what I am: une fille de joie."
"A woman of the evening? You are my lover, Tess—a very different thing."
"Is it?"
A little exasperated, he said, "You will be taken for my mistress, or my daughter, Tess—you must make your choice."
"I suppose … there is no other?"
"None that I know of," he replied with a studied calmness, striking a match and putting it to the bowl of his pipe. "By the way, do you think our poor Miss Appleton will revive enough to attend the soirée aboard the Matador?"
Tess accepted the deliberate change of subject with grace, glad enough to retreat from so ludicrous a topic as the possibility of Aaron's marrying a laundry maid. "I did feel sorry for her," she admitted. "She told me before she left today that she considered throwing herself into the sea, only she was too ill to stand up." And then: "Is she someone's mistress?"
Aaron shrugged. "Probably."
"Don't tell me whose. I don't want to know," Tess said, jumping up.
"Tess, what is the matter with you?"
"Oh, I don't know, Aaron. I feel so ... irritable. I suppose I am thinking of my debut today," she explained with a wry look. She covered her face with her hands. "I'm sure that was Mrs. Van Anton on the schooner that came barreling past so close to us. After all," Tess said, beginning to pace, "the season is all but over in Newport. Everyone who isn't going to Hot Springs for the cure will be rushing back to New York to prepare for the fall season and another round of balls and parties—"
Aaron was watching her pace, mildly amused by her misplaced anguish. "What do you care whether Mrs. Van Anton—or Mrs. Astor herself, for that matter—saw you or not?"
"Well, I do care," she confessed. She looked up at him. "Don't you?"
He hesitated before answering her, then said, "Let me rephrase the question. Can you possibly think they care whether they saw you or not?"
"I suppose not. How silly of me," she said with a lift of her chin. Mrs. Astor could not have managed it better.
The sound of chain rattling through the hawsepipe made her say
, "Look: we're anchored, and it's still early. I think you should go round to the Matador. I feel guilty keeping you from your little band of friends. After all, there is a victory to celebrate." It came out sounding like a dare.
He thought about it a moment, then said, "Only if you come with me."
Awful thought! Who knew who would be there? "No—no, I should lie down with a cool damp cloth over my cheeks. I'm sure I'll feel better by the time you return." She did not, of course, expect him to leave.
Aaron stood up and came over to her, brushing away a loose curl from the pink skin beneath it. "Come with me; I'm sure Mrs. Astor has an engagement somewhere else," he said with tender irony.
But it was not Mrs. Astor Tess feared running into; it was finding herself among a whole bunch of filles de joie.
And so Aaron dressed, and kissed her, and Tess listened anxiously at an opened port as the huffing sound of his steam launch became more faint. She lay down fully clothed, and dozed, and awoke when the ship's bell rang eleven-thirty, and fell in and out of sleep for the next few hours. She never heard the launch return but was jolted awake by the sound of Aaron bumping into something in the dark and cursing; earlier she had turned the wick up high, and the lamp had burned out. Eight bells sounded; it was four in the morning. Tess lay utterly still, nursing her heartache.
When he climbed into bed beside her, she smelled alcohol and something more intimate, something harder to define. She waited without sleep for him to wake up, shaking out from her memory all the summer's tales of debauchery on the big yachts anchored off Newport's Gold Coast.
Jealousy and fearfulness: new emotions, both.
Chapter 14
The eighth of September was a lay day for the dueling yachts, and so was the ninth. Nonetheless, even though there was no racing, behind-the-scenes activity was intense. The rumor mill turned out reports of the Earl of Dunraven's continuing displeasure, and it was confirmed that both boats were remeasured the day after the first race, and their load waterlines marked at his insistence. (It was characteristic of the fever that afflicts Cup watchers that they could find endless suspense and drama in the simple act of loading up a given boat with its crew, gear, and sails and then seeing how deep into the water it sank.)
By The Sea, Book One: Tess Page 13