A Song Across the Sea

by Shana McGuinn

“I know it.” And she did. It was not the dramatic proposal she might once have hoped for. That wasn’t necessary. That they belonged together until the ends of their lives was a simple, enduring truth that needed no fanfare. He was the other half of her. She, the other half of him. She chuckled.

  “What?”

  “You’ll think it’s silly.”

  “Never. Tell me.”

  “It’s just that…we ended up here. In this room. Many were the nights that I lay in this same bed and wished you’d come to me.”

  “You don’t know how badly I wanted to.”

  “When I heard of your engagement, I felt like I’d been stabbed. That bad was the pain. I couldn’t understand how I could fall in love with you when you had no feelings for me.”

  He sighed. “Now you know that wasn’t the case.”

  “Reece, once we’re married, Mrs. Millinder will be my mother-in-law.” She laughed out loud. “What will she do when she realizes that her son is married to an Irish maid.” She frowned. “Or will she ever learn it? D’ya think you’ll ever be on peaceful terms with her again? I don’t care about the money, Reece. Really I don’t. If you never get your inheritance, I wouldn’t mind. But I’d like to be a part of a family again. And there’s something about your mother, a loneliness, that makes me think she might welcome a daughter-in-law, even one from a background so different from hers.”

  “I promise you, I will speak to her, and resolve this thing between us. And I think you’re right about her. She would embrace you. It’s me she has a problem with.” His tone grew grim. “And that’s not the only thing I need to take care of. Something will have to be done about Muldoon.”

  She stiffened beside him. It had been nice, for awhile, to put Muldoon out of her thoughts, although she knew he eventually must be confronted, or else she would be forced to continue living this artificial life of hers.

  Reece continued. “What he did to you. And Hap. Burning down the theater. I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to prove he was behind all of that, but we’ll find some way to stop him from terrorizing you in the future. And we’ll get you back onstage, where you belong. I’m so glad I had the opportunity to hear you sing.” He laughed softly. “Even Miriam had to admit that you’re a wonderful singer, and I think she was already jealous of you by then.” He turned toward her. “You do want to go back to your performing, don’t you?”

  She propped herself up on an elbow. “What? And give up me glamorous life as a maid?”

  They both laughed at that.

  “My plan is to make my airplane venture so successful that you can be a lady of leisure, if you like.”

  “I wouldn’t know how.”

  “Or, just stay home with the children.”

  She felt a tingly excitement just thinking about it. Children! His children! “Oh, we’ll get to that, all right,” she reassured him. “But I want to sing as well. And not just in vaudeville. I’ve me sights set on Broadway.” She paused. “D’ya think I’m good enough for that, Reece? You’ve been to Broadway shows. Am I foolin’ meself, to think that I could be up there some day?”

  He hugged her to him. “You’re better than anyone I’ve ever heard. And I’m not just saying that because I happen to be crazy in love with you. You could sing on any stage you want to. You could sing for kings and queens.” He sighed. “It’ll all get worked out—Muldoon, my mother—when I get back from Europe.”

  A long, comfortable silence enclosed the room. There was nothing beyond its four walls. No world. No people. The tears of the past and the war that hovered over their future didn’t exist in the twilight intimacy of this room, where they lay in a dreamlike state, somewhere between sleeping and waking.

  Tara nestled her cheek against his chest. “I can hear your heart beating,” she whispered.

  “You are my heart beating,” he said. Then he kissed her, and she him, and it all began again.

  Chapter Nineteen

  They were married in a brief ceremony at City Hall, with only Sheila, Hap, Kathleen and Delores in attendance.

  “I’m sorry, Tara. When I return, we’ll do things up right. Make a real celebration of it,” Reece promised.

  Sheila recovered from her astonishment long enough to wish Reece and Tara well.

  “Sure and you’re a sly one,” she scolded Tara. “Actin’ all this time as if you’d no use for men, then you up and marry this one just like that. Where were you hidin’ him? He’s a fine-looking lad, that’s for sure.”

  “And I promise, I’ll explain the whole story to you just as soon as I have time to catch me breath,” Tara said.

  Sheila was acting strangely these days. Her usual cheeky confidence was nowhere in evidence. It hadn’t been, Tara realized, for weeks. After Reece left, she’d have to sit Sheila down and find out what was troubling her. Until then, though, Tara intended to be supremely selfish and spend every moment with him. After being apart from him for so long, she deserved it.

  Hap and Delores were predictably ecstatic for them.

  “It’s about time!” Hap declared. “I never saw two people have such a darned difficult time getting to the altar.”

  Delores embraced Tara warmly, blinking back tears. “I almost feel as if it’s my own daughter getting married.”

  There was a tearful reunion with Kathleen, who begged Tara’s forgiveness.

  “I was so angry with you. You don’t know how angry I was, and it wasn’t even your fault.”

  “I don’t blame you for bein’ out of sorts. Let’s forget about it and move on.”

  Delores assumed that Tara would stay at the boarding house while Reece was in Europe.

  “No. Thank you, Delores, but I can’t. I’m keepin’ me job at the Millinder mansion until Reece comes back.”

  Delores protested. Hap and Reece joined in the argument on Delores’ side, but Tara remained firm on that point. She would stay at the boarding house with Reece until he left, and go to her job every morning. Once he was gone, she’d not endanger her friends. Not as long as Muldoon remained a threat. Besides, they couldn’t afford for her to quit her job. Reece had no real funds coming in.

  She overheard Reece and Hap talking about Muldoon later, in tense, worried tones.

  “I’ve made inquiries,” Reece said. “The police know of him, but have nothing to hold him on right now. He was jailed for a short time for beating up a shopkeeper, but they had to release him when the man backed down from testifying. There were rumors that one of the man’s children was kidnapped. Then he miraculously reappeared as soon as the man said he wasn’t sure it had been Muldoon, after all. Too dark to really see his face.”

  Hap snorted bitterly. “Muldoon’s thugs can be very persuasive, but taking a kid! How low can you go?”

  “I’ve got a man working on finding him. I hope I’ll be able to deal with Muldoon before I leave. I don’t want to worry about Tara’s safety.”

  “What are you going to do when you find him?” Hap asked.

  Reece’s answer was too low for Tara to hear.

  Less than two weeks! Tara lied about a family emergency and arranged for some days off from her work so that the two of them could spend all of their time together. For Tara, it was being young and carefree in New York in a way she’d never been able to before.

  In his one remaining working automobile, a greatly banged up Model T, Reece took her to Coney Island, where they swam and drank pink lemonade and rode the Ferris Wheel, dizzy with happiness.

  They couldn’t afford Broadway shows so they explored a new delight: moving pictures. For ten cents, one could take a seat in a makeshift theater and be mesmerized for an entire hour by black-and-white images flickering on a screen, to the accompaniment of piano music. Tara preferred western stories. Reece liked Chaplin comedies and, he said, the rather daring corset advertisements shown between the features. When lyrics for a sing-a-long appeared on the screen, Reece sat back and listened to Tara sing, although her wondrous voice was nearly lost in the enthusiast
ic cacophony produced by the rest of the audience.

  “See?” she said. “I’m singin’ in a theater again after all.” It didn’t make him smile as she’d intended, though.

  “We’re going to get you back to the genuine article, Tara. I only wish I had more time…”

  Time felt suspended when he took her flying. Although she wore the leather jacket, goggles and scarf he insisted upon, the cold still stung her cheeks and lashed her body in the open cockpit of the two-seater biplane. It didn’t matter. Flying with Reece was yet another kind of rapture. The sharp spasm of fear she initially felt when the engine kicked into life and the plane began its jerky ascent passed quickly. She felt so safe with Reece that she soon relaxed and gave herself over to the experience with complete confidence.

  What an amazing thing it was to fly! To see the farmland from which they’d taken off be transformed into small, neat rectangles of fields, and treetops shrink to pinpoints of green. After awhile she lost interest in the scenery below. It ceased to exist for her. There was only open, limitless sky, and she and Reece were the only two people in the world. When they passed through the fringe of a cloud it was like being in a cool, moist cocoon. A peaceful calm flooded through her. If only this ride could last forever! She wished they never had to return to the earth. Now she understood Reece, she felt. She understood what it was that fueled his dreams.

  “You’re cold.” Back on the ground, Reece wrapped a blanket around her shoulders before they got back into the motor car. “We’d better get you home. I think I can talk Delores into making some hot chocolate for us.”

  Bumping along the rough roads, he kept looking over at her worriedly. She was so quiet. Not like herself at all.

  “Were you afraid?” he asked tentatively.

  She shook her head.

  “Would you… Would you like to go again?”

  She sighed, a beatific smile on her face. “Oh, yes.” She was too full of feeling for words.

  Reece caught the look and understood instantly. Tara knew. Tara felt it. He relaxed his grip on the steering wheel and they continued the ride home in contented silence.

  • • •

  It was grand to be back at the boarding house. Grander still to be there with her husband.

  Kathleen’s marital status was soon to change, too. She showed Tara the engagement ring given her by a contrite James. The tawdry episode with Sheila had apparently brought him to his senses and moved him to action. Kathleen and James now spent Sunday afternoons riding through Central Park on a tandem bicycle—the long-ago birthday present.

  Sitting at the breakfast table beside Reece, her husband, Tara sometimes blushed to think that the others might guess at what went on between the two of them at night. She was not the same naive girl she’d been when she first set foot in America, that was sure. Her daring and abandon with Reece astonished her and delighted him. As close as they were during the daylight hours, they found an even closer bond in the long, lingering hours of the night. Tara’s early shyness vanished quickly. She loved exploring his body with her hands and her questing mouth, relished making him gasp with pleasure. He was equally concerned with her enjoyment. Even when overtaken by desire he was gentle and giving with her, making her feel as if she were something precious.

  His leave-taking came all too soon. They stood on the dock together, clinging to each other and watching the aged transport ship he’d be traveling on being loaded with supplies for the Allied countries. He brought a small red case from his pocket and handed it to her. Fighting for control, she opened it.

  Amethyst teardrop earrings set in gold nestled in the black velvet-lined interior of the case.

  “Delores helped me pick them out. Do you like them?”

  “They’re lovely,” she choked out.

  “Will you write to me?”

  “As if you even have to ask that. Oh, Reece,” she cried out desperately. “I don’t think I can bear your leavin’.”

  He kissed away a tear that was sliding down her cheek. “When I come back, we’ll have the whole rest of our lives together. I’ll never let myself be separated from you again. I’d be a fool to.”

  • • •

  Tara returned to the Millinder mansion and took up her maid’s duties again, but with a new, secret joy. The tedium was infinitely more tolerable than in the past, because there’d be an end to it when Reece came home. She dared not tell the other girls that she was married, and to Adrienne Millinder’s son, no less! Sheila alone knew.

  She hoped for a chance to speak again with Mrs. Millinder. Perhaps she could find a surreptitious way to orchestrate peace between mother and son. She would watch for an opportunity.

  Her mind was wrestling with the problem early one morning upon awakening when she was distracted by a harsh, unpleasant noise. The other maids were still asleep in their beds, but Sheila’s was empty.

  She found her cousin in the bathroom down the hallway, crying and retching into a basin. The simple white shift Sheila wore revealed something that filled Tara with dread.

  Sheila was going to have a baby.

  • • •

  “I wanted to tell you. I did. But I was hoping that…that Webb would marry me before you had to know about it.”

  “What are Webb’s intentions?”

  Sheila shook her head, her eyes brimming with tears. “He has no intentions, Tara! He’s gone, he is. Found some work on a ship. Very convenient for him.” She hung her head in misery and shame. “He said I was a stupid girl, to let this happen, and he wanted nothin’ more to do with me. He was right! I know you didn’t think much of him, but I thought I loved the man. Can you understand that?”

  “I can.” Poor Sheila. As aggravating as the girl could be at times, Tara felt only pity for her at this moment.

  Sheila sniffed noisily. “What are we going to do about it, Tara? About the baby?”

  So that was the way of it. After being spurned for so long, Tara was now a valued advisor. Carrying a child was making Sheila childlike herself. The impudence and rebelliousness were gone. The tear-streaked face she turned toward Tara was pleading, filled with remorse. Just like that, she expected her older cousin to take charge.

  Tara heaved a troubled sigh and sat down on a stool next to the basin. What, indeed, were they going to do?

  “There’s a doctor in the Bowery, I’m told, who takes care of girls who get themselves in trouble,” Sheila offered without conviction.

  “Never!”

  “It’s not what I want, anyway. I just don’t see how I can manage havin’ a baby alone.”

  “You won’t be alone.” Tara would never abandon her cousin, but she needed Sheila to understand the harsh realities ahead of her. An unmarried woman—girl, really—having a baby would be shunned, made to feel ashamed. The bastard child would fare little better, and be subject to cruel taunts as he or she grew up. Could Sheila find another man to marry her before the baby came? It wasn’t likely. No decent man would have her now. She might never marry at all. There’d be no respectable career for her; her education was over. Once her condition became evident, which would be soon, she’d be forced to leave school. She couldn’t take a job and care for a baby at the same time.

  For just a moment, Tara entertained the idea of giving the baby up for adoption, then moving Sheila to another city where no one knew her and where she could start her life anew. If she could be sure of a loving family for the baby it might worth considering, but she knew that most children in orphanages never found such a happy future, and the orphanages themselves were dreadful: filthy and staffed with riffraff, poorly funded and overflowing with unwanted children. There were so many orphans in New York that the city had begun putting them on trains and sending them out west, to the vast open states, where, if they couldn’t find adoptive homes, they could find jobs on ranches and farms. Pint-sized laborers, doing hard manual work when they should be playing, she thought grimly, shaking her head at the appalling notion. That would not happen to
Sheila’s baby. Not as long as Tara drew breath.

  A baby was a gift from God, no matter the circumstances.

  “I wanted to tell you before,” Sheila said, her lower lip quivering. “But then you got married, and you were so happy. I didn’t want to spoil things.”

  Moved, Tara stood up and hugged Sheila.

  “Hush, now. It’ll be all right. We’ll figure it all out, we will.”

  She’d been so fortunate, finding Reece again. Her own bliss made her feel that much more compassion for Sheila.

  “You’ll stay here, of course,” Tara said calmly. “Though you’ll have to stay out of sight of the Millinders. Then, when Reece returns, you’ll live with us.”

  “I couldn’t!”

  “You will.”

  “But Reece—What will he think? He won’t want to have me around.”

  “Reece is a kind, generous man. He’ll feel the same way I do.”

  “What will other people think about you, lettin’ me and a baby stay with you?”

  “I don’t care a fig for the opinions of others. If they don’t like it, they can go hang themselves!”

  “Tara!” Sheila was scandalized, yet delighted. She steadied herself, getting past her earlier agitated emotions. “I don’t deserve to have you for a cousin.

  “I should have looked out for you better.”

  “It wasn’t for lack of trying. You warned me about Webb, but I wouldn’t listen. I thought I knew better than you. I’m too stubborn, Tara. Me own mother always said as much. I’ve only meself to blame for bein’ in this mess.

  “It’s done now. How it happened doesn’t matter. We must move on.”

  “But Tara, about stayin’ here until Reece comes home. If they find out about me condition, you’ll be tossed out right along with me.”

  “Then we’ll go back to the boarding house. Hap and Delores would put us up. I know they would.”

  The answer seemed to satisfy Sheila, even though Tara hoped that option would not be necessary. Even if accommodations were found at the boarding house, there’d still be the matter of money. If she were terminated here for reasons of moral turpitude, Tara would not be able to find another maid’s job in a grand house. She’d be back to working as a tavern wench for low wages.