Chapter 17

 

New Year's Day, 1897

 

Doctor Henry Whitman, the trim, handsome, and surprisingly approachable head of the medical team at the Phoenix Sanatorium in Saranac Lake, ascended the shoveled steps of the charming cure cottage with a certain spring in his step.  He was there personally to invite Tess Moran, sister of the patient within, to the grand holiday feast that was slated for later that day.

His attentiveness was political, of course:  Tess Moran had contributed a sizable amount of money to the institute which was open to all, including the poor—and as a result chronically pressed for funding.  When Tess and her sister ended their stay at the sanatorium later in the week, he wanted them to leave with fond memories of the center that had promised, and delivered, a gratifying improvement to Maggie's health.

Maggie would never be entirely cured; but then, neither would the doctor himself, or many on his staff, including a number of nurses.  They were members of a not-so-exclusive club of consumptives whose numbers seemed to be growing every year; not for nothing was tuberculosis called The White Plague.  But in Saranac Lake its victims were among their own, in a town filled with enterprising types who were more than happy to build them cure cottages, or administer to their pharmaceutical needs, or cater to the lavish but healthy meals that were a hallmark of taking The Cure.

The overriding message at the Phoenix Sanatorium was always to think positive—conversations about one's illness, for example, were strongly discouraged among the patients—and Henry Whitman had soon discovered that Tess was the most positive of all.  More than anything, she was the reason that Maggie had thrived over the past year.  Theirs was the perfect example of how having family living with an ill resident could vastly improve the patient's prospects.

Tess was indeed a wonder:  calm, intelligent, determined, and to boot, the most beautiful woman Whitman had ever seen.  Her own health was robust, despite the handicap that affected her gait.  Entirely in keeping with her character, she seemed unaware of her disability, and after a while, he was too.  Tess Moran possessed the perfect attitude for dealing with adversity, and Doctor Henry Whitman was desperately sorry that she was leaving.

His attentiveness to her, in short, was not entirely political.

The sisters were bundled in chaise longues on their wraparound cure porch, their cheeks flushed from the cold and not from disease—heartening to see.  Doctor Whitman greeted them with the affection he felt for them both.  "A very happy new year to you, young ladies.  I trust you slept well after last night's celebration?"

"Yes, we did—and right here, once again," Maggie said in a merry way.  "It wasn't so very cold, or else I'm just used to it, and the stars were so lovely, and besides, I want to drink in every single breath of Adirondack mountain air that I can, before we leave.  Oh, Doctor Whitman … and won't I be missing our shivery nights out here?  They have brought me such peace … such sound sleep …."  Her voice caught; she was becoming emotional.

"The cure porch has served my sister well," Tess said, redirecting her sister's thoughts.  "We will never be without an open porch again—as you can imagine, since Maggie will insist on having a dog of her own once we are settled," she added with a good-humored roll of her eyes.  "A porch should provide enough clear air for both of them, do you not think?"

"Tess does spoil me," Maggie said happily.

"So I have noticed."  The doctor did not altogether approve of furry things that might compromise a patient's lungs, but a pet could also be quite therapeutic.  He did not challenge their plan.

"Do you have time for tea?" Tess asked, sliding out from under her heavy eiderdown quilt.

"Always."  He had a busy schedule, even on this holiday, but an invitation from Tess Moran was not to be refused, and for more than one reason.

Tess stood and allowed herself a tiny, discreet stretch in front of him which Whitman thought simply added to her charm.  He saw hints of the young woman she still was, but he had come to know her well enough during the past year to realize that she had the wisdom and acumen of a woman twice her age.

The cure cottage that she had had built for Maggie and her was proof of that.  As he followed Tess inside, Whitman marveled anew at the thoughtfulness of the design, a collaborative effort between Tess and a renowned architect from New York.  Open and airy, with windows everywhere that looked out at beautiful garden structures and carefully chosen evergreens, the cure cottage—which the sisters had dubbed "Little Wren"—was the envy of the community, the best of all the cottages, and would be much sought after, once the sisters vacated it in a few days.  The furniture, simple, cheery and casual, was to remain in the cottage, all of it a gift to the institute.

As usual, there were flowers in every room.  Only Tess could have managed flowers in the Adirondacks in January.  Fragrant flowers.  No gardener, the doctor breathed deep and said, "Where?  Where do you find these in winter?"

Her shrug was offhand.  "I know someone."

That was another thing.  Tess Moran knew men who mattered, and as a result she was able to coax generous contributions from them to the sanatorium.  The funds were earmarked for the upkeep of cure cottages intended expressly for the servant class, and among the servant class, preference was to be given those who had worked in the brutal conditions of the laundry.

Laundry maids, Tess and her sister!  And look at them now.  Henry Whitman knew at least the broad outlines of the scandal in which Tess had been so intimately involved.  He was not one to judge, but it seemed clear to him that Tess was no femme fatale.  She was a young woman wronged, like thousands of others, only she had managed to rise above it all and become a force to be reckoned with.

He watched her move easily through the small but efficient space, preparing the tea and laying out a plate of fresh scones.  In a corner of the kitchen stood her cane, unused for months.

The conversation turned, as it always did at the sanatorium, to the menu for the day.  Even for The Phoenix, today's feast was special:  "Fried filet of sole, tenderloin of beef, roast goose," the doctor began.  "Creamed onions, of course.  Sweet potatoes—"

"—and dessert, what for dessert?" Maggie interrupted as she came inside.

The doctor smiled.  "Christmas pie, just for you.  And ice cream.  A new flavor.  You will be surprised and delighted."

Maggie clapped her hands with glee, and Whitman wondered again at her childlike nature.  She was impressionable and easily led, the perfect patient to be guided through an illness.  It was hard to believe that she was Tess's older sister.

She said, "I weighed last night.  And will you not be pleased to know that I have added nearly a stone and one-half to these frail bones since my arrival here?"  She turned in a tight, quick circle, arms out, for his professional appraisal.

Definitely, Maggie was winning the battle against the insidious weight loss that so often accompanied her disease.  The doctor was pleased, and he let her know that.

Just then a baby's cry came from one of the bedrooms, and Tess said quickly, "I'll see to him.  Excuse me one moment."  She left them to their tea.

It was a risk, having an infant in the same house with a consumptive, and Whitman had warned Tess of it, and what precautions to take to avoid infection for either her or her child.  He had no doubt that Tess followed them to the letter.

In a moment or two Tess returned.  "Wet nappy; he's back to sleep already."

But Maggie was looking a bit wistful now.  "Will ever I be able to hold Aaron, Doctor Whitman?  To cradle him in my arms?"

"Well, we'll have to see.  Are you coughing?"

"No."

"Sneezing?"

"No.  I feel ever so well, really I do," she insisted.

"Well, keep up the good work, and we shall see."

It was the best he could offer.  He knew that Tess would see to it that they lived in widely separated and well-ventilated rooms wherever they chose to move, and there would certainly be a time when young Aaron would be able to play cautiously with his devoted aunt, but that time had not yet arrived.

Maggie remembered, suddenly, that she had a gift for the sanatorium that had given her a new lease on life.  "I'll be right back.  I wanted to wrap it first, but since you're here … or maybe I will wrap it!  It won't take long.  Don't go yet, please!"

She dashed away to her bedroom, and that left Whitman free to express a thought that was constantly on his mind.

"'Don't go yet.'  Your sister has phrased my thought exactly," he said softly.  "Must you move on, Tess?  You could do so much for the institute.  For its patients.  For me:  I can think of no more able assistant to be at my side.  Must you go?"

There was a warmth in her emerald eyes that he had not seen before; it gave him hope.

"If I could, I would.  You know that, Doctor Whit—"

"Tess!  For pity's sake, call me Henry."

"Henry, then.  I will never, ever forget The Phoenix.  The center has given me back my sister; can you doubt that I will be forever grateful for that, or for all of your personal attention to Maggie?  I'm overwhelmed to think of it."

He added a second sugar to his tea.  "But not quite overwhelmed enough, hey?" he said in a rueful voice, stirring his cup.

Tess sighed, then rested her chin on the palm of her hand, her elbow on the table.  She gave him a long, thoughtful, appraising look that had something in him turning over.  She sighed again.  And then she began to speak, hesitantly at first, and then with more emotion, in a way that he'd never heard before.

"Have you ever been brought so … low, been so humiliated, before all of those who fancy themselves above you, that you wanted the earth to open and swallow you whole?  I have," she admitted.

The flush in her cheeks was neither from cold nor disease but from raw recollection of the event.  Whitman said quickly, "You obviously were young, Tess.  Such moments are often blown much out of proportion when—"

"This moment was not!" she said, slapping her hand on the table.  "I was mocked and demeaned by people I despise! I was Irish, a servant in Newport, less than nothing in their eyes!  How can I forget that?"

Taken aback by her vehemence, Whitman said soothingly, "But if you despise them, what does it matter how they regarded you?  Their opinion is not worth considering."

"Oh-h-h, it is, Doctor Whitman," she said in a dangerous voice.  "It is.  They understand one thing, and one thing only:  money.  Crushing amounts of it.  That, they respect.  I do not intend to beg for their respect; I intend to demand it."

He wanted to smile but did not.  She was not yet twenty, but he knew her well enough to know that she would follow through on her threat.  Or try to.  Could she really take on Newport society?  Even he was well enough acquainted with the town to know that a small coterie of women ruled there with iron fists.  They would never permit an upstart maid to climb over the ramparts.

Impulsively he laid his hand over hers.  "Tess … don't.  Don't do this to yourself.  Use your remarkable talents to do good for others.  Don't throw them away on the unworthy."

She began to draw her hand away from his, then left it.  Some of the fierceness left her face.  She became, once again, the most beautiful young woman he'd ever seen.  She pressed her full lips together almost sheepishly and said, "I'm sorry.  The memory smarts.  But in any case, I think—I know—that I can do both."

"Both?"

"Demand their respect, and do good for others."

He had no hope of making her stay, he could see that now.  So he ventured in a resigned and yet jaunty way, "And how exactly will you do that?"

She lowered her lashes almost modestly, and then returned his look with one that was as calm as it was confident.  "I'm going to buy a mill."

"A mill."  The way some people go to buy a pair of shoes.  A mill.  He had to take that one in for a moment.  "Any particular kind of mill?" he asked.

"Well, I do understand textiles.  And I do understand hats.  So a mill that produces millinery."  She said the words slowly, as if she were explaining something obvious like how to boil potatoes to a slow-witted student.

He smiled at her patience with him, but it was impossible for him not to imagine what the price of a mill could do for the sanatorium.  Immediately he dismissed the thought.  Tess had been and would be generous.  And besides, she "knew people."  With their help, who was to say that she couldn't make a go of it?

"I wish you well, then, Tess," he said, squeezing her hand.  It occurred to him that he wanted to do more than squeeze her hand; he dismissed that thought, too.

She seemed to read his mind.  "Will Mrs. Whitman and the boys be attending today's feast, then?" she asked, moving the talk onto safer ground.  "The sledding is supposed to be particularly fast this week."

Releasing her hand, he sat back in his chair and matched her pleasantly conversational tone.  "Yes, the twins have brought their Christmas sleds with them up from the City.  No doubt they're risking life and limb even as we speak."

"They're fine young lads.  How old are they now?  Seven?"

"On the first of next month."  He glanced at his watch and then at Maggie's bedroom door.  "Ah, the time.  I really ought to be—"

"Here I am!" Maggie said, bursting through the door with obvious excitement.  "For you," she said, presenting him with a rectangular package wrapped in bright paper and tied with different strands of colored yarn.  "Well … for the gallery outside the dining room, I mean.  If you like it, I mean.  I worked ever so hard on it.  Tess had to teach me.  I'll never have her skill, but … I did work ever so hard."  She stepped back in shy anticipation and waited for him to open her gift.

"So prettily wrapped," the doctor said, prepared absolutely to love whatever it was.  From between the wrapping he slid a framed piece of needlework about a foot square:  of a russet-red cottage with a sign that said "Little Wren" above its dark-green door and the sentiment "Home Sweet Home" picked out in bright colors in its front-yard grass.

"Delightful," he murmured, touched by the obvious love that had gone into the work.  "Truly delightful, Maggie.  It will be an honor to have this hang where everyone can see and admire it."

Maggie was beaming.  "Tess did the design for me, and she helped me with the hard parts—oh, those tiny letters!—but mostly it's my work.  Well, you can tell that, can't you?  By how uneven my tent stitches are, here and here.  And this bit, too."

"Shh.  It's a fine piece of work, Maggie," the doctor assured her.  "And the fact that it has some of Tess's imagination in it makes it even more—"

He glanced at Tess.  "More dear."

Tess colored and said, "I'm glad, and I know Maggie is, too, that you like it."

"Little Wren was our first real home," Maggie offered.  "And now it will be for others, after we leave."

An exquisite silence fell over them then, a moment of sweet pleasure, unmarred by dread of the past or fear of the future:  one of those moments that act as stepping stones through life, and that made all of them willing and eager to continue the journey forward.

Afterword

 

This is the end of Tess's book, but not of her story.   The reader will learn more about how she and Maggie fared in life through other characters in Book Two ("Amanda"), Book Three ("Laura") and Book Four ("The Heirs") of BY THE SEA.