Maid to Match (34 page)
Pa closed the door. “I’m so sorry, honey.”
Tillie offered him a fleeting smile, then returned her attention to her mother. “Actually, Mrs. Vanderbilt offered me the position first, but I didn’t accept it.”
Mama pulled back. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’d have accepted it if you’d been offered it.”
“No, Mama. I was awarded the job, but I didn’t take it.”
She shook her head. “You’re not making sense.”
“I know. And I’m sorry. But I’m leaving Biltmore. I’m leaving service altogether.”
Color draining from her face, Mama sucked in her breath.
“It’s him. It’s that useful man, Mack Danver. He’s compromised you, hasn’t he? Oh, Tillie, how could you? I
told
you to stay away from him.”
“I love him.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. We’ve been over this.” She looked at Pa, telegraphing her distress.
He cleared his throat. “Are you in a family way, girl?”
“No! No, nothing like that. I just needed to admit to myself that I loved him. And not only that, but I’ve had questions about where I should be serving. Here at Biltmore or in the orphanage with Mack.”
“You are to be serving at Biltmore,” Mama snapped. “Never was anything more obvious. We’ve trained you for the service your whole entire life, and who does God drop out of the sky and into our backyard but
George Washington
Vanderbilt III
! And does he build some summer getaway in town? No. He builds a castle.
A castle
. The only thing it lacked was a princess.”
“Mama, I know you thought – ”
“I was beside myself when his new bride had some foreign French maid, and I have been on my knees daily. Daily! And then –
poof
– the French maid decides to leave. Things like that don’t just happen, Tillie. God did that. He heard my cries and He answered my prayers, and you are going to throw all that back at Him by running off with this . . . this
backwoodsman
?”
“Christine – ” Papa began.
“Shut
up
, Herbert, and let the girl speak for herself.”
Tillie took a fortifying breath. “It isn’t just because of Mack.”
“Of course it’s because of him. What else could it possibly be?”
“Me, Mama. It’s me. I realized I was equating money and status with achieving my calling. When all I really need to do is serve God, no matter what my income, no matter what my status, no matter where He takes me. And if that means leaving Biltmore, then I leave Biltmore.”
“For Hazel Creek?” She pointed toward the Unakas. “You’ll be so busy doing drudgery you’ll be the one needing charity, not the other way around. You cannot convince me God wants that for you.”
“I wouldn’t consider it drudgery, but even still, I’ve no plans at the moment to go to the Unakas.”
Pa cleared his throat. “Where is it you’re going, honey?”
“I’m going to work in the orphanage. I’m going to teach the girls domestic science.”
“Oh, for mercy’s sake.” Mama whirled around and faced the back wall, propping her hands on her waist.
Tillie turned pleading eyes to her father. “I long to know the children. I think about them all the time. I think of all I can do for them.”
“Have you prayed about this?” he asked.
“More than you know. And the more I prayed, the more certain I became.”
Mama humphed, her back still turned.
“And Mack?” Pa asked. “If he weren’t at the orphanage, would you still want to go?”
“I would, though I love him, Pa. So much it hurts, deep in here.” She pressed a fist up under her breasts.
Slipping his hands into his pockets, he looked at the floor. “It’s an awful lot for your mother to take in all at once.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I suppose I should have seen it coming, and maybe I did. But I fought it so much. I didn’t want to believe it.”
“And now?”
Tears filled her eyes, not of sorrow but of amazement and joy. “I’m going to marry him, Pa. Can you imagine? Me? A married woman?” She shook her head in wonder. “I never even thought to have any children, but now, why, I could be a mother by this time next year.”
Mama spun around, the veins at her temples bulging. “Well, children aren’t all they’re purported to be, Matilda. You give and give and give of yourself and in return you get nothing. Nothing but disappointment, that is.”
Tillie gasped.
Papa slashed a hand through the air.
“Enough.”
He gave Tillie a grief-stricken look. “She didn’t mean that. She’s just upset.”
Her tears of joy quickly transformed into shock and hurt. “I’m so sorry, Mama. I am. Not for this new life I’m embarking on, but for shattering your dreams. They were mine, too. But I’ve been given something even better. Can you not see it?”
Mama said nothing, her face as hard as flint.
Pa slipped an arm around Tillie’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “Of course we do, girl. But this has kinda taken the wind out of her sails. So maybe you better let me and Mama be alone now.”
Devastated, she nodded. “I’m sorry, Pa. I’m so sorry.”
And though he pulled her close and whispered reassuring words, she knew it would take Mama a long time to recover.
Mack now understood why the Sloops had the children in bed by half past seven. It was only six and already he was exhausted. But at least he’d had Tillie’s help today.
He glanced across the kitchen. She wore an old apron over her skirt and never lit in one spot for too long. She’d set the little ones to clearing the table and wiping it down. Others swept the floor. Some older boys pumped water and hauled in wood. A few girls washed and dried the dishes.
“I can’t reach, Miss Tillie.” A tot of about five stood on tiptoes, trying to return a clean bowl to the shelf.
Mack swept the girl up, suspending her in the air. Squealing with laughter, she set the bowl in its proper place, then ran to fetch another one as soon as her feet touched the floor.
Tillie caught his eye and they shared a smile.
Her arrival that morning had surprised him. She’d not even attended her own church, All Saints in Biltmore Village, but had shown up at the orphanage first thing to help the girls dress for services here in Asheville.
Afterward she’d helped with dinner, then gathered the girls together for a rudimentary lesson in sewing. The younger ones learned to thread needles. The middle ones practiced simple stitches. The older ones stitched up a seam.
It had given him a chance to spend the afternoon alone with the boys. They pulled up rotten baseboards along the first-floor corridor, sawed and cut new ones, then hammered them in place. It took him four times as long as it would have if he’d done it alone. But the pride and sense of accomplishment the boys displayed along with a new sense of camaraderie was well worth the delay.
Tillie draped a drying cloth across a dowel, then reached behind her back to untie her apron. “All right, everyone, let’s gather in the great hall. Mr. Vanderbilt loaned us his copy of
The Prince and the Pauper
. Since we finished the dishes so quickly, we might have time to read two whole chapters before bed.”
The children scurried past Mack, all jabbering at once.
Tillie hung her apron on a peg, then turned, pushing a tendril of hair from her face. The sound of the children’s footfalls diminished into silence, leaving the two of them alone.
“You can’t mean to stay and read to them,” he said. “The sun will be setting soon.”
She shrugged. “I don’t mind.”
“I do. I don’t want you walking back to Biltmore in the dark.”
“Earl will be with me.”
“Earl?”
She nodded. “He said he had some business in town and he’d swing by here on his way out.”
Mack could just imagine what his “business” was but refrained from commenting. He followed her to the hall, settled into a chair to listen, and found himself as disappointed as the children when she finished the second chapter and announced bedtime.
An hour later, he stood in the parlor gazing out at the merry-go-round. He wondered if the lumberyard had any old pieces they could donate for a seesaw. It’d be a simple project for the boys to make.
“A penny for your thoughts.”
He looked over his shoulder. She stood in the doorway, her cheeks flushed, her skirt wrinkled, her hair askew.
“Just thinking,” he said.
She clasped her hands together. “May I come in?”
“You don’t need an invitation.”
Strolling through the room, she centered an empty vase onto a crocheted doily. Ran her hand along the back of the gold and green settee. Angled a candlestick on the fireplace mantel.
“The girls are settled?” he asked.
“Mmmmm. The boys?”
“Yes.”
Picking up a poker, she started to stoke the fire.
He gently commandeered the instrument and did it for her, even though it didn’t need it. “Thank you for coming today. It was a tremendous help.”
“I enjoyed it very much. They’re wonderful children.”
“They are at that.” He stood, then propped the poker against the hearth.
She backed up, giving him room. “Anything new with the Sloops?”
“They signed a confession this week.”
“Both of them?”
He nodded. “Mrs. Sloop only took part in Irene’s tragedy, though. She wasn’t the one who beat or abused the girls – though she certainly knew about it.”
Leaning against the edge of the sofa, Tillie picked off a speck of lint. “I saw their bruises.” She looked up. “When I was helping them to bed.”
“They’re bad?”
“They’re fading.” She pressed her lips together. “Still, I was very angry, but I didn’t show it, of course. Just chattered away as if it were perfectly normal to be yellow and green like that.”
Her pupils were large and troubled, the irises a deep violet. “Of course, those were only the bruises I could see. The other ones, the ones in here . . .” She tapped her chest. “Those will take a bit more time to heal.”
He wanted to touch her. Pull her close. Comfort her. Kiss the sorrow from her eyes.
He kept his hands firmly at his sides.
Hooking a loose tendril behind her ear, she looked down at her shoes. “I was thinking.”
He waited.
“If I only read two chapters of
The Prince and the Pauper
every other Sunday on my days off, it’ll take me eight months to finish the book.”
His breathing hitched. She wasn’t coming back. He’d expected that. Tried to prepare himself for it. But when she’d shown up this morning, hope had sprung anew.
He should have known better. “I could read it to them.”
Nodding, she bumped her hip against the sofa.
Thump,
thump, thump
.
“I suppose you could,” she said. “But it’s such a treat to look up and see their rapt, wide-eyed expressions. I’d hate to miss out on that.”
He frowned, unsure of what she wanted him to do. “Then we’ll just wait until you can come. They’ll enjoy it no matter how long it takes.”
Pushing herself off the couch, she swished her hands together, as if brushing away dirt. “No, that just won’t do. Eight months is entirely too long. What if the new directors won’t allow me to finish? That would be awful.”
He hadn’t thought of that. Had purposely tried not to dwell on being asked to give up his position to someone else.
She shrugged. “I guess I’ll just have to come more often.”
“But you can’t. You wouldn’t have enough time on your weekly evening off. And you’d miss the barn gatherings.”
“True. But I wouldn’t be going to the barn gatherings anymore anyway.”
“Because of the parlor games?”
“Because members of the swell set don’t usually participate. It tends to make everyone else uncomfortable.”
He sucked in his breath. The butler, chef, valet, and lady’s maid were the elite who made up the swell set. “You got the lady’s maid position.”
It was more of a statement than a question.
She nodded. “I was offered it.”
Holding himself perfectly still, he pushed his anguish aside. But it was there. Just beneath the very surface of his skin.
She searched his eyes. “Nothing to say?”
He wasn’t about to congratulate her. “It won’t take eight months to finish the book, it’ll take two years.”
The barest of smiles flickered across her lips. “I thought the same thing.”
How long before Earl came for her? he wondered. How long would he have to stand here and pretend she hadn’t completely shorn his heart in two?
She ran a thumbnail along the edge of her waistband. “That’s why I told them no.”
It took a moment for him to absorb the words. He furrowed his brows. “What do you mean you told them no?”
“I told them no. No, thank you. I don’t want the position of lady’s maid.”
He furrowed his brows. “But . . . I don’t . . .”
“Will you marry me, Mack?”
He stared at her. Certain he’d heard her incorrectly. The silence stretched between them. The fire popped.
A shy smile began at one corner of her mouth. “Would it help if I got down on one knee?”
Giving himself a shake, he let out a quick huff of air. “No.”
Her face collapsed.
“No?”
“I mean, yes! No.” He grabbed her against him. “No, you don’t have to get on one knee, and yes, I would very much like to marry you.”
Throwing her arms around his neck, she stretched onto tiptoes.
He crushed his mouth to hers.
The front door opened. “Knock, knock? Anybody home?”
Inwardly groaning, Mack pulled back and rested his forehead on Tillie’s. “It’s Earl. Maybe if we hide behind the couch he won’t find us.”
She giggled.
Earl strode into the parlor and quirked a brow. “Release that woman, big brother. I have to get her home before we both miss curfew.”
“She is home,” Mack growled softly. Tillie stepped from his embrace. “Not just yet.”
“When?” Mack asked.
“A week from Saturday?”
“I’ll make arrangements for the children.”
Earl grasped Tillie’s hand. “Come on. We’re going to be late. See you later, Mack.”
Throwing Mack a kiss, she snatched her coat off the hall tree and ran to keep up with Earl as he dragged her out the door.