These Golden Pleasures

by Valerie Sherwood

  “You mustn’t feel that way,” insisted Mrs. Hollister, obviously upset. “And here in this house I’m sure nobody feels you’re—well, that sort of girl.”

  “You mean Gavin and Rhodes are impervious to tight clothes?”

  Mrs. Hollister’s brows drew together. “You should call them Mister Gavin and Mister Rhodes,” she chided. “We mustn’t forget they’re Mr. Joab’s sons, and entitled to our respect.”

  “Even when one’s bottom gets patted?”

  Mrs. Hollister set down her teacup with a little crash. “Oh, dear,” she said. “You mustn’t—that is, you mustn’t—” She was floundering.

  “Get involved with gentlemen,” said Roxanne quietly, with a level look. “That was what you meant, wasn’t it? I should look for new money, not old?”

  “Exactly.” The older woman sat back and smiled, serenely unconscious of the irony in Roxanne’s voice. “That way everything will work out just fine.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Hollister, for the tea,” said Roxanne again, and went off to help Clarissa dress for another excursion about the city.

  The day was a particularly galling one. The bitterness of her position swept over Roxanne as she sat angrily at attention in the drawing room of a turreted Victorian mansion, her lap weighed down by a large reticule—from which she was constantly called to produce lozenges, a fan, fresh gloves, headache powders, smelling salts, handkerchiefs. Clarissa did not really need any of these things; she was just showing off before her handsomely gowned friends and enjoyed making Roxanne jump about.

  Later, back at the house, Clarissa said petulantly, “You forgot to speak French when I asked you if the carriage was outside!” Roxanne’s lips tightened as she bit back an angry answer. She caught the tumble of petticoats Clarissa flung at her with an irritable “Here, put these away. I don’t know why my room is never tidy!” Roxanne yearned to tell her why, but instead she addressed herself to folding the lacy petticoats into a neat stack and forcing them into the already bursting drawers of Clarissa’s big marble-topped dresser. At that point, she didn’t care if they ripped. Luckily they did not, and she closed the drawer.

  Still upset, she was clumsy at dinner and broke a platter. Cook glowered, and Greaves sighed and said Mrs. Hollister would deduct the cost from Roxanne’s salary. Fuming now at what she considered a gross injustice—Cook should have told her it was scalding hot!—Roxanne rushed out after clearing the dinner dishes and took a fast walk, hoping the exercise would cool her hot blood. The evening air did cool her hot cheeks, and rounding the corner, she met Rhodes returning home late. He came to a halt when he saw her, and she told him rather tartly that he’d missed dinner—again.

  He shrugged. “I'm in no mood for dinner anyway.” He ran a hand through his dark hair and clapped his hat on again. “I’ll walk with you, Roxanne.” He joined her and together they strolled down past the Peabody.

  He studied her as they walked along. “And now that you’ve been with us a while, have you decided what you want to do?” he asked quietly.

  Still smoldering from Clarissa’s jibes and the injustice at dinner, Roxanne’s fingers clenched. “I want money—and power!” she choked. She could have added more; she could have said: I want the feel of silks on my body and a carriage of my own with a smart team to take me where I want to go—instead of just tired feet!

  “Do I detect a note of rebellion?” Rhodes sounded amused.

  Roxanne ignored that. “And jewels,” she added resentfully. “And fine clothes. And”—-she brought her fist down on her gloved hand—“I’m going to have them!”

  “Such things don’t mean much to me,” he mused.

  “That’s because you’ve always had them!” she flashed.

  “Perhaps.” He turned to her with a smile. “And how do you propose to arrive at your heart’s desire?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted sullenly.

  “The marriage route is the usual one, I believe,” he said. “A rich marriage—‘fortunate,’ I think they’re called.”

  “Yes. I suppose so.” She took a deep breath, stopped, and looked up at him, her sapphire eyes big and wild. “Rhodes—would you marry me?”

  He stopped too and grinned down at her lovely reckless face. “Well, I’ll take you to bed and discuss it.”

  She flushed. “I said marry”

  He threw back his big head and laughed. “Not today, Roxanne. I’m not ready to be tied down to any one woman. And when I do marry,” he added softly, “she’s going to want me—and not just what I can give her.”

  Roxanne’s flush deepened. “I didn’t mean, will you? I meant would you? Would any man of wealth and position marry a servant girl?”

  He shrugged. “It’s been done.”

  “Name someone you know who’s done it,” she challenged.

  He frowned. “Well, I just don’t know of anyone, Roxanne, but—”

  “That’s what I mean,” she cut in, eyes blazing. “What you suggest is practically impossible—it doesn’t happen.”

  He reached out and fingered a strand of her hair that had come loose from her piled-up coiffure. “Nothing is impossible,” he murmured, “to a girl with hair of gold and skin like silk.”

  But was that really true? she asked herself. To her, all doors seemed firmly closed.

  His gaze was soft, and he could have taken her in his arms, for at that moment the street was empty and they stood well into the shadow of a building. But he did not. She almost wished he had—it might have cooled this angry fever in her blood.

  “I’ll walk you home, Roxanne,” he said. “I’ve decided to find a bit more excitement tonight than my father’s house affords.”

  Saloons, she thought. Gambling. Women. All those things his father criticizes him for enjoying.

  “You don’t find life on Mt. Vernon Place exciting enough?” she challenged, studying him.

  His strong masculine face, his jaw very square in the light from the street light, his green eyes smiling down quizzically into her own made her pulse quicken. She knew her question had sounded inviting, and something perverse in her had meant it to be so.

  Again he reached out and toyed with a tendril of her gleaming hair. “So lovely . . .” he murmured, and sighed. “If I played games with you. I’d be tempted to go too far, Roxanne. There’s a softness to your skin that heats a man up. And then you’re bent on marriage. . . .”

  She quivered at his touch but, stubbornly, she did not refute his statement that she was bent on marriage.

  Of course she was, she thought rebelliously. Wasn’t every girl?

  When she did not speak, his smile faded and his hand fell away from her hair. “So tonight I’m pursuing more commercial joys around the bedpost. And I plan to get drunk as a skunk.”

  “Why?” she demanded, feeling deflated.

  “Because every damned thing that could go wrong went wrong today,” he said. “Getting cargo for a clipper these days is one hell of a business.”

  Bidding her good-bye at the servants’ entrance, Rhodes strode on down the street, his broad shoulders swinging jauntily. Still breathless, Roxanne let herself in and made her way past storeroom doors to the back stairs that led to the kitchen. She was always a little breathless when Rhodes was around. It was so easy to imagine him taking her in his arms, and herself melting against him. It was hard not to continue the daydream to see herself in a long white dress, walking down a church aisle with him; to see him slipping that dress down over her bare shoulders on their wedding night and feasting his eyes, his hands, his lips, on her nakedness. Whenever Rhodes chanced to look at her, her very skin felt feverish, and she shied away from brushing against him if they passed in the hall.

  Rhodes seemed to be aware of his effect on her, and was amused by it, she knew. And now he was off “to pursue commercial joys around the bedpost”—which meant fancy women, of course. Why should that concern her? But to her annoyance she felt a wild, unreasoning jealousy at the thought of those women he
held in his arms, whether they were the trollops of Baltimore or sloe-eyed beauties in foreign ports; she envisioned sultry creamy-skinned wenches with limpid dark eyes begging him to take them, China dolls and lovely Malaysians, exotic Spanish beauties waving indolent fans, flirtatious French girls or bright-eyed Scottish lasses, all pursuing or pursued by him. She was jealous of them all.

  But she didn’t want to become one of those girls. And so she waged a losing battle with her heart.

  Chapter 10

  Clarissa had naturally wavy hair, so Roxanne was spared vexing sessions with a curling iron. But it was her duty to wash the young woman’s daintiest silk blouses and underthings, and she found this a chore because Clarissa was invariably critical of her efforts.

  Mary Bridey had been wrong; Clarissa never confided in Roxanne, never discussed with her life on the Eastern Shore or what happened at the many balls and parties she attended. Aside from a grumpy, “That stupid Sam Harrington stepped on my foot!” or “I’m sure Mary Stadler is using the same dressmaker—she was wearing a dress exactly like mine in a different color!” Roxanne seldom heard comments from Clarissa about her doings.

  Roxanne reported this to Mary Bridey on one of her visits, and the little Irish girl seemed surprised. “Sure and Miss Clarissa must not like you,” she blurted out, “for she was always telling me about them!”

  “Oh, she doesn’t like me,” agreed Roxanne with a laugh. And realized that Clarissa, who loved to show off, must have enjoyed preening before the less fortunate Irish lass, who had given in too easily.

  More and more the lazy Clarissa found it convenient to send Roxanne on errands rather than go herself. Roxanne dropped visiting cards at the homes "of Clarissa’s friends, picked up parcels in department stores, carried scented notes about Baltimore—Clarissa “regretted” or Clarissa “would attend.” But they were duties Roxanne loved. She enjoyed being out in the bright fall weather, walking fast amidst the crimson and gold and scarlet leaves that swirled through the air around her before they fell at last to form a rich-hued carpet on the ground.

  She hated her ridiculous garb, and as soon as she was out of sight of the house she would take off the starched sheer apron and the tiara-like ruff from her hair, stuff them both carefully into the large reticule she carried, smooth back her dark-blond hair in embarrassment lest anyone had seen her do this, and with her color a little higher march on. In her rustling black silks, and with her warm shawl pulled around her shoulders, she looked as if she might be in mourning for a loved one.

  Sometimes her errands took her past Barrington’s, the glover’s establishment. She knew the glover’s younger son Denby was wistfully mad for her, and it gave her oft-deflated ego a boost to saunter by and see him look out, yearning for her with his hazel eyes.

  Often, he called someone from the back to take his place at the counter and hurried out of the shop to either join her for a short stroll or try to persuade her to come back into the shop. There, under the guise of showing her some new gloves—tasseled ones, jeweled ones, hand-painted ones—he managed to touch her hand, and his boyish face would flush darkly, and he would begin to stammer.

  Roxanne liked that. It gave her a feeling of power—she who was so powerless to change her circumstances, whose very survival depended on the will of others.

  Whenever she could slip away long enough, Roxanne also visited Mary Bridey who, now that November’s winds were blowing, spent her days with her unwieldy body huddled in a shawl, rocking, rocking. After that first confidence on Mt. Vernon Place, they had never mentioned Gavin by name. Roxanne had guessed that he was not a frequent visitor, but still she was shocked when Mary Bridey mentioned that no one from the “great house,” as she insisted on calling the Mt. Vernon Place house, had been to see her.

  “No one?” cried Roxanne indignantly.

  “Only you,” admitted Mary Bridey wistfully. With a defiant lift of her head, she moved her now ungainly figure aside to display a Windsor cradle made of maple and pine and painted green like the chairs and table. “The milkman sold it to me,” she said. “Isn’t it dainty?” She touched the cradle lovingly. “ ’Tis for my little one. Won’t he look fine in it?”

  “Maybe you’ll have a daughter,” smiled Roxanne, “and she’ll look fine in it.”

  “No, it will be a boy,” said Mary Bridey confidently. “Olga, the Lithuanian woman downstairs, says I’m carrying my baby high and that means it will be a boy. She says you can always tell! I’m due at Christmas,” she added. “My baby will be a Christmas gift—and then I won’t be alone any more.”

  Roxanne’s eyes misted over at the brave way she said that, and when she left she hugged Mary Bridey impulsively. “Let me speak to him,” she pleaded. “Let me ask him to come to see you.”

  “No, you mustn’t.” Mary Bridey straightened her thin shoulders. Her voice was stern. “If—if he wants to see me, he’ll come. And if he doesn’t . . .” Her voice broke. “Well, after all, ’tis my own child, all mine, and nothing can change that.”

  “It makes me so angry,” said Roxanne huskily.

  “Sure and you must not feel that way,” chided Mary Bridey in her gentle voice. “I am luckier than so many, Roxanne. I have a place to live until I have my baby—a nice place.” She looked around her as if trying to convince herself of her good luck. “And I don’t have to work and wear myself out.” She twisted her fingers together. “I could be working twelve hours a day. Like my sister did in Ireland before she bore her first. There’s a woman next door whose husband does nothing but drink all day, and she works twelve hours every day. And she’s pregnant with her fifth.”

  Roxanne bit back the bitter words that rose to her lips. She supposed Mary Bridey really was better off gloomily waiting to give birth in these meager rooms than working twelve back-breaking hours a day.

  For that matter, she supposed she must consider herself lucky, too, for Mrs. Hollister was not nearly so hard to work for as some of the other housekeepers that Anna next door had described to her. And thank fortune she was working and not out on the street, like the loose-lipped, tow-headed young girl she had seen picking up a sailor on the wharf yesterday. She shuddered as she remembered that thin face, those vacant feverish eyes.

  Clarissa, of course, was another matter. The girl was infuriating to work for. But Roxanne was unwilling to face up to the question of why she did not leave, simply walk out and take her chances in a rough and tumble world. For then she would have had to face the answer: Rhodes.

  The day after her visit to Mary Bridey, Gavin, watching her from the landing as she carried some newly-ironed petticoats upstairs to Clarissa’s room, asked, “Are you happy here, Roxanne?”

  Roxanne, her arms held stiffly out before her so as not to wrinkle the petticoats, paused to stare at him. The almost possessive look he gave her irritated her.

  “I suppose I’m happier than Mary Bridey,” she said sullenly.

  His eyes narrowed. “Ah, so that’s why you always look past me these days,” he murmured, and let her pass.

  That afternoon Rhodes, in an exuberant mood, came home early and caught Roxanne in the downstairs hall. He came up from behind and swung her around to give her a resounding kiss. Roxanne, forgetting for the moment that she was holding out for marriage, melted in his arms and returned his kiss with fire and fervor.

  Now when she went on errands for Clarissa Rhodes caught up with her and accompanied her on her rounds. On those occasions he would often take her for short forbidden excursions, sightseeing around the city. Once, he took her to see the square Gothic tower of the Independent Fire Company, which Baltimoreans knew affectionately as Old Number Six, another time, to the huge multi-buildinged complex of Johns Hopkins Hospital.

  “A man should know his terrain,” he declared. “And a woman too. Even though,” he added roguishly, “her main stamping ground may be the house.”

  Roxanne tossed her head at that, but she always enjoyed these encounters, for they added to her fund of k
nowledge about the city she lived in. Of course, often she had to hurry back and quickly don her apron again and invent some likely excuse for being so late. Still, she found it exciting just to be with Rhodes, matching her shorter steps to his longer ones, feeling the restless drive of the man with the reckless eyes and flashing smile.

  “Aren’t you afraid to be seen in public with me?” she asked rather pertly one day. “Your father might hear about it and cut you off!”

  “No,” he said quickly. “I think I’d always take the consequences of your company, Roxanne.”

  And as if to prove it, the next night when she strolled out for a walk after dinner, he came up behind her and caught her arm jauntily and took her to a music hall.

  Roxanne tapped her feet to the music as a man in a straw boater and a striped jacket and white trousers did a soft-shoe dance around a bored-looking brunette beauty who rested her plump white arms on a folded parasol while he sang in a high falsetto about “a bicycle built for two.” Then the girl onstage kicked up her heels and her skirts, and they did a fast dance into the wings, to the accompaniment of laughter and applause.

  Roxanne loved it. She had not been to a music hall before, and she found the lights and the gaiety entrancing.

  Afterwards, Rhodes hired a hack and they went clip-clopping along in the clear cold air.

  “Your father would have disapproved of this, wouldn’t he?” she asked. “I know Clarissa hides her novels. She’s afraid he’ll see them and forbid her. to read them.”

  Rhodes, who was leaning back with his arm lightly around her shoulders, turned on her and said with a surprisingly bitter laugh, “My father’s morality? Oh, yes, let’s talk about that. It’s a very mixed up thing, his morality. He’s eaten up by guilt feelings. Though why it came over him so late is hard to understand. He was brought up on the edge of the law—his father had an office on Lombard Street and built and sold fast ships. Pirate ships, if you want to be specific. And slavers. And hired captains to operate them. Those ships had to be not only fast but cheap, in case they had to be scuttled, cargo and all. Not that anyone wanted to scuttle the cargo, you understand; it was black gold in those days—but they preferred scuttling to going to jail. As a young man my father sailed out as second in command on a slaver, and then he was made captain of his very own slave ship.”