“Sorry if she disturbed you, Miss Tess,” Honor said.
“She was fine,” I repeated, getting to my feet. I dusted off the back of my skirt. “She’s very sweet.”
Honor didn’t respond, but she looked away from me toward the rear of the foyer. I’d only seen her up close once before, that day in February when she and Lucy were talking with Hattie at the clothesline. I was mesmerized by her green eyes. There was so much sadness in them today.
“I was so sorry about Butchie,” I said. “And I hope your hus—your son’s father—Del? I hope he can come home soon, safe and sound.”
She looked back at me, at first mutely as though she didn’t understand what I’d said. Then she smiled. There was pain in that smile. She was apart from the man she loved. I knew exactly how that felt.
“I hope so too,” she said. “I miss him.” She hiked the tray a little higher. “Can I get you anything, Miss Tess?” she asked. “Would you like one of these celery sticks?”
“No, thank you,” I said. “I was just about to go upstairs when Jilly—” I stopped speaking as my eyes lit on Jilly’s doll. She’d set it on the step and forgotten it when she ran to the kitchen. “She forgot her doll,” I said, picking it up.
“Just leave it there. I’ll come get it when I put this tray down.”
“I’ll take it to her,” I said. The last few minutes of civil conversation with Jilly and Honor had given me courage, and I left the foyer and walked with my head held high through the dining room, ignoring everyone I passed.
In the kitchen I found Adora and Jilly sitting at the table, eating ham biscuits, while Hattie arranged more of them on a tray. All three of them looked up at me.
“What you need, Miss Tess?” Hattie asked.
I’d been holding the doll behind my back, but now I produced it and Jilly sucked in her breath.
“My dolly!” she said, hopping off her chair and running over to me. I handed the doll to her and she cuddled it before carrying it back to the table.
I thought Hattie looked overwhelmed, surrounded by half a dozen plates of hors d’oeuvres. She’d been kind to me since the accident. It weren’t your fault, honey, she’d said to me that horrible first night. That girl could make anybody do what she want. You was just tryin’ to please her.
I moved deeper into the big kitchen. “How can I help?” I asked. “How about I take that tray out for you?” I pointed to the tray of ham biscuits. It would give me something to do. A reason to approach the unwelcoming circles of people. I reached for the tray, but Hattie gave my hand a little swat.
“No, Miss Tess,” she said, “that ain’t your job.”
“Honor’ll pass it ’round,” Adora said.
“Let me,” I said to Hattie. “Please.”
Hattie shook her head like I was the stupidest woman in the world, but she raised her hands in the air in surrender. I carried the tray to the swinging door that led to the dining room, feeling Hattie’s and Adora’s eyes on me.
In the dining room, I carried the tray from person to person, relieved to have something concrete to do other than struggle to make conversation. People treated me as if I were invisible, which was fine with me.
“Tess!”
I turned to see Ruth hurrying toward me, pushing her way through the crowd that had congregated around the table. Avoid my mother, Henry had warned me. I wasn’t going to be able to avoid her now.
“Ruth, I—”
“Come with me,” she said, walking past me until she’d reached the corner of the dining room. She stood next to the buffet, away from the people gathered near the table. I followed her, tray in my hands, and she turned to face me.
“You don’t want to do this,” she said quietly, motioning to the tray. Her cheeks were pale and drawn as though she hadn’t eaten or slept in days. “Set the tray down and come into the living room with the guests.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Really. I’d like to help. And I wanted to tell you—”
“No.” Her smile was tight and I was aware that some of the people in the room were glancing in our direction. “You need to set it down, dear,” she said quietly. “Let Honor or Hattie pass the hors d’oeuvres. That’s their job, not yours.”
I didn’t want to let go of the tray. It felt like a lifeline, the only way I’d found to be comfortable in the room.
“I wanted to be useful,” I said.
“You’re not a servant, Tess,” she said. “Put it down.”
Reluctantly, I set the tray on the buffet. Then I dared to reach out to touch her arm. “I’m so sorr—”
“Don’t touch me!” she said, jerking her arm away from my hand. Her voice, suddenly loud—too loud—held such disdain that I took a step away from her. Behind me, all conversation stopped, leaving a silence as big as death in the room.
Ruth leaned forward, closing the distance between us, her lips next to my ear. “You are so common,” she said, only loud enough for me to hear. “I rue the day you ever set foot in this house.”
So do I, I thought, but I steeled myself. Tightened my jaw. I would take whatever she dished out to me. “I’m sorry, Ruth,” I whispered again. My eyes burned. “I wish there was something I could—”
“You ruined my son’s life and destroyed my daughter’s,” Ruth said, her breath sour against my ear. “You’re a low-class tramp with no right to be here in my beautiful home and if there was a way to cut you out of the Kraft family without bringing shame to us, I would do it in a heartbeat.”
“Mama.” Henry broke through the crowd and was instantly at my side. With one look at our faces, he seemed to intuit our disintegrating exchange. He took my arm and turned me in the direction of the foyer. “Go upstairs,” he said quietly. My body felt wooden and he had to give me a push to start me moving. “Just go.”
I felt everyone looking at me as I walked through the dining room toward the foyer. I stared straight ahead, but from the corner of my eye I could see Adora and Zeke in the doorway of the kitchen and Violet and her parents near the arched entrance to the foyer. A couple of Lucy’s girlfriends stood near the foot of the stairs. They couldn’t have heard all of the conversation with Ruth, but surely they could guess the heart of it. They would be talking about me for the rest of the day. Perhaps the rest of the month.
*
I didn’t go downstairs for dinner that evening, and when Hattie brought me one of the ham biscuits, I thanked her but told her I had no appetite. Henry was quiet when he came upstairs and it wasn’t until we were in bed that I broke the silence.
“Do you think of me as a tramp?” I asked him. We were both lying on our backs looking up at the dark ceiling.
“Of course not,” he said. “Don’t listen to Mama. She’s wounded, Tess. She lost her only daughter.”
“She hated me before that and she hates me even more now.”