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The Black Swan

Page 40

by Day Taylor


  The harbor at Nassau was excellent, a natural deep harbor guarded by Paradise Island. Old ship's charts named them the Fragrant Islands, and as he neared.

  Adam thought it apt. He and Beau looked across low-lying green islands lush with poinsettia, bougainvillea, flaming red poinciana, hibiscus, the spiking orange heli-conia. Parrots of vibrant hues flitted between trees of a purplish shade that reached with fingerlike roots to the water.

  The wharf was as busy as any he had ever seen, but with a difference, a strange sound, a rhythmic cadence as native conches lustily sang and made music as they worked. Ships made fast three abreast. Drays clattered between warehouses and wharves, stirring clouds of pulverized limestone dust. Drivers bawled at Negro roustabouts, who shouted commands to workers amid the screech of axles and cargo blocks and steam donkey engines, in a curious blend of British colonial flavor and the easy enchantment of African rhythm.

  Adam scanned the ships anchored in harbor for the two that were his.

  "There's Ben!" Beau shouted, punching Adam, waving to Ben.

  They slapped at each other's shoulders, laughing, all talking at once, until Ben said in mock dismay, "Hey, aren't either of you interested in seeing the new ships? They're beauties!"

  The three of them, each prouder than the next, gazed lovingly at the two sleek, low-riding sidewheel paddlers. Gray ghost ships, 350 feet long, double stacked and built for speed. A tremor ran through Adam: In his imagination it was already a dark moonless night and he was at sea approaching the Carolina coast.

  "What'U we name 'em?" Ben asked.

  "The Sea Gull and the Heron," Beau suggested.

  "The Liberty and the Independence," Adam said with quiet authority. Neither Ben nor Beau said anything. The names fit as if the ships were very old and had always been so named.

  A toss of the coin decided which of them would captain the new ships. Adam and Ben looked at the gold pieces lying on their palms heads up.

  "I get the Ullah" Beau said happily. "Truth to tell, I'd have hated to give the old girl up. She and I have come a long way together."

  "I'll take the Independence, Ben."

  "Fool, you've given me the best ship." Ben tucked his thumbs inside his fancy waistcoat and grinned proudly at the Liberty.

  Ben guided them around the island. Adam drank in the strangeness and beauty: brown fruits called sapodillas, green ones called sugar apples, scarlet plums, tamarinds, papaws, and jujubes. With the relish of a small boy set free in a candy shop, he sampled them all.

  At dusk the cicadas began to chorus. From the street they could see the anchor lights swinging lazily from the halyards of ships in the harbor.

  They stayed at the Royal Victoria, a four-story hotel completed just that year. It boasted bathrooms with water on tap, porticos, a glassed-in courtyard, winding paths, shrubs, trees, and exotic flowers—the pride of the island and strong temptation for men to linger there forever.

  The clientele in 1861 was composed of Confederate officers and agents stationed in Nassau to handle the flow of war material and the cotton that would pay for it. There were blockade-running captains with connections in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York who dealt in almost any cargo available. Adventurers drawn by the lure of war to its perimeter rubbed shoulders and exchanged stories with others of their kind. Gossips in the lobby of the Royal Victoria spent leisurely afternoons speculating on who among the guests was a Northern spy. High-class prostitutes, dancers, and entertainers had their own suites or shared them with their benefactors, giving Nassau society morsels for spicy conversations.

  The morning of their second day, Adam, Ben, and Beau sought out the various agents on Bay Street. They spoke first to "The King's Conch," Mr. J. B. Lafitte, head agent for Fraser, Trenholm and Company, which handled all cotton and shipping transactions for the Confederate government. Adam would work closely with them throughout the war.

  Next they saw Mr. L. G. Watson, who represented the Glasgow firm of Alexander Collie, from whom Adam had purchased the Liberty and the Independence. Expecting to order another ship after his return voyage, Adam wanted to know the man with whom he would be dealing.

  Alexander Collie and Company, ship builders, also acted as agents for the Confederate Trading Company and pri-

  vate Confederate brokerage consignment and shipping concerns. While the South needed ordnance, there were other items the populace desired: fine cloth, toothbrushes, foodstuffs, whiskey, brandies. An enterprising man could net two to three hundred thousand dollars on one trip. Adam intended to be such a man. Capture seemed a remote possibility in the safety of a British port where the blue jacaranda blooms and makes a man think of immortality.

  Adam returned to the Royal Victoria that evening feeling expansive and optimistic. Not only did blockade running seem a profession that had sprung into being with him in mind, he had learned there was no British duty on cotton and the tonnage fee was only a shilling a ton.

  And growing in the back of his mind was a plan to get even with Revanche. Not for a quarrel over a woman, but for Tom—and UUah.

  On the veranda of the hotel several blockade-running captains were engaging in their favorite pastime, pitching pennies with ten-dollar gold eagles. Confidently Adam drew out his own coin, tossed it, and, laughing, stooped to pick up his winnings.

  The dining room held one hundred fifty people. It was always crowded. Seamen exchanged the latest news of Federal cruisers, their positions, and the safest running routes. It was also a showcase for the prostitutes, who displayed their wares in the latest Paris fashions gleaned from Godey's Lady's Book and reproduced by frenzied seamstresses.

  Adam, Ben, and Beau finished their meal and sat drinking a brandy with their fruit. They all stared as a lushly built red-haired woman wandered into the room and paused, as if searching for someone.

  Ben whistled silently. "Suppose that's all her under that dress?"

  "She looks lost to me," said Beau.

  Ben laughed, and Adam asked, "Why don't you ask her if she wants to be found? You're always helpful, Beau."

  Beau glared at both of them. "I will." He got up and brought her back to their table. Flashing angry warning signals at Adam and Ben, Beau still blushed. "This is . . . this is Miss . . . Miss Glory Hallalooya. Adam, Ben."

  "I'm so pleased to meet you!" Glory's voice was bubbly, her smile wide. "You-all are new, aren't you?"

  "Your name can't really be Glory Hallalooya," Adam said, grinning.

  "I don't see why not! What's wrong with it? Say, you men don't mind if a lady has a drink, do you?'*

  Adam motioned to the waiter. He poured her a brandy.

  "Oh, thank you I" she said, and the bubbling giggle rose in her. Except for a particularly well^endowed body, Glory looked like a little girl, with her sparkling eyes, upturned nose sprinkled liberally with freckles, and wide mouth that wasn't comfortable unless it was smiling.

  Though she was nearly ridiculous with her outlandish name, her little-girl face, and her harlot's dress, Adam found Glory Hallalooya engaging. As often as she emptied her glass, he refilled it. Ben and Beau tactfully left as Adam leaned back in his chair smiling, and Glory leaned forward in hers, earnestly telling him how she came to be in Nassau.

  "They just left me. And with not a word or a penny," she hiccuped. "When I woke up in the morning, Mr. and Mrs. Packer-—" she giggled—^"had packed. And left me. With a hotel bUl. Now, do you think that's any way to treat the governess of your children? I didn't either.'*

  "You were a governess?" Adam asked, astonished.

  She waggled her finger at him, then wrinkled her nose, smiling happily. "I was Eleanor Brooker then."

  "Aha! So your name isn't Glory Hallalooya.'*

  Her enormously expressive face took on all the lines and planes of worry. "Don'f you like my new name, Adam? I thought it had a certain—^flau:, considering the war and all. But it you don't like it, maybe . . . Adam," she said, lowering her voice and leaning across the table to whisper in his ear. "I wa
nt to tell you a secret. I'm going onstage, be a dancer, you know. Want to know the truth?"

  "Yes," he whispered back.

  "You won't think I'm awful?"

  "How could I possibly?"

  "Well, some people think it's awful—^immoral, but I want to be one of those dancers!"

  "A stripper?!"

  "Ssshhh!"

  "But sweetheart, if you're going to take all your clothes ojff onstage, it can't be a secret, at least not for long." He

  glanced down into the cleavage she'd managed to display nearly under his nose.

  "It's different onstage. Do you think I'm awful now?'* Her eyes were wide and incongruously innocent

  He smiled at her. She was like an irresistibly frisky puppy, affectionate and funny. "I think you're wonderful."

  Her gray eyes danced. "Oh, I'm so glad, because I love to take my clothes off, and right now I love you tool Wouldn't it be awful if you didn't love me back?"

  He laughed aloud.

  Glory wriggled out of her gown before he could close the door to his room. He stepped over a pile of discarded green silk. By the chair he sidestepped her petticoats. Near the bed he stumbled over her discarded shoes, camouflaged by her pantalettes. Glory giggled. She sat among the pillows wearing only her profusely plumed green velvet hat

  "Do you love me, Adam? I mean only for tonight. I love being loved."

  He took off his jacket, then began methodically to unbutton his shirt. Glory leaped up, prancing across the bed. "Wait! Don't be so businesslike. Follow me!" She began leading him around the room. Somehow she managed to unbutton a cuff, then a shirt front. "Drop a shirt here and a collar there," she said gaily, and deposited his clothes on the floor as she had her own. "Isn't this fun? I used to do this for Johnny Packer when he was just a little tad.'*

  "Johnny must have gotten one hell of an education."

  "Oh, he did! The Packers shouldn't have gone off and left me like that, do you think? I was a good governess, and Johnny learned a lot"

  He dropped his breeches in a comfortable heap beside her pantalettes. "No one should ever leave someone like you unattended. Come here, it's time the governess learned to play follow the leader."

  Glory flew into his arms, laughing and kissing his face and neck. "How could I have just met you? Haven't we been lovers all our lives?"

  He laid her down against the pillows, her child's face beginning to change subtly as he kissed the hollow of her neck, touched her breasts until they rose and swelled into hard buds beneath his fingertips. Glory nibbled at his ear, then gasped with a sharp intake of breath as he stroked the inside of her legs, spreading them to accommodate him.

  Her blue eyes glowed as she looked up into his darkly

  tanned face and they filled with passion. She put her arms around his neck, drawing herself up to kiss his lips. "Oh, Adam," she breathed, "I want you so, but I don't want this ever to end."

  She wrapped her legs around him as he slid his hands under her buttocks, raising her as he entered her with a slow rhythm that built and beat like the rapid waves of an incoming tide.

  Glory lay with her eyes closed, a contented smile on her face, as Adam rolled off her. She took his hand and placed it low on her belly. She said lazily, "I want to feel the warmth of your hand on me."

  His hand slipped down to the moist patch of softly curling hair. She smiled. Adam tose up on one elbow to look at her broad, open features with the strangely innocent look. He couldn't imagine her on a stage in front of a howling audience of rowdy seamen. But he didn't doubt that if it was what she wanted, she would do it.

  "I think I like you better than any other man I've ever met," she said with disarming directness. He kissed her, but her brow had wrinkled into its worried look. "You won't spoil it, will you, Adam?"

  He looked questioningly at her. Her face crumpled. She buried her face in the mat of black hair on his chest. "Oh, I'm truly a sinful, sinful woman, Adam. I have hardly any shame at all."

  He touched her hair, lifting it and kissing her neck. He tried to make her face him, but she clung to him, her face pressed against him, her voice muflSed. "I could never be faithful—^not even to you, Adam. Will you get terribly jealous and hate me?" She began to cry.

  He caressed her until the small sobs subsided and the rhythm of her breathing changed, and his own desire rose. **I want you just as you are, Glory, dancing, laughing, flirting and ..."

  Teary-eyed but smiling again. Glory bounded up from her refuge on his chest, throwing her arms around him in fresh delight.

  Adam remamed in Nassau until the moon darkened. Every day and some nights he saw Glory. He never knew when she would appear in his bedroom, but her unpredictability made her all the more fascinating. He never wondered ^^om she was with those other nights, and he

  didn't care. From Ben's guilty responses, Adam guessed he was one of Glory's men. But he never asked, and Ben never volunteered the information.

  Each time she came to him, she wore one of her outlandish, brilliantly colored costumes, which she left in gay little heaps across the floor in a path to his bed. They had made love in every way they could devise.

  She came to the pier the day he boarded the cargo-laden Independence for his return to Savannah. "Keep the bed warm for me, Glory, I'll be back," he whispered into her ear.

  She squealed in joy, kissing him long and passionately, cheered on by the delighted hoots of the watching roustabouts.

  Chapter Thirteen

  As the carriage entered the long sandy lane to Mossrose, Adam smiled wryly at his strange misgivings. There was only one suitable name for a man doing what he was doing now: fool. It was playing with fire, gambling on vagary. Nothing would come of it between him and Dulcie.

  Her caprices intrigued him; her fiery temper and her contrite apologies, her capacities for joy and sorrow and concern. But Dulcie's singularity went deeper than that, and because of it he should stay away from her for both their sakes. She was not a surface person. She looked beyond what she saw and heard, and she understood things.

  But would she understand his passion? Dulcie would never freely give herself to him out of wedlock. Yet he would not marry now. He didn't even want to think of it So why had he been fool enough to accept Jem Moran's invitation to Mossrose?

  Abruptly his thoughts shifted to a humbler vein. Perhaps he had figured it all wrong. Dulcie had certainly been romantically inclined toward other men. Toby Dobbs could not have been the first to take advantage of what was basically a harlot's nature in a well-bred woman.

  He got an uncomfortable picture in his mind: Dulcie, freezingly polite for her parents' benefit while he tried to

  pretend everything was quite as usual. He crossed his arms on his chest, scowling at the imagined coldness of this woman for whom he had returned to Savannah.

  The house loomed in front of him. Facing east, sited on a natural knoll, was Dulcie's home. Mossrose was three and a half stories, a pleasant house of soft pinkish-brown brick, its tall windows framed in white, shuttered in green. Fragrant pink moss roses softened the lines of the house. To the south and west inmiensely tall, spreading live oaks, dripping Spanish moss, shaded the house from the hot afternoon sun.

  Down the hill Adam could see the folly, its pillars twined with white wisteria and honeysuckle. Wrens sang, and blue jays scolded; a catbird cried. He heard horses* hooves pounding down a dirt lane and male voices raised in jeering tones. Out of sight, young children played noisily.

  He paid the driver, and a wizened black man materialized from the house to take his sea chest. Then everyone had come at once to meet him: Patricia in yellow voile with ribbons at her waist; Jem, sweating, smiling. Half a dozen youngsters boiled around the comer of the house, closely followed by two attractive youths and Dulcie on horseback.

  "See? Strawberry beat you!" Laughing, Dulcie jumped from her horse and walked toward Adam. Her hair had tumbled from its snood and curled riotously around her face. She was covered with dust, and her face was scratch
ed. Beads of perspiration dotted her upper lip and forehead. He'd never wanted anything so much as he wanted to grab her and hug her tight.

  She was in far greater command of self than he was. Standing just the proper distance away, she held out her hand. "Welcome, Captain Tremain." Her golden eyes danced, taunting him.

  Adam's mouth curved into an appreciative, rakish smile. Fully recovered, he kissed her hand. He had the satisfaction of watching her blush as the other riders laughed and teased her.

  Captain Tremain," Jem said, "my nephews, Waite Price and Philip Tilden."

  Inside the cool entrance hall there were more introductions: Aunt Caroline and Uncle Webster Tilden from N'Orleans; their children, Jenny, Jeannie, Gay, and Robert; Dulcie's aunt Mildred Price from Jonesboro; and Mildred's

  daughter, Millie, who was just fourteen and looked up at Adam through worldly wise lashes. Other cousins had resumed their joyous chase through the back gardens toward the orchards.

  Adam searched the room, but Dulcie had vanished.

  Patricia said, "Would you like to freshen up aftah youah journey?"

  Adam followed her into a small, cheerful room. His chest stood open in a corner, and Lucius was hanging and smoothing his new dandy-ashore wardrobe, an extravagance he could hardly explain even to himself. Adam looked out the window onto a long balcony, down past the cedar grove to the quarters.

  Refreshed, he stepped into the hall as Dulcie emerged from her bedroom. Poised and cool, she waited for him. Her hair had been redone, the dust and evidence of scratches erased. The touchable, errant little girl had been covered over by a virginal white eyelet pique frock.

  Adam stopped, looking her over carefully and leisurely.

  "Well, do I pass inspection?"

  He moved close to her. He touched her cheek where a scratch had been, tracing the outlines of dust streaks he could no longer see. His gaze was sensual, his expression mocking. "I liked you better messed up."

 

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