The Black Swan

by Day Taylor

  When Patricia appeared, she smiled wanly. "I'm feeling better. Mama. I could lie on the parlor sofa today, if Daddy would help me downstairs."

  "Now, honey, it'd be foolish to rush. Youah guests will undahstan'."

  "But I'll be so lonely! Mama, would it be all right if Adam . . . and Robert . . . came in to visit? Claudine would be here."

  Patricia looked her shock. "Dulcie Jeannette! Suhtainly not! Wheah is youah modesty?"

  Dulcie sighed. "I didn't think you'd let me."

  "Very well." Patricia tried to sound severe. "You may come downstairs."

  Dulcie, propped up with pillows, wore her prettiest canezou and skirt of orchid Swiss muslin, and held court. But she was a wan queen, her face showing th^ strain and doubts of the night. The girls drifted in and out. The boys waved at her from the doorway.

  Adam came in after breakfast, with Robert and Gay.

  Dulcie teased Adam, laughing at his sallies. But she was thankful they were not alone, for her careful pose would crumble. They would be back at that terrible scene, wanting to speak of the thing that had nearly happened between them, needing to talk it away, but having to pretend instead that their mutual passion had never existed. Face to face, she doubted she'd have words strong or sharp enough to cut Adam to ribbons as her outraged chastity demanded.

  "Oh, Dulcie, you'll enjoy this," said Gay, giggling. "That reekin', awful man Wolf got himself beaten up last nightl"

  Dulcie did not dare look at Adam. "He did?"

  "Yes. Uncle Jem thought the darkies had done it. But Wolf admitted he'd sneaked into Savannah and gotten into a fight! Your daddy's goin* to cut off his pay until Wolf can work again!"

  Dulcie said briskly, "I'm sure he deserves it."

  "Adam's got news, too—^but maybe you already know," Gay added coyly.

  Adam said, "It can wait."

  "Come on, Gay," said Robert "Let's leave them by themselves."

  Adam's eyes met Claudine's. Behind her mistress's back she smiled at him lovingly. Adam, though unsmiling, spoke gently. "You too, Claudine."

  "You don't have to leave," Dulcie said quickly.

  But Claudine obeyed Adam.

  He got down on Dulcie's level, squatting on his heels. Dulcie glared at him, her despair of the night before replaced by an indignation that would let her cope. "Well, what is it that's so important. Captain Tremain?"

  On a drawn-in breath he said, "I'm leaving today. I thought you'd want to know."

  Dulcie's mask, all the sham, fell away. "Leavin'!" The thought was even more monstrous than . . . that other.

  "It's the best thing I can do for you," His eyes betrayed nothing.

  After a long time she felt she could speak normally. "Will you return?"

  "I don't know."

  Her mouth twisted. "How you must despise me now!*'

  She caught his naked look of despair. "I haven't changed in any way toward you. So I must go. Dulcie . . ." His voice became so soft she could barely hear it. "A man like I am doesn't use the words 'I love you' lightly. If I ever

  say them to a woman, it will be because I am willing and able to pledge my life to her. That is something I cannot do right now, no matter what I want."

  Dulcie's eyes were dry, dark golden, filled with pain. "Adam . . . are you sayin' that you love me?"

  "Don't ask me now." He touched his fingers to her lips. As he left the room, he did not say good-bye or look back.

  Dulcie stared after him, her heart dead in her breast.

  But at lunchtime she walked, supported by Robert, to the dining room. By Patricia's standards her decorum was perfect. Toward Adam she expressed a mild flirtatiousness, a stronger regret that he was leaving, an uninvolved liking for him.

  All the relatives joined the Morans as they wished Adam Godspeed. If he was a shade too hearty when he said, "Miss Dulcie, it's been the greatest pleasure!" still, his hand squeezed hers, and his moustached mouth kissed her hand with brief tenderness.

  They waved until he had gone partway down the lane, then Dulcie stood alone with Jem and Patricia, watching him retreat out of sight.

  "Come along, Miss," said Jem not unkindly. "Cryin* will get you nowhere."

  She turned bleak, dry eyes on him. "That's why I'm not cryin'. Daddy."

  "He'll be back soon, Dulcie honey," said Patricia comfortingly.

  Jem cut in briskly, "If he's back, it will be on business and not to court our Dulcie. I as good as asked him his intentions only this mornin'."

  "What did he say, Jem?"

  Jem repeated the conversation he'd had with Adam. "I don't believe he found Dulcie . . . wantin'. But there's a cold-blooded man, Dulcie Jeannette. His kind seldom settles down. If you were to marry him, he'd snap your heart like a fiddlestring. You're well out of it, Miss. He's gone, and you can forget about him."

  "Theah's still the soiree Saturday night, Dulcie. We'll have that anyway," Patricia said brightly. "Ah do b'lieve Andrew Whitaker is quite taken with you. You couldn't do better than a Whitaker. Andrew's family is—"

  Dulcie looked down the empty lane. She turned a stubborn face to her parents. "It's Adam I love."

  Jem's anger rose. "A one-sided sentiment that does you little credit!"

  Dulcie began walking toward the house, remembering to limp slightly. She had said it! Her resolve formed itself, making her feel light and clean again. Wherever Adam Tremain went, she would follow him. She would belong to him—whatever his terms, whatever the cost.

  She slowed down so that her parents could catch up with her, and took the first irrevocable step.

  "Mama, Daddy, it's goin' to be terribly lonesome around here when Aunt Ca'line and her family leave Monday. Would it be all right if I went with them for a little visit? I haven't seen their new plantation, and I've always loved New Orleans."

  "You've hardly been home a month!'*

  "Just a short visit? Please! Long enough to . . . forget.*'

  "Daddy and Ah will talk about it," said Patricia decisively.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Nassau lay before Adam like a multihued jewel, while Savannah and New Orleans were an ocean behind him. Yet, all his thoughts were of those distant cities. Visions of the time he had spent at Mossrose blinded him to the hubub of Nassau's colorful Bay Street Remembrance of moments of exquisite passion intertwined with those of humiliation and impotent fury. Twice this month a man had dirtied and destroyed a time that was good. In Savannah it had been Wolf, a lowly, self-serving man. The tender moments could not be salvaged, but Adam had taken care of Wolf as he would any small-minded blackguard.

  But in New Orleans it had been Edmund Revanche, a different matter. Adam's confrontation with him at the Quadroon Ball concerned more than Solange. It had begun with Ullah, and it wouldn't end until there was a reckoning.

  He was gruff as he made cargo arrangements with Fraser Trenholm and Company, not taking time to chat as he normally did. From the Confederate agents' oflSce he went

  to the Royal Victoria Hotel. Neither Ben nor Beau had returned. He lay across the bed and tried to sleep while Revanche and Wolf and the ruined moments with Dulcie paraded across his mind.

  Later he went to the dining room, feeling a loneliness he hadn't known since he was a boy. He glanced around the room as he toyed with his food. Men in uniforms, men who ran the blockade as he did, sat laughing and eating, enjoying the easy company of their temporary women.

  The brilliant colors, the cacophony of bright, cheerful sound made his own isolation complete. He called for brandy, emptied three snifters as he might have downed rum, then walked into the warm, fragrant night.

  He didn't know he'd been looking for her until he saw her in the chorus line of one of the saloons. Glory danced with the same joy-filled abandon she made-love, her long legs kicking higher than the other girls, her violently scarlet-sequined costume clashing wildly with her riotous mane of red hair.

  Adam took a place among the men at the long bar, ordering a brandy, sniffing it, savoring its
scent and taste as he watched Glory. Her smile was broad, her sparkling eyes scanning her audience. He chuckled when Glory spotted him, leaning forward, throwing the girl next to her out of step. The others looked on, laughing as Glory waved happily at him. Adam raised his glass to her, his smile only slightly less broad than hers. For the moment the disturbing ghosts of Edmund Revanche and Wolf were banished.

  Minutes after the show ended. Glory was draped over him, smudging his dark outfit where her powder made an outline of her body against him.

  "Wasn't I wonderful, Adam!?'* She touched her nose to his. "Did you miss me?"

  Before an appreciative audience he kissed her soundly.

  She touched the side of his face, her eyes already anticipating the night.

  "Go get dressed, Glory," he advised, smiling, "and hurry."

  She stared at him for a moment, then wriggled her hips against his. "What do I need clothes for?" She giggled and hurried off, returning quickly with a cape thrown over her shoulders, barely concealing the clashing scarlet costume. "I'm ready!"

  "Christ! So am I," Adam muttered. She hurried along beside him chattering, telling him everything that had happened since she had seen him last. As they entered the hotel lobby, she said, "Oh! It's just like coming home! I missed you, Adam, I really did! Why, if I had any decency in me, just any at all, I'd forget all the others and love you always."

  Ignoring the stares of the people in the lobby, some approving, others outraged, he scooped her into his arms and carried her to his room. "Just love me tonight. Glory. One night at a time."

  "You're marvelous," Glory mumured, twining her fingers through his damp, curling hair. "Even when you're only half with me, you're marvelous."

  He laughed softly. "Which half of me did you miss?"

  She propped herself up on one elbow, staring down into his face. She said earnestly, "You've a mind full of butterfly ghosts."

  "I'm half here, and I have butterfly ghosts." He pulled her down on his chest, nibbled at her ear, then whispered,

  "What are butterfly ghosts?"

  She smiled. "Things on your mind or heart. Disturbing— "

  "I've only got one thing on my mind," he said quickly. But she wasn't to be deterred. Without knowing how it happened or realizing he had wanted to talk, Adam found himself telling Glory about Edmund Revanche.

  Glory curled herself into the curve of his body, then she sat up, her face animated. "Why you'll just have to do something to that man!"

  Adam looked away. "I should have killed him the first time I met him."

  "Kill him!" she squealed, her flame-red curls bobbing in disarray. "Oh, no! That wouldn't do any good. Once he was dead, he'd never even know he'd been killed."

  Adam snorted, laughing as she shivered with indignation. "What the hell did you say anyway? That didn't make sense.'*

  "Now, don't you tease me! Killing is just what a creature like that would expect you to do. Men are so obvious!"

  Adam folded his arms behind his head, grinning. "What would you do to him, Glory?"

  "I'd hit him right where it hurts—right in his insuffer-

  able, arrogant pride! And he'd be alive to know I'd done it, too!"

  Adam, still smiling, was now listening carefully. "Go on. How?"

  She hopped to her knees, then mounted him, sitting across his loins, her breasts bobbing as she gestured with waving arms, her eye^ sparkling. "Well, doesn't he just think he's king of the anthill with all his little black ants to do his work for him? Take away his ants, and what's he king of then? Everyone in the whole South falls apart if one teeny little slave gets away. Just imagine if every black on his whole plantation vanished. Everyone would know! He could never hide that! You do haul slaves, don't you? Well, haul his."

  "Clear out all his slaves?" Adam said slowly.

  "Yes! Yes! Wouldn't it be fun? Think how completely just it'd be!"

  Adam grinned. Soon he was chuckling, then laughing out loud. "Lord, but that would give me pleasure."

  "You'll do it?" Glory squealed.

  "Maybe. By God, maybe we will. I'll see what Ben and Beau think."

  "Oh, I know they'll agree!'*

  Adam put his hands on either side of her head. "I wouldn't be surprised."

  "Good! Now, let's make love!"

  He moaned softly, shaking his head, but Glory's hands were already busy, and the rhythm of his breathing changed.

  The following afternoon Glory and Adam met Ben and Beau at the dock. At first they listened quietly to the plan to rid Edmund of his slaves, but they were soon adding their own embellishments.

  Ben said, "Damn! When do we go? We'll talk to that voodoo queen UUah knew."

  "Juneau Nuit," Adam said.

  "There's not a darky in New Orleans that won't do exactly what she says. Jeez, Adam, it'll work!"

  Beau had remained silent, his face sad. "Nothing Fd like better than to see that son of a bitch ruined. I'll go to my grave rememberin' those masks and . . ." His voice trailed off. "How do we work it, Adam?"

  Adam spoke low. "Mostly everybody allows the darkies

  to go to the voodoo ceremonies. I'll tell Juneau what we have in mind. During the ceremony she'll give the slaves instructions, and they'll slip away. We'll have to arrange to haul them to the ship, but—"

  "Sounds easy as pie," Ben declared. "'There's bound to be a hitch."

  Adam shrugged. "We'll go armed and deal with surprises as they come."

  "How soon?" Beau asked.

  "As soon as the moon darkens again—next trip to New Orleans. Agreed?"

  Ben and Beau put their hands atop each other's, and Adam covered them.

  "Hey! Don't leave me out!" Glory covered their hands with her own.

  They left for New Orleans aboard the Liberty the following month. "Damn, the only thing I don't like is that Revanche won't know it was us."

  "Hell, Adam," Ben said. "Maybe you want that madman chasing around the world after you, but not me. Just take his slaves and let the bastard go crazy trying to figure out what happened."

  "I want him to think of me every time he thinks of what he lost. Every time it hurts him, I want my name on his lips. He made Ullah know, he made Tom know. I want him to know."

  Ben, looking at him, shook his head. "Send him a letter if it makes you happy. Just don't mention I was with you. I like living."

  After an uneventful run they entered the noisy piers at Poydras Street. The military regalia of New Orleans increased with every trip, and interest grew steadily in the ordnance that Adam carried as cargo. Already the South was feeling the scarcity of manufactured goods. But the Southern way of gracious living continued as though there were no Yankees on Southern battlefields and no Yankee cruisers trying to close off the mouth of the Mississippi.

  Ben, as captain of the Liberty, was immediately surrounded by agents and representatives. Adam and Beau were overseeing the removal of cargo when a small black boy raced up the gangplank, his smile wide, his eyes wider as they darted over the low, sleek blockade runner.

  "Mastah Cap'n Adam Tremainl? Cap'n Tremain? Wheah Ah gwine fin' Cap'n Tremain, Mistah?"

  Adam walked up to him. "What's your business with Captain Tremain, boy?"

  The boy was craning to see more of the ship. "Lawdy, lawdy, ain't nothin' prettier dan dis ol' boat, is day?"

  "Not many things," Adam tousled the boy's nappy hair. "I'm Captain Tremain. Think you can remember why you wanted to see me?"

  "Oh, yassuh!" He handed a finger-smudged envelope to Adam. "Ah's s'posed to wait fo' yo' ansuh, suh."

  Adam read the note, glanced up, looking over the dock area, then read it again. He carefully placed the letter in his breast pocket.

  "Wheah's yo' ansuh, suh? Young miss, she say, *Willie, you bring dat man's ansuh to me, or Ah's gwine tan yo* black behin' 'til it done tun white.'"

  "She said that?" Adam's eyebrows raised. He grinned at the thought that she might very well have said that.

  "She sho' did, an' she mean e
ve'y word."

  "Well, I'm her answer. Deliver me, Willie."

  The boy trotted ahead, looking back every two or three paces to see that Adam was still following.

  Dulcie was nervously pacing the banquette outside Bren-nan's Restaurant. She was in as great fear of Aunt Caroline finding her as she was of Adam not replying to her letter. It had taken her all morning to become "lost" from her aunt and cousins and chaperones. She walked faster in frustrated annoyance at the relatives who protected her every move.

  Adam stopped at the corner, watching her skirts swish as she marched back and forth, oblivious to the scene she created.

  "Ain't you comin' wiff me no mo'?" Willie asked.

  Adam eyes did not leave Dulcie. "I think I can manage on my own now."

  Willie's face crumpled. "But Ah ain't gwine git m ah penny. Missy say she won't give me nothin' lessen Ah brings her back a ansuh."

  Adam handed Willie three shiny pennies. The small boy's eyes sparkled to rival the sunstruck coppers in his hand. "Yassuh! Thanky, suhl"

  Adam touched his cap as Dulcie whirled around for her return march. She halted, her mouth open, as he smiled and began to walk toward her. He placed her hand on his arm. "Shall we have coffee?"

  She nodded dumbly. Confronted by him, she was bereft of words.

  He ordered for them, then sat back. "Willie said you wanted him to bring me to you, or you were going to beat him until he turned white."

  "Oh! I said no such thing!"

  "Well, then, I owe both you and Willie an apology. My impression was that you wanted to see me. I'm sorry to have imposed myself on you." He made to get up from his seat

  She looked at him, horrified. Smiling sardonically, he settled back. He was tired of games, of bold advance and coy retreat. He never wanted to live through another time of her claiming to want something of him, only to regret her impetuosity as she had in the cabin at Mossrose. She had hated both herself and him that day, for wanting him and for being wanted by him.

  Coolly he said, "When are you going to learn you can't be your daddy's sweet innocent and my woman at the same time? If you wanted me here, be honest enough to admit it when I come." He watched her trying to decide how she should answer him. Her eyes looked like liquid gold and her skin like cream. For a moment he thought she would burst into tears.