Shad Run

by Howard Breslin

  “Ten Bush has gone awhaling,” Dirck said. He bowed to Eunice, offered Lancey his arm. “Will you tell my mother that I took Lancey home, Eunice?”

  “It’s been very pleasant,” said Lancey Quist, “meeting all of you.”

  CHAPTER 13

  AS THE ARGO SLID SOUTH THROUGH THE HUDSON, SILVER NOW in the late afternoon, Lancey Quist, for once, forgot to pay attention to the weather.

  There were reasons. The breeze had shifted, died down to a gentle breath of warm, light air. It barely stirred the trees on the east bank as it passed through from the north, and it dipped onto the river with a feathery touch that made no rip-pies on the flowing water. The tide was at ebb; the little spritsail caught what wind there was; the skiff moved, steadily if not speedily, downriver. Lancey, lulled by food and sunshine, was content to let Dirck handle the sailing.

  The girl was thinking of her brother. How Ten Bush would have enjoyed the sail, her account of the party! He had, Lancey recalled, liked Dirck and would have been pleased by her success among the van Zandts and their friends. She wondered how many watery miles now stretched between the Argo and Ten Bush’s whaler, feeling a touch of loneliness that she now lacked a confidant close to her own age.

  For a long while they sailed in silence. Dirck, the tiller between his knees, glanced at his course, but gazed at the girl. She had her eyes closed, face raised to the sun, and he thought she had never looked more attractive. He felt a mixture of emotions—tenderness, affection, protectiveness, admiration. Strangely, at the moment, there was no desire. Dirck vaguely realized that the afternoon had changed his attitude about Lancey.

  It wasn’t, he decided, that she was less desirable or bedable. He was honest enough to admit that he still wanted her in that final, physical way, but the status had shifted. Lancey was no longer a wench to be lightly wooed, easily left when won. Her surrender was worth more than the false coin of seduction.

  Dirck swung his leg over the tiller, sank, cross-legged, beside the girl. He could hold the rudder steady with one hand, and it didn’t occur to him to glance back to where the sky darkened over distant mountains.

  “Lancey.”

  Dozing, back to the gunwale, Lancey opened her eyes. The sunshine made everything blurry for an instant, then she saw Dirck seated at her elbow. She gave him an apologetic smile contorted by a yawn.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “I must have dropped off.”

  “I’ve the more reason to be sorry.” Dirck watched the sail, not the girl. “My apologies for this afternoon.”

  “Apologies?” Lancey straightened, shook away the last drowsiness. “Why? I enjoyed the party, Dirck.”

  “I told my mother only that I might bring back a friend. She guessed your sex from my manner.” He turned his head, smiled. “I have never needed permission to bring a man friend home, and I never before brought a girl.”

  “I guessed that much myself.”

  “That gave your visit a swollen, puffed-up importance for which I blame myself. Both mother and—Eunice—get their backs up when things go contrary to their wishes.”

  So he knows that, Lancey thought. She was more pleased than annoyed at her reception. It made the outing a complete success. Given the proper clothes she, Lancey Quist, was acceptable in any company, fit to rival Eunice Wynbridge.

  “Are you engaged to Mistress Wynbridge?”

  “No!” The negative was vehement. Dirck hesitated, continued. “Oh, I’ll admit I know the family favors the match. Father only hems and hints, but Mother is openly for it.”

  “So, methinks, is the lady.”

  “Well, they needn’t take so damn much for granted!”

  Lancey laughed softly at his flare of anger. Added to his apology it gave her a feeling of closer intimacy. She said, “Of course you’ve given them no reason.”

  “Not that much!” Dirck’s glare faded into sheepishness when she laughed again. “We’ve known each other for years. When her father was alive he’d bring her to play with Beekman and me. We know the same people, attend the same parties.” He ended with a lame admission. “Eunice is all right.”

  “All right?” Lancey stifled a quick curiosity about the gentry’s kissing customs. “Well, I guess! A rich heiress, beautiful, more than willing to wed.”

  “You think she’s beautiful?”

  “I have eyes, Dirck.”

  “There are others.”

  “Yes,” said Lancey, delighted by the statement, “but not many along this stretch of the river. None that own a fleet of sloops.”

  “Four, that’s all. Just four.”

  “That’s a fleet.”

  “That doesn’t give her the right to act as if she owns me! She as good as told you that you were trespassing.”

  “You can’t blame her for that,” Lancey said, slowly. “The poor girl made a mistake.”

  “She certainly did!”

  “Well, she knows better now.” Lancey gazed over the side, half-noted the skiff was almost drifting. “The dress had her fooled, but——”

  “What dress?”

  “Dirck.” Lancey faced him squarely. “Would you have asked me to that party if I’d been clad as usual?”

  “What makes you think——?”

  “Be honest.”

  “I sailed down to ask you.” Dirck flushed under her steady gaze. “All right! To ask you to go for a sail! I wasn’t sure about the party till I saw you. I might have taken you anyway!”

  “You never mentioned it till we were half-way there.”

  “I—I wasn’t sure you’d want to go.”

  “I wasn’t sure myself,” said Lancey, nodding, “but the gown and the day made an adventure of it. It was—well, like playing at grownup in your mother’s clothes. Pretending. I knew your friends would wonder who I was, and I was afraid someone would recognize me, and tell them.”

  “Master Kent recognized you.”

  “And said nothing. That’s when I began to feel ashamed.” She saw him start to protest, fluttered her fingers at him. “Please, Dirck. Let me finish. Up till then it had been a game. Tappen and Schuyler helped make it so. Even meeting your family was exciting. There was the risk of being found out; the task of behaving properly. Could I do it, or not?”

  Dirck, listening, nodded. He said, “But you told Eunice yourself.”

  “That was for fun.” Lancey chuckled at the memory. “I couldn’t resist pulling her off her high horse. She’ll not quickly forget that she considered a riverfront fisher girl an equal.”

  “What makes you think you’re not?”

  “The fact that I sailed under false colors. If I belonged there at all it was as the real Lancey Quist. Not the way you introduced me.”

  “I was playing the game, too, Lancey.”

  “But why did we feel we had to?”

  “Well,” Dirck said, frowning as he thought, “for my part, it was an impulse. The hoax was amusing, but somehow fairer.” He was choosing his words with care, judging their importance by the girl’s attitude. “Fairer to you, Lancey. They met you without prejudice.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Look, Lancey. Don’t think too lowly of my friends and family. If I had taken you there barefoot, straight out of Hendrick’s boat——”

  “Smelling of fish?”

  “Don’t interrupt. If I’d done that, people would have been kind. Kind and polite. Oh, they’d wonder why you were there, and Mother might draw me aside to ask, but you’d have been treated with great courtesy.”

  “Because I was your guest.”

  “I suppose so, yes. But you were that today, and there was no need to explain. You looked like what you are. A very pretty girl, whom it was my good fortune to know, and who honored me by her attendance.”

  He sounded, Lancey thought, completely sincere, and the compliments were pleasing. Still, she could never tell when Dirck was using compliments to weaken her defenses. The party had proved there was a far greater distance between them than
the few miles of river between Rhinebeck and Poughkeepsie.

  “Mistress Lancey Quist,” she said, “of Poughkeepsie. She had a short life, but a merry one.”

  “Lancey——”

  “Oh, come, Dirck. We fooled everybody, and we enjoyed it, but the jest is over. By this time your Eunice has spread the tale.”

  “She’s not my Eunice!”

  “She will be again,” said Lancey. A shrug dismissed the afternoon; her mood changed to gaiety. She had acquitted herself well, and she could not resist teasing Dirck. “Once you tell her the truth. That you felt obligated to give the poor fisher maid a holiday from the nets.”

  “You make me sound like King what’s-his-name and the beggar girl.”

  Lancey didn’t know the allusion, but she nodded wisely. He looked, she thought, very boyish, bareheaded, with the straw colored hair awry. Almost, she envied Eunice Wynbridge. His blue eyes sparkled at her, merrily unclouded by her teasing.

  “Any obligation,” said Dirck, with a bow made comical by his tailor-fashion position, “has long since disappeared between you and me. Erased, wiped out, vanished.”

  “So?” Lancey tried to place the new note in his voice. It was bantering, amused, but with undertones of reckless purpose.

  “Just so,” he said, “because the girl I’m looking at bears no resemblance to the waif that pushed a plank over thin ice toward a struggling mare and her master.”

  “No resemblance? You flatter me, but——”

  “If you mention your velvet gown again, I’ll throw you overboard. I saw that other girl in naught but a blanket, remember! She was deucedly fetching, too.”

  The girl blushed hotly, spoke tartly. “I hope that, too, Master van Zandt, is erased, wiped out, vanished.”

  “Completely.”

  “Oh.” In her surprise she gaped, then laughed.

  “I mean it.”

  “Thank you for the lie.”

  “We start afresh, Lancey.”

  Before she could speak Dirck slid closer. He slipped his free arm around her shoulders, drew her against his chest. Lancey’s muscles tensed; her fingers coiled ready to rake. She glared up at Dirck’s laughing face.

  “Velvet claws,” he said.

  “But——”

  “Sit still. I have to hold the tiller with one hand. Aren’t you more comfortable this way?”

  Drawn slightly off the cushion, Lancey noted that her ankles were exposed. She’d been sitting with her skirt carefully hiked in back. The arm holding her was firm, but not too tight. Her fingers relaxed, but she didn’t smile.

  “I was comfortable before, Dirck.”

  “But not as comfortable, I’m sure. This is the only proper way for a courting couple to go sailing.”

  “Courting couple!” Lancey punctuated the words with a snort.

  “Swain and damsel. I told you we were starting afresh.”

  She searched his face, trying to pierce through the mask of laughter. He couldn’t be serious! Her body felt the warmth of contact, and she tried to quell a stir of excitement. God and Nicholas, she thought, this damned man always gets me fussed.

  “Dirck——”

  “Ah, my deepest thanks. May I reciprocate by using your Christian name, too, Mistress Quist?”

  His exaggerated bashfulness, spoken with husky gravity, made her laugh. Lancey’s amusement was genuine; his pretending appealed to her own love of play. Her reproof sounded almost gay.

  “You are as mad as Bedlam.”

  “You’re not the first to think so, Lancey.”

  “No,” she said, gazing up at him, “I’ll wager I’m not. There’s Eunice for one, and——”

  Suddenly serious, Dirck interrupted. He said, “Eunice has never been on board the Argo.”

  Lancey was surprised by her glow of pleasure. He had stopped grinning, but his eyes seemed even brighter.

  “Nor has any other girl, Lancey.”

  She didn’t quite believe that, but it was pleasant listening. The moment had an unreal quality that made a fitting climax to the afternoon. She had walked among the gentry, joined the world of fashion in a manner beyond her dreams. Now, the barely moving boat, the sultry air, the feel of his linen against her cheek, seemed equally fantastic.

  “Should I be flattered?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  Warned by the tightening fingers on her shoulder, Lancey was ready when he bent his head. She merely raised her chin, and waited. Dirck didn’t hurry; he found her lips with skillful ease, kissed her slowly and thoroughly.

  Lancey, enjoying it, sat very still. Her fingers were locked in her lap, gripping hard to hold control. Only her mouth responded, answering pressure with pressure, savoring the sweet warmth of the kiss.

  Yes, she thought, it’s as I remembered, arousing and weakening, joyous excitement. It was hard to think clearly with her senses quickening. She was glad that Dirck was practiced in the art. When she was breathless, she drew her head back.

  “Lancey.”

  Dirck’s face was very close; she felt the breath of his whisper. Her own breast rose as she drew in air. Her eyes, opening, blinked at the light. It seemed unreal, too, strangely livid.

  “Well,” she said, with a false coolness, “I suppose a passenger must always pay the fare.”

  “Lancey!” Dirck stiffened as if he’d been slapped.

  “But this one is a gift.” She took his face between her hands, held it an instant, smiling as she watched anger give way to delight. “You’ll please accept it as such.”

  “I am honored.”

  She wanted to kiss him again, but he mustn’t think she invited liberties. She said, “This much, and no more, Dirck.”

  “Yes, Lancey.”

  “All right, then.”

  This time, as they kissed, Dirck let go of the tiller to put both arms around her. Lancey clasped her hands behind his neck. They held each other in a fierce embrace, crushed chest to chest. Lancey felt a caressing palm on her back, scarcely heard his murmur above the tumult of her pounding heart.

  “Lancey, Lancey.”

  “No, Dirck. Stop.”

  “But——”

  “Oh, please.”

  At that moment the squall hit them.

  It struck with scant warning. A few big raindrops spattered the boat; one slapped on Lancey’s knuckles. The others, rattling against the sail, made noise enough to penetrate their passion. They sat upright, staring at each other, puzzled and confused.

  “What?” said Lancey, thick-tongued. “What?”

  Dirck glanced wildly around, blanched. Even as the blood drained from his cheeks the rain-filled wind roared down on them.

  The Argo pitched, shivering, before that quick, slashing attack. An instant brought the river to a boil; waves leaped above the gunwale in sudden, white-fanged fury. The rain was heavy and drenching, but the wind was savage, berserk power.

  “Get the sail down!” screamed Lancey. “The sail!” The storm whipped the words from her, mouth. She knew the danger of a northern-bred river squall.

  “Take the tiller!”

  Shouting, Dirck leaped for the spritsail. He was too late. He was reaching for the strut that held the canvas spread when a line snapped, flicked past his ear. The sail, taut as a drumhead, seemed to float away from his outstretched fingers. Then, as the mast jumped in its socket, the little skiff twisted and reared like a frightened pony.

  Lancey, gripping the useless tiller, was sure that the Argo was going. The gale plucked her cloak from the boat, flipped it, whirling, through space. Skirts fluttering, half-blinded by the rain, the girl felt the boards beneath her knees heave as if pushed from below. Turning, she had a glimpse of Dirck tilting one way as the mast tilted another.

  Some kiss, she thought, raging because the squall had caught them unprepared. They’d behaved like a pair of dolts who’d never seen a river!

  Helpless in the grip of the wind, the tiny Argo capsized. Lancey, in that insecure second while the skiff hung,
heeled over, between balance and upset, heard the crack of the toppling mast. She waited no longer, rose from her knees with thrusting legs, left the doomed boat in a flat, shallow dive.

  She hit the roiling water, face down, with a skilled smoothness that barely knifed under the surface. The river was more chill than she’d expected after the sun-baked day, but she’d known it colder.

  Lancey was still angry, unafraid. The mishap was their own fault, but there was no reason to panic. She was a strong swimmer, self-taught in this very stream. Maybe it wasn’t a lady-like practice, but it was mighty handy on the riverfront.

  As she turned, raising her head among the angry whitecaps, skirt and petticoats wrapped themselves around her legs. The hampering feel of the sodden garments gave Lancey her first shock. She remembered her russet velvet gown.

  “Oh, God!” she wailed, aloud. “Ruined!”

  “Lancey!”

  Dirck’s voice, muted by the swish of wind and rain, sounded frightened. Through the gray haze of storm-darkened day Lancey could see the overturned skiff, keel gleaming wetly on the water.

  “Lancey!”

  “I’m all right! Stay there!”

  She paddled toward the wreck, fighting the clinging weight of her clothes. Calmly she considered and rejected stopping to remove her shoes. Not yet, she thought. The water heavy velvet made her grimly determined. She could not afford to lose both the dress and her best footwear.

  Dirck came thrashing toward her, and she yelled at him.

  “Go back! Hang on to the skiff!”

  Open mouthed, treading water, he gaped at her.

  “You can swim!”

  “Of course, I can swim!”

  Not for long, she thought, nor far, encumbered like this. She noted that Dirck, turning beside her, swam with steady, powerful strokes. It was only a few yards to the boat, but she found it a struggle. At last she touched the smooth wood, leaned against it gratefully.

  “All right?” asked Dirck.

  “Yes,” she said, panting, “it isn’t the swimming, it’s my clothes.”

  He shook water from his eyes, gazed at the sail floating beside them. His voice was sorrowful. “Poor Argo. She never had a chance. It took less than a minute.”