The Black Swan

by Day Taylor

  Then Goody nearly spoiled it all. "Ah, there's Adam!" he cried happily. "Come along. Miss Dulcie, I'll introduce you."

  "Good evening, Miss. Evening, Goody," said Adam. In the pale lights his teeth flashed in—at last—a smile. He seemed to have a genuine liking for the irrepressible Goody.

  "Miss Dulcie, may I present Captain Adam Tremain? Captain Tremain, Miss Dulcie Moran of Savannah, my own hometown."

  Dulcie was afraid Adam would say they had already met disastrously. Instead, he said with another smile for her alone, "It's a real pleasure to meet you. Miss Moran."

  He could not see her hot blushes. "Thank you, Captain Tremain. Would you please tell me somethin'? What do you see out there in all that water that continues to hold your interest?"

  "Whales. Porpoises. Seaweed. Little pale things that glow."

  Goody had been willing to flaunt Dulcie to Adam; he was not so willing to share her. "Going to Gentlemen's Night, Adam?"

  A broad grin answered that.

  The next morning Oliver, arising late after the Gentlemen's Night, was shaving. Suddenly he burst out laughing. "Oh Mad, you'll never see the point of this, but it's too funny to keep." He started laughing again. "You bring to mind Captain Tremain? Handsome devil, I know you recognize him. Well, it seems he served as second mate under Captain Sloan, and now that Tremain's a captain himself, Sloan is smarting under the competition."

  "But not smartenin', I'll wager.'*

  Oliver chuckled. "That's very good, Mad. Deep." He patted her hand. "So Captain Sloan tells Captain Tremain not to wear his uniform, to find something else to wear. Oh, ha! ha! When Captain Tremain comes in, long after everyone else has arrived, he's wearing—now get this, dear Mad—he's wearing his trousers and his J)Oots—and a string tie! Oh! ho! ho! ho! And nothing else—except a coat of suntan! Isn't that rich?"

  Mad mumbled over the items of Adam's attire. "He'd forgotten his shirt, Ollie? Is that it?"

  "Yes!" Oliver howled, shaking with his glee. "And his coat! But he did it on purpose!"

  Mad looked at him blankly. "Ollie dear, why would he do that?"

  "Because Captain Sloan had ordered him to, and he didn't have any other clothes along except his uniforms!"

  In her years of marriage with Oliver, Mad had almost forgotten how to make herself blush. Suddenly she remembered. "Ollie, I don't believe I need to hear any more. This is quite embarrassin', dear."

  "But it's funny! Don't you think so? A room of perfectly attired gentlemen, behaving very properly, then suddenly in comes this magnificent young savage. All aplomb, smiles, and sunshine and shaking hands with everyone. Then gradually a hush fell over the room as it dawned on everyone what he'd done. I glanced at Captain Sloan, and I vow, my dear, I thought I'd see the man have an apoplectic fit. He roared out, *Captain Tremain! Get your uniform on!'"

  Mad tittered in spite of herself. "What then, Ollie? Oh, this is just shockin'!"

  Oliver chuckled again. "Captain Tremain saluted grandly and said, *Yes, sir! By your leave, sir!''Then everyone in the room started laughing, Sloan last of all. He knew when he'd been bested. When Tremain returned, everyone was slapping him on the back, and he went over to Sloan and apologized handsomely.'*

  Mad smiled a little. "Men are so terribly vulgar!"

  Oliver laughed. "Oh, no, nothing vulgar about it at all. He did the whole thing with such style and grace that it positively made the entire evening. Hardly a man there but envied him his savoir faire, not to mention his display of muscles." He lowered his voice. "Mad, do you know, I would nearly believe he's tanned all over?"

  Mad, sitting straight up in bed listening avidly, shut her eyes tightly. "Oliver, I don't think I need to know any more."

  "Well, as you wish, but wasn't it a fine joke?'*

  "Yes, Ollie dear, a very fine joke."

  So good, in fact, that Mad and her deck-chair friends analyzed it endlessly, whispering behind their hands.

  "Scandalous!" said one. "Incredible!" said the next, who in forty wedded years had never seen her husband in less than his union suit. Somehow everyone heard, even the young ladies, for whom discussion of such behavior was beyond the pale.

  And Captain Tremain, restlessly patrolling the deck of a ship not his, was no longer allowed to remain aloof. He was drawn into deck games, debates, and the entertainments he had been ignoring. His smile, which so few had seen previously, appeared frequently enough to dazzle the sourest dowager, who outspokenly called him a shameless rogue.

  Dulcie heard the story, whispered between giggles, from her shipboard friend, Mandy Thomas. "I have even heard that his body is tanned from the sun!" said Mandy, her eyes large with speculation. "That must mean he appears in the out-of-doors without his—^without his shirt! Isn't that awful, Dulcie?"

  Dulcie, who had formed altogether too vivid an image of Captain Tremain wearing only trousers and boots, blushed deeply. "He should be ashamed of himself." She pushed the image away.

  Thereafter, although it was impossible to avoid him, she passed the man as though he had become invisible. Such reckless boldness as his frightened her in some way she didn't care to examine. She strolled in the afternoons with Goody Hastings and Toby Dobbs. She played battledore and shuttlecock with Mandy and her sisters. There was music and dancing nightly, and Dulcie was often invited, but Adam was never there, to her great relief.

  An Atlantic voyage would hardly be complete if all its days were sunny and its nights stariit. Two days out of New York Dulcie awoke to find rain gusting in. She sat up in her sodden bed and slammed and secured the porthole. "Claudine, would you get me a dry blanket?"

  "Ah's seasick. Miss Dulcie. But Ah'll do it d'reckly."

  Then Dulcie noticed the lurching motion of the ship, wallowing like a hog in mud. "Never mind, Claudine," she said quickly. "You stay in bed," She wetted a cloth and put it on Claudine's sweating forehead.

  "Ah's so cor. Miss Dulcie," said Claudine, her teeth chattering. "Ah got to git up an' fin' me a quilt."

  Dulcie put more covers on her maid and tucked them

  in. Claudine gave her a weak smile of thanks, closed her eyes, and dozed.

  Dulcie dressed in her riding clothes. She had used them only a few times in Europe. But on a sloppy day like this they were practical.

  There were few at the tables this morning. Oliver was cheerfully spooning down steaming oatmeal and crunching his toast and kippers.

  "Poor Aunt Mad and poor Claudine," said Dulcie as she sat down. "I wish there was somethin' I could do for them."

  Oliver's eyes twinkled. "Take them a few kippers? They're delicious."

  Dulcie laughed. "Uncle, you're a terrible, terrible man —and I love you madly just the same."

  Oliver harrumphed, and looked in some other direction. After a bit he said, "My dear, do you suppose your father would come North to live? There's good tillable land in New York and New Jersey."

  "What made you think of that. Uncle Oliver?"

  "Merely an avuncular desire to see my favorite niece more often."

  "Thank you for the compliment, and what else do you have worked out?"

  "Now, really, Dulcie, am I that transparent?" he asked indignantly. "As you deduced, I've thought about this quite a lot. You're mature enough to look at this rationally, Dulcie, or I'd never dream of discussin' it with you. Once the North invades Southern lands, you can see where that will put large landholders like your father. He'd be clever to sell immediately at the best price he can get and invest in Northern land or business."

  "I understand what you say. Uncle, but there's nothing I can do. It's Daddy you should talk to."

  "I have. And I will again. But I wanted you to hear my side, from me. I don't want to lose you—in any way." He looked at her fondly. "I believe I could use a touch more salt, please, Dulcie."

  Dulcie stood on deck, wrapped in her riding habit and oilskins. There was no one about except some of the sailors. "Wind's mighty chancy today. Miss," said one. "Better go back below. Or else k
eep hold of a line."

  "Thank you, I will." She made her way to the rail. It was

  terrifying, it was elemental, it was supremely invigorating to be out on the ocean in the midst of such a storm. The clouds were a solid char-gray sheet overhead, the rain a wall around the ship. Smoke and soot from the stacks blew around her as she moved forward, holding the rail tightly. The ship heaved and shuddered, rocking from side to side, but its bow stayed pointed toward New York. Dulcie watched the foaming water, hypnotized by its endless motion.

  "Pardon me. Miss, did you lose your horse?**

  Dulcie swung around in surprise, and wanted to run. It was Captain Tremain, his white teeth bared in ao exuberant smile. "I beg your pardon?"

  He gestured toward her riding outfit. His gaiety was irresistible, and she smiled back at him. "It was so stufify downstairs—^I mean, below—and I wanted some air. I'd have been foolish to ruin a gown for that."

  "You're getting drenched, you know."

  "I like storms. Captain Tremain," she said defiantly.

  He ran his eyes over her face for a long moment before he said, **Yes, I believe you do." His lips curved up in a little smile, and he looked away, toward the rolling, breaking waves. The rain curtained them, set them apart from time and place and propriety.

  Adam turned to look softly at the girl beside him. "I bought Fellie's boys in New Orleans for a ruinous price and gave them their freedom papers on the spot." He smiled. "They're with their family in New York now. My partner hired both as clerks in one of his businesses. They're proud people, that family. The boys are buying their freedom, paying us back a little at a time."

  Dulcie hugged herself, doing a little two-step dance. "Oh, I'm so happy!"

  Adam's eyes were warm on her. "So am I, Miss Moran."

  "How can I ever thank you enough. Captain Tremain? You simply can't know how much it means to me, to find out at last!"

  "No?" He grinned'at her.

  "You don't know the entire story. Captain." She told him then what had happened after she left Fellie in his care. "I haven't seen my father for over a year. All his letters went astray until we got to Paris, and I didn't know if he'd forgiven me." With his sympathetic eyes on her.

  she felt tears coming. She turned her back so he wouldn't see her mouth tremble.

  After a moment he said casually, "I've been to Paris." With a little grin meant only for himself, he went on, "I probably saw a different side of the city, but the things I remember best are the chimney pots on the Left Bank and the chestnuts beside the Seine and the itinerant violinists—I've never heard so many bad violins played so badly."

  Dulcie, in control of herself now, giggled, partly with embarrassment. "And the windmills, hundreds of them, catching the winds above Montmartre."

  "The carriage drivers, every one of them a wild man.'*

  "And Calais, Captain? Were you ever there?"

  "Yes, but I was sick with fever. So now you'll go home to Savannah?"

  "Actually to Mossrose. And you? Where is your home?"

  "My mother lives south of Wilmington, in a little resort town. My home is—several places, usually onboard a ship."

  She made the question casual. "Are you married, Captain?"

  "No, ma'am," he said, with a finality that made her blink. "Except maybe to the sea."

  She caught his eye, and he was teasing her. She retorted, "That must explain why you spend so much time starin' at it." After a short silence, with the rain still slashing at them, she said, "So now we are both goin' home to the war. Which side shall you take?"

  "I'm a Southerner, Miss Moran."

  "Captain Tremain, is it true that the South is poorly armed? And that the North will invade us soon?"

  Adam laughed a little. "For a beautiful girl, you ask some ugly questions. Are you a spy?"

  "A spy! Oh, you're makin' fun of me! I'm serious. I want to know!"

  "Undoubtedly you do, but you'll have to ask someone else, for I don't wish to discuss it. Tell me, did you tour the British Isles? Was it as wet as we are now?"

  Dulcie glared at him belligerently, longing to crush him for his flippancy. Then she caught the sparkle deep in his eyes, and they laughed.

  "Miss Moran, there's a nice dry lounge below, and stewards to bring us hot coffee. Don't you think we must be simpleminded to stand here in a raging storm for over an hour?"

  She met his half-rueful, half-derisive smile with one of her own. "What other reason could there be, Captain?" Her gaze roved over his finely chiseled features. It was there even though he didn't know it, that first look of tender awareness, that recognition of like spirits. Her eyes clung to his, yearning, passionate, submissive.

  By evening the storm had passed. The sea was calm, but an air of excitement pervaded the Tunbridge. A traveling troupe would present its specialty in five act^, a full four-hour performance of that stunning hit Uncle Tom's Cabin.

  "Aunt Mad, Toby Dobbs asked if I'd be able to go with him. May I?"

  "Do you want to, dear? I know he's from a wealthy family, but, gracious, he has such hard-looking eyes. Not respectful at all."

  "You let me promenade with him."

  "But that was in a group, dear, and quite different.*'

  It was no use arguing with Aunt Mad; besides, Dulcie didn't care to spend four hours in Toby's company. It was just that she would look like a wallflower sitting with her aunt and uncle, and Adam hadn't asked to escort her as she had hoped he would.

  The 'tween-decks lounge was stuffy with cigar smoke and perfume, blown about languidly by the many fans with which the ladies were prettily cooling themselves. Onstage the mulatto fugitive George Harris was declaiming: "There isn't, on earth, a living soul to care if I die! I shall be kicked out and buried like a dog."

  With a melancholy quiver in his voice, Mr. Wilson said, "Take HEART, George! Trust in the LORD!"

  George pressed his fingertips to his forehead. "IS THERE A GOD TO TRUST IN? There's a God for you Christians, but is there any for US?"

  Dulcie's head was aching with the smoke and scent and shouting. "I've got such a vile headache. Aunt Mad. Would you mind if I just went to bed?" She made her way out, down the aisle, as Aunt Mad watched. The moment Mad turned her back, a man sitting two rows behind her made his exit.

  Dulcie started toward her cabin, changed her mind, and went up the after companionway, moving quietly on deck to stand in the darkness by the rail. She saw no one else.

  She took a few deep breaths of the cool salt-smelling night air and began to feel better.

  Suddenly arms flew out of nowhere to grab her. She screamed in fright.

  Adam, needing a distraction from his tedious idleness, had gone early to the lounge, taking a seat in the last row. He had already seen one of the dozens of versions of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Tonight, however, he was too warm, restless, impatient with the slowness of the Tunbridge, impatient with the turbulence of his own mind to watch the play. For the first time in his adult life he was alone and found himself lonely. Such realizations were treacherous shoals.

  He turned his attention to the stage, where Eliza Harris was speaking to her husband. The girl Eliza was a gross version of UUah, a caricature that Adam didn't care to see more of. He rose and departed, mounting the forward companionway.

  Half an hour before, all had been clear. Now banks of clouds were obscuring the stars, and the wind was rising. By tomorrow they'd be into rain again. He moved to the rail where they had stood—was it only this morning? He sighed, reproving himself for dwelling on a slender auburn-haired girl with rain in her hair and on her lashes, a girl with a giving heart and no one yet to give it to. A girl who held convictions so strong that she dared her father's wrath. A girl who met the sea unafraid, who liked the gale, who had a womanly virtuousness that fought in her with a boldness creditable to any man.

  A girl any man, if he were not blind or otherwise committed, would . . .

  He heard her scream. Instantly he was alert, moving noiselessly toward the
sound. Then Toby Dobbs's hearty laugh rang out, and Adam stopped. To him, Dobbs was a boor, given to coarse jests and male crudities that spoke ill of one of New England's oldest families. He'd seen them strolling together, Dulcie talking vivaciously and flirting with him while Dobbs looked at her possessively.

  He stood listening. Words were swept away. Only the tones remained. Hers, lashing out at him in a fury. His, conciliatory, then pleading. Hers, forgiving. His, triumphant, frolicsome. In moments now, they'd be kissing and making up. Adam threw his fresh-lit cigar into the water. He'd go below and read. If a girl of Dulcie Moran's dis-

  tinctive qualities could endure an oaf like Dobbs, she deserved anything that happened.

  "Really, Toby, you nearly frightened me to death!**

  "I've already said I'm sorry. Why don't we just drop the subject?"

  "Certainly," said Dulcie frigidly. "I have a headache, Toby. If you'll excuse me, I'll go lie down."

  "Don't go yet," he pleaded. "Please stay awhile. Talk to me, so I'll know I'm forgiven."

  "Toby, you're an incurable rogue."

  "Will you stay in New York? Perhaps we could do the town.'*

  Dulcie clapped her hands. "Oh, how excitin'! That sounds like such fun! Except I must take the jfirst passage I can book to Savannah."

  "We'll go to the theater, dine at Delmonico's, see the lights of Broadway after dark." His arm stole around her waist; Dulcie moved away. "I'd like to keep you in New York as long as I can." He looked earnestly into her eyes.

  She looked down, but Toby Dobbs was not to be circumvented. He turned Dulcie to face him, holding her too tightly. "There's no need to be coy. I saw you leave the lounge, saw you look right at me. I knew you'd be up here where it's nice and dark, waitin' for me."

  "I couldn't see a thing in the lounge. I left because I have a headache."

  He laughed indulgently. "Now you've saved your pride, but you're still here with me, just where you wanted to be." He bent to kiss her, and Dulcie pulled back, turning her head away from him.

  'Toby, stop it!" she hissed. He held her tighter, his mouth coming closer to hers. As he kissed her, Dulcie began to struggle.