Shad Run

by Howard Breslin

  It was a sudden, startling noise, alien to the county, but it ended in a long-drawn, high-pitched catcall. The more familiar yowl of disapproval made Lancey quiver. She stared toward its source.

  There, easily found by the disturbance as people drew away from him, was Justin. Hands on hips, chin raised, his throat worked as he finished the catcall with a flourish. Then, he stood motionless, grinning.

  Hamilton’s horse shied, was instantly checked. Other animals danced nervously, but none reared or bolted.

  Oh, no, thought Lancey in dismay.

  Another catcall wailed lower down the slope. A third sounded from another quarter. Others followed in a lunatic series of echoes; single men, always, scattered through the throng. There were hisses, hoots, caterwaulings.

  Lancey, eyes darting, identified several yowlers. They were riverfront roughs, Jaycock’s custom. Yes, she thought, and Venick’s hirelings, led by Justin.

  Alexander Hamilton laughed, turned his head, still laughing, and said something to Dirck van Zandt. The younger man’s scowl vanished, he nodded.

  Hamilton’s laughter, Lancey saw, made his face more youthful, animated. The cool dark eyes warmed with humor. She knew then that he had magnetism, and no fear. Men would follow him, she thought, because of that. He might never be a beloved leader, like George Clinton, but he could inspire a devoted loyalty in a select few.

  Without haste, enjoying himself, Hamilton spurred his horse to a canter. Taking cue and pace from their leader the others followed. They rode away with the amiable chatter of a returning hunt on a deserted country lane.

  The crowd, Lancey noted, was shocked, scandalized. Disapproval sharpened the murmuring voices. As the ranks dissolved, spread into the roadway, separated into groups for the walk homeward, faces were dark with indignation.

  Hendrick Quist, surprisingly, expressed the general feeling in a sentence.

  “That was childish,” he said, “and inhospitable to a stranger guest.”

  Lancey bit her tongue and said nothing.

  From the day of its opening the Constitutional Convention was dominated by the personality of Alexander Hamilton. Neither the hostile majority of delegates, nor the town of Poughkeepsie, realized this at first.

  The town was proud that the governor had been chosen to preside. It was the logical choice, but George Clinton wasn’t proud. He was aware that the position stilled his tongue; he grew more choleric with every speech. Clinton sat like a wrathful judge who watched the jury being swayed by the wrong lawyer.

  Melancthon Smith, the right lawyer, attacked the proposed document with eloquence and skill. Poughkeepsie bragged of Smith’s oratory, repeated his arguments. Yet, even when it crowed the loudest, the town was concerned with the reaction of a single member of Smith’s audience.

  How did Hamilton like them apples?

  There was room in the small courthouse for only the most influential spectators. These crowded the gallery, jammed the doorways. Outside, under the windows opened to the fine June weather, the overflow clustered in ever-changing, never-diminishing groups. After every session the few who knew what had happened spread the news. These unofficial town criers became, depending on their social circle, the toasts of taverns, or the pets of parlors.

  Thus, the details filtered down to the populace. The debate was reenacted; the arguments repeated and misquoted. Who said what, did what, wore what, was a topic that engrossed every supper table, atop the bluff or along the waterfront.

  It was, Lancey Quist thought, very like the early days of a shad run. Most of the town, the workers, the sailors, the shopkeepers, went about their business, but shared the excitement of the participants. They asked eager questions, and wanted a tasty morsel for their nightly fare.

  By the end of the week even the riverfront had learned one fact. Melancthon Smith’s apples didn’t bother Alexander Hamilton. That quiet-voiced young man ate them core and seed.

  Lancey was disturbed by the effect this might have on Justin. She had seen him only once since the performance at the landing, and their conversation had not been pleasant.

  “That hooting, Justin. You don’t call that your desperate gamble, do you?”

  “That,” said Justin, laughing, “was just a sample. To let Hamilton know he wouldn’t have things his own way.”

  “He knew that without your antics.”

  “Oh? You think we should have cheered him?”

  “I think he’s still laughing.”

  “He won’t laugh next time.”

  “Next time?”

  “You tend to your fishing, Lancey. It’s no concern of yours!” He had stamped away, leaving her flushed with anger. She wondered, later, why she hadn’t shouted after him. From the moment they met she’d fought with Justin, and now, when she loved him, she was afraid to open her mouth. This was a new experience for Lancey.

  Next morning she swallowed her pride, and went looking for him. She found Pardon Cash alone on his pier, mending net.

  “Justin,” said the big fisherman, “has sort of retired from fishing, Lancey.”

  The girl sensed the hurt hidden in the casual tone. She said, “It’s just during the convention, Pardon.”

  “Tell the fish.”

  “You—you’re still partners?”

  “Aye. Far as I know. I don’t split with a messmate easy, Lancey. But Justin—well, he’s got some notions I can’t go along with.”

  “You mean—with Venick?”

  The wide shoulders shrugged; Pardon’s face might have been a weathered figurehead. “Ain’t for me to say. You better ask Justin about that.”

  Stalking home, Lancey tried to remember the last time Pardon had refused to tell her anything. She was too depressed to go to Jaycock’s. If Justin was there, he was likely to think she was spying. Love, she decided, had a deal of misery mixed in with the joy. That, of course, was only to be expected. She was, she told herself, Lancey Quist in love with a real man, not some silly goose mooning over a dream beau.

  Meda whinnied a greeting as she entered the Quist yard. Dirck van Zandt was sunning himself on the doorstep. The two little girls listened with rapt absorption while he talked to their parents. Hendrick was outside the house, Hester within.

  “—and much as they hate him,” Dirck said, “they listen. When Hamilton rises to speak you can hear a fly stamp his feet in that room. Hello, Lancey.”

  “Hello,” she said, defensive and annoyed. He was an enemy, for Hamilton and against Justin. She found even his smiling twinkle a deliberate goad intended to hurt.

  “Hendrick says he can spare you.”

  “Sure,” agreed Hendrick.

  “Spare me for what?” Lancey wished to know what she refused. She was certainly not going anywhere alone with Dirck van Zandt. He only had one thing on his mind! She’d made her choice, picked the better man, a more moral man, a fine—

  “Well,” said Dirck, interrupting her thoughts, “I can get you into the convention if you’d like to see it.”

  “You can?”

  Her startled delight made Dirck grin. He’d been counting on her curiosity, her enthusiasm, that zest for new experience that was so characteristic. The selling of the shad had gone wrong; Lancey had joined forces with Justin Pattison. It would take some effort to correct that mistake.

  Dirck did not underestimate Justin. The New Englander was taller, had brains, a fine record as a soldier, that damned white lock of hair. He was, in short, a formidable rival.

  “Yes,” Dirck said, slowly, “this is evidently van Zandt day. Places are being held for all of us. My father and mother. My brother. You will be most welcome, Lancey.”

  She stared, fully realizing the implications. This was no jest, a sudden impulse to enliven a party by producing a strange girl. Dirck was deliberately planning to display her with the members of his family before the gentry of Poughkeepsie.

  “Dirck,” she said, “I—I’m not sure——”

  “My parents send their compliments, Lancey
. They wished me to say they would be pleased to have your company.”

  There was no need, Dfrck thought, to mention the hour-long arguments that had produced that invitation. Then, as he saw her expression, he was aware that she knew. He said, “God’s truth, Lancey.”

  “Lancey,” said Rhoda Quist gazing at her stepsister with interest, “close your mouth.”

  “Face’ll freeze that way,” Hannah quoted her mother.

  “God and Nicholas!”

  Lancey’s exclamation, low but desperate, brought both children to their feet. Her stepsisters knew it meant trouble when Lancey sounded like that. Only Dirck’s arms, quickly encircling, kept them from flight.

  “Don’t mind them, Lancey.”

  “Mind? Who? I wasn’t.”

  Stunned, she gazed down at him. Dirck smiled back from his perch on the threshold. He was sitting jauntily, ankles crossed, with Rhoda leaning against a shoulder and Hannah almost in his lap. Lancey didn’t notice the little girls. She was hardly aware that he wore blue coat and fawn breeches, that his linen was spotless, his boots gleaming with polish.

  His eyes, she thought, are the startling blue of sunshine on the river. She probed them for hidden motives, perplexed by a vague recollection that they had beguiled her long ago.

  Dirck van Zandt felt uneasy under the steady gaze. He was anxious, nervous. This was Lancey, with whom every cast and wile had failed. Damn the wench! Couldn’t she tell that he’d changed? He wanted her more than ever, but he would not cheat. He spoke with teasing banter, daring her to think him insincere.

  “We won’t go near the river this time.”

  “We’d better not,” said Lancey, and grinned. She, too, remembered their duckings. He was, she knew, gambling that she would not be outraged by the memory. It was a compliment and she accepted it as such. “Those who drown go down three—”

  Then, dismay contorted her face and Dirck thought he had lost.

  “Oh, Dirck!”

  Her wail startled Hendrick across the width of the yard. Rhoda and Hannah gaped in slack-jawed fascination.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I—I can’t go, Dirck!”

  “Don’t you want to?”

  “Of course, I do! But—the convention and all—all those people—” Lancey ran her palms down the front of her sleeveless homespun. She kicked a bare foot forward, wrung her hands. There was no avoiding the bitter truth. She could not face Dirck’s mother, that flint-eyed little matron, in faded dimity.

  “I don’t understand, Lancey.”

  “I—of course you don’t, but—I just don’t—”

  “What’s the matter,” said Hester, looming broad in the doorway behind Dirck, “with the russet velvet?”

  “The—the russet—Hester!”

  “It’s hanging in here waiting for you. Good as new.”

  Dirck barely managed to draw Rhoda aside in time, as Lancey hurdled past them into the house. He glimpsed a flash of more bare leg than he was meant to see, grinned his appreciation at the sky. Some day, he thought, if I get my way, she’ll have gowns aplenty to choose from.

  “Come away, younguns,” he said, rising. “We’ll talk to your Pa while the ladies make medicine.”

  Dancing around her stepmother, Lancey bounced like a ravenous puppy. Hester, holding the gown high, pivoted to keep it out of reach. Broad grin and beaming eyes mocked the older woman’s stern commands.

  “Stay back, Lancey. Keep your paws off!”

  “But, Hester—”

  “You ain’t touching this dress, till you’re clean. You’re not taking no fish smell to the courthouse!”

  Nodding, Lancey locked her hands behind her back. She couldn’t believe her eyes. In the shaft of sunlight that streamed through the open door, the velvet gown was vividly beautiful. It was, she thought, even finer than she’d remembered, restored to an elegance beyond her dreams. The sodden, bedraggled cloth she’d last seen now had a nap as silky as fine fur.

  “Hester, how in the world did you—?”

  “I didn’t,” Hester said. “I know when a task’s beyond me. I took it to Calico’s wife.”

  “Calico’s wife?”

  “Uh-huh. Name’s Fidelia. She’s Miz Livingston’s personal slave. Has charge of her whole wardrobe. Fidelia knows tricks about female finery.” Hester regarded the velvet with critical approval. “It took time and patience, Lancey, and lots of both. Whole vats of steam, and brush strokes by the hundred, I guess. Whatever she did, it worked.”

  “God bless Fidelia.”

  Hester glanced at the fireplace. “I’ve water hot, and as soon as you’re scrubbed—” She interrupted herself as Lancey yanked the homespun skirt over her head. “Lancey, the door! Dirck’s out there!”

  He’s seen me in less, thought Lancey gaily, but paused until she heard the double slam of the Dutch door. She was peeling down her petticoats when she remembered Justin.

  The exuberance drained out of her, and she stood motionless, clad only in her shift, underskirts forming a pool around her ankles. Lancey bit her lip, frowning, horrified by her own fickleness. Dirck’s invitation had simply erased Justin from her mind. Yet she had accepted Justin’s proposal of marriage, promised to wed him. She was, if secretly and unofficially, an affianced girl!

  Justin, she knew, would not approve of her attending the convention with Dirck. There wasn’t the slightest chance that Justin wouldn’t learn about it. Even if he didn’t see her the gossip would be all over Poughkeepsie by morning.

  Dirck, she judged, had planned it that way. She didn’t doubt that he’d waged a mighty struggle to obtain his parents’ consent. Her public appearance at such a function as a family guest had, in the customs of the county, a single explanation. It was a silent announcement of open courtship.

  She had never really expected Dirck van Zandt to make such an announcement, and the victory made her glow with pleasure. But, if she went, she sailed under false colors by admitting his courtship was welcome.

  An engaged woman had made her choice. Lancey had chosen Justin. To go with Dirck was to reject Justin. To refuse to go would insult Dirck’s hard-won offer.

  Damn and blast, said Lancey silently, it was all as tangled as a fish net in a gale!

  Hester, pouring hot water from kettle to basin, turned, puzzled by the long silence.

  “What’s the matter, Lancey?”

  The girl stared at her stepmother. There was no use seeking advice. Two things repeated themselves in Lancey’s mind. The convention was the biggest happening that had ever taken place in Poughkeepsie. The red dress, lost and ruined, had been found and restored.

  “I was wondering,” said Lancey, making her decision, “how to arrange my hair.”

  CHAPTER 21

  “AS IT IS ESSENTIAL TO LIBERTY THAT THE GOVERNMENT IN general should have a common interest with the people, so it is particularly essential that the branch of it under consideration should have an immediate dependence on and an immediate sympathy with the people.”

  Alexander Hamilton, speaking about the proposed House of Representatives, was using his voice the way a virtuoso handles his instrument. The assemblage, delegates, officials and spectators, listened in silence, almost without movement. Every gaze in the crowded confines of the courthouse was fixed on the slender, erect figure of the speaker. For an age of bombast Hamilton’s delivery was simple; he seemingly disdained oratorical flourishes in order to present his ideas with clarity.

  Listening, Lancey Quist realized she was witnessing something extraordinary, perhaps momentous. The girl lacked the words and experience to recognize a great artistic performance, but she instinctively knew that this was a rare occasion, when a man and an historic moment blended in perfect harmony.

  He might have been born, she thought, for this cause and this convention. She wondered pensively what this man’s future could hold that would ever equal these days of triumphant power.

  Whoever won or lost, however the country was formed or go
verned, surely no man, not even Alexander Hamilton, could hope to reach brilliant perfection more than once in a lifetime. Here was a dominant will that held its audience enthralled. It was a triumph of personality over prejudice, of an eloquent conviction that convinced.

  Lancey’s judgment was formed by her own feelings. Hamilton spoke with such careful, precise language that even she could follow his discourse. He was untiring, patient, unruffled, bolstering each argument with explanatory detail, answering every objection point by point. She had heard someone say he was calmly logical; she knew, somehow, that he made no mistakes.

  She forgot that he was for ratification, against Clinton, against Justin and her own inclinations. He made no impassioned pleas, and the girl found his manner too cold to be attractive. Yet when Hamilton reached a conclusion, she nodded in agreement.

  This man, said Lancey silently, left you with nothing else to do!

  After Hamilton finished and sat down, Lancey sighed. A stir and rustle vibrated through the room. Men shook themselves as if awakening from a coma. For the first time Lancey noticed that the hour was late; shadows were thickening in the corners. The rays of sunshine that came through the western windows had a strangely diluted radiance.

  “That,” whispered Dirck van Zandt, leaning close, “was a speech!”

  She nodded, aware now that her feet hurt, and her calves trembled from standing for so long. The gallery was crowded and Dirck’s mother had the only available seat. Lancey didn’t mind. Far across the hall, with another party, Eunice Wynbridge sat in comfort, but her glare made Lancey’s aching muscles a pleasure.

  Down on the convention floor someone called out a motion for adjournment. The formality seemed unnecessary. People were gathering hats and wraps, rising. Even George Clinton, scowling and impatient, held his gavel poised to end the session.

  “It’s over,” Lancey said.

  “For today.” Dirck kept his voice low. “Nobody wants to try to answer Hamilton without a night’s preparation.”

  Mrs. van Zandt turned to peer at Lancey from under the rim of her bonnet. She said, “I hope you enjoyed the proceedings, Mistress Quist.”