The black swan (106 page)

"What? It becomes impossible to take them everything they need. Arms, equipment, clothing, food, drugs, the list is without end."

"But, Adam, they are our people! Your family— Mammy, Leona and Garrett, and Angela are there—and my cousins. What will happen to them?"

He said nothing.

Dulcie curled her body to fit his. "Maybe we're just feelin' dire tonight. It can't be that bad. Ben hasn't stopped tryin'. As long as there are men like you and Ben, the South will get along. We have spirit. We have a cause worth fightin' for. We have faith and the land and—"

"All gone—or going. The land is burned and fallow, and the spirit is in the same tatters as our uniforms. The North marches proudly against a land of ashes and rags."

His bitterness was overwhelming.

June saw New York sweltering in hot, humid weather. The city was sweating, dusty, and oppressive. The weather reminded Dulcie of the South or Nassau, but there wasn't beauty in New York. There wasn't the easy grace of those lost southern days, nor the boistrous cameraderie of the last days of Nassau. She longed for Nassau so often, she felt she had divined Ben's letter.

Dulcie sat on the arm of Adam's chair peering over his shoulder as he read. Ben chronicled a slapstick run into Wilmington. It was amusing, but there was nothing of substance, for Ben and Adam had lost their common ground. Unwritten but easy to read was Ben's hope that Adam would return to the sea and Nassau. Each letter brought home with galling clarity the emptiness of Adam's life in New York. He criticized the Southern sympathizers living in New York, men who bemoaned the heartrending breakup of the Great Cause, while secretly fondling money belts bulging with their war profits.

Yet, deep within, he knew he was the greatest hypocrite of them all. He had the power to do something, and he did nothing. He went from one mindless social function to another, watched endless plays, savored French brandies, dressed his wife in the finest fashion, while Ben carried medicine, munitions and food to those who fought for his homeland. They were being crushed. The South was already in its death throes, writhing in the agonies of inevitable defeat, being laid open to the onslaught of vengeance and hatred that was sure to follow a bitter war. But Adam Tremain sat warm and useless in the North, a missing pall-

bearer at the funeral of the land he had always loved and had pledged himself to serve.

The more fiercely he felt his abandonment, the more precarious became Adam's and Dulcie's hold on their marriage. They slept touching each other, they made love with an undertone of desperation, trying by sheer physical contact to repair a marriage endangered because neither of them could open his heart for the other to see.

Dulcie prayed. Adam was slipping away from her just as surely as she felt herself slipping from him. With no purpose or direction in their lives they had no life. Denying the idealism and dedication that was an essential part of him, Adam didn't exist. He wasn't Adam.

Dulcie was rushing as she wrote the last of the weekly menu and handed it to Bridget. She was due to meet her mother and Aunt Mad fifteen minutes ago. They wouldn't expect her to be prompt, but neither of them would be in a pleasant humor if she left them standing in front of Stewart's in the sweltering June heat. She was running down the stairs when the door knocker sounded.

"Bridget! Answer the door. If it is someone for me, tell them I've already left!" She slipped inside the study just off the hall, listening.

*The Missus isn't here, sir, and Mr. Tremain is at his office."

A hoarse voice rasped, "Mr. Tremain? When'd he get demoted? Isn't this the home of Captain Adam Tremain?"

"He gave the sea up, sir. Will that be all, sir? The Missus isn't here."

Tom shifted his weight irritably. This bright-faced girl seemed in an unholy hurry to get rid of him. "Write down the office address. I want to see the captain before I leave the city."

Bridget hurried to the table in the hall, glanced at Dulcie hiding impatiently in the study. "I can't get the bloke off the stoop, Miss."

"Who is he? What's he look like?"

Bridget rolled her eyes heavenward. "Aaah! Blessed saints but he's a brutish-lookin' fella. Not the sort we'd be wantin' 'round here."

Dulcie paused, thinking for a moment. "He didn't give his name, did he? Bridget, ask him his name. No! I know who that is!'*

Dulcie pulled the door wide.

She saw a burly man in his forties with thick sandy hair shot with gray, hair that waved with an intense vitality all its own, for it did not seem to belong on this battered wreck of a man. His complexion, ruddy, wind-burned, was disfigured by crisscrossed white scar lines, like a mud puddle that had dried and cracked.

His big scarred, misshapen hands held a wide-brimmed new hat against the vest of his elegant brown suit. Not the most expensive New York tailor could hide the drooping left shoulder and the arm whose muscles had never regained normalcy.

Dulcie realized she had been staring, her eyes wide, her mouth ajar.

There was warmth in Tom's mild blue eyes, and his smile was friendly and genuine. "Take a deep breath, close your eyes tight, then open them again, and I won't be so bad to look at."

Dulcie blushed down to the roots of her hair. "Oh, I am so sorry! Adam told me, but—please come in, Tom. Please. I've wanted to meet you for so long, and I've already made a mess of it."

Tom stepped inside, looking around as he followed her to the parlor.

"Sit down, I'll just be a moment while I tell Bridget to have a message sent to my mother and Aunt Mad."

Tom stood up again immediately. "Here, now, don't let me keep you from anythin'."

"Don't you dare try to leave! After all this time of hearin' about you and knowin' how much you mean to Adam, I'm not goin' to miss an afternoon with you. Of course you'll have to stay for supper. Adam would be disappointed if you weren't here when he gets home." She hurried from the room.

Tom stared at her long and hard when she returned. "So you're Dulcie."

"Yes, I'm Dulcie."

"I coulda picked you outa a hundred fillies an* known you were the one."

Pleased, Dulcie blushed prettily. "Why, I'm flattered, Tom."

"You're bright as a penny an' hard as nails. Just the sort to keep him jumpin' after you."

Dulcie sat stunned under his unblinking gaze. Finally she looked away, her voice shaking as she said, "You're not

goin' to let me off as easily as Zoe and Rod have, are you? You've already set your mind against me."

"Zoe's always been a forgivin' woman. There's not much she won't take just the way it's given to her. Rod? Well, he don't hardly know anythin'. He's bein' a new husban' an' daddy all together an' that's 'about all any man can handle. But me—all I am is an ol' swamp rat who learned the hard way. Don't trust nothin' right off. Log might be a sleepin' 'gator. Face of a friend might be hidin' the heart of an enemy."

"A lost wife might be a faithless woman?'*

"I didn't get round to sayin' that, not even thinkin' it yet. UUah—^that was my wife's name—Ullah she'd say, *Tom, you white folks never could tell your own kind even when you's eyeball to eyeball.' Ullah had a sense for people, so I learned to wait before makin' up my mind.'*

Dulcie sighed, a sad, faraway look on her face. "At least you say what you feel. It's almost a relief to hear contempt. I know what to fight."

Tom cocked his head to one side, waiting. "Feels like I'm gettin' a twitch o' familiarity in my eyeball, Dulcie. What you got all bottled up?"

Dulcie started out of her thoughts, her face pinkening. "1 shouldn't be talkin' to you like this. I'm sorry, Tom. I don't seem to be doin' anythin' right today. You're travel stained, and you must be tired. Let me have Bridget prepare a room for you. You can rest and freshen up before Adam comes home. Then we can all have a nice evenin' together. My goodness, I haven't even asked you why you are visitin' New York, or how long you're stayin'. What you must think of me! All I've done is talk about myself."

Tom rubbed his eye. "Guess it was jes' a fleck o' dust, after all. For a minute there I thought you might have somethin' to say worth hearin'." He stood up, his hand groping for his carpetbag. "Well, le's see that nice room so's I can get all them nasty travel stains washed off me."

Dulcie looked into Tom's severe, disapproving face. "I can't just talk to you about Adam and myself. I don't even know you. How can I tell you about Adam and me?"

"Hell, lady, if you can't talk to Adam and you can't talk to me, maybe you better start askin' yourself what you're doin' here! Playin' house is for kids."

"Now you're just bein' cruel!"

"Wouldn't be the first time."

"Well, for me it is. Adam told me so much about you, I always thought we'd like each other immediately,"

"An' if you don't get what you want right off, then what?" Tom snapped.

Dulcie stared at him open-mouthed, then said angrily, "I don't have to listen to this, Mr. Pierson. You're a vulgar man. Bridget will show you to your room."

"You're damned right I'm a vulgar man! An' if you ever talked to Adam at all, you'd know he's the same. He belongs to the people an' the soil. Locked up heah in one o' your sweet an' pretty drawin' rooms, he's—hell! you might as well put him in a cage for the loonies to laugh at. He's nothin' heah. He don't belong. If you wanted a stuffed shirt, whyn't you marry one o' those cotton-assed dandies I seen hoppin' around on Wall Street today?"

"You've said enough, Mr. Pierson!"

"I'm jes' gettin' good an' warmed up! There was a time I thought you were jes' about the best thing ever happened to him. Then you went and cozied up with Edmund Revanche an' came as near to killin' Adam as I ever want to see."

"Edmund lied to me! I had no way of knowin' what he was like. His deceit nearly killed me as well!"

"An' ain't you jes' proud of it! Put a cottonmouth to your bosom an' then yell for sympathy when the critter takes a bite." Tom moved aggressively toward her, poking his index finger against her breastbone.

The incessant thumping of his blunt finger was unbearable. She fought tears, shaking with frightened anger.

"What's the matter, Missus Tremain?" Tom snarled. "You don't much like bein' on the receivin' end, do you?"

"Don't touch me again! Adam won't stand for you treatin' me like this! He won't have you in this house!"

Tom's eyes glinted as he bared his teeth in a mirthless grimace. "Mebbe not, lady, but you succeed in drivin' a wedge between Adam and them who loves him, an' what you got left for yourself won't be worth twice-chawed ta-bacca."

Dulcie stared at him, inarticulate. Tears sprang from her eyes. She ran to her bedroom to fling herself on the bed, weeping in rage and self-pity.

It was afternoon before she regained control of herself. Adam would be home, and Dulcie looked like a grief-ravaged hag, her eyes so swollen they were barely open.

Worst of all, though she could never forgive Tom, she recognized the truth of his words. She couldn't drive a wedge between Adam and those who loved him, particularly not Tom. Adam would defend her, but he'd never forgive her or forget the rift she caused. There would be nothing left between them.

She hurried to the bathroom, filling the basin with cold water. She pressed cold compresses on her face until she was numb.

She stared at herself in the mirror, assessing with a cold eye how normal she could make herself with powder and rouge. Her eyes still glinted with anger. She'd never forgive Tom. "I hate him!" she hissed at the mirror. "He's a low, mean man—not fit for Adam. Not fit—"

Her eyes filled with tears again, Tom's words echoing in her ears. She'd never have Adam to herself. He'd never be completely hers. She'd always have to share him. Share him with people like Tom, people she'd never met, people she didn't understand as Adam did, black people, ruthless men, politicians, visionaries of a time to come that Dulcie couldn't truly comprehend. Was there any man worth that?

She patted at her face, making herself smile into the mirror. Think about dancing, flowers, and fun. She tried to force herself to imagine she was preparing for a gala dinner. She tried to think of anything except herself and Adam and the people and ideas Tom symbolized to her, and she couldn't do it. It came back to her, pressed urgently, demanding that she know what she wanted and what she wanted to give to her life with Adam. Or that she decide that life with him was not what she wanted at all.

With greater calm than Dulcie could ever remember feeling, she sat down to dehberately consider what she wanted to do with her life. Always she had rushed headlong after things of the moment, racing in a blinding whirl of desires and gratifications. Now it was as if Tom had put his hands out and stopped the earth from spinning on its axis. Everything had stopped, waiting for her to decide.

She thought of herself growing up at Mossrose. The lazy sunlit days of teasing Jothan and braving the wrath of Mammy and Ester. Days of playing in fertile meadows with Birdie and Blythe, teasing Glenn past human endurance. She thought about the love she'd always known

from so many people and for the first time questioned what she had ever given them in return. The big things were easy to recall. She had never been ungenerous. It was no hardship to give Birdie or Blythe a shawl she particularly admired. Jem would buy her a dozen more. She had always shared possessions with never a moment's hesitation, but now she wondered if she had ever shared herself with any kind of depth or honesty. The moments of her giving unselfish love to her friends, her parents, even Adam, were infrequent ones. There were some, and they stood out among her most treasured memories, but most often her gifts of love had been tainted. The coin of exchange to buy the lady her heart's desire.

Suddenly she turned on herself, her criticisms more cutting than Tom's had been. She was merciless until she reached the point where even she recognized she had passed reason, and was able to think clearly again. She began to rebuild.

Adam loved the South, but had she loved it less? His dreams and visions were of a future in which he worked and devoted himself to rebuilding his land. Were hers different? She hadn't the muscle and the skills he had. Perhaps her contribution would not be so far-reaching. But did that make it less valuable? It was what she had to give. And she had one other thing that Tom could not deny nor anyone else take from her. Adam loved her. He had chosen her above all else in his life. So, in effect, Dulcie had Adam to give.