Heron Island by R. A. Harold

Author:R. A. Harold
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Station Road Press via Indie Author Project
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Warren Dodge sprang out of the skiff, took the line from Fiorello and made the boat fast. He presented Wyatt to a smooth-haired man with cheeks like polished apples.

“I think you know my associate Mr. Wyatt, who’s been helping us with arrangements—Jacob Van Sicklen. Our neighbor from Abenaki Island,” he added for Fiorello’s benefit. “And his guest,” Dodge went on, giving a hand up to the curly-haired young man, “Signor Eduardo Romano, who I trust will join Mademoiselle in a song or two for us this evening.”

“So pleased to know you.” The young man had an accent to match his name. “but I could not possibly—” he turned back to Dodge, “she is, a, you know, the best—the toast of New York, as you would say—she would hardly wish to sing with me!”

“I already talked to her. She’s looking forward to it.”

The young man put his hand over his heart. “Such an honor!”

he effused. “And the President too—I am terrified!”

“You’ll do fine.” Dodge led him and Van Sicklen up the path.

Wyatt and Fiorello turned back to scan the lake.

“If he’s Eyetalian, I’m a Hottentot,” Fiorello said. “I doubt he’s ever gotten closer to Italy than Grand Street.”

“Sings well, what I hear.”

“Is that Fisk’s boat coming around the point?”

The Marmorean Angel glided to its mooring in a blinding spread of canvas and white-painted wood.

Wyatt drew in a sharp breath. “God, that’s beautiful.”

“They don’t get much prettier,” Germain said. “Don’t stare at it, though—Mr. Dodge’ll get jealous.”

“His is nothing to sneeze at. There’s just something about all that white on a day like this.” The air was clear, the water ink-blue and sparkling.

“Yeah,” Germain said. “Shame we have to work, isn’t it?”

Fisk had dressed in white to match his yacht, Wyatt noted when he handed up the last of the Angel’s passengers. This 306

crowd had been trickier; he didn’t know any of them by sight except for the feline, whiskered face of Jacob Riis, whom he recognized from the frontispiece of his book. Its photographs of desperate New York slumdwellers had shaken Fifth Avenue’s complacency, for a little while.

The other passengers tended towards the average of New York’s upper strata, the men corpulent and good-natured, the women controlled, confident, magisterial in ornate, mountain-ous hats, their bosoms spilling cascades of lace. As instructed, the men gave Wyatt their names and presented their invitations. The women fluttered and rustled out of the skiff and up the avenue of young elms, parasols popping open to protect fair complexions from the sun. One or two bestowed idle, curious glances on himself and Germain before consigning them to the servant class.

Fiorello had been escorting passengers up to the Camp, depositing them in wicker chairs on the lawn and in rockers along the verandah. The housemaids moved among them with trays of iced lemonade. Fiorello helped himself to two glasses, winked at Bridie’s glare, and made his way back to the dock.

“Just checked the perimeter with the big fellow,” he told Wyatt. “Elfreida’s about two miles south, I’d say.

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