Cradle to Grave (22 page)

A young girl, the tavern keeper's daughter if her plumpness and brown eyes were any indication, directed Rees to a room upstairs. He brought his canvas valise to the room and was thankful he carried very little with him when he saw the boots, horse leathers, and clothing strewn over most of the chamber.

He stowed his roll under the bed, hoping that no one would help themselves to his one change of clothing, and went back downstairs. Mr. Witherspoon knew the location of the county clerk and gave Rees directions to the Stadt Huys, the city hall just a block or two north on Market, but of the Van Blau family he knew nothing. Rees applied to another guest, a tall burly man in the rough clothing of a driver. A fringe of blond hair stuck out from under his hat like pieces of straw, and he looked at Rees from blue eyes as round as marbles.

“Saai van Brugh,” he said, sticking out his hand.

“Saai?” Rees repeated, clasping the other's moist palm.

“Henry really, but everyone calls me Saai.” He smiled, revealing gapped teeth. “It means ‘dull.'” He laughed uproariously at the joke. “Will you ride or walk?”

“I have a buggy,” Rees said.

“I think you can walk; it isn't far. Follow Market Street to Hudson and Hudson to Washington. Gray gabled house.” Saai paused, eyeing Rees thoughtfully. “Are you a merchant?”

“No,” Rees said. “A weaver.” As he'd hoped, Van Brugh accepted that reply and lost interest.

The two men left the post house together, parting in the yard. As Van Brugh hurried to his wagon, anxiously examining the pewter-colored sky, Rees took himself off to the Stadt Huys. Although the English had moved into Albany many years ago, the name Stadt Huys remained, a remnant from an earlier Dutch building also constructed at the corner of Market and Hudson streets. This new structure was a fine three-story brick house that functioned as the city hall, with a court and a jail. It also boasted a weather vane and belfry, and a gallows in the backyard. Despite the cold, the appropriately named Market Street was thronged with women engaged in their daily shopping. Servants carrying baskets trailed the more affluent. Rees noted that the shops boasted a wide range of goods, some from as far away as China. But the half-wild pigs so common in New York and Philadelphia ran freely here as well, scavenging the garbage in the middle of the street. A cabriolet, forced to stop short so as not to run over the swine, flipped over to its side with a great screaming of the occupants. Rees ran over to offer what assistance he could and helped pry an older gentleman from the wreckage. The man thanked Rees profusely while trying to staunch the blood from a head wound. No one seemed seriously injured and Rees, thankful he'd chosen to walk to the Stadt Huys instead of driving, set out again.

He applied himself to the county clerk, who presided over several large wooden document cases with large flat drawers, and paid him a few pennies for his trouble. Even when the clerk stood up, he was so short Rees could look down upon the bald spot in the middle of his dark hair. The clerk handed Rees not one document, but three, and directed him to a small table. Rees quickly skimmed through them. One was a copy of the deed to the small Whitney farm with a description appended. Rees put that aside. But he read the will from Mr. Phineas Tucker leaving his property to his wife, Olive, in the event of his death. Although simple, this will made his wishes clear; his wife was his heir, not his brother Silas. Rees noted with interest that Owen Randall, the innkeeper in Dover Springs, had served as witness.

Rees put that paper aside. Legally, as a widow, Olive should have been her brother-in-law's ward, but her husband had ensured her independence. Rees suspected Silas had tried to take possession of the farm anyway, but the final document, Olive Tucker's will, explicitly left the small property to Margaret Whitney. Just as Rees expected. He felt he knew something of Olive now. She was a very forceful personality. She hadn't relinquished ownership of the farm to Silas and if he'd tried to control her, as a man over a woman, he hadn't succeeded.

It was the will's second paragraph that took Rees completely by surprise. Should Margaret Whitney predecease her children, the farm would pass to first her eldest son, and second, to Jerusha Whitney, Margaret's eldest daughter. Mrs. Tucker had signed at the bottom with a large and very determined signature. The Reverend Abner Vermette had witnessed this document.

Rees read the will again. Olive Tucker really had not wanted to surrender the property to her brother-in-law—there must have been some history there—and had taken what steps she could to prevent it. This will was an unusual action for a woman. Rees could recall no other women he knew who'd written their own wills. Rees stared into space, thinking. Seven years ago Maggie had just returned home from Boston, pregnant, with Jerusha in tow. No one knew then that she carried a boy.

So Simon owned the farm. Rees could hardly wait to tell Silas and see his expression.

“Could you make me a copy of this?” Rees asked the clerk.

He pursed his lips and said sourly, “Usually the testator keeps a copy.”

“Olive Tucker is dead and her copy is missing,” Rees said, approaching the clerk and looming over him. Rees understood the effect of his height upon shorter men.

“Very well. But I won't have it until this afternoon. And it will cost you a shilling.” Rees hesitated; this investigation was beginning to prove unexpectedly expensive, and the tax money returned to him by Cooper was running low. Finally he nodded. With a copy of the will, and Reverend Vermette's testimony, Silas surely would not be able to take the farm.

But, as Rees walked west to Washington Street to call upon the Van Blaus, he realized he didn't know if Reverend Vermette
would
testify to Simon's inheritance. Rees couldn't at that moment conceive of a reason why not, but without speaking to Vermette he couldn't be sure. And then there was again a suggestion of a different Maggie than the one Rees had met. Olive Tucker must have had some confidence in her niece; she had left her everything. The intervening seven years had changed Maggie, and not for the better. What had happened to her?

By the time Rees reached Washington Street his feet and hands were numb from the cold wind sweeping off the river. A thin snow had begun to fall, veiling the houses huddled together in white lace. Most of the buildings were gabled, after the Dutch fashion, but only one was gray. Rees knocked on the door.

“I wish to speak to Mr. van Blau,” he said to the young girl who opened it. She could not be more than fourteen, barely old enough to pin up her hair.

“He isn't here at the moment,” she replied.

“Then Mrs. van Blau? The family hired a wet nurse a few years ago and I wanted to speak to someone about her.”

The girl hesitated a moment and then said, “Come in then, out of the cold. I'll ask the mistress.” She drew Rees into a narrow hall and closed the door behind him. Abandoning him there, she hurried away to the back of the house. A few minutes later a woman of about thirty appeared. Her glance raked over him and Rees was instantly conscious of the fine greatcoat he wore over his much worn wool jacket and breeches.

“Dear me, I am sorry. You should not have been left here; that child is still in training. Please come into the morning room.” She spoke with a very slight accent. She directed Rees to the left, into a small sitting room. Rees suspected she now met with him in the same room she used for shopkeepers and recalcitrant staff. When both were settled, and Mrs. van Blau had called for coffee and
koekjes
, she said, “Now, how can I help you? Mary said you were inquiring about a wet nurse?”

“Yes. Margaret Whitney.”

“Ah. Your wife isn't with you?”

“No. She stayed home with the children.” He spoke only the truth, and she jumped immediately to the obvious conclusion. Rees opened his mouth to correct her assumption but thought better of it. She had given him a perfect reason to inquire into Maggie's background. The young servant brought coffee and a plate of small but delicious cakes, redolent of cinnamon and ginger and thickly frosted with sugar. Rees wrapped his hands around the cup and felt himself beginning to warm up.

“I put my youngest daughter out to wet-nurse with Mrs. Whitney,” Mrs. van Blau said. “I was ill after my daughter's birth and I wanted her to stay in the country. We were going into summer and I thought it would be a healthier environment for her.”

Rees nodded, trying to keep his face blank. Perhaps Maggie's shack looked more charming in the summer. “And Mrs. Whitney was acceptable?”

“Oh yes. A lovely woman. My daughter thrived.”

“And how long did Mrs. Whitney work for you?”

“Let me think. Katrina was born at the end of April. I nursed her for a few weeks before I became too ill to continue. Maggie delivered her son in May. That's one reason why I was so eager to employ her: her milk was fresh. Far healthier for an infant. My husband actually found her advertisement in the newspaper but we both drove out to Dover Springs to meet her. I retrieved Katrina from Maggie in November. I know, seven months is young to wean a baby, but I didn't want to leave her there over winter. Would you like to meet my daughter?”

“I would,” Rees said.

Mrs. van Blau rose to her feet and preceded him from the room.

They went upstairs to a small room on the upper floor. While a small boy, of about Nancy's age, Rees thought, played on the floor, a slightly older girl recited her ABCs. “Katrina,” said her mother. “Come here a moment.”

The child immediately abandoned her lesson and ran over. Pink-cheeked, blue-eyed, and with two pale blond plaits hanging over her shoulders, she smiled confidently up at Rees. Since her fond Mama seemed to be expecting some comment, Rees said, “What a beautiful child!”

Mrs. van Blau nodded complacently. “Indeed. Everyone comments upon my daughter's beauty. And my son is not far behind.”

Rees glanced at the little boy. He could not be more than a year and a half younger than his sister. As fair as his sister, he spared Rees no more than a fleeting glance before returning to the lead horse that he galloped over the floor. “Beautiful children,” Rees said, although they seemed bland to him, without the snapping personalities of Jerusha and Simon.

“So you can assure your wife that Mrs. Whitney would be an excellent wet nurse,” said Mrs. van Blau, turning to Rees.

“I will,” he said. “Thank you.”

“It was no trouble. One wants the best.”

Rees left soon after. From a thin veil, the snow had developed into a blinding curtain. As he walked back to the inn by way of the Stadt Huys, he pondered Mrs. van Blau's recommendation. Her praise of Maggie only served to reinforce Rees's impression of two different women. Had the relentless hostility from the townsfolk and Silas changed her into the slovenly creature he'd met? If so, Rees could not entirely blame her.

Chapter Nineteen

Rees reached the King's Head after two in the afternoon. Although late for dinner, most of the men, who would usually have left for an afternoon of work, were still sitting in front of their plates, using the snow as an excuse for sloth. Rees found an empty table and sat down.

“Of course we should become the permanent capital,” insisted a gentleman at the next table.

“But New York City is already of greater importance,” argued his companion, a gentleman in a jacket of blue superfine and riding boots. The other men wore sturdy shoes or clogs. “Besides, Albany was under British control and…”

“You are both ignoring Kingston,” said a third man, leaning over from his seat by the fire.

“What do you think, sir?” the first speaker asked Rees.

“I am a stranger in these parts,” Rees said. “I have no knowledge of the issue at hand.”

“The capital of New York State has rotated among Albany, New York City, and Kingston these last few years,” explained the fashionable gentleman.

“The legislators tired of the travel and passed a bill setting the permanent capital as the last location visited. That will be Albany. As it should be.” The first speaker glared at his friend.

“But New York City is an important and rapidly growing city,” the other man persisted.

Seeing that the argument would continue for some time, Rees spread his copies of the documents upon the table and turned his attention to them. The clerk had copied all three, including Phineas's will, initialing each of the signatures and stamping the documents with a red wax seal. But the seal was not the official Albany seal, and since these were not the originals, with authentic signatures, Rees suspected Silas would try to dismiss them out of hand. He would not succeed. Anyone could travel to Albany and confirm the information. For Rees, they provided incontrovertible proof of Simon's right to the cottage, and so he would argue.

Mr. Witherspoon's arrival with Rees's hearty dinner, a slab of beef swimming in gravy with a mound of fried potatoes—he could not accuse Mr. Witherspoon of stinting upon portions—forced him to put the papers to his pocket but not to cease his deliberations.

Of course Silas would protest that since his sister-in-law and her niece were women, they should never have been permitted to own or maintain their occupation of the farm. As the town fathers had turned a blind eye to that transgression in the first place, Rees felt cautiously optimistic that that particular argument would not prosper.

Of more concern was Maggie's status as a nonresident. Would her children now suffer a warning out? Or would the selectmen accept Simon's right to the farm as proof of residency and allow them to remain?

Shaking his head, for Rees could not guess which the town fathers would choose, he carried the documents upstairs to tuck into his valise. Tomorrow he would set out before first light and hope to arrive in Dover Springs mid-morning.

His roommate was already in residence; Rees recognized Saai van Brugh immediately. “Ah, Mr. Rees,” said the driver, smiling his gap-toothed smile at the other man. “Did you find Mr. van Blau?”