Remember the Morning (33 page)

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Authors: Thomas Fleming

BOOK: Remember the Morning
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“That's so much stuff, Malcolm. It was all about plunder, power. Who would get rich or stay rich. Look who rules England now. Doesn't Walpole the Great Corrupter prove the whole thing was about money?”
Malcolm struggled to find an answer—and failed. “Where … where did you get these ideas?”
“From thinking. From books.”
“Whose books?”
“Never mind. I don't like your readiness to arrest everyone who disagrees with you.”
“Do you think the Spanish or the French will let you have your own ideas if they conquer New York? We'll all become papists or die at the stake with the most hideous tortures you can imagine. I'll die fighting so it matters little to me. But I loathe the idea of you and Catalyntie and my son at their mercy.”
There it was, Malcolm's little trinity of devotion, Clara thought mordantly. Did she still want to belong to it? She had begun to doubt it. Perhaps because of what she heard and saw each day in Hughson's tavern. Perhaps because she could not forget the pain on Catalyntie's face when Malcolm said good-bye before the Battle of the Bracken. Perhaps because there was someone else who needed her love.
“Clara,” Malcolm said. “I know you told me—”
“And I meant it. I should never have gone back to you. Now you have a wife at home—”
“Is that the only reason?” Malcolm said.
“No,” Clara said.
“Is it Caesar? I've heard reports of him visiting you at very unusual hours.”
“No more unusual than your visiting hours,” she said. “I'm teaching him to read.”
“Isn't that against the law?”
“Damn the law.”
“Clara—I've never felt so low. The governor is at his wits' end with this militia bill. They're making him look like a fool—and me in the bargain. Our store on the Mohawk is a total loss. Not a trader will come near us. They all curse us for killing their friends. Johannes Van Vorst and the Van Sluydens are on their way to convincing half New York we're murderers and worse. They play up Catalyntie's scalping Philip Van Sluyden as if that was the only reason for the battle.”
Clara sighed. She mourned the decline of her warrior lover into this harassed ambitious man, plunged into a world he did not really comprehend, buffeted by its confusions. “All the more reason why Catalyntie needs you. Every time you touch me, I begin to feel it diminishes her.”
“This will be the last time, I promise you.”
“No, Malcolm. Once and for all—no.”
Malcolm trudged into the darkness. In the back bedroom of her house, Clara could hear Adam Duycinck laughing with one of his whores. He was the most popular lover in the city, since he began advertising himself as an expert in preventing conception. He had attracted swarms of customers to the Universal Store, where he gave consultations between sales. Catalyntie and other theoretically respectable women had begun using his techniques.
The rest of the house was empty. Malcolm had persuaded Clara to abandon her nursery for sick and dying prostitutes. He had probably saved her from being accused of keeping a bawdy house and thrown into the street by her irate neighbors on Maiden Lane. Now she boarded two or three of these unfortunate women at Hughson's or some other tavern.
Upstairs, a voice whispered. “Hello, beautiful.” It was Caesar.
“I'm too tired to give you a reading lesson now,” she said.
“I didn't come for a reading lesson. I came to find out what you want from me.”
“What do I want from you?” The question was uncannily apt. Did he somehow know she had just refused Malcolm Stapleton's love, finally and forever? “I think—or hope—that someday we might become lovers. Maybe even husband and wife. We might have our own tavern. We might
adopt one of the African orphans in the poorhouse and become a family.”
“How do you expect that to happen when I'm old Vraack's slave?”
“In a year I'll have enough money to buy your freedom.”
“So that's it.”
“What do you mean?”
“You think you can buy Caesar. You think you can make him into your nice quiet obedient husband.”
“I can't imagine you ever being either quiet or obedient.”
Throughout this conversation, Caesar sat on the edge of her bed, a black blur in the room's darkness. Clara was standing in the doorway. He suddenly stood up and drew her into the room. She realized he was naked. Slowly, methodically, he undressed her. She did not try to stop him. She did not protest. An enormous
fate
kept echoing in her soul. Caesar was her black fate, as Malcolm had been her white fate.
Naked, she received him into her body like a wife, she mounted him and played the whore, she let his rough hands gouge her breasts, her rump. She was not surprised by his violence. Caesar was a walking cauldron of anger. She could only hope that her love, the most extravagant love she could summon from her soul's depths, might transform that black anger into acceptance, hope, peace.
When it ended at last with a shiver of mutual bliss, she waited for a sign that they had begun a journey together. Instead, Caesar's voice came out of the darkness again, as harsh and angry as ever.
“Let's understand something. Caesar don't want you to buy his freedom. Caesar ain't goin' to be any woman's bought man. Caesar's goin' to win his own freedom in his own way in his own good time. Then we can begin to talk about bein' lovers.”
“You can't do it. You can't conquer a city without guns. Even if you seize it, then what? Caesar—it's madness.”
“No it ain't. We're goin' to get some guns. We'll take New York like Hangin' Belt won the Battle of the Bracken. By ambush, surprise.”
“I won't help you.”
“I'm not askin' for your help. But I want an absolute end to your mouthin' against it—and me.”
Clara said nothing. But her silence was consent.
In the morning she walked to Hughson's through a spring rain, feeling bewildered. She had been ready to arrange her life in a new way. But Caesar was impervious to the language of love and forgiveness.
At the tavern, buxom Sarah Hughson greeted her with a conspiratorial smile. Clara wondered if Caesar had robbed the governor's silver. Were they all about to become rich?
“I feel like a new woman,” Sarah said.
“Why?” Clara said.
“I've been to confession for the first time in twenty years.”
“To whom?”
“His name is John Ury. He's a priest.”
“A Catholic priest?”
Sarah nodded. “We must keep it the deepest secret,” she said. “They'd hang him if they knew.”
“What do you do in confession?”
“You tell the priest your sins and he forgives you. It's what Catholics call a sacrament. Jesus gave his apostles the power to forgive sins and the power has passed down to Catholic priests through St. Peter, the first pope.”
What nonsense, Clara thought.
“The Protestant priests lost the power when they killed the English bishops,” Mrs. Hughson said.
“Will he stay here long?” Clara asked.
“I hope so. He plans to make a living as a tutor. He's in search of a place to board. Would you rent him one of your rooms?”
“I'd have to meet him first. Does he have a wife?”
Mrs. Hughson shook her head. “Catholic priests don't marry.”
“Never?”
“Never,” Mrs. Hughson said. “They take a vow of chastity forever.” A man who never touched a woman? Clara found this priest harder and harder to believe. She followed Sarah Hughson upstairs. In one of the tavern's third-floor rooms, they found a short dark-haired man reading a thick book, the pages of which were edged in gold. He had a slight stoop to his narrow shoulders, as if he carried a perpetual burden. A deep vertical line above the bridge of his nose suggested grief—or care—or intense thought. His mouth was kind, except for a single crooked tooth, which gave him an ambiguous expression. His eyes were dark and hooded, with bushy brows that seemed combative. He was wearing ordinary brown cloth breeches, with a patch above the knee, and a worn brown coat and tan waistcoat.
“Father Ury,” Sarah Hughson said. “This is Clara Flowers. The woman I told you about. Who saved us from ruin.”
“Please don't call me Father,” Ury said with fierce urgency. “We must break that habit immediately.”
“I'm sorry,” Sarah Hughson said.
Sarah Hughson seemed to vanish from Ury's field of vision. His dark eyes focused totally on Clara. “My dear. They didn't tell me you were so young.”
“Oh—I'm not that young,” Clara said.
“You did something worthy of a woman far older, rescuing these good people from debtor's prison. I've spent some time in prison myself.”
“So have I,” Clara said. “That was one of the reasons—”
“I'm not surprised,” Ury said. “So often we must suffer first before we learn to help others. Suffering is God's chain of grace in this cruel world.”
This was a new idea to Clara. She shook her head. “I'm afraid I don't understand that kind of god.”
“None of us do,” Ury said. “We can only struggle to obey His teaching, through the example of his son, Jesus.”
“I've read about Jesus. He was a good man,” Clara said. “Why do you think he's a god?”
“Because his life teaches us God's central message—to accept the way of the cross—the way of suffering—without losing our faith in the mystery of God's goodness—in the hope of salvation after death.”
The man spoke with such calm assurance, Clara was momentarily speechless. “Do you think you could rent Father—I mean Mr.—Ury a room?” Sarah Hughson said.
Clara contemplated this strange man. Why not? It would be interesting to hear Adam Duycinck argue with him. Adam did not believe there was anything after death but darkness. It would be even more interesting to see if he really lived without touching women. That would truly amaze her.
“Yes,” she said. “I have a room.”
“How much?” Ury said with a wisp of a smile. “I have very little money and don't expect to make much more.”
“You can pay me whatever you think it's worth,” Clara said.
“You're very kind,” Ury said.
“No—just curious,” Clara said.
Outside, the sky had darkened; a heavy rain began to fall. As Clara glanced back, the light seemed to drain from the room and John Ury was suddenly a blurred figure, shrouded in gloom. He might have been a spirit from the other world. Was he evil or good? Clara felt powerful emanations of both forces in the room as she closed the door.
A
S MALCOLM INTIMATED IN HIS CONVERSATION with Clara, by becoming a Seneca again for that passionate moment at the close of the Battle of the Bracken, I had damaged my business reputation and his political career. Our enemies, the Van Sluydens and my Uncle Johannes and his wife and daughters, both of whom had married wealthy husbands, eagerly spread the slander that we had murdered Philip Van Sluyden and his trader friends. Customers deserted the Universal Store. In the next election, one of my uncle's sons-in-law beat Malcolm for his seat in the legislature.
On the Mohawk, customers for our fur trading store remained scarce. Our enemies among the traders called us “The Negar Store” and accused us of trying to create an African colony that would seize control of the river and waylay whites. Unable to continue paying our black soldiers, we gave them each two hundred acres of land along the river and closed the store. We retreated to New York where I sold the goods for half their value.
Soon we were desperate for cash. With the rising tide of war between the Spanish and the English and the likelihood that France might enter the conflict at any moment, the British navy roamed the high seas, making it almost impossible to smuggle goods from Holland. I was forced to buy English goods from New York importers, and the profits from the Universal Store plummeted.
There seemed to be only one somewhat forlorn hope—Malcolm's lawsuit to recover his New Jersey lands. This prime topsoil, five square miles in extent, already in cultivation, could be borrowed against almost indefinitely. We decided to go to London and prosecute the case personally. After years of legal paralysis, it seemed hopeless to try to accomplish anything at a distance.
I also needed a London merchant to back me in New York and ship me goods at prices that would let me meet the competition. Much as it pained me, I saw it was time to take my grandfather's advice and submit to English power.
When I told Malcolm this side of my plan, he laughed sardonically
and said: “Don't tell me you're going to start obeying the law.” Our economic debacle on the Mohawk had shaken his confidence in me. He still yearned for Clara. We were far from a happy couple.
Malcolm went off to search the wharfs for a ship to England. I wrote an ad for the
Gazette
, advertising the Mohawk lands for sale or rent—and went over to the Universal Store to discuss with Duycinck the possibility of hiring Mrs. Hughson to manage the place while we were in London. She had two daughters who were old enough to work as clerks. She seemed to be making a success of the tavern she owned with her husband and Clara.
Duycinck declined to say yes or no to the proposal. “Why so doubtful?” I asked.
The little hunchback squirmed and twisted his face. “There are certain points to her character I'd rather not discuss,” he said.
“That's not good enough. Tell me the truth or—”
I had reduced terrorizing Duycinck to an art. He capitulated instantly. “She's a fence, madam. She and her husband deal in stolen goods. I bought some stuff from them. But I stopped. It made me too nervous. I could feel the hemp around my neck.”
I was stunned. I knew there was random thievery in New York but I never realized it was a business. “Does Clara know?”
“I think so. I've never discussed it with her. I've never discussed it with anyone.”
“I'm glad you stopped,” I said. “But why did you start? Did you have so little confidence in me as a businesswoman?”
“Your success or failure had nothing to do with it, madam. I sold the stuff off the books and kept the money for myself.”
I was deeply, painfully hurt. I had come to regard Adam as a trusted friend as well as an employee. “What have I done to deserve such treachery?” I said.
Adam tried to play the man at first. “You don't pay me enough to satisfy my appetite for good rum and pretty girls,” he said.
He crumbled under my accusing stare. I paid him very well and he knew it. “Maybe this hump on my back makes me a kind of outlaw,” he said.
The fact that the little fellow confessed his own guilt to protect me from Sarah Hughson was to his credit. “I wish I could pay you more,” I said. “But we're closer to ruin than to prosperity at present. You know that. Still, in return for your somewhat peculiar honesty, the rest of your indenture is canceled forthwith.”
“I'll spread the news when I celebrate tonight. Catalyntie Stapleton has a woman's heart—even if she wields a wicked scalping knife.”
“That was a terrible mistake. I think it's changed Malcolm's feeling toward me.”
“I've told Malcolm he should have scalped that swine Van Sluyden for you.”
It was bewildering to discover that this little man, a total cynic about most people, admired me. I thanked him for his support and turned to go.
Adam seized my arm. “Promise me you won't tell anyone—even Clara—what I said about Sarah Hughson. Her behemoth of a husband might wring my neck.”
“I don't know what to say to Clara.”
“Nor do I,” Adam said.
Back at the house I found Malcolm waving a newspaper. He had located more than a ship. A fine brigantine,
Raleigh,
was just in from London. She would be sailing as soon as they loaded a cargo of grain. The captain had brought the latest London papers and they were full of momentous news. Malcolm read the story aloud to me from his favorite paper,
The Craftsman
.
“The time of the Patriots has come. The Great Corrupter has finally been called to account by our gracious King. Prime Minister Walpole has been forced to resign his place and the nation and the empire confidently expect that with him will go the army of vipers, bloodsuckers, thieves, and arsekissers who have so long disgraced the halls of our government
.
Not a few citizens hope the Great Thief himself will be placed on trial for his innumerable peculations and treacheries—but that is probably too much to expect from our benumbed benighted age. Perhaps, once the Patriots sweep out the accumulated filth of Walpole's reign, there will come
a
time for retribution
.
But for the present, let us simply rejoice in the nation's salvation.”
Malcolm was ecstatic. He saw a divine intervention in our favor. Justice was returning to the British Empire and he would be one of the beneficiaries. Remembering how much my Dutch friends admired Walpole, I was not so sure the change was for the better. But I had learned to hold my tongue in matters political.
I decided to take five-year-old Hugh Stapleton to London with us. I persuaded our cook Shirley's daughter, Amelia, to come along as his nurse. To manage the Universal Store, I enlisted the wife of my old friend Guert Cuyler. She was a buxom intelligent Dutchwoman named Sophia, who was eager to try it. Her mother had managed a store for
her late father, Harman Kierstede, a successful merchant of my grandfather's era.
As we began packing for our trip, we were interrupted by a visitor—our old friend Captain Hartshorne. The doleful countenance, dirty coat, and tattered wig that had characterized him at Oswego had vanished. He was dressed in the latest style, a bright blue waistcoat, a mauve swallowtail coat, and buff breeches. The silver buckles on his shoes must have cost him a year's pay. A new optimism pervaded his fleshy face.
“I'm on my way back to old England,” he said. “I thought I'd give my friends the Stapletons a call.”
Malcolm was delighted—and soon learned the reason for his military father's transformation. The death of Hartshorne's bachelor uncle—his father's brother—had left him a fortune almost as large as the one he had gambled away ten years ago. He was to receive it only if he swore a solemn oath in front of a clergyman never to touch cards or dice again. Malcolm easily persuaded the captain to join us aboard the
Raleigh
and insisted on putting him up in one of our spare rooms until we sailed.
This hospitality proved useful. A day or two later, another knock on the door introduced us to one of the most attractive young men I had ever seen in New York. William Johnson was about six feet tall, with a muscular physique that emanated vitality and a convivial Irish manner that more than matched his handsome face. He had seen my ad about the Mohawk store and was interested in managing it. He had plans to settle on the river to supervise the settlement of some lands belonging to his uncle, Sir Peter Warren. With Captain Hartshorne on hand to explain the politics of the fur trade and glorify Malcolm with a recitation of the Battle of the Bracken, the young Irishman was quickly convinced that he had found friends and business partners. Naturally pugnacious, like most of his race, he had no fear of the Albany conspirators, if they had the stomach for another foray against the store. He had a half dozen relatives with him, all of whom knew how to use a gun.
With our businesses in good hands, Malcolm and I sailed for England aboard
Raleigh
. The captain was a garrulous old salt named Jones, who predicted England would be at war with France within the year. Malcolm spent much of our six weeks at sea discussing with Hartshorne the fall of the Great Corrupter, Walpole, and the transformation they were both sure it would make in English politics.
I remained skeptical. I had no faith in moral transformations—especially English ones. I spent the voyage teaching little Hugh arithmetic. By the time we landed, the boy could add, subtract, and multiply simple sums and Hartshorne declared he was a prodigy.
Hartshorne's predictions of a political resurrection had Malcolm in a state of wild excitement as we glided up the winding Thames with the
incoming tide, admiring the neat green fields and handsome houses that dotted the countryside along the river. Compared to forested mountainous America, England was one vast garden. It all looked so peaceful, so well ordered, I was almost ready to believe Hartshorne's optimism.
Soon London appeared on the horizon. The dome of a great church, identified by Hartshorne as St. Paul's, rose above the numerous spires of lesser churches. Malcolm stayed at the rail with Hartshorne while I retreated to the cabin to pack our trunk. Through an open porthole I overheard my husband say: “You can't begin to realize how much it will mean to me to have a decent competence of my own to put me on an equal footing with my wife.”
“No doubt, no doubt,” Hartshorne said. “She does seem a bit
strong-willed.
”
The words stung. So this was all I had to show for my years of trying to persuade him to love me—paying his tavern bills and the cost of keeping him in good clothes to play the politician in New York. He still resented my insistence on managing our finances. A bitterness crept into my heart that I found impossible to wish away.
With Hartshorne as our guide, we landed at a wharf not far from the remains of the old royal palace of Westminster.
38
Pointing downstream to where boatmen were ferrying people back and forth between two landings, Hartshorne remarked that it was the route King James II used to escape to France when he was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. “They say he dropped the Great Seal in the river midway across,” Hartshorne said.
Not far away were the twin towers of St. Stephen's Chapel, where Parliament met. The residence of the Speaker of the House of Commons was a huge stone pile, more imposing than the chapel. We hired a coach from a nearby inn and drove down a wide street full of majestic old grey stone buildings around which numerous taverns clustered. “This is New Palace Yard,” Hartshorne said. “The law courts. You'll no doubt be spending a lot of time here.”
Next came narrower streets lined with cross-timbered houses which Hartshorne described as “ancient.” The streets had picturesque names, such as “Thieving Lane” and “The Little Sanctuary,” so-called because it was once a place where fugitive criminals could escape arrest. It was still populated by “the worst sort,” Hartshorne said, adding it was “not a place to frequent after dark.” A glance at the ugly faces and ragged clothes of the passersby readily convinced us that the captain knew whereof he spoke.
We progressed up King Street to Whitehall, site of a palace which had
burned down forty years ago, prompting the royal family to move to St. James. The nobility rushed to buy the land and now it was populated largely by “great folks,” Hartshorne said. He pointed to spacious threestory mansions in red brick or ochre, some overlooking the Thames, and reeled off the names of their owners—all dukes and marquises.
Soon we were in the heart of the city, and the streets and names became a blur. London was immense. Hartshorne said it had upward of six hundred thousand people. Three Amsterdams, I thought. Around us traffic thickened, a confusion of coaches and wagons and open carriages and a sprinkling of sedan chairs. These enclosed little houses made of leather, carried on the shoulders of two sturdy men, shocked Malcolm. “I didn't think you could get free Englishmen to do such degrading work,” he said.
“Hunger is a great persuader,” Hartshorne said in his offhand way.

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