Until the Dawn (36 page)

“Pieter, go to the kitchen and get some breakfast.”

“Grandpa already brought me a bowl of oatmeal to my room.”

“Then go get some fresh air on the terrace. I need to speak to Grandpa.”

“Mr. Gilroy will accompany you,” Nickolaas said, surprising everyone in the room. Mr. Gilroy was his grandfather’s most trusted servant, and Quentin sensed Nickolaas was about to share something very sensitive.

“Certainly, sir.” Mr. Gilroy’s voice was composed, but he couldn’t mask the surprise at being asked to leave. Quentin waited until the door closed behind Mr. Gilroy and Pieter before turning his attention to his grandfather.

“The document is written in Algonquin, although I suspect you already knew that.”

Nickolaas fanned the pages of another book and snorted. “I could have told you that the moment it was found. No one asked me.”

“You wanted to burn it rather than provide insight into it. Why?”

Nickolaas crossed the room and opened the door, looking both ways as if to assure himself there were no eavesdroppers lingering about. He peered out the windows, as well, before he crossed back to the desk.

“You knew that my father had discovered similar texts shortly before he died,” Nickolaas said.

“I suspected as much.”

“They were the same. Pages of the Algonquin Bible with underlined sentences. My father wanted to know what they said. There aren’t many people who can still read or speak Algonquin, so my father went up to the Natick village in Massachusetts to find someone who could tell him what the documents meant. The underlined passages were always taunting and acrimonious. Bits about men who gain the world but lose their soul. Or how a camel is more likely to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man is to get into heaven. Nonsense like that. Not
very insightful, but it was enough to send my father into a fit of melancholia. He became obsessed with the Indians, convinced that our ancestors must have done something to cheat or swindle them.”

“And what do you think?”

There was a long pause, and his grandfather’s face was grim. “I think he was right,” Nickolaas finally said. “Whatever happened was bad enough for the Indians to hold a grudge for generations. At first it was underlined passages from the Bible, but later they sent letters in perfect English. Apparently, one of the Indian converts to Christianity was sponsored to attend Harvard and had a fine understanding of English common law. After they quit sending biblical passages, they sent legal articles about trade customs and embezzlement. The Indian wrote that “the crime” was long past and could not be corrected by the laws of man, but that the laws of God are eternal, and the Vandermark family would not benefit from Caleb’s crime. I think the Indians put some sort of curse on the family.”

Quentin scowled. “Not that again—”

“How else can you explain the centuries of misfortune that have befallen our family?”

Ten generations had passed since the first Vandermarks landed in America, and after that much time, it was normal for there to be plenty of tragedies in any family. He spoke slowly and carefully. “Nothing that has happened to our family falls outside the typical trials of life. Money can’t insulate us from tragedy, but we’ve cultivated a streak of superstition that makes us highly attuned to the power of suggestion.”

“Only half the story can be uncovered from here in America,” Nickolaas said. “When I was a young man, I traveled to meet our Vandermark cousins in Holland. I wanted to know what they remembered about Adrien and Caleb Vandermark, and what they believe is
not
what I know to be true.”

“What did you learn?” For the first time in his life, Quentin was intrigued by his family’s curious past.

“The village of Roosenwyck wanted to establish a settlement in America and selected Adrien and Caleb to scout out the territory, secure title to the land, and create a village. They were given plenty of money to build a church, a school, and set up trading operations. Other immigrants were supposed to follow later in the year, but a war broke out and the Dutch patroons put a halt to people leaving the county. Years passed, and by the time the ban was lifted, the economy had improved and word was sent to America there would be no additional settlers from Roosenwyck. The Vandermark brothers were directed to welcome any other European settlers who wished to join them.”

Quentin could sense where this story was leading. With no additional settlers from Roosenwyck, Adrien and Caleb had no one overseeing how their seed money was used. Caleb continued correspondence with his Vandermark cousins in Holland for decades, and these documents had been collected and stored in the town’s archives. Nickolaas had bought the entire archive of seventeenth-century Vandermark letters for a small fortune.

Nickolaas continued with the story. “Caleb wrote to the elders in Roosenwyck that he paid for a fine Dutch church and a three-room schoolhouse. I know from looking at American records that the seventeenth-century church in this village was built by the English, not Caleb. Same with the schoolhouse. Caleb lied and assumed he would never be caught since no one from Roosenwyck was likely to come to America. By then Adrien was dead, so there was no one to be witness to his crime.”

Quentin let his gaze roam across the library, with its vaulted ceiling and bank of diamond-pane windows. How much of the Vandermark fortune had been built upon money misappropriated by Caleb Vandermark?

A niggling suspicion began to take root. “Is this why you are
so paranoid about finding those old documents? You’re afraid one of them will contain proof that the Vandermark fortune was illegally obtained?”

Nickolaas nodded, but Quentin was amazed at his grandfather’s naiveté.

“The statute of limitations for embezzlement expired centuries ago,” Quentin said. “No one can touch the Vandermark fortune based on a few hundred Dutch guilders that were misappropriated back in the 1630s.”

Nickolaas stared into space, cracking his knuckles. “Maybe, maybe not. I think the Indians knew about it, for many of the taunts are in relation to money, but others are to Cain and Abel, and I think there is a reason for that. Caleb Vandermark was adamant that Adrien was killed by the Indians, but I’m not so sure. Something very bad happened on this land, and our family will continue paying for it until it has been made right. That’s why I want this house torn down and burned to ashes. I want nothing to do with this house or the land. It was built with ill-gotten funds and has been a curse to our family for centuries.”

“Then send a few thousand dollars to Roosenwyck to pay back the money Caleb stole,” Quentin said. “Let that be the end of it.” Caleb Vandermark had been a brilliant trader, and even if he stole the original seed money intended to found a village, it was a pittance compared to the fortune he amassed through shrewd land negotiations and building a worldwide trading empire.

Nickolaas shook his head. “I think those embezzled funds were only the beginning of the crimes committed on this land. The Indians knew it. My father knew it. A great wrong was committed here, and it needs to be made right. We must wash our hands of whatever Caleb did here and walk away from Dierenpark forever.”

For the first time, Quentin was able to see the poetic justice
in his grandfather’s desire to tear down Dierenpark to its foundation.

Which he would never let happen. There was something special here, something timeless and sacred that he still couldn’t quite define. He was starting to sound like Sophie, but yes, there was a purity here at Dierenpark, and so long as he continued to draw breath, he would fight to protect it.

20

S
OPHIE
’
S
MUSCLES
FELT
STIFF
as she mechanically went through the motions of preparing breakfast, constantly aware of the men on the other side of the kitchen wall who knew of her humiliation. Ultimately, two of the anthropologists and two of the biologists refused to eat anything prepared by Sophie’s hands, packed their bags, and left. At first it was humiliating to see men turning away from the grand intellectual quest at Dierenpark because of her. At best, these men believed the silliness about the curse; at worst, they suspected she was so vindictive as to poison innocent people.

Then she remembered Quentin’s stalwart support of her. The conviction in his voice went beyond a man defending his cook. He’d praised her so highly it had made her question his motives in asking for her hand in marriage. Was it possible that in addition to needing a mother for Pieter, he actually harbored tender feelings for her beneath his frosty exterior?

The thought should be appalling, but it wasn’t. They had gotten off on the wrong foot and would probably be a terrible match, but the idea no longer seemed as odd as it had the day
before. It was . . . well, it was flattering. Quentin was a handsome man, and she loved when she could slip beneath his austere deportment to make him laugh. He usually tried to suppress it, but the straight line of his mouth would tilt at one corner, and then warmth would come into his eyes.

If she doubted that the remaining scientists distrusted her, it was settled when Professor Byron offered to help her make another pot of coffee and Professor Armitage asked for a second serving of oatmeal. She hadn’t forgotten that Professor Armitage had been one of the men she’d overheard at the larder discussing the likelihood of her having deliberately poisoned Marten and the others. It seemed he’d made up his mind and decided to stay with the other professors, who continued to speculate about the history of the Algonquin Bible and why anyone would bury a page on the property.

A few minutes later, Marten himself shuffled into the room, looking pale and embarrassed.

“Sorry for making a mess of your celebration,” he whispered to Sophie. “I can be a real idiot sometimes.”

It seemed to be the general consensus among the people remaining at the house that although Pieter’s allergic reaction had been real, Marten’s illness had been sparked by the power of suggestion. Nevertheless, he’d been violently ill for hours last night and was bound to be exhausted and dehydrated this morning.

She guided him to a spot at the table. “Can I get you anything? Water? Milk? Do you need help getting to the privy? Don’t be proud. I’ll help however you need.”

He choked back a gasp of laughter. “Sophie, I’m holding on to a sliver of dignity the size of a hangnail. Please don’t take it away.”

She smiled and kissed his forehead. A piece of her would always adore Marten. He had been her childhood sweetheart,
a boy who taught her how to dream, and she had never been the sort to nurture a grudge. She went to the kitchen to fetch him a bowl of oatmeal and wondered why she was not the least bit tempted to rekindle her romantic relationship with him.

Marten simply seemed pale and bland compared to the wonderful complexities she was discovering hidden beneath Quentin’s stern exterior. Quentin had said he wanted to catch a fragment of her grace, to cut the moon from the sky for her.

In Sophie’s world of workaday tasks and stifled dreams, no matter how long she lived, she would remember those words of admiration.