This Loving Torment

by Valerie Sherwood

  As they approached the house, Charity considered the wide stoop at the front, the generous small-paned windows. “Are there many in Monsieur van Daarken’s family?” she asked, speaking in French as Annjanette had done.

  The other girl turned. “You are his cousin and yet you do not know that?” she flung at her.

  Charity frowned. She would have to be careful. “I am lately from England, and we have not had much time to talk.”

  “The patroon has a wife, Clothilde, and a son, Pieter,” Annjanette said flatly. “There was a daughter, but she is dead. The grandmother keeps to her room and comes down only on occasion.”

  In silence she led Charity through the large front door and into a spacious hall that had large rooms on both sides of it and a wide staircase in its center. Up that stairway they went and down the hallway to their left. At a closed door Annjanette paused and frowned. “We had best enter through here,” she muttered. “Cousin Clothilde may be taking a nap in the other room.”

  Charity was mystified. She followed Annjanette into a large bedroom, handsomely furnished in the Dutch style, heavy, dark and carved, then through another door into a large dressing room that was also furnished as a bedroom, though not so handsomely.

  “We came through Cousin Killian’s room,” said Annjanette in a defensive voice, “so we would not disturb Cousin Clothilde who sleeps next door.” She nodded at another door leading from the dressing room. “I sleep here so as to be at Cousin Clothilde’s side if she should wake in the night and need anything. She is not well and sometimes she—she walks in her sleep,” she added hurriedly.

  Charity was surprised to see that Annjanette’s sleeping quarters could not be entered from the hall, but must be reached either from the bedroom of the patroon or his wife’s. Still ... if the patroon’s wife were ill. . . .

  Ungraciously, Annjanette pulled open the drawer of a chest. “What will you require?” she snapped.

  “Mainly a nightgown and a dressing gown,” sighed Charity. “Perhaps a cloak against the cold.”

  Annjanette snatched out a very expensive embroidered nightgown and an equally handsome dressing gown. She almost threw them at Charity. With compressed lips she jerked a blue cape from a chair, where it had been carelessly thrown, tossed it atop the other things, and turned and marched out. Over her shoulder she asked, “How long have you known Cousin Killian, mademoiselle?”

  She was jealous! Charity realized. This pretty young thing was jealous of her, angry that Killian van Daarken had brought her home with him!

  “I met him in New York,” she said, adding in hope of soothing the other girl, “where is his son? I had hoped he would be at the dock to meet us.”

  “Pieter?” Annjanette swung around and looked at her sharply. “What have you to do with Pieter, mademoiselle?”

  “I am to assist him in languages,” explained Charity patiently. “French and English—and to teach him Spanish, which I understand he does not know. It is why I was brought upriver,” she added gently.

  Annjanette’s eyes widened. "Mon Dieu!” she murmured. “A language tutor!” Her whole manner changed. “I am—sorry, mademoiselle,” she said haltingly. “At first I thought. . . .” She did not elaborate on what she had thought. “Wait, you could use some ribbons for your hair. And I have a yellow morning dress that will fit you; it has grown tight for me.” She left Charity blinking over this sudden change of manner, and hurried away, returning with her arms full of clothing and blue and yellow ribbons, including a dainty white lace coif over which Charity exclaimed.

  “I was living in France when my father became ill. When he learned he was going to die, he wrote to Cousin Killian and sent him my picture, asking if he would not take me in,” she confided. “And as you can see—” she gestured proudly at the pretty clothes Charity held in her arms, “here I am treated as a daughter of the house.”

  Charity was not quite certain this was so, but she was grateful the French girl’s hostility had ceased.

  “You will be happy here,” Annjanette predicted. Happy now herself, she led Charity jauntily down a short flight of stairs which, Charity realized, led to a wing that swept away from the house at the rear. Charity followed her pretty guide into a small room furnished with a narrow wooden bed, a small chest, a straight chair and a washstand.

  “This was my room,” Annjanette said, looking around her. “Until Cousin Clothilde needed someone to sleep only a whisper away from her.”

  Charity nodded, carefully appearing to accept the explanation at face value.

  “It is too bad Pieter was not here to greet you,” Annjanette added. “He has gone upriver to visit the van der Dooncks and will probably be bringing Ryn van der Doonck and his sister Cordelia back with him tonight. You will meet him at dinner.”

  Promising to send a maid with clean linens and water, Annjanette went out, leaving Charity to look around her room. The first thing she checked was the bolt on the door. It worked very well and seemed more than adequate.

  From her small window, she could see fields and forest stretching out for miles. Killian van Daarken had told her that Daarkenwyck was comprised of some 165,000 acres. It seemed to her dazzled eyes that it must reach beyond the mountain mists and into the morning sun.

  She turned as a stocky little maid knocked timidly on the door and came in carrying linens. The maid eyed Charity with frank interest as she replaced the bed linen and bustled about tidying up.

  Fully intending to make an entrance and establish herself at once not as a servant but as a member of the family, Charity resisted the impulse to prowl about. She remained in her room until another roundeyed little Dutch girl in a white cap knocked on her door and told her in halting English that dinner would soon be served and she was expected downstairs in the dining room.

  Charity, who had been sitting, dressed and waiting, rose at once to answer this summons and went downstairs to find five people awaiting her in the living room.

  The patroon she already knew. And “Cousin” Annjanette, richly gowned in pink damask, who was his undoubted mistress if Charity was any judge.

  Ryn van der Doonck was a wild-looking slender young Dutchman of around twenty with dark hair and a wicked smile. He looked stunned when he saw Charity, but quickly recovered himself—though during the whole of the evening his admiring gaze seldom left her face. His sister Cordelia, a sharp-eyed, round-faced, dark-haired girl of no more than seventeen, reacted to Charity’s presence with alarm which hardened into dislike as the evening wore on.

  But it was Pieter van Daarken who held Charity’s attention. He stepped forward vibrantly, his hat held gracefully under his arm, and swept her a low bow as his father introduced them. His yellow hair fell over his eyes, and when he lifted his head and tossed it back, Charity felt her confidence rise at the naked admiration in his bold blue eyes. He was young—she guessed no older than Ryn—and of a handsome build; a stripling yet but he would develop into a strong man. There was something a little fretful in the set of his mouth, but this dissolved instantly into a bright smile for Charity’s benefit. Pieter had a patrician look about him and an easy grace. Except for his coloring, there was little to indicate that he was the powerful, heavyset patroon’s son.

  They went in to dinner, which was served on a snowy linen cloth covered with heavy gleaming silver trenchers and tall brass candlesticks. The patroon’s wife was conspicuously absent. The mail from Holland has come, mused Charity. That was what Killian van Daarken had told her, and there had been something in his voice as he said it . . . something both cynical and dark. And as she had passed the door of Clothilde’s bedroom on her way downstairs she had thought she heard weeping.

  Pieter said something to Charity, and she turned to give him her attention, noticing as she did the fine Flemish lace at his throat and cuffs, the richness of his dark green velvet coat with its silver braid and silver buttons, the thick blond curls—undoubtedly his own—that swung below his plumed hat. It was the custom for gentlemen to c
arry their hats under their arms as they walked about, thus keeping their elaborate wigs or curls in order, and to put their hats on when they sat down—even at dinner. Pieter looked the very essence of fashion and Charity was surprised to find so much elegance in this wild land so far from any town.

  Their conversation was interrupted by a sudden burst of laughter at the other end of the table where the young van der Dooncks sat on either side of the patroon. A deep blush suddenly stained Annjanette’s cheeks and she was biting her lips. Charity asked what remark had occasioned the laughter.

  “Ryn was saying that we van Daarkens are an international family—first a French cousin and now an English one,” Pieter shrugged. “And for some reason his sister laughed and he joined in. Cordelia laughs inappropriately as you will soon discover.”

  But perhaps not too inappropriately, thought Charity, realizing that the sharp-eyed van der Doonck girl probably assumed Charity to be the newest addition to the patroon’s harem on the Hudson. Charity shrugged and her eyes grew cold. Such thoughts would be proved wrong soon enough and Cordelia, like the apprehensive Annjanette, would come to realize that Charity^ position here was actually that of a language tutor.

  “There are several branches of our family,” Pieter added hastily, as if fearing Charity might take offense at Ryn’s barbed comment. “A French branch, a German one. I did not know about the English branch, but—” His manner said that he accepted the relationship without question.

  Charity smiled at him and, to change the subject, remarked that the blue-claw crabs were delicious. Then she switched to French, asking him about the seafood they ate at Daarkenwyck.

  All manner of seafood, he responded in flawless French. Mussels and clams, smelt, alewives and carp and eels—which were his favorite—-scallops and lobsters. At Daarkenwyck they also ate much wild game. They set a good table, he told her proudly.

  Charity studied him narrowly. That easy fluency in French ... he had been conversing-with Annjanette in her native tongue no doubt. She tried him in Spanish. He looked blank.

  “I would love to learn Dutch,” she said wistfully. “Do you think you could teach me? I would teach you Spanish in return,” she added hastily.

  He responded with great enthusiasm and, as they lapsed back into English, she realized that he was fairly proficient although his accent was faulty.

  Charity was aware that the patroon was studying her with some amusement, that Ryn was watching her with dancing eyes, and that Cordelia had ceased to eat entirely, her teeth biting into her lower lip as she watched Charity and Pieter laughing and talking together.

  Charity ignored them. She was here to instruct Pieter in languages and she could do so only by engaging him in conversation. If that offended Cordelia van der Doonck, that was Cordelia’s misfortune.

  From his easy manner, she gathered the patroon approved of her monopolizing his son’s attention, which gave her a sense of relief. It was clear now that she would be accepted not as a servant but as a member of the family.

  It would be pleasant, she told herself, to learn a new language while brushing up an old one. And speaking Spanish would remind her of Mercedes Ramirez, whom she had counted as her only real friend in Stéphanie’s school.

  She was still thinking these pleasant thoughts when they retired to the living room. There Cordelia van der Doonck, with only the slightest urging, swept up her ample skirts and, sitting down at the rosewood harpsichord, began to play. She had little talent and struck as many discordant notes as true ones, but she looked pretty and young posing there in the candlelight, with her dark curls swaying as she moved her hands lightly over the keys. The candle glow flattered her and complemented the rich dark wine of her big full-skirted wool dress with its heavy cream lace at collar and sleeves.

  But no one was looking at Cordelia tonight. Nor at pretty Annjanette, who rose next to sing a little French ditty. Charity, sitting with her back straight and her hands folded primly in her lap, could not help but feel the pressure of three pairs of masculine eyes focused curiously on her. Only the patroon’s glance made her feel nervous. She sensed in him a latent lechery that made her uneasy about her future here. It was all well enough to tell her that she had been brought here to polish up his son’s proficiency in languages, but Pieter spoke French well already, his English was passable, and with relations between Spain and the rest of Europe being what they were, what chance would he have to speak Spanish? Probably very little.

  So Charity’s color heightened nervously as she felt Killian van Daarken’s small brooding eyes rest upon her. She was almost glad when the younger man asked her if she played or sang. Charity had never mastered a musical instrument, but she had a sweet clear voice and young ladies were expected to exhibit some talent in the drawing room. She rose willingly to stand by the harpsichord beside a flushed, rebellious Cordelia, who thumped out an accompaniment as Charity, her pale gold hair caressed by the candlelight, sang a simple love song.

  In an attempt to avoid looking at the patroon, she looked toward Pieter as she sang it, and saw his blue eyes kindle. After the song was over he sprang up to escort Charity back to her chair, and Cordelia van der Doonck began waving her fan so fast it blew her dark curls about.

  “I am sorry not to have met your mother,” Charity told Pieter, ignoring Cordelia. “Is she ill?”

  He shrugged. “My father brought the mail from Holland. My mother always cries when the mail comes from Holland. She is very homesick. As long as I can remember she has been homesick for Holland.”

  “Has she never gone back?” wondered Charity.

  “No,” he said. “My father’s interests are here, and he prefers that she stay beside him. She has not been well of late. Annjanette sleeps in the dressing room to be near her in case she needs anything.”

  Now two people had told her that. Both most earnestly. Charity cocked an eye at him. “How long has Annjanette lived with you?” she asked.

  “Two years,” he said promptly. “I believe her father wrote to my father and said that he was getting too old to care for her, and shipped her over here. Like you, she came upriver as a great surprise to us, for my father had told us nothing about her arrival in advance.”

  “Your father is full of surprises,” said Charity dryly.

  Pieter nodded soberly. “It is his way. He sees no need to take others into his confidence.”

  “A man met him at the dock to tell him some woman was weaving. Why is it forbidden to weave?”

  “The looms of Holland are hungry for fibers,” he said and smiled. “The Dutch West India Company established the law against weaving and here at Daarkenwyck we follow it.”

  “But ... are you not English now?” asked Charity.

  Her voice had carried a little farther than she had meant it to, and there was a sudden silence.

  Into that silence Killian van Daarken’s authoritative voice rose, informing her coldly that the Hudson Valley would still be Dutch but for the terrible events of 1663—first an earthquake, followed by a flood, then smallpox, and an Indian massacre—all of which, combined with poor fortifications due to bad management in the City of New Amsterdam, had weakened the Dutch settlers so that the arrival of the English fleet in 1664 had found them powerless to fight. However, aside from hurt pride, she got the impression that the Dutch did not mind English rule—indeed that they throve on it.

  The van der Dooncks were staying overnight and the young people, led by a silent Annjanette—her spirits dampened by the gibe at dinner—retired early to their rooms. As Charity and Pieter followed them, Pieter took Charity’s arm and his hand unnecessarily brushed her breast. She drew away instantly and from the hallway below came the stern voice of the patroon.

  “Pieter—a word with you.”

  “Excuse me,” Pieter said with a frown, and somewhat sulkily retraced his steps. From the stair landing Charity saw the scowling older man beckon his son toward the deserted library. He was going to chide Pieter, she divined, for that sli
ght transgression. She did not know whether to be glad or sorry.

  In her room. Charity divested herself of her dress, letting it slide to the floor along with her petticoats and chemise, and stretched her firm young body before she got into her nightdress. She told herself that she would begin Pieter’s language tutoring in earnest the next day in an attempt to pay for the clothes and her shelter at Daarkenwyck, and settled herself into the narrow bed to sleep dreamlessly.

  She would not have slept so well if she had heard some of the heated remarks that were passing in the library below.

  CHAPTER 13

  Charity did not meet the patroon’s wife, Clothilde, until dinner the second day. Clothilde was a pale wisp of a woman with dark circles under her eyes and a vague manner. Ineffectual, but graceful and a patrician like her son Pieter. She greeted Charity absently, and henceforth ignored her. She always looked sad.

  Charity thought it a shame that Clothilde was not allowed to visit Holland, since she longed for it so much, and wondered if the woman’s sleepwalking was a desire to reach a ship that would take her across the stormy Atlantic.

  Neither the patroon nor his son paid much attention to Clothilde, and Charity saw pain in the woman’s eyes, once, when she touched her son’s arm and he ignored her. Clothilde drifted in and out during the days that followed and Charity continued to be puzzled by the family’s attitude toward the lovely pathetic mother.

  But Charity forgot all that in her interest in exploring the house. She learned that there were four major rooms on the first floor. Two were the large living rooms on either side of the entrance hall. Behind them extended respectively a library and the dining room. They too could be entered from the hall, which ran completely through the house. The big kitchen and pantries occupied the first floor of the rear wing. Upstairs there were five bedrooms in the main part, two of them occupied by the patroon and bis wife, while Annjanette slept in the dressing room between them. One was occupied by Pieter, one by his grandmother, and the last reserved for guests who also sometimes over-flowed into the wing where Charity had her small room. The attic was reserved for the servants, who—since there were so many of them—must have been crowded in like sardines, and who came down a back stairway that led into the big kitchen.