“Did you hear that, lad?” Duycinck said. “All’s not lost. You’ve got true friends here. Now if we can find a way to pry me and my indenture out of the hands of your Cleopatra of a stepmother—”
“We’ll do that too,” I said. “Damn the expense.”
“By God, I take back every dirty thought I’ve had about you,” Duycinck said. “Come on, lad. Let’s go find our friend Cuyler and drink to your father’s memory.”
Malcolm allowed Duycinck to lead him out the door. I realized he had yet to say a word to indicate he accepted—much less was grateful for—my generosity. Was the Evil Brother mocking me again?
The moment the door closed, Clara whirled on me. “Even if he marries you, he’ll never be willing,” she said.
It was more than a prophecy. It was a curse. How could I persuade Clara to revoke it? Should I weep and beg her forgiveness, plead the madness of desire? Confess my surrender to the Evil Brother and implore her help?
No, the Moon Woman whispered. You will do none of those things. “I haven’t the slightest intention of marrying him,” I lied.
SEVEN
THE NEXT MORNING, I WAS UP at dawn, gulping down iced tea in the stifling heat and writing a letter to Guert Cuyler, begging him to take charge of winning my inheritance from my uncle. On the way to Guert’s law office with the letter, I encountered none other than my esteemed guardian, stalking down Wall Street, as hatchet-faced and morose as ever.
“Good morning, Uncle,” I said.
He passed me as if I were invisible. “Uncle!” I called. “Don’t you remember me?”
He turned and contemplated me with gloomy disdain. “I no longer consider you part of our family,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“I read in the newspaper about your atrocious conduct at Oswego. It’s been verified by friends in Albany. You’ve confirmed our worst fears about your character. You’re an utterly debased creature.”
“My conduct at Oswego was beyond reproach!” I said. “I did nothing but defend myself against a bunch of drunken swine. What friends in Albany confirmed these lies?”
“Judge Oloff Van Sluyden, for one,” Johannes Van Vorst said.
Passersby loitered to pick up the gist of this angry exchange. Artisans and customers crowded the doors of their shops. From the expressions on their faces, it was clear that they already believed the worst about Catalyntie Van Vorst.
“Oloff Van Sluyden is a lying son of a bitch. He’s also very probably the murderer of my father, your brother,” I shouted. “Where is this newspaper story?”
“Go read it for yourself in the Gazette.”
The New York Gazette was published in a shop next to the post office. I stormed into the back room, where the owner, a short balding Englishman named Birch, was setting type for the next edition with the help of two young apprentices wearing soiled black aprons and little else. It was well over a hundred degrees in the room. I demanded to see the story about me. Birch grumbled and groused but he finally produced a copy of the month-old paper.
The story was entitled: “News from Oswego,” and described the difficulties traders were encountering from marauding Indians on the Mohawk and a glut of pelts which was driving prices down. Toward the end came a paragraph that made me cry out with rage.
A certain Miss Van V. of New York arrived a few days ago with a black doxy in tow and set up a bawdy house in a tent within hail of the fort. Business was brisk until it was rumored that the black doxy had the pox and then trade fell off steeply in that venue. But Miss Van V. more than made up for the loss by doubling her hours. She accepts pay in beaver skins, wampum, or rum. Some say she will clear 500 pounds if her health holds.
“How dare you publish these lies?” I said. “I’ll sue you for damages and own your paper before I’m through.”
“Sue and be damned. It was your own uncle who carried the story to me,” Birch said. “He confirmed every word of it. He said he had it direct from a trader who saw you playing the strumpet with his own eyes.”
“My uncle!”
This passionate conversation had a curious effect on me. By the time I finished it, I saw uses to which this libel against me could be put. In a half hour I was in Hughson’s Tavern on Pearl Street, where Malcolm Stapleton and Adam Duycinck were living.
I found them having breakfast. Malcolm was demolishing an entire pound of ham and a half dozen eggs, washing it down with a flagon of hard cider. He gave me such a wary look, I decided a few histrionics were in order. “I need your help but I’m almost ashamed to ask it,” I said. “My reputation—and Clara’s—are totally ruined. You may not want to be seen in public with us.” Whereupon I burst into tears. The two men wanted to know what was wrong. Sobbing, I told them about the libel and its source.
“Would you testify to our good conduct at Oswego?” I asked Malcolm.
“You’re damned right I will!” he said.
“How can we get the editor to publish it?”
“Let’s pay him a visit.”
Down to the Gazette we strode in Malcolm’s wake. We found editor Birch in his front office, selling advertisements to a half dozen merchants. “Here is a gentleman of unimpeachable character, sir,” I told him. “He was with me at Oswego and is ready to deny every word of that vile story you published about me and my friend, Clara Flowers.”
“It will cost you a shilling a column inch to publish a denial. The same price I charge for advertisements,” Birch said.
Malcolm seized the little Englishman by the shirt, dragged him over his counter and hoisted him to eye level. “Did I hear you correctly?” he said. “You’ve libeled two ladies and you expect them to pay for their justification?”
“You … misunderstood me,” Birch gasped. “I meant I’ll print it gratis—although it will cost me several advertisements.”
“That’s too damn bad,” Malcolm said, returning him to terra firma with a thud.
Watching, I could only think how much I adored this huge male creature. I wanted to fling my arms around him and kiss him. I wanted to lead him directly to the nearest bed. But I remained outwardly calm and composed—except for expressions of extravagant gratitude.
Malcolm demanded to see the offending column and with Duycinck’s help dictated a refutation which the quaking Birch promised to have in next week’s paper. We strolled back to the tavern, where Malcolm decided he could stand another breakfast. I thanked him again for his help.
“It’s the least I could do, after your kindness yesterday,” he said. “But I can’t accept your generous offer.”
“Why not?” I said, my heart plummeting.
“I want to earn my own way in this world.”
“But you would be earning it. Just as you earned it this year, providing us with protection—”
“Clara told me she’s never going to trade for furs again. She wants nothing more to do with the rotten business. I don’t think you should either.”
I was numb. The Moon Woman could not challenge Clara’s moral judgment. “How do you propose to earn your way?”
“I may go to the West Indies. Governor Nicolls says he’ll recommend me to the governor of Jamaica. I can probably get a commission in a regiment stationed there. The mortality is heavy. There’s often places open which you can buy for very little money, which Nicolls says he’ll lend me.”
“But you might die of some malignant fever,” I said, my flesh shriveling at the thought.
Malcolm shrugged. “We must all take our chances.”
Men! They loved challenging death for its own sake. I glanced at Duycinck and saw he had no very high opinion of going to the West Indies. Here was an ally, if I could get him alone.
“We must discuss buying your indenture, Adam,” I said. “Do you know the terms?”
“All too well.”
“Why don’t you write them out and bring them to me this afternoon.”
That afternoon, I claimed to be busy preparing papers for the comi
ng legal struggle with my uncle and easily persuaded Clara to go buy the food and drink we would need for the next week. When Duycinck arrived, I wasted no time getting to the point. “I can’t abide the thought of Malcolm Stapleton dwindling into insignificance as an ensign or lieutenant in some damned British regiment in Jamaica.”
“Nor I,” Adam said. “You know what I think of those lime suckers.”
“Why is Nicolls so eager to see Malcolm out of the country?” I mused. “Didn’t you or Clara tell me His Honor the governor was known to enjoy Mrs. Stepmother’s bed?”
“All too often,” Adam said. “But the lad bears him no resentment for consorting with the bitch. He’s too busy despising her.”
“I smell something. Why don’t you go off to New Jersey for a few days, pretending to rejoin the family—and see what you can find out about how George Stapleton’s will was drawn and when it was signed.”
I had no idea whether there was any basis for my suspicion. But what better way to keep Malcolm Stapleton in New York than to embroil him in a lawsuit? Presuming my Uncle Johannes intended to cheat me, we would share a grievance, always a good way to link feelings. I would sympathize with him, he would sympathize with me.
Duycinck, of course, would give me plenty of credit for first suspecting Georgianna Stapleton of malfeasance. After the little hunchback left with money to take him to New Jersey, I walked from room to room, thanking the Evil Brother for keeping his promise. My heart’s desire was still within reach.
When Clara came home followed by two dusky Africans carrying a veritable cargo of meats and grains and vegetables, I was so cheerful, so agreeable about helping her put the food away in cupboards and bins and in the ice cellar in the backyard, I was almost ashamed of myself. She listened somberly while I told her how Malcolm had terrorized Birch, the editor of the New York Gazette, and then announced he was departing to the West Indies.
“We can’t let him go to those godforsaken islands, Clara. We need him here in New York. Can’t you stop him, somehow?”
As I surmised, Clara knew nothing about Malcolm’s future plans. She was more than a little shaken to discover he had shared his thoughts with a woman she assumed he disliked and never mentioned them to her. She was soon on her way to Hughson’s Tavern to talk to him.
She found Malcolm in his room at the tavern, reading a book on the West Indies. “Are you really going to the islands?” she said.
“Who told you?”
“Catalyntie. You seem to share a great deal with her these days. You don’t have a qualm about leaving me alone here in New York?”
“Alone? I thought you and Catalyntie—”
“I don’t think I can live another month with that creature. All she cares about is money. She’ll use me, you, anyone and everyone, to get it.”
Malcolm was bewildered by the emotional maelstrom he was inadvertently creating. “You could come to the West Indies with me,” he said.
There was a hollow sound in Malcolm’s voice as he said those words. His gaze broke away from hers. His love had become a compound of guilt and remembered happiness, which they both knew could never be regained.
“When you die of fever, what then? Will I be sold into slavery again? Or become some other officer’s whore?”
“Clara!” Malcolm said. “Don’t ever use that word to describe yourself. Between you and me there will always be the purest, the truest love that ever existed in this miserable world. It will live in my heart until the day of my death.”
Clara clung to him, weeping. “I want you but I don’t want you. Can you understand that? I don’t want any man that way again.”
“I understand it. I understand it all too well.”
“But that could change. I think it will change.”
Again, Clara sensed an almost invisible withdrawal, a virtually imperceptible loss of fervor in Malcolm’s manner. “I hope so,” he said. “I hope so for your sake.”
But not for his sake. He was telling her that he was prepared to live without her love. He was now a man who must make his way in the white world and he had resolved to live without her whether she liked it or not. His dead father’s words ravaged their love again. Are you planning to marry this woman? If so, you will have to live in the forest with the Indians. Was he going to the West Indies to escape her? Was that the bitter truth behind this decision?
“A day doesn’t pass without my thinking how much I want you. I don’t think a day will ever pass without that yearning,” he said.
Perhaps that was enough. Perhaps she should let him go to Jamaica or Barbados and she would try to live on that sad pledge. She kissed him and returned to Maiden Lane, where she told me that she had had made no objection to Malcolm going to the islands.
“How can you be such a fool?” I cried. “He’ll die down there. Then both of us are at a total loss.”
“I’d almost rather see him die—than fall into your clutches.”
“Clara—I care about him—love him—as much as you do. Can’t we agree on what’s best for him? Instead of letting him destroy himself?”
I wanted, needed, Clara’s love—and Malcolm’s. Somehow, I vowed to keep one and win the other. The next morning, I crossed the Hudson to New Jersey and hired a horse in the little Dutch settlement of Hoboken. In four hours I was at Hampden Hall—where I found a chaos of confusion and despair. Packing boxes and barrels stood everywhere. Morose Africans wrapped sailcloth around furniture and chandeliers and statuary. A departure was unquestionably under way. In the middle of it all stood Adam Duycinck, poring over a list.
He led me out in the yard. “Cleopatra is about to return to her native Egypt,” he said. “She’s planning to run the place with an overseer to keep her in silks and madeira. Everyone in the house tells me she drove George Stapleton to his grave with her screaming, raging demand for a new will—and his refusal until he saw Malcolm. Suddenly he dies and presto—there’s the document with his signature at the bottom, witnessed by no less than Governor Nicolls and his secretary.”
“We must get you back to New York as soon as possible.”
Adam led me to the library, where Georgianna Stapleton was conferring with a ship captain. I knew I was unlikely to receive a warm reception after my brawl with this woman over Clara. I spoke the curt cold language of business. “It’s come to my attention, madam, that you’re planning a return to England. I’d like to buy Adam Duycinck’s indenture from you for the remainder of his term. He’s proved extremely useful to me in the fur trade.”
“What did he do? Hold the candle in your tent?” Georgianna Stapleton said. “From what I read in the papers, your trading placed no greater burden on Adam’s skills.”
“That story is an atrocious libel, I assure you,” I said, barely managing to keep my temper. “Adam will testify to that.”
“I already have,” Adam said.
“To tell the truth, I’ll have no great use for the scoundrel in London, where I intend to live. He was indented for fourteen years to pay his court costs and passage, which rounded off to two hundred pounds. He has seven years to go. You can have him for a hundred pounds.”
I haggled the price down to seventy-five pounds and rode back to Hoboken with Adam jouncing behind me in the saddle. In New York, I was delighted to find Guert Cuyler waiting for me at Maiden Lane. With him was a cousin, a suave young Dutchman named Peter Van Ness, whose father had a law office on Broad Street. Clara was serving them tea.
I immediately set Adam to testifying about George Stapleton’s suspicious will. Poor Guert was confused. “I thought we were to assail your uncle,” he said. “I’ve spent a dozen hours tracking down what happened to your father’s property on the Mohawk.”
“That can wait,” I said. “This Stapleton matter concerns me far more. Clara and I feel we owe a debt of gratitude to Malcolm for the courage he displayed on the Mohawk. Isn’t that right, Clara dear?”
Clara murmured something that might have been an assent—or an attempt to
breathe without asphyxiating herself with rage. I did not care. The Evil Brother assured me that I could eventually deal with Clara’s wrath. The two young attorneys conferred and agreed that there would be little hope of preventing Georgianna Stapleton from leaving the country. No slave could testify in a New York court. Duycinck, as an indentured servant, could do so but he would be relying on hearsay from the slaves. If the will was to be challenged, it would have to be in England. That would require a great deal of money.
“Money is not a consideration,” I said.
We sent Adam to bring Malcolm into our conference. He listened to a rehearsal of the details with astonishment, disbelief—and rage, in that sequence. I could barely conceal my joy.
“This is not a matter that can be pursued on an officer’s pay in Jamaica,” I said. “I think you had better cancel your plans to embark on that career.”
Guert Cuyler agreed. He told Malcolm that he would want him in New York to recruit witnesses who might testify that George Stapleton did not intend to disinherit his older son.
“You’ll do all this for me on the chance that if we succeed, I can pay your fees?” Malcolm said.
Cuyler and Van Ness looked uncomfortable. “Miss Van Vorst has guaranteed our fees,” Van Ness said.
“I presume you’ll reconsider my offer to become my partner in the fur trade—so if all else fails I can take the money out of your share of our profits,” I said.
I sounded so earnest, so honest, I could scarcely believe myself. The Evil Brother was coaching me to conceal my heart’s desire. Clara, watching helplessly, could only glower—making the worst possible impression on Malcolm, I hoped.
“You’re almost too generous,” Malcolm said.
“How true,” Clara said. But she could not bring herself to interfere in an offer that was so clearly to Malcolm’s benefit.
I watched Malcolm bite his lower lip, thinking how much I wanted my mouth to be there instead. “How can I say no?” Malcolm said, succumbing, as men like to think they do, to the inevitability of fate. He never really wanted to go to the West Indies in the first place, of course. He felt guilty about leaving Clara. His boyhood dreams of military glory were in the northern woods—and now he could still cherish them. His conscience, like most men’s, was pliable, realistic. The fur trade might have its faults—but so did other businesses. It was the way of the world and who was he to set about changing it? He was a soldier, not a reformer.
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