Remember the Morning

by Thomas Fleming

  “How wonderful to meet someone with a new story to tell!” she cried and embraced me.

  “I took the liberty of telling my family and friends about your captivity among the Senecas,” Captain Van Oorst said. “They were fascinated and urged me to bring you to them in person.”

  “You must stay with us as our guest,” Mrs. Hooft said. “As soon as you recover from your voyage, we’ll give a dinner party in your honor. All our friends are in a passion to meet you. We know so little of the savages of America.”

  “I’ll be honored—but I must warn you I’m no scholar on the subject of the Indians. I only know what I experienced,” I said.

  “That’s precisely what will create a sensation in Amsterdam,” Mrs. Hooft said. “Let me show you to your rooms.”

  On the second floor, I was ushered into two large rooms, each the size of the second floor of my New York house. A coal fire crackled in a grate. A huge canopied bed had been turned down and a tray with a bottle of wine and sweetmeats stood on a small table beside it. My trunk soon arrived and two cheerful maids helped me hang my clothes in a great mahogany wardrobe.

  That night I dined with Mrs. Hooft and her husband in a dining room with walls and ceiling of alabaster. The husband, Philip, was a short, plump man of thirty-five or forty, with an ugly, froglike face. But he had the manners and savoir-faire of a prince. I soon learned that my hostess was the daughter of the captain’s oldest brother, who had made a fortune in the East Indies trade. Philip Hooft was the son of another wealthy man, one of Amsterdam’s burgomasters. He had died ten years ago and Philip had inherited this splendid house and the bank his father had founded.

  “When Uncle Killian told me the barbarities the English had tried to perpetrate on you in Albany, I immediately urged Philip to endorse the credit you needed to outfit your store in New York,” Mrs. Hooft said. “Has it prospered?”

  I told her I was making a profit of thirty percent and had brought with me payment in full for the latest shipment of goods. Both Hoofts were delighted. “One or two people at the bank had doubts about loaning money to someone so young,” Philip Hooft said.

  After dinner, Mrs. Hooft introduced me to her son, Willem, a thin, nervous eight-year-old who proudly informed her that he spoke English and French and could read Latin. His mother gazed at him with almost overwhelming affection, smoothing his blond hair, patting his rumpled jacket. “He has great promise. I pray that God will protect him. I lost another boy to the smallpox three years ago,” she said.

  The remark filled me with nameless terror for my infant son in New York. I pleaded with the Evil Brother to befriend him. He could have my soul for two eternities.

  The next day, Philip Hooft invited me to join him in a trip to the bank, which was in a building on the Dam, Amsterdam’s great square. “You may be interested in how we make money over here,” he said.

  What an understatement. I sat beside him at a massive gold-trimmed teak desk, studying the documents that were brought from other floors for his approval. Should they risk two hundred thousand guilders to insure an East India ship, which was now two weeks overdue? The owners were willing to pay forty thousand guilders for the coverage, in a desperate attempt to cover their losses.

  “I have a feeling you’re bringing us luck,” Philip Hooft said, as he approved the insurance. “If the ship returns, half the payment will be yours. It will be your St. Nicholas Day present.”

  December 6, the feast of St. Nicholas, was less than a week away. I had almost forgotten this gift-giving tradition, which had been abandoned by the Dutch in English New York. My head swam. This man was rich enough to casually give me twenty thousand guilders, five thousand pounds—more than my total capital!

  This was only the first of many transactions I witnessed that day that made my breath catch. A certain Madame d’Urfe of Paris wished to sell ten thousand shares in the Swedish East India Company for two million guilders. Philip Hooft bought them for half that price, convincing the lady’s Venetian agent that the weakness of the Swedish thaler made an immediate sale advisable. After the agent departed, he coolly informed me that the Swedish thaler was expected to rebound and he would probably clear one hundred thousand guilders on the deal.

  “How much capital does the House of Hooft have at its command?” I said.

  “Oh, about a hundred million guilders,” Philip Hooft said. “We’re not very big compared to the House of de Neufville and the other giants.”

  Once more, my head whirled. A hundred million guilders was twenty million pounds. In New York, a merchant was considered rich when he was worth a hundred thousand pounds. For the rest of the morning, Philip Hooft swapped currencies with half the nations of Europe, bought and sold stock in the Dutch and English East Indies companies and the Bank of England, and purchased a ten percent share in next year’s Baltic grain fleet, which was a major source of Amsterdam’s wealth. Finally he decided we had done enough business for the day and escorted me across the expanse of the Dam to visit the Stock Exchange, on the river side of the great square.

  Two hundred feet long and 124 feet wide, with a majestic carillon and clock tower at one end, the Exchange had an inner courtyard where the brokers in their black hats and black breeches clustered in good weather. In the numerous arcades were merchants who dealt with the Levant, with Russia, with the West Indies and other parts of the world, as well as specialists in timber, stone, grain, and other commodities. Whenever a deal was struck, the payer and payee adjusted their trading balances in the Bank of Amsterdam, across the Dam on the first floor of the City Hall.

  “The Exchange is very democratic,” Philip Hooft remarked. “Anyone who keeps a balance of a hundred thousand guilders can trade in his own name.”

  My guide inhaled a pinch of snuff. “Eventually, you must keep an account here, yourself,” he told me. “A bill of exchange drawn on the Bank of Amsterdam is as good as gold or silver anywhere in the world. We can trade for you on the Exchange while you’re in America.”

  “If our East India ship comes in, I’ll open an account with my share immediately,” I said.

  “In that case we’ll try to build it up before you leave,” Philip Hooft said.

  That evening, Mrs. Hooft gave a dinner party for twenty-four people in her splendid dining room. The table was a blaze of fine silver and china. Tulips and other flowers grown in nearby hothouses filled the room with color. I wore my best New York gown—a sea green damask that was tasteful, yet basically simple in design and decoration. I did not attempt to use lipstick or rouge in the Amsterdam style—I decided to be nothing more or less than an American, not an imitation European.

  At the table, the guests asked me a hundred questions about my Indian life. They seemed particularly anxious to discover if Indians were cannibals, like the tribesmen Dutch sailors encountered in Africa. I assured them that the Senecas ate only captured warriors—after subjecting them to torture to enable them to demonstrate their courage. I talked at much greater length about the virtues of the Senecas, their sense of honor, their hospitality to visitors, their loyalty to their clans and nation, and the league of the Iroquois.

  “Did they eat your parents?” asked one plump woman who wore a glittering necklace of diamonds across her ample bosom. She was both horrified and titillated by the possibility.

  “An enemy is eaten only to acquire his courage. My parents were not warriors.”

  Another urgent question was whether Indian women were chaste. “Once a woman marries, she’s as chaste as any white woman,” I said. “But before marriage she may have several lovers.”

  “Just like the Dutch,” said a man named Vondel. He had a sly arrogant expression that reminded me of Robert Foster Nicolls. The grandson of a famous playwright, he seemed to be a particular friend of Philip Hooft.

  Vondel’s remark stirred a vehement argument about the chastity of Dutch women, which ended with the general agreement that they were taught to be chaste and generally were, but they were not entirel
y sure they would be unhappy if they were not.

  “Can you advise the ladies on this point, Mrs. Stapleton?” asked Vondel.

  I liked this cynical man-about-town less and less. “Do you want me to speak as a Seneca or a white woman?” I said.

  “Either,” Vondel said.

  “I think in either case it’s a cause of regret in a woman’s soul—if she gives her love and discovers it’s unrequited. But it’s especially sad if she’s white. Because our moralists are so unforgiving.”

  Tesselschade Hooft raised her wineglass and said: “To our American cousin and her profound morality!”

  As the guests departed, Philip Hooft announced an intention to stroll home with his friend Vondel for a taste of his superfine gin. Alone, Tesselschade embraced me and told me I had been “magnificent.” She especially liked my answer to Vondel. “He was my faithless lover,” she said. “Fortunately, I had wealth and an understanding father. Do you love your husband?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “How fortunate. I don’t. My father arranged the marriage. That’s the way it’s done here. It’s almost always a matter of money marrying money.”

  For a moment I was assailed by an overwhelming desire for Malcolm Stapleton. Was it the Master of Life, not the Evil Brother, who had arranged that eruption of desire on the shore of Lake Ontario? I suddenly wanted to spend the rest of the night talking to this gentle sensitive woman about the meaning of the word love. Was it impossible to love a man with a frog’s face? Or was it the lack of free choice? Or some kind of wound inflicted by the faithless Vondel? Had Robert Foster Nicolls inflicted a similar wound on me?

  “Is your husband faithful to you?” I asked.

  “Of course not. I told him I didn’t want more children. I didn’t enjoy the whole process. Did you?”

  “Not the labor pains but the rest—”

  “How lucky you are,” Tesselschade Hooft said.

  The next day, Mrs. Hooft awoke me with a cheerful cry: “You’ve become famous! I told you all Amsterdam would be enthralled.”

  She handed me a newspaper. I was horrified by the story, which was not even close to the truth. It quoted me as saying I had watched the Senecas eat my parents and claimed I admitted to dining on human flesh in my later years as a captive. It portrayed the Senecas’ sexual habits as a series of orgies—with the clear implication that I had been involved in more than one.

  When I expressed my dismay to Tesselschade Hooft, she dismissed it with a wave. “It was written by Vondel. He owns the paper. No one believes anything in it but the shipping and stock reports.”

  In my head, something or someone whispered beware. At breakfast, Philip Hooft was all smiles and compliments about my “performance” last night. Vondel said he had never met anyone so exotic in his life. A beautiful Dutch woman with the mind of an Indian! I saw there was no point in complaining to him about the newspaper story.

  Once more I was invited to the House of Hooft on the Dam. There delightful news awaited us. The East Indiaman had arrived safely in the dawn. The owners had already paid their forty thousand guilders of insurance money with thanks. Philip Hooft promptly wrote a bill of exchange on the Bank of Amsterdam for twenty thousand guilders and strolled across the Dam to help me open my account in the bank’s gilded offices.

  Back in the Hooft bank, Philip announced it was time to improve my account. The bank would buy in my name four hundred newly minted gold ducats for four million guilders. The price of gold on the Exchange was low. A trusted friend would carry them to Frankfurt, Germany, where gold was selling three points higher. They would exchange the ducats for bills on the Bank of Amsterdam—and make an instant profit of forty thousand guilders.

  “Where can I find someone to carry four million guilders of gold to Frankfurt?” I said.

  Philip Hooft shrugged. “After that story in Vondel’s paper, I’m sure you can command almost anyone. Vondel himself. Or me.”

  “I can’t imagine how I could persuade him—or you—to undertake such a large task,” I said.

  In fact, I saw exactly what I was expected to do. “We could discuss it at Vondel’s rooms over a good dinner,” Philip Hooft said. “Tesselschade is taking our son to visit his grandfather. She won’t return until tomorrow.”

  Forty thousand guilders. Eight thousand pounds. In return, I would let Messrs. Vondel and Hooft do what they pleased with me for a day and a night. Was it so terrible? the Evil Brother asked. I would have Philip Hooft hungrily awaiting my next visit to Amsterdam. Meanwhile he would be making strenuous efforts to improve my account on the Exchange.

  Suddenly Clara was whispering in my head: This will prove you love nothing but money. Somehow I found that unacceptable. I wanted to believe I loved Malcolm—and our son. I wanted them to love me. But how would accepting Hooft’s offer affect this love, which only existed in distant New York? They would never learn about my infidelity in Amsterdam. When I was in New York, I would continue to love them extravagantly. Money would enable me to prove it with gifts, power, influence.

  It will prove it to the only person who matters: yourself. Did the resistance hardening around Clara’s words mean Catalyntie Van Vorst had a soul? A spiritual self that she valued more than money, perhaps even more than her heart’s desire? It was not a Dutch or an English soul—any more than it was an American soul—though it partook of that last word. It was a woman’s soul and in the name of that invisible, evanescent inner self, was I going to say no to Philip Hooft’s tempting offer?

  Not quite. I would show him that Americans, particularly those raised by the Seneca, had more than their share of guile. How often had I heard stories in the longhouse of warriors who were trapped by their enemies and outwitted them with clever words or stratagems?

  I smiled boldly into Philip Hooft’s protruding frog’s eyes. “Dear Philip. I wouldn’t dream of putting you or Mr. Vondel to such a journey. I’ll take the ducats to Frankfurt myself. If I can survive in America’s forests, surely I can manage in civilized Christian Europe.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of letting you do it. Unscrupulous men are always—”

  “Perhaps your uncle, Captain Van Oorst, can accompany me.”

  Stymied, he had to let me go in search of Captain Van Oorst. One of the servants at the Hooft house said he was staying at the inn, Ster Van Oosten. By now it was noon. The innkeeper told me the captain was still in his room. I mounted to the second floor and pounded on the door. The captain opened it in his woolen underwear. Behind him a slouching dissolute-looking young man peered impudently at me.

  “Let me in, goddamn you,” I said. I shoved my way into the room and began telling the captain how low I thought he was. “You transported me to Amsterdam like a piece of goods to be auctioned off to your nephew-in-law and his friends for a few thousand guilders. When I get back to New York, I’ll tell my husband and he’ll fillet you like a flounder and feed you to the sharks.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Van Oorst protested.

  “The hell you don’t,” I said. “Get on your clothes. You and I are going on a little trip to Frankfurt.”

  “Who is this creature?” asked the young man. He talked and acted more like a woman, flouncing around the room, picking up his clothes.

  “A passenger,” Captain Van Oorst said. Something in the way he said this made me wonder if I should return to America aboard his ship. I might join the first Catalyntie in the depths.

  The muttering captain got himself dressed and accompanied me to the Hooft Bank on the Dam. There we found an agitated Philip Hooft on his way out the door. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’m afraid the deal with the ducats is off. The price of gold has just gone down in Frankfurt. A messenger arrived with the news only a half hour ago. Are you sure you won’t join me for dinner at Vondel’s? There are many other opportunities we could explore.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said with the same exquisite courtesy. “But I must begin buying the goods I’ll need
for next season. I have a long list.”

  “She’s a woman of business, isn’t she, Captain?” Philip Hooft said. “The Senecas couldn’t change that Dutch trait.”

  “Aye,” said Captain Van Oorst sourly. Once more I thought I saw murder in his eyes. Was a fat commission vanishing?

  Suddenly my heart, which had been clutched like a fist in my breast, soared into the blue December sky. I almost wept with gratitude for Clara’s presence in my soul. Perhaps with her help I was destined to outwit the Evil Brother after all.

  THREE

  FOR THE NEXT TWO MONTHS, PHILIP Hooft watched hungrily as I came and went from his splendid house on the Heerengracht. Each day his eyes seemed to protrude a little further, his pendulous lower lip seemed to thicken and droop another fraction of an inch. Soon I could think of him only as the Frog. Behind this derision I was scrupulously polite and occasionally flirtatious. I complimented him on his colorful Parisian clothes. Everyone in Amsterdam aped the Paris fashions. I let him take me iceboating on the frozen Amstel, and rode with him and Tesselschade in a schuit—a canal boat, towed by horses—for a visit to the Hague, the ornate capital of the Netherlands, where I was presented at the court of the current Prince of Orange, the country’s theoretical ruler.

  I attended concerts, plays, readings of poems as Philip Hooft’s ghostly third, the woman of his wilderness desires. Occasionally we encountered Vondel, who one night asked me candidly how long I was planning to torture his friend. Was my skill in this black art something I had learned among the Senecas?

  I pretended I did not know what he was talking about. “In America, we women are innocent about such matters. Why don’t you put that in your paper?” I said.