Remember the Morning

by Thomas Fleming

  That playful child who sat on the Virgin’s knee was also part of her fulfillment. Suddenly Willem Hooft’s sad fate filled my heart with dread. What would I do if Hugh died that way while I was playing romantic games in the Netherlands? The wish, the need, to hold my son in my arms swelled in my throat.

  Suddenly I was in the grip of an overwhelming nausea. I fled into the garden and vomited most of my supper. I collapsed on a bench, oozing sweat. What was wrong with me? I never had an upset stomach, not even on shipboard in the roughest seas. There was only one other time when I could not keep food on my stomach: when I was pregnant with Hugh.

  It could only mean one thing. I was carrying Philip Hooft’s child. During the months we had spent in London, Malcolm had scarcely touched me. Well over three months had elapsed since we parted.

  I had scrupulously followed Adam Duycinck’s instructions to prevent conception: inserting an oil-soaked patch of cloth before making love, removing it to soak it with more oil. Years of success had given me a false sense of assurance. Now I remembered Adam’s final warning: there was no such thing as one hundred percent prevention.

  What should I do? This invasion of nature—or God—into my Dutch Eden forced me to confront my identity in a new, more radical way. Should I stay here in Holland and bear Philip’s child? Become his wife in all but name? I would have a life of comfort and ease, of splendor, if I wanted it. I was sure I could persuade him to return to banking. There would also be a rich dividend of happiness. I no longer had any doubt of my ability to please this man—or his eagerness to please me. I knew how much he would treasure our son.

  But it would mean forever abandoning my firstborn son. I returned to the studio and studied the painting of the Virgin and child. This time I saw something else. Through a window a country village was visible—houses, barns, hedges, and gardens. Was the painter saying this too was part of a woman’s fulfillment—this sense of belonging to a place? Was New York the only place where I could find fulfillment? Was Malcolm Stapleton part of that fulfillment, in spite of the way we had wounded each other?

  Upstairs, I slipped into a troubled shallow sleep. Suddenly I was in a dream crowded with angry white and black faces. Smoke and flames swirled around me. I was in New York and the town was on fire! I saw Clara fleeing the flames. I saw Malcolm clutching Hugh, running in another direction. I saw a figure in a black robe, pointing at Clara, shouting: “This woman will burn!” Philip Hooft peered anxiously from a window, wailing: “Catalyntieeeee!”

  I awoke with a violent start. “Catalyntie!” Philip was calling to me from downstairs. A weary clerk from the Bank of Amsterdam was with him. The fellow had been traveling half the night. “We must return to Amsterdam immediately!” Philip said. “The country is in turmoil. The French have won a tremendous victory at Laufeldt. The Dutch army ran away, abandoning the English on the field.”

  I heard more as we hastened back to Amsterdam in the carriage that had brought the clerk to the house. “The government has promised to put seventy thousand troops in the field. Every bank in Amsterdam is being pressed for loans. It will require new taxes—which I fear will cause an uproar. The banking community wants me to serve as head of a committee to levy the taxes. They hope to trade on the people’s memory of my father as a popular burgomaster—”

  Uproar was exactly what we found in Amsterdam. The inns were jammed with wounded Dutch and British officers. When these overflowed, the rich were asked to open their houses. Philip Hooft could hardly say no. I found myself installed in the house on the Heerengracht, supervising the care of a half dozen British officers by Dutch servants who spoke no English.

  Two ensigns, no more than boys, died in awful agony after a surgeon amputated their infected legs. Another man had been shot in the head and blinded. He raved and cursed the Dutch. An emaciated young major with a wide mouth and receding chin asked my name. When I told him he exclaimed: “Malcolm Stapleton’s wife?” He was James Wolfe, the man who had saved Malcolm from Hangman Hawley’s noose in Scotland. I soon learned from the conversations of the other officers that the major had been the hero of the day at Laufeldt. Ignoring a cruel wound in his stomach, he had rallied his regiment and held off half the French army after the Dutch fled.

  We talked about America. Wolfe was fascinated by it. “England’s future is in your land. Only there can we breed up a race numerous enough to fight Europe,” he said. “From my talks with your husband, I think you may produce a better government than our old rotten system. He made me feel patriotism was still possible.”49

  This tribute to Malcolm shook me far more than Wolfe could possibly realize. Events in Amsterdam troubled me even more. When Philip Hooft’s committee raised taxes to pay for the vastly expanded army, mobs swirled out of the back streets to loot and burn the houses of the rich. Only a cordon of British troops around the Hooft mansion spared it from destruction. From the mob flew insults that forever changed my vision of Amsterdam as a peaceful city.

  “Where’s Hooft? Let’s string him up with the rest of the rich pigs who pick our pockets.”

  “He looks like a pig.”

  “Where’s Hooft the pig? Oink oink. Come on out, Hooft, and take your punishment.”

  On the Dam, Dutch troops fought a bloody battle with the mob when they tried to loot the Bank of Amsterdam. In the courtyard of one of the inns, a group of self-appointed politicians, called the Doelists, after the name of the inn, began meeting to set up a new government. The Prince of Orange, the theoretical leader of Holland, hurried to Amsterdam and dispersed them but the specter of a revolution was not so easily forgotten. Wolfe and the other wounded British officers looked on the Dutch with contempt. Their hodgepodge confederation of cities and districts was hopelessly weak and corrupt.

  “With an ally like this, we don’t need enemies,” Wolfe told me. “All they have is money. One of these days we’ll take that away from them.”

  During the weeks of turmoil, I had barely seen Philip. He had been embroiled in endless conferences with the city’s burgomasters and assorted emissaries from the Prince of Orange and the Doelists. All traces of the Eden we had created at Brock vanished. Amsterdam and its mob would always hover at the edge of our imaginations now.

  When Philip suggested another retreat to Brock at the end of that turbulent summer, I shook my head. “I think it’s time for me to go back to America, Philip,” she said.

  “What will I do without you?” he wailed.

  “Go to Paris and talk to Tesselschade,” I said. “Perhaps she’s changed as much as you’ve changed. Perhaps you can discover a new love, different and wiser than your first one.”

  “She’ll scorn me again,” he said, dwindling in front of my eyes.

  “How do you know?”

  “She’ll have a French lover.”

  “How do you know? At least write her a letter, asking if she’ll see you.”

  He halfheartedly agreed. That night we made tender love one more time in a bedroom at the rear of the mansion on the Heerengracht, far from the groans and sighs of the wounded British officers. Asleep, I was revisited by the violent dream that had frightened me in Brock—New York afire, Clara threatened with death, riot and confusion everywhere. It made me acutely anxious to begin my voyage.

  The child in my womb was another reason to hasten home. I wanted Malcolm to believe it belonged to him. That meant I would have to try to restore our marriage as soon as I arrived. Would it be possible? I did not know. Perhaps I would never find the peaceful fulfillment of the Virgin with the Milk Soup. Perhaps I was fated to spend my life struggling for it. But I would sail with the knowledge that I could inspire love in a man. I knew there was love in my heart—if a man could find the secret room in which it was concealed.

  Not until I was aboard ship with Philip a week later did I tell him about the child. “I’ll name him after you. I’ll love him in memory of you,” I said.

  For a moment he seemed to consider persuading me to stay, to give birth t
o the child in Amsterdam—and perhaps leave the baby there. But he realized that was impossible. “If it’s a boy and he shows any sign of being a painter, send him to me,” Philip said. “I’ll make sure he gets the best training in Europe.”

  There was also another reason for letting me go. “I’ve heard from Tesselschade,” he said. “She seems more than willing to see me in Paris.”

  “Give her my love,” I said.

  We both realized the double meaning of that word. My love was part of Philip’s heart now, as his love was part of my heart. “Take Tesselschade to Brock and paint her portrait in that Chinese silk gown. Find her secret room,” I said.

  “I’ll try,” Philip said.

  Down the Amstel the ship glided on the tide. In the Zuider Zee, I stayed at the railing until the roofs and towers and masts of Amsterdam slipped beneath the horizon. For a moment I was swept by regret. Some part of my Dutch blood resisted this final separation. I told myself I should be glad to say farewell to a Europe torn by perpetual war and upheaval. Then I remembered my dream and wondered if I would find worse turmoil in America.

  THREE

  I HAD BOOKED PASSAGE ON AN English ship, Monmouth, bound for New York. Stumpy, pipe-smoking Captain Henry Swain had warned me the trip could be dangerous. If we encountered a French privateer, he intended to fight to defend his cargo of expensive china from the Dutch city of Delft. He had an extra twenty men aboard, and a dozen cannon lashed to the main deck, their ugly black snouts protruding through the gunports.

  I was more concerned about keeping food in my stomach. I was repeatedly seized by bouts of nausea which sent me fleeing to the rail or the common toilet. Being aboard ship at least made this continual distress easy to explain as a kind of permanent seasickness. The captain was very understanding and kept offering me Madeira, rum punch, and other spirits to settle my stomach.

  Midway through the third week of the voyage, as we cruised briskly past the Canary Islands, the cry of “Sail!” brought everyone on deck. We soon bore down on a square rigger that was obviously in distress. Only half her sails were raised and she seemed closer to drifting than sailing before the wind. Captain Swain said she was English-made. But she was not sailing like an Englishman was in command.

  “What ship is that?” he roared through his brass trumpet when we were about a quarter of a mile apart.

  “Captain,” said the first mate, who was studying the ship through a spyglass. “The crew is all Africans. The name on the stern is Golden Mermaid, out of Liverpool.”

  “What ship is that?” the captain repeated, as we drew closer.

  The response was a volley of musketry from a half dozen men along the rail. “She’s a slaver,” Captain Swain said. “They’ve mutinied and captured her.”

  He whirled to his cabin boy. “Go below and fetch my sword! Gunners, stand by your guns! First Mate, arm twenty men for a boarding party. Mrs. Stapleton, you’d best go to your cabin.”

  “Give me a gun first,” I said. “I know how to use one.”

  The captain nodded grimly to the first mate, who handed me a pistol. He was admitting this could be a bloody battle and they might lose. I was tempted to ask the captain if it would be simpler—and safer—to let Golden Mermaid go. But Swain was a typical pugnacious English seadog. Mutiny on the high seas had to be punished.

  There was another reason to attack, which Captain Swain stated to the first mate with relish. “There’s likely a hundred or maybe even two hundred prime Africans aboard her. She’ll make a pretty bonus for us all in New York.”

  I stayed in the doorway of my cabin while Monmouth came abeam Golden Mermaid. The Africans on the rail only had three muskets. They fired about a half dozen shots which hit no one before Monmouth blasted a broadside into her. Half the guns used grapeshot. Golden Mermaid’s decks were instantly littered with dead and dying. It was hardly a fair fight.

  “Grapple her now, lads,” roared Captain Swain. In the bow and stern, sailors flung clawlike hooks into Golden Mermaid and hauled on the lines until the two ships were less than a foot apart.

  “Follow me now, lads, for a bit of gold and glory!” roared Swain and sprang onto Golden Mermaid’s bloody decks, sword in hand. Out of the cabin amidships leaped an African who aimed a musket at Swain at pointblank range. The gun boomed and the captain slumped against the rail, clutching his chest.

  “Show them no quarter, lads!” roared the first mate. He leaped aboard Golden Mermaid, seized Swain’s sword, and impaled the man with the musket before he could reload. The twenty-man boarding party followed the mate and obeyed his savage orders. They fired round after round into the cabin where some Africans had taken refuge until there was no one alive in there.

  “Load again and see what’s belowdecks,” the first mate said.

  A dozen men vanished down a hatch. There were muffled sounds of more shots. One of the sailors came flying back on deck. “There’s two hundred of them down there, all out of their coffles, ready to fight with their hands, their feet, their teeth,” he cried.

  “Kill a half dozen. That will show the rest,” the first mate said.

  After another round of muffled shots, the Africans belowdecks surrendered. The first mate, whose name was Thompson, briskly ordered his men to throw the dead overboard and clamp the Africans back in their chains. They carried Captain Swain’s body back to Monmouth. The second mate and ten men were placed in charge of the slave ship. After a hasty prayer over Swain’s body, they consigned him to the deep and resumed the voyage to New York with Golden Mermaid close astern.

  That night at dinner in the captain’s cabin, the first mate and I dined on fresh chicken cooked in Madeira wine by the beaming cook. There were one hundred and eighty-two live Africans aboard Golden Mermaid. They were worth at least fifty pounds each. Add that to the value of the ship, which was now Monmouth’s property as well under the law of salvage, and Captain Swain’s promise of a bonus was more than handsomely fulfilled. It was difficult to grieve too deeply for the captain when he had left them such a handsome legacy.

  “What happened to the captain and crew of the Golden Mermaid?” I asked.

  “Slaughtered to a man, as far as we can learn from the mumbo jumbo of the black devils,” Thompson said. “It’s a dangerous business, the trade. I was in it myself for a while. You got to be on guard every second aboard one of them ships. Not to mention the fevers and vomits a man’s likely to catch from your cargo. On one voyage we lost every third sailor.”

  “Why does anyone go into it?”

  “The money’s good. If we quit it, the French or the Dutch or the Portuguese’d take the business in a second and leave many a good Englishman without work.”

  That night, I dreamed of Clara again. She was in some sort of prison, reproaching me. “Your children will suffer for this to the uttermost generation,” she cried. Was she talking about the attack on Golden Mermaid? Suddenly the prison was on fire and Malcolm was trying to tear loose the bars to help Clara escape.

  I awoke and thought of the Africans in their coffles aboard Golden Mermaid. What can one person do to change the way the world worked? Monmouth’s crew had no remorse for recapturing these people. Yet Clara was unquestionably right about slavery. It was a creation of the Evil Brother. Was my cool tolerance of it proof of how inevitably I was in his grasp?

  The thought of this old ally made me begin to dread what I was likely to find in New York. The more I pondered my nightmares, the more convinced I became that Malcolm had gone back to Clara—this time for good. There would be no way to disguise Philip Hooft’s child.

  My dread became acute when we finally glided past Sandy Hook with a brisk wind and made our way down New York’s great harbor. We had to anchor off Fort George at the tip of Manhattan and wait for the tide in the East River to turn. It was late afternoon by the time we tied up Monmouth and Golden Mermaid at the Roosevelt wharf off Pearl Street.

  There was a great stir on the wharf when one of Monmouth’s crew shouted the n
ews of Golden Mermaid’s capture. She had been bound for New York; Captain Swain was well known in the city. In the hubbub, I could find no one to help me with my trunk. I left it on board and rushed past the familiar storefronts to our house on Depeyster Street. New York was as muddy, as noisy, as smelly as ever. Several friends greeted me on the street. But I was too anxious to feel any warmth in their friendly welcomes.

  “Mama!” cried Hugh. He was in the hall as I opened the door. I fell to my knees and embraced him. He was as red-cheeked as a winter apple and had grown at least six inches. A moment later, a smiling Clara was kissing me. She had come by with some sweets for Hugh.

  Where was Malcolm? “Playing soldier again. He’s ringing the frontier with forts,” Clara said. “He appointed me assistant mother until you came home. How are you? How was Holland?”

  “Pleasant enough,” I said. Did Clara instantly divine this was a half truth, at best? Why did I always find it difficult to lie to her?

  “Your timing couldn’t be better,” Clara said. “Malcolm is expected in a day or two.”

  “He told you about Culloden?”

  “We read about it in the newspapers.”

  “That’s all he told you?”

  Clara hesitated. “Yes,” she said.

  Now we were both lying, I thought. “It’s all right. I expected him to tell you the rest. Did you console him in your usual fashion?”

  Clara seemed to struggle for a moment with a strange emotion. Was it sadness? “I’ve been hoping—even praying—that you’d change. I see you haven’t.”

  “I’ve changed more than you can possibly imagine. The question is—have you—has he—changed?”

  “I think Malcolm has changed a great deal,” Clara said. “I’ve changed too—in ways you’d never understand.”

  “Mama?” little Hugh said. “Why are you and Aunt Clara fighting?”

  “We’re not fighting. We’re very old friends. We’re just arguing a bit.”