The Golden Cross

by Angela Elwell Hunt

  To be the first—that is the idea.

  Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad

  Are you ready then?” Gusta’s round face was seamed with disapproval, but Aidan nodded in contentment. They stood on the threshold of the greatest game Aidan had ever dreamed of playing, and the grandness of her ambitions still staggered her. In less than one hour Heer Van Dyck’s children would gather for dinner and Aidan would leave the house to return to the tavern, ostensibly saying farewell to the Van Dycks forever.

  Henrick and Rozamond would be happy to see her go, of course. Though they would undoubtedly be a little anxious to send their father on a voyage of exploration, Aidan knew they would be relieved that the “interloper” was out of his house.

  “Is your bag packed with the things I found?” Gusta’s gaze drifted toward the small satchel containing the clothes that would transform Aidan into a boy. The housekeeper had proved remarkably clever in the matter of creating a disguise. She’d procured two pairs of loose-fitting trousers, three oversized cotton shirts, and a cap that could be pulled down to cover Aidan’s hair.

  The housekeeper had flatly refused to cut Aidan’s tresses. “Does not the Scripture say that hair is given to a woman for her covering?” she had asked earlier that morning, a flame of righteous indignation in her eyes. “You can braid it like the seamen do. It will hang down your back, out of your way.”

  “But the color is unusual, and someone may remember it,” Aidan protested. She feared that her plans might come undone due to the woman’s stubbornness, but apparently the housekeeper had thought of everything.

  Gusta produced a bottle of olive oil from her pocket. “Swipe this through your hair,” she said, dropping the container into Aidan’s satchel. “Red turns to ruddy brown when it’s wet with oil. Keep your cap on, and no one will be the wiser.”

  Aidan tucked the last of her traitorous red hair up into a ladylike lace cap, then smoothed her gown. The sumptuous dress was new, supposedly a farewell gift from a teacher to his prized student, and Aidan actually felt pretty as she twirled in the golden silk and held up her looking glass. When she had published her first book of engravings, she would buy another dress just like this one. Perhaps she’d wear it to the governor general’s ball, or to the opening ceremonies of the school she intended to establish for orphans and wayward girls. For when she was respectable and a veritable fountain of virtue, she would stretch forth her hand to the less fortunate. No one should have to suffer as she and the others had.

  Henrick’s voice drifted up the stairs, and Gusta thrust her head through Aidan’s chamber doorway. “Rozamond and Dempsey have arrived, and Henrick is home from work,” the housekeeper called, just before moving down the hallway. As Aidan stepped out to follow, Gusta turned. “Wait for the space of ten minutes, then come down to join us. I suspect you know what to do.”

  “I do.” Aidan folded her hands. “And I want to thank you, Gusta, for all you have done. I—we—couldn’t do this without you.”

  The housekeeper uttered a soft grunt of disagreement, then moved down the stairs and out of sight.

  Dempsey Jasper ran a finger around the tight collar at his neck, then forced a smile as his father-in-law stepped into the dining room. “Heer Van Dyck, how well you are looking!” He bowed slightly. “You are as calm as a man sitting for a portrait. I would never think that on the morrow you will leave to join your ship.”

  “The morrow will take care of itself,” Schuyler answered easily. He stepped forward to give Rozamond a light kiss on the cheek, greeted Henrick, then gestured toward the table. “Shall we sit? Gusta has been detained for a moment, but I have no doubt our dinner will be served soon.”

  Despite his comment about Schuyler’s calm, Dempsey thought their host seemed a bit on edge as he took his place at the head of the table. A glow suffused his face, as though he contained a candle that burned brightly, and his eyes were alight with mischief and inspiration. Dempsey wondered if the upcoming journey could account for the man’s changed demeanor. Or was there more to it? And did the little guttersnipe have anything to do with Schuyler’s air of expectancy?

  Dempsey seated Rozamond, then took his own chair across from Henrick. Rozamond asked some silly and pointless question about Captain Tasman’s daughter, but Schuyler barely responded. His gaze moved instead toward the hall as the sound of a silken rustle reached the dining room. Dempsey turned, too, and stared at the young woman who stood in the doorway.

  It was the wastrel, no doubt, but all traces of depravity—the clinging, dingy dress and the hungry, brazen look—had vanished from her face and figure. She wore a golden gown that must have cost a working man’s monthly wages, and that unrestrained red hair had been tucked neatly into a modest lady’s cap. A double linen collar of fine white contrasted pleasingly with the pale ivory of her skin, and her hands were encased in a pair of long gloves. A striking gold cross of Celtic design hung from her neck and shone against the linen collar, advertising a piety Dempsey was certain she could not possess.

  Ignoring the others at the table, the girl lifted her eyes to meet Schuyler’s gaze. “I must thank you, Heer Van Dyck,” she said simply, dipping into a small curtsy as she spoke. “You have been most kind to offer me shelter and instruction. But now, as you prepare to go on your journey, I must leave you. I will always remember what you have taught me, and to do justice to your kindness and hospitality I shall strive to improve my lot.” She gave him a brief, fleeting smile, then stooped to pick up a small satchel that lay on the floor in the hallway.

  “Go with God, my child,” Schuyler answered formally. “I shall expect to hear great things about you when I return.”

  And then, while Rozamond frowned and Henrick gaped openly, the exquisite changeling turned and disappeared into the hallway. The Van Dycks sat silently, listening as the front door clicked shut and the sound of her light footsteps faded from their hearing.

  “I shall miss her,” Schuyler said. An undisguised tenderness lingered in his eyes as he turned to his children. “She was an interesting student, but of course I could not leave her here with Henrick while I am gone.”

  “She will return to the wharf?” Henrick asked, disbelief in his voice. “It is such a terrible place. The gaming houses, the taverns, the musicos … ”

  “It is where she belongs,” Rozamond snapped. “It is only right that she return. She could not stay here, after all, with you in town and only Gusta to guard the house.”

  “Miss O’Connor understands, and she will go wherever she wants to go.” Schuyler picked up his spoon, tapped it against his glass, and looked expectantly toward the hallway. “Gusta! What is keeping you?”

  Dempsey lifted his hand to his chin and stroked it for a moment, thinking. Rozamond and Henrick had accepted this little act at face value, but the words were spoken too smoothly, with too little fuss or emotion, for Dempsey to believe this touching little farewell scene. If he had been housed, fed, and entertained for several days by a great gentleman like Schuyler Van Dyck, he would not have willingly returned to the hovel from which he had sprung. The price of a golden dress would not have been enough to induce him to quietly disappear.

  “Perhaps,” Dempsey drawled, his voice so dry that Rozamond cast him a sharp, questioning glance, “Gusta is overcome with grief at the prospect of losing her young friend. Perhaps you should send a messenger to that saloon where you found the hussy, Heer Van Dyck, and make certain she has safely returned to her place.”

  Schuyler frowned, then rose from his chair and stepped into the hallway. “Gusta!” they heard him call, then he moved away toward the kitchen.

  “I am so glad she is gone,” Rozamond confessed in a low whisper, shaking her head as she looked at her brother. “Perhaps a few weeks at sea will clear Father’s mind. I don’t know how a man of his dignity and position could allow himself to be taken in by a trollop.”

  “I am a little alarmed that she was still here when I arrived,” Henrick confessed. “And more alar
med at the look of her when she left. Did you notice the change? She could easily pass for a lady. I fear she will not know how to go back to her old life after living here—”

  “Gentility is not dirt, Henrick; it does not rub off on those who rub up against it,” Dempsey interrupted. He tugged irritably at his sleeve, then glanced quickly from his wife to his brother-in-law. “The woman was gutter mud and she still is gutter mud, no matter how carefully she is dressed or how graciously she speaks. And more important, she still stands to inherit a considerable portion of this estate—unless your father has visited his solicitor again.” He looked evenly at Henrick. “Do you want that, brother? When your father’s will is published, do you want the world to know that a barmaid and harlot bought your father’s favor?”

  A furious blush glowed on Henrick’s high cheekbones. “By all that’s holy, no.” His voice was a suffocated whisper. “What would people think?”

  “They will think nothing.” Dempsey leaned back in his chair. “Trust me to take care of everything. We may not be able to change your father’s opinion or his will before he sails, but we can make certain the girl will not make trouble for us. I’ll visit the wharf on the morrow.”

  “What will you do?” Rozamond’s eyes brightened with speculation.

  Dempsey reached out and squeezed his wife’s round cheek. “Whatever has to be done, my sweet.”

  Walking eastward on Broad Street, Aidan clutched the handle of her satchel and resisted the urge to swing it in the sheer exuberance of joy. That had not been difficult at all! Van Dyck’s children had been surprised to see her, but their relief at her departure had been evident in their faces.

  A young man leaned out of a passing carriage to look at her, his eyes alight with interest. In a gesture of goodwill, she inclined her head toward him. In this dress, such a gesture would be regarded as merely friendly. If she had nodded at him dressed in her tavern rags, he probably would have insulted her with words too vile to be repeated.

  Amazing, how society excused the eccentricities of a lady while it condemned the mere existence of the tavern maids. Aidan swung her satchel high into the air. At this moment, she didn’t care what anyone thought of her behavior. Let them stare! For the first time in her life she felt pretty and confident, for such was the magic of this golden gown. Heer Van Dyck had given her more than a mere garment. The woman who wore this gown would be taken seriously and treated with respect.

  She smiled to herself. Perhaps he had planned to send her back to the wharf in an altered frame of mind as well as a new garment. It would be like him to think of such an idea, for he was always seeing things in her that Aidan could not believe.

  Another carriage passed, and this time two women craned their necks to see her, doubtless spurred by curious jealousy. She lifted her chin, absently smoothing the silk of her skirt, allowing her palm to caress the shimmering richness of the fabric. She would hate leaving this garment behind, but she could give it to Orabel, who just might find her long-awaited husband once she tasted the gown’s power. Anyone would look like a queen in this regal softness.

  Aidan reached the intersection of Broad and Market Streets and paused for a moment, letting her eyes rove over buildings and faces she had not seen in more than a week. Strange, how the taverns and flophouses seemed dirty and decrepit to her eye. No one scrubbed the doorsteps here, no one swept the cobblestones to keep the area free from filth and decay. A deep, pungent smell assailed her almost immediately—the mingled scents of cheap tobacco, wet wood, day-old fish, unwashed bodies, and the constant warm breath of the sea.

  The gusting, steady wind shrilled from the harbor, flapping her skirt and sleeves. Aidan lowered her head and used her free hand to hold her cap firmly to her head. Moving slowly, she crossed the crowded street, attuning her ears to the sounds of the wharf—loud voices like a deep, angry buzz, punctuated by the faint sound of distant shouts and underscored by the howling wind. For a moment she felt as though she had entered a riptide eager to pull her under. Then she shook her head. She had friends who lived along this street. This was not a hostile civilization; it was a tavern, and the people here were just like her.

  “This is home,” she muttered, pausing in the center of the road before Bram’s tavern. The torches had already been lit. Their golden light pushed at the darkness and gleamed in the harlots’ hair, a welcoming beacon for any who wanted to leave the neat and ordered world behind.

  Stepping nimbly over a mud puddle and the drunk that lay sprawled beside it, Aidan lifted her head and moved resolutely forward. “Heaven above, who is that?” a drunken sailor called, turning from the harlot in his arms to watch Aidan move through the milling mob outside the doors.

  “A bit haughty, aren’t we, lady?” A hussy called. Then a moment later Aidan heard, “Niet te Geloven, that’s Irish Annie!”

  Aidan lifted her skirts and pressed her lips together, threading her way through the crowd until she reached the threshold of the tavern doorway. She paused before the door, drew a deep breath, and forbade herself to tremble. Her mind whirled with confusing emotions; past and present and future tugged at her, sending her heart downward in a sickening lurch. This was home; these were her people. Why then did she feel like an alien?

  She pushed the door open and blinked, waiting for her eyes to grow accustomed to the smoky interior. Music and voices and shouting blended together in a busy chorus, but the sounds faded and died away as Aidan stepped into the room.

  “Holy heaven, what have we here?” She heard the deep rumble of Bram’s voice and turned toward it. He stood behind his bar, a pair of pewter mugs in one burly fist. “I’m sorry, Madame, but you should not be here without—”

  “Bram.” She gave him a wavering smile. “It’s me, Aidan. Where is my mother?”

  His broad face went absolutely blank with shock.

  “Aidan?” Orabel stepped forward from a group around one of the gaming tables. “Goejehelp, it is you! Look at you! You look every inch a lady!”

  “Shhh,” Aidan teased, stepping forward to draw her friend into a warm embrace. Orabel laughed and Aidan lifted her head to gaze at the dumbstruck gawkers. Lapsing back into her thickest brogue, she frowned and said, “Faith, are you all a pack of amadons and eejits? Get back to your gossipin’. ’Tis only me, Irish Annie. Have you never seen a girl cleaned up before?”

  The room erupted in laughter, and within a moment life went on. “Look at you!” Orabel whispered, her eyes roving from the cap on Aidan’s head to the dainty slippers peeking from beneath her hem. “You’re quite the beautiful lady! Have you found that rich husband after all?”

  “No, and I’m not likely to.” Aidan pulled Orabel toward the door. “Come, let us find a quiet place where we can talk. I’ve a secret to tell you.”

  “A secret?” Orabel’s eyes lit with pleasure. “There’s nothing I’d like better to hear. Can it be that you’re getting married at last? Or have you sold a painting to some fine gentleman who will make your name great throughout Europe?”

  “Nothing like that.” Aidan pulled Orabel down the street to the narrow door of the women’s quarters. She flung it open and smiled in relief to find the room empty. “The others are all out?” she asked, moving to the box where Lili kept a candle and a flint.

  “Ja,” Orabel answered as she followed Aidan into the room. “They are working, of course.”

  Aidan fumbled with the flint for a moment, then lit the candle. As the pinpoint of light flickered and brightened the room, Aidan looked around her home with new eyes. Strange, how cluttered this place seemed compared to the spare, elegant furnishings of her chamber at Van Dyck’s house.

  Aidan peered around to make sure Lili had not left any drunks behind to sleep off their ale, but she and Orabel were quite alone. She sighed in relief and sank to one of the sleeping mats on the floor. Her gown pooled around her, a molten mass of golden silk.

  “Such a pretty thing you are,” Orabel whispered. Awe filled her voice, and she settled
a respectful distance away. “Such a lovely gown! I should have known you’d make a fine lady, Aidan.”

  “I haven’t become a lady at all,” Aidan hissed, rapidly growing impatient with the deferential attitude that had greeted her at every turn. She tugged at the lace cap and pulled it off, then yanked on the neat bun that held her hair. “And on the morrow I shall not even be a woman.” She looked at her friend. “Orabel, I need your help. I need you to keep a secret. And in return for your help I want to give you this gown.”

  Orabel’s eyes flew open wide. “That gown? Sakerloot, Aidan, that would never do. How could I beg a stuiver wearing something like that? No one would give me a penny if I was dressed like the richest lady in Batavia. I would starve in a dress like that.”

  “In a dress like this,” Aidan answered, already fumbling at the ties that held the sleeves to her bodice, “you might find a husband. You’d look like a very genteel lady, Orabel, and who knows what sea captain might look at you and feel his heart stirred? This is not a begging dress, but perhaps it is a courting dress.” She caught Orabel’s eyes, which were filled with infinite distress and uncertainty. “I had all manner of gentlemen’s curious glances bestowed upon me as I wended my way to this place, Orabel. And so may you, for you are much prettier than I.” She gave her friend a knowing smile. “Besides, you always said you wanted a yellow dress.”

  Orabel’s eyes softened as she reached out and tentatively touched the silk skirt. “Why would you want to give me something like this, Aidan? You’re the one that deserves a husband. Not me. No man will want me after—”

  Aidan pulled her sleeve from the bodice with a firm yank. “I’ll not be needing this dress, nor any other where I’m going.” She tossed the sleeve into Orabel’s lap. “So you take it. I want you to have it.”

  A tremor touched the younger girl’s lips. “Where are you going? What do you mean?”

  “I’m going to sea,” Aidan answered, pulling the other sleeve free of its fastenings. “In breeches, a shirt, and cap. And no one must know where I’ve gone, or how, at least until the boat sails. Heer Van Dyck thinks we’ll be aboard for at least a week until the captain is ready to cast off.”