The Golden Cross

by Angela Elwell Hunt

  Van Dyck made a soft sound of agreement, though his eyes did not leave the watery horizon. “Marriage is a wonderful thing.”

  “Heer Van Dyck!”

  A youthful voice broke into the conversation, and Sterling and the old man turned together as a slender boy in breeches and a billowing shirt emerged from the cabin beneath the forecastle. He carried a painter’s palette in one hand and a brush in the other, and with a smile Sterling noted that a definite smear of blue paint adorned the tip of the boy’s pert chin.

  “I can’t get the color right,” the boy said, not glancing up as he neared the older man. “The sky seems more azure than turquoise today, and yet I can’t get the colors to blend properly. What element am I missing?”

  “Mind your manners, Aidan,” the gentleman remonstrated, clasping his hands at his waist. “We have a guest. I’d like you to meet Sterling Thorne, the ship’s surgeon.”

  The boy looked up then, and the shock of recognition hit them both at the same instant. Sterling recognized the slender form, the delicate features, the wide green eyes—this was the boy from the alley!

  “You!” he murmured, aware that the skittish boy might flee if he reacted too strongly.

  The boy took a hasty half-step back, tipping the painter’s palette so that it fell forward onto his shirt.

  “You know my assistant?” Van Dyck’s glance moved from the boy to Sterling and back to the boy again. His smile faded. “You recognize him?”

  Sterling frowned in exasperation. “Well. I certainly never expected to see you again. I asked you to help me, and you were off like a shot—”

  “My presence was required here,” the boy snapped, his chin lifting slightly in defiance.

  “For one who was so concerned about the girl’s life and death, you managed to vanish most conveniently.”

  “How could I be sure you didn’t kill her?” the boy answered, retreating another step before Sterling’s sharp gaze.

  “I told you I could be trusted!”

  “Ah, well, that settles it then.” The boy’s eyes darkened dangerously. “I’m sure someone told that girl the same thing right before they murdered her!”

  “Aidan!” Van Dyck broke into the exchange with a sharp voice, then turned to face his charge, blocking Sterling’s view of the boy. In a lower voice, the gentleman spoke to his assistant. “Will you tell me what happened? And how this man knows you?”

  “It’s all right, sir,” the lad answered, his tone softening in respect. “It has nothing to do with me. But this afternoon I found my friend in an alley. This man stood over her dead body, and I wasn’t certain he was not the one responsible for her most undeserved death.”

  “For your information—” Sterling began, eager to relate how he had spent his afternoon and his last gold piece taking care of the murdered girl’s burial. But the gentleman turned toward him with marked reservation in his eyes, and Sterling’s urge to defend himself faded. These two, along with the entire ship’s crew, would have to learn what sort of man he was. He was an outsider, an Englishman, and they already mistrusted him. Very well. He wouldn’t satisfy them with empty words. He’d prove himself by his deeds, and if they weren’t happy with his work, they could doctor themselves.

  “I must find Captain Tasman,” he said abruptly. He hefted his bag and tugged on the brim of his hat. “I give you good day, sir.”

  In the small cabin that would serve as home to himself, Francois Visscher, and Aidan, Schuyler bade the girl sit on a stool while he prepared to rebuke her. “You are entirely too outspoken, Aidan.” He forced himself to call her by her familiar name. Since the tavern-going seamen knew her as Irish Annie, they had both agreed that she should be called by her true name. Aidan was a name that could apply to a man or woman, and one they could both use without feeling guilty of a lie.

  “Heer Van Dyck,” she whispered, “I was upset this afternoon; I am still upset. Orabel was my friend, and she is dead. This afternoon I found her body with that man when I went to say farewell … ” Ragged with sorrow, her voice faded away.

  “Trust me, child.” Schuyler leaned on the edge of the chart table and lowered his hands to his knees. “I do not know him well, but Sterling Thorne has the look of an honest gentleman. He shares his heart freely, and as a doctor he is sworn to do no harm to any living person. I am certain he would not hurt your friend.”

  Aidan pressed her lips together and looked at the floor, but he could see her eyes fill slowly with tears, like a fountain rising up from her wounded heart.

  “Young men do not cry,” he whispered, reaching out. He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger, and lifted it slightly, impressed by the way she stubbornly avoided his gaze. Ah, she had spirit! The soul of a great artist dwelt within her, but she would never know it unless she found the key to unlock the prison doors.

  “Can I go?” she whispered, each word a splinter of ice.

  “Aidan,” he answered, releasing her, “it is natural to grieve when someone you love dies. You will be angry, you will disbelieve, you will feel guilty, you may try to bargain with God. Most of all, you will feel sadness and terrible loneliness. But finally you will be able to open your heart to God’s grace and accept that life does go on.”

  Schuyler folded his arms across his chest. His wife’s name—Marieke—kept slipping through his thoughts, and he moved toward the small porthole in the cabin to stare out at the wharf and the bustling city beyond. Marieke had been gone nearly ten years, but he had not ceased to miss her. And now he was leaving her resting place, her children, her home.

  “Ja, life goes on,” he murmured, clinging to the memory of his beloved wife’s face as he would to a life preserver. “And we must go on with it. So use the emotions you are experiencing, Aidan. Feel them. Understand them. And paint them.”

  His only answer was a resounding clatter. He turned in time to see Aidan leaving the cabin, her palette lying on the floor, splatters of paint marring the smooth, polished surface of the deck. Sighing in resignation, Schuyler looked about for a rag to clean up the mess.

  He could not fault her for her anger. When his wife died, he had behaved in much the same way.

  Trembling with impotent rage and frustration, Aidan stepped around the busy seamen, half-afraid someone would give her a command and expect her to answer it. Shortly before leaving Van Dyck’s house she had learned that she would be traveling as a ketelbinkie, a ship’s boy. Such young lads were usually placed under the supervision of the cook, and to them fell the mundane chores of stirring pots, running messages to and fro, and all sorts of scrubbing. Abel Tasman, however, Van Dyck assured her, had given permission for Van Dyck’s ward to serve as ketelbinkie and unofficial assistant to the cartographer. Though she would still have to obey any and all commands from her superiors—which would be practically every man aboard the ship—officially, she would be Heer Van Dyck’s responsibility.

  Her stomach growled with sudden hunger, and Aidan hoped that someone would soon blow a whistle or ring a dinner bell. The swollen sun hung low over the western mountains, and she moved to the ship’s rail, seized with a sudden nostalgia for all things of the earth and land. How would she feel after seeing nothing but the vast and endless ocean for days? The voyage she’d made from England to Batavia seemed a lifetime ago, and on that ship she’d been so concerned about her mother and dying father that she’d had little time or inclination to study the seamen or the changing geography.

  She swallowed hard, wrapping her arms about herself as she thought of her mother. Lili would mourn Orabel’s death too. Somehow the news would reach the women at Bram’s tavern, and they would huddle together in fear, afraid to show themselves to strangers but having no other choice. For several nights at least, they would concentrate on getting their customers so drunk that it would not be necessary to leave the tavern, but after a while Bram would complain that business suffered when unconscious drunks littered the tables and storeroom. And so Lili’s harlots would go out again,
a bevy of unemployed seamstresses, knitters, lace workers and laundresses, selling themselves for food to eat.

  “If you’re Heer Van Dyck’s ketelbinkie, shouldn’t you be attending to your master?”

  The deep voice at Aidan’s back startled her, and she whirled around, not certain whether she should salute, bow, or doff her cap to whoever had spoken. She frowned when she saw the doctor standing behind her. He had removed his hat and doublet and now wore his breeches and shirt only, with a pale ribbon holding back his long blond hair. His blue eyes regarded her with frank curiosity and, she thought, a shade of compassion.

  “I wanted to be alone,” she said, taking pains to lower her voice to what she hoped was a masculine tone. “My master understands.”

  The doctor nodded and moved to the rail beside her. To her horror, he leaned forward, elbows on the railing, and showed every sign of lingering.

  “You needn’t fear me,” he said simply. His eyes roved over the rooflines of the city spread on the horizon before them. “I didn’t harm your friend, and I wouldn’t harm you.”

  “Is that because of your oath?”

  “My what?” He looked at her and blinked in surprise.

  “Heer Van Dyck said you took an oath to help people.”

  “Ah.” His gaze moved out into the approaching velvet dusk. “The physician’s Hippocratic Oath. Yes, ’tis the most important thing in the world to me.” He took a deep breath and adjusted his smile. “Well, one of the most important things. I have two brothers, two sisters, and a mother still living, and they are terribly important too. That’s why I came to Batavia—I want to establish a place so one of my brothers can join me.”

  Aidan swallowed, feeling the bitter gall of envy burn the back of her throat. He had family, while she only had Lili …

  “What is this oath?” she asked, steering the subject away from his loved ones.

  He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “It’s fairly complicated,” he said, glancing sideways at her. “But basically it is a vow physicians take—to use treatment to help the sick, never to injure or wrong them.” His voice softened slightly as he recited what was obviously a well-worn memory: “‘I will not give poison to anyone though asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a plan. Similarly I will not give a pessary to a woman to cause abortion. But in purity and in holiness I will guard my life and my art. Into whatever houses I enter, I will do so to help the sick, keeping myself free from all intentional wrongdoing and harm, especially from fornication with woman or man, bond or free. Now if I keep this oath, and break it not, may I enjoy honor in my life and art among all men for all time; but if I transgress and forswear myself, may the opposite befall me.’”

  “Your life and art,” she repeated, following his gaze toward the shore. The lights of Batavia were beginning to shine through the thickening gloom, and somewhere among them, Lili was welcoming women in trouble, administering pessaries to women who could not afford to find themselves with child, practicing her own dark art. Perhaps Aidan was wrong to see herself as special. Perhaps even the cutpurses were artists, in their own way.

  “Do you, Doctor, see medicine as an art? Like painting?”

  He looked at her, and his expression held a hint of embarrassment. “I suppose I do. The practice of medicine gives me great pleasure, and when I do my job well, I know I am fulfilling God’s call on my life.”

  “Oh.” She stilled the questions that rose naturally to her mind. In a moment she would be talking about her feelings, and Van Dyck had specifically warned her that men did not discuss their emotions.

  She stood still, listening to the bosun’s call, the wind humming in the rigging, and the flow of orders through the skipper’s speaking trumpet. “Well, Doctor,” she said, moving a half-step away from him, “I don’t fear you. I don’t fear anything aboard this ship.”

  He lifted a golden eyebrow and looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “Not even the captain’s whip? I thought all ship’s boys stood in awe of the cat-o’-nine-tails.”

  “I answer to Heer Van Dyck.” She lifted her chin and sneaked a glance at him, and her cheeks burned with humiliation when she saw him smile.

  “Tell me your name again,” His teeth shone white in the gathering darkness. “I’m afraid I’ve forgotten it.”

  “You haven’t forgotten it because you haven’t asked it,” she answered, biting off every word and spitting it at him. “But my name is Aidan O’Connor. And that’s Heer O’Connor to you.”

  “Heer O’Connor?” His brows shot up to his hairline. “And why would I use a title reserved for gentlemen when speaking to you?”

  “Because I am a great artist; Heer Van Dyck says so.” She transferred her gaze from him to the city beyond. “And my people are descended from Irish kings. One day all Batavia will know who I am, so you must call me Heer O’Connor.”

  “Well, then, let me be the first to acknowledge your greatness, sir.” He bent and bowed deeply, doffing an imaginary hat. When he straightened, she thought she detected laughter in his eyes. “I am proud to be the first to be informed of your substantial significance.”

  Helpless to halt her embarrassment, Aidan stepped away as a sharp whistle blew.

  “Time for supper.” Sterling turned toward the center of the ship. He glanced back toward her. “Shall we go down and fight for a place at the galley table?”

  “I’m not hungry,” Aidan lied, backing away further. While he stared at her in confusion, she turned and retreated into the gathering shadows. She’d rather go to bed without dinner than face him in the bold lantern light.

  “Forgive me, God, for not trusting you.”

  Kneeling in the small church off Broad Street, Lili clasped her hands, ready to lay down arms in the bitter battle her life had become. She had endured too much, witnessed too many painful scenes, and Aidan’s departure had broken her heart. All day she had floundered in an agonizing maelstrom of emotion, at once angry, hurt, depressed, and sorrowful. These were the same emotions she had felt after Cory died—perhaps she had never escaped the raw and primitive grief that overwhelmed and overtook her so many years ago.

  In the daily work of providing for Aidan and the others, she had established a mindless routine that helped camouflage the deep despair of her loneliness. And perhaps, she could admit now, she had been happy to flout society’s morals because in doing so she was thumbing her nose in the face of God, who had allowed Cory to die.

  But Lili was tired of rebellion and blame. She could not fight against the Almighty, and Aidan was now beyond her reach, beyond her help. Only a loving God could bring her home; and only a forgiving God could untangle the mess Lili had made of her life.

  Choking back the sob that rose in her throat, she looked up at the gold-painted cross hanging above the simple altar. “Ah, no, I didn’t give you a chance,” she murmured. “I didn’t give you much of anything in those days, Lord. Sure, and didn’t I want to make my own way? But I can’t do it any more. And since the thought of going to sea got into Aidan’s wee head, I know I’ve got to come to you.”

  Guilt swept over her in waves, and she clutched the back of the pew before her. “I’ll listen to you again, Lord, haven’t I said so? I’ll clean up the girls and see about finding them decent work. And far be it from me to be telling you how to run things, but I’ll be wanting to know if you could bring Aidan back safe. ’Tis a terrible thing to love a child and lose her … but you’d be knowing all about that, wouldn’t you?”

  Lili closed her eyes, waiting. Silence sifted down, as thick and lovely as an Irish snowfall, and she relaxed in the knowledge that the God of her youth would not forget her. A thrill shivered through her senses, and she smiled.

  Going back, Lili picked up the strings of time and hummed a hymn from her childhood, then began to sing. The sound of her voice filled the small chapel, and her heart expanded as she lifted the long-forgotten words to heaven:

  Jesus, the very thought of thee with sweetness fills my breast:
r />   But sweeter far thy face to see, and in thy presence rest.

  O Hope of every contrite heart, O Joy of all the meek,

  To those who ask, how kind Thou art! How good to those who seek!

  But what to those who find? Ah! This nor tongue nor pen can show:

  The love of Jesus, what it is none but his loved ones know.

  Darkness rose in the church, first filling the pews, then shadowing the altar, then creeping imperceptibly up the walls as night swallowed the building. But Lili sang on, ignoring the darkness, as her heart at last warmed with the holy light she had abandoned so long ago.

  For four days Tasman’s ships and crew prepared for departure. Along with charts and a few boxes of trinkets the captain thought useful for trading with any uncivilized peoples they might encounter, the loaders brought a prodigious amount of food into the cargo holds. Aidan soon discovered that since the Dutch navy regulated food for its men, the V.O.C. could do no less for any man willing to sail upon its ships. Each vessel was regarded as representative of the Dutch commonwealth, and therefore each ship had to offer its men a generous quality of life—which translated into food, and lots of it.

  In addition to the regular meals, every crew member of Tasman’s expedition was entitled to a weekly stipend of half a pound of cheese, half a pound of butter, and a five-pound loaf of bread. Double rations were allotted to the officers; Aidan soon understood how the others could spot an officer in nothing but his breeches and boots from thirty paces away. She herself had never eaten so well.

  The morning and midday meals, served in the galley below decks, would usually consist of bread and a porridge of grits. On Sundays the sailors would feast on smoked ham or mutton or bully beef with peas; on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, smoked and pickled fish with green peas and beans. On Thursday, each man would receive a ration of beef or pork. On Friday and Saturday, the cook’s menu would revert to fish and peas.