T
HE 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 reputationâand Clara'sâare 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 gratisâalthough 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 composedâexcept 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 protectionâ”
“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 coming 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 familyâand 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 Catalyntieâ”
“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 dieâthan fall into your clutches.”
“ClaraâI care about himâlove himâas 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 loveâand 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 Hallâwhere 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 willâand his refusal until he saw Malcolm. Suddenly he dies and prestoâthere's the document with his signature at the bottom, witnessed by no less than Governor Nicolls and his secretary.”