Nothing makes a person more exultant than a lawsuit in the early stages. Later the plaintiff discovers the endless delays, the unexpected interpretations, the dismaying equivocations of the lawyers and judges. But for the first few days, victory seems to beckon like a flag in the breach of a besieged fortress. I rushed home from court to share my excitement with Malcolm Stapleton, my husband. He was not there. I ate a cold supper in the twilit kitchen, wondering where he was.
About ten o'clock I heard stumbling steps in the hall. Adam Duycinck said: “All right, old pal. You're safe in port now.”
Another deeper voice spoke with an up-country New York twang. “Easy now. Aim him at that chair.”
In the entrance hall I found Malcolm Stapleton slumped in a chair, obviously drunk. Staggering around him were Adam Duycinck and John Hughson, the owner of Hughson's Tavern. “What the devil is this all about?” I cried.
Hughson smirked at me. He was a big stupid oaf, bald except for a fringe of hair around his ears. “It's nothin' to be alarmed about, Madame Stapleton. He'll be fine in the mornin'.”
“Get out of my house,” I said. Hughson vanished into the night, leaving Adam to deal with the wrath of the new owner of his indenture.
“'Twas just a little postwedding celebration,” Adam said. “A salute to the lad's lost bachelorhood.”
“Get on your feet, Malcolm Stapleton!” I said. “Get on your feet and get out of my house. I won't have a husband who's a public sot. I'll annul the marriage tomorrow.”
“Now now,” Malcolm said. “Didn't you get your money's worth last night?” He grinned at Adam, who laughed nervously.
“Is this what you're telling the town? Talking about me as if I was a new kind of whore? One who has to pay men for her pleasure?”
“He never said a word that even hinted of such a thing,” Adam said.
I did not believe him. “I won't be humiliated this way,” I cried. “Get him out of my sight. Take him to Clara's house. Give her a look at the hero in his cups.”
“I don't think that would be a good idea,” Adam said, his head clearing rapidly. He was speaking as my confederate now.
“No, I suppose not,” I said.
Together we half-dragged, half-pushed Malcolm into a spare bedroom and stretched him out on the bed. “Was Clara with you?” I asked.
“No,” Duycinck said.
“If you're lying I'll sell your indenture to the first ship owner I find bound for the West Indies.”
“She wasn't. It was just his friend Cuyler.”
“My lawyer? I hope he didn't go home as befuddled as Malcolm.”
“He says George Stapleton's will is cast iron. There's no breaking it. Georgianna's got the estate and that's all there is to it,” Duycinck said.
“I begin to think you've led me on a goose chaseâinto your bedroom,” Malcolm said.
“Didn't I tell you I loved you?”
“The lady's got a point, lad,” Duycinck said.
“Stop calling him lad. He's a married man. He's going to run for the assembly and you're going to manage him. Before we're through we'll turn this province upside down. We'll put an end to this truckling to Englishmen.”
In the morning, Malcolm was contrite. “I'll swear off rum. I promise you,” he said.
“Don't be foolish,” I snapped. “You can't win an election without drinking rum in every tavern in the ward. You must learn to drink it like a manânot a greedy slurping boy.”
The words stung him like a lash in the face. I saw the dilemma of every woman who tries to guide a man. The male of the species regards every piece of blunt advice, every sharp word of correction, as an insult to his manhood. Malcolm seized me by the arm and roared: “I thought you promised to put a rein on that tongue.”
“I'm sorry,” I said.
That night he stayed home and I tried to cook for him. It was a disaster. The roast was overdone, the potatoes baked to cinders, the bread was the texture of clay. On Maiden Lane, Clara had done the cooking, I had done the shopping. There had been no pain in confessing my inability in the kitchen. Now I was mortified. “I'm afraid I'm not a
goede vrouw,
”
32
I said, as I cleared away the dishes.
“You remind me more of my stepmother every day,” Malcolm said. “She never went near the kitchen if she could help it.”
Another compliment? Was he finding some sort of strength in thinking he was fated to replicate his father's career: first a great love, then a lusty bitch? Once more I told myself to make the best of it for the time being. I would learn to curb my tongue and maybe he would learn to improve his compliments. Together we would learn to love each other.
The bad dinner did not diminish his ardor in the bedroom. My God, how he filled me! Great surges of pleasure that stirred a hope of an eagle's flight, in spite of the growling violence of his assault. There was still not an iota of tenderness but I began to wonder if that mattered in my hardened heart. Perhaps this rampaging desire was all either of us wanted, this mounting expectation of bliss that melted away with a grateful shudder of dissolution as his seed throbbed in my belly. The Evil Brother seemed disposed to let us annihilate Clara's
never.
The next day I hired Shirley, my grandfather's old cook, for two shillings a day and board and a room for herself and her husband Peter, who was considerably older and too feeble to do any serious work. This rescued us from my cooking and allowed me to devote all my time to plans for the store. Captain Van Oorst would be arriving in October and there were advertisements to write, display shelves to build. I tried to involve Clara in the plans but she remained tepid about the prospect of becoming a saleswoman. She told me she would not be good at it.
Meanwhile, Malcolm had announced his candidacy for the colony's assembly in the fall elections. Running in a ward in which forty percent of the voters were Dutch, no one gave him much of a chance. But I wrote a circular letter in Dutch describing him as the candidate who would rescue New York from the wiles of Governor Nicolls and his corrupt administration. A typical Englishman, he only sought to suck money out of the provinceâwithout regard to its safety. I accused the governor of encouraging trade with Canada and profiting from it. But the real profiteer, the man who made even more than the governor from this illegal trade, was Johannes Van Vorst.
Meanwhile Malcolm made the rounds of taverns and coffeehouses, describing the way the French were trying to destroy New York's share of the fur trade. He enthralled audiences with the story of our encounter with the French gunboat on Lake Ontario. He liked the contest for votes, liked being a public man, orating on the importance of patriotism. He liked warning his fellow citizens of the potential treachery of France and Spain. He came home at night, boasting to me about how many voters he was convincing. In the bedroom, his ardor seemed to increase in tandem with his multiplying hopes of local fame. For a while something approximating happiness seemed about to occur in our lives.
In late October, a furtive knock on our door awakened us at midnight. Malcolm answered it and discovered Captain Killian Van Oorst. He sidled into the house and I soon joined them in the kitchen. The captain said he had a cargo of goods for the store. “Where?” I said, ready to rush out and examine them by lantern light.
The captain said the ship and its cargo were at Sag Harbor on Long Island. I poured him a tankard of rum and asked him why he had not
landed in New York. He looked at me in his sly way and said: “Do you want to sell dear or cheap?”
I understood immediately that he was smuggling the stuff ashore to avoid the customs duties.
33
I smiled at my fellow Dutchman and said I wanted to sell cheap and could hardly wait to see the goods. The captain assured me that wagons could be hired at Sag Harbor without difficulty. I could have the goods in New York in a day or two. He added that he had found a merchant in Amsterdam who said he would be very interested in sending me trading goods for the Indians. Finally, he handed me a bill of exchange from the same man, drawn on John Van Cortlandt, one of New York's most prominent merchants, paying me nine hundred sixty-two pounds for our furs. There was, of course, no mention of furs. The money was paid for “goods.”
“That's more than I bargained for,” I said, fingering the piece of paper, which would guarantee our solvency for another year at least.
“The price of beaver went up another shilling,” Van Oorst said. “And my brother said they were very good skins.”
Malcolm Stapleton sat at the kitchen table, frowning throughout this discussion, saying little. Captain Van Oorst went off to the King's Arms Tavern for the night. “Didn't I promise you we'd be rich?” I said, dancing around the kitchen, kissing the bill of exchange.
“You're breaking the law,” Malcolm said. “I won't be a party to it. You transacted for the furs before we married. But now your name is Stapleton. You must pay full duties on those goods, exactly as the law prescribes. That's an order.”
“Why should we pay money to that fat thief on his throne in London and go bankrupt trying to sell goods for twice what they're worth? They've jacked up the duties on everything from Holland to make their London merchants rich.”
“You can't run an empire without laws,” Malcolm said. “Here I am, promising voters to go to the assembly to pass a law forbidding trade with Canada. Aye, and prohibiting rum with the Indians. But what's the good of passing laws if my own wife will only obey those that please her?”
“I may have changed my name but I haven't changed my blood,” I said. “I'm Dutchâand Senecaâand Americanâand none of these inclines me to obey any pettifogging laws passed by greedy Englishmen three thousand miles away.”
“You will not bring those goods to town in wagons!” Malcolm roared.
“You will hire a shipâor tell that Dutch trickster Van Oorst to sail them to a wharf here in New York and pay the duties.”
“I will do no such thing!”
We went to bed, too furious to sleep. In the morning, I dressed without speaking to my husband, collected Captain Van Oorst at the King's Arms and went over to Brooklyn on the ferry. There we hired a carriage and rode out to Sag Harbor to look at the goods. They were of the first qualityâand in marvelous variety. There were barrels of choice ham and pork, dipped candles, silk, cotton and Kenting handkerchiefs, Muslin cravats and Scotch gauze, claret in bottles and hogsheads, damasks of sundry colors for vests, all sorts of cloth, from poplins to flowered dimity to plaid to broadcloth, ready-to-wear cloaks and cardinals, hair buttons, steel buckles, knives and forks, and a parcel of choice barley.
“It's beautiful,” I said. “Such variety. You've given me a name for my business. The Universal Store!”
The owner of the wharf at which Van Oorst was tied up said he had several farming relatives who would be glad to rent their horses and wagons. I stayed overnight aboard the ship and the next day said good-bye to Captain Van Oorst with fervent promises to do further business and headed for New York at the head of a six-wagon procession. By the end of the day, the goods were in the store on Pearl Street, ready to be spread on counters and sold as soon as we could get an announcement in the newspapers.
At home, I found a glowering husband awaiting me. “You're resolved to sell those things without paying duties?” Malcolm said.
“I am extremely resolved,” I said. “How do you expect to pay the bills for those drinks you buy in taverns for would-be voters? We must be in business year-round, not merely three months of the year hunting furs.”
“You promised before the altar of God to love, honor, and obey me,” Malcolm said.
“I skipped the word
obey
. You didn't notice,” I said. “If I said it, I skipped it in my mind.”
“If you can absolve yourself that way, so can Iâin regard to the other words.”
The Evil Brother smiled in a corner of my soul. I could read the mockery in his cruel eyes.
I never promised you happiness. Only your heart's desire.
“I talked to Clara. She agrees with me completely,” Malcolm said. “She says this is a test of how we'll deal with each other for the rest of our lives.”
“If Clara wants to work in my storeâand share the profitsâshe'll change that opinion.”
“âMy store'? I believe it's our store. As your husband I have the right to decide a great deal about our affairs.”
“You have no control over a cent of my fundsâup to a hundred thousand poundsâand we're a long way from that.”
I snatched the marriage contract out of a bureau drawer and thrust it at him. “There's your signature, agreeing to that arrangement.”
Malcolm flung the paper on the table and stalked out of the house. No doubt to another conference with Clara, the keeper of his patriotic conscience. That night, after a silent, surly supper, I went to bed, expecting him to join me. Instead, he stayed by an oil lamp in the parlor, reading newspapers. Finally I went in to him and asked: “Shall I put out the light in the bedroom?”