Adelé van Soothsbay

by JH Terry

  Your loving grandmother,

  Helen

  Adelé began to feel happy and please as she took care of the items of her trunk. She did not notice the knock upon her door and Louis come in.

  “Adelé?” asked Louis, as she turned around startled.

  “Oh, Louis,” said Adelé. “How may I help you?”

  “Do you need any help at all?”

  “Oh, not at all Louis.”

  “I just wanted to check on you.” Suddenly, Louis noticed something on the ground, looking Adelé saw that it was her grandmother’s letter. Louis then reached down for it as Adelé tried to beat him to it, when Adelé became startled by something. Looking to his wrist she saw the same birthmark on her own. Louis, shyly, handed out her letter back to her, but he noticed the shock in her eyes.

  “What is it?” asked Louis. “Is it a love letter?”

  “That is why you came along,” said Adelé in a mere whisper. “You noticed my birthmark.”

  Louis looked to her honestly, and said, “Yes.” For what was a long time they stood in silence just looking at each other. Never had Adelé thought it would have been Louis. No wonder he had been so cold to her before, and so red in face after having been to Mrs. Heinz’s house when she had entered. “Well,” said Louis. “It is a long trip to the Netherlands. At least we can have time to talk, which I am sure you undeniably wish to do very much. Good night, Adelé.”

  Quickly Louis left the room, Adelé still startled. Adelé, realizing what had happened lay down upon her bed and looked from out of her window, still amazed by what had happened. The darkness was vast, with the full moon showing the only light of the vastness outside.

  Adelé then quickly got up and left her room, going onto the deck. She looked around seeing Louis at the side of the ship watch the moonlight upon the water. She quietly walked over to him. “Excuse me dear, Mr. van Pargoo,” she said with a gracious bow, catching his attention. “Would you do me the honor of this dance?”

  Louis smiled, and said, bowing as well, “It would be my honor, Miss van Soothsbay.”

  Then, taking her in his arms they danced on top of the boat as the two men were taking the watch for the night, looking on from time to time impressed with the show before them.

  * * * * * * * * *

  It would take several months before Uncle Pieter would come to the Netherlands. He had successfully help the Mississippians run away from the Iroquois, almost at a loss to his own life. He spent everyday with Adelé, even after she did marry Louis, with both sometimes dressing in costumes and riding along the countryside shooting animals for meals and, of course, drinking, but those adventures would be only befitting for another story or two.

  In time Higgles would remarry, this time to an elderly aristocrat, who ended up upon death to have gambled away all of his money leaving her still in the hands of her parents, abusive Sarie and poor Jan. However, it was later learned that Jan and Sarie had stolen money from the bank where he worked to get Higgles her things, causing Jan to go to prison, alongside Prince Isaac (or Ernest Rembrandt who still called himself a true Bavarian prince), and leaving Higgles and Sarie alone, in their own misery selling potatoes for a living.

  Mrs. Helen Heinz, Adelé’s grandmother, did later die, but after bringing in a grand total of three hundred children into the world (from all types of peoples).

  As to Mr. Peter Stuyvesant, well he was the caretaker of New Amsterdam until 1664, when the British invaded the little colony, happily for the people since no one liked him. Therefore he was kicked out of his place without any fighting at all, to live his life still later on like a miserly old man.

  However, Adelé still played her music, under a pseudonym of course, and wrote some of the greatest symphonies ever heard, influencing even the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, though they called him a genius. However, unfortunately, in a great fire her works were burnt, leaving her works forgotten forever except those who had heard of them and remembered how to play them. Perhaps future readers will remember her as Adelé, the composer, gun-toting, horse-riding, alcohol drinking, honest, courageous, but most of all, the understanding lady.