This Loving Torment

by Valerie Sherwood

  Charity hesitated. He sat before her, square as a brick building in his dark red broadcloth coat. An almost malevolent figure. She remembered the sly way he had looked at her and was tempted to lie again—something more plausible. But if he should find out . . . Small fingers of fear pressed against her spine as she stared into those cold little ferret-like eyes.

  Still . . . what chance was there for her if he did not take her in? Where could she go in this savage upriver country?

  She moistened her lips.

  “I would not wish you to harbor ill thoughts of how I came into my present condition,” she said slowly. “The charges against me were false.”

  “Ah,” he murmured, “and what were those charges?”

  Charity’s back stiffened. “I was charged with witchcraft in Massachusetts, and sentenced to burning. But I—I escaped.”

  He considered her, and she recoiled a little, realizing how hard those small ferret-like blue eyes really were. “And are you a witch?” he asked on a humorous note.

  “Of course not,” she said indignantly. “It was a ruse to gain my inheritance.” She thought it best to go no further in that direction.

  “Ah? An inheritance?” He seemed to see the light. “Yes, some men will take any advantage to gain money.” His voice had a cynical note. “You will not of course speak of this matter to anyone?”

  “Of course not,” said Charity, shamed.

  She was afraid of Mynheer van Daarken, but she told herself grimly that she had a weapon to use against him; she knew of his deal with the smuggler. If he pressed her too hard, she would confront him with that. Even a patroon must fear the authorities, for the king’s tax was levied on all, and it would go hard with him if they learned he had evaded it.

  “Everyone at Daarkenwyck must consider you a distant cousin, well educated but in somewhat impoverished circumstances,” said the patroon. “I will say that your trunk was lost overboard, and Jan will back me up. It will then of course be necessary to replace your lost clothing because the fault was mine that I let your trunk fall overboard.”

  Her voice caught. “Would you really do that?”

  “Of course,” he said. “I wish you to decorate my table.”

  She felt ashamed at the harsh things she had been, thinking of him and cast her eyes down.

  He drummed his fingers, and frowned at the dress she was wearing. “You look like a servant in those clothes,” he said. “You must by no means arrive garbed as a servant.” He pointed toward the corner, where a stout leather trunk reposed. “In the top of that trunk you will find two dresses I was bringing home as gifts. The blue one should become you.”

  Charity hesitated. “But—won’t your wife object?”

  He-shrugged. “We bring with us the mail from Holland. It is doubtful my wife will notice that I have brought along anyone at all.”

  Charity gave him a puzzled look. Was mail then so important to the patroon’s wife?

  “In any event,” he added, “the two dresses were not for her. The length should be about right, but your waist appears smaller. Possibly you are clever with a needle and can stitch up the bodice.”

  “I am not clever with a needle,” admitted Charity truthfully, “but I can certainly stitch up the bodice.” As she spoke she lifted the lid of the trunk, sighing as she saw the lovely materials, silks and satins and laces, that lay within it.

  She pulled out a misty blue broadcloth with an overskirt and tight bodice of paler blue velvet, with billowing slashed sleeves. It was a dress such as Stéphanie might have chosen for her. She held it up in delight. “Did you mean this one?”

  He nodded, considering it critically.

  She hesitated. She had glimpsed a chemise and petticoats peeping out from the lower part of the trunk. “My—my undergarments leave something to be desired. Could I—?”

  He smothered a smile. “By all means. Take your choice.” He rose. “You will find also needles and thread which I was bringing upriver. Come on deck when you have dressed.”

  Swiftly Charity stitched up the too ample waist of the bodice and tried it on. Not yet tight enough. She addressed herself again awkwardly to her needle and again tried the dress on. Perfect! And how wonderful it felt to be rid of her torn undergarments and to feel against her skin the fine holland of her new embroidered chemise and petticoats! She snatched up the patroon’s comb and began to work on her disheveled hair, training the curls so that they fell softly about her ears, fixing them with hairpins and pale blue ribbons which she had found along with the needle and thread.

  Recklessly, she added a tiny diamond of black court plaster to her cheek in the manner that, according to Stéphanie, was all the rage in London and Paris. Pinching her cheeks to make them red, she went out on deck and looked around for the patroon.

  He was leaning on the rail with his back to her, smoking a long pipe.

  “Mynheer van Daarken,” she said in a tremulous voice, and as he turned she swept him a low curtsy with all the grace at her command.

  For a moment he looked stunned, and even big Jan turned to gape at her.

  “You will do nicely,” murmured the patroon. Then he bowed to her, his auburn periwig curls sweeping his shoulders as he did so. “Cousin—you did not tell me your name.”

  “Charity Woodstock.”

  “Cousin Charity, it is a pleasure to have found such a relative.”

  Their eyes met and they both laughed.

  CHAPTER 11

  At dinner, the patroon drank heavily of the wine and began to brag.

  “I am a self-made man,” he told her. “I have taken my life and shaped it. I began life humbly as a herdsman.” He stopped and looked at her quizzically. Then abruptly he laughed. It was a discordant laugh. “I know that anything I may say is safe with you,” he said in an almost sneering voice, “because if I am displeased, then you will suffer.”

  Charity felt a slight chill pass through her, as if she had been caressed by a whip.

  He considered her, a slightly insulting smile on his face.

  “I am curious to know,” he said, “how you envision your own future. A woman like yourself, with no resources except beauty and an education.”

  Under that mocking gaze, Charity felt her hands on her lap clench nervously. The subject he brought up was one which had been engrossing her as the sloop sailed up the Hudson. It had been one thing, hungry and frightened and running from such men as Bart, to consider possibly even the life of a bound servant. Now, again well fed and well dressed and holding in her delicate hand a silver goblet of wine, her confidence had returned, and such a life was unimaginable. In spite of van Daarken’s insulting manner, she could see mirrored in his small eyes a reluctant appreciation of that beauty which he seemed to mock.

  Her topaz gaze flung back the challenge.

  “I shall marry, of course,” she said in a cold voice. Let him know now that she would not trade her body for breakfast and a blue dress. Let him understand now that she did not intend to become his mistress. For she had no illusions as to where that road led. She had no intention of spending her life being passed from hand to hand through a succession of men.

  “Ah.” He raised his heavy eyebrows and amusement lit his small blue eyes. “I should have guessed it. You will marry. . . .”

  Charity met his gaze unwaveringly.

  He gave her a crooked smile and watched her as he continued to drink.

  “You will like the life at Daarkenwyck,” he said suddenly. “When the Hudson freezes over there is skating and sleighing on the river. Do you skate?”

  Charity shook her head.

  “Pieter will teach you,” he said absently. “A face like yours should turn the head of all my neighbors’ sons.” He considered her, smiling expansively now. “And we set a good table. In the spring, striped bass are plentiful. They are very flavorful, a sort of white salmon. They are said to make the Indians very lascivious-”

  His sly look when he said that made her nervous.
<
br />   “I have heard there are many sturgeon in the river,” she said quickly.

  He shrugged. “Sturgeon abound and are eaten by the Indians, but we Dutch do not like them.”

  Charity took a desperate sip of wine. The patroon’s gaze was now concentrated on her round breasts, so nicely displayed in the blue velvet dress.

  “I thought the houses in New York very pretty,” she said. “The stoops, and the step gables, and those small quaint windows.”

  He snorted. “Those small quaint windows make a dark house. And past those stoeps, you will find a confused pattern of austere little rooms with every cranny in use—though to the vrowen’s credit they are very white scoured. And many a prudent burgher keeps his house down to a story and a half just to escape the tax which mounts with each story! You will like it better at Daarkenwyck where the rooms are large and the windows let in the light.”

  He drank deeply again and, to her relief, seemed to lose interest in her altogether. He sat moodily awhile, made a couple of disjointed remarks about his past in Holland, and then made an irritable gesture.

  “I grow maudlin,” he shrugged. “I am sleepy. There is a small cabin next to this one. It is Jan’s, but you can boot him out.”

  “Suppose Jan does not wish to go?” she asked uncomfortably.

  “Then you must sleep below with the rats and my crew or on the windy deck.” He laughed and rose unsteadily.

  She shivered as the dampness from the river penetrated her thin underskirts. With her old dress thrown around her like a shawl, she went to the cabin next door. There was no answer when she knocked so she opened the door. Big Jan lay sprawled in the only bunk, snoring noisily. Charity touched his shoulder, but he only growled and turned over.

  She spent the night shivering on deck, wrapped in a blanket she had filched from Jan’s cabin.

  When at last it was light, Charity got up stiffly and stood by the rail to watch the sun cut away the morning mist.

  The patroon strolled out on deck. “Did you sleep well?” he asked, his heavy face looking none the worse for his drinking bout of the evening before.

  “The deck was a little cold,” she admitted grimly.

  He stared at her, noting the blanket that lay beside her. “Why did you not wake Jan as I told you?”

  She looked away. In broad daylight it sounded silly to say, Because I am afraid of Jan. “He did not wake,” she muttered.

  He eyed her keenly. “Breakfast will warm you.”

  And she followed him gratefully to the comparative luxury of his cabin.

  Charity voiced admiration for the boat as they ate breakfast. It was named the Onrust. which meant “Restless,” he told her, and it was a river sloop like the canal craft in Holland, its broad bottom suitable for river travel. Some sixty-five feet long, it had sides of red cedar "which resisted decay, but a bottom of white oak, which though softer did not split so easily. He added that he was fond of white bottoms, and Charity quickly asked him about the sails.

  Serviceable, she was told. The sloop had a large mainsail; its one mast was placed well forward, and the jib was small. Charity admired its high quarterdeck and its bright yellow color. It was very seaworthy, he told her, but the duration of their trip would depend both on wind and tide.

  The Hudson, he told her, was divided into fourteen reaches between New York and Albany, the first being the great Chip Rock reach or palisades. Next the Tappan Zee and Haverstraw Bay reaches. He would point out to her Verdrietege Hook (Hook Mountain) when they reached the west shore between the Zee and the Bay. She asked what “Verdrietege” meant and he smiled and told her it was Dutch for “tedious,” so named by impatient sailors waiting for the wind. As the river twisted through the Highlands there would be Seylmaker’s Reach and Crescent Reach, and Hoge’s and Martyr’s or Vorsen’s. From Wappinger Creek to Crum Elbow was Lange Rak or Long Reach. And on Long Reach lay Daarkenwyck—sixteen fair miles lying along the river to the east.

  The winds, he added moodily, would be a problem, most particularly that northwest wind that roared through “Mother Cronk’s Cove,” that gap at the Highlands’ north gate between Storm King and Crow’s nest. More than one sloop had capsized there. But the most perilous stretch of the river as it wound through the Highlands was Martyr’s Reach.

  She frowned and he laughed suddenly at her concern. There was no need to fear, he declared with a slight swagger; he had made the trip many times and had yet to capsize.

  For Charity it was a memorable voyage. Past the mountain ramparts of the palisades and up the wild deep river. She looked with awe on mighty Storm King, its granite 600 million years old. Sometimes the tides seemed to sweep them backward, sometimes the current tossed them forward. Often they had to wait for the wind. To Charity it was a voyage of uncommon beauty. She was impressed not only with the scenery, but with the wild game she saw along the banks, and the occasional handsome manor, and once even Indians.

  She told the patroon this, and he laughed and said that she would see many Indians about. He told her that October was the customary time for Indian women to bury their dried corn in rush baskets in the earth and go with their husbands and children on a deer hunt. The Indians did not return until December, when they brought the smoked meat back with them. The Indians hunted deer by forming a long line and howling like wolves as they pressed the frightened deer toward the river, driving them ahead, killing those who hesitated on the river bank with arrows, while those that tried to escape by water were caught and drowned by other Indians who waited in canoes.

  Charity was silent for a long time staring upriver toward the savage wilderness, thinking of the Mohawks near Albany, those savage “guardians of the eastern door” of the Long House.

  She began to think of the manor of Daarkenwyck as an oasis—and all outside of it as The Dark.

  CHAPTER 12

  Scarlet maples flamed among the tall oaks and sycamores that shadowed the lush green lawns of Daarkenwyck, while clumps of swaying willows overhung the water at the river’s edge. Before her, on both sides of the small wooden pier set on pilings, Charity could see a pair of square blockhouses made of heavy logs and built obviously for defense. Beyond, through the brilliant vermilion of the maple branches, she could glimpse the house, an imposing stone structure, two stories in height, steep roofed and enormous, and her spirits rose. This was not Margaret Yorking’s turreted castle in Kent nor Jane Millwood’s imposing manor house in Sussex, nor yet the Moorish-columned alcazar surrounded by orange trees in sunny Spain that Mercedes Ramirez had described to her so often and so wistfully—but it was an aristocratic seat, and a far cry from the cramped wooden houses of Dynestown.

  On the dock waiting for them stood several servants, and a soberly dressed older man who looked to be of some authority. As Charity watched, another figure raced down across the green lawns—a woman’s figure, her striped pink skirts flying, her auburn hair flying too. The figure ran lightly across the wooden pier.

  “Cousin Killian!” she cried. When she saw Charity, she came to a sudden stop, her expression almost ludicrous with surprise. Charity reckoned that the girl was about her own height, young, with a slightly fuller figure. And her eyes—her eyes were just the misty color of the blue velvet of Charity’s new dress.

  Charity stiffened. No wonder the girl looked shocked. The dress had been meant for her, Charity had no doubt.

  The patroon looked amused.

  “Cousin Annjanette,” he said in an offhand voice, “this is Cousin Charity, whom I was fortunate enough to encounter in New York. She will be staying with us. In the room you formerly occupied. Please prepare it for her.”

  “Cousin ... Charity?” whispered the girl.

  “Yes,” he said coldly, and turned his attention to the authoritative looking older man who bowed deeply, his wide-brimmed hat sweeping the pier’s wooden flooring.

  “My lord patroon,” he said diffidently, “I have hastened to greet you with a matter of some importance. The wife of Godyn Wess
el, who lives on one of your bouweries, has been caught weaving.”

  The patroon looked at him sharply. “You confiscated the loom, of course?”

  “Of course, Mynheer van Daarken. Also the material she had woven and her flax. But of the punishment I would speak.”

  The patroon frowned. “Is not her husband that giant oaf who pulled the cart loose from the mud last year when the horses could not?”

  The other nodded.

  “Then say no more of punishment. Warn them sharply of the law, say that it is not to be flouted. Remind them that the company from whom I have my grant of land would protect the looms of Holland—but otherwise disturb them not. He is a strong man and valuable to the land.”

  His agent frowned but bent his head in obedience to the patroon’s will.

  Charity had paid little attention to this exchange. She and Annjanette had been measuring each other warily with their eyes, and Charity had detected in the other girl’s face a look of profound shock that she was trying desperately to conceal. Cousin Annjanette was a pretty girl, with her misty blue eyes and small turned-up nose and silky auburn hair, but just now her fair skin was flushed an embarrassed pink and there was anger in her eyes and something akin to fear.

  Charity was puzzled. It seemed to her that Annjanette was over-reacting.

  “Come with me, Mademoiselle,” muttered the girl in French, finding her tongue at last. And tossed over her shoulder, “Jochem, bring Mademoiselle’s baggage.”

  French, thought Charity, surprised. A French girl....

  She muttered something in French about not having any baggage. The patroon’s voice cut in.

  “Cousin Charity’s baggage lies at the bottom of the Hudson,” he announced coolly, “where a foolish oaf by the dockside dropped it. Perhaps you can find a dress or two of your own that she can wear while others are being made for her.” It was not a question; it had the force of a command.

  “Of course.” Annjanette’s eyes were snapping now and she pressed her full lips together angrily. She marched Charity across the sweeping green lawns toward the house without a word.