I looked up at Charlotte in sympathy. Charlotte’s father had died of illness before she was born. A pregnant Mevrouw Jansen had reluctantly obeyed her husband’s command that she not try to heal him, for fear of catching the fever and harming herself or the child she carried. He had died before the herbwife friend she had summoned could reach them. Charlotte had once confided to me that every patient her mother healed was a bittersweet triumph for her: she had saved so many, but had not been able to save the one she loved most.
“Your father loved you, Charlotte,” I said softly. “He loved you so much that he put your life before his before you were even born.”
She shrugged sadly. “I know. I just wish I could have met him. I wonder, sometimes, what my life would have been like, growing up with a father.”
I could not imagine my life without my father, who had doted on me since I could remember. “My daughter will likely never meet her true father,” I said, “but I shall pray every night Brom is good to her.”
“And how could he not be?” Charlotte asked. I knew it must be difficult for her to put aside her animosity for Brom, but I was glad she did. “Who could not love such a beauty?”
I sighed as I sipped the last of my tea, my eyelids drifting closed. Charlotte reached over and took the cup from my hand. “Sleep, Katrina. Rest. You have more than earned it. I’ll be right here.”
I was asleep before she had even finished speaking.
* * *
When I awoke, it was morning. Charlotte was curled on a pallet on the floor, fast asleep. After a moment, I realized what had woken me: my baby was stirring fitfully, beginning to cry.
I leapt from the bed and plucked her from the cradle, then settled back against the pillows, setting her to my breast. After much squirming and mewling, she finally latched on, and I gasped aloud in both pain and relief as she suckled.
Suddenly I panicked. How had she not needed anything in the night? Should she not have awoken me at some point? But the evidence was in my arms. She was alive, and well. I had not dreamed this miracle.
And what’s more, I now knew what to name her.
As she fed, Charlotte began to stir. “Katrina?” she asked drowsily. She sat up and took in the sight of my daughter and I ensconced in the bed together. “Do you need—”
I shook my head, cutting her off. “We are both perfectly well,” I said. “Thank you.”
She returned my smile and stretched. “She woke in the night and needed her swaddling changed,” she told me around a yawn. “I took her downstairs to change her so she would not wake you. You needed your rest.”
“Oh, I could have done it,” I said, crestfallen Charlotte had performed this task and not me.
“It was no trouble. As I said, rest is important for you to regain your strength and maintain your health. Besides, what are godmothers for?” She grinned as she rose and came to peer at the babe’s face. “I’ll go home soon, and then all such tasks will fall on you.”
I laughed. “As well they should.”
“But if you need any help, I am just down the street.”
“Of course,” I said. “I have Nancy as well. We shall be just fine.” I grasped her hand, squeezing it once. “Thank you, Charlotte,” I said softly. “Thank you for everything. I can never thank you enough. I can only hope that someday I may repay you for everything you’ve done for me.”
“There are no debts between friends,” she said.
I smiled. “But perhaps I might tell you her name.”
Her face let up with excitement. “Oh! So you’ve decided on one?”
“Yes. Her name will be Anneke. Anneke Charlotte, after her godmother.”
Tears sprang to Charlotte’s eyes, and she sat down on the bed and embraced us, both me and Anneke.
* * *
My love for my daughter, my wonder at her very being, only grew, but that did not mean that there were not some difficult times as well. I had never before been responsible for another life, and at times this scared me. And save for my obligations running the household, my time had always been my own. Not so after Anneke was born. She always needed something, whether to be fed or changed or sometimes she cried for seemingly no reason. She usually woke once during the night to be fed, and I counted myself lucky it was not more than that.
Yet whenever I was exhausted and frustrated, it was as though she knew and sought to reassure me, for she would open her blue eyes and give me a beautiful smile. My heart would melt and every moment of lost sleep, every day where I had no leisure to read or write, was worth it.
Nox had still slept in my bed when Brom was away, but when he was home my poor dog was banished from our bedchamber. Yet every night since Anneke was born, Nox had taken to stretching out on the floor in front of the cradle and sleeping there. I missed his comforting presence when Brom was not home, but Anneke could have no better or more loyal protector than the big shepherd dog.
My parents came to see her right away, and were both instantly smitten. They took turns holding her, their eyes damp.
“Oh, Katrina,” my mother said. “She is just beautiful. The most perfect baby girl since yourself.”
I glowed. “I am sure she is far more beautiful than I was.”
“Ah, how glad I am to have a granddaughter to spoil,” my father said, cradling her. “No doubt Brom was hoping for a son, but there can be no disappointment with such a lovely girl. And after all, an only daughter always suited us just fine.”
I hugged them both, blinking back tears of my own.
I had written a letter to Brom the morning after Anneke’s birth, directed to the boardinghouse where he always stayed in New York. Part of me wanted him to stay away as long as possible so I could have my daughter all to myself, but I knew that was not acceptable wifely behavior. And so, five days after the birth—no doubt the soonest he could wrap up whatever business he had embarked upon—Brom turned up without warning.
“Katrina!” I heard him bellow from downstairs as he came in the front door. “Nancy! Where is my wife, and my daughter?”
I had been up in our bedroom, trying to rock Anneke to sleep, but at the sound of Brom’s voice she began to stir fitfully again, as if she knew this man was there to disrupt her life. No, I told myself sternly. He will love her, and she him. I want them to love each other. And someday, when the time is right, I will tell her the truth. Until then the charade must be maintained.
I rose from my chair and went downstairs, Anneke in my arms, and found Brom coming toward the staircase. He stopped dead when he saw the two of us. “She is … that is her?” he asked, sounding dumbfounded.
I nodded, my heartbeat increasing with trepidation. He would love her, wouldn’t he? Was he angry she was not a boy? Would he somehow know she was not his by blood?
He held out his arms. “Let me hold her,” he said, his voice suddenly uncertain.
I obliged, coming closer and gently settling the baby in his arms. “Be sure to support her neck,” I admonished him. “She cannot yet hold her head up.”
Sensing she was held by someone unfamiliar, Anneke opened her eyes and seemed to be studying Brom’s face.
I had been immeasurably relieved—and yet sad at the same time—that Anneke had my blue eyes and not Ichabod’s distinctive, mossy green ones. But Charlotte had told me not to be so sure. “Most babies have blue eyes when they are born,” she told me, “and they change color later. She may have green eyes yet.”
A shy, hesitant smile crossed Brom’s face as Anneke regarded him seriously. “Hello, little one,” he said softly. “I am your father.”
I was touched by the scene before me, and relieved. He loved her, and she and I would both be safe. Yet soon she began to cry, and he went to hand her back to me with an almost comical look of panic on his face.
I laughed and took her back. “She is just tired,” I told him. “I was trying to get her to sleep when you came in. Let me take her back upstairs.”
Nancy came into the hallway fr
om the kitchen. “Let me take her up, Miss Katrina,” she said. “You and your husband get caught up.”
I relinquished Anneke to Nancy with a touch of reluctance, certain I would never be comfortable parting with her.
I followed Brom into the front parlor, where we sat down. “Would you like some refreshment?” I asked. “You must have been a while on the road.”
He shook his head. “No. I want only to sit awhile.” A grin spread across his face. “I am a father. It is difficult to comprehend.”
I kept my smile even.
“I would rather she had been a son, of course,” he went on, causing the smile to slide from my face, “but she is a beautiful little thing, isn’t she? And we can try for a son again soon.” He gave me a lustful grin.
I did not return it. “We must wait before we can engage in the marital act again, I am afraid,” I said. “I would lose my milk if I fell pregnant, and so we must wait until she is weaned.”
Was I imagining it, or did I see a flash of relief in his eyes? Surely it was only my imagination, for in the next instant he scowled and slouched down in his chair. “A man has needs, Katrina.”
I bit back a retort, for I found that, for once, I did not want to fight with him. Not today, not when he had seen Anneke for the first time. “Your needs will simply have to wait, if you want your daughter to be hale and healthy,” I said.
“She is healthy, is she not?” he asked. “She was born rather early, by my reckoning.”
I willed myself not to betray any alarm. I had prepared for this. “Yes,” I said calmly, achieving my goal other than for the racing of my heart. “Perhaps a month or so.” In fact she had been nearly a week late, a small boon. “But Charlotte and Nancy and Mevrouw Jansen assured me she is perfectly well and will grow quickly.” I shrugged, as though this was scarcely a matter worthy of discussion. “It happens sometimes.”
“Indeed,” Brom said. Was he thinking back to the blood on our sheets the morning after our wedding, assuring himself the child was his? I hope he did not doubt it, and his remark had only been out of genuine concern for her health. I had no way of knowing for certain, as he again changed the subject.
“And have you given her a name?” he inquired, almost as an afterthought.
“Yes,” I said, bracing myself. “Her name is Anneke. Anneke Charlotte Van Brunt.” Inwardly I winced at the surname. Her name should be Crane. My name should be Crane.
Brom tensed upon hearing this. “Anneke Charlotte?” he demanded. “After the witch?”
“Yes,” I said angrily, “and were it not for ‘the witch,’ neither your daughter nor your wife would be in such fine health today. I do not even want to consider what may have happened had Charlotte not been able to attend the birth.” Anneke and I both would have been just fine with Nancy’s midwifery skills, but Brom needn’t know that.
“And yet after what she said to me all those years ago? Your husband?” he demanded.
“Charlotte was my best friend long before you were my husband,” I informed him. “You once told me, when you sought to woo me, you felt you had done wrong by her. Well, I call you a liar, for you hate and fear her as much as you did all those years ago. And for no reason. She has never done you any harm. She is a good, honest woman who saves lives and heals people, whether they can pay her or not, which is more Christian charity than you’ve ever shown in your life, I’ll wager.”
To my great surprise, he actually looked abashed. He opened his mouth as though to retort, then closed it again, seeming to think better of it. “Very well,” he said grudgingly. “Keep the second name for our girl, if you must. But I shall name our boy, Katrina. I shall name our son when we have him and I will brook no argument about that.”
“And I shall give you none,” I said.
He scowled at me, as though he could not believe my agreement had been so easy, but I let it go.
Our talk turned to politics as Brom brought me the news from New York, of the return of American emissary John Jay from Britain and his treaty. Another argument ensued as I applauded the terms of the treaty Brom described, allowing us better trade with Britain and the avoidance of being pulled into a war for which our young country was woefully underprepared and might have destroyed us. Brom thought the treaty made us look weak, and scorned the decision not to assist our former allies, the French, in their own—very bloody—revolution and war against England.
“I didn’t know I was married to a damned Federalist!” Brom shouted at last, rising from his chair. “Wives should keep silent on political matters, and if they must speak, take the same stance as their husbands!”
“Not if they’ve their own brains in their heads!” I called as he stormed away. I sighed as I heard Anneke begin to cry upstairs. In truth, I had not expected my marriage to be anything but disagreement.
46
New Beginnings
Brom stayed home from New York for a few weeks after the birth, and to my surprise it was not unpleasant to have him there. He would sit and hold Anneke for what seemed like hours on end, though as soon as she needed to be fed or changed he was quick to pass her off to me. Yet as he grew more confident in his role as father, he would take to walking her up and down the hall when she cried and would not sleep, attempting to soothe her.
We had Anneke baptized in the church while Brom was home, with Charlotte standing as her godmother and Brom’s friend—and second from the duel—Pieter Van Horn as godfather. Pieter eyed Charlotte warily throughout the service, as though he expected her to suddenly begin shouting curses at him. Anneke cried loudly as she was dunked in the water, which all the village women proclaimed was a good sign.
I was surprised—and somewhat uneasy—to notice Ichabod’s cousin Giles Carpenter was present for the ceremony. I cornered Charlotte briefly after the service.
“Oh—I invited him,” she said, looking guiltily away from my eyes. “He is in town, and I thought it might be nice for him to see me made godmother.”
“Charlotte, he does not know, does he?” I demanded. I did not believe my dearest friend would confide my secrets to her suitor, but …
“Oh, no!” she exclaimed. “No, of course not! I would never tell him such a thing, never! Though…” She lowered her voice. “He is her blood kin.”
“I know,” I murmured. I did not enjoy living this lie, but it was necessary for my daughter’s safety. I would endure it and more.
I longed to inquire further about her relationship with Giles, but as I had other guests to see, I was forced to defer to another time.
Charlotte naturally made herself scarce when Brom was home, so the next day I went to see her. I had left Brom fondly watching Anneke sleep and Nox standing guard. Already it felt strange to go on a visit without her. Indeed it reminded me of what I already thought of as old times as Charlotte and I settled into her parlor with some tea.
“So, how are things with Giles?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.
Charlotte smiled, but it was tinged with sadness. “Well enough, I suppose. Only…”
“Only what?” I pressed.
“He … he has not proposed, but we have talked of marriage,” she said.
“Oh!” I exclaimed. “How wonderful! Why should that not make you happy?”
She sighed. “I do not know,” she said. “He assumes I would come to live in White Plains with him—as a husband has every right to expect that. But in truth, I do not wish to leave Sleepy Hollow. My mother is here, and our patients and clients.” She looked at me. “And you and baby Anneke, of course.”
“Can he not come here?”
She frowned. “I do not know that he would consider it. He owns a small but successful tavern there. He would likely not leave it.”
“He could always open a tavern here.”
“Perhaps. That seems like a great deal to ask of him.”
“Why not? If he truly loves you?”
“Katrina, you of all people should know these things are not that easy.”
/>
I flinched at this reminder of my own thwarted romance, but pressed on nonetheless. “I want you to be happy, Charlotte. And if it would make you happy to be his wife…”
“It would make me happy,” she said. “But would it make me happy enough to make up for everything that is making me happy now, here, that I would need to give up?”
Her question gave me pause. If she had a chance for a happy, loving marriage, she should take it—it was a bit selfish of her, in a way, to think of squandering such a chance. Yet I understood her predicament. Had Ichabod and I been allowed to wed, it was a foregone conclusion that we would stay in Sleepy Hollow—or if we left, it would only be temporarily—and then eventually inherit the Van Tassel farm. So I had never been faced with such a choice.
And, of course, I did not want her to leave, but I couldn’t wish for her to stay only for my sake, and I told her so.
She sighed. “It is not solely for you that I wish to stay, though I would miss you the most.” She looked off into space. “I do not know. I must think on it more. After what Brom did, I did not think such an opportunity would come my way. And so I have never had to consider all the benefits and drawbacks of marriage.”
“Have you and Giles…” I trailed off meaningfully, and she laughed.
“No, though God knows I have wanted to, many times,” she said. “I love him and desire him. I know that. But it feels wrong to lie with him when I am so undecided about marrying him.”
“I understand,” I said. “And have you…” I hesitated. “Consulted the cards, perhaps?”
She met my gaze. “No,” she said. “Not yet. Though I may soon.” She studied my face. “In truth, I have been expecting you to ask me to read them for you again.”
I looked away uncomfortably. “Perhaps soon,” I said vaguely.
She did not look away. “Whenever you are ready, Katrina. No sooner.”
* * *
I kept turning her words over in my head the rest of that day. I needed to be ready soon, I knew. The late days of my pregnancy, and the birth, had sufficiently distracted me from my quest to learn Ichabod’s fate. But now it was back and beginning to gnaw at me. Perhaps the time had come to find some real answers.
The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel Page 30