Remember the Morning

by Thomas Fleming

  “Tell me about your ship, Mama. Did you have storms? We had a big storm on our ship.”

  “I’ll tell you all about it, darling, as soon as I finish talking to Clara. Go inside and tell Peter to fix us both a cup of tea.”

  Hugh ran off. Clara gazed coldly at me. “I could have taken him away from you again. But I chose not to—for Hugh’s sake—and for his sake.”

  “Not for my sake?”

  “For your sake too,” Clara said wearily. “But you’re much more difficult to love—”

  I struggled against a rush of tears that was part relief, part remorse for Clara’s condemnation. Whatever my dreams meant, they were not about losing Malcolm to her. “I’ve had terrible dreams, Clara, all the way across the Atlantic. I’ve read them wrong. Forgive me.”

  “Tell me about them.”

  When Clara heard my dream of New York ablaze, she was enormously disturbed. But she made no attempt to explain her agitation to her Seneca sister. She soothed me with some empty phrases and declined an invitation to stay for tea. She rushed through the twilit streets to Hughson’s Tavern, not certain what she was going to do or say. There she found Caesar and a dozen fellow Africans in a state of wild excitement. The news of the uprising aboard Golden Mermaid had swept the city—along with the tale of Captain Swain’s death in the attack that had recaptured the slave ship. Behind the bar, John Hughson towered over the crowd, serving ale and rum that only fueled everyone’s delirium.

  “They say one of those Africans—a fellow who probably never used a gun before in his life—shot Swain down like a dog as he stepped aboard the ship,” Caesar said. “The others killed a half dozen of his men before they ran out of ammunition. If ignorant fellows from the bush can do such things—imagine what we can do here in New York.”

  Clara listened with rising dread. Her voice was stifled by her promise of silence to Caesar.

  “We got to find some of those Africans when they’re sold tomorrow,” Caesar said. “We got to trace where all of them go. They’ll be prime fightin’ men. I want to hear how they took over Golden Mermaid.”

  “Yeah,” chortled Cuffee, Caesar’s helper. “They must’ve got loose, one or two maybe, and slit the whites’ throats in the night.”

  “Startin’ with the captain,” Caesar said. “There’s a lesson for us. We’ve got to start with the principal people. The governor and his toadies like Stapleton.”

  He gazed mockingly at Clara. “Will you help us slit Big Malcolm’s throat, Clara?”

  Clara shook her head, still bound by her vow of silence but desperate to break it. “I’ve been hearing about dreams—terrible dreams.”

  Caesar laughed and nudged Cuffee until he started laughing too. “Listen to her, still half an Indian. Africans, Clara—African men—ain’t afraid of dreams.”

  Beside Caesar stood Antonio, the handsome leader of the Spanish slaves. He was growing impatient with the slow pace of the revolt. “Damn dreams and damn all this talk,” he said. “I say it’s time to right—with or without these Africans.”

  Voices on the edge of the crowd called: “Here’s Father Ury. Here’s the priest.” Ury was ushered to a place of honor beside Caesar at the bar. He was unbothered by the use of his potentially deadly title. When one of these meetings was in session, Hughson’s doors were closed and only members of the conspiracy were admitted.

  “What do you think of the news, Father?” Caesar said.

  He was always deferential to the priest in public. Behind his back, Caesar considered him a pious fool. But he found Ury useful because his offer to forgive sins had helped to recruit a number of slaves who were uneasy about killing their masters.

  Clara knew that Ury was using Caesar to realize his vision of a colony for English Catholics under French protection. He had convinced himself that God was guiding him to this glorious destiny. “I think it’s a sign. God is sending us reinforcements at just the right moment,” Ury said. “These men from Golden Mermaid are battle-tested warriors.”

  “Just what I said!” Caesar cried, slapping him on the back. “We should track them down and recruit them. You can help us, Father. Ain’t one of your pupils the son of old Cruger?” John Cruger was the city’s chief trader in slaves.

  Caesar had no interest whatsoever in Ury’s Catholic colony. He had disdained Ury’s attempts to convert him. Once he became king of New York, Caesar planned to discard Ury and the handful of white Catholics who had joined the conspiracy. He was sure he could persuade the French and Spanish to reward him with an escort of warships for the fleet he would assemble from the merchant ships at the docks. The grateful allies would convoy them back to Africa, where they would establish an independent country, ready and willing to trade for profit with everyone except the English.

  Listening to both men—Ury in her house on Maiden Lane, Caesar at the tavern—Clara felt more and more like she was a spectator at an oncoming catastrophe. All she could do was pray each night for a sudden end of the war, which would remove the crucial element in the plan—the early arrival of French and Spanish aid. Neither God nor the Blessed Virgin seemed to be listening to her. Watching the impact of the news of the uprising aboard Golden Mermaid, she began to feel the whole city was in the grip of the Evil Brother. For some reason she did not understand, the Master of Life had turned his face away from New York.

  “You still ain’t got enough guns,” John Hughson said scornfully. He saw himself as a realist who remained skeptical of the whole scheme—while insisting he was ready to join them if they followed his cautionary advice.

  “We got more guns than you bought for us, and better ones,” Caesar said. “Them old bird guns you got us from Yonkers was a waste of money.”

  “You should have a gun for every second or third man. Pikes for the rest,” Hughson said.

  “We got knives for the rest. All kinds of knives,” Caesar said. “They’re better than pikes for close work. We got a plan to take care of the governor, too. We’ll get more guns soon enough. Cuffee and me’s plannin’ a couple of big grabs.”

  Caesar and Cuffee had intimidated or persuaded house servants throughout the city to help them steal everything from silver to cash from their masters’ homes. The newspapers were full of stories about an “epidemic” of thievery. The Common Council had voted extra money to bolster the Night Watch. But Caesar was confident he could outwit these haphazard guardians of the law. Caesar’s stolen goods were the real motive for Hughson’s participation. He was making a lot of money reselling them.

  Back on Maiden Lane later that night, Clara knelt at her window to pray. But no voice spoke from beyond the stars. Nor did her prayers travel there. All she could see was the circle of African faces in Hughson’s, their eyes aglow with Caesar’s talk about freedom and power. Why didn’t she denounce him as a fool and a fake? Why didn’t she tell the Hughsons and Ury what Caesar really had in mind? Why did she listen and say nothing, night after night? She was free—free to leave New York, go to another city, to a farm on Long Island or in Westchester County. But she could not speak, she could not act. Those African faces were like a mad river, sweeping her into a wilderness of doubt and dread. The memory of her night with Caesar, listening to him rhapsodize about the lost Africa of his boyhood, was like a hand at her throat. No wonder her prayers were stillborn.

  The next day Clara went down to the Roosevelt wharf to watch the sale of newly arrived slaves. About a dozen merchants and traders climbed aboard Golden Mermaid and the Africans were led out on the deck in small groups and carefully examined by the bidders. A crowd of whites and blacks assembled on the dock to see the men who had killed at least thirty white sailors. Around her Clara heard several whites saying Golden Mermaid’s cargo should all be shipped to the West Indies.

  “They’re a pack of murderers,” one man said.

  “We’ve got enough to do, trackin’ the ones we’ve got,” his friend agreed. Clara recognized them. They were both members of the Night Watch.

  On bo
ard the ship, there was a great deal of agitated argument between the first and second mates of the Monmouth and John Cruger, the city’s cadaverous chief slave trader. “What’s up?” a spectator called to one of the Monmouth’s sailors, who had angrily stalked away from the argument. From the whistle around his neck, he was the ship’s boatswain’s mate.

  “You damned Americans are tryin’ to cheat us, as usual,” the boatswain said. “That walkin’ corpse there claims the niggers is only worth half the goin’ price because they’ve got blood on their hands. Says no one here will buy’m.”

  “I hope he’s right,” said one of the Night Watch.

  Clara suddenly lost interest in this argument. Catalyntie Stapleton was going up the gangplank to Golden Mermaid’s deck. No one else in the crowd paid any attention to her. She was greeted warmly by Monmouth ’s first mate, now the acting captain of both that ship and Golden Mermaid. Clara reminded herself that they had just spent six or eight weeks on the Atlantic together. But the sight of her Seneca sister hobnobbing with men who had deprived almost two hundred Africans of their freedom after they had miraculously regained it stirred a sullen disapproval in her soul.

  After more argument, the sellers and buyers agreed to turn the auction into a “scramble.” The same per capita price was set for all the Africans. At a squeal of the boatswain’s whistle, the buyers rushed on deck and grabbed as many of the blacks as they wanted. Some wound ropes or chains around a half dozen. Others grabbed one or two and dragged them off the ship. Quarrels erupted over the biggest and healthiest looking prospects. Anger mingled with greed on more than one white face. John Cruger was busiest. With the help of several assistants, he soon had more than fifty Africans on the dock, coffled and manacled. As they passed through the crowd on the way to Cruger’s warehouse, a number of whites cursed them. One man spit on them.

  As the last of the Africans vanished down Pearl Street, the first mate walked to the rail and called: “We are now takin’ bids on Golden Mermaid. A conference with His Majesty’s Judge of the Admiralty, the Honorable Daniel Horsmanden, has assured us of our ownership and he stands ready to approve a transfer to the highest bidder.

  “Four thousand pounds, New York money,” called George Fowler.

  “Four thousand five hundred,” said Johannes Van Vorst.

  “Five thousand,” Fowler said.

  “Six thousand,” said Johannes Van Vorst.

  There were no other bids. After calling once, twice, three times for another round, the first mate declared Golden Mermaid “sold to Mr. Van Vorst.” A murmur of admiration swept through the crowd. It was a vivid demonstration of Johannes Van Vorst’s wealth. All Clara could see was six thousand pounds in the hands of sailors who had massacred and subdued those forlorn Africans as they struggled to sail their captured ship to freedom.

  As Clara stood there consumed by this desolating thought, Catalyntie poured a shower of Spanish gold dollars into the hands of the acting captain. She was paying for her passage. Two sailors lugged her trunk down the gangplank. Clara began to see everything through a penumbra of darkness. As she walked back to Maiden Lane, the darkness slowly changed to another color. She realized it was red, the color of blood.

  Suddenly Caesar was there, speaking to her through the red haze. He had a sack of flour on his shoulder. “Did you go to the scramble?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who bought most of them? Cruger?”

  “I think so.”

  “Good. We’ve got friends inside Cruger’s warehouse. His foreman, Little Richard, is with us.”

  “How can you do this without guns?”

  “We’ll get guns.”

  “How much money do you need?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe a hundred pounds.”

  “Come with me,” Clara said.

  She still saw Caesar through the red haze, although it was a bright fall afternoon. Blood drooled down his forehead over his cheeks as if someone was pouring red paint from the sky.

  He followed her down Maiden Lane to her house. All was cool and silent inside. She led him upstairs to her bedroom and dragged a trunk from under her bed. At its bottom was a metal strongbox. She handed it to him.

  Caesar put it on the bed and opened it. At least two hundred gold Spanish dollars clustered there. “Jesus,” he said.

  “He has nothing to do with this,” Clara said.

  Caesar began laughing. It began as a basso bellow and rose at the end to a shrill near contralto. He picked up the box and poured it on the bed. “I want to take you now, on top of the money.”

  “No,” Clara said.

  The red haze was in the room, heaving and bulging against the walls, as if they were underwater. “Yes,” Caesar said. “I want to make it mean something. I want it to be more than money. I want to make it holy.”

  “No!” Clara said.

  His mocking use of holy horrified her. She saw the Evil Brother beneath his skin, grinning at her.

  “Then I don’t want your fuckin’ money, Clara. Do you understand? I don’t want it without you.”

  “You’ve got me. But I can’t do that.”

  “Why? Because Malcolm Stapleton owns that part of you? You’re African down there, Clara, just like everywhere else.”

  “I hate him,” Clara said. “I hate his wife. I hate them all!”

  “So do I. Why won’t you do it with me?”

  Clara stared past Caesar at the statue of the Virgin. She could not tell Caesar the truth about himself. He would laugh at the idea of being possessed by the Evil Brother. Caesar followed her gaze and picked up the statue.

  “Who’s this? One of Ury’s gods?” Caesar said. “There’s no god mixed up in this, Clara. Except maybe that fellow they call Satan.”

  “Take the money, please!”

  Caesar shook his head. “I can steal that much in a month. Watch me.”

  He swaggered out of the house. Clara flung herself facedown on the golden coins and wept and wept and wept. Eventually it was twilight and John Ury was standing over her.

  “Clara—what’s wrong?”

  “Father, stop them. Don’t let them go any further. Stop Caesar!”

  “I can’t. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t do it.”

  “The Watch knows something. They’re going to catch him.”

  Ury sat down beside her on the bed and stroked her dark hair. “Clara, Clara, have faith. Whatever our destiny, Jesus will be with us, even as he stood beside the blessed martyrs of a thousand years ago in ancient Rome.”

  She saw how hopeless it was, how ready he was to welcome failure, if he could embrace it like a Christian hero. He was a spent man, hunted across England to this raw continent, yearning to defy his Protestant foes one more time—even if his defiance was hurled from the gallows. His indifference to her body, to all forms of pleasure, was a kind of despair. He was in the grip of the Evil Brother, just as much as she was. Who had let this prince of darkness into their lives? What was at the root of those Africans in their chains, of Caesar’s rage, of the Hughsons’ frantic trafficking in stolen goods?

  Money. The love of it, the perpetual hunger for it. Who personified this cold insatiable lust? Catalyntie Van Vorst Stapleton—the woman who had purchased the name, the allegiance, of the only man she had ever loved. If she and her kind lived to rule America, this would be a continent drenched in blood. Perhaps these money worshippers had to die now, to prevent that destiny. Perhaps a lesson had to be cried from the rooftops of this tormented city. Perhaps that meant more than love, more than the sisterhood of the Senecas. But the vision of Catalyntie, of Malcolm, of little Hugh, murdered in their beds or in the streets, horrified her.

  “I feel destruction descending on us, Father,” Clara said. “Not salvation. Destruction!”

  Father Ury continued to stroke her hair. “When I’m with you, Clara, I feel the beat of angels’ wings.”

  FOUR

  ANXIETY CLUTCHED MY THROAT WHEN I heard the front door slam and little Hugh
cry: “Papa!” I struggled for self-control and walked to the door of the room I had fitted out as my office. In the dim hall Malcolm looked even bigger than usual. Hugh, clinging to his neck, seemed like some elfin creature.

  “Hello, Husband,” I said.

  “Hello, Wife,” he said in a wary uncertain voice.

  I went down the hall and kissed him briefly on the lips. Remembering the insults we had exchanged when we parted in London, I thought it best to make the first move. He seemed surprised—and moderately pleased. Slinging Hugh over one shoulder, he followed me into our Queen Anne parlor. Cornelius Van Vorst’s portrait smiled from the wall. Bow down, bow down, he whispered.

  “How did things go in Holland?” Malcolm asked. “When you didn’t write, I feared the worst. Did you get the money?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But I had to borrow it in my own name from the Bank of Amsterdam. My friend Hooft has quit the banking business—”

  “Why did you stay four months?”

  The question flustered me badly. Had he heard something? “I … I thought it was best if we parted for a while.”

  Malcolm sat down and perched Hugh on his knee. “That may have been a good idea.”

  “We both said extreme things in London. I’m ready to forgive and forget, if you are.”

  “You’ve got more to forgive, I’m afraid. I acted like a madman.”

  “There was tremendous provocation. I understand that now. I did a great deal of thinking about us in Holland.”

  You’re doing beautifully, you haven’t said a word of truth yet. It was the Evil Brother, mocking me as usual. I glanced up at Cornelius’s portrait and suddenly prayed: Help me, wherever you are.

  “What did you conclude?”

  “We’re well matched, in spite of our bad beginning. In spite—”

  I hesitated because of Hugh. But the little boy was not listening. Malcolm was tickling him. He was giggling and squirming, trying to escape his father’s grip.

  “In spite of Clara.”

  Malcolm nodded. The name did not seem to stir him. “I’ve thought about us too, up there in the woods,” he said. “A kind of destiny or fate or whatever you call it seems to have brought us together. When I think of the odd chances that played a part. I wasn’t planning to go to that Indian peace council where we met. Nicolls talked me into it at the last minute. So many other things—”