“You are right,” agreed Verhulst in a stronger voice. “We remain.” He gave Imogene a hard look. “We will attend the ball tonight, mevrouwen, and we will accept your hospitality for the night as well.”
Vrouw Berghem clapped her hands and Verhulst turned away looking as if he might regret his decision. “I will go and bring my wife’s maidservant from the dock,” he said shortly.
“And my jewel chest and a trunk of ball gowns,” lmogene called after him. She turned with a smile to Vrouw Berghem. “Men sometimes do not think of these things.”
The big woman gave her a wry smile. “Verhulst will. Sometimes I think that boy concentrates too much on clothes and not enough on the people who wear them.”
lmogene thought that was a fair assessment of her husband; she wondered if he would be able to change... .
With Verhulst gone, lmogene turned curiously to Vrouw Berghem. “How did you know Verhulst was bringing home a bride? We were not married till we boarded the Hilletje.”
Vrouw Berghem winked and put a finger to her lips. “Of course I did not know—I had it from Captain van Ryker when we met on Perel Straat!”
Imogene’s lovely mouth formed a grin. “Then it was not the Governor you met there but Captain van Ryker?”
Vrouw Berghem nodded sagely. “What men do not know does not hurt them,” she said with a shrug. If only that were true! thought lmogene. “Verhulst was obviously distracted by his homecoming and so he did not question what I said. Oh, he may puzzle about it later but you are not to tell him! If pressed, I will say that I had a premonition that Verhulst would come home married and told the Governor so and—”
“And he said it would make a fitting reception for a bride!” finished lmogene, laughing. She was delighted with her hostess. “Mevrouwen, you may be sure I will not give you away!”
“Good, then I see we shall be great friends.”
“And you must come and visit us at Wey Gat. Could you not sail upriver with us when we go?”
Vrouw Berghem hesitated and shook her head. “Some other time perhaps. Wey Gat is indeed a beautiful place but—I rarely visit there.”
“Why not?” wondered lmogene.
Vrouw Berghem met her gaze frankly. “I think it is the dogs.”
“ ‘The dogs’?”
“That savage pack of dogs Verhulst keeps, ever since his parents were scalped. I hear them howling at night and I think of some poor devil being torn apart by their fangs. It interferes with my sleep. I have told Verhulst so, but he only shrugs and says he wishes to keep them near the house—in case of need.”
“You mean—” Imogene’s blue eyes widened—“the dogs are trained to hunt men?"
“Yes—and to destroy them. I am told they are very good at their work.” Vrouw Berghem repressed a shudder. “Oh, you must not be alarmed—they are kept in check. Verhulst has an excellent kennelmaster. His name is Groot. But I like to walk about, and their presence—even if I cannot see or hear them— makes me uneasy. Come now, enough about dogs. Let me show you my house.”
lmogene told herself she might not be seeing either Wey Gat or its savage pack. When Verhulst heard what she had to say to him, he might go storming upriver without her! Meanwhile she enjoyed being shown through Vrouw Berghem’s spotless home and being instructed in the ways of a Dutch housewife.
That wide stoop at the front door flanked by two high-backed wooden benches, Vrouw Berghem told her, would be filled, on any average evening, with neighbors come to gossip. Tonight of course the neighbors, like themselves, would be too busy—they’d be dressing in their best for Governor Stuyvesant’s ball. And that divided front door, like all the front doors along the street, was very useful—it kept the dogs out and the children in. Of course, her children were all married and gone, so now it served to keep other little feet from dashing inside, dragging their wooden shoes or Indian moccasins across her well-scoured floors.
Imogene remarked on the exceeding whiteness of those floors and Vrouw Berghem told her importantly that the white sand with which those floors were scoured was replaced daily. She herself swept it into the interesting patterns that she saw there. When Imogene admired the frosty white ruffle that stretched across the top of the high mantel with its decorative blue and white tiles, her hostess told her she would find those in all the Dutch houses. And those “crow steps” atop the gable ends of the house—those were for the convenience of the chimneysweeps, who could run nimbly up them carrying their brooms.
Life was different here, she told Imogene, proudly exhibiting her kas, or linen chest, as she chattered. Many things were dear but at least beaver and butter were cheap. It was a pity that Imogene would not be here on Saturday, for only last year Saturday had been established as market day and boats loaded with produce would come from the Bronx and Long Island to Vrouw Kierstede’s shed, where they would sell their wares. There would be homespun duffel-cloth for sale and linsey-woolsey, and the Algonkins would bring venison and lobster and oysters. She warned Imogene against buying lobsters over a foot long; those five and six feet long were not so tasty for table— here Imogene blinked, trying to imagine dealing with a six-foot-long lobster—and the smaller oysters were better, too, although some were so large as to be a meal in themselves, up to a foot in size.
As she talked, Vrouw Berghem energetically removed a small blue Oriental rug she called the “table carpet” from an oaken table and spread a linen cloth upon it and soon Imogene was sharing with her hostess a tasty snack of crullers and headcheese washed down by tall tankards of fresh milk. There would be only a hasty supper tonight, Vrouw Berghem confided, for they must on to the Governor’s Ball!
“Do many pirates really roam the town?” asked Imogene, when her sprightly hostess stopped for breath.
“Do many—?’ Vrouw Berghem was surprised. “But of course! Without them we would pay much higher prices for our goods! But they are not truly pirates, you know, they are buccaneers and plunder only the Spanish. You can sleep sound in your feather bed—they will not hurt you.”
Imogene was not worried about sleeping sound in her feather bed. “My acquaintance with buccaneers is meager,” she admitted.
“But very selective!” sparkled Vrouw Berghem. “Captain van Ryker told me he met you on the high seas when he stopped the Hilletje to warn Captain Verbloom about the Spanish squadron.”
Imogene studied the folds in her skirt. “Will Captain van Ryker be at the Governor’s Ball tonight, do you think?”
“Oh, I am sure he will. He is very popular with all the ladies and will certainly be invited, for Governor Stuyvesant thinks highly of him.”
Imogene frowned. She had almost hoped not to meet Van Ryker again. Certain now that she was pregnant, she had been thinking long thoughts, and this buccaneer captain, attractive though he was, did not figure in them. She had a husband to placate, a baby to think of. Reckless she might be with herself but with her child—never.
Her delicate jaw hardened and she hoped nervously that tonight van Ryker would do nothing to alienate Verhulst, for she had promised herself that tonight she would tell him—and take the consequences, whatever they were.
It was late before Verhulst arrived. He strode in with Elise and big Schroon, the Danskammer's skipper, following him. Schroon was a blond, blue-eyed giant with a rolling gait, who balanced Imogene’s trunk of ball gowns on his broad leathern-clad shoulder as lightly as if the trunk when empty did not weigh some seventy-five pounds. Trailing him came Elise, her arms wrapped firmly around Imogene’s jewel case, as if she feared someone might steal it. She looked exhausted. Imogene sprang forward to take the jewel case from her and asked wonderingly why she was so late. Elise whispered that she had lost the proper trunk in the maze of piled-up luggage and been roundly scolded by the patroon for doing so. As a punishment, he had made her wait, standing on tired feet, until every piece of luggage was stowed aboard the Danskammer; she had not eaten a bite since their meager breakfast.
Imogene gave Verhulst
an angry look and promptly spoke to Vrouw Berghem who told Elise in a hearty voice to make free with her kitchen, she would find plenty to eat out there!
After the hasty supper her hostess had promised, Imogene, with a somewhat recovered Elise helping her, chose her ball gown from the big trunk with exceeding care.
Verhulst was taken aback by her choice. “But that is your wedding gown!” he protested.
Imogene nodded soberly. “Even to the beaded white silk gloves I wore. But I am wearing my hair differently. Do you like it swept back this way, Verhulst?”
Verhulst ignored Imogene’s question and only glanced at the white plumes caught with diamonds that waved atop her elaborate coiffure. “But why a wedding gown?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” she sighed. “It will tell all of New Amsterdam—all who may think they see a wild light in my eyes—that I am married.”
He digested that slowly. All of New Amsterdam. ... “You have guessed that van Ryker will be at the ball tonight,” he divined.
She nodded. “This gown will remind even a buccaneer that I am a married woman.”
For a moment that narrow, sensitive face lost some of its autocratic coldness. “A good thought, Imogene,” Verhulst said slowly. “And here is a gift that I was saving for some great occasion. It may as well be tonight, since it will well become your gown.” From somewhere he produced a small blue velvet casket and from it took a shimmering necklace of diamonds, let it slip like water through his fingers into her hand.
Imogene gasped with delight as she held it up. “But—but this is fabulous, Verhulst! Something a queen would wear!”
“Or the bride of a patroon,” he said haughtily. “Here, I will clasp it around your neck.”
Imogene stood back and considered her reflection in the mirror. The diamond drops he had given her in Holland on her betrothal winked from her ears like the diamond clips that he had given her on her wedding day and which now held in place the waving white ostrich plumes in her hair. But the necklace he had given her now for some reason obscure to her eclipsed them both. Against her white throat it was a stunning fiery blaze. Not a woman at the Governor’s Ball but would envy her! She gave her young husband a grateful look, thinking guiltily how he had taken her on faith and of the blow she yet must deal him.
“It’s lovely, Verhulst,” she said huskily. “Much better than I deserve.”
“Untrue,” he protested vigorously, and then in a lower tone with a glance at Elise’s turned back across the room, “Although I did consider throwing it in the sea a time or two—once when you left me playing chess in the great cabin of the Sea Rover and went up on deck with van Ryker, and again when you kept dancing with him.”
In a sudden burst of emotion at this—for him—unusual declaration, Imogene threw her arms around him and kissed him. “You have no need to be jealous of Captain van Ryker, Verhulst. I will be true to you as long as you live—I promise.” Verhulst stiffened. Gently he disengaged her clinging arms. She felt somehow she had embarrassed him. “We must hurry if we are to be on time, and you should not disarrange your hair,” he told her in a smothered voice.
Imogene thought he looked flushed and uneasy. She was puzzled by this reaction to her impulsive hug. Surely a display of affection from a bride should be welcome?
They went downstairs where Vrouw Berghem, dressed in a shrieking shade of magenta embroidered in aqua and green was drawing on her gloves. She did not look up. “Rychie ten Haer will be at the ball,” she said, appropos of nothing.
Verhulst’s arm, on which Imogene’s hand rested, gave a slight jerk and Imogene turned to look sharply at him.
“And who is Rychie ten Haer?” she wondered.
“No one of interest.” Verhulst spoke too quickly. “Rychie ten Haer is the daughter of a patroon who lives downriver from Wey Gat. Last year she married her cousin, Huygens ten Haer. Rychie was—a frequent visitor to Wey Gat.”
Vrouw Berghem’s eyebrows lifted in perplexity. All the river knew of Verhulst’s pursuit of Rychie ten Haer and how she had spurned him. Saffron-haired Rychie had a sharp tongue and she had always comfortably considered Verhulst her possession, no matter how badly she treated him. Perhaps she herself should have warned the bride!
But Imogene, sensing trouble, was not to be put off. As they walked toward the Governor’s mansion inside the fort, with stout Vrouw Berghem in her eagerness to reach the festivities preceding them by some distance, she brought up the subject again.
“What is this Rychie ten Haer to you, Verhulst? I must know who these people are, and why mention of some of them upsets you.”
Verhulst, his nerves already rubbed raw at the prospect of this unexpected meeting between the girl he had loved and the girl he had married, turned on Imogene with a snarl. “If you must know, Rychie is a girl to whom I once offered marriage. And,” he grated—for anyone on the river would tell Imogene, since Rychie had laughingly spread the story everywhere herself—“ ’Tis well known she laughed in my face.”
He strode on angrily but Imogene stood frozen for a moment in astonishment, looking at his elegant black velvet back. So the patroon’s daughter had laughed in his face? Well, it was plain to see the wound still hurt. Ah, poor Verhulst! Her heart went out to him.
“I look forward to meeting this Rychie,” she said grimly, catching up with her stiff-backed husband at the Governor’s open front door.
Verhulst gave her an incoherent answer and together they went inside where candles glittered and lavishly garbed guests moved about. They were greeted by their host, Peter Stuyvesant, the bluff Dutchman who had governed the colony for ten years now, standing with aplomb on his silver-studded wooden leg. Proudly he told Imogene that the city’s population now numbered above a thousand. But he did not wait for her comments. Instead, he turned and immediately entered into a near shouting match with a guest who insisted the Dutch upriver were selling guns to the Iroquois, “guns which will be turned on us, mynheer, mark my words!”
Imogene, more interested in the people who would be her new neighbors than in local politics, was relieved when Verhulst bore her away, into the thick of the crowd. She had indeed chosen the right costume to make an impression on New Amsterdam society. With her billowing ostrich plumes and glittering diamonds highlighting her pure white gown, she made a dramatic entrance into a room full of brightly garbed Dutch ladies, who all turned to look at her. Red, saffron yellow, brilliant shades of pink and blue and green—in the whole gamut of colors that swirled about her, Imogene was the only lady present who had chosen to wear unrelieved white.
Cool and fragile she stood beside the black velvet figure of her husband, and tried to look as chaste as her snowy gown.
She had taken her wedding vows almost in a somnolent state with her mind and her heart still fixed on Stephen Linnington. And during the voyage to America she had let a handsome buccaneer sway her. But tonight, before God and assembled New Amsterdam at the Governor’s Ball, she told herself firmly, she would pledge her troth to Verhulst anew and take her wedding vows again—in her heart. For tonight—tonight she would tell him, and if he forgave her, she would never leave his side. But however the dice were cast, she was Vrouw van Rappard now, wife to the patroon of Wey Gat, and she was going to be all that was expected of her!
Beside her, Verhulst viewed the assemblage haughtily. Imogene watched him, puzzled. He was not like a man greeting old friends after a long absence. He wanted only to parade, to preen before these people against whom he seemed to nurse some deep private grievance.
No matter, she told herself sturdily. By her own graciousness she would make up for any lack on Verhulst’s part.
Beautiful, graceful, elegantly gowned—and new to them all and thus of consummate interest—Imogene swept all before her that night. The Dutch gallants vied for dances, the older ladies remarked to Verhulst how pretty his young wife was and how pleasant, and the older gentlemen made her elaborate compliments—often in Dutch, which had to be translated, as I
mogene extended her hand daintily to be kissed. Her voice was gentle, her smile was just right—not too warm, not too cool. The Governor’s guests crowded about her, seeking introductions, and Verhulst, proud owner of this paragon, beamed as first this jongvrouw and then these vrouwen and this mynheer begged an introduction to his lovely bride.
One hung back, waiting with smoldering eyes for them to come to her. And Imogene knew without being told that this was Rychie ten Haer. Across the room she considered her rival dispassionately. Rychie was a big girl, as tall as Verhulst. Her thick coarse hair of brilliant saffron yellow looked as if it belonged in long braids, goosegirl style. It lacked the silky fineness, the luster of Imogene’s fair hair. Rychie’s complexion, unlike Imogene’s sheer pink and white coloring, was pale honey, and her eyes, lacking the soft depth of Imogene’s, were sharp and blue as china plates—and as hard, Imogene decided. Rychie’s smile was brittle and the staccato way she waved her ivory fan betrayed agitation. Her low-cut gown, fitted skillfully to her fine, if overlush, figure, was impossible to miss. It was of scarlet satin heavily trimmed with black and yellow bows and it made her appear, in contrast to Imogene’s glittering white, both tawdry and overdressed.
From her spot across the room, flanked by a little clot of faithful admirers, Rychie watched Verhulst and Imogene and whispered behind her fan. From time to time Imogene looked out from those who crowded around her and guessed that saffron haired Rychie was hating it, all this fuss being made over Verhulst van Rappard’s new wife.
With calm eyes she studied Rychie, flouncing about.
Inevitably, they would clash....
CHAPTER 13
Imogene looked up and forgot about Rychie. Captain van Ryker had entered the room.
He was flanked by his ship’s doctor and his ship’s master, and their arrival created some stir. Imogene saw that he was wearing the same gray and shot silver in which he had entertained them aboard the Sea Rover. But tonight he wore a broad gray satin sash, slung from one shoulder, in which were stuck a brace of large pistols. And that was not a delicately made dress sword that swung against his lean gray velvet thighs but the same serviceable blade that she had seen him wear aboard ship. Obviously, whether on land or sea, the captain went prepared. She watched as van Ryker and his officers were warmly greeted by Peter Stuyvesant, who introduced them to several blushing young ladies and their beaming mamas.
Bold Breathless Love Page 20