The Dutch Girl

by Donna Thorland

  Anna unfolded the paper and laid it on the desk. She did not want to hover over him while he read it, so she crossed to the camp bed and sat beneath the looped-back worsted draperies. They smelled musty from the damp, but the mattress itself was dry. She watched as Gerrit read the letter, then read it again.

  “It is signed by my sister, Elizabeth,” he said, puzzled. “After she fled Harenwyck.”

  “Andries found her after she ran away. She has been living on the estate with her maid.” Anna was not sure how much to tell him about his sister, how much he might have known or guessed.

  “Why? Why did they never tell me that it was my father? Sophia, Andries, Elizabeth? None of them.”

  “Because they knew—feared—you wouldn’t marry Sophia, and Cornelis promised to destroy her life,” she answered, “like he destroyed so many others. They should have told you, let you decide for yourself whether to marry Sophia or confront your father. But consider this—Andries was willing to make his own sacrifice: to let you think him an adulterer to protect the woman he loved, and he has kept that secret to protect her daughters. For good or ill, everything he has done since you returned has been an effort to undo some of the harm your father wrought. Your brother’s way may not be the right way, but you both want what is best for Harenwyck and the people who live there, and that is not the chaos of a riot.”

  Gerrit looked up at her, nodded. He was shaken, but with all he’d just learned, she felt a little proud to sense understanding wrestling with the anger and the hurt. “You are right, of course,” he said, after a moment, “but I am not the one stirring unrest.”

  “But you were, two nights ago, at the cider pressing. You were giving out freeholds, Gerrit, in exchange for insurrection. You have sparked something. Now someone else must be fanning the flames. Your brother has only a dozen men. Scarcely enough to protect the house and your family.”

  “I don’t even have that many myself, Annatje, not at hand. I can hardly call up the men to whom I promised freeholds in the cause of defending my brother.”

  Gerrit opened the lantern and consigned Sophia’s testament to the flame.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Sophia was lucky to have Andries. She was not like you, Annatje. Not strong, not resourceful or self-reliant. She would not have survived my father’s wrath, let alone thrived and built a new life from the ashes, as you have. And so we—we would not have Jannetje or Grietje at all. Andries was right to keep Sophia’s secret from the world, if not from me.”

  “When he thought you were the one orchestrating the unrest, he was willing to offer you half the estate to quell it.”

  “Generous of him,” Gerrit said drily. “But that may be moot as I am not the one behind it. And I’ve no idea who is.”

  “Whoever it is will gather their mob at the Halve Maen,” said Anna. They always had. It was far easier to convince men to march in the cold, to face the schouts and court the patroon’s wrath, when well fortified with beer and rum.

  “You’re most likely right. But there’s no guarantee such men would be swayed by my pleas to stand down and disperse.”

  “No, but they might be swayed by those of Bram Hoppe’s daughter.”

  Nineteen

  Gerrit knew what she was thinking, and he did not like it. Not at all.

  “No, Annatje. I am going to row myself out to the British warship downriver, where I shall promise my firstborn to John André in exchange for however many men he can give me, or even just a brace of cabin boys and a cook with a gamy leg and a marlinspike. You are going back to the manor with Pieter and Edwaert and the rest of the men, where you will stay inside and not be called upon to demonstrate your mastery of that pistol you have tucked into your skirts.”

  “We have no choice about treating with Major André,” agreed Anna. “Your brother wanted to keep the British out of Harenwyck, but not at the expense of so many lives and livelihoods. And you should indeed send your band to the manor house. Andries’ men are stretched thin there. But I must go to the Halve Maen.”

  She was right. He knew she was right. But he had just found her again after so many years that he did not want to let her go, not on a night so like the one that had stolen her from him in the first place.

  “If you must go, then some of my men go with you.”

  “Grietje and Jannetje are at Harenwyck. When I left there, Andries’ schouts were away, and his militia cannot be relied upon. They are tenants as well, and have to live with their neighbors. The girls have only your brother and Mr. Ten Broeck to rely upon, and you remember how well Ten Broeck acquitted himself in my defense when you stopped our carriage. All the men must go to Harenwyck. I can take care of myself.”

  “I know you can,” he conceded. “But, Annatje, I have only just found you again. To be reunited, against all odds and reason . . . I will not lose you a second time.”

  She stood up, and he realized it was the first time he had ever seen her in the proximity of a bed. He did not want it to be the last. He wanted to buy a very large tester, hang it with the darkest, stuffiest curtains he could find, and shut out the world, close them alone within. Only then they could not look up at the stars. Perhaps he could paint stars on the canopy.

  Anna stood up on tiptoe—she was back to wearing her boring shoes and he missed her clomping klompen—and kissed him on the mouth.

  “You are the boy who taught me to read a map,” she said, “now become a man. Mine. You are my compass and my North Star, and I swear to you, Gerrit Van Haren, I will always find my way back to you.”

  She had already done as much once, he must allow, so he was in no position to dispute it, but that did not mean he had to like it.

  For once he was glad that his “merry men” were first and foremost opportunists. They did not require a great deal of convincing. The manor house had to be protected because Andries had capitulated, and Gerrit was going to get half of the manor. There would be land—ample land—for everyone. They would probably have defended George Washington’s chamber pot or General Clinton’s jakes from a column of Gibbon’s Huns for similar stakes. In the end, it made no great difference to them.

  Gerrit insisted Pieter at least accompany Anna to the Halve Maen, because he was his oldest friend and could be relied upon.

  “If there is the least sign of trouble, take her straight to the manor.”

  “What if she doesn’t want to go?” asked Pieter, eyeing the pistol at her waist.

  “She is unlikely to shoot you, Pieter.”

  “I suppose I shall be safe enough,” Pieter said with a martyr’s sigh. “So long as there aren’t any sheep.”

  Gerrit gave her a leg up onto her pony. “We don’t have to stay at Harenwyck,” he said, “when this is over.” He wanted to talk about the future because that made it real. It conjured a tomorrow, tomorrows, when he was desperately afraid he would never see her again. “We can go to New York. Back to your school, if you like.”

  “I’m not sure that would work,” said Anna. “A conspicuous lover would ruin my spinster’s reputation.”

  She was joking, but she was also right. “Then we’ll have to get married.”

  “Is that another proposal?”

  “Yes. Hear me out this time. We can go to New York. Or we can find a little house somewhere, one of those rambling old Puritan manses with steep gables and tiny rooms like I imagined Miss Winters had been raised in. We can make it that house—paint it yellow and put dentils on it and fill it with books. Harenwyck has made enough people miserable. Too many. I thought that in order to escape its shadow, I needed to destroy it utterly, but that has only served to place me on the same road as my father, destroying everything in my path to possess more land than any man should control—no matter that my intent was to sell it all in the end. If Andries will divide the estate with me, I can make one thousand tenants free men tomorrow, and go dow
n in history as the only man who has wooed a bride with the great estate that he will not bestow upon her.”

  Her eyes were shining now. A trick of the light, or unshed tears. He hoped the latter.

  “I have no desire to be lady of Harenwyck,” she said. “Nor would I ever ask you to give up your ideals. All I require is that you not be quite so reckless with your own life in pursuit of them.”

  “Does that mean your answer is yes?”

  “Yes.”

  He watched her ride off into the night beside Pieter with a feeling of sudden elation. She was going to be his wife. He was going to have a real wife. A partner, a helpmeet, someone who would inspire him to be his best self. He was going to reconcile with his brother. He was going to break up his half of Harenwyck. His daughters—and they would always be that to him—would have more than a teacher. They would have a mother and friend. All he had to do was strike a bargain with the dangerous gentleman aboard the man-of-war in the river.

  He rowed himself out to the frigate anchored below the Narrows. It had never occurred to him that André might not be there, not be immediately accessible. He was treated with courtesy and led to a cabin that smelled like hemp and tar, and in which he could stretch his arms and touch both walls with his fingertips at the same time.

  Apart from jail, it was perhaps the worst place Gerrit had ever been, and he’d only spent two nights in the lockup, whereas sailors spent months and sometimes years at sea, a good portion of it in these or worse conditions. His voyage across the Atlantic to Leiden had been cramped, but the British navy appeared to make both an art and a science of discomfort. He would never understand the appeal of it all.

  A midshipman offered him rum, which he refused, and ale, which he accepted because he was thirsty. An hour passed before John André appeared. This time he was dressed in scarlet regimentals with epaulets that confirmed his rank as major.

  “I was not expecting you so soon, my lord,” said André, in Dutch, on entering the tiny cabin. His hair was wet, Gerrit noted, as though he had toweled off and dressed hastily after a swim in the river. Perhaps he had.

  “And you were hoping perhaps that my brother might come instead,” answered Gerrit, in English, remembering what Annatje had told him about the British overtures that Mr. Ten Broeck had been entertaining. This man was not his friend, no matter how candid and friendly he appeared.

  Major André pulled up a chair and poured himself a beaker of ale. “I wasn’t, actually. I have never met your brother and have nothing that I know of in common with him, whereas you and I share similar educations and experiences. But my occupation allows very little scope for sentiment. My first priority has always been to secure the Hudson for the government’s interests. If your brother had been willing to take the oath, then, understand, I would have been obligated to strike a bargain with him instead of you. Since he did not prove willing, it was in British interests to strike a bargain with you, against him. That doing so dovetailed with my own personal preferences was nothing but a happy accident. Of course, matters have changed somewhat since you and I last spoke.”

  “How so?” asked Gerrit. He did not really care, he discovered, if this glittering officer threw the support of the British behind Andries. He did not care so very much if he got all or half, or none, of Harenwyck. What he wanted was to guarantee the safety of the estate and the people who lived on it tonight. His daughters, his friends, even his brother, and Annatje. Always Annatje. She could take care of herself, but he wanted to make it so that she never had to again.

  “The Americans have fortified a point downriver that neatly trumps control of Harenhoeck. It is there that I must now turn my attention. Colonel Tarleton and I no longer have six hundred men to offer you, Mr. Van Haren, even if you were able to raise two hundred tenants by Saturday.”

  “I do not need six hundred men on Saturday,” said Gerrit. “I need sixty, tonight, to put down an uprising.”

  “Even if I could secure you sixty men, I wouldn’t do so,” said André, drinking deep from his beaker of ale. “An insurrection against your brother is only to your benefit. If the tenants riot and march on the manor house tonight, you will be patroon tomorrow. It is an economical and elegant solution to your problem, and one, in point of fact, I have gone to no small trouble to arrange.”

  It took a moment for his meaning to penetrate. Gerrit set down his beer. “What have you done?”

  “It became obvious to me as soon as I reconnoitered the fortifications that the Americans are building at West Point that the position is superior in all ways to Harenhoeck. My superior, General Sir Henry Clinton, ordered me to abandon negotiations with you, and ensure we remained on good terms with the patroon for Harenwyck’s continued provision of butter and beef. But I had made representations to you, and I am—whenever I can be—a man of my word. So I sought another way to put the patroonship into your hands, without disobeying my superiors or committing British forces.”

  “So you engineered an uprising.” His stomach turned over at the thought. Bram Hoppe had raised the tenants to fight injustice, to redistribute power in the valley. Major André had done it to effectuate a mere regime change, to again concentrate power in a single man: himself. “Who are the ringleaders?”

  “A disgruntled tenant family called ‘Dijkstra’ with a grudge against the woman your brother is keeping at the manor. The very one you waylaid on the way to Harenwyck, as a matter of fact. At the heart, there are two very fierce Dijkstra matriarchs and one bloodthirsty young man. All my hard work nearly unraveled yesterday morning when your brother Andries tried to evict them, but even that, in the end, worked to our advantage, once I dealt with their escort at the ferry. The thwarted eviction was a helpful example of the patroon’s injustice, and also that his power was not absolute: rallying cries for the Dijkstra women to recruit followers. A multitude of followers. Tensions, as you know, have been running very high.”

  “Call it off,” said Gerrit, his words hoarse in his own ears.

  André’s surprise seemed genuine. “Call it off? Don’t you want to be patroon, Mr. Van Haren? Gerrit? This is your opportunity to dismantle the estate. Or keep it if you like. With such an inheritance, a man could do anything. Anything at all. If you had been born with less, mayhap you would not be so quick to cast such fortune aside.”

  “You have no notion of what you have done.”

  “I have delivered you Harenwyck.”

  And put Annatje in the gravest danger. “I must go,” said Gerrit.

  “You would be far better off to stay out of it until the insurrection runs its course,” advised André, but Gerrit was already on his way out of the cabin, toward the gangplank.

  André did not attempt to stop him, but trailed along behind, not disliking his role, it appeared, as the unheard voice of reason. “Return to Harenwyck in the morning, Gerrit. Or better, late afternoon. As lord of the manor. Put things right . . . as you see fit.” The major lingered for a time at the rail, with an air of puzzlement or mild reproof, watching Gerrit begin to row himself back to the dock.

  As he bent to the oars, back warming to the effort and lungs drinking deep of the night air, Gerrit hoped against hope that Annatje and Pieter had been delayed, or returned there for some reason. He needed to see her, to lay eyes on her, to know that she was all right. If she wasn’t still in the mill, she was riding straight into the hands of her persecutors.

  Though he made good time, it seemed an age before he arrived back at the dock. He ran through all three cavernous structures calling her name, but there was no answer; there was no one there at all.

  Cursing the time wasted, he saddled his horse and rode hard for the Halve Maen. Each minute on the trails and road seemed an hour, an eternity. And when he arrived he found all in darkness, the doors barred and windows shuttered. Gerrit hammered on them until he roused the Duyser family, but the tavern keeper insisted he had closed at m
idday. He knew about Rie and Ida and Jan and the trouble they were raising, of course, but had wanted no part of it, not for him or his. It was too wild, too risky.

  Neither Mynheer Duyser nor any of his family had seen Pieter or Annatje. There was only one other place to look for her: at the manor.

  • • •

  At first Anna thought that the lights were the windows of the Halve Maen, but as they grew closer she realized that there were far too many of them and they were too low to the ground.

  “I don’t like the looks of that, baas,” said Pieter, reining up and scanning the way before them. He had been calling her that since they left the mill. “Nor the sound of it, neither.”

  They were on a flat stretch of road bordered by cornfields, the stalks cut to stubble in the recent harvest. A great mass of men and women seemed to coalesce out of the darkness less than a hundred paces away, moving noisily, inexorably toward them. There was nowhere to hide.

  “No more do I,” admitted Anna.

  Moments later, they were close enough that Anna could distinguish the faces of the tenants at the front of the column. There was a tall, gaunt woman leading them. Her eyes fixed on Anna in recognition.

  “Annatje Hoppe!” she cried out, voice wild as a crow’s caw. The lanky woman had a mane of red hair turning ash gray and a scythe in her hands. And Anna had no doubts—none at all—as to who she must be. The rioters were being led by Rie Dijkstra. The sister of the schout she had killed.

  “Ride!” Anna shouted to Pieter.

  She did not wait to see if he followed her instructions. The mob was not after him. She turned her horse and urged it to speed. She knew better than to look back. That was one of the things the Widow had taught her. When someone is chasing you, never turn around. Those are seconds you will never get back, and if your adversary is quick enough, they will be your last.