You can imagine how pleased the Mistress was. Some of the prominent Dutchmen supported him, like Doctor Beekman and some of the Stuyvesants. The Dutch small traders and craftsmen and all of the poorest Dutch were for him, because he was Dutch. The Huguenots that were arriving by almost every ship all liked him; and he helped them to have a Huguenot settlement out at the place they named New Rochelle, after one of the French towns they’d been kicked out of. And many of the English, especially out on Long Island, liked him, because they hated Catholics in general, and he was a good Protestant. Some of the most religious ones were even saying the Glorious Revolution was a sign that the Kingdom of God was at hand.
So Meinheer Leisler was ruler of New York for a while. But it wasn’t easy for him. I remember him coming by to see the Mistress one time and saying how hard it was to keep good order. “And I shall have to raise taxes,” he said. “They aren’t going to like me after that.” I could see that his face, which was always so jaunty, was looking tired and strained. “But one thing,” he said, “I promise you I’ll never give this town over to any Catholics again.” And Meinheer Leisler was running the town for about a year and a half.
But if the Mistress was all for him, the Boss was more cautious.
I first came to understand what was in the Boss’s mind one day when we were walking down the main street that runs from the fort up to the gateway, that the English were calling Broadway. That part of the town was mostly occupied by the lesser Dutch folk—carpenters, carmen, brick-makers, cordwainers and mariners. They all loved Leisler. And I remarked to the Boss how popular Meinheer Leisler was.
“Hmm,” he said. “It won’t do him much good, though.”
“How’s that, Boss?” I asked. But he didn’t say.
Soon enough, however, you could see what the trouble was. For Meinheer Leisler started putting ordinary folk into city offices and giving them power. Even the big Dutch merchants didn’t like that. Some of the dominies started complaining about him too.
The Mistress took no account of this complaining. She spoke up for Leisler all the time. “He is Dutch, and we have a Dutch king now,” she would say.
“But he is also an English king,” I heard the Master warn her once, “and his court is in London. The big merchants have friends in the English court, which Leisler does not.” He told her to be careful what she said.
Well, as the months went by, there was so much opposition from the leading men that Meinheer Leisler started to strike at them. He arrested Meinheer Bayard; and he had warrants out for van Cortlandt and several others. The ordinary Dutch folk who loved Meinheer Leisler even attacked some of those big men’s houses. Because he was rich, the Boss was even afraid they might come and burn his. One evening he came home saying there was going to be trouble in the streets, and when I told him the Mistress was out, he said, “Come with me, Quash. We’d better make sure she’s safe.” So we went round the town. And we were just coming along Beaver Street to the bottom of Broadway when we saw more than a hundred women marching to the fort to show their support for Meinheer Leisler. And there in the front row was the Mistress. For a moment the Boss looked so angry that I thought he was going to drag her out. But then he suddenly laughed. “Well, Quash,” he said, “I reckon this means they won’t be attacking our house.”
In the end, though, it all turned out as the Boss had warned. A ship arrived from London with troops to take over the city. Meinheer Leisler, knowing about all his enemies, held out in the fort saying he wouldn’t give over the city without direction from King William himself. But finally that came too. And then they arrested him, because the king had been told he was a dangerous rebel. “It’s your friends who engineered this,” the Mistress told the Boss.
“Just be glad they haven’t arrested you too,” he answered. Though when he heard the city fathers were asking King William if they could execute Meinheer Leisler, he said that would be a shame.
Just after this, the Boss and Mr. Master’s privateer came home. It had taken a small prize, but not enough to show much profit. They also had some slaves. But I didn’t like the look of those slaves.
“I don’t think they’re healthy,” Mr. Master said. “We’d better sell ’em quick.” And he sold them the next day.
All this time, poor Meinheer Leisler was locked up waiting to know his fate. Most of the people in the city were shocked. In our house, there was a terrible gloom. The Mistress was hardly speaking to anyone. Early in May, when one of the women that had been marching with the Mistress asked to borrow Naomi for a few days to do some needlework at her farm, the Mistress lent her; and I think Naomi was glad to get out. The house was so sad that I told her, “Take little Martha too.” So they went to that bouwerie, which was just a couple of miles north of the city, and they stayed there ten days.
During that time, the weather became very changeable. Some days it was hot and sultry, and the dung from the horses and the other animals was stinking in the streets; then there would be a day of cold and rain. Everybody seemed to feel it. My spirits are usually even, but I felt down. I could hardly do my work. Finally Naomi and little Martha returned late one evening. We didn’t talk much. They were so tired that they both went straight to sleep.
The next morning, I went out with the Boss to the waterfront. Mr. Master and the other merchants were settling accounts on the privateer, and discussing whether to send out another one. After that, we went by the fort, because the Boss and Mr. Master wanted news of Meinheer Leisler. When they came out, the Boss was shaking his head.
“Bayard’s determined to destroy him,” he said to Mr. Master. “I don’t believe they’ll even wait for King William.”
And they were just going into an inn, when we saw young Hudson running toward us.
“What is it, boy?” says the Boss.
“It’s Martha, sir,” he cried. “I think she’s dying.”
That poor child was burning up with fever. It was terrible to see her. And Naomi was looking sick and starting to shiver too.
“It was those slaves from the Boss’s ship,” she told me. “They’d been sold to the bouwerie we were at. They were sick when we arrived, and one of them died. I’m sure we did catch something from them.”
But nobody knew what the sickness was. All that night my little Martha was burning up, and by morning she could hardly breathe. Naomi and I were tending her, but around the middle of the night Naomi started taking the same way too. So I bathed them with cold water to try to take the fever down, but it didn’t seem to do much good.
Then in the morning, Miss Clara came to the door.
“You mustn’t come in, Miss Clara,” I said. “I don’t want you to get sick.”
“I know that, Quash,” she said. “But I want to tend to her.”
I almost choked when she said that. But I called to the Mistress at once to warn her to keep Miss Clara away. And the Mistress told her she mustn’t go in. But Miss Clara had a will of her own. She wouldn’t give in, even to the Boss and the Mistress. She said she wasn’t leaving until she’d given Martha some herbal drink that’d be good for her, that she’d brought. And the Boss said, “Give the drink to Quash then,” but she wouldn’t. And she stood there holding Martha’s hand, and gave her the drink. Martha could hardly swallow it, but maybe it did her some good, for she was quieter then. I managed to get her out of the room after that.
Well, about dusk, my little Martha died. Her mother being so exhausted had fallen into a fitful sleep a little while before. And not wanting the child’s body to be dead in the room with her, I picked Martha up and stole quietly down into the yard. And the Boss said I could put her in the stable for the time being, and that maybe I should bury her that night.
When I got back to Naomi, she was trying to sit up and looking for Martha.
“Where is she?” she cried.
“It’s cooler down below,” I said. I couldn’t bear to tell her the truth just then. “She’s resting there a while.” But at that moment through
the window we heard Clara weeping. So they must have told her.
“She’s dead, isn’t she?” says Naomi. “My little Martha’s dead.”
And I don’t know what came over me, but I couldn’t answer her. And then Naomi just fell back on her bed and closed her eyes.
Later that night she began to take the fever really bad. She was shivering and burning.
“I’m going, Quash,” she said to me. “I’m going tonight.”
“You’ve got to hold on if you can,” I said. “We need you, Hudson and me.”
“I know,” she said.
The next morning it began to rain. Just a slow, steady rain. I was tending Naomi, so I had no thought of what else was passing in the world that day. But in the afternoon, the Boss came into the yard and asked after Naomi.
“Have you heard the news?” he said to me then. “They executed poor Leisler today.”
“I’m sorry, Boss,” I said.
“The Mistress is taking it very hard,” he told me. “They gave him a traitor’s death.”
I knew what that meant. They hang you, but not long enough to kill you. Then they tear out your bowels and cut your head off. It was hard to think of such a thing happening to a gentleman like Meinheer Leisler.
“He was no more a traitor than I am,” said the Boss. “The people are taking pieces of his clothes as relics. They say he’s a martyr.” He sighed. “By the way, Hudson should remain in the kitchen tonight, I think.”
“Yes, Boss,” I said.
That night, the rain continued. I wondered if the coolness would help Naomi, but it didn’t seem to. Up to the middle of the night, the fever was causing her to toss and turn, and cry out. Then she grew quieter. Her eyes were closed, and I couldn’t tell if she was getting better or losing the fight. Toward dawn, I realized that the rain had stopped. Naomi’s breathing was shallow and she seemed very weak. Then she opened her eyes.
“Where’s Hudson?” she said.
“He’s fine,” I told her.
“I want to see him,” she whispered.
“You mustn’t,” I said.
She seemed to sink after that. About dawn I got up and went outside for a moment, to breathe some fresh air and look at the sky. It was clear. The morning star was in the east.
When I came back in, Naomi had gone.
The days after the funeral, the Boss and the Mistress were very good to me. The Boss made sure I had things to keep me busy, and he made sure that Hudson was working too. He was right to do that. As for the Mistress, she didn’t say much, but you could see that she was very shocked about the killing of Meinheer Leisler.
One day, as I was working in the yard, the Mistress came and stood beside me. She was looking sad. After a while, she said: “You and Naomi were happy together, weren’t you?” So I said, yes. “You didn’t quarrel?”
“We never had a cross word,” I answered.
She was quiet for a moment or two. Then she said: “Cruel words are a terrible thing, Quash. Sometimes you regret them. But what’s been said cannot be unsaid.”
I hardly knew how to answer that, so I kept working. After another moment or two, she nodded to herself, and went indoors.
Late that year, the Mistress got another slave woman to take the place of Naomi, and I believe she thought maybe I’d take up with her instead. But although she wasn’t a bad woman, we didn’t get along so well; and truth to tell, I don’t think anyone could have replaced Naomi.
Young Hudson was a great consolation to me. There being just the two of us, we spent a lot of time together. He was a handsome boy, and a good son. He never got tired of being at the waterfront. He’d get the sailors to teach him knots. I believe he knew every way to tie a rope there was. He could even make patterns with them. I taught him all I could, and I did tell him that I hoped that one day, if the Boss allowed it, we might both be free. But I did not speak of that much, for I did not want to raise his hopes too high, or for him to suffer disappointment if I was not able to get our freedom yet awhile. It always gave me joy to have him walking at my side. Often, as I was walking and talking to him, I’d rest my hand on his shoulder; and as he grew taller, sometimes he’d reach up and rest his hand on mine.
Those were difficult times for the Mistress, though. She was still a handsome woman. Her yellow hair had gone gray, but her face hadn’t changed so much. In these years, however, the lines started crowding her face, and when she was sad, she started to look old. It seemed that nothing was going her way. For although most people were still speaking Dutch in the city, every year there seemed to be more English laws.
Then the English wanted their Church—the Anglican Church as they call it—to be the leading religion of the place. And the governor said that no matter what church you went to, you still had to pay money to support the Anglican priests. That made a lot of people angry, especially the Mistress. But some of the dominies were so anxious to please the governor that they didn’t complain, and even offered to share their churches with the Anglicans until they could build their own.
She had her family at least. But the Boss, although he was more than sixty years of age, was always busy. Since King William’s War against the French was still continuing, there were plenty of privateers going out; and the Boss and Mr. Master were busy with those. Sometimes he’d go upriver for furs. Once he went away with Mr. Master down the coast to Virginia.
She would be often at Jan’s house, which was not far off, seeing her grandchildren. And Clara was a comfort to her. But Clara was often out of the house, and I reckon the Mistress was lonely.
It was a summer afternoon soon after the Boss and Mr. Master had returned from Virginia that the family all gathered in the house for dinner. Jan and his wife Lysbet were there and their daughters, and Miss Clara. Hudson and I were serving at table. Everybody was cheerful. And we had just brought in the Madeira at the end of the meal when Miss Clara stood up and told them she had an announcement to make.
“I have good news,” she said, looking around at them all. “I am to be married.”
The Mistress looked quite astonished, and asked whom she was wanting to marry.
“I’m going to marry young Henry Master,” she said.
Well, I had a plate in my hand, and I almost dropped it. As for the Mistress, she looked at Miss Clara, disbelieving.
“The Master boy,” she cried. “He’s not even Dutch.”
“I know,” said Miss Clara.
“He’s much younger than you,” the Mistress said.
“Plenty of women in this town have married younger men,” Miss Clara countered. And she named a rich Dutch lady who’d had three young husbands.
“Have you spoken to the dominie?”
“It’s no use the dominie saying anything. We are to be married in the Anglican church, by Mr. Smith.”
“Anglican?” The Mistress made a sort of gasping sound. “His family dares to demand that?”
“It was my idea.”
The Mistress just sat there staring at her as if she couldn’t believe it. Then she looked at the Boss. “You knew of this?”
“I heard something. But Clara’s more than thirty now, and a widow. She’ll make up her own mind.”
Then the Mistress turned to her son and asked him if he had known.
“I had a notion of it,” he said.
After he said that, the Mistress seemed to sag in her chair.
“It would have been kinder,” she said quietly, “if somebody had told me.”
“We didn’t know for sure,” said Jan.
“It’s not so bad, Greet,” said the Boss cheerfully. “Henry’s a nice boy.”
“So, Clara,” the Mistress continued, “you are happy to marry an Englishman, and desert your Church. This means nothing to you?”
“I love him,” Clara replied.
“That will pass,” said the Mistress. “You realize that in an English marriage, you will have few rights.”
“I know the law.”
“You
must never belong to your husband, Clara. Dutchwomen are free.”
“I am not worried, Mother.”
Nobody said anything for a moment. The Mistress looked down at the table.
“I see,” she said at last, “that my family cares nothing for me.” She nodded. “You are all in league with Master.” She turned to Miss Clara. “I wish you joy of it.”
Later that year, Mr. Smith, the English clergyman, married them. The Mistress refused to attend the service. People weren’t surprised. Many of her Dutch friends would have felt the same. When the Boss came back afterward, she was sitting in the parlor looking like a thundercloud. He was looking quite contented, and I could see he’d had a few drinks.
“Don’t worry, my dear,” he said. “You weren’t missed.”
I’d have been happy enough myself, if only my son Hudson hadn’t wanted to go to sea. He was always pestering me about it, and the Boss was all in favor. Mr. Master said he’d take him any time, and it was only because the Boss knew I didn’t wish it, and that Hudson was all I had, that he didn’t hire him to Mr. Master. “You’re costing me money, Quash,” he told me, and he wasn’t joking.
One day Mr. Master came to the house with a Scottish gentleman named Captain Kidd. He’d been a privateer and married a rich Dutch widow. He was a well-set man, very upright. He had a weather-beaten face, but he always wore a fine wig, and a spotless cravat and a rich coat of blue or red. The Mistress called him a pirate; but having so much money now, he was very respectable and was friends with the governor and all the best families. Mr. Master told him how young Hudson could tie all kinds of knots, and made Hudson show him, and the captain was very impressed.
“That slave laddie o’ yours belongs at sea, van Dyck,” he said in his Scottish voice. “Ye should make him a mariner.” Then he sat in the parlor telling the Boss tales of his adventures in front of Hudson, and for a month after that I had a terrible time with my son wanting to go to sea.
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