New York_ The Novel - Edward Rutherfurd [15]
“There is risk,” he warned.
She knew. Some of the largest investors in the colony were rich widows and wives. She had consulted them all.
“No doubt. But I trust your judgment.” She watched him consider. Had he guessed her plan? Probably. But it was hardly an offer to be refused. He thought, then smiled.
“My dear wife,” he answered in an affectionate voice, “I am honored by your trust and I will do whatever I can for our family.”
It had been the richest woman in the colony, a widow who’d just taken her third young husband, who’d given her the advice. “Don’t rule your husband. But arrange the conditions in which he will make his choices.” It would not take long, Margaretha judged, for van Dyck to get a taste for larger transactions. And for the busy social life that went with them. He’d soon be too occupied in New Amsterdam to go running after Indian women in the wilderness. And once he became accustomed to his new life, he’d also be too afraid of her cutting off the funds, even if he were tempted to stray.
“I shall still need to go upriver,” he remarked.
“Oh?” She frowned.
“I can’t abandon the fur business I have. Not yet, anyway. We still need that income, don’t we?”
She hesitated. Actually, his earnings were useful; and unless she was willing to tell him how much money she really had, his argument was sound. But she saw his game. He was trying to slip off the hook. Damn him.
Did he have a woman out there in the wilderness? Or several? That Indian child, she was sure, had been his. Strictly speaking, he could be in serious trouble. In his passion for moral order, Stuyvesant had actually made it illegal to have sexual relations with Indians. But whatever her feelings, bringing her husband before the governor’s court was hardly going to solve anything. No, she’d remain calm. Let him wriggle as much as he liked, she could still outwit him. She’d keep him so busy that he wouldn’t have time to go upriver for long.
“You are right,” she said sweetly. Let him think he was winning.
The next few weeks went well for Dirk van Dyck. He soon became involved with a group of large merchants who were shipping tobacco to the great blending and flavoring factories across the Atlantic in old Amsterdam. He and Margaretha found themselves being entertained in some big merchant houses where he’d hardly set foot before. He’d bought a new hat and even some pairs of fine silk stockings. In the parlor, the chimney piece had been decorated with handsome, blue-and-white delft tiles. Margaretha had even taken Quash the slave boy, who had run about the place doing the odd jobs, dressed him up, and taught him to wait at table. When the old dominie had done them the honor of calling, he had particularly complimented them upon the smartness of the slave boy.
One day in June, when van Dyck was leaving a game of ninepins in a tavern, a young Dutch merchant had addressed him as Boss. And when a Dutchman called you “Baas,” it meant you were a big man, a man of respect. He walked with a new confidence; his wife seemed delighted with him.
So the quarrel, when it came, took him by surprise.
It was an evening in July. He was due to go upriver the next morning. Margaretha had known this for some time. So it seemed hardly reasonable to him when she suddenly said: “I think you should not go tomorrow.”
“Why ever not? The arrangements are made.”
“Because you shouldn’t leave your family when there is so much danger.”
“What danger?”
“You know very well. The English.”
“Oh.” He shrugged. “The English.”
She had a point of course. Springsteen the merchant, whose opinions he respected, had put it to him very well the other day. “The English want our