The covenant - James A. Michener [118]
With pride Paul led his family to this church on Sundays, pointing out to the boys the various other Frenchmen who worked along the waterfront. It was an impoverished congregation, with many families subsisting only through the generosity of Dutch patrons, but invariably someone in the group provided flowers for the altar, and it was because De Pre commented on this that his good fortune commenced.
One Monday morning, as Paul and Vermaas were hefting bales of cloth onto their weigh-scales, the big man said, 'You like flowers, don't you, Paul?'
'Where does the church always find flowers?'
'The Widows Bosbeecq send them over. They're looking for someone to tend their garden.'
'Who are the widows?'
'Aloo! This one doesn't know the Widows Bosbeecq!' And the workmen came to joke with him.
'What ship have you been unloading?' When De Pre pointed, the men cried, 'That's their ship. And that one and that one.'
It seemed that seven of the best ships sailing the Baltic belonged to the widows, and Vermaas explained, 'Two country girls married the Bosbeecq brothers. The men were fine captains who worked the Baltic for many years. In time they had seven ships, like that one.'
'How did they die?'
'Fighting the English, how else?'
In 1667 the older Bosbeecq brother had accompanied the Dutch fighting fleet right into the river Thames, threatening to capture London itself; he had gone down with his ship the next year. The younger brother helped in three notable victories over the English, but he, too, had died at the hands of the English, and the family's profitable trade with Russia might have evaporated had not the two widows stepped forward to operate the fleet. Choosing with rural skill those captains who would best preserve their profits, they continued to send their doughty potbellied vessels to all parts of the Baltic.
Sometimes the widows would appear at the docks, always together and with parasols imported from Paris, and would primly inspect whichever of their ships happened to be in the harbor, nodding sagely to their captains and approving of the manner in which their cargoes were being handled. They were in their sixties, somewhat frail, dressed in black. They walked carefully, attended by a maid who shoved idlers aside for them. One was tall and very thin; the other was roundish, always with a broad smile. Never once did they complain about anything, but Vermaas assured De Pre that when they had their captains alone in the family office, they could be quite tart.
A few days after their conversation Vermaas ran up to De Pre with exciting news: 'It happened by accident. When the Bosbeecq factor was here the other day I told him you liked flowers. He became quite interested, because the Widows Bosbeecq are still looking for a gardener.' So it was arranged that Paul quit work early one afternoon and accompany the Bosbeecq factor to the tall, thin house on the Oudezijdsvoorburgwal (Old-sides-forward-city-dyke) where the widows waited.
'We have a large garden,' they explained, and from a narrow window Paul could see a garden so neatly trimmed that he could scarcely believe it was real. 'We like it neat.' There was also much work to be done inside the house, and the widows wondered if Paul had a wife. 'Is she able?' they asked. 'Is she encumbered with children?'
'We have only two boys.' Quickly he added, 'They're quite grown, of course.'
'How old?'
'Six and five.'
'Oh, dear. Oh, dear.' The sisters-in-law looked at each other in real dismay.
Paul sensed that his entire future depended upon what he did next, and he started to say, 'Those boys have walked all the way from . . .' Dramatically he stopped, for he knew that this was irrelevant. Instead he said quietly,