Call of Freedom, page 44
‘Thank you, but, unfortunately, I know nothing about woodworking.’
‘Hah, lad, they say necessity is the father of invention. You will learn quick.’
‘No, I really must return to New Rochelle with my father. There is so much to do there.’
‘There will always be so much to do.’
‘True, but I must go.’
‘Well then, if that is your final word, that’s fine,’ said John reassuringly. ‘And you are wise to take it in the sober light of day. For it is a decision that you will look back upon for the rest of your life, one way or the other,’ he said, gazing appreciatively along the ship’s graceful flank. Turning back to Paul, he added, ‘She weighs anchor within the hour. Join her if you will.’
‘I… I really must be going,’ said Paul, pulling himself away. Then he walked at a brisk pace the way he came, without turning back.
A little later that morning, Jacob and Paul were walking along Dock Street under an overcast sky where fingers of sunshine edged between gilt-tinged clouds. ‘Something on your mind, Paul?’ said Jacob to his son, who had been quieter than usual since their breakfast of porridge washed down with a mug of cider.
‘Hardly,’ said Paul evenly. ‘I was just wondering about the glass.’
‘It should be easy to return next week by boat to fetch it back to New Rochelle. I mentioned it to the pastor yesterday; he said there’ll be far more sailings back and forth, what with the warmer weather.’
Indeed, Paul could smell and see spring about them in the burgeoning city trees and gardens they had passed along as New Yorkers went about their business. ‘Good,’ said Paul as his gaze turned seaward to the Bonaventura sailing out into the bay, her figurehead cutting gracefully through the enamel-like water. ‘I shall look forward to sailing again.’
They sliced their way through the busy marketplace crowd, where they ignored vendors calling out their wares, and then strode out into the elbow of Broad Way that straightened into an extended avenue. Half an hour later, they were passing by the old Darlington house, where they had lodged upon their arrival in New York. It was also the place of Paul’s convalescence and where he first set eyes on that young girl full of spirit, bordering on impropriety. Now the half-demolished house seemed to reflect the ruins of his abandoned dream.
They continued until they came to the Ducamps’ place, which comprised a main residence and Didier’s office. Jacob had since learnt more about Ducamp’s occupation. Didier had purchased Darlington’s ketch after Daniel’s flight from New York. Didier then had little by little, with his wife’s financial backing, built up a lumber business, which now boasted an extra couple of ketches to deal with the shipments brought in from along the Hudson and East rivers, and Long Island. Jacob’s visit was not only a social call then, but also a business visit in that he wanted to pick Didier’s brain about clearing some land of trees, when to fell them, and how much their sale was likely to bring. Then there was the question of the grain mill he intended to place near a stream. He hoped Didier could point him to a mill builder who could design one.
Ducamp gave them as warm a greeting as his taciturn nature could muster; then he accompanied them to his fine house across the lumber yard, grown too small for his needs.
Moreover, he explained, most of the land he previously rented for wood storage had been sold, as the land north of Wall Street was becoming increasingly residential. ‘We have a wood storage place down by the shore now,’ he told Jacob as they crossed the yard, while his wife’s carriage was pulling up outside the house. May had just seen her youngest to the Huguenot dame school and greeted the two visitors in her usual exuberant and friendly manner, which contrasted with Didier’s more confidential demeanour. It seemed the pair were a perfect match of opposites, thought Jacob. He guessed that May was behind the networking side of the business.
The equally fiery bonnet of her eldest daughter soon appeared from the dim carriage. It seemed to Paul that over the winter, she had changed shape. Her hips were wider, although still slender, and her bust had deepened. He made an effort to refrain from overtly looking her up and down, but his surprise was no less impressed on his face, which made Lily-Anne smile knowingly, in turn making Paul feel slightly awkward. After all, this was the young lady who had nursed him back to life, had listened to his deepest disappointments, and had cared for him enough to show him a clear way forward from the fog of despair in which he had found himself. His eyes seemed to thank her as they exchanged a meaningful glance and shared a nod of greeting.
Jacob insisted they would not stop long—they still needed to pay a visit to the seal cutter’s to order a new set of seals—but they would gladly stay for tea and ontbijtkoek, a delicious spicy cake sweetened with molasses.
Questions infused with good humour and genuine concern were exchanged around the dining table in the panelled common room, which May had tastefully decorated in the French style. Yes, Jeanne and the children were in good health and enjoyed village life in New Rochelle. Indeed, it had been very cold, but no lack of timber meant they were able to keep warm in their new abode. Jacob was tacitly impressed by what he had seen—the outside office building, the house and gardens, and now the room—all of which were clear indications of how a man of Ducamp’s modest station could aspire to rise in society here.
The conversation soon shifted to business. ‘Here it is,’ said Jacob, bringing out a slip of folded paper upon which he had carefully drawn his main seal. Around its perimeter, he had inscribed Delpech & Son along with New York at the centre, the whole adorned with an elaborate design of two barrels and a grapevine, which everyone found admirable, although possibly a little intricate. ‘We shall be back in a week or two to pick up the seals,’ said Jacob, who explained they would keep their lock-up in New York in the same way they had kept their business address in Dublin, even though they had resided in the country.
When Jacob put the question about the construction of watermills, May said she could point him to a clever carpenter who would fulfil his needs for his small mill, while Didier went into detail regarding tree felling and associated costs. As May rose to fetch an address, Lily-Anne, taking advantage of the interruption, asked if she could show Paul the new horse she had received for her birthday. Giving Paul no choice, she beckoned him to follow her to the stable that annexed the house.
‘There,’ she said, a few minutes later, once they were at the stable doors, ‘I wanted to save you from a drawn-out conversation between old folks.’ Paul looked quite shocked at her remark, but then she laughed out loud. ‘Only joking,’ she said as she unbarred the door, which Paul pulled open to the sound of a nickering horse and the scent of fresh manure. ‘I just wanted to see your face. But Daddy can go on for hours about how to fell a poor tree, which quite makes me cringe. The only time the Indians fell a tree is for making their canoes. Ama says every time you cut one down, it’s like destroying a medicine store. Anyway, how is New Rochelle?’
‘Well, where to begin? It is a village,’ said Paul drily as he followed her into the dim stable, where she lovingly greeted her horse with her forehead pressed between its ears. Paul went on, ‘A nice one, though, with good people.’
‘But it’s a village all the same,’ said Lily-Anne, detecting a note of frustration. ‘But it will grow. And according to your father, your business will be partly here in New York anyway.’
‘True,’ said Paul, holding out his hand for the horse to sniff.
‘Meet Ahanu,’ said Lily-Anne, pleased to see the horse’s friendly greeting. ‘It means joyful.’
Paul, sensing the animal was proud but good-natured, gave him an affectionate pat on the neck. ‘Handsome fella,’ he said, rubbing the horse’s shoulder, which brought him physically closer to Lily-Anne.
‘I see you no longer need a stick,’ she said from the opposite side of Ahanu’s muzzle.
‘I threw it on the fire,’ said Paul, smiling.
‘And I hope you are equally cured of thoughts of going to sea.’
How could she possibly suspect he still entertained such thoughts? he wondered. ‘Actually, I have been studying my father’s law books. I hope perhaps to learn about court proceedings.’
‘Have you told your father your plans?’ Clearly, she too had noticed and son on the sketch of the seal.
‘Not yet. I shall do so when the time is right.’ Lily-Anne said nothing. Paul continued, ‘I do believe I could be good at it. But I will need to find out if I can join a firm to learn the ropes, for there is no school here where I can study.’
‘I’m glad you will be learning the ropes on land rather than at sea. I feel quite proud of you, for some reason.’
‘I cannot say the sea is entirely out of my system, though,’ said Paul truthfully, realising he was in danger of becoming self-centred. But she had a way of pulling the words out of him. So, he pressed on, ‘But I did manage to refuse an offer only this morning. A good one, on a merchant ship called the Bonaventura.’
‘I thought they wouldn’t take you if you can’t climb.’
‘I wouldn’t need to for some jobs, apparently. But there is nothing more to say on the matter as that ship sailed this morning.’ Paul jerked his head away as the horse snorted and swung its muzzle toward him. ‘Whoa, boy, good boy,’ he said gently.
‘I’m glad you’ve found your anchor in books.’ She had chosen her words well, thought Paul. It was indeed as though he had anchored himself to books to keep him from wandering. Yet what would he do once those books had run out? He hoped that further learning and an occupation would keep him anchored, but for that to happen, he would need to further his knowledge. The question was, where? Where would he continue his schooling? How would he enter a firm at his age? Lily-Anne continued, ‘I saw a book on law the other day. It belonged to a deceased juror, so I thought of you.’
‘Thank you!’ said Paul, bashfully deflecting the kindness of her thought with a lighthearted jerk of the head, while she kissed her horse on the nose.
‘Ha-ha, not because it belonged to a dead juror,’ she guffawed. The horse gave a snort as if he got the jest too, which made them both laugh. ‘So, tell me more about New Rochelle.’
He told her they had begun preparing the ground—at least, a few plots of it, the most exposed to the sun—and hoped to start planting barley and peas when they got home. But their chat was abruptly interrupted by a call from the scullery door. ‘Lily-Anne!’ her mother hollered. ‘Come and show Mr Delpech your medicinal tinctures for a bad back.’
He wanted to talk more, to listen more, to get back to the depths of their previous exchanges. But the call stopped him in his tracks as Lily-Anne yelled out, ‘Coming, Mother!’
Jacob held the reins loosely as the cart, filled with sacks of seed, tools, and baskets of provisions, rolled tranquilly along the East River Road, with the bedazzling rising sun on his right.
Paul, sitting on his left, his gaze locked on the dewy verge, was lost in his thoughts. All said and done, he mused to himself, he was not really suited to become a carpenter’s mate anyway. He had no inclination for carpentry as some lads had, and besides, wasn’t he too old to be ordered about like a lackey? He concluded that either John Barbeck had underestimated his age, or he was desperate to fill the position. As they rattled along, he marvelled at how, within the short space of their visit to New York, the surrounding pearling vegetation had made stunning progress. Clusters of bright yellow, white, and purple blooms showed here and there.
Jacob noticed it too. Lowering his pipe, he turned to Paul and said, ‘Time to plant, by the looks of it.’
‘Yes,’ said Paul, coming back to himself. ‘Hopefully, we can get it in before we return for the glass and seals.’ The haunting caw-caw of crows in the mist caused him to glance back over his left shoulder toward the sprawling town, now without a wall and open to the misty hinterland of Manhattan. He focussed his sight on the gleaming sheen of a cantering horse as it disturbed the birds dipping into the soft earth of a field. Then he recognised the blazing head of the young lady riding sidesaddle, her fallen hat fluttering against her back. Paul’s heart rose in his chest as he elbowed his father, who looked back and then pulled the cart to a standstill at a clearing beside the river, leaving ample breadth for an oncoming market cart to easily pass by.
At last, Lily-Anne halted her horse abreast of the cart, beside Paul. Catching her breath, she said, ‘I missed you at the inn. They said you’d already taken to the road. So, I’m glad I didn’t have to venture far.’ She was as fresh as the spring morning, racy and splendid as she sat on her horse in her best riding clothes, her thick green skirts falling to the top of her boots. Her large, captivating blue eyes, the whiteness of her complexion, and her heavy locks of auburn hair that tumbled upon her slender shoulders made Paul’s heart beat faster as he greeted her. From a leather saddlebag, she brought out a ceramic pot wrapped in cloth. ‘Mr Delpech,’ she said to Jacob spiritedly, passing the pot to Paul, ‘this is what you’ll need for your back. It’s an ointment. You just need to rub it in, and it will relieve stiffness, although it won’t make it go away, I’m afraid.’ Jacob took the gift with thanks, while Lily-Anne reached into her pouch and brought out a thick book which she handed to Paul. ‘This is the book I told you about. I happened to stumble upon it again when I picked up my sister yesterday afternoon from her school.’
‘The Third Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England by Edward Coke,’ Paul read out as he took the hefty book from her slender hands. ‘Thank you very much,’ he said, unflinchingly grateful as he placed the book on his knees and turned the first page in awe. ‘This will be an essential addition to my collection. Thank you, Lily-Anne. I will repay you for it on my return.’
‘No need,’ she returned forthrightly. ‘Anyway, can’t stand here on parade, and you’ve a long road ahead of you. Have a safe journey back!’ Pushing Ahanu onward, she then swung him round. ‘Come back soon!’ she hollered and then cantered off as quickly as she had arrived, amid the orange haze of sunlight.
‘A thoughtful young lady, indeed,’ said Jacob, glancing at Paul out of the corner of his eye.
‘Father, she is just a friend. Besides, she is still a child.’
‘Women become wiser and fuller quicker than us men, my boy,’ said Jacob, giving a shake of the reins. ‘Hyah!’ With that, the cart trundled forward, as Paul glanced back at the fiery shock of hair flowing over the dewy fields on the outskirts of town.
Chapter 32
Spring, 1700
Two days before the sloop was slated to sail from New Rochelle to New York, Jacob put his back out while taking a turn at manoeuvring the heavy wooden plough behind the draft horse. Paul had warned him to leave the ploughing and harrowing to the younger farmhands, who were used to manoeuvring on a slope. But Jacob had wanted to show them that he was not just a settler with means.
If truth be told, however, he wasn’t excessively put out at being too incapacitated to make the voyage; he had never enjoyed travelling by waterway anyway, and he had not been looking forward to navigating the infamous waters of Hell Gate, albeit in a shallow-draft vessel. At table the day before the due departure, Jacob gave Paul instructions which he had written down on paper, even though Jeanne would have preferred to put back the trip to the following week, when Jacob would have recovered.
‘Worry not, Mother, I shall take it all in my stride,’ said Paul in an attempt to gain the upper hand. Then to press home his statement, he added, ‘Just as I did when I travelled from Montauban to Geneva when I was just a boy.’
‘You had a guide, Paul,’ said Jeanne, quick to remind him—perhaps too quick and too defensive, for she still often saw the young boy he once was, and sometimes spoke to him as such, which Paul was finding increasingly exasperating. Would her perception of him stick to him like horse glue for the rest of his life?
‘Mother, I am twenty-one,’ he sighed. ‘I can look after myself very well.’
She gave him the sharp stare from when he was a boy. ‘Paul, my dear, I haven’t gone through deprivation, separation, and hardship to see my children put themselves into harm’s reach.’
‘With respect, Mother, aren’t you forgetting that I too went through equal hardship? It was hard, but I too made it through, even though I didn’t entirely understand why we were fleeing. I had no choice anyway. Neither did I have any choice in leaving behind Ireland and my hopes of becoming a soldier.’ At last, it was out. Paul had been finding it increasingly challenging to keep his frustrations bubbling under his hat. He just wanted to make a point. Not wanting to be hurtful, he added more gently, ‘But now I do have a choice, Mother. I am going to New York. I will fetch the glass for the house and the seals for Papa.’
‘And in that case, do tell Lily-Anne for me that her ointment has helped,’ interrupted Jacob, trying to calm things down while gently stamping his agreement to let his son go.
Jeanne pursed her lips at Jacob’s clever reminder of the girl. He had told her about the parting gifts, but she had accredited the gesture with nothing beyond innocent thoughtfulness. Yet wasn’t she still rather young? Nevertheless, Jeanne had the abrupt realisation that there would be another Mrs Delpech one day. ‘In that case, my dear son,’ she said with the gallant smile of one defeated, ‘if you see Mrs Ducamp, give her my fond regards.’ Jacob gave her one of his furtive glances of approval and gratitude. She had no choice but to concede.
Yet, call it instinct or motherly concern, she experienced a visceral inkling that this trip would change the course of her son’s life forever. Nevertheless, ce qui sera, sera, she tried to tell herself, as Jacob continued to explain the details of Paul’s mission to him. Firstly, he was to check the seals before acceptance. Secondly, he had to fetch the glass and oversee its safe loading aboard the return ship in accordance with Jacob’s meticulous packaging instructions.
