Dragonwyck (11 page)

Suddenly, in unconscious response to the steadiness of Nicholas' gaze, she raised her eyelids and looked full at him. A shock ran through her. Her heart beat in slow thick strokes. They looked across the room into each other's eyes for a half a second only, then Nicholas turning to the Countess said smoothly: 'Ah, that is most interesting, madame. Tell me more about your little Blaise.'

But Miranda knew that for all the triviality of the incident something cataclysmic had occurred. Their relationship had changed and from this point there could be no going back.

That night she had a dream in which her father came to her at Dragonwyck, and she ran to him with a joyous affection that she had never felt in reality.

'I've come to take you home, my girl,' he said, caressing her. And she clung to him crying for happiness, and yet she could not go. For a while she struggled frantically while her father receded and beckoned to her from across a shadowy gulf. Then she looked down at her body and saw that it was bound around with many colored flashing chains like jewels. 'You see I can't get free!' she cried. 'The chains are holding me.' Her father's face grew angry. You can free yourself if ye'll but try!' he shouted. She shook her head and he vanished. At once the chains grew light as clouds. She gathered them up in her hands and fell to kissing the jeweled links. And as she kissed them fear came to her, a fear so sharp that she awakened.

For a while she lay shivering in bed, but soon in the growing light she felt the security of her familiar room. She watched the bureau and the great Kas dwindle from dim monsters to useful pieces of furniture. The first rays of the summer sun slanted across the distant Taghkanic Mountains into her windows. She got up and looked out. The Catskills seemed near and distinct. She could make out scattered rooftops down the river at Coxsackie. The Hudson's waters were brightly blue and ruffled by nothing except the wake of a great schooner bound for Albany.

Below the houses on the vast lawns, booths covered with red, white, and blue bunting, picnic tables, and a carrousel had been set up during the night. From a distant grove of hemlocks came the squeak of a fiddle and the wheeze of a hand organ where the rustic musicians were practicing.

It would be a fine day for the festivities.

BREAKFAST THAT MORNING WAS HURRIED AND eaten to the accompaniment of confusion from outside. Nicholas' tenants were beginning to arrive in their rattling farm wagons and there was a constant stamping and whinnying of heavy draft horses, shouts from the men, excited squeals from the children as they spied the carrousel and the picnic booths, a quacking and cackling of poultry, and the bleating of lambs which had been brought as tribute to the patroon.

This was one of the semiannual rent-days, and before Nicholas' speech and the merrymaking which would follow it must come business. A platform had been set up under a large tulip tree and upon it were an armchair, a table, and several smaller chairs.

At ten o'clock Nicholas mounted this platform accompanied by Dirck Duyckman, his bailiff, the Count, and Miranda. Johanna had not attended this recurring ceremony for several years. It bored her, and she disliked being gawked at by the yokels, one of whom had once made loud and uncomplimentary remarks on her figure. The man had been punished, not as Nicholas' grandfather would have punished him, by a day in the stocks, but in a more modern way—by confiscating a portion of his farm on which he had been laggard in paying rent. But after this Johanna appeared no more on rent-day' until the tenants had gone home.

The Countess also preferred to remain in her room and rest, but the Count was interested in this feudal custom, and as for Miranda she was always glad to be near Nicholas and take part in the life of Dragonwyck whenever she was invited to do so.

Nicholas seated himself in the traditional 'rent-chair' of carved oak black with age, for it had come from Holland with the first patroon and been used for this purpose ever since. The bailiff stood beside him holding a great gold-stamped ledger. He cleared his throat and called importantly, 'Let the tenants come forward, single file, with their payments. The patroon is ready!'

The crowd of farmers who had been kept on the back lawn by a rope shuffled, and sheepishly removing their hats arranged themselves in order. Two of the Van Ryn footmen lowered the rope.

A wizened little man in brown homespun stepped up to the platform clutching two gray geese and a bumpy sack of potatoes.

'Tom Wilson,' said the bailiff, thumbing through his ledger. 'Hollow Farm on the north road. Poultry and potatoes. Co—rect.' He eyed the geese narrowly. "Them birds is a mite skinny, Tom. Couldn't you bring no better than that?'

The wizened little man shook his head, casting an anxious glance at Nicholas, who sat silently attentive. 'I couldn't do no better, sir. My corn give out and the crops is bad so far. We ain't getting enough rain. 'Sides, my old woman she's powerful sick; she can't feed the poultry like she used to.'

Nicholas leaned forward. 'I'm sorry to hear that, Tom. Has she had the doctor?'

'No, she ain't. She don't hold with no doctors, they won't do her no good. She thinks there's someone witching her, maybe old Molly Clabber lives down the road.'

'Nonsense,' said Nicholas. 'If she's sick she needs a doctor. Duyckman, look into this later and report to me.'

The bailiff nodded. Tom Wilson said, 'Thanky, sir,' dubiously, and touched his forehead. He deposited the geese and potatoes in a large pen to the right of the platform and walked over to a keg of beer which had been provided for the tenants.

The bailiff signaled and another farmer came up. The procedure was repeated. Jed Ribling had brought a spring lamb, a side of bacon, and a sack of flour ground at the village mill. He too was entered in the ledger, placed his stuff in the pen, and joined Tom Wilson at the beer keg.

They filed slowly by, the Dutch names, the English names, a scattering of German ones. Nicholas spoke to each one asking after the health of some member of the family, or inquiring into the condition of the crops.

Miranda from her corner of the platform watched him breathlessly, admiring his infallible memory for names, his detailed knowledge of his tenants' lives, the graciousness with which he said just the right word to everybody.

'Ma foi,
he is like a young king,' whispered die Count, leaning over to her. Though I have never seen a king so 'andsome.'

'Oh, yes,' she whispered back enthusiastically. 'He is like a king, isn't he! No wonder they all admire him!'

The Count suppressed a smile. He was not sure that all the peasants who filed past depositing their geese and their sheep and their vegetables were as worshiping of Nicholas as Miranda was. He had noticed sullen looks, and some of the faces had not responded to the patroon's undeniable charm and rather condescending graciousness. But they kept on coming docilely enough. And the kermiss was now in full swing on the far lawn: the young people were jigging back and forth to the music of the fiddles. The carrousel, propelled by a white horse, was crowded with children and twirling merrily. Mug after mug was filled with beer, and the sweetmeats counter with its sugared olykoecks, its seed cakes and rock candy had to be continually replenished by servants running to and from the great house. The bowling green was extremely popular, and beyond it by the privet hedge which separated the kermiss from the forbidden grounds near the house several boisterous games of knuckle bones were in progress.

Scarcely a half dozen farmers were left, and Miranda, whose interest had slackened a little, was wondering if it would be all right for her to join in the kermiss, which represented far more gaiety than she had ever seen in her life, when she jerked around, startled by a small commotion.

A tall farmer of about thirty stood defiantly below the platform, his hands in his pockets, his under jaw thrust forth.

'Klaas Beecker, two bushels of winter wheat and—' began the bailiff, then checked himself angrily. Take your hat off to the patroon, man.'

Klaas raised his grimed red hands and jerked his hat down on his head. 'I take my hat off to no man. I'm a free American citizen.'

The bailiff swelled, his fat belly quivered. 'Take your hat off or I'll knock it off. And where's yer rent?'

Klaas turned his back on the bailiff; his small narrowed eyes fixed themselves on Nicholas' face with a malignance that frightened Miranda, who had not the vaguest idea what it was all about. The Count hitched his chair forward, delighted at this interesting incident in rather dull proceedings.

"I've brought ye no rent, Nicholas Van Ryn,' said Klaas harshly, 'nor will ye ever again get so much as a grain of wheat from me.'

Nicholas' eyebrows raised a trifle; except for a slight tightening of the lips his expression remained as calm as before.

'Indeed?' he said pleasantly. 'And do you propose to farm my lands, and enjoy the many privileges which I allow you, without making any return?'

Klaas's face contorted, he made a violent gesture and turned to the small group of farmers who were yet to follow him.

'Do you hear him, friends!' he shouted. 'The damned patroon! He talks of
his
lands. 'Tis my own farm he talks of, 'twas my father's and his father's before him. For nigh two hundred years the Hill Farm has belonged to Beeckers, and he dares to call it his.'

The men he addressed shifted uneasily, one of them nodded, another clenched his fist, but they all kept a wary eye on Nicholas, who said softly: 'But it happens that it
is
my land and always will be, no matter how long you have been there or intend to stay. Nor may you stay unless you pay your just rent.'

'By God! This is the blackest injustice that ever was. We've paid the worth of the land many times over in rent and ye know it. There ye sit lolling in your easy-chair grinding out of us the pitiful little results of our sweat that we may keep the lands that rightfully belong to us. I'll stand it no longer, I tell ye, and there's many another who feels like me. Ye'll find out, my fine young squire!'

'Klaas, be reasonable, man,' interposed the bailiff with a frightened look at Nicholas. 'True, ye cannot actually take title to the lands, but look what the patroon does for you. The church he has built, and the mill, the market boats he runs so you may sell your stuff, the doctor he sends when you're sick.'

'Faugh!' The farmer filled his mouth with spittle and aimed it directly at the platform. 'He does nothing for us, ye fat nincompoop, that we could not do better for ourselves.'

The ball of spittle landed on Nicholas' shoe. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his shoe, and tossed the handkerchief to the ground.

'Ye crazy fool,' cried the bailiff, really alarmed. 'Have ye nc sense at all, no gratitude? Don't you know what will happen!'

'Hush, Dirck,' said Nicholas, raising his hand. He rose and faced the little group of farmers. The corners of his nostrils were white and sharply indented. 'You will all be glad to know that since Klaas Beecker feels this way, he need no longer be troubled by living on my land. He will leave the farm tomorrow morning. Doubtless he and his family will find lands to suit them in the West where they won't be bothered by rents or laws.'

A stifled gasp ran through the listeners. Klaas choked. His defiant face crumpled. 'Ye—ye can't, ye wouldn't turn me out like that overnight, Mr. Van Ryn. Why, we've no place to go.' He wet his lips and swallowed. 'I—I was born on that farm, ye know that, sir; ye couldn't be so cruel hard, Mr. Van Ryn.'

Nicholas looked down at his shoe, then up at the farmer. 'Since you are dissatisfied here, you will doubtless be happier elsewhere. You may apply to Duyckman after the kermiss. I shall authorize him to give you some gold pieces.'

The man's face twisted, turning a dull red. 'I don't want no charity, I—I won't go. Ye'll see. I've got friends—ye'll be sorry for this. We'll break up your damned manor—' His voice trailed off as Nicholas looked through him; he shuffled slowly back to the wagons. After a moment he picked up the reins and his horse started wearily down the road.

There was a dead silence around the platform, then Nicholas spoke. 'Will the remaining tenants come forward with their rents.'

The men did not look at each other but came quickly. Gebhard, a cousin of Klaas Beecker's, was empty-handed. The bailiff cleared his throat. More trouble. Miranda leaned forward anxiously. How could they treat Nicholas like that when he did so much for them, watching out for their interests, providing them with this beautiful kermiss? It was so unfair. Wicked, vulgar men, she thought angrily. Surely this Gebhard would not also refuse to pay his rent.

Nor did he. He stood uncertainly a moment before the platform, shuffling his hobnail boots and staring at the ground while Nicholas waited. Then, still not looking above the base of the platform, he removed his hat, and mumbled something about an accident to the farm wagon and added: 'I'll bring the stuff tomorrow, sir. If that will suit.'

'Certainly,' said Nicholas. 'That will do very well. I've no wish to be hard or unreasonable. Will you call the others from the kermiss, Duyckman. I want to say a few words to my tenants, as usual.'

The bailiff bustled off and lumbered amongst the merrymakers, The patroon is going to speak. Come to the platform, all of you.'

They straggled up reluctantly, loath to leave the fun, but they came. They gathered around their lord as they had been accustomed to do and as the manor tenants had always done.

Nicholas, looking down at their faces, was reassured. There had been rebellions before on the manors, small ones, quickly dissolved. This new unrest would be equally easy to handle by a blend of firm authority and tactful kindness.

There could be no real disaffection amongst them. They were his people attached to his land. They felt for him an affectionate loyalty, just as he felt for them a paternal responsibility which embraced their physical and material welfare, and, if necessary, their discipline. The discipline he had administered to Klaas, and he knew that word of this had run through the group. It was time now for a lighter, more sympathetic note.