The Golden Flask (39 page)

"His scalp will do nicely. The rest of him takes up too much room."

* * *

V
an Clynne hurried past the British huts at Delancy's
without stopping, despite a growing desire for some
thing to quench his thirst. There was, at best, only a
token force left guarding the small wood cabins built
against the gentle hills and on the flats, but having just
escaped British hospitality the Dutchman's mouth
would have to be literally on fire before he would con
descend to dally with any more redcoats or their Ger
man brethren. The colonel's horse proved a decent
beast, not partial to either side, and van Clynne soon found the farm near Harlem where the Pinkertons had
retreated to.

This was a Dutch family hard on its luck, or so van Clynne theorized, for otherwise he could not supply a
reason for their staying in the occupied city. The tai
lor's example notwithstanding, by van Clynne's lights
every Dutchman hated the British. If the truth be told,
his estimation of Dutch patriotism was somewhat off
the mark, but his assessment of the Pinkerton's finan
cial status was correct. The family's attitude toward the
British had hardened considerably since their daugh
ter's interlude with Howe, though having voiced pro-English sentiments in the past they could not now risk
the reception they might find further north.

They still had their pride, however, as the family pa
triarch made clear after ushering his old friend van Clynne inside.

"Imagine, hinting that we might be bought off by supplying some small infantry unit with grain," com
plained Veder Pinkerton. "Grain!"

"Truly an insult," agreed van Clynne. This was the typical British blunder: the Pinkertons had been corn
dealers
^-
for three generations at least, and they consid
ered anything that did not grow on ears as belonging to
an inferior class. "I wonder if I might talk to Melanie."

"What do you want to talk to her about?"

"Oh — just idle chatter."

Veder looked at him suspiciously. "You want to talk
about Howe?"

"Of course not," said van Clynne. "Naturally not."

"I will kill anyone who mentions his name to her. I
can tell that her heart is still turned in his direction, despite all our arguments."

"A dastardly villain," said the Dutchman, who de
spite the warning was not about to retreat. "I think that
when a man is at a certain age," he suggested quietly after a temporary pause, "there are certain contingen
cies in life one should prepare for."

Veder jolted upright in his chair. In the arcane eti
quette of Dutch matrimonials, the squire's sentence
amounted to a formal declaration of intent to informally decide on provisionally electing to eventu
ally commence courtship – the all-important first step
toward wedded bliss.

Whatever his faults, Claus van Clynne was not a man
without means, and if his crusade to have his property
returned were ever fruitful, he would easily rate among the richest men in the state. True, Veder realized, his clothes had long since gone out of fashion, and he had come to the house with a hat at least one size too large, but eccentricity can be overlooked in a rich son-in-law.

Veder ran from the room to fetch the girl. Van
Clynne settled in the chair — a wingback whose high pil
lows kept his head well-cradled — and contemplated his next move. His present position was every bit as dan
gerous as the one he had just left on the road. More so,
as he had already and quite honestly declared his in
tention to decide to intend to wed a comely lass in
lower Westchester. Sweet Jane was busy preparing her
wedding trousseau, which undoubtedly included several fierce weapons to enforce her claims.

Miss Pinkerton was not without her own charms.
Standing a few inches below five feet, she had sharply
curled red hair which flowed in grand tresses around
her head, a veritable sculpture that set off her nicely
rounded cheeks and helped impart a rosy glow to her
face. Her yellow dress stood over a strongly curved cor
set, which plucked up the tops of her snowy white breasts like two large, European mountains.

During a previous mission to New York, van Clynne
and Jake had foiled General Howe's proposed hunting
expedition in that territory, and Melanie recognized
the squire immediately. She greeted him with a warm
and protracted kiss on the cheek just above his beard,
her body pressing forward in a crush of silk and other
things.

Momentarily flustered, van Clynne called for a cup of beer.

"We've no beer in this house," Veder reminded him.
"But you are welcome to share my squeezings."

Made from corn, the liquid had an oily taste and was
nearly one hundred percent pure alcohol. Van Clynne
demurred.

"How is your friend Jake?" Melanie asked.

"Oh well, very well," he coughed. "And you? How is
life on the farm?"

She shrugged noncommittally. "The corn grows."

Van Clynne, now back in control of himself, nodded
as if this was the most interesting thing anyone had ever said to him. He shot a glance at Veder, hoping
that he might hint at a strategic absence, which would
allow him to get to the real reason he had come.

Unfortunately, custom strictly dictated a chaperone
at this stage of the pre-pre-courtship ritual, and Veder
was not about to blow his chances by committing an
etiquette faux pas. Van Clynne frowned, then turned back to Melanie.

"So, do you hunt?" he asked the girl. The purposely
awkward question had been prescribed by a codicil to the Hague Resolutions of 1643, directing the order of
initial engagement conversations.

She shook her head.

"I suppose you spend your time mending," he sug
gested.

"Mending?"

"Socks and things."

"Why would I do that?"

"Melanie, dear, I'm sure you're getting tired," said
Veder, pushing forward. The officially allotted time for
a first meeting had nearly expired.

"I believe I will have those squeezings now," said van Clynne.

"Oh yes, the squeezings." Veder looked at van Clynne's face and concluded that he had completely
fallen under his daughter's spell. He was obviously try
ing to move things along faster than anticipated, and
the corn farmer was all for it. "Melanie, talk to Claus
about the weather and I, I will just run into the next room."

"While you were with General Howe," van Clynne
asked in a soft, hurried voice as soon as her father left,
"who was his wig-maker?"

"His wig-maker?"

"Quickly, child, before your father returns. Did he
mention a barber?"

"I believe it was George on Stone Street. Or was it Stone on George Street? One of those, definitely."

Van Clynne had no time to quiz her further, as her father announced his pending return with a merry song he hummed to himself. The tune sounded suspiciously like a wedding march.

"So, dear, you understand my intentions?" Van Clynne made his voice so faint she could not hear the last word, though her hopeful heart supplied it.

"Did you say, 'intentions'?"

Now his voice grew loud enough for even the corn outside to hear. "You will not have me?"

"But Claus — "

Van Clynne lifted himself from the chair as Veder, his tune banished from his mouth, ran forward.

"Claus, Melanie — "

"Claus, what did you mean? Intentions?"

"It is nothing, nothing. My poor heart cannot take the strain."

"Wait!" Veder appeared considerably more heartbroken than van Clynne. "Claus, you've rushed things. This is merely the first meeting. Your emotions have gotten the better of you. Slow down, my friend. All will work out, given time."

But the squire continued to the door. "Children cannot be expected to follow the Dutch order of things," he lamented, "if they are improperly raised."

"Are you insinuating that my Melanie was not raised properly!"

"Insinuating is not the word I would use, sir," said van Clynne, opening the door.

"Out and good riddance! Out!"

Van Clynne turned in the threshold, the very picture of brave but downtrodden dignity. "I am leaving, sir; there is no need to insult me further. My heart already has been quite riven. I despair. Who knows what I will do next? I may walk along the river. I may, perchance, enlist in the British army."

Veder, his emotions twisting in several directions at once, settled to the floor and began sucking on the bottle of squeezings as soon as van Clynne departed,
his brief dream of riches flown out the door with the
squire's russet coat. Melanie remained in a state of se
vere confusion and finally salved her bruised intellect by pressing a few of her curls that had fallen out of place as a result of the interview.

Claus van Clynne possessed an encyclopedic knowl
edge of Dutch families in the province of New York —
or New Amsterdam, as he occasionally referred to it.
He was not equally informed about occupants whose genealogical roots had taken hold in other soils, how
ever, and so he was not sure which, Stone or George,
might be the proper wig-maker.

As George Street lay
closer, however, he decided to visit Mr. Stone first, via
a road less convenient but completely removed from the one he had taken north. He also left his stolen horse behind, reasoning that it might be recognized
from its fine equipment. These contingencies greatly
increased the time it took him to carry out his mission,
but van Clynne had always held that it was better to
arrive at a place late and intact, rather than late in the
most permanent sense.

The day had already progressed quite far without his
having stopped for dinner; he felt obliged to hail a
baker he knew in the northern precincts and see about
some mince pie the man was always trying to sell. This
transaction took considerable negotiation, not least of
all because the baker warned that soldiers were pro
ceeding through the city looking for the prisoners who had escaped from jail yesterday. He relayed their de
scription of the ringleader: "a portly Dutch gentleman
in old-style russet dress, with a scraggly beard, large Quaker-style beaver hat, talkative disposition, and a se
vere willingness to complain and argue at every turn."

"Fortunately, they've got the description all wrong,"
sniffed van Clynne. "The Quakers know nothing about
proper hats."