The Covenant Part 17

'He must have a very poor vineyard.'

'I wonder if he mixes in something beside grapes?'

'He wouldn't dare.'

'Then how can it be so bad?'

'In making wine, there are many tricks.'

'Could this wine be saved?'

Gingerly De Pre took another sip, not enough to strangle him with its badness but sufficient for him to judge the miserable stuff. 'It has a solid base, Mijnheer. Grapes are grapes, and I suppose that if a vintner started fresh . . .'

'I have a report here. It says the vines are still healthy.'

'But are they the right kind of vine?'

'What do you think should be done?'

De Pre sat with his hands in his lap, staring at the floor. Desperately he wanted to get back to the soil, in Java preferably, where gold proliferated, but his heart beat fast at the possibility of once more raising grapes and making good wine. Since he did not know what to say that might further his plans, he sat dumb.

'If the Compagnie were to send out some men who knew wine,' Van Doorn was saying as if from another room. 'And if those men took with them new strains of grape. Couldn't something be done?'

Ideas of wonderful challenge were coming at him so fast that De Pre could not absorb them, and after a while Van Doorn said, 'Let's look at the map,' and he led the way to a council chamber decorated with a Rembrandt group portrait and a large map done by Willem Blaeu of Leiden. On it four spots showed conspicuously: Amsterdam, Batavia, the Cape of Good Hope, Surinam in South America.

'We're concerned with these three,' Karel said, jabbing at the Cape, which stood midway between Amsterdam and Java. 'If our ships sailing south could stop at the Cape and load casks of good red wine and strong vinegar, they could maintain the health of their men all the way to Java. And we'd save the freightage we now spend on bottles from France and Italy.' Suddenly the spot representing the Cape a.s.sumed considerable importance.

'But the soilwill good vines grow there?' De Pre asked.

'That's what we intend to find out,' Van Doorn said. 'That's why I've been watching you so closely.'

De Pre stepped back. So the watching had been spyingand since his experiences with the Catholics of France, this fact troubled him deeply.

'You didn't think that I hired you to clean up my garden?' Van Doorn laughed. 'I could have hired a hundred Germans to do that, good gardeners some of them.' He actually placed his arm about De Pre's shoulders, leading him back to the first office. 'What I sought, De Pre, was an estimate of you Huguenots. What kind of people you were. How you worked. How dependable you were religiously.'

'Did you find out?' De Pre was angered with this man, but his own canny approach to life made him respect the Dutchman's caution.

'I did. And your honest reaction to my brother's wine has made up my mind.' He rose and strode nervously about the room, galvanized by the prospects of new engagements, new opportunities to snaffle a florin here or there.

Resuming his seat, he said softly, 'De Pre, I must swear you to secrecy.'

'Sworn.'

'The Lords XVII are going to send three shiploads of Huguenots to the Cape. We like you peopleyour stubborn honesty, your devotion to Calvinism. Your family is going to be aboard one of those ships, and you'he reached over and slapped De Pre on the knee'you will take with you a bundle of first-cla.s.s grape vines.'

'Where will I get them?'

'In France. From some area whose vines you can trust.'

'They won't send vines to Amsterdam. Forbidden.'

'No one sends the vines, De Pre. You go get them.'

'I'd be shot.'

'Not if you're careful.'

'The risk . . .'

'Will be well paid for.' Again he rose, storming about the room, tossing his white head this way and that. 'Well paid, De Pre. I hand you this first bag of coins now. I hand you this second bag when you return to Amsterdam with the grapevines. And if you get them to the Cape, you and I will sell them to the Compagnie and share the profits.'

De Pre studied the offer, and he was glad that the Bosbeecq women had alerted him to this canny gentleman: he was buying the vines with Compagnie money, then selling them back to the Compagnie for more of its money. He remembered something one of the women had told him: 'Van Doorn has a mind that never stops working. As a Compagnie official, he imports cloves from Java. And whom does he sell them to? To himself as a private trader. So he earns double, except that he trebles the price of cloves, since he's the only one who has any, and makes a princely profit.' Here was a man to be wary of, but he also remembered something else the women had said: 'But he dare not steal a stuiver from a servant.'

'Will you pay me the two other times?' he asked directly.

'Would I dare do otherwise? A member of the council?'

And then De Pre's stolid French honesty manifested itself: 'You didn't share with your brother.'

Van Doorn ignored the insult. 'In life,' he said, 'accidents occur. My brother was a dolt. He gave me no help in spiriting the family fortune out of Java. He was a man to be forgotten. You're a man to be remembered.'

When Paul informed his wife that he intended smuggling their eight-year-old son Henri into France with him, she was appalled, but after he explained that this might prove to be the one disguise that would disarm the border guards'A father traveling back to the farm with his son'she consented, for she had long suspected that French families ought not to stay too long in congenial Holland. The boys were beginning to speak only Dutch, and the strict Calvinism of the French was being softened by the easier att.i.tudes of the Dutch. She knew also that her husband longed to get back to the making of wine, and this seemed an opportunity engineered by G.o.d Himself. So she packed her son's clothing, kissed him fondly, and sent him off on the great adventure.

There was no problem as long as the pair remained in Holland: Amsterdam to Leiden to Schiedam and by boat to Zeeland, where another boat skirted Antwerp and set them down in Ghent. But on the approaches to Amiens, spies could be expected, so the pair shifted eastward and slipped by back roads into the country north of Caix, and when Paul saw the fine fields his eyes filled with tears. This was the good land of France, and it was only an error of magnitude that had driven him from it.

When he pa.s.sed several small villages where Protestants had once worshipped freely and saw the ruined churches, he was desolated, and late one night he tapped lightly at the window of a farm he knew to be occupied by his wife's family, the Plons.

'Are you still of the true religion?' he whispered when an old woman came to the door.

'It's Marie's man!' the woman cried.

'Ssssssssh! Are you still of the true religion?'

When no one dared answer, he knew that they had reverted to Catholicism, but it was too late to retreat. He must rely upon these farmers, for they controlled his destiny. 'This is Marie's boy,' he said, thrusting Henri forward to be admired by his kinfolk.

'If you're caught,' an old man said, 'they'll burn you.'

'I must not be caught,' Paul said. 'Can we sleep here tonight?'

In the morning he told the cautious Plons that he must have four hundred rootings from grapes which made the finest white wine. 'You'd not be allowed to take them across the border, even if you were Catholic,' they warned.

'I'm taking them to a far country,' he a.s.sured them. 'Not Holland or Germany, where they would compete.'

He spent four days with the nervous Plons, carefully compacting the vines they brought him, and when he had three hundred and twenty he realized that they formed about as big a bundle as he could reasonably handle on the long journey back to Amsterdam, and the work ended. On the last night he talked openly with the Plons, who by now were satisfied that officials were not going to break down their doors for harboring a Huguenot, and the old people told him, 'It's better now that the village is all one faith.'

'There are no Protestants?'

'None. Some ran away, like you and Marie. Most converted back to the true religion. And a few were hanged.'

'Did the priest escape to Geneva?'

'He was hanged.' Plon's wife interrupted: 'He offered to convert, but we couldn't trust him.'

Then Plon summed up the matter: 'Frenchmen were supposed to be Catholics. It's the only right way for us. A village shouldn't be cut down the middle. Neither should a country.'

'You'd like it much better here,' his wife agreed. 'Now that we're all one.'

But when Paul went to bed on that last night he realized that he could never turn his back on Calvinism; the cost of his emigration was modest in comparison with what he had gained by remaining steadfast. The quiet rationalism of Amsterdam was something the Plons would not be able to comprehend; he wished he were able to explain how content their daughter Marie was in her new home, but he judged he had better not try. He had come back to Caix for its good grape rootings, and he had them.

When he delivered the vines to Mijnheer van Doorn at the Compagnie offices, Karel paid him promptly, but Paul noticed that the sum was slightly less than promised, and when he started to complain, Van Doorn said crisply, 'We contracted for four hundred, you remember,' and Paul said, 'But it would have been impossible to carry so many,' and Van Doorn said, 'Contract's a contract. The solidity of Holland depends upon that.' And Paul dropped the subject, pointing to the large black bow resting on Van Doorn's left arm. 'A death?'

'My wife.' The chairman of the Lords XVII lowered his voice as if to say, 'That subject's closed,' but then he realized that Paul would be interested in what was about to happen as a consequence of his wife's death. 'She was a wonderful woman. Sailed to Java with me. Helped arrange matters there.' Paul wondered why the great man was telling him this, and then came the thunderbolt: 'I'm marrying Vrouw Bosbeecq next Sat.u.r.day.' Lamely he added, 'At the Old Church. You'll be invited.'

'Which widow?' Paul asked.

'Abigael, the tall one,' and when he saw the incredulity on Paul's face, he explained, 'This way we can combine our two houses and save a good deal of money.'

'What of the other widow?'

'She moves to the Herengracht.. . with us. The other good part is that the seven ships will come . . . ' He hesitated, then said, 'Well, under my management.'

Paul wanted more than anything else at that moment to run out and find Vermaas, who might be able to explain this absurdity, a wealthy man over seventy conniving to get hold of a few ships, but Van Doorn wished to discuss news that was even more exciting: 'We're a.s.sembling a Compagnie fleet right now. They sail for Java within the week, and two hundred and ninety Huguenots will be aboard. It works out well, Paul, because when we close down the Bosbeecq house you and your wife won't be needed any further . . .'

Paul was disgusted. He had risked his life to find three hundred and twenty vines for an experiment, and while he was gone this tall Dutchman had sat in this office scheming, burying his wife and proposing to another before the earth on the grave had settled.

'Mijnheer van Doorn, my trip to Caix was possible only because my little boy Henri accompanied me. He's eight, and I wonder if you would like to make him a special present? For his bravery?'

Van Doorn reflected on this, then said judiciously, 'I don't think so. The contract was with you.' He showed Paul to the door, where he said warmly, 'I hope the boys will enjoy life aboard ship. It's an exciting trip.'

As soon as Paul was free of the Compagnie quarters he ran to the weigh-house to consult with Vermaas: 'I heard the Widow Bosbeecq with my own ears warn me that Van Doorn was a thief, that he could not be trusted . . .'

'And you come home to find she's about to marry him?'

'Yes! It pa.s.ses understanding.'

'Except for what I told you, Paul. Every widow who ever lived wants to get married again. I said even you could marry one of them, if you were single.'

'But I know she despises Van Doorn.'

'If a widow can't find a real man, she'll take Van Doorn.' Then, with a cry of animal delight, he shouted, 'Good G.o.d, Paul! Don't you see how it happened?'

When De Pre looked blank, the big warehouseman cried, 'They took you over to Van Doorn's to work his garden because they wanted to be close to him in case his wife did die. They were using you as bait.'

Paul reflected on this for some time, then asked, 'Do you not think, Vermaas, that Dutchmen make use of everybody?'

'They're in business, Paul.'

The wedding was a solemn affair, with most of the business leaders of Amsterdam in attendance at the Old Church beside the ca.n.a.l. Some came in barges, poled along by their servants, but many walked, forming long processions in black, as if this were a funeral. The church was filled, and when the choir chanted the metrical Psalms so beloved of Calvinists, the place reverberated. The Widows Bosbeecq did not weep; they marched steadfastly to the front of the church, where they waited for the arrival of Karel van Doorn, tall, stately, handsome and whiskered. The marriage couple made a fine impression, two old people joining their lives and their fortunes for the remaining years of life.

'Oh, no,' the roundish widow said that night in the old house as she talked with De Pre about his adventures in France. 'They're not uniting their fortunes. You think a woman as clever as my sister would allow a scoundrel like Van Doorn to lay his hands on our ships?'

'But Mijnheer van Doorn told me himself'

'When did he tell you?'

'Last week.'

'Aha!' the woman chortled. 'That was last week. Well, this week we presented him with a contract, specifying everything. This house? We sell it and keep the money. The farmland? We join it to his. The seven ships? They're all put in my name, not his.'

'I should think he'd back out.'

'He wanted to. Said we were robbing him. So we revised the contract to keep him happy.'

'Did you give him the ships?'

'Heavens, no! But we did agree that when my ships took their salted herring to Sweden, he should be the agent for selling them, and he keeps the commission.'

Paul was amazed at the cold-blooded quality of this transaction, and started to comment upon it, when the old woman placed her hand on his arm and said softly, 'You know, Paul, it was partly your fault that Abigael decidedthat we decided, reallyto get married.'

'How me?'

'Because Mijnheer van Doorn came to us the night of his wife's burial and said, "Good women, your man De Pre is sailing shortly for the Cape. You'll be alone again, so why don't we arrange something?" And he was right. We would be alone again, and you reminded us how pleasant it was to have a man in the house.' She laughed. 'Any man.'

When the Bosbeecq house was emptied and the shutters closed, the widows suggested that the De Pre family move with them to the Van Doorn house for the few days before the ships loaded for the Cape, but Mijnheer would have none of this. 'Let them sleep in the old place,' he said, and a few blankets were taken there. But the widows did carry hot food to them, which they ate sitting on the floor.

'You must be sure that Van Doorn pays you all he owes,' they warned Paul, and on the last day in Amsterdam, Paul went to the Compagnie offices and reminded Van Doorn that the third part of the payment was still due him.

'I have it in mind,' Mijnheer a.s.sured the emigre. 'I'm handing this packet to the captain of our ship, and the moment you land the vines at the Cape, you get your final payment. See, it says so here. Ninety florins.' But Paul noticed that he did not hand over the promissory note; he kept it, saying, 'This goes to the captain of your ship.'

At dusk that night the Huguenots gathered in the old French church, two hundred and ninety children and women and men who had dared the terrors of this age to retain their faith. They had braved dogs that hunted them, and men who rode after them on swift horses, and frontier guards who shot at them. They had crossed strange lands and come to towns where their language was unknown, but they had persevered, these woodworkers, and vintners and schoolteachers. They had sought freedom as few in their generation had sought it, volunteering their fortunes and their lives that they might live according to the rules they believed in. And now they were embarking upon the final adventure, this long pa.s.sage in rolling ships to a land about which they knew nothingexcept that when they reached it they would be free.

'Cling to your G.o.d,' the minister cried in French. 'Cling to the inspired teachings of John Calvin. And above all, cling to your language, which is the badge of your courage. Bring up your children to respect that language, as we in exile here in Holland have respected it against all adversity. It is the soul of France, the song of freedom. Let us pray.'

In the morning Paul led his family from the Bosbeecq home and lined them up on the bridge over the ca.n.a.l. 'Oudezijdsvoorburgwal,' he said for the last time. 'Always remember that when we were naked, the good people on this ca.n.a.l clothed us, as it says in the Bible. Keep that name in your heart.'

He then led them to the house of Mijnheer van Doorn, where he knocked on the door, asking that the Widows Bosbeecq appear, and when they did, he told his sons, 'Remember these good women. They saved our lives with their generosity.'

Next he took them to the French church, where the doors were opened for families to say their last prayers, and inside its warm hospitality he and his family prayed in French, committing themselves again to the promises made the night before.

When they left the church and started toward the waterfront where the ships waited, Paul saw as if for the first time the quiet grandeur of this city, the solid walls behind which sat the solid merchants, the stout churches with their stout Dutch ministers, and above all, the charity of the place the simple goodness of these burghers who had accepted refugees from all the world because they knew that if a nation could feed and manage itself, it could accommodate strangers.

He was sorry to leave. Had he reached Holland sooner in his life, he might have become a Dutchman, but he was French, indelibly marked with the mercurial greatness of that land, and Holland was not for him.

Seven different Compagnie ships would carry the Huguenots to their new home. They left at various times and encountered various conditions. Some made the long run in ninety days; the poor China, China, buffeted all the way by adverse winds, required a hundred and thirty-seven, by which time many of its Frenchmen were dead. The De Pres and sixty others were loaded upon the buffeted all the way by adverse winds, required a hundred and thirty-seven, by which time many of its Frenchmen were dead. The De Pres and sixty others were loaded upon the Java, Java, but not by plan. There were two ships at the wharf that day, but not by plan. There were two ships at the wharf that day, Java Java and and Texel, Texel, and Paul was inclined to choose the latter, but his friend Vermaas would not allow it: 'Look at the planking, Paul.' He looked and saw nothing amiss, but Vermaas said, 'It's uneven, not laid on carefully. Bad in one, bad in all.' And he led the family to the gangway of the and Paul was inclined to choose the latter, but his friend Vermaas would not allow it: 'Look at the planking, Paul.' He looked and saw nothing amiss, but Vermaas said, 'It's uneven, not laid on carefully. Bad in one, bad in all.' And he led the family to the gangway of the Java. Java.

This occasioned some difficulty because friends of the De Pres were already aboard the Texel, Texel, and the boys wanted to stay with them. But Vermaas had convinced Paul that the and the boys wanted to stay with them. But Vermaas had convinced Paul that the Java Java was safer, so there were tearful farewells, and kisses blown and promises to farm together in the new land and it was appropriate that the parting should have been sorrowful, for was safer, so there were tearful farewells, and kisses blown and promises to farm together in the new land and it was appropriate that the parting should have been sorrowful, for after the Texel Texel pa.s.sed Cape St. Vincent at the tip of Portugal, where Prince Henry the Navigator had dreamed of voyages like this, it ran into heavy seas and perished. pa.s.sed Cape St. Vincent at the tip of Portugal, where Prince Henry the Navigator had dreamed of voyages like this, it ran into heavy seas and perished.