Pride of the King, The (40 page)

The road took her down a hill and into a clearing where a field stone structure sat with smoke curling out a chimney. It was a large, square building with green shutters and sign swinging over the front door saying, “The Boar’s Head”.

A tall, bony woman with a horse face was in the yard strewing feed to chickens. She stopped abruptly and put a hand on her hip when she spied Lauren. “I don’t give handouts here,” the woman warned, pursing her lips.

Lauren slowed her pace realizing her appearance must seem shabby. Her clothing was soiled and her hair tousled. She smoothed her skirt and ran her fingers through her hair. “I beg your pardon, Madame. My name is Lauren De Beauville.”

The woman’s eyes grew large in her long, drawn face, and she gasped.

Lauren said, “Please do not be alarmed.”

The woman’s back stiffened and she replied, “I most certainly am not alarmed. I have not been alarmed by anyone since the year of our Lord, seventeen thirty nine. What is your business here, you-you French woman!”

She swallowed hard, cleared her throat and said, “I have been sent by Captain James St. Clare. Are you Mrs. Quill? He told me you have work.”

“Not for you. You bold faced thing!” she said.

The elderly proprietress turned on her heel and went into the tavern, slamming the door behind her. Lauren growled and clenched her fists, approaching the door. She licked her lips, took a deep breath and knocked. Almost immediately the door flew open, and Mrs. Quill stood in front of her with a musket.

“Well?” the woman barked.

Lauren looked inside the tavern. “You have not yet cleaned up from last night, Madame?” Lauren asked.

“That is no concern of yours.”

“It is almost supper time again. Why are you not ready?”

Mrs. Quill did not reply. She studied Lauren for a moment then said, “You’re a Papist, aren’t you? I don’t serve Papists.”

“I am not asking to be a guest,” Lauren replied.

She hesitated a moment, gathered her courage then stepped around Mrs. Quill into the common room. The hearth was cold, the room damp and dark. Four or five tables were placed near the fireplace and a long, empty room yawned off to the left with a bar, several more tables and another stone fireplace. Dishes had not been cleared from the night before, the straw on the floor was dirty and the room smelled of stale beer.

“I can have this cleaned and a meal ready by tonight,” Lauren announced.

The woman’s eyes narrowed and she said, “You are very sure of yourself.”

Lauren raised one eyebrow and stated, “I am accustomed to entertaining.”

“That,” Mrs. Quill said sarcastically, “is obvious. You’re nothing more than a tart.”

Lauren ignored the insult and walked around the room, examining the cooking implements and blowing dust off the mantel. Mrs. Quill watched her then growled, “I admit, my health has prevented me from keeping the tavern in tip-top shape lately, but I am not ready for the bone yard yet. I have no money to pay you.”

“You will eventually, if you hire me,” said Lauren. “For now I am only interested in a roof over my head for the winter.”

“There will be no Papist practices here,” the woman warned, shaking her finger.

Lauren chuckled as she pulled off her gloves. “Do not worry, Madame.” she said sarcastically. “I lost my rosary years ago.”

*         *            *

Lauren threw herself into resurrecting The Boar’s Head Tavern to a thriving establishment. She told herself it was to gain the trust of Mrs. Quill, but in truth it was to keep her thoughts from James and the betrayal she felt toward The Pride of the King.

The first afternoon she arrived at the tavern, she shed her filthy traveling clothes, put on a fresh mob cap, gown and pinner and began to scrub the floors. Mrs. Quill worked alongside her grumbling all the time. Lauren dusted and cleaned, hauled wood, mended fences and tended the animals. Afflicted by a bad back Mrs. Quill, prepared ale and took care of the sewing and bedding. She was slow to trust Lauren watching her suspiciously and mumbling, “Papist” regularly under her breath, yet she allowed her to stay.

The first part of December the temperature dropped, and the snows began. For the first time in her life, Lauren was grateful for winter. She knew
The
Pride of the King
could no longer sail up the Hudson, and her privacy was now secure. Late every night after cleaning up from supper and the tavern crowd, Lauren would climb the creaky stairs to her room at the back of the tavern and drop onto her feather bed falling asleep instantly, never allowing herself to think of James.

The betrayal and loneliness began to erode her well-being, and a nagging pain developed in her stomach. It plagued her from the moment she woke up in the morning until the time she fell into bed at night. It prevented her from eating properly and she grew thin and drawn. Mrs. Quill could not help but notice Lauren's decline.

“How come you are not with your French people?” she asked one day as Lauren stoked a fire outside. She did not reply at first, stuffing laundry into a crucible with a stick. Wiping her hands on her apron she said, “I was taken away many years ago as a bride and brought to this land. I had little choice in the matter.”

Holding a basket of clothes Mrs. Quill sat down stiffly on a stump. She looked around at the landscape of thick pines and maples. “It was the same for me. Mr. Quill brought me to this back country thirty years ago. I came from a good family in England, a family of means, the Adams of Portsmouth. The Hudson seemed like the other end of the earth. He dragged me here, and then had the audacity to die three years later.”

“Why didn’t you go back to your homeland?” asked Lauren,

“Why didn’t
you
go back?” the old woman echoed.

Lauren looked down. “Just like you. There was no reason to return. It is the way of it. I have no regrets.”

The two were quiet for a moment, lost in their thoughts.

“I have been thinking,” said the matron. “The winters are brutal here in the valley, and I can use another hand on a regular basis. I must be in my dotage, but you may stay if you wish.”

Lauren smiled mischievously, looked up and made the sign of the cross.

Mrs. Quill barked, “But there will be none of that!"

Chapter 43

Initially the customers at the Boar’s Head Tavern were suspicious of Lauren. In spite of their diverse backgrounds, her French upbringing was difficult for the residents of Hampsted to tolerate. The conflict between the countries consumed the Colonies and every evening the conversation inevitably turned to politics. On several occasions, disparaging remarks were directed at Lauren, but immediately Mrs. Quill squashed them, demanding respect for her employee. Eventually the townspeople relaxed their attitudes and learned to like Lauren. They found her culinary skills above reproach, and when they teased her they found her saucy French attitude engaging. They even defended her when the occasional out of town guest maligned her.

Lauren learned to enjoy the banter as well. It sharpened her wits and her mastery of the English language. The repartee amused the men especially, and the flirtation gave them a welcome diversion during the cold winter months in the valley. The conversation also brought more business to the Boar’s Head and for this Mrs. Quill was grateful.

Yet Lauren found as her new life grew more predictable, she felt more unsettled. The diversion of a new home and position distracted her initially, but over time the restlessness returned. She struggled to keep thoughts of James from her mind, but he found his way into everything she did. Now as she looked back on her past she could see his hand in everything. For the first time in her life she was without him, and she felt quite alone.

At night she would think back to her days in Kaskaskia as a young woman and her infatuation with Rene Lupone. She blushed at her silly schoolgirl attitudes and was ashamed that she had ever been so shallow. Gabriel had called her foolish, head strong and impulsive, and he had indeed been right. She knew nothing then of deep emotion and was ignorant of the kind of yearning that nags at one’s belly like a cancer. Now she realized Gabriel understood these things profoundly and pondered them deeply before he took his own life.

She missed her friendship with Eugenie as well and chastised herself for never appreciating the suffering the young girl had endured. She struggled to remember her conversations with Isaac and the heartfelt laughter of Henry Bologne. She even revisited her ethereal companions Abigail and Ephraim from the churchyard in the city, still unsure whether they were fancy or heavenly companions.

But the individual who robbed her peace of mind most completely was James St. Clare. He stirred something within her that was almost primal, as elemental to her existence as lifeblood and from this sensation sprang supreme loneliness and yearning.

Mrs. Quill did not know exactly what plagued Lauren but had the wisdom to know it was a lost love and that she was impotent to help. She remembered her own pain when her husband died, and she knew that it would never subside, only dull over the years. She developed a genuine affection for Lauren, and their companionship helped quell the dark loneliness they endured together.

Fear now also accompanied their loneliness. There had been reports from travelers that tribes had been swooping down from Canada launching assaults on settlers to the north, and it put Lauren and Mrs. Quill on edge. Lauren tried not to be afraid, but it was unnerving to complete her chores outside. She tried not to turn her back to the woods and kept a wary eye out whenever her employer ventured to feed the chickens or milk the cows. On several occasions Lauren spent the day mending fences returning to the tavern at sunset more exhausted from tension than actual labor. For the first time she actually feared for her life. She had almost been killed in a hurricane, almost died in childbirth and hanged in New France but now the thought of dying terrified her.

“You don’t seem afraid at all,” she said one day to Mrs. Quill as they entered the tavern hanging their cloaks on pegs by the door.

Mrs. Quill walked stiffly over to the fire and threw another log onto the grate. “I am not afraid anymore. I have lived out my days. I will die a woman contented with her life.” She sat down and watched Lauren as she stared into the fire. “You, my dear are not content. You still have a life to live. That is why you fear losing it.”

   “But I never cared before. I don’t understand. I never cared until now,” Lauren replied.

   The matron picked up her sewing and began to stitch. “Perhaps for the first time there is someone that needs you to live,” Mrs. Quill suggested.

*           *          *

While Lauren made her life in Hampsted,
The Pride of the King
put out to sea. They left the customs officers along the coast, Heloise and Cornelius in Providence then headed to warmer waters to seek firearms. All winter long they acquired contraband then returned to the Hudson River Valley in the springtime, successful and bulging with munitions, eager to supply the British or the French with low cost weaponry.

General McAffee’s replacement in New York City, General Barnhill, welcomed bribes, so the fluyt had little trouble sailing past the city and on up the Hudson. They navigated far to the north to the secluded creek, and then canoed munitions up the water to the remote gunsmith operation Lauren had visited two years earlier. There the guns were refurbished and stored until buyers were obtained.

Everyone who knew Captain St. Clare noted a change in him since he left the Van den Berg manor. He had never been a demonstrative man, but now more than ever, he retreated within himself. He spent hours alone in his cabin examining charts and maps and pouring over plans. He was short with the crew and impatient with his business associates. Occasionally he went ashore to visit patroons on business and could be seen dining with some of the more distinguished women of Albany, but he never visited the same one twice. He always returned to the fluyt sullen and out of sorts as if dissatisfied and frustrated.

The crew had changed as well. The loss of Isaac then Lauren drained the joy from the men, and laughter was seldom heard anymore. The work of sailing the fluyt, once a pleasure and a satisfaction now turned to drudgery. The crew merely went through the motions of sailing her.

In spite of it all, the organization prospered. The war between the English, French and their Indian allies fueled the growth of the operation, and James St. Clare seized every opportunity to expand. At last he had found several contacts in New France who were willing to initiate trade with the
Pride
, and the expansion of troops on Lake Champlain and Lake George provided ample opportunities to supply arms to both sides, including the Indians.

It was for this reason that Captain St. Clare left the fluyt and traveled first to his gunsmith community, then to the north to his cabin and the Romany settlement on Popple Creek.

“Hello, Captain!” called George Blasco as St. Clare stepped off the path late one afternoon into the clearing of the Romany community. In three long strides the ship’s carpenter was upon him, shaking his hand vigorously.

“Welcome back!” George said.

“I am glad to see you are well after your run in with the authorities,” said St. Clare. “And how does Mr. Miskowic fare?”