How strangely active are the arts of peace,
Whose restless motions less than war's do cease!
Peace is not freed from labour but from noise;
And war more force, but not more pains employs

John Dryden, To the Lord Chancellor Hyde

The DeJong family was a sprawling set of well-to-do Dutch farmers whose fathers had settled in New Amsterdam. They had never strayed far from Long Island since; the 'Engels' settlers were flighty fly-by-night settlers by comparison to the DeJongs – and they showed as much.

'They're proud,' Anna commented before the looking glass next morning. She had overtaken Elizabeth's toilette, and was sharply teasing her hair into careful symmetry. 'Or Master Martin is; which amounts to the same thing. The whole family keeps up a front as though they were still fine merchant-men. And they don't have much to do with us. But they'll do.'

Lizzie winced beneath the sharp smack of the horse-hair brush. 'They will?'

'They don't take kindly to bloody-backs, put it that way. If you get a commission from him, and the Sampsons – you and your pa should do.' Anna stood back, to admire her handiwork. 'There, that's much better. You don't look so much like a bird's nest.'

Lizzie's hands had crept up gingerly to her head. 'Is my head still there?'

'Sauce,' Anna said tolerantly. 'Did your Widow Winant never show you how to put up your hair-'

There was a sudden crash of a table overturning below stairs. An irate baritone murmur could be heard dimly through the floorboards.

'What on earth –'

Both Lizzie and Anna froze. Mischief in a tavern never ends well.

'That's Selah – Anna said, listening harder. 'Stay here. I'll see what's amiss-'

'Wait-'

In a confused flutter of anxiety, both Anna and Lizzie ventured on to the landing. The voices had dropped a little.

'…and you've come here!? Now!? Any other corn chandler would have you posted over town as a defaulter, Woodhull, and you know it. If it were any other man…' Selah had dropped his voice into an angry vehement hiss. 'Any other honest man…'

'I paid De Huyler back,' said another voice insistently. 'The full strength of what I owed him…'

'Ay, with your father's money! How many times has he bailed you out?'

There was a long, hostile silence from below – but Lizzie hardly noticed that. What she did notice was that Anna Strong's face had gone deathly-white. She breathlessly held one hand over her stays as though to keep herself contained, dark eyes suddenly over-bright.

'Abraham?' she murmured, and took the stairs at a run.

'Who is it?' Lizzie whispered anxiously over the banisters. 'Anna, is it the magistra-'

But Anna was already gone, in an agitated whisk of skirt.

'Selah!' her voice sounded falsely bright. 'You never said we had a visitor, this early…'

'We don't,' Selah said abruptly. 'Mr Woodhull was just leaving.'

Lizzie slunk cat-like down the stairs. Anna had left the door open behind her in her haste - and even from here she could see Mr Strong's darkening scowl.

The visitor himself did not seem particularly eager to leave. He hovered indecisively, hat in hand on the threshold, darting a quick uneasy look between Anna and her husband.

'Morning, Anna. Eh – Selah's right. I'm just…'

'But this is the first time in a sennight you've come to town!' Anna sounded suddenly over-eager in her merriment. 'Come, you must give us the gossip at least! Is Mary well-prepared for her lying-in? I know Mrs Tallmadge stopped by to see her…'

'She did, I believe. She's a sure hand, they say. She's helped with her grandchildren often enough…'

Still.' There was the shadow of a smile in Mr Woodhull's voice. 'Mary is determined to have a doctor. As it's the first-'

'Of many, I hope?'

Lizzie took the opportunity to sidle crabwise down the stairs into the parlour.

'I hope.' Abraham plucked at a loose thread in his cocked hat. 'and Mary hopes, I think.'

'Good,' Selah broke in. 'Very good. Still. Must make you uneasy, leaving the farm at such a time, Abraham. I won't keep you.' He stared down the slighter man, until Abraham looked away. There was an invisible contest of wills going on between the innkeeper and young farmer Woodhull. 'You can depend on it; there will be other matters to attend to shortly. Give my respects to your Mary?'

The young farmer started, as if stung. He gripped his hat and swung from the door without more than a civil nod.

Mrs Strong rounded on her husband as soon as the door swung shut.

'What was that about, Selah?'

'Nothing, Annie. Farmer's talk. Nothing more.'

'You might have called me down sooner. And that was un-neighbourly, letting him leave like a stranger….'

'His wife'll need him, Anna. She's over eight months gone. Struggling around the farm alone with only a couple of field hands? What sort of fool leaves his wife alone at a time like that?'

When Anna next spoke, her voice was bleak and quiet. 'That's for Abe to decide, isn't it? Besides,' she gave a poor attempt at a carefree laugh, 'Much you would know of that, Selah. Or I.'

There was a sharp scrape of a chair being pushed back from the next room. It sounded rather as though Selah had just leapt up from his chair. His voice, when he spoke, was appalled.

'Annie… you know I didn't mean…'

'I know, Selah.' Anna said wearily. 'It just…struck me. That was all. I married you six months before Abe – I mean, before Abraham married Mary. And she's - God, she's already with child. ..'

'What does that matter?' Selah's voice was low. 'You're worth ten times more than that simpering china doll, Annie. And children! Children take… time. What, look at my mother! She'd been married to my father a full ten years before...'

There was a long silence. But it was full of more than words could possibly say.

'Annie…' Selah said gently – and very, very hesitantly, as though picking his way over red-hot coals. 'You know… even if we – we had none. Ever. You - you don't think I'd value you any less, do you? Or… ever…reproach you? You're my wife.'

There was a choked sob from Anna.

'Bless you for that, Selah. You're too good for me, I know…'

Lizzie felt guilty at playing spy to such a tender scene. She should not have been there to overhear. Hastily, she coughed and stamped her feet at the bottom of the stairs, so it sounded as though she was just coming down from above.

By the time she entered the empty little tavern, Mr Strong had vanished behind the little booth with his casks of beer and room, quill-pen in hand. Anna had surreptitiously wiped her eyes on a corner of her apron; and was all brisk smiles again, her armour back on.

'There!' she said quickly. 'Pardon me, Lizzie. If you're ready – I can make you an introduction with Mr DeJong…'

They left. But not before Lizzie darted a glance filled with new respect towards Selah Strong, huddled over his accounting book .

Mynheer Martin preferred to spend his leisure hours in the snuggery of whatever tavern would take him; which meant his daughter was often there with him, entreating him to come home in broken English and swift rapid-fire Dutch. He was not at home when the ladies called, although Miss Jenneke was.

Jenneke Dejong was the girl Lizzie had seen the first night they had arrived. She was a plump, blushing girl with long lank brown hair, free from curl, and a limp unstarched coif, and she barely had a word to say to Anna on the doorstep.

But Jenneke warmed to Lizzie. It was common ground, so to speak, a father who liked his taproom friends. She did not get on with her new mother, and she had few friends in Setauket. Company her own age was almost as novel as the painting. Lizzie was immediately invited into the warm DeJong kitchen; as Anna retreated, satisfied that her groundwork had been done.

'You are… the painter's daughter, yes?' Miss DeJong said timidly hurrying over to the fire to tend a simmering pot, under the watchful eye of a kitchen maid. 'Vader says you have travelled all the way from New York.'

'Well, we lived there for a while...' Lizzie had been too taken up by undoing her portfolio to observe the wistful note in Jenneke's voice.

'Oh, it is a big, fashionable city there, cousin Henrik says,' Jenneke breathed, a dreamy look clouding her eye. The maid hastily intervened as the pot threatened to bubble over. 'You can see the ladies walk up and down the street, in their silks – just so! And there is music and amusements, and cock-fighting if you like . Henrik saw it twice! And –'

'It wasn't quite so grand where we lived,' Lizzie smiled across the table. She knew a fellow dreamer when she saw one, and Jenneke clearly saw New York as some sort of Celestial City, replete with heavenly amusement and occupation. 'Pa and I lodged on Moore Street. It was just a lodging-house. There was a linen-draper down the street, but it wasn't a silk-merchant-'

Jenneke looked at her as if she was an idiot. 'But you could buy things,' she said pityingly. 'You lived in a city! It is fashionable, to live in town. Cousin Henrik is going to live there when he is apprenticed to the Van Tuyls…'

'Your cousin Henrik is a great traveller?'

'Only when his father goes to town. Every six months. Still. Henrik has been there!' Jenneke sniffed, a look of disapproval crossing her face. 'Clara has been to New York, of course.'

Clara DeJong was the subject of Lizzie's painting, and the 'pretty little wife' of Mynheer Martin. Lizzie found her to be a giggling, rather shallow little thing, scarcely older than she was. She seemed ready enough when it came to looking after the DeJong brood, for Jenneke had seven smaller brothers and sisters– but she had a certain… sleekness, like a cat fed with cream.

'She was in school with me, you know?' Jenneke said suddenly. He hands twisted sharply about the fowl she was ostensibly plucking for dinner, tearing out feathers by the handful. 'She is only two years older than me. But there! Moder dies of childbed fever, and Vader wants a new wife to warm his bed within a twelvemonth. And Clara – Clara has a nice fat dowry, too…'

Lizzie didn't know what to say. In some ways, Pa was better than she realised. He had never inflicted a stepmother on her.

'Is she – is she unkind to you?' she ventured. Perhaps Clara made her daughters sit in the cold ashes in their bare feet, although Jenneke's warm mulberry gown and the scurrying kitchen maids suggested otherwise.

'I wish she was,' Jenneke said moodily. 'No. Clara is not unkind. She… tries. But she would be happier if I were married, like my older sisters. With my own household. But… this is my home!'

It was a cry from the heart.

Jenneke, Lizzie silently realised, was much like Setauket itself.

Suddenly these polite, threatening almost-strangers were here, occupying your home, taking your place; emphatically pushing people away. It didn't matter how hard they tried to get you to like it. Or even if they were nice. And if you couldn't leave, because it was the only place you could call home…

'Couldn't you… get away? Like your cousin Hendrik?' Lizzie thought hard. 'You could be prenticed to a milliner or something – something genteel-in the city…'

She spoke encouragingly, thinking that might appeal to Jenneke, but the DeJong girl looked shocked. 'A shop girl? ' she shook her head, furiously. 'You forget; I have my family to consider. I am a DeJong. Vader would never let me work like a common drudge…'

Except at home, Lizzie thought privately. But she kept that thought to herself.

'What do you want then, Jenneke?' she asked, remembering that question of Mrs Strong's that had so unnerved her during her first week. 'Not what Clara wants, or your father. You.'

'Me?'

A distracted, blushing look came over Jenneke's freckled face. 'I would like a husband, you know. A nice city husband. But there are no city men here in Setauket, apart from the soldiers…' Jenneke giggled. 'Though some of them are handsome, yes? You are lucky. You see them all the time, living in the Strong tavern…'

'Psh, all the time!' Lizzie retorted, amused. 'I see you there too!'

'Yes, but only when Vader is in.' Jenneke dropped her eyes. 'Not always when he is there…'

There was a whole world of longing in Jenneke's voice.

Oh dear. Lizzie thought. It was like that, was it? There was a village swain in the mix too.

'Do you have a sweetheart in there? A Setauket boy?' she asked coaxingly, peering at Jenneke's crimsoning face under her linen cap.

'N -not exactly.' The Dutch girl had gone the colour of a ripe strawberry, 'Ach, I should not say! I did not mean to tell so much…' she threw her apron over her head in a fever of embarrassment – but Lizzie knew, from her own experience, that Jenneke wanted her to ask, even as she protested. There comes a point in every fit of girlish calf-love where secrets can no longer be kept.

'Is it… your cousin Hendrik?'

'Hendrik does not drink in the Strong tavern! Besides, he lives out too far.'

'Tom Sampson?'

'He is a baby! Only fifteen!'

'Oh? How old are you?'

'Seventeen,' Jenneke said proudly. 'No. Still wrong. Guess again. Not a Setauket boy…'

Lizzie looked askance.

'I can't tell, Miss DeJong. Tell me?'

'He's a soldier…een knappe Engelsman, yes?' Jenneke sighed. Lizzie knew no Dutch, but she followed enough – from the slight giggle of the kitchen maids. 'So handsome!'

Oh dear. Lizzie found herself sincerely hoping Jenneke hadn't fancied herself in love with the Major. "Scarlet fever" was all the rage in the British-occupied territories; from the professional women of the town (who knew a steady stream of customers when they saw them) to the tittering schoolgirls reading French novels under their desks. A great many women seemed to hanker for a man with 'musket, pipe and drum'; especially if he was an officer. Officers were presumed to be dukes in disguise, or, at the very least, wealthy – and they were at a premium on the marriage mart.

'And he is a…?' she prompted, delicately.

'Oh.' Jenneke paused, darting a quick glance behind her, before dropping her voice. 'nothing… much. Not a great officer.' Thank God, Lizzie silently thought. There were enough problems with Jenneke's hopeless passion as it was without that.

'But he is handsome - handsome enough to be a general if he wanted!'

Jenneke apparently worked on the optimistic assumption that all officers increased in good looks as one ascended the ranks. Lord love us, Lizzie thought – surely she'd seen Captain Joyce?

'He has nice dark eyes, and once…' Jenneke blushed pink as a peony. 'He smiled at me.'

'And?' Lizzie nudged her. 'Does he know that you-'

'Oh no!' Jenneke's hands fluttered up to her face. 'No, he… he does not lodge in town. He lives with those farmers – oh…' she waved one hand impatiently, searching for the words. 'Hannah! De trotse Engels boeren?'

'De Woodhulls, Missen.' A maid put in.

'Yes! The Woodhulls. So he is not in town… often. Except when he sits and takes ale…'

'In the Strong Tavern?'

Lizzie understood why Jenneke went to retrieve her father herself, despite her flinching and evident discomfort. It was the slender chance of seeing him; whoever he was.

But something else had pricked her curiosity. 'The younger Woodhull?'

'Ja. Mynheer Richard Woodhull's son, Abraham.' Jenneke sniffed. 'He is… small.'

'Een garnaal!'

'Yes, as Hannah says – a shrimp!'

Another titter rose around the kitchen. Master DeJong's household clearly had no qualms about cheerfully eavesdropping on their young mistress, no matter whether the conversation was in Dutch or in English. Jenneke had almost-sisters rather than servants.

'So…' Lizzie said cheerfully. 'Will you be asking for a wedding portrait then? In good time? I can certainly arrange with Pa-'

'Ssssh!'

The sound of the DeJong door opening set Jenneke and the maids all in a flutter. A scared, blank look came over Jenneke's face.

'Vader is home,' she said, holding one finger to her lips. 'Mrs Strong must have sent him back…'

There was a marked hush when Mynheer Martin entered the room.

He proved to be a round-faced man, although his pink-cheeked countenance was seriously belied by his sharp manner.

'You are the painter girl?' he said irritably, passing his hat to a suddenly submissive kitchen-maid. 'Ja, nothing here for you! Missis Strong has more time and money to waste than I….' He made shooing motions with his hands, as though Lizzie was an errant chicken who had strayed into the kitchen by accident. 'Cornelia? Show Missen Lowndes out!'

"Vader!' Jenneke jumped up, scandalised. An eloquent flood of Dutch followed, sharply interspersed with terse little shakes of the head from Mynheer Martin.

Lizzie stood there rather foolishly, portfolio clasped in her arms.

"Alsjeblieft! Ik vind haar aardig!" There was a definite note of entreaty in Jenneke's voice – but Mynheer Martin clucked and fussed like a broody hen in his mother tongue.

'No, thank you!' he said firmly, as the chastened maid at last showed Lizzie the door. 'Another time, not today!'

Jenneke followed close on her heels as she was all but pushed out of the DeJong house.

'I'm sorry!' she hissed, apologetically. 'He has been with his banker today, he is always crochety. I should have remembered...' she gulped. 'Please, come again. On Saturday afternoon, he will be in the tavern then...'

'What?' Lizzie was rather dazed by this confusing see-saw of opinions. 'But your father said -'

'Never mind what he said!' Jenneke said urgently, fishing in her pocket for something. 'Please. I need to speak with you. Come on Saturday!'

To Lizzie's surprise, she pulled out a small leather book and thrust it into her hand. 'I'm sorry!'

And then the door shut in Lizzie's face.

It wasn't the warmest of welcomes, by a long shot. It was certainly more perplexing than she expected. Why had Jenneke asked to see her again? It was very clear that Mynheer Martin held the purse-strings; and pretty young wife or not, he wasn't willing to spend money on anything that didn't make money in turn.

But Miss DeJong had been so insistent; and then she gave her this…

Lizzie turned the little quarto volume over and over in her hands. There was no title on front or spine, and the frontispiece was in Dutch, in a cramped, rusty print that made Lizzie's eyes hurt just looking at it.

Emblemata amatoria was all that she could make. The author was a certain Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft.

What on earth…?

Oh well. Lizzie shook her head and began to head back towards town. Perhaps Pa had somewhat better luck with his paintings today…

Mr Lowndes had not had better luck with his paintings. He would have arrived home in a very irritable frame of mind, had it not been for the cordial invitation of Mr Woodhull - 'So very agreeable my dear – picture of gentlemanly condescension!' – to take a glass of port with him. One glass had turned into three, and three had turned into…

Well. However many it had taken for Pa to merrily reel his way homeward in the dark, loudly singing the "British Grenadiers" at the top of his voice. In light of Anna's warning, it seemed a mercy he had made it back in one piece. Pa was happy as a schoolboy, and stumbled immediately to his bed; so there was no harm done.

But still, it made her breathless to think about what could have happened. And tonight neither of the Strongs could have raised the alarm. They were "seeing to their household affairs" at Strong Manor; which, in light of the tender looks Lizzie had seen, might well have been a euphemism.

At least someone was happy, Lizzie thought, as she pulled her nightdress over her head. Even if… there still seemed something faintly amiss with the Strongs. There was an underlying current of unhappiness that tugged Mrs Strong's smile downwards. She wondered what it was; Setauket seemed to be full of secrets. The buried resentment of politics. The innkeepers. Not to mention the hapless Jenneke…

She turned over Mr Corneliszoon Hooft's book by the flickering light of the greasy tallow candle. How on earth was she supposed to make head or tail of a book in Dutch…?

And then a spurt of black ink caught her eye.

Someone had written – in the careful square letters of someone only just able to write – just one line of writing on the flyleaf.

His name is Ensign Baker.