"Wilbur Smith - Courtney 03 - Blue Horizon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Wilbur)

Louisa had learned to ignore them. She heated the point of her blade

in the smoky flame of the lantern in the gimbal above her head, ran the blade down the seams of the shift in her lap, and the nits popped and frizzled. She held the blade back in the flame and, while she waited for it to heat again, she ducked her head to peer through the narrow slit in the joint of the port-lid.

She had used the point of her blade to enlarge this aperture until she had an unobstructed view. There was a padlock on the port-lid, but she had worked for weeks to loosen the shackles. Then she had used soot from the lantern to darken the raw wood, rubbing it in with her finger to conceal it from the weekly inspection of the ship's officers, carried out on Sunday while the convicts were on the open deck for the prayer meeting and ablutions. Louisa always returned to her berth terrified that her work had been discovered. When she found that it had not, her relief was so intense that often she broke down and wept.

Despair was always so near at hand, lurking like a wild beast, ready to pounce at any moment and devour her. More than once over the past months she had sharpened her little blade until the edge could shave the fine blonde hairs of her forearm. Then she had hidden away under the gun carriage and felt for the pulse in her wrist where the blue artery beat so close to the surface. Once she had laid the sharp edge against the skin and steeled herself to make the deep incision, then she had looked up at the thin chink of light coming through the joint of the port-lid. It seemed to be a promise.

"No," she whispered to herself. "I am going to escape. I am going to endure."

To bolster her determination she spent hours during those terrible endless days when the ship crashed through the high, turbulent storms of the southern Atlantic daydreaming of the bright, happy days of her childhood, which now seemed to have been in another hazy existence. She trained herself to retreat into her imagination, and to shut out the reality in which she was trapped.

She dwelt on the memory of her father, Hendrick Leuven, a tall, thin man with his black suit buttoned high. She saw again his crisp white lace stock, the stockings that covered his scrawny shanks lovingly darned by her mother, and the pinchbeck buckles on his square-toed shoes, polished until they shone like pure silver. Under the wide brim of his tall black hat the lugubriousness of his features was given the lie by mischievous blue eyes. She had inherited hers from him. She remembered all of his funny, fascinating and poignant stories. Every night when she was young he had carried her up the stairs to her cot. He had tucked her in, and sat beside her reciting them to her while she tried

desperately to fight off sleep. When she was older she had walked with him in the garden, her hand in his, through the tulip fields of the estate, going over the day's lessons with him. She smiled secretly now as she recalled his endless patience with her questions, and his sad, proud smile when she arrived at the right answer to a mathematical problem with only a little prompting.

Hendrick Leuven had been tutor to the van Ritters family, one of the pre-eminent merchant families of Amsterdam. Mijnheer Koen van Ritters was one of Het Zeventien, the board of directors of the VOC. His warehouses ran for a quarter of a mile along both banks of the inner canal and he traded around the world with his fleet of fifty-three fine ships. His country mansion was one of the most magnificent in Holland.

During the winter his numerous household lived in Huis Brabant, the huge mansion overlooking the canal. Louisa's family had three rooms at the top of the house to themselves and from the window of her tiny bedroom she could look down on the heavily laden barges, and the fishing-boats coming in from the sea.

However, the spring was the time she loved the most. That was when the family moved out into the country, to Mooi Uitsig, their country estate. In those magical days Hendrick and his family lived in a cottage across the lake from the big house. Louisa remembered the long skeins of geese coming up from the south as the weather warmed. They landed with a great splash on the lake and their honking woke her in the dawn. She cuddled under her eiderdown and listened to her father's snores from the next room. She had never again felt so warm and safe as she did then.

Louisa's mother, Anne, was English. Her father had brought her to Holland when she was a child. He had been a corporal in the bodyguard of William of Orange, after he had become King of England. When Anne was sixteen she had been engaged as a junior cook in the van Ritters household, and had married Hendrick within a year of taking up her post.

Louisa's mother had been plump and jolly, always surrounded by an aura of the delicious aromas of the kitchen: spices and vanilla, saffron and baking bread. She had insisted that Louisa learn English, and they always spoke it when they were alone. Louisa had an ear for language. In addition Anne taught her cooking and baking, embroidery, sewing and all the feminine skills.

Louisa had been allowed, as a special concession by Mijnheer van Ritters, to take her lessons with his own children, although she was expected to sit at the back of the classroom and keep quiet. Only when

she was alone with her father could she ask the questions that had burned all day on the tip of her tongue. Very early she had learned deferential manners.

Only twice in all the years had Louisa laid eyes on Mevrou van Ritters. On both occasions she had spied on her from the classroom window as she stepped into the huge black-curtained carriage, assisted by half a dozen servants. She was a mysterious figure, clad in layers of black brocaded silks and a dark veil that hid her face. Louisa had overheard her mother discussing the chatelaine with the other servants. She suffered from some skin disease which made her features as monstrous as a vision of hell. Even her own husband and children were never allowed to see her unveiled.

On the other hand Mijnheer van Ritters sometimes visited the classroom to check on his offspring's progress. He often smiled at the pretty, demure little girl who sat at the back of the room. Once he even paused beside Louisa's desk to watch her writing on her slate in a neat and well-formed script. He smiled and touched her head. "What lovely hair you have, little one," he murmured. His own daughters tended towards plump and plain.

Louisa blushed. She thought how kind he was, and yet as remote and powerful as God. He even looked rather like the image of God in the huge oil painting in the banquet hall. It had been painted by the famous artist, Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, a protege of the van Ritters family. It was said that Mijnheer's grandfather had posed for the artist. The painting depicted the Day of Resurrection, with the merciful Lord lifting the saved souls into Paradise, while in the background the condemned were herded into the burning pit by demons. The painting had fascinated Louisa and she spent hours in front of it.

Now, in the reeking gundeck of the Meeuw, combing the nits from her hair, Louisa felt like one of the unfortunates destined for Hades. She felt tears near the surface, and tried to put the sad thoughts from her mind, but they kept crowding back. She had been just ten when the black plague had struck Amsterdam again, beginning as before in the rat-infested docks, then sweeping through the city.

Mijnheer van Ritters had fled with all his household from Huis Brabant, and they had taken refuge at Mooi Uitsig. He ordered that all the gates to the estate were to be locked and armed sentries placed at each to deny access to strangers. However, when the servants unpacked one of the leather trunks they had brought from Amsterdam a huge rat leaped out and scuttled down the staircase. Even so, for weeks they believed themselves safe, until one of the housemaids collapsed in a dead faint while she was waiting on the family at dinner.

Two footmen carried the girl into the kitchen and laid her on the long table. When Louisa's mother opened the top of her blouse, she gasped as she recognized the necklace of red blotches around the girl's throat, the stigmata of the plague, the ring of roses. She was so distressed that she took little notice of the black flea that sprang from the girl's clothing on to her own skirts. Before sunset the following day the girl was dead.

The next morning two of the van Ritters children were missing when Louisa's father called the classroom to order. One of the nurserymaids came into the room and whispered in his ear. He nodded, then said, "Kobus and Tinus will not be joining us today. Now, little ones, please open your spelling books at page five. No, Petronella, that is page ten."

Petronella was the same age as Louisa and she was the only one of the van Ritters children who had been friendly to her. They shared a double desk at the back of the room. She often brought small gifts for Louisa, and sometimes invited her to play with her dolls in the nursery. On Louisa's last birthday she had given her one of her favourites. Of course, her nurse had made Louisa give it back. When they walked along the edge of the lake Petronella held Louisa's hand. "Tinus was so sick last night," she whispered. "He vomited! It smelt awful."

Half-way through the morning Petronella stood up suddenly and, without asking permission, started towards the door.

"Where are you going, Petronella?" Hendrick Leuven demanded sharply. She turned and stared at him with a bloodless face. Then, without a word, she collapsed on to the floor. That evening Louisa's father told her, "Mijnheer van Ritters has ordered me to close the classroom. None of us is allowed up to the Big House again until the sickness has passed. We are to stay here in the cottage."