Beyond The Blue Mountains - Plaidy Jean (бесплатные онлайн книги читаем полные .TXT) 📗

Esther said: “We go through the fire, Carolan, that we may be tried, and if we come through safely are we not cleansed?”

“You make me angry. Do you call this a cleansing process?”

Esther tried to reason: “You are suffering more keenly now. Carolan. I have got over the worst. The worst for me was in Newgate when I was alone and friendless. Now I have your friendship I can never be so unhappy again.”

Carolan fought back her tears.

“Oh, be silent, Esther!” she snapped; and then suddenly, putting her hand over Esther’s thin one: “Forgive me! I am so tired of living. I wish the boat would go down.”

“Ah!” said Esther.

“You waited for your lover, and he did not come.”

“What a lover!” cried Carolan.

“I was in Newgate, and he did not come for me. Esther, let me talk to you of him. Let me try to show him to you as he was. So tall, so dear-eyed, so gentle in his talk, so understanding, so mild, so good! I first loved him when I was a frightened little girl. I think I was no more than five, and my cruel half-brother shut me inside the family vault and I was frightened. Everard opened the door and came to me. I loved him from then on. I must go on loving him till I die. And, Esther, I shall never see him again. I am an exile from England for seven years, and what will those seven years bring, Esther? Why did he not come? They say people have escaped from Newgate; I used to dream that he came and rescued me from Newgate as he did all those years ago from the dark tomb.”

To rescue you from Newgate would have been well nigh impossible, Carolan.”

“Still … some would nave attempted it!” She was thinking now of Marcus with his jaunty smile and his blue eyes in his wrinkled face, and the glitter of those eyes … the recklessness of him.

“What use to attempt it, Carolan? Greater trouble would have followed.”

“Oh. you and your doctrines! You make me weary, Esther. I will have none of them. Listen, I have to live through this, have I not? From now on I live for myself … I will steal, I will cheat. I shall think of no one, care for no one…”

“Carolan. what rubbish you talk! While you are yourself you will always care for someone. You must not steal; you must not cheat; for that would not be you, Carolan. I never forget the way you stepped in amongst us with your head high. You looked to me like a leader. Do you know what I mean. Carolan… someone who can fight, but only for what is right. Someone meant to show the way…”

Carolan laughed.

“What a leader! What a noble spectacle in my rags and my dirt!”

“Wilfully you misunderstand.”

“I tell you, you are quite mistaken about me. I am weak and foolish, and I was largely responsible for bringing this tragedy about. I fought those women without any noble thoughts in my mind. They wanted my clothes; I wanted to keep them. Marcus is like I am. Circumstances affect us. Had fortune not changed for him. he would have been a high-spirited squire, fond of fun, whose life is made up of amours and gambling. I am like that too. We are very strong and very weak; things happen to us. and we are no longer the same people… You are different, Esther; you have your faith.”

“Oh, if you but had it too, Carolan!”

“I could not have faith in anything any more, Esther. I can never believe anything without proof. Do you hope to convert me, Esther? Do you hope to convert Marcus?”

A flood of colour rushed into Esther’s face.

“Do you think I could?” she said.

“I think,” said Carolan, ‘that if you looked as beautiful as you do now in spite of rags and filth Marcus would be only too willing to listen … in the hope, of course, of making you listen to him.”

“You are hard on him. He means no harm.” Carolan turned away. Dear Esther, who thought that Lucy of Newgate was a mere acquaintance of his, and the dark-haired gipsy who was hanging round his neck while they said goodbye to friends on deck, was merely expressing her gratitude for some small kindness!

“You’re sweet,” she said suddenly.

“I wouldn’t have you otherwise. Stay close to me, Esther. Listen to me when I want to be listened to. Let me be angry with you when I want to be angry … and please, please do not let my ill temper make any difference to our friendship.”

Kitty began to moan.

Carolan leaned over her: “Mamma, Mamma, is the pain worse then?”

“Is that you, George?” said Kitty.

“She is dreaming,” said Carolan, ‘dreaming of Haredon, her old home, the place where I was born.”

“Do you think her leg is worse?” said Esther.

Carolan lifted Kitty’s rags and looked at the leg. When she had seen it on deck she had been deeply shocked. The discoloration and the swelling presented an alarming sight. Something ought to be done quickly; the irons removed, a doctor called. She had shouted to one of the Marines, whose duty it was to look in on the prisoners now and then, that her mother was sick and needed attention, but the Marine had orders not to speak to any of the convicts: any complaints were to be put before a senior officer; he had been warned that he was travelling with the equivalent of a cargo of wild beasts who, ignorant as they might seem, were possessed of beast cunning, who would be for ever planning violence since violence was second nature to them. Therefore he ignored Carolan’s plea for help.

“It does not look any worse,” said Carolan, and added, ‘as far as I can see. If only they would strike off these irons. I am sure it would heal.”

Kitty lifted her hand and Carolan took it; Kitty’s was icy cold, which was extraordinary, for the fetid atmosphere of the prisoners’ quarters was stifling, and Carolan’s hands were burning.

“Mamma,” said Carolan, ‘do you feel any better?”

“Yes, my darling, I feel better.”

Carolan touched her mother’s forehead; it was as cold as her hands.

“She is better!” whispered Carolan.

“She knows me.” There was a haze in the atmosphere which came from mingled breath and the steam of sweating bodies; it was foul with the slime and muck of years, with disease and filth and the odour of vermin. There was a good deal of noise down below the constant muttering and grumbling and shrieking and chattering and laughing that might come from a cage full of monkeys. Those above had found it impossible to insist on silence down below; there must be certain privileges even for. wild beasts. So the prisoners talked and laughed and wept aloud, and they walked about in the narrow space between the tiers of bunks, like grim spectres in an underworld. They fought among themselves; they planned escape; they boasted of past successes in the worlds of crime and lust; and degradation was their, god, to be bowed down to and worshipped, and those who had achieved most in his service were considered the cream of the prison society.

Carolan, holding her mother’s hand, listening to the conversation going on around her, watched the ghostly figures prowling about in the dim light, stared through that hazy atmosphere and asked for death. An old hag with bare, pendulous breasts, hideous in the extreme, was squatting on her, berth telling her berth mates how she had most successfully combined a life of lust and profit. Every now and then one of them would burst into shrieks of unnatural laughter. Another old woman, her back bent, her limbs gripped with rheumatism, was murmuring to herself of the revenge she was going to take on someone home in Wapping, when she had done her seven years. Someone else was singing in a loud, discordant voice.

“Carolan…” said Kitty.

“Yes, Mamma. Do you want to be raised?”

Esther leaned forward, and together they raised Kitty.

Ts that better. Mamma?”

Kitty said: “Climb in beside me, Carolan. What a little thing you are! Tell me, darling, is she kind to you … Does she beat you? You would tell me, if she did … surely you would tell me?”