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

Carolan whispered to Esther: “She is wandering. She is back in my childhood.”

Carolan put her lips to her mother’s forehead, and went on: There was a nurse whom I was afraid of. Now I see how weak she was … how I need not have been afraid. Esther, do you think … years hence … we shall see that we need not have been afraid… even of this?”

“Yes,” said Esther, “I know. We shall look down on the suffering we endured here below and smile at what we were.”

“Ah!” sighed Carolan impatiently.

“I was not thinking of what would happen to us beyond the pearly gates. I mean… here… in this world. I talk of reality, not dreams. Oh, forgive me, Esther, I am a beast! I am wicked. Why do you not hate me?”

“Hate you! That makes me smile. What cause have I ever had but to love you!”

“Carolan!” said Kitty.

“Are you there, my daughter?”

Carolan bent over her mother.

“Darling, does it not tire you to sit up so?”

“Carolan … you laugh, but do you know life as I know it? I tell you, he does not belong here … A gentleman of the quality he is … Have you not noticed the way his eyes look at you, Carolan… A parson! My daughter, the wife of a parson.”

Carolan began to cry.

“It is raining.” said Kitty.

“I must go now, Darrell… Peg will let me in; she is my friend … Aunt Harriet will be sleeping in her room…”

“I do not like to hear her talk thus,” said Carolan.

“It frightens me. And yet, she is more coherent than she was. I wish we had water. How hot it is in here! Esther, how long will it take to get to Botany Bay? How long have we been at sea?”

“I do not know.” said Esther.

“Several days and nights … I think I have counted six, but I cannot be sure.”

“I like the rain on my face, Peg,” said Kitty.

“It is so good for the skin… as good as your lotions. Therese and you know it!”

Kitty attempted a laugh, but her lips were so thick and dry it scarcely came through, and it ended in a gurgling in her throat.

“It is well that she does not know she is here.” said Carolan.

“Esther, I wonder what is waiting for us on the other side of the world!”

“Nothing could be worse than prison and this ship, could it, Carolan? We shall have work to do, and surely any work is better than no work at all.”

That I cannot say. How will my mother fare there, do you think? She has been used to a maid to dress her hair; I remember well how the colour of ribbon could be the burning question of the day.”

Kitty stirred in her arms. She began to sway a little, there was coquetry in all her movements. Now she was a young girl in a coach, and her broad-brimmed hat hid her eyes from the ardent gaze of the young man opposite. Now she was mischievous, slipping out of a house in late evening to meet her one true love in a wood. Now she was married to George Haredon, the sensualist who had desired her so strongly .that he had married her and provided the solution of her troubles, and even when he had discovered how she had deceived him. still yearned to be her lover.

“George…” came through her cracked and swollen lips.

“I… hate… you… George… Do not touch me…” Her heavy lids closed over her eyes; her lips curled up at the corners; she was excited. George was being as cruel, as exciting in her thoughts as he had been all those years ago at Haredon.

Her mood changed quickly. A gracious lady receiving the Prince at the head of the staircase of her country house … a fascinating creature who had thrown herself away on her own true love and must pass her days in the shop parlour of a secondhand shop… A young girl repressed in the household of a spinster aunt, a wife running away from her cruel husband with the man she loved… “She is getting better.” said Carolan. ‘her mind is active. But how cold she is! I wish we had something with which we could cover her. How swollen her leg is! It is festering there. Oh, Esther, surely we can make them do something! I know they do not care how we live down here, or whether we live at all. but we must make them! I am going to do something. Esther. I will not endure this. When one of them comes down here again I will seize him; I will insist. I will make them do something!”

Flash Jane, who had been crooning to herself, sat up listening with sudden interest. When she moved, an indescribable odour rose from her.

“Going to make them, eh?” He! He! Going to make ‘em do something, eh?” laughed Flash Jane.

Carolan turned on her.

“Do you think I am afraid of them?”

“He! He! You will be, I’ll warrant, when you’ve had the lash about your shoulders. It ain’t nice, lady, the lash ain’t. Ye’re a pulp of bleeding flesh when they’ve done with yer … and then there’s the maggots crawling in your sores, driving you well nigh crazy. I know. I’ve seen it. lady.”

Esther began to tremble. Carolan said: “Bah! Do you think I am afraid!” But she was afraid, horribly afraid.

“We should not endure it!” she said fiercely.

“Why should we? We are human beings, are we not?”

“We ain’t ‘uman beings, lady! We are only the poor!” The woman’s eyes were like sloes, her teeth hideous yellow-brown stumps, her breath foul, her head alive with lice.

Kitty said: “Now, sir! You flatter! Do you think then that I was born yesterday?”

Flash Jane burst into paroxysms of laughter; she slapped Carolan on the back.

“Quite the lady, eh?

“Now, sir! You flatter! Do you think I was born yesterday?” She leaned forward and peered into Kitty’s face.

“Yesterday! Oh, no, me lady … a good four and forty years ago, I’d be saying!”

Carolan pushed her off fiercely.

“Keep away!”

“All right! All right! We ain’t so used to the quality, you know … If I don’t get a drop of gin soon I’ll go stark crazy!”

“Go crazy if you like.” said Carolan.

“But keep your distance.”

Esther put out a warning hand. The woman crept up to Carolan, and put her evil-smelling face close to hers. Carolan gave her a push which sent her sprawling. Someone laughed. Eyes watched with interest, hoping for a little trouble to relieve the gloom.

But Flash Jane was not ready for a fight. Though, she thought, a few years back I’d have scratched the eyes out of the little she-cat. But today the she-cat was too much for her… young claws are sharp. Flash Jane turned her attention to the misshapen child beside her and began laying about her with fury.

“Snickering at me, snickering, are you? Take that, you imp! Take that!”

Flash Jane was soon exhausted. The girl whimpered and Flash Jane lay growling like a wild animal which has successfully fooled its fellows into thinking it is stronger than it is.

Somewhere in the gangway two middle-aged women began to dance; they took off their rags, bit by bit, until they were naked: and there they danced together amorously, lewdly, and the fetid hole of the women’s quarters was filled with ribald laughter.

“I do declare,” said Kitty, and Carolan had to put her ear close to her mother’s mouth, so great was the noise, “I do declare that I could have rivalled Sarah Siddons … Listen … the applause … listen …”

The hatchway was thrown open suddenly. The eyes of the convicts were bright with interest. The monotony of the first days at sea was being broken at last.

“All on deck!” shouted a voice.

“What is it?” said Carolan, excited as the others.

“A hundred lashes apiece!” chortled an old woman.

“Your back will be like a piece of butcher’s meat before they be finished with you!”

“What do you know!” said a tall, gaunt woman who seemed to be something of an authority among the convicts.

“I can tell you. We’re well out to sea. It is “all on deck” for the striking off of out irons!”

Carolan began to cry weakly.

“Thank God! Thank God!” She sprang up onto the berth.

“Mamma! Mamma! They are going to strike off the irons. Now you will be well again!”