The Map of Bones, page 11
‘Not at all. The memories of childhood burn brightest, for they are the purest and least contaminated by time and experience.’
He nodded. ‘It is not that Judith – if you will forgive my presumption in referring to her with such familiarity – puts me in mind of my first love. She was blonde, whereas Judith has hair the colour of –’ he thought for a moment –‘the colour of autumn leaves. And Judith has a profile and bearing of some nobility, do you not think, while the girl in Rotterdam had cheeks as pink as any milkmaid and a face as round. But when I first saw her, something moved me. I am no poet, I have no skill with words, I cannot explain it better.’ He put his hands on his knees. ‘I hardly expect you to understand. I can’t even account for it myself.’
‘But she is promised to someone else,’ Suzanne said quietly. ‘That was the condition of her passage, you know that.’
Van Dijk turned to face her. ‘It is not so clear cut,’ he replied quickly. ‘I have been thinking on it. If you agree that Judith might come to care for me, as I care for her – not as a brother or a friend in times of need, but as a husband – it could be arranged.’ He took a deep breath. ‘If you were to tell me there was even the slightest chance, then I would speak to Commander Van der Stel and ask for his blessing. None of the marriage licences for any of the girls from Rotterdam have yet been issued.’
Suzanne considered what he’d said. ‘Would the Commander agree to such a thing? He did not strike me as a man who would put sentiment ahead of practical considerations.’
Van Dijk leant back against the wall. ‘I cannot see he would refuse it. My term here is fifteen years. I have served ten of those years and had indicated my intention to return to Rotterdam at the end of my service. If Judith would do me the honour of becoming my wife, I would withdraw my resignation. And stay.’
‘And you would do this for her?’
‘If it meant that we could be together, I would walk to the ends of the earth and back.’
Suzanne closed her eyes. She was exhausted by the calamities of the afternoon, from her emotions – fear, despair, relief. She did not want to say the wrong thing and there was a delicacy to such nascent emotions that could so easily be crushed. She did not believe in love at first sight, how could she after what had happened to her? But then she thought of how Judith’s cheeks flushed when she talked of the Dutchman’s cornflower-blue eyes, remembered her shy pleasure when she confided that he was to call for her on Sunday to take her to church. And from what she knew of Adriaan van Dijk, his sobriety and his steadfast faith, she knew he and Judith were two of a kind. He would be a good match for her friend.
‘I cannot speak for Judith, you understand—’ she began.
‘Yes?’ he said, failing to keep the hope from his voice.
‘All the same, I would not be misleading you to say that Judith enjoys your company. Very much so. I do not know if it is love, but there is a growing affection, certainly.’ She held his gaze. ‘I believe she would welcome your suit, provided she knew there was nothing improper in it. And that it had a purpose.’
‘You have made me happier than I could imagine.’ He leapt to his feet, grinning. His joy made him look younger. ‘I must make an appointment to see the Commander. He, too, will be pleased – for I know he did not want to lose me back to the Fatherland.’ He opened the door, then smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand. ‘I cannot believe this all but slipped my mind! I am bid to ask you to return to the harbour at four o’clock this afternoon. They are going to disembark the Zuid-Beveland then, when the wind has dropped and the sea is calmer.’
‘How many were drowned?’ Suzanne asked quietly.
‘Eight in all, three officers and five sailors.’
Suzanne shook her head. ‘But not pastor Simond?’
‘No. He remains safely on board, so far as we know.’
‘That is, at least, good news.’ Suzanne made to stand. ‘I will be there at four. I will leave Judith in the care of Madame Lombard and my grandmother. I will be fine on my own,’ she added quickly before he offered her another escort.
Van Dijk opened the door and was about to step out into the street when Suzanne called him back. ‘There is something you might do for me.’
He turned, still clutching his hat. ‘Anything.’
‘There is someone who came to the Cape some years ago, a relative of mine, whom I am eager to trace.’
Van Dijk waved his hand, as if it would be the easiest thing in the world. ‘Give me his name and I will do what I can. There will be records.’
Suzanne smiled. ‘Her name,’ she said. ‘Louise Reydon-Joubert, Captain and Commander of the Old Moon.’
And by saying her name, Suzanne felt the air shimmer.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Wednesday, 15th September
The rains of August gave way to a mellow September, bringing with it the promise of spring: soft morning air, a warming sun, apricot skies at dusk. The Colony was coming back to life after the long cold and wet winter.
The passengers and crew of the Zuid-Beveland were also quickly absorbed into the day-to-day life of the expanding refugee community. Pierre Simond held an outdoor service of thanksgiving for their deliverance from the sea, and for the country they were all to learn to call home. Sanctuary, faith, hard work, gratitude; these were the pillars on which the Huguenot community in the Cape would be built. Since no further ships were expected until October, there was a sense of stability in the town: a breathing out, a moment of settling. Of peace.
Cared for by Madame Lombard and Florence, Judith gradually recovered. Adriaan van Dijk was now a regular visitor to the Joubert household. Having secured Commander Van der Stel’s blessing for his marriage, he had offered his hand and been accepted without hesitation. The marriage banns had been published and the wedding set for a date three weeks hence.
Judith had nothing to bring to the marriage, and Suzanne knew this worried her. But several of the women from the meeting rooms presented her with a square of unbleached linen and coloured cotton thread, and so Judith was working in secret to embroider a sampler to present to her betrothed on their wedding day. The border was patterned with ivy to symbolise steadfast love, faithfulness and fertility; a sparkling vine clinging to a tree a symbol of marital love and dependence – and a reference to the country in which they would build their family. She stitched two peacocks, top and bottom, as an allusion to future prosperity. In the centre, exquisitely worked, was an inscription of Judith’s own composition:
FAITH, UNWAVERING AND STEADFAST,
WILL STRENGTHEN BODY AND SOUL
For his part, Van Dijk presented Judith with a pair of gloves to seal their engagement – a Dutch tradition – to be worn on their wedding day. Fashioned from the softest kid, the cuffs were embellished with sea pearls and embroidered violets. A central motif of entwined hands and a basket of fruit spoke to their union and the hope of children to come. They were quite the finest gloves Suzanne had seen and she was astonished that Van Dijk might have acquired such a pair. To her knowledge, there were no glove makers resident in the Colony and few embroiderers capable of producing such delicate work. When she asked, he admitted he had bought the gloves from a merchant returning from the East and paid handsomely to secure them.
Madame Lombard surprised everyone by taking charge of the orphanage girls, moving into their lodgings while Judith was convalescing with Florence and Suzanne. She was brusque, sharp-tongued, wry, and the girls flourished under her firm – sometimes irreverent – guidance. Commander Van der Stel had been as good as his word. The girls now knew that none would be married until the new year at the earliest, so they were free to enjoy their days.
In this frontier colony, Suzanne realised she, too, was healing. The question Madame Lombard had asked her on the occasion of their first meeting – why Louise mattered so much to her – she was now not afraid to answer. She could not rewrite her own traumatic history, but she could do everything to bring Louise’s story into the light and that gave her purpose.
Yet Suzanne could do nothing but wait for Adriaan van Dijk to give her any morsel of information – and he was bound up with preparations for his wedding – and that was a drain on her spirits. She persuaded him to bring her books from the Castle library, though they were mostly dull treatises about trade or moralising volumes to improve the Christian mind. All the while, she held firm to her conviction that Louise had come to the Cape and settled. Her determination to find her remained steady.
Venturing out whenever she could, Suzanne found something different to marvel at on each occasion and wondered if Louise had been moved by the same sense of awe. The fynbos had exploded into life and the ground was carpeted with flowers: red, white, yellow, purple, pink and blue. The world was alive with the chirping of grasshoppers and rock kestrels and black-shouldered kites twisted and turned in the warming air. She was careful never to stray too far from the accepted paths, and never to places where lions or baboons had been sighted. But she took her notebook and she recorded what she saw. Like generations of Joubert women before her, she increasingly found solace and purpose in putting her words down on the page.
Testimony of a new world.
Six weeks to the day since the China had sailed into Table Bay, a small congregation of celebrants gathered at the chapel in the Castle of Good Hope for the wedding of Judith Verbeek, spinster and orphan, to Adriaan van Dijk, son of Johanna Evets and Jakob van Dijk of Rotterdam.
The Dutch pastor of the Colony, Johannes van Andel, conducted the service in the presence of Commander Van der Stel, the groom’s VOC colleagues and the bride’s travelling companions from Rotterdam. Wilhelmina, Petronella and Catrina were flower girls. Suzanne, Florence and Madame Lombard were the only French guests.
In front of their witnesses, Adriaan and Judith exchanged their vows, swearing their troth on the volume of psalms that had saved Judith’s life. Suzanne thought Adriaan had never looked finer, with his brown hair gleaming and his blacks laundered, his cuffs and collar bleached white. The bride wore a pale green dress, with open sleeves and a bodice exquisite with passementerie. She looked radiant in the chapel with her crown of flowers. Suzanne smiled, recollecting Adriaan’s description of Judith’s hair – the colour of autumn leaves – and wished she had the skill to capture it with paint and brush.
A simple wedding feast followed. The spiced wine known as ‘bridal tears’ was served in pewter cups and Adriaan had found someone within the Castle kitchens to bake bridal sugar, the sweetmeats that blessed every wedding table in Holland. It had been, Suzanne thought as she crept to bed some hours later, the most perfect day.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Monday, 18th October
Adriaan and Judith van Dijk settled into married life in his small, but comfortable, quarters in the Castle. Although the eldest of Van der Stel’s four sons was expected to succeed him, the Commander increasingly relied upon Van Dijk’s steady advice and proficiency.
For her part, the role of wife seemed to suit Judith. She continued to watch over the Rotterdam orphans as if they were her own children – though Madame Lombard now had sole charge of them. Her face grew plumper and her skin less sallow and, although her quiet and sweet nature was unchanged, she seemed to grow in stature. Judith had found her place in the world.
Suzanne had not.
The temperate climate of spring was giving way to a fierce summer. The sun blazed bright in the sky for twelve hours and more a day, forcing everyone inside. The town was attacked by flies hovering like black clouds over the earthen streets and, at night, the remorseless whine of mosquitos had every woman, man and child sleeping with a woven fan to swat them away. Suzanne was restless and, missing her previous intimacy with Judith, was suffocated by ennui. The heat and her own inaction made her ill-tempered and whatever her grandmother suggested to help pass the time did not help. What purpose was there to being here at all if she was just going to sit at home scribbling away in a notebook? She wanted to do something, achieve something.
The opportunity came a month after the Van Dijks’ wedding, when Adriaan unexpectedly presented himself at her door.
‘Good day to my favourite sister,’ he said, raising his hat. ‘The last two ships of the season are due to arrive soon: the Prinseland in a matter of days and the Castricum before October is out. Will you again help with the refugees? The request comes from the Commander himself.’
‘You need hardly ask,’ she replied, ‘I am going out of my head with boredom. Will you come in for a while? I have seen so little of you these past weeks.’
Inside, Adriaan removed his hat and loosened his stock and the buttons on his jacket, accepted a measure of wine, and answered her tumbling questions about Judith, her health, their day-to-day lives, with good humour. Once the pleasantries had been dispensed with, and arrangements made for the arrival of the final refugees, Suzanne took her chance.
‘I know you have had much to occupy you, brother, so I have not pressed you. But I wonder if you have had any success in looking into the case of my relative?’
He held his hand to his head. ‘Forgive me, I have been remiss. I have been meaning to find the time to talk to you, but—’
‘You have found something?’
Adriaan pulled a notebook from his pocket. ‘I did look into our earliest records – some, as you may imagine, pre-date the establishing of the Colony and go back to the days when our ships simply anchored for a week or two to replenish their stocks, before sailing on. Those records are not extensive and many of the files dating from before the Castle was built, when there was no more than a wooden fort on the site, have been lost.’
‘But there are some records?’
‘There are. While I could find no mention of Louise’s name, I did find three references to a person who fitted her description.’
Suzanne sat forward, elbows on the table like any trencherman waiting for his supper. ‘Tell me.’
‘The first was in a letter from a VOC captain to the governor general of Batavia dated the sixteenth of June 1622.’
‘That is five weeks or so after Louise dropped anchor.’
‘And some three years after we had repelled the English attack and were starting to build a city on the ruins of Jayakarta. As a consequence, many more VOC ships were sailing east and stopping to replenish at the Cape. The captain in question had put in at Table Bay for provisions and to negotiate with the Khoi, who were ready to barter cattle in exchange for iron, copper, beads, brandy. His onward departure was delayed because of a series of storms that were battering the Cape. He was obliged to take lodging in the Fort until such time as it was safe to continue. I assume the letter was to explain the hiatus, though why it was never sent, I know not. The point is that, in making his report of his trading with the Khoi, he learnt they were not the only Dutch ship to have arrived in the Cape that autumn.’
Suzanne realised she was holding her breath. ‘Go on.’
‘That earlier ship had drawn everyone’s attention for several reasons: first, they had nothing to trade or barter. They simply replenished their supplies, then set off again almost immediately on the following tide to return to Europe. That was unusual.’
‘Louise’s lieutenant said she gave him orders to sail her ship back to Amsterdam without her,’ Suzanne put in.
Adriaan nodded. ‘Second, the captain appeared to be a woman.’
‘Appeared to be?’
‘The descriptions were vague. She was tall and broad, always with a red scarf around her head.’
‘Louise often wore such a scarf.’
‘And there was also much talk among the Khoi of a dagger with an evil eye. That could mean anything.’
Suzanne’s eyes were now shining with excitement. Finally, she was getting somewhere. ‘Louise had a dagger with a single emerald on the hilt. At least, she’d had it in her possession in Gran Canaria.’
Adriaan paused dramatically. ‘Third, it is told that she had two male companions. One of the men is said to have had a devil’s mark, that’s to say – so far as I can tell – a strip of pure white in his hair.’
Suzanne took a deep breath. For the first time, this was independent confirmation that all three had survived the voyage and come on shore. ‘Phillipe Vidal. He was her half-brother. Where did they go?’ she asked keenly. ‘Did the captain write of that? Did they stay in Table Bay?’
Adriaan held up his hand. ‘Slow down. The Khoi claimed that they went into the interior. Towards the elephant’s valley.’
‘Where is that?’
‘We call it Olifantshoek, where the elephants go to calf. It is beyond Stellenbosch, a distance of some fifteen leagues from here as the crow flies. That’s to say, the distance to Stellenbosch and as far again. But the formidable mountain passes are dangerous, the valleys wreathed in shadow and every manner of wild animal can be found there. Few white settlers have ventured that far.’
Suzanne thought for a moment. Olifantshoek. This married with what Madame Lombard had told her. ‘Did they travel together, did the captain write of that?’
‘He says that reports varied. Sometimes it was two men, sometimes it was a woman and a man, sometimes three men. That is where the letter ended. The storms cleared and, I presume, the good captain sailed on to Batavia.’
She refilled his cup and, this time, poured herself a measure too.
‘You said there were two other references.’
‘Yes. It is fortunate that, even then, we were keeping meticulous records of our trade with local people. It is so important to—’
‘Adriaan, please,’ she interrupted, seeing the zeal in his eyes. ‘I do not care about the VOC arrangements with the Khoi.’ Suzanne checked herself. ‘Forgive me, of course I do. But not at this moment.’
He took the rebuke in good spirit. ‘The second reference is more fleeting. In the quartermaster’s stores, there was a ledger from the November three years later, 1625. In it, a white man – name unrecorded – is described as coming to the harbour to trade peacock feathers for paper and ink. It is noted because he had travelled from the interior. In other words, not a sailor or a merchant, but resident up-country.’
