The Ghost Ship, page 14
Gilles still felt he was in a dream, as if everything happening to him belonged to someone else. He was entranced by the endless motion of men and ship, the way in which every part of the vessel seemed to speak – creaking, lilting, moving, moaning, the rise and fall in the waves, bouncing and crashing against the swell. The ship had come alive. He stood with his knees partly braced, realising that if he embraced the motion of the vessel rather than fighting against it, he could survive on board. He listened to the whistles and tried to understand what each sound meant. He learnt that time was measured differently – eight bells, one for each half-hour of a four-hour watch, struck each time the hourglass was turned – and that there was always someone on watch, someone at the helm, someone trimming the sails. No hand was ever still.
The sea grew rough as they neared the English Channel, zig-zagging their way with the wind from astern. Huge rolling waves from the Atlantic, steep and unforgiving, set the ship bobbing like a cork. Waves broke across the waist of the main deck, making the wooden deck slippery and perilous.
Mostly, they left him alone with a cup of rum to settle his stomach; he took care to visit the front of the ship to do his personal business when no one else was there. And, when the sea was calm again, they allowed him to listen to their stories of shipwrecks and monsters of the deep, of ships deliberately lured too close to the rocks. Each man had a clay pipe of foul tobacco. Gilles tried it once, and coughed his guts out. They told him that tensions could run high on long voyages, when the weather was against you and the captain harsh. But most of the crew were Dutch, this was a home-coming, and there was no appetite for conflict.
The days went by quietly enough.
Somewhere out of sight, they passed the rocky coast of Brittany and Normandy as, blessed with a westerly wind, the Old Moon sailed homeward. Under the last queen of England, the sailors told him how these waters were infested with pirates and ships had been forced to route past Ireland and the north coast of Scotland, before sailing the length of the North Sea down towards Holland. These days, the channel was less dangerous.
Two days later, Gilles looked with awe as magnificent white chalk cliffs appeared off the portside bow while they sailed through the channel’s narrowest stretch. As they followed the flat coastline of the Spanish Netherlands, the wind grew stronger again. Violent waves hit the quarterdeck, setting the ship rolling and plunging in the water, and it was all hands on deck to reef the mainsail. Then, the wind dropped as quickly as it had come, and the voyage continued.
Each night, when the sky was covered with silver and white stars, Gilles returned to the hammock allotted to him in the sailor’s quarters in the hold. There, lulled by the motion of the waves and comforted by the teeming life around him, he curled into a tiny ball, and slept. He had nothing of his own, except the clothes he stood up in and the Justice card tucked in the lining of his shoe. But for the first time since his uncle had died, he felt he might trust in providence and live.
He was free.
PART THREE
AMSTERDAM
November 1620–March 1621
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
AMSTERDAM
Sunday, 8 November 1620
It was with relief that Louise walked through the heart of Amsterdam towards the house Cornelia and Alis shared. They had been out of town when the Old Moon docked – she had not been expected back until the spring. So, despite their mutual antipathy, Louise had been obliged to lodge with her aunt Bernarda and her husband Frans for the past fourteen days in the old family home on Zeedijk.
Bernarda had talked a great deal of her Christian duty and made a fuss, not least about Gilles and his position in her house. Was he a guest, an upper servant, or a poor relation? Respect for status and hierarchy were the rules by which Bernarda lived and ran the almshouse. Minou and Piet had established the hofje to care for the scores of displaced children – innocent victims of the wars in France and the Dutch Provinces – who found their way to Amsterdam. Refugees like them. It had been their way of expressing their gratitude to the city that had offered them sanctuary. These days, the children were clothed and fed, they were dutiful and obedient, but it seemed to Louise that there was less laughter in the hofje than in the old days.
Since Gilles did not speak Dutch, he was protected from Bernarda’s tongue, though not her critical glances. To Louise, every hour dragged, and she felt her grandparents’ absence in every room. But finally, a message had been received that morning saying that Cornelia and Alis were home and would be glad to see her this afternoon. Louise was hoping they would invite her to spend the rest of her time in Amsterdam with them.
A great deal had changed since she had last been in the city of her birth. She had spent only a handful of weeks here in the past ten years, choosing to settle instead in La Rochelle where there were no ghosts to haunt her. No troubling half-memories.
Amsterdam had expanded significantly both to the east and the west. Everything was on a grander scale. Three new grand canals to the west of Singel were in various stages of completion with magnificent gabled townhouses. The city’s fortifications had been enhanced, the Stadhuis on Plaats renovated, and every church was full on Sunday with Calvinist burghers and their wives dropping heavy coins onto the offertory plate. There always had been a babel of languages and nationalities around the port itself and Louise, though she had not yet visited, had no doubts the rough quarters behind Sint Nicolaas still existed – the far end of Zeedijk was known as the ‘rat’s nest’ for the number of pickpockets, rough taverns and brothels in its teeming streets. But bourgeois Amsterdam had come into her own.
Everywhere there were signs of the influence of the Dutch East India Company, VOC, and evidence of the ways in which a modest, if ambitious, port – which had suffered much during the long wars against the Spanish – had transformed itself into a harbour to rival the finest in the world: hops, cheese, fish, beer, wine, cloth, soap, hemp, timber, nails, rope, in this great trading city anything could be bartered and sold. The grain ships of merchants trading with the Baltic and France sat beside the clippers and fluyts heading for the Islas Afortunadas, the Indian Ocean and Batavia. It was from the Shreierstoren, the weeper’s tower, that Henry Hudson had set sail in the year 1609 to find a faster trading route to the East Indies and, instead, discovered a new world in the Americas.
Louise stopped to watch a knife-grinder working his stone, then continued on into Warmoesstraat itself. The red-brick merchant houses were some five storeys high, most with elegant neck gables and ornate pediments. Steps led up from street level to narrow front doors, with long leaded-glass windows to the side. Above each door, carved decorative tiles of painted plaster and gilt boasted the year of construction. In this city of traders and merchants, success had to be visible. Appearances mattered.
Louise stopped in front of the Van Raay house and glanced up. The tile set between the stone-arched windows showed a richly dressed man, standing in front of a cargo ship bearing the family ensign, grain slipping through his fingers into a basket. She pulled a face. Surely, by now, the tile should have been replaced by an image of a woman commanding a fleet? But, then, that would not have been in character. Cornelia disliked ostentation.
Louise walked up the steps, knocked and was admitted into the hall by a maid with raw, angry skin. She smiled. The old globe was still there, its surface a little more yellow. She ran her fingers over the wooden surround, looking at the terra incognita that entranced her as much now as it had when she was a child.
Everything just as it always was.
Then, the door of the salon opened and there was her great-aunt Alis throwing wide her arms. In her sixty-sixth year, she was a wiry woman with a mass of curls turned grey by the years held beneath a white bonnet. Her eyes were as bright as ever.
‘Lieveling, how we’ve missed you! I am so sorry we were not here when you arrived.’
Louise let herself be buried in a hug. ‘And I you.’
Cornelia appeared behind them. A slightly older woman, stout and sturdy, her face was a map of the years she had lived. Her heavy brows were white now, but her glare was still forthright, making it seem as if she was furious even when perfectly sanguine.
‘Dear, dear Louise, come and sit by the fire. Has Bernarda been driving you to distraction?’
Louise laughed. ‘You cannot imagine.’
In the way of old friends who have been apart for a while, the three women took a little while to settle. Dutch beer and pancakes were brought to the table, soused herring, welcome tastes of Amsterdam after the Pineau and oysters of La Rochelle. Though she was very aware of the letter from Chartres in her pocket, Louise felt the strain of the past few weeks fading away as they caught up on several months’ worth of news. Over the summer, Cornelia had lost another ship, the New Star, in a storm off the Strait of Gibraltar. That had been a bitter financial blow and there were problems, too, with the levies she was obliged to pay to the VOC. Louise listened, sympathising and worried for Cornelia, whilst being conscious she was putting off sharing her own news. She did, however, tell them about the banquet she had held in La Rochelle for Captain Janssen, and what had followed.
‘I can hardly believe it,’ Alis said, when Louise had recounted the events of the night. ‘That poor young man. And they have not caught this man, Roux?’
‘They had not when we sailed.’
‘And you have brought the boy with you, you say?’ Cornelia asked, peering at her under her white brows. ‘That is, how shall I say, surprising?’
Louise felt herself blush. ‘His situation is unclear until his uncle’s will is found. I couldn’t leave him.’
Cornelia fixed her with a look. ‘You could have. He is hardly your responsibility.’
‘If you knew how his mother treated him. Even now, he goes in fear of her.’
‘Bah!’ Cornelia puffed out her cheeks. ‘You would not have come without a good reason, I know that. But here is my question. Why are you here in Amsterdam?’
Louise held her gaze for a moment, then reached for her purse and handed across the letter. ‘Because of this.’
* * *
After nearly two weeks at sea, Gilles had found it difficult to get used to being on dry land again. He’d felt a camaraderie with the sailors and crew, had felt accepted and safe. Now he was in yet another unfamiliar situation and, unable to understand the harsh Dutch language, he felt constantly ill at ease.
He suspected Madame Reydon-Joubert felt the same. There was clearly little love lost between her and her aunt – they were made from different clay. Bernarda Gerritsen was austere and judgemental, and seemed to take pleasure in pointing out everyone else’s short-comings. Her husband Frans, a heavy bear of a man, was kind though he said little. In the evenings, he brought Gilles a quart of beer and sat with him on the porch smoking his pipe, content in the silence.
But Gilles liked the house itself, liked imagining Madame Reydon-Joubert growing up here. Four storeys high, it sat at the eastern end of Zeedijk, one of the original dykes of medieval Amsterdam that curved along the northern boundary of the city at the harbour. Most of all, he loved the small orchard at the back of the house, where the orphanage children played in the afternoons, and slept in an old converted stable block at night. Though Amsterdam was prosperous now, there were still Huguenot refugees fleeing persecution in France, and plenty of abandoned children with no homes or parents to care for them. Though he could not understand them, nor they him, they sensed he had some fellow feeling with them.
He tried to make himself useful.
* * *
‘What?’ Louise asked, seeing a look pass between Alis and Cornelia. ‘I read all my grandmother’s journals that summer after she died – after grandfather died. There was nothing in them to suggest my father had married and had another child. Nothing.’
‘There wouldn’t be.’ Cornelia shook her head. ‘Minou only heard of the rumour when she was in Paris.’
Louise was taken aback. ‘When I went to sign the papers, Gran’mère knew?’
Cornelia nodded. ‘When Minou was dying, she wrote to us. She said that your uncle had come to her the day before your twenty-fifth birthday, saying there were whisperings of a legitimate heir to the Evreux estate. One of the King’s advisers had been in Chartres that spring, and had brought the story back to Paris. Jean-Jacques was intending to investigate, but obviously circumstances changed.’
Louise got to her feet. ‘Why didn’t she tell me?’
‘I imagine because, when you went with your grandfather to the lawyer, there was no suggestion that your inheritance might be challenged. So they felt they could dismiss it as a baseless rumour.’
Louise paused, remembering how suddenly happy her grandfather had been that afternoon when they left the lawyer’s office, and how relieved. Then, her grandparents laughing behind their bedroom door that night after her birthday dinner.
‘Did you ever ask Jean-Jacques about it?’
‘There was never a chance,’ Alis replied. ‘The murder of the King kept him in Paris and, as Cornelia said, because the will was proved, I suspect he also felt it was a false alarm.’
‘But that being so, why did Gran’mère mention it to you at all?’
‘Minou was very sick, and that was a burden on her. Since there was nothing proven, she did not want to cause you distress,’ Cornelia explained in her measured way. ‘Don’t be cross.’
‘I’m not cross. But you should have told me before now, both of you. Jean-Jacques should have told me.’ She brandished the letter. ‘And now this.’
She picked up her glass and found it empty.
Louise waited while Cornelia rang the bell and the maid brought a second jug of beer, before continuing. ‘In her notebooks, Gran’mère wrote that my mother always refused to say who my father was.’
‘That is true,’ Alis said. ‘Then we all travelled to Chartres for the coronation of the old king in February of 1594, and Marta saw him there. It all came out.’
Cornelia nodded. ‘Minou realised. Marta’s behaviour and expression confirmed it. And your name – Louise, perhaps named for Louis?’
Louise frowned. She had never considered that before. ‘Then what?’
‘After that, Marta changed,’ Alis said. ‘She became obsessed with the idea that he – Louis – would find out about you and take you from her.’
‘Could he have done that?’
Cornelia gave a dry laugh. ‘Of course. As a man, the rights were all on his side. There was a further complication. Louis’ father was an old adversary of Piet’s. They were distant cousins, and there was a suggestion that some of Vidal’s wealth might rightfully belong to your grandfather.’
‘Yes. Gran’mère wrote about that too.’
Cornelia continued. ‘For a while, it was all Minou and Piet talked about. But, in truth, we all thought it would be impossible to prove. It is hard to explain how it was in those times. Any papers that might have proved your grandfather’s case would, more likely than not, have been lost in the Huguenot–Catholic wars.’
Louise put the letter carefully back on the table. ‘And then?’
‘And then,’ Alis replied, ‘he tracked Marta down.’
She exhaled. ‘Do you think he knew about me before seeing us in the cathedral in Chartres? I presume that is where he saw us?’
‘Yes. Marta saw him first, then he caught sight of her as the service was finishing.’ Alis shrugged. ‘But we never knew if he realised who you were.’ And that chance moment led to murder.
Louise pushed the memory away, with the same nagging sense that there was some crucial part of the story missing.
‘This letter,’ she said. ‘There are two things I do not understand. If there is any truth in the claim, then why wait so long? Even if there were rumours – my uncle heard them some ten years ago – this is a very, very long time after the event. Is it possible no one knew he had married?’
‘Of course,’ Alis said. ‘But he would have known.’
‘It is easy for the rich and powerful to keep their secrets,’ Cornelia added.
‘Or,’ Alis continued, ‘his wife was estranged from him, so he didn’t know there was a child. Perhaps that is the reason for the stipulation you would only inherit when you were twenty-five years of age.’
Cornelia considered. ‘Giving Louis time to find this possible legitimate descendant? That, too, could be an explanation.’
Louise shook her head. ‘Are we truly prepared to countenance that, on two occasions, this man – my father – had a child of whom he was unaware? Or that a woman who was legally married to such a wealthy man, whatever the reasons for their estrangement, would not instantly have presented herself when she heard of my father’s death?’ Then she stopped, suddenly picturing her grandmother on that last morning in Carcassonne. She tried to remember the exact words Minou had used. She held up her finger. ‘Gran’mère left her final journal behind in Paris when we fled after the King’s assassination, she told me so. Is it possible that she did write about the rumour of a legitimate heir – she was always honest in her journals – and someone found it?’
Alis nodded. ‘And is now trying to make use of the information?’
‘The same objection applies,’ Cornelia said. ‘Why wait so long? They would have used the information long before now. Neither solution explains the long gap in time.’ She reached across the table and drew the letter towards her. ‘This letter has the Evreux seal, but it is not signed. Louise?’
She realised she hadn’t been listening. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘I said the letter is not signed. ‘So, we have no idea if the letter has come from this supposed claimant or from someone else. A servant, or a representative, a lawyer.’
‘Or someone hoping to make mischief,’ said Alis.
Louise shrugged. ‘Could be. The letter simply asks me to acknowledge receipt and agree to meet.’
