Plague Child. Peter Ransley

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СКАЧАТЬ carried. I thought then they were from the Church, come to test the truth of me being a miracle, because I had been given the gift of reading. He opened the book at Ecclesiasticus. My heart would have sunk into my boots if I had had any boots; for though I loved the New Testament, which is about love, I hated the Old for it is as full of revenge and hatred as it is of long words. I stared with mounting panic at the passage, which was about wisdom.

      ‘My son, learn the lessons of youth,’ I managed well enough; stumbled at ‘garnering wisdom’, then, at ‘Only to undisciplined minds she seems an over-hard task mistress’, the words fell about me like so many pieces of ship’s timber when a lifting tackle breaks.

      ‘Wisdom is an over-hard task mistress to you, is she Tom?’ Mr Black said.

      ‘No, sir,’ I mumbled, I think truthfully, for I liked wisdom, what little I knew of it; although perhaps I also said it because I thought it was the answer he expected.

      ‘Then what do the words mean?’

      I stared into his eyes, as black as his garments and as cold as frost. I shook my head, sick and ashamed. I had been found out. Not only was I not a miracle, I was a cheat and a fraud. I can still see Susannah’s wringing hands and downcast eyes. She began to say that it was her fault, she had boasted too much to the neighbours and God had punished her by taking the words away, but Mr Black silenced her by snapping the book shut.

      From the case, Gloomy George took out a writing table, a quill, ink and paper. He dipped the quill in the ink and handed it to me.

      ‘Perhaps you can write better than you can read.’

      I stared at the blank sheet of paper, as I now stare at the sheet in front of me, scarce able to believe I acted as I did.

      ‘Come now, you can write your name, child.’

      I could, in a laboured scrawl I was proud of; but I could see their sneers and hear the contempt in their voices. I would not give them that satisfaction. The blood burned in my cheeks and I flung the quill from me. A spray of ink peppered the fine linen of Mr Black’s cuff. I saw the horror on Gloomy George’s face an instant before I felt the blow of Mr Black’s cane across my shoulders.

      I reeled forward, knocking over the writing table, ink spilling from the horn. Another blow struck me across the head and I fell to the floor. Susannah was screaming. Above me was a blur of boots and the metal tip of the cane rising and falling. I flung my hands about my head and rolled away among the mess of paper and ink. As the cane hit the floor near me I grabbed at it and held on. To avoid falling over, Mr Black was forced to release it.

      I scrambled up, gripping the cane. If he was angry when I flung the quill, he was now astonished. He backed away, almost knocking over Gloomy George in his haste. Susannah stared, her mouth open. Smeared with ink, as well as with the blood now trickling down my face, I must have looked to the two men like a wild animal. Children did not seize canes. They did not beat, they were beaten.

      I was wild, but I was not an animal. The great difference between me and my fellows was that I was loved.

      In families with ten or eleven children love was in short supply. Children died too often to risk love. They were wet-nursed, lost amongst the others. Susannah had had other babies, but they were dead when they came out of her, or after a cry or two at her breast. I never thought to ask why I alone was so strong and vigorous, so determined to live.

      So they cared for me too much because I was all they had; and that made me selfish and bold as I gripped Mr Black’s cane, feeling a strange sense of power as I looked at the expressions on their faces. I do not know what I would have done if there had not been at that moment a hammering at the door.

      My boldness left me. I thought it the constable, come to take me to Paddington Fair. My mouth went dry and the cane slipped from me. Mr Black seized it as George answered the door. It was not the constable, but the waterman’s boy.

      The boat had to leave in half an hour to catch the evening tide. Mr Black said curtly he would take it. His rage seemed to be spent and he did not look at me as George packed the case and Susannah wiped my face and tearfully whispered to me to apologise to the gentlemen, but I would not. Apologise to him for beating me?

      ‘I told you it would be a waste of time coming here, master,’ George grumbled. ‘The boy has the devil in him!’

      When Mr Black, sitting broodingly, said nothing, George rounded on Susannah in bitter reproof. ‘Kindness to the body, madam, is cruelty to the soul.’

      ‘I am sorry, sir,’ she replied falteringly. ‘I do not know what happened – he is normally such a good child.’

      He shook his head sorrowfully. ‘No, madam. You are too good to him. Every coddle you give him takes him one step nearer to hell.’

      Susannah pushed me away as if I was already burning. George gave me a final, dismissive shake of the head, picked up the case and opened the door, but Mr Black did not move.

      ‘Master – the boat.’

      Still he did not answer but looked at me, his eyes seeming to bore into my very soul. Then he looked at his ink-spattered cuff and jumped up as if he was going to beat me again. In spite of the danger to my soul, Susannah drew me to her.

      ‘Sir, there is a washerwoman here who has a most rare soap –’ ‘Be quiet!’ he shouted, so loud that soot pattered from the chimney. ‘The boy has spirit,’ he said.

      ‘Aye,’ George said. ‘An evil spirit.’

      Mr Black gave him a chilling look that silenced him. ‘I will take him,’ he said.

      It was a long moment before George recovered from his amazement and found his voice. ‘Master! His temper is as ill as his reading.’

      ‘Both can be taught,’ he said, prodding me with his cane, as if I was one of the calves at Smithfield. ‘Come – the tide will not wait.’

      I was later to discover that Mr Black took for ever to come to a decision, but then demanded it be carried out immediately.

      ‘Has he any other clothes until he is fitted?’ he snapped to Susannah.

      ‘Only what he stands in, sir.’

      ‘No boots?’

      ‘Boots? As to boots, sir,’ she stammered, ‘I was always meaning to get –’

      ‘No boots, no matter. Hurry, woman, for God’s sake!’ We were already in Poplar High Street, and Susannah had run back for something, which she carried wrapped in a handkerchief. ‘Order boots, two pair, when you order the uniform from Mr Pepys,’ he rapped out at George.

      It was not until we were at the quayside that I began to realise what was happening. Susannah was delirious with joy, which confused me utterly for I thought – no, I knew – she loved me and I could not believe she was giving me, like a badly wrapped parcel, to this brute, however fine his clothes were.

      ‘Thou art to be indentured,’ she said proudly. ‘An apprentice to a printer. With boots.’

      The waterman’s boy prepared to cast off. The light was going, the soft, magical evening light over the water which I loved, and they had lit flares in whose flickering light men moved like shadows, stitching the СКАЧАТЬ