CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CAPE COLONY

Saturday, 6th November

In the event, Suzanne was not to have a gun in her hand again for more than a fortnight. In the meantime, she read the books Adriaan brought for her and managed to secure a map of the region. It was roughly drawn, and not to scale, but it at least gave the relative positions of the Colony to the mountains, the mountains to Stellenbosch and Drakenstein, then the passes beyond that led east to Olifantshoek. She pored over the map at night when Florence was asleep, imprinting the lie of the land on her mind.

Adriaan managed to smuggle Suzanne into the Colony Registry to study the VOC records of births, marriages and deaths, having secured permission for her to visit her strongbox held in the Castle vaults. For form’s sake, she confirmed that the gold, silver and jewellery she had deposited was all there and accounted for. But she learnt little in the registry, save for the fact that there were no records at all of Louise Joubert, Gilles Barenton or Phillipe Vidal. She asked if she might visit the archives, so she could see for herself the documents Adriaan had found.

That request was denied.

The arrival of the latest refugees on the Prinseland and the Castricum, the last two ships of the season, had swelled the population of the Colony by another four hundred people odd. The disembarkations had been straightforward, though time consuming, as had finding lodgings for all who needed them in the town. In the flattening heat, tempers were short and the limited resources much under pressure.

When time allowed, Suzanne was coaching Adriaan with his French. He had finally accepted how useful it would be to be able to converse more freely with the growing numbers of refugees. He was an eager student and Suzanne enjoyed visiting their apartment armed with paper and pen.

Florence continued to thrive. It was now she who, with Madame Neil and Madame Lombard, hosted the regular evening event to welcome the new Huguenot arrivals. It pleased Suzanne that her grandmother had, in the autumn of her life, found a new role. In France, the women would not have been friends. They would have had nothing in common. Their lives would not have crossed. But here, refugees all, different alliances were being created. Only they knew what it was like never to feel safe, to understand that one’s home was not always a sanctuary. Suzanne was happy for Florence – and it eased her guilt at having brought her to the Cape in the first place – but she was also a little wistful. She had found no such community. And, since that first evening when they had talked of her mission to find Louise, the subject had not been mentioned between them. Florence was filling her days with the present, not thinking about the past.

The fact was that Suzanne was lonely. Her one friend, Judith, as the wife of a senior VOC official, found her time occupied in hosting dinners for the captain and his officers, doing good works for the church whilst trying to make favourable matches for her Rotterdam girls. And, although Suzanne enjoyed Judith and Adriaan’s company when they dined informally at their lodgings, there was little left of the intimacy between the two young women that had characterised their long sea voyage and their first month at the Cape.

On the evening of Saturday the sixth of November, Suzanne was pleased to find herself invited to the Castle to attend a dinner in honour of the captains of the Prinseland and the Castricum. She had no doubt that Judith had lined up yet another VOC officer she wanted her to meet. Suzanne had never shared the reason for her violent antipathy to the idea of wedlock, but however many times she said that she was not looking for a suitor, her friend refused to accept it.

‘There are other paths to contentment,’ Suzanne protested, but Judith just smiled and told her to ‘wait and see’.

Shortly before eight o’clock, Suzanne left her lodgings and walked through the familiar streets, across the parade ground and bridge, to the Castle. Her hair was dressed in long ringlets which framed her face. She was wearing her favourite gown, a pale blue with a jewelled bodice, wide sleeves and lace trim at the neck, with her finest embroidered shoes. She feared they would be stained by the dust – it had not rained for weeks – but the occasion required it. Though not interested in any man Judith might put before her, she still wanted to be admired.

Having given her name to the guards at the gate, Suzanne was ushered under the bell tower and into the main courtyard. Lanterns had been set along the path towards the hall chamber, the flames fluttering in the gentle evening breeze sending shadows dancing along the yellow walls of the buildings. Everything seemed soft and enchanted in the apricot dusk. The guinea fowl were gone, replaced by four magnificent peacocks, their beautiful tails trailing across the cobbled surface.

Inside the building, she could hear the strains of courtly music slipping down the staircase. Viol and lute, the percussive plucking of the strings of a virginal. For an instant, she was back in La Rochelle in the days before the dragonnades, when chamber musicians would travel between the big houses filling the town with harmony.

Having paid her respects to the Commander and his sister-in-law, Suzanne was pleased to feel Judith’s hand upon her elbow.

‘You are placed beside Jean Prieur du Plessis,’ Judith whispered. ‘His wife is at home nursing their son. He was barber-surgeon on the Oosterland, which arrived last April. Thanks to him, there was not a single death on board. I think you will enjoy his company.’

The name triggered a memory, but Suzanne couldn’t place it. Du Plessis wasn’t mentioned in Louise’s prison diary, yet she was sure she had seen it written somewhere.

‘Thank you. Who else is here?’

‘That’s the captain of the Prinseland,’ Judith said, inclining her head towards a tall man standing by one of the open windows. ‘And that man with the whiskers, he is the captain of the Castricum. They lost a fair few souls during the course of the voyage, a source of bitter regret for him.’

Suzanne looked around the chamber, recognising a few faces. She was surprised to see Wilhelmina, one of the Rotterdam girls. In a plain red gown, and with her hair styled, she appeared older and more assured.

‘Wilhelmina?’

Judith’s gentle face grew sombre. ‘She met Corporal Biebouw at our wedding and he requested she should be invited tonight. My husband says he means to ask Commander Van der Stel for permission to marry.’

‘You are not in favour of his suit?’

Judith’s composure faltered. ‘It seems that he has, for some time, had a relationship with an enslaved Malagasy woman he owned. Some say he married her – which made her a freewoman – but even so. There is a child, a girl, whom he had baptised and he himself is named as the father.’

Suzanne frowned. ‘But if that is the case, how can he marry again?’

Judith lowered her voice. ‘Many of the first enslaved women married Dutch settlers – though Corporal Biebouw is, in point of fact, German – but it is now prohibited.’

‘So the marriage is not seen as legitimate.’

‘Exactly so. I cannot see such a man will be a good husband for Wilhelmina, but her heart is set upon him and Adriaan says the Commander will give his blessing. Maybe she will reform him.’

‘Only God can reform man’s baser nature,’ Suzanne said wryly.

Judith nodded. ‘It is true that I have yet to see Corporal Biebouw in chapel of a Sunday.’

Suzanne was about to ask more, but now Adriaan was standing in front of them. He smiled lovingly at his wife. ‘My dear, I would introduce you to the captain of the Prinseland.’ Then he turned to Suzanne and dropped his voice. ‘Meet me at the main gate at ten o’clock tomorrow morning, sister. Wear travelling clothes.’

‘Are we going back to Gallow’s Hill?’

He looked around, as if fearing to be overheard. ‘No, we ride for Stellenbosch. I will explain tomorrow.’ Then he raised his voice for the benefit of any eavesdroppers. ‘Might you be good enough to excuse us, juffrouw Joubert?’

Suzanne stared as Judith was swept away, brimming over with curiosity and excitement. At last, she was to travel into the interior. She had no idea why or how Adriaan had arranged she should accompany him – nor what the purpose of his visit might be – but it didn’t matter. At last, she would see something of life beyond the Colony, riding the ‘wagon trail’ to Stellenbosch.

And beyond that, Olifantshoek.

Unable to stop herself from smiling, Suzanne waved her fan, stirring the warm air, then mingled with her fellow guests. She picked up murmured snatches of news from the Fatherland: that William of Orange was leader of a Grand Alliance of Protestant countries alarmed at the expansionist ambitions of the king of France; that there were rumours William might even take the throne of England to save the Protestant nation from the rule of the convert Catholic king James II; that an English composer by the name of Henry Purcell was taking London by storm.

Suzanne let the chatter float by, stories from another world. Her eye alighted on Wilhelmina, listening with pretty animation to one of the VOC officer’s wives whilst constantly looking to see if Corporal Biebouw’s eyes were upon her.

She liked Wilhelmina, and wished her well, but wondered if anyone had considered the feelings of Biebouw’s common-law wife in the matter. She thought of the Black and Malagasy women she saw in the town, with lighter-skinned children playing at their sides, and realised how many such liaisons there must be. Based on mutual affection, or something darker? That was the question, for what power could those women, enslaved or free, possibly have to turn down such advances?

Her ruminations were brought to an end by the banging of a huge brass gong. A Black servant dressed in VOC livery then clapped his hands and invited guests to take their seats at the table for dinner. Suzanne nodded a greeting to the gentleman on her left, an officer from the Castricum, and spoke a few words in French to Monsieur du Plessis. A man of some fifty years, he had a crumpled face, but his eyes shone with determination and resilience. She still could not remember why the name was familiar.

Then the pastor enjoined the assembled company to say the Grace. Suzanne bowed her head and tried to still her excitement.

‘Tomorrow,’ she murmured to herself, as she put a morsel of bread in her mouth.