Golden Hill by Francis Spufford Read Free Book Online Page B

Lovell. ‘This is Liberty Hall here, you know; no need for party manners in the family.’ Tabitha snorted.
    The violinist launched into the figures of a minuet, and Zephyra came and went with a tray until the table was loaded with the soups and meats of the first course, in silver dishes stowed among the candelabras. Mr Lovell carved from a grand ham blackened with molasses. While he passed along plates, and exchanged pleasantries, Smith was able to consider upon the informative and (as it were) strategic design of the plan according to which the diners had been bestowed at table: his own placement amidst the knot of the adult men, where Captain Prettyman and Van Loon senior could rake him from opposite, and Mr Lovell could contribute enfilading fire from his left, while Hendrick remained just in range should reinforcements be required, and the careful removal meantime from out his conversational reach of all the women except Tabitha, who was presumably considered an armament in herself. Little Elizabeth Van Loon, a solemn eight-or nine-year-old sitting bolt upright in the lee of Piet, he could speak to, but Anne, a sulky fifteen- or sixteen-year-old miss with her mother’s curves, was in the fortified maternal zone at the far end, and so was Flora. ‘Anneke, if you eat that, it will give you schpots,’ Mrs Van Loon was saying. ‘Floortje, my dear, would you ask Joris for the chicken?’ Joris seemed to be George, one beyond Tabitha, planted squarely between Flora and any Smithian temptations.He was a skinny, hollow-templed youth, more elegantly dressed than anyone else at dinner had bothered to be; and it was not difficult to guess the reason for his sense of occasion, for he had scraped his chair closer to Flora’s, proprietorially, and was loading her plate for her. Of all the faces along the table, his was the only one so unprotected as to show a naked hostility when he glanced Smith’s way. Aha, thought Mr Smith. Very well.
    ‘A glass of wine with you, sir,’ rumbled Piet Van Loon, filling Smith’s glass: his voice, like his wife’s, preserving the Dutch that had vanished from his children’s. Ey glarsch off vein.
    ‘With all my heart, sir,’ Smith said, pouring for Van Loon in turn as protocol dictated. ‘To your very good health! And to the company,’ he added, turning to left and right with his claret glass held up between finger and thumb. ‘You are quite right, sir,’ he added to Mr Lovell. ‘The change from dining in the wardroom aboard is very welcome.’
    ‘A difficult voyage?’ said Van Loon.
    ‘No, sir; just a long one.’
    ‘Indeed. In these days the journey down to the Leewards is long enough for me. I made the greater crossing once, to study in Leiden when I was a jongeling, and that was sufficient for a lifetime. You would not undertake it without some serious purpose, nee?’ Van Loon’s periods growled along like barrels on a hard floor.
    ‘Indeed not, sir. There’s a deal of water out there to drown frivolity in. But tell me,’ Smith said quickly, for he feared an instant return of the question he must not answer with either truth or lie, ‘are you then, sir, a native of the city?’
    ‘Naturally. What else should I be?’
    ‘All the Dutch are,’ put in Lovell. ‘They all date back to the old times. Piet is the third Van Loon. He was a ledger clerk in hisgrandfather’s house when first I laid eyes on him, pricing beaver-skins for hats. How they stank; it was August. We had some times, didn’t we?’
    ‘You were prenticed together?’
    ‘No, no, I was bound to Walton’s at that time. Come over on the indenture, and worked a little of this, a little of that. Thought I’d never learn the lingo, and you needed it then, it was Hoogen and Haagen all along the water then. I wheeled in the barrow of skins, and I said to him, “Tell me your offer in the Queen’s English—”’
    ‘“—for I’ll not onderschtand it if you gargle it”,’ finished Van Loon. It did not