Читать книгу The Silence - Joss Stirling - Страница 10

Captain Frederick Jack dreamed of me – a house of his own – while he sailed the Caribbean in 1780. He was just a captain then. He’d done nothing of note, merely ferried cotton, pineapples and black ivory for a living. His days of fame as an admiral of the fleet were to come later when the little French upstart shook the thrones of Europe.

So, when I was conceived, my Captain Jack was distinguished only by the fact that he had the good fortune to marry a woman from the merchant class. With her money he could order my measurements from architects, adjust and fashion me completely to his taste. When he returned from his voyage, Jack gave his wife a perfunctory kiss, looked in on the infants bawling in the nursery at Deptford, then hurried along the Thames to climb the hill that led to my cradle. The builders were waiting to cut the first trench, spades poised. Jack bounded across the heath, waved his pocket handkerchief as his Blue Peter, and they set off, digging deep in the soil.