‘And so you raised him as your own?’
‘My husband was captain of the The Adventurer and took him to sea with him. Plucky little lad he was. Happy to climb up to the top of the rigging but never got his sea legs. Sick as a dog every time they sailed. Eventually Richard had to give up the idea of keeping the boy by his side. In any case, Will was always determined to be a doctor.’
‘He seems to be a good one.’
‘The best.’
‘I wondered if you have any errands you’d like me to run tomorrow? I’d like to visit my father and let him know where I am living now, if I may?’
‘Of course you may!’ said Agnes crossly. ‘And you can bring me back a bottle of rosewater. Just because I’m old and wrinkled doesn’t mean I don’t like to look after myself.’
After Susannah had helped Agnes to bed that evening she went down to the kitchen to find Peg sitting at the table next to Emmanuel, both of them eating bread and dripping. Mistress Oliver sat beside them with a glass of ale.
‘Going to eat us out of hearth and home,’ she said gloomily. ‘Like that plague of locusts in the Bible.’
‘I came to see how Peg has settled in.’
‘Doing all right by herself, as you can see.’
Emmanuel nudged Peg and then looked innocently at his supper when she giggled.
Susannah smiled; it seemed she had made a friend already.
‘Goodnight, then.’
‘Take a candle with you. This old house is full of shadows.’
The fire in Susannah’s bedchamber had died down. She stirred the embers until they glowed before climbing into bed. Dust showered down onto the counterpane as she drew the bed curtains around her. It must have been very much longer than the month that Mistress Oliver mentioned since the room had had anything more than a cursory dust and she determined to clean the room to her own standards the following day.
The strange bed was lumpy and Susannah could not sleep. She stared into the dark, listening to the old house creak as the timbers settled and thinking about the chilling prospect of the child growing within her, like a maggot in an oak apple. Part of her still expected, and hoped, to find blood between her thighs.
All at once fright erupted and she leaped out of bed and paced backwards and forwards in front of the dying fire while she tried to catch her breath. Gripped by terror, she was haunted by memories of her mother’s terrible death and she knew that this child, Henry’s, would kill her, too. She had to do something! The night was long but at the end of it she had come to a decision.
The following day Susannah began to learn her duties and wrote several letters for Agnes since her poor crippled hands could no longer hold a quill. She read a little more of The Merchant of Venice and cut up her meat for her at dinner. In the afternoon, once Agnes had settled down for a rest, she set off for the apothecary shop.
When she arrived she was relieved that her father was out visiting a customer and Ned was minding the shop. She drew the dispensary curtain behind her and hastily took down Culpeper’s Complete Herbal and English Physician from the shelf. She flicked through the pages until she found what she was looking for and then measured out two ounces of grains of paradise with trembling hands. She spilled the iron filings as she weighed them out and had to sweep them up and start again. Hurriedly she gathered together an ounce of turmeric and the same of long pepper and some pennyroyal. She twisted each one into a scrap of brown paper, all the while listening for her father’s return. Just as she put the items in the bottom of her basket she heard the shop bell and then her father’s voice. Hastily, she covered the basket with a cloth and waited until she heard Cornelius’s steps upon the stairs before hurriedly lifting down the storage jars that contained the remaining herbs she sought. She measured out dog mercury gathered from the village of Brookland in Romney Marsh and a generous handful of wormwood, some garden rue, horehound and powdered nettles. A bottle of rosewater followed the other items into the basket, which she placed under the counter before going upstairs to greet her father.
Later she returned to the Captain’s House and looked round the kitchen door. It was deserted; presumably Mistress Oliver was off duty until it was time to prepare the supper. Relieved, Susannah put her basket on the table and hurried to the pantry. She took out the pot of honey she’d seen at breakfast and scooped a spoonful into a small basin. Then she unwrapped the ingredients from her basket and mixed them together. Rolling the resulting electuary into sticky little balls the size of a walnut, she placed them upon a small plate before quickly washing up the basin and putting it away. One each night and morning should have the desired result. Picking up one of the balls, she was about to pop it in her mouth when she heard Mistress Oliver’s heavy footfalls approaching along the passage.
Glancing wildly around for a hiding place, she shoved the plate of medicine onto the top shelf of the larder, pushing it right to the back.
The kitchen door opened.
‘You’re back, then?’ Mistress Oliver said.
Susannah palmed the medicine ball, her stomach clenching in guilt. ‘Is Mistress Fygge awake yet?’
‘She’s calling for you. You can take her a glass of ale.’
The medicine ball in Susannah’s hand had disintegrated into a sticky mess and she surreptitiously wiped it onto a cloth before taking the ale upstairs to her mistress. It would have to wait until later.
The rest of the afternoon passed pleasantly enough but she couldn’t concentrate for thinking of the medicine balls hidden in the larder.
After supper, Susannah waited until she judged that the dishes would be washed and put away before she poked her nose into the kitchen.
Mistress Oliver sat at the table regaling Peg and Emmanuel with amusing stories of her youth and Susannah retreated.
At last, Agnes went to bed. Susannah stood at the top of the stairs but she could still hear voices and laughter in the kitchen below. Nearly crying with frustration, she took herself off to her bedchamber.
She read for a while but couldn’t concentrate and lay thinking about her mother and the baby that had died.
After what seemed like an aeon, the house became quiet.
Susannah slipped from her warm bed. Shivering with more than the cold, she crept down to the kitchen where she lit a candle with a taper from the fire, then climbed up on a stool to reach the top shelf of the larder. She took the plate and looked at the little medicine balls glistening in the flickering light. Picking one up, she stared at it in the palm of her hand. She had never made such a powerful medicine before and would have refused to do so if asked by any of the customers in the shop. Slowly she opened her mouth and put it on her tongue. Her heart began to beat very fast. This terrible medicine could change the course of her life. And take that of the child she carried. Yes, and damn your soul! Susannah started; it was as if she could hear Martha’s voice in her head.
The honey in her mouth began to melt and she scrambled down from the stool in a sudden panic. She spat the medicine into the kitchen fire from where it spat back at her with a little shower of sparks.
Chapter 14
The long freeze finally broke at the end of March and soon the gutters and drains were running with melted snow. April came, bringing the sun, but one fine spring morning was disturbed by a banging on the front door.
‘He’s very angry, ma’am,’ said Peg. ‘He says he won’t leave until you’ve paid him off.’
Susannah, with sinking heart, went to talk to the caller, a shoemaker, who claimed that he was owed for a pair of shoes with silver buckles.
‘It’s all very well you claiming you can’t pay me what your husband owes but that doesn’t put food in my children’s bellies, does it?’ He stood with his hands on his hips, waiting.
‘I have said I will pay you a little each month until the debt is discharged,’ said Susannah, wrong-footed because she knew he had every right to expect to be paid. ‘Truly, I can do no more.’
‘I’ll wager yo
u’ll eat dinner tonight but my Bess and Jem must starve until next month!’
‘If I could pay you now, I would.’ She could feel the pulse beating in her throat as he glowered at her.
‘I’ll have my money now and I’m not moving until I get it!’
Agnes heard the raised voices and came to see what was causing the commotion. She banged her stick on the floor with such authority that both Susannah and the shoemaker fell silent.
‘You may render my nephew’s account to me,’ she said.
She counted out the requisite number of coins into the shoemaker’s outstretched hand and then called for Emmanuel and instructed him to accompany the tradesman to the door. ‘I shall rest in my room for a while,’ she said, in response to Susannah’s heartfelt thanks. ‘You may attend me at dinner.’
‘Thank you so much, Agnes.’
‘But where will it end?’ muttered Agnes as she hobbled away.
Susannah was glad to escape into the garden.
Pacing up and down in the spring sunshine, she wondered if the rest of Henry’s creditors would find her and cause more unpleasant scenes. She had devoted a great deal of her waking thoughts over the past weeks to dreaming up ways of paying them off.
After a while she felt calmer and sat on the bench in the arbour of clipped yew. Drifting over the rooftops were the sounds of wheels on cobbles and the cry of the oyster seller but they were far enough away not to intrude upon the peace as she contemplated her new life.
She had found a rhythm to her days and discovered that she liked Agnes Fygge, despite the old woman’s acid tongue; she determined to do all she could to make herself indispensable. During the nights, however, Susannah tossed and turned while she worried about the burden of debt she carried and how she would provide for a child, assuming she survived the birth. Exhausted from restless nights and lulled by the drowsy cooing of the pigeons in the loft, she turned her face up to the warmth of the pale sunshine and fell into a doze.
A little later, quick footsteps on the path woke her and she saw Peg trotting towards her, wiping her hands upon her apron. ‘There’s a messenger here,’ she said. ‘He came looking for Mr Savage.’
‘Oh no, not another one! What does he want?’
‘He’s a sailor. Quite a rough sort of person.’
By the time they reached the kitchen Mistress Oliver had settled the messenger by the kitchen fire and the two of them were enjoying a spot of flirtation over a glass of ale.
‘I believe you are looking for my husband?’ said Susannah.
The sailor wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. ‘Aye. Is he here?’
‘No. My husband passed away.’
He sucked his teeth. ‘The Mary Jane is in. Mr Savage’s goods are waiting to be collected.’
‘Oh!’ It had never occurred to Susannah that Henry’s business interests would continue even though he was dead. ‘I shall have to make arrangements,’ she said. A glimmer of hope lifted her spirits.
‘Best not leave it too long or the consignment will walk right off the quay by itself.’
‘Very good. I shall see to it.’ She tipped him a halfpenny and then went and knocked on the study door.
William Ambrose sat at his desk making notes.
‘I’ve had a visitor,’ she said. ‘The Mary Jane has docked and Henry’s consignment of rum and sugar is sitting on the quayside.’
William frowned but then his face cleared. ‘But this is good news.’
‘I’ve been so anxious about Henry’s debts.’ Relief made her forget her usual reserve with him. ‘I had no idea how I’d ever be able to pay off all Henry’s creditors but now I’m hoping this might be the answer. I wondered if you might accompany me to the docks?’
They took a hackney carriage although, as William said, it would have been as quick to walk since the volume of traffic was so great. An endless stream of carts and drays, carriages and horses, all with business at the wharves and warehouses, threaded their way along Thames Street. The noise was tremendous; shouting and banging, the creaking of the ropes as crates and barrels were thumped to the ground, running footsteps and voices raised in a myriad of tongues.
The Mary Jane towered above them as sailors and merchants flowed across the gangplank. There was a strong smell of decaying fish in the air, which made Susannah wrinkle her nose. William took her arm and led her aboard. They found the captain’s cabin and explained to him that Susannah was Henry’s widow. After some discussion, Susannah signed a sheaf of documents and took ownership of the consignment.
‘I shall send a cart to collect the goods tomorrow,’ said William.
‘I’d as soon you took the black cargo away now,’ said the captain. ‘They don’t travel well and I’ll not be responsible for any more wastage. You can come back for the barrels and crates later.’
Susannah watched William’s expression turn thunderous.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘How many?’ William asked the captain, ignoring Susannah entirely.
‘Two remaining.’
‘Where are they?’
‘I’ll have ’em brought up from the hold. I’ll do you a favour and ask my men to put a bucket of water over ’em first, shall I? Several weeks at sea doesn’t make ’em smell of roses.’ The captain laughed raucously, mightily pleased with his joke.
‘William?’ Susannah put a hand on his arm. ‘What is it?’
‘My dear cousin seems to have left us with a problem. There are two slaves to be collected.’
‘Slaves? But …’
‘I believe you said you argued with Henry when he told you he’d sent to Barbados for some slaves?’
‘I did. I completely forgot about it until now. You don’t mean …?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
Susannah turned cold. ‘Can’t he take them back again?’
‘I doubt they’d survive a second journey straight after this one. One of them has already died.’
‘William, what are we to do? I can’t possibly keep them!’
Susannah and William waited on deck until the captain came up through the hatch from below. One of his men followed, dragging a chain behind him. On the end of the chain stumbled a black woman, her thin cotton dress soaked and clinging to her skin. A scrawny child of about five and clad only in filthy rags clutched her hand but in any case he wouldn’t have been easily separated from his mother since their ankles were chained together. Shivering violently, they stood bowed and blinking in the daylight.
Susannah gagged at the reek that emanated from the couple and lifted a corner of her cloak to cover her nose.
‘Phoebe?’ William advanced to more closely examine the woman. ‘Phoebe, is it you?’ His face was taut with shock.
Slowly she turned and looked at him, a tiny flame of hope in her dull eyes. When she opened her mouth to speak William gave a barely imperceptible shake of his head.
‘Phoebe, this is Mistress Savage, my cousin’s wife and your new mistress,’ he said.
Phoebe licked her lips, cracked and bleeding. ‘Massa Savage wife?’
‘And I am very sorry to tell you that Mr Savage is dead.’
She began to sway, her eyelids fluttering, and the child let out a small cry of distress.
William hurried to catch her before she fell to the ground and supported her until the fainting fit passed.
Susannah watched, made uneasy by his close attention to the slave woman.
After a moment or two Phoebe’s eyes flickered open and William released her. She looked wildly about her until she saw the boy. Clutching for his hand, she whispered, ‘Erasmus dead, too.’
‘I’m truly sorry to hear it. And is this little Joseph?’
Phoebe nodded and pushed him forward.
William tipped up the child’s tear-stained little face and studied it for some moments. Then he ruffled the child’s curly hair and said, ‘You will be safe now, Joseph.’
‘You know these people?’ asked Susannah, drawing W
illiam away. Nose wrinkling, she noticed that the front of his cloak was soiled from the filth caked over the woman’s clothing.
‘Phoebe and her brother, Erasmus, were the children of Henry’s nursemaid and just before I returned to England I assisted at Joseph’s birth. I came to know Phoebe and Erasmus very well during my year on Uncle’s plantation. But I hardly recognised Phoebe since she has grown so thin and sickly.’
‘And Phoebe’s brother died on the journey?’
William’s mouth tightened. ‘Conditions in the hold of a ship are barely fit for animals, never mind a child.’
‘What about her husband?’
‘She has no husband,’ said William shortly.
Susannah glanced at the woman again to find that she was looking intently back at her. The boy, lighter-skinned than his mother, clung to her hand and stared at the ground, as if he had given up expecting anything at all from life. Something about his skinny legs and knobbly knees suddenly made Susannah want to cry. ‘The boy will catch a chill,’ she said. ‘It’s inhuman to keep them outside in this cold wind when they’re soaked through. And they have no shoes.’
The driver of the hackney carriage refused to allow the woman and her child in his carriage. ‘I’d never be able to pick up another fare until I’d scrubbed the stink away,’ he said, not unreasonably.
‘We’ll walk home,’ said William. He unlocked the slaves from their chains with the key the captain had given him.
‘Won’t they run away?’ asked Susannah.
‘Where do you think they’d run to?’
Susannah was close enough to smell sweat, vomit and worse upon them. Nevertheless, she took off her shawl and wrapped it round the boy’s shoulders, tying it in a knot at the front. Feeling rather pleased with her selfless act of charity, she said, ‘There, that’s better, isn’t it?’
Phoebe glanced up at her with a hostile stare then dropped her gaze to the ground.
Susannah took a hasty step back. Had she imagined it, or did the other woman’s eyes burn with something that looked like hatred? Flustered, she turned and bumped into William.
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