by Erica Brown
Freddie’s eyes shone like beacons in his dirty face. ‘He comes round nosing into other people’s business, that’s what Beannie said.’
Edith flew to the window. Across the alley, where jutting upper storeys dimmed any light that chanced to get through, three children squatted around a stream of water that ran out from the wall of one of the hovels before disappearing into a barrel-vaulted culvert. The culvert was small and old. Water had long ago washed away the mortar that had held it together. Some of its bricks had fallen from its roof and the children were using these to damn the flow of water, which was gradually spreading across the dusty ground.
Edith poked her head out of the window as the sound of footsteps echoed from the alley that led to Cabot’s Yard. The man was in the early years of middle age, was soberly dressed and carried a black leather valise. Edith watched as he sauntered slowly along, thoughtfully eyeing the slit of sky above the narrow lane. From there he glanced to the water pump, the privy and to where the three urchins were playing with the dirty water.
The children’s heads bunched together as they tittered like sparrows amongst themselves. The moment he averted his gaze, they were on him fast. He looked astounded, coming to a standstill as they pressed around him like dancers, their grubby hands in the pockets of his coat and waistcoat as they demanded pennies.
‘A farthing’ll do, mister.’
‘Ha’penny’ll be better.’
The smallest urchin sidled around the back of the man, his quick little eyes darting between his two friends who were pressed up close to their victim.
Thinking to do so might make her look respectable, Edith whipped off her apron before opening the front door. ‘This way, doctor!’
Three filthy, pox-marked faces threw her hateful glares as she strode across the road. ‘I think you’ve been looking for me,’ she said, taking the man’s arm and hustling him towards her own front door.
When attacked by the urchins he’d looked astounded. Manhandled by Edith he looked terrified. ‘Madam, I—’
‘I’m not a tart! Don’t you go thinking that. I’ve just done you a good turn. Now let’s see that you’ve still got your watch,’ she said, throwing a meaningful glance at the three rapscallions who brooded in the shadows across the lane.
‘Ah!’ he said, as he took on her meaning. He fumbled in the pockets of his waistcoat and sighing, withdrew a silver chain complete with its watch.
‘Good.’
Safe in her own house, she set him down in a chair, put the kettle on the hob, and asked, ‘Is that right yer a doctor?’
‘Yes,’ he said, his eyelids flickering as he took in the desperation of his surroundings.
‘So what you doing round ’ere then?’
‘I’m interested in cholera.’
Freddie stopped stirring the mice up and turned to stare at their visitor.
‘You’ll find plenty of it in Lewins Mead,’ said Edith, her voice filled with worry.
Lizzie started to scream.
‘My daughter’s sick,’ she said quickly, judging it the right time to invoke some gratitude in the man. ‘Could you help her? I haven’t got any money…’
Without speaking, he went to where Lizzie was bathed in sweat and the cloying stink of sickness. His eyes filled with pity as he bent over the bed, hesitantly at first, then more quickly as his interest grew. ‘How long has she been like this?’ he asked.
‘Since yesterday.’
Edith brushed her own sweaty hair away from her brow. Her head felt hot. Was she getting sick too?
‘Has she eaten?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘Has she drunk anything?’
Edith pointed to the bucket. ‘Just water – gallons of it.’
‘It’s to be expected. She’s very dehydrated.’ The doctor glanced at the bucket, his eyes narrowing with the intensity of his frown. ‘I suppose you got this from the pump opposite.’
‘Yes.’
‘Boil your water. Thoroughly cook all food. Don’t leave it out for flies to walk over it. Keep everything covered. And you must get your water from one of the pumps close to St Augustine’s Quay.’
Edith spread her hands lamely. ‘What difference will that make? It’s all water, ain’t it?’
The doctor shook his head. ‘No. The water down on the quay comes from Jacob’s Well, an underground spring on St Michael’s Hill. It’s pure and uncontaminated.’
‘Will Lizzie live?’ Edith asked, her face pinched with worry.
There’s a chance if you follow my instructions. You must replace the fluid she’s lost, but only use water from St Augustine’s Quay and boil it, to be on the safe side.’
She turned to tell Freddie to go to St Augustine’s Quay for water, but only his stick remained on the floor – much to the relief of the mice no doubt. Her son and her wooden pail had both disappeared.
The doctor stood. ‘I have to go now.’
Concerned for his safety, she said, ‘I’ll come with you.’
She walked with him as far as St Augustine’s Quay where they both watched as Freddie filled his pail from the Quay Pipe. It was more crowded around the quay, which made Edith feel strangely vulnerable, awkward and ragged. She began to turn back. ‘You’ll be safe now,’ she said.
‘Many thanks for your kind attention,’ he said, tipping his hat.
‘Don’t do that,’ she said, looking embarrassed, and left him there, perplexed but resigned to her behaviour. She couldn’t possibly tell him that quality gentlemen only tipped their hats to trollops and she certainly wasn’t one of those.
The traffic that circled St Augustine’s Bridge came to a standstill, giving her plenty of time to cross. There were wagons, gigs, landaus and growlers, men pushing barrows and huge shire horses pulling brewery drays. If a horse hadn’t lifted its tail and deposited its droppings only inches from her feet, she wouldn’t have noticed the occupant of the grand carriage that had come to a sudden stop beside her.
‘Blanche!’ She said it without thinking of the consequences. Suddenly she wanted to speak to her old friend, no matter how ragged she looked and how grand Blanche was. ‘Blanche,’ she called again.
Her old friend stared straight ahead, her expression unsmiling and her lips pressed tightly together.
‘Blanche,’ she cried more frantically and waved both arms.
Her cry was lost in the noise of the city, the shouts of costermongers, steam hammers and hooves and wheels as the traffic moved forward.
‘Stuck-up cow,’ she yelled once she’d crossed to the quay.
‘Were you shoutin’ to somebody in that posh carriage?’ asked Freddie. ‘Did you know them?’
‘Yeah, in another place and another time,’ said Edith and grimaced. ‘Used to be a friend.’ She shrugged. ‘Water under the bridge.’
Chapter Two
‘Never go back. Someone told me that once,’ said Tom Strong as he tipped molasses into a warmed tot of West Indian rum. His brow furrowed with sudden concern. ‘I have to say that my instincts tell me I shouldn’t.’
‘Never mind instincts, Tom,’ said Nelson Strong, his cousin by adoption. ‘What about reality? What about business in an expanding empire — I mean the family as well as the country?’
‘That’s reality too,’ said Tom, nodding towards the door of the inn, which opened frequently to expose a view of the quay where ships loaded and unloaded cargoes from all over the world. It was sleeting with rain, but the misty wetness did nothing to diminish the city’s potential or Tom’s enthusiasm. ‘Boston bustles with the youthful vitality of a stripling son out to prove himself. Why should I want to go back to the old country?’
Nelson sprawled back rakishly against the broad width of a New England settle, a blond wave of hair skimming his high, pale forehead. ‘America may need to prove itself, but you do not, Tom. You’ve done well. I’ve heard your praises sung by every merchant from Charleston to New York, and in Boston…’ He waved his hand like a triumphant banner. ‘You’re an impo
rtant man here, but what about Bristol? Your family misses you.’
Tom’s eyes darted back to Nelson’s face. ‘I’m not really a Strong like you are, Nelson. We’re at two ends of a spectrum. You’re Sir Emmanuel’s son and heir to a sugar fortune. I was born on the streets and my mother was a whore.’
Nelson laughed. ‘At least she did what she did to stay alive. There are many women of high birth who do it purely for pleasure. Uncle Jeb adopted you and accepted you as his son. That’s good enough for me.’
Tom shook his head. Nelson sometimes exasperated him with his simplistic view of life. Tom took things more seriously. ‘I have a shipping company to run. I owe it to my father-in-law. He’s become bitter enough since my wife died without me upping anchor and sailing away.’ He let his gaze drift around the quayside coffee house where a cup of best Brazilian cost just a few cents and the steam from boiled blue crabs loitered temptingly among the rafters. This had indeed seemed like home before Margaret had died. He’d convinced himself that the feeling of loneliness would become less painful with the passing of time and that his father-in-law still needed him.
Nelson persisted. ‘Will you at least let me tell you our plans?’
Tom swallowed a mouthful of sugared rum, which warmed his throat and made his head swim. ‘If you must.’
Nelson sprinkled a little opiate on his coffee before he continued. ‘I still have my bad habits,’ he said on seeing a hint of disapproval on Tom’s face.
Tom managed a weak smile. He didn’t approve, but it was Nelson’s problem, not his.
Nelson took a sip of coffee and a deep breath. ‘We want to modernize the fleet. The days of sailing ships are fast drawing to a close. Steamships take only half the time to get to Barbados and are not at the mercy of wind and tide. We need someone who knows about shipping to oversee the changeover, and before you ask why not me, I know little about ships.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘Come to that, I know precious little about sugar cane except that it grows from the ground in hot climates.’ His sudden burst of laughter attracted curious looks. ‘Though I certainly know how to spend the wealth it generates.’
‘An expensive habit,’ Tom remarked, as Nelson took another sip of the heady brew.
Nelson shrugged and sighed heavily. ‘Can’t seem to do without it nowadays.’ He laughed again, but without mirth, his amusement freezing to a smile. ‘It’s being a married man. It drives some men to drink – like my father. In my case,’ he shrugged, ‘I don’t touch alcohol. Father drinks enough for us both! Opium helps me cope with marriage to a wealthy heiress with breasts like pancakes and a belly like unbaked bread. In my head,’ he added after taking another sip, ‘I am surrounded by bare brown breasts and hips that sway like a ship on the sea. I can’t be hung for merely thinking adultery, Tom. So I shall go on sinning, at least in my mind.’
Tom suppressed the urge to comment that Nelson had not changed. Instead he remarked, ‘So your father is not too well?’
Nelson shook his head. ‘Brandy, rum and port have done their share of harm to his body. I’m not sure what he’s got in his mind.’ He frowned as he leaned forward, the vagueness slipping from his eyes as he fought to concentrate on what he was trying to say. ‘I fancy,’ he said at last, ‘that father feels he is running out of time and that his fortune should run out with him. His extravagance has got worse since my stepmother died. First he wasted money on understandable things – women, horses, drink and enormous gambling debts. But now…’ He shook his head helplessly. ‘One trip to that place at Brighton built by John Nash, and that was it. Apparently he’s also seen some book compiled by Napoleon about his stay in Egypt. There are pictures of tomb paintings, strange statuary and all manner of grave goods depicted in it. Since then, Marstone Court has been full of brick layers, stonemasons, carpenters and decorators, leaving sphinxes and hawk-headed gods in their wake.’
Tom grinned at the image. ‘A shrine to wealth and importance and perhaps the hope of immortality.’
‘Given half the chance, I’m sure he’d have his sarcophagus placed in the knave at Bristol Cathedral.’
Tom laughed. ‘And all shall come to worship…’
‘The god Mammon,’ grumbled Nelson, then added, ‘I’m sorry about your wife, Tom.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I suppose you miss her?’
Tom paused and looked intently into Nelson’s eyes, as if he could read every thought flickering through his mind. ‘I admit to missing her, but don’t say there’s no point me staying here. Don’t ask whether I’m lonely or do I have another woman. The answer to each question is no.’
‘It’s been a long time, Tom. I know things happened that you’d prefer to forget – like Uncle Jeb’s ship the Miriam Strong going up in flames and the captain being killed. If it’s any consolation, I heard the fellow who did it, Reuben Trout, was found with his head smashed in.’
Tom pretended to be surprised. ‘Is that so?’
‘Apparently he was set about by unknown assailants. The police didn’t pursue the matter. You know what it’s like around the docks – tough men one and all and no one knows anything. Quite frankly, from what I remember at the time, whoever killed him deserved a medal.’
Tom’s expression was implacable. Inside he felt an enormous sense of relief. Nelson could not know it, but he’d finally resolved one of the reasons Tom had never gone back to England.
As Nelson rattled on, Tom returned to the memory of that night ten years ago… Reuben Trout, a nasty piece of work, had killed a known prostitute named Sally Ward whom Tom had befriended and helped. Trout was also suspected of arson aboard the Miriam Strong, the Reverend Strong’s charitable training ship for young orphans. It was well known in the dockside taverns and fighting parlours that Tom had been searching for him, bent on revenge, the night he was killed although Tom knew who was really responsible… He was glad to hear that the case was closed.
Nelson’s voice brought him down to earth. ‘Tom, are you listening to me?’
‘I’m sorry. What was that you were saying?’
‘There’s been a lot of cholera in Bristol of late. You knew we lost George and Arthur?’
Tom nodded, remembering Nelson’s two young half-brothers. ‘Horatia wrote to me.’
Nelson smiled. ‘My sister writes to you regularly?’
‘Less frequently during my marriage. Her letters have increased of late, especially with regard to the proposed shipping venture.’
Nelson smiled. ‘I’m not surprised. She still cares for you.’
Tom sidestepped the comment and all that it implied. ‘So there’s been a lot of cholera?’
‘An outbreak almost every year for the past ten or more. Lots of people have died. You probably knew some of them and would be saddened at their plight.’
‘Would I, indeed?’
‘The city’s been hit very badly. It’s the children dying that affects people the most. Some women fade into a kind of melancholic decline that leads to their death, or at least to them being interred in an asylum. Blanche Heinkel has been very low, so I hear.’
Tom could hear his heart beating above the silence. A vision of dark hair, grey eyes and coffee-coloured complexion danced into his mind.
‘They say she’s a changed woman. She hardly ventures out except to brood in a funny little cottage that Conrad owns. He’s worried about her and will go to any length to cure her.’ Nelson shrugged. ‘And if all else fails…’ He swigged back the last of the opium.
Tom felt the colour draining from his face. It was Blanche who had haunted his dreams even as he lay in bed beside his wife. He noticed that Nelson’s eyes were beginning to swim in his head and his speech was sounding slurred.
‘You loved her, didn’t you, Tom? I love her too,’ whined Nelson, his head slowly sinking onto the table.
Tom resisted the urge to say that he’d no business loving her, certainly not as a lover, but the past was past and Nelson’s eyes were flickering shut.
‘I have a meeting to attend,’ Tom said, rising from his seat.
‘Think about it,’ Nelson managed to say.
Tom slipped the owner a few dollars to get Nelson back to his hotel. He thought it unlikely they would meet again, unless something unforeseen occurred.
* * *
Alistair Carew was a ruddy-faced man in his sixties with a shock of white hair and a well-developed paunch. He was leaning against a very fine fireplace in the room where he directed the business of the shipping company he’d built from nothing. His roots were in Scotland, but he was every inch an American with an enormous appetite for food, drink and spending money.
His nephew, Arbroath McKenny, his sister’s boy, was also in the room. Arbroath and Alistair were incredibly alike. Arbroath’s hair was dark, but a fledgling paunch pushed at the buttons of his waistcoat.
‘Dreadful weather,’ said Tom, shaking the rain from his coat before passing it to the butler who swiftly vanished.
‘And more rain to come, so I hear,’ said Arbroath.
Alistair took a puff of his cigar and said nothing.
Arbroath’s presence alone was enough for Tom to sense that serious discussions had occurred in his absence. Alistair’s silence, and the fact that he didn’t look Tom straight in the eye, confirmed it.
Tom stood with his legs slightly apart, his hands clasped behind his back, ready to deal with whatever might come. He was purposely terse. ‘So! This is a serious matter.’
Arbroath looked surprised. ‘How do you know that?’
‘In this weather, it has to be serious, especially where you’re concerned, Arbroath. I thought you preferred the more clement weather of Georgia?’
Arbroath visibly coloured, though he thrust out his chin as though willing to take a blow on it if need be.
Alistair cleared his throat before Tom and Arbroath could trade more insults. ‘Gentlemen.’
Tom looked at his face. There were dark rings beneath his eyes that hadn’t been there a few months ago. He’d also lost a little weight, not from around his waistline where less would have made him look healthier, but from his face. He looked sad and almost as though he was melting away. Losing his daughter Margaret had changed him.