The Sugar Merchant’s Wife

by Erica Brown

  ‘Think of the lives that might be saved.’

  ‘But not Anne’s. It’s too late for Anne.’

  He sighed. ‘What about Max, Adeline and Lucy? Shouldn’t we think about keeping them safe?’

  Blanche clenched her jaw and said nothing. There was a wound in her heart where a child used to be. All her attention was directed at that wound, the rest of her heart left to its own devices.

  Conrad made his excuses to leave for the refinery. ‘I have problems there. Transferring sugar to barges is an expensive business.’ He sounded disappointed.

  Blanche heard the hurt in his voice and felt a slight fluttering in her chest. She hadn’t meant to wound him, but she couldn’t help it. ‘Where did you hear of this meeting?’ she asked in a feeble attempt to make amends, though her tone was sharp and lacked warmth.

  Conrad stopped by the door. ‘I think it was an alderman,’ he lied, not daring to mention Dr Walters just in case she had heard of him and knew what kind of doctor he was. ‘I’ll leave you to think about it. You don’t have to go,’ he added, fearing by her silence that she was yet again retreating into herself.

  After he’d left, she sat staring out of the window, thinking of Anne. You have to go on living. You have three other children to think of. ‘I know,’ she said, half thinking that Conrad was still in the room. But the voice she had heard was inside her head, one she hadn’t heard for a long while. After all these years, her mother’s voice had come back to her.

  She had no time to relapse into a depression. Max, Adeline and Lucy barged into the room, their faces bright with excitement.

  ‘The children wanted to know if you were accompanying us to see the trains at Temple Meads Station,’ explained the nurse.

  At first she held back, the melancholy that was her daily companion threatening to enfold her back into its clutches. It was Max who persuaded her to go.

  ‘If you don’t go, then I won’t either,’ he said adamantly as though he were the indulgent adult and she the child. The look on his face almost took Blanche’s breath away. He looked so like his father.

  ‘We want you with us, Mother,’ Adeline added.

  Lucy slipped her hand into Blanche’s just as she had on the day when Anne had last been with them. ‘Please?’ she said plaintively.

  Blanche closed her eyes and forced herself out from the dark place within. Conrad was right. Her mother was right. She still had three children. They deserved her attention. ‘Then I shall come.’

  Temple Meads Railway Station was warm, sooty and full of steam. The air shuddered with the sound of porters shouting, whistles blowing and steam engines, the boiling steam squealing from valves and chuffing from funnels. Round-eyed and open-mouthed, the children drank in the world around them.

  Blanche found herself infected by their excitement. She heard herself laughing when Max got too close to an engine and ended up with a coal-smeared face, and when the children waved at an engine driver and he waved back. The sound was like a favourite note long forgotten and took her by surprise. Had it really been that long since she’d laughed? Her melancholia was still there, like a lead weight inside, yet it seemed smaller than it had been, as if being eroded by something stronger. Something had changed. The prospect of the meeting tonight had a lot to do with it. So did her mother’s phantom voice echoing Conrad’s wise words.

  Getting the children back in the carriage resulted in sullen looks and half-hearted protests. They went back via St Augustine’s Bridge because the children’s nurse wanted to buy some lace from a street seller she’d seen there a few days before.

  As usual, the centre of Bristol was a beehive of activity. Barrels, sacks and tea chests swung from the nets of waterside cranes, unloading from ship to shore or vice versa. Traffic flowed in all directions over the bridge, around the quays, bustling through to where they wanted to be.

  The children opted to look at the ships whilst their nurse perused the bundles of lace. Blanche got out to take a little air, though the city heaved with the heat and smell of summer and recent rain steamed from the pavements.

  She looked around her at the ships unloading cargoes of wine and barrels of sugar, the buildings crowding the quay and beyond the spires of the city’s many churches. Her mind went back to when she’d first arrived in Bristol from Barbados when she’d been naive enough to think that the Strong family would accept her as one of their own. Instead her fate was to be nurse to the children of Sir Emmanuel Strong. Her destiny had been to love one man and marry another.

  There was noise all around, but her thoughts were unhindered until an argument erupted just a few feet behind her.

  ‘Don’t you hit my boy, you bloody swine!’

  Suddenly the years fell away. That voice! She spun round immediately, thinking it couldn’t be, but hoping that it was indeed the voice she so fondly remembered.

  A boy with thin arms and dirty knees was trying to fill his pail from the Quay Pipe. A man was trying to stop him, and a woman was beating at the man’s head and yelling at the top of her voice.

  Ragged and haggard though the woman was, Blanche still recognized her old friend. ‘Edith! Edith Clements. Is that you?’

  The man, who’d been attempting to ward off her blows, let his arms fall on seeing Blanche and doffed his cap. Edith froze and her mouth dropped open. The boy rubbed his head and looked too.

  Aware that her wealth and status stood out among the more humble appearances of most of the quayside, Blanche tried not to appear overbearing or officious. She kept her voice steady. ‘What’s going on here?’ she asked.

  ‘This bloke won’t let us have fresh water,’ said the boy and wiped his nose on his sleeve.

  Edith stood speechless, her hands wandering up and down her shoddy clothes in a futile attempt to hide them from view. Blanche felt for her.

  She reached into her velvet purse and handed the man a shilling. ‘They shall have their water. Now go away. I wish to speak to my friend.’

  The man obeyed.

  Blanche stopped herself from saying that Edith looked well because it just wasn’t true. Her dress was of rough wool, patched in places and threadbare at the elbows, greasy on the hips and ragged around the hem. Her face was less rosy than she remembered, and she had dried sores at the corners of her mouth. Blanche also refrained from looking her up and down.

  ‘It’s so good to see you again.’

  Edith half curtseyed. ‘Blanche, I mean, ma’am – Mrs Heinkel.’

  Her solicitude took Blanche by surprise. ‘Oh, come on, Edith. I’m still Blanche. We’re old friends. Remember?’

  ‘Shall I take this on ’ome, Ma?’ asked the boy, one shoulder lower than the other by dint of the weight of the water in his pail.

  Edith nodded self-consciously, her gaze fluttering between Blanche and the boy. ‘Yes. Clear off home!’ She waved him away.

  Freddie went just a few steps then stopped, curious to know what was going on.

  There was an awkward moment between them, broken eventually by Blanche. ‘Your son?’ she asked.

  Edith nodded. ‘Yeah. That’s Freddie. I have four children,’ she added with undoubted pride.

  ‘So have I,’ said Blanche, then paused as she remembered. ‘No. I used to have four. One died. That’s besides Conrad’s children, of course. But they’ve both married. One lives in London and one in Hamburg.’

  Edith seemed to come alive suddenly. ‘Only one? I’ve lost four kids over the years, two to typhus and two to cholera. But I’ve still got Freddie here, then there’s Lizzie, Billy and Polly, though our Lizzie ain’t so good.’ She shrugged. ‘What can you expect living where I do?’

  Edith’s matter-of-fact manner took Blanche aback. There was no sign at all of regret, bitterness or recrimination, just an acceptance that life was hard and only temporary. Not surprising really, she thought on remembering the home Edith had once taken her to.

  ‘Do you still live in the Pithay?’

  Edith shook her head. ‘No. Ca
bot’s Yard. It’s just off Lewins Mead, not that there’s much difference between that and the Pithay.’

  ‘And you have no water there?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘So why are you filling your pail here?’

  ‘The doctor said that our water was no good and to get it from here. Must say it’s working. Our Lizzie seems a lot better. There’s a lot dead of cholera round Lewins Mead, but don’t look like our Lizzie’s going to join them, thanks to the doctor. He reckons she’ll pull through.’

  Something clicked inside Blanche’s head. Was this the same man her husband was talking about?

  ‘This doctor, what was his name?’

  Edith frowned and sucked in her top lip as she racked her brain. ‘Somethink like a flower.’ Her face brightened. ‘Budd. Doctor Budd. There, I knew it was something to do with a flower!’

  Blanche raised her hand to her forehead. The coincidence made her reel. She had lost one child, but Edith had lost many. ‘Take this,’ she said, rummaging again in her purse and handing her old friend five shillings.

  Edith eyed the coins as though they might burn a hole in her palm. At the same time she was almost licking her lips at the thought of what she could buy.

  Blanche wondered when Edith had last had some food and what she’d eaten. Precious little, she decided on hearing a loud rumble from Edith’s stomach above the traffic noise.

  Freddie interrupted. ‘Are you coming, Ma?’ he shouted.

  ‘I can’t take it,’ said Edith, thrusting the coins back at Blanche.

  Blanche shook her head and tucked her hands behind her back. ‘You must, for old times’ sake. We have to meet again,’ she added, but Edith had turned towards her son, the coins still in her hand.

  Before disappearing into one of the alleys that led from the quay to Lewins Mead, she stopped and looked over her shoulder. Her expression was tense, almost sorrowful. ‘You’re a fine lady now, Blanche. Go back to you fine house and your clean water. Leave the likes of us alone.’

  It hurt to know that the last words were meant as a warning, but Blanche understood. Edith was ashamed of her appearance. Her world was dark and filled with dirt and disease. But although they were divided by wealth and status, they were united by grief. Edith might not allow it to show, but it was there. Blanche knew it was.

  By the time Conrad got home that evening, Blanche was dressed ready to go to the meeting. He was surprised, but also pleased.

  ‘Do you have the details?’ she asked.

  Conrad nodded. ‘Yes. Why this change of heart? Much as I am glad to see it,’ he added hastily.

  Blanche checked her appearance in the mantel above the fireplace. There was a new brightness in her eyes and a determined look to her chin. She attempted to explain how she felt to Conrad via her own resolute reflection.

  ‘Until recently, it was as if I was the only woman in the world to have lost a child, then I met someone today who’s lost many children to disease. My loss seemed so small compared to hers. What’s more, there’s precious little the likes of her can do about it.’ She turned to face him, her eyes flashing in direct competition with the diamonds sparkling in her ears. ‘But we can do something, Conrad. In fact, we must do something. It’s up to us.’

  ‘My dear!’ Conrad seemed as though he were about to burst with happiness.

  Blanche was pleased to see it. He’d coped with her depression since the death of their daughter and deserved to be happy.

  He took hold of her by the shoulders, his blue eyes twinkling. ‘I knew you would get well in your own good time. I knew it regardless…’

  On seeing a raised eyebrow, he stopped abruptly. Her quizzical look remained, urging him to continue, but of course he couldn’t.

  Blanche’s tone was clipped. ‘I haven’t been ill, Conrad. I’ve been grieving. Time, they say, is the only cure. In my case I needed something extra.’

  Conrad spluttered excuses. ‘That’s what I meant,’ he said, colouring slightly and praying she never found out that he’d consulted Dr Walters. He attempted to return to the subject. ‘Who was this person? Anyone I know?’

  ‘You may remember her. Her name was Edith. I used to work with her at Marstone Court. She used to be sweet on Captain Strong.’

  His smile wavered at the mention of Tom Strong, but he quickly recovered. This was not the right time to point out Blanche’s own past relationship with his friend Tom Strong – prior to their marriage, of course. All the same, he’d never found it easy to mention his name, perhaps never would until jealousy was tempered by old age. ‘Poor woman,’ he remarked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Blanche, still eyeing him as if he were withholding something from her, but less accusingly as she warmed to her subject. ‘And it’s the poor who suffer most, isn’t it? I have to do something about it, Conrad. I have to make recompense for thinking that my loss was greater than anyone else’s.’ She touched his hand. ‘Thanks to you I’m in a position to do that.’

  * * *

  The meeting was being held at the Red Lodge, a place of high rafters where pigeons roosted and wide floorboards creaked under foot.

  ‘There are lots of people here,’ Blanche said to Conrad as she eyed the well-dressed crowd. ‘Far more than I thought there would be.’

  Silk rustled, bonnets and top hats bobbed in welcome. The air was filled with whiffs of cologne, lavender water, rose water and mothballs.

  He patted her hand reassuringly and gushed like a schoolboy, still over the moon that she’d decided to come. ‘They are all very interested, though I am afraid some are here purely out of self-interest. The doctor’s plans have found favour in the city, which means lucrative contracts once the sewerage scheme is approved.’

  Six people sat on chairs placed on a raised platform at one end of the room. Once the auditorium was fully seated, a whiskered man with a chequered waistcoat and a monocle winking at one eye rose to his feet. His introduction was brief. Then Dr Budd rose to his feet and Blanche found herself regarding him with a mix of admiration and sympathy. It could not have been easy to challenge current medical thinking. Neither could it have been easy to get the city Corporation on board if Conrad’s comments about the aldermen were anything to go by.

  Blanche listened spellbound to what Dr Budd had to say. He first told of a visit he had made to one of the most deprived parts of the city, describing the smell of a communal privy and the abode of a man, his wife and their six children.

  ‘Most of the floor is taken up with two large beds in which all the family sleep,’ explained Dr Budd. ‘The room in which they live is underground and has only one small window. Despite being indoors, the bad aromas of the privy persist. The following conversation has been recorded in my official report, copies of which I have had printed at a price of tuppence each for those who are interested.’

  He waved his notes at a small pile of pamphlets set before a pale, dark-haired woman with a care-worn face, presumably his wife. He proceeded to read from the pamphlet and his description of the degradation and bad smells was so vivid that some ladies held handkerchiefs to their noses. One or two fainted.

  ‘There you are!’ shouted a middle-aged man with a thrusting lower lip and the look of a medical or clerical man. ‘’Tis the smell, the miasma! Just as I’ve always said it was!’

  ‘And I too have said it,’ shouted another man, his clothing and haughty manner much the same as his colleague.

  ‘So say all us doctors of medicine!’ shouted a third. ‘Begone with your quackish ideas, Doctor Budd, back to Devonshire or France, or wherever else you purport to come from!’

  A babble of noise erupted. Those who’d come to listen looked on questioningly as other loud voices joined the fray.

  ‘The miasmas the problem!’ someone else repeated.

  ‘A stink,’ shouted someone else. ‘Call it what it is.’

  ‘The stink is the problem. But would there be no disease if there were no stink? Is that what the learned physicians are saying?’ Ever
yone and anyone seemed to join in, pertinent points seeming to get through despite the rumblings of dissent from one side or the other.

  ‘If the dock officials did their job right, we wouldn’t have this stink,’ shouted an equally pompous man.

  ‘He’s an alderman,’ said Conrad as if that explained everything.

  Blanche craned her neck so she could see better. ‘I’m astounded that people can be so hostile to new ideas,’ she said with disbelief.

  They both looked to where another man, his features sharp as a weasel, leapt to his feet and pointed his finger like a spear at the latter gentleman’s face. ‘It is not the fault of the dock officials, of which I count myself a good and worthy member! If the Corporation had diverted the sewers when they built the Floating Harbour, it wouldn’t be filling up with filth!’

  ‘’Tis for you to pay to have it done, and by God you will,’ shouted the alderman.

  ‘We shall leave the courts to decide that!’ the dock official shouted back.

  ‘They have been arguing about this for years,’ Conrad explained to Blanche, ‘and still nothing is done. The Floating Harbour has become an open sewer.’

  As they spoke, all hell broke lose. The alderman, his face red with anger, waved his walking stick at the dock official, who proceeded to push his way through the rows of chairs, his eyes bulging and his fists ready for action.

  Chairs scraped, top hats flew and ladies screamed with alarm as able-bodied men intervened before the alderman and the dock official came to blows. The noise continued.

  Blanche was exasperated. ‘This is terrible. Nothing will be achieved if they go on like this.’ She turned to Conrad but his chair was empty and people were on their feet all around her. Where was he?

  She got to her feet. Men of all shapes and sizes surrounded her. This meeting by which she had set such store was disintegrating into a rabble – and such finely dressed people too. ‘Never judge a man by his clothes,’ she muttered to herself.

  The sound of a hammer hitting a copper gong echoed around the room.