The Sugar Merchant’s Wife

by Erica Brown

  Soon the darkness was complete, briefly lifted here and there by a candle-lit window or the odd brazier hanging over a posh front gate.

  For a brief moment, Edith was tempted to try the front gate of the graveyard again, trusting that the men guarding it might have gone home or be sheltering somewhere. The idea was short-lived. She decided to play safe. Feeling their way through the darkness, Molly with her dead baby under her arm and Edith with a wooden shovel, they made their way along the perimeter wall of the churchyard to the tree.

  ‘Give ’er ’ere,’ said Edith after taking off her worn-out shoes.

  Molly passed her the baby. Gently, Edith tied her shawl around the child and herself so that the bundle was close against her body. With the child fastened to her, she began to feel her way up the sloping trunk of the tree.

  Despite the rain, the bark was rough and cracked. She poked her naked toes into footholds as she climbed higher and higher, not seeing anything but using instinct to feel her way. At last she was high enough.

  From far below, Molly shouted, ‘Are you there yet?’

  ‘Shut up,’ Edith hissed. ‘Do you want to get us caught and up before the beak?’

  Carefully she edged from the tree, swinging one foot across the branch to the jagged stones that formed the top of the wall. One of the branches drooped over it and almost touched the ground. Edith clambered down it, her bare toes seeking footholds until she judged it safe to jump.

  The grass was wet and slippery as she landed, cooling her feet and soaking her skirt.

  ‘Damn,’ she muttered, realizing she’d left the shovel behind. Easing the baby and shawl round in front of her, she felt for soft, recently disturbed earth. There was plenty. Almost all the graves had been disturbed this summer in a bid to bury the swiftly decomposing corpses.

  Amidst the smell of grass recently freshened by rain, she began to dig with her bare hands. At one point her fingers touched something hard and slimy, another body probably, but she swallowed her revulsion. She couldn’t afford to be fussy. The city’s graveyards were fit to bursting and the dead child deserved a proper burial. And the others in ’ere won’t mind, she told herself.

  Feeling round the soft earth, she judged the hole was deep enough and placed the poor little body on top of whoever was put in last. Just as quickly as she’d dug the hole, she filled it in.

  Although she couldn’t see her handiwork, Edith stayed crouching, face downwards. These were terrible times unless you had money to buy yourself a decent plot. Almost as bad, no plot meant no service, no saying of pretty words on behalf of the departed. It had been an awful summer.

  ‘Well, I’m going to say a few words fer you,’ she whispered close to the ground, and clasped her hands together.

  For a moment she could think of nothing. Her mother had never said prayers except a few explicitly brazen oaths when she’d been on the gin. Then she remembered Blanche, the nursery at Marstone Court and the lullabies she’d sung to the Strong children when they were young.

  Squeezing her eyes tightly shut, she forced herself to remember.

  Birds going home, off to bed,

  And so should you my sleepyhead,

  Jesus watching, don’t you cry.

  And I’ll sing you a lullaby.

  Poor little mite can’t cry, Edith thought sadly, but I hope she heard me singing.

  Perhaps it was the lullaby or the fact that Tom Strong was back in Bristol that made her linger and think about Blanche. She had no regrets about not opening the door to her. ‘How could I?’ she’d said to Molly. ‘There’s the likes of me turning a penny in me hand, trying to decide whether to spend it on bread today, or scrape the mould off the stale loaf and save the penny for tomorrow. And there’s her, looking all grand and smelling sweet and married to that big German bloke who owns the refinery. Look at me. I’m dirty, scruffy and always big-bellied.’

  As she had many times before, she cursed herself for marrying Deke Beasley, a merchant seaman, a lout and a liar who’d spun her tales of foreign lands and tended to believe in his own lies. Every time he’d come home, she’d fallen again – both for his lies and another baby.

  The rain plastered her hair to her head and washed the dirt from her face. She found herself enjoying being wet, her bare toes tickled by the wet grass and almost forgot the reason she was there and that she’d meant to be swift.

  Too late, she realized she’d lingered too long. The light of a lantern pierced the darkness and two shadows took solid form and lumbered towards her.

  ‘Stay where you are!’

  ‘Not likely,’ she muttered and swung one leg back up onto the drooping branch of the tree, which partially split and dried by the summer heat, cracked beneath her weight. She fell backwards and the branch fell on top of her.

  ‘Gotcha!’ shouted one of the men.

  ‘Stop still and we’ll let you up,’ the other growled.

  The fall had winded her. She was wet through and although she had plenty of fight left in her, the branch was too heavy to lift. If she couldn’t use strength, she’d have to use guile. Lie still and let them raise the branch, then bolt for it, she decided.

  ‘Let me out,’ she said, as plaintively as she knew how. Feigning weakness, she lay as still as some of those resting beneath the tombstones around her.

  One on each side, the two men began to raise the branch.

  Edith sprang halfway to her feet, meaning to run, but stumbling. Something was pinning her to the ground. For one terrifying moment, she imagined a hand had risen from the grave beneath her and was holding her fast.

  ‘Let me go!’ she shouted, her voice rising to a scream.

  As she rose and fell again, the truth became apparent. One of the men was standing on the hem of her dress.

  Big hands grabbed her. ‘No you don’t!’

  She fell to her knees, hands held as if in prayer. ‘Please let me go. I’ve got children at ’ome.’

  ‘Then what’s you doing in a churchyard at this time of night? Can’t be up to any good, can you? Off to the pokey with you.’

  Edith twisted her arms and her body and kicked out, though her bare feet were unlikely to inflict much pain on this hardened pair.

  ‘But I ain’t done nothing,’ she shouted, struggling all the way to the gate.

  The men held on. ‘We’ll let the beak decide that after we’ve taken a look around.’

  Edith was terrified.

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘I have a surprise visitor for you in the drawing room,’ said Conrad, who still spoke English with the careful precision of a man to whom it is a second language although he’d lived in England for years.

  ‘I was going out,’ Blanche said without looking up from buttoning the youngest child into his coat. She didn’t want him to see her face in case he guessed from her expression that she was off to Little Paradise. He’d be disappointed, thinking the melancholia was taking over again. But she could hardly tell him the truth.

  Visiting the cottage had never made her feel guilty in the days when she’d wanted to be alone. But things had changed. She was going there purely in the hope of seeing Tom again. For some reason she just knew he’d come there today.

  She sensed Conrad’s hesitation, a silent moment before he gathered up his courage, pasted a bright expression on his face and attempted to jolly her out of the mood he perceived her to be in.

  ‘Our visitor is a man you have already met, but I am sure you will want to see him again,’ he said brightly.

  She looked up at him. His eyes were twinkling as though this man he was talking about was as welcome as a Christmas present. Suddenly a thought crossed her mind. Tom! He had to be talking about Tom.

  Conrad had not mentioned knowing that Tom was back and she had not asked him. But perhaps today he was trying to surprise her. She threw him a questioning look. ‘Someone I’ve already met?’

  His face brightened at her sudden show of interest. ‘A fine figure of a man. A credit to this c
ity.’

  ‘Perhaps I should meet him then,’ she said, hiding her disquiet with a smile and the business of getting her children ready for their walk.

  ‘Commendable, my dear! Very commendable!’ Conrad looked as though he might burst with happiness. ‘You look very fine in that dress,’ he added. ‘It is much better than black.’

  It touched her to think he’d noticed. She’d been dressed in mourning for such a long time. Today she wore yellow, a colour that suited her complexion and made her feel happy.

  ‘It was time,’ she said, as if the reason for wearing yellow instead of black was purely due to time and nothing whatsoever to do with the lightening of her heart.

  The children fidgeted and chattered like magpies, as she checked that hats and coats were warm enough.

  ‘I’m baking,’ said Max, his face as Conrad’s could be at times.

  ‘Better than being cold,’ said Blanche. ‘Just because the sun’s shining, doesn’t mean you can’t get a chill.’

  Max groaned.

  Blanche relented and took the coat off again. Perhaps she did overdress them at times, but she couldn’t help it. Such ministrations were a leftover from when she’d first come to England from Barbados and decided she’d never be warm again.

  Conrad stood patiently, his hand poised on the door handle watching as his wife fastened the top button on Adeline’s pelisse. ‘Let Martha take over,’ said Conrad, obviously impatient. ‘That is why we have a nursemaid, yes?’

  Blanche followed him out of the nursery, trying not to appear nervous. It must be Tom. Who else could it be? The fact that he was back must appear a complete surprise. In her mind she rehearsed what she would say. How nice to see you again. It’s been so long.

  Heart racing, she entered the drawing room, a light, airy place of pale green and white muslin curtains that ballooned into the room on the breeze blowing up from the river. With Conrad’s agreement, she had not followed the fashion for dark wallpapers and heavy furniture now being adopted by notable families. She preferred the original clean colours of the Regency, just as she had favoured the empire-line dresses she’d first brought over from Barbados. Although she now wore a crinoline, she tended to dispense with heavy frills and velvet trims. Her taste was still plain, and she usually preferred lighter colours like soft lemons, greens and blues, which suited her coppery coloured skin and the dark hair that curled in wild wisps around her face. Although ten years older, she was just a little thicker around the middle, had lost her youthful coltishness, but was not quite voluptuous.

  A man of intense expression and sober dress sat in an armchair close to the window. He sprang to his feet and inclined his head in an oddly continental fashion.

  Blanche recognized the young doctor who had waxed lyrical on the plagues and pestilence that so racked the city.

  ‘Doctor Budd!’ Blanche smiled warmly, unsure whether she felt disappointed or relieved. She glanced accusingly at Conrad. ‘I do apologize for keeping you waiting.’ Her smile faded slightly. ‘It’s been a while since we entertained visitors. I haven’t been able to… cope… not since… ’

  Budd interrupted. ‘I understand, Mrs Heinkel. I understand perfectly.’

  She asked him if he would like tea, which Conrad ordered before Blanche had a chance to.

  ‘To what do we owe this visit, Doctor Budd?’ she asked, and found herself smiling, something she hadn’t done very often in a long while.

  The doctor looked at Conrad.

  ‘You may continue, Doctor Budd. You have my permission to relay everything we have discussed to my wife. My wife and I have no secrets from each other.’

  Blanche nodded her head in agreement and forced a swift, ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s regarding the drains, Mrs Heinkel.’

  Blanche raised her eyebrows. ‘Drains? I thought that as a doctor, you were more concerned with medicine, Doctor Budd.’

  ‘Ah! But I’m also concerned with prevention, Mrs Heinkel. And that is the subject your husband and I have been discussing in great detail.’

  Conrad looked sheepish, as she gave him a quizzical look. He’d mentioned nothing, but she could hardly blame him for that. Remembering how engrossed she’d been in Dr Budd’s talk and Horatia’s slights after they’d left the meeting, he’d probably tried to tell her, but she hadn’t noticed.

  Committed to his subject, Doctor Budd carried on. ‘The drains of this city are as archaic as the water supply. They are too close to each other and at certain times of the year, when the river is high and the rain is heavy, the cesspits burst out and seep into the water pipes, some of which, I might point out, were installed long before the time of Elizabeth the First. Thus bodily waste is being redirected into the city’s water supply, and so, dear lady,’ he went on, ‘cholera strikes and many loved ones are taken.’

  They were momentarily interrupted as Doris, the maid, entered with the tea tray. Doris had been with the Heinkel family for a long time and cared deeply what happened to them.

  ‘Everything all right, ma’am?’ she asked, her eyes flitting between Blanche and the doctor.

  ‘Thank you, yes,’ murmured Blanche.

  ‘You may go now, Doris,’ said Conrad, gently cupping her elbow and steering her out of the door.

  Normally, Blanche would have exchanged a swift smile with her husband. Doris and her over-protective ways had always been a matter of shared amusement. But Blanche was too absorbed in Dr Budd’s plans for the city.

  Conrad took charge of the teapot and asked the doctor whether he wished for milk and sugar.

  Budd looked amused that Conrad was so capable at pouring tea, women’s work in most households and never touched by man.

  Blanche saw his look and explained. ‘My husband does not divide work in terms of male and female, but rather in terms of whether someone is strong enough or capable enough to do the job.’ As Conrad blushed, she laughed before explaining how one of the housemaids had been flabbergasted when he took a heavily laden coal-scuttle from her grasp and heaved it upstairs.

  ‘I told her that God gave men muscles so that they might more easily take the burden,’ said Conrad.

  ‘According to my husband, God has a hand in most things. So what do you propose to do?’ she asked, directing her question at Dr Budd and waving away the tea offered her by her husband.

  The doctor’s voice boomed around the room. ‘I intend to rectify the matter, Mrs Heinkel. Rectify the matter!’

  He sprang to his feet, his teacup rattling in its saucer, energy and enthusiasm shining in his eyes.

  ‘During my lifetime, I have had the misfortune to have been smitten with that dreadful disease we know as cholera. In fact, this malaise figured in my life even before that time. My father before me made a study of the disease, even to analysing what smells were in the air before it gathered its deadly harvest.’

  ‘May God have mercy,’ Conrad muttered.

  ‘Not now, Conrad,’ said Blanche before he could erupt into prayer. She fixed her gaze on Dr Budd’s face. ‘Please go on.’

  He cleared his throat again, his fist clenched politely before his mouth and his nose twitching above his curled fingers.

  ‘I have visited the more malodorous parts of this city, filthy hovels where families live six to a room – sometimes more. I have seen them gather their water from supplies contaminated by the close proximity of blocked and overflowing privies and cess-pits.’

  ‘And these places stink of the disease, I think?’ sand Conrad.

  ‘Yes.’

  Blanche immediately thought of Edith. ‘Please. Continue.’

  Dr Budd slapped his hands on his knees. ‘Well, my dear lady,’ he said, his eyes sparkling and his face bright with exuberance, ‘as I said in my lecture, I have come to the conclusion that the smell, or miasma as some of my colleagues call it, has nothing to do with the disease although the problem is at its worse when the smell is present. That smell or miasma is present mostly during the summer months when the water supply
is low, too low for the water to take away the human and other effluent produced in these inner city slums. Consequently it is left to fester and something unseen in the cesspits crosses over into the fresh water.’

  ‘Something? What do you mean by something, Doctor?’ Blanche asked.

  He shook his head. ‘I do not know as yet. Whatever causes the sickness is not visible to the naked eye. I only wish it were.’ He shrugged. ‘I will leave it to others to search out and discover its true cause.’ He glanced appreciatively at Conrad. ‘I trust to the enlightened of this city’s society and the Corporation to help prevent this disease, and I believe that new sewers will help. As you know, Herr Heinkel, plans have been drawn up.’

  It was strange hearing Conrad being addressed with a German prefix, but Blanche reminded herself that Dr Budd had spent a great deal of time on the Continent.

  She frowned as a thought occurred to her. ‘But we are high above the city and our spring water comes from beneath the rocks of the Avon Gorge. It cannot have been contaminated by city sewers, so why did my child die?’

  Dr Budd seemed nonplussed for a moment. He rubbed at his forehead, frowning thoughtfully before slapping his hands on his knees. ‘Can you guarantee that she never drank or ate anything on a trip to the city, to church, to her father’s factory, or bought something from a street vendor?’

  Conrad said, ‘My wife is right. There are no sewers close by except our own, and they are new and drain straight into the river.’

  Their conversation drifted away, the words seeming no more than the buzz of bees in a summer garden. One thing above all others dominated her thoughts: Could the lemonade Anne drank prior to her death have been made from polluted water?

  Blanche stiffened and her voice trembled. ‘Anne bought lemonade from a street seller that day at Little Paradise. She was dispensing it from an earthenware jug. My other children stayed thirsty until they returned home. I never saw the woman again.’

  The thought that she might have had some part in her daughter’s death appalled her. Clapping her hand to the lace collar of her dress, she fiddled with the pearl brooch that fastened it together. ‘I can’t believe it,’ she murmured.