The Sugar Merchant’s Wife

by Erica Brown

  Blanche smiled. ‘Is there anything else you would wish for?’

  Edith’s face turned surprisingly sour. ‘Yes, but it shouldn’t be repeated.’

  ‘What is it?’ Blanche asked.

  Edith was thoughtful for a moment, then sniffed and said, ‘Wish I had a husband like yours. Or one like Captain Strong.’

  Referring to Conrad in the same breath as Tom was oddly disconcerting. She was fond of both, but in different ways. Conrad was a man she could depend on. Tom was a man who left her breathless.

  * * *

  After leaving Blanche, Edith and her children, Tom ordered the Strongs’ coachman, Garmston, to take him and Horatia to the offices of Septimus Monk.

  The carriage swayed as it pulled away on a particularly adverse camber. Tom and Horatia were thrown together, their faces inches apart, her breasts pressing against his chest.

  ‘How did you know I was going to see Septimus Monk?’

  Afterwards she wouldn’t recollect him raising his hand before she tingled at the feel of his thumb following the curve of her jaw. ‘Such fine features,’ he said, his finger lightly brushing her lips.

  Anticipation, hope and passion overruled the self-control she’d fostered for years. She’d loved Tom since she was twelve years old. Passion that had intensified with age loosened her tongue.

  ‘You know about the properties, don’t you?’ Her eyes were wide and her gaze stayed on his mouth.

  Tom nodded, his fingers on her face continuing to make her nerve-ends tingle, disarming her.

  She sighed with pleasure. ‘It’s very important I buy them. I’ll make a lot of money.’

  ‘Ah yes. Money.’

  She heard the sarcasm in his voice. He dropped his hand.

  ‘No, it’s not about money. I’ve got plenty of that. It’s about recognition. It’s about achieving whatever I set out to do.’ Her voice betrayed her disappointment.

  Tom was unmoved. ‘Why do you feel you have to do it? To whom do you have to prove that you can make money?’

  ‘Men, of course,’ she replied adamantly.

  A gap opened up on the seat between them as the carriage came to a rolling halt outside the offices of Septimus Monk.

  Garmston opened the door.

  Horatia paused. ‘Are you coming in with me?’

  Tom shook his head. ‘You’re a hypocrite, Horatia.’

  Her mouth dropped open. ‘How dare you—’

  Tom carried on. ‘This morning you went into a dangerous part of the city in order to help fight dirt, poverty and ignorance. I admired you for it, even though I suspect you wouldn’t have gone if I hadn’t forced you to.’ He nodded at her surprised expression. ‘Yes, I came across the documents by accident and I read the letter from your solicitor.’ He waved a hand in a gesture of regret. ‘I shouldn’t have and I apologize for doing so. But when you lied about your reason for going into Bristol, I just had to call your bluff. I couldn’t resist. I must admit, you coped rather well, but let’s face it, Horatia, you’re not exactly the charitable kind.’

  The comment stung. Horatia was livid. ‘How do you know, Tom Strong? You’ve never attempted to get to know me that well. The trouble with you is that you have never washed the dirt and poverty from your own mind. You have continued to see me as someone who can be dallied with, but not taken seriously purely because I was born into wealth and you were born into poverty. What is it, Tom? Are you afraid to see me only as a woman? Are you afraid you might like me too much for being the way I am?’

  She was still bristling by the time Septimus Monk had invited her to take a seat. Seeing her hot face and breathlessness, he sent his assistant for a glass of water.

  Oddly enough, she’d enjoyed her morning. Childish memories regarding a dolls’ house had come back to her. The house had been furnished with miniature copies of the furniture at Marstone Court and peopled with small dolls that she could move around as she pleased. That was what it had felt like at Cabot’s Yard, though the people, unlike the dolls, were less easily moved around.

  Cabot’s Yard had had a definite impact. She was just about to take a sip of her water, when a thought struck her. Cholera! Although situated on higher ground than Lewins Mead, Septimus Monk’s office was close to the city centre. What difference would there be between the supply here and that further down the hill?

  ‘I think I’ve changed my mind,’ she said, handing the glass back to Monk’s assistant. ‘Do you think I might have a sherry instead?’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Deke Beasley scratched at his bare belly and opened his trousers to check if the ointment the bosun had told him to smear on his genitals was working.

  In the dim light amidships, the state of his crotch wasn’t easily discernible, but he could still feel the crab lice crawling through his pubic hair and beneath his arms. He’d scratched himself raw before reporting it, his tardiness due to the fact that he’d thought it was something worse, caught from a dockside whore in Vigo. He’d got drunk and shared her with an able seaman from an East Indiaman that had also put in at the Spanish port waiting for the weather to improve in the Bay of Biscay. They had just left the port and were on their way back to Bristol.

  He sighed as he did up his pants. Oh well, it’ll be gone by the time we dock, he told himself, and tried to sleep before it was his turn to go back on watch.

  Clutching the thin pallet that had lately been vacated by the present watch, a man whose hygiene was worse than most, Deke turned himself over, buried his head in his blanket and tried to sleep.

  He was dreaming he was drowning in a vat of warm beer when he was disturbed by a sound like mud squelched underfoot on the banks of the Avon. Opening one eye he looked towards the line of latrine buckets braced against the bulkhead where a figure was hunkered down, pants around ankles and groaning in pain as the squelching continued.

  ‘Christ,’ Deke murmured, as the close confines filled with an obnoxious stink. ‘Rat died up yer ass, ’ave it?’

  ‘Can’t ’elp it, Deke,’ the man groaned, retching and holding his stomach as he attempted to pull up his trousers. ‘I’m sick, I am. Terrible sick.’

  Deke recognized the man as Chinky Charlie, not one usually given to being sick. He uttered a curse as he closed his eyes and attempted to recapture his dream of drowning in the beer vat. What a time to be interrupted with a case of Delhi belly.

  The bunk bed immediately behind him creaked. Chinky Charlie moaned as he crawled back beneath his blanket.

  Deke opened his eyes again, then punched at a particularly lumpy point in his palliasse and tried again to locate the vat of beer.

  He dozed, his sleep continually interrupted by Charlie’s groans and frequent visits to the latrine. He was thankful Charlie wasn’t in the bunk above. God knows what might drop down.

  Chinky Charlie rolled in his bed, groaning more and visiting the latrine far less than he had been. Deke glanced at him. His arms were wrapped around his stomach, his knees drawn up over them like a baby with colic.

  He could stand it no more.

  ‘Christ!’

  He got up. What with the groaning, the stink and the disturbed sleep, he had a strong urge to use the bucket himself. By the time he had, Chinky Charlie was quiet.

  ‘Thank God for that,’ Deke muttered as he settled himself back into his bed, the smell of stale sweat and full latrines fading as he drifted into sleep.

  By the time he was called for the first watch, all hell had broken loose and his plans to collect his pay and get into the nearest tavern the moment they docked were thrown into disarray.

  Chinky Charlie was dead.

  ‘Cholera,’ said the bosun, a giant of a man with a bushy black beard and a tattoo of a naked negress on his chest. This was the man who had given Deke the ointment for his infection of crab lice. He knew a bit about medicine, but he was not a doctor.

  Other crew members present – men who’d faced 20-foot waves and 60 mile an hour winds – blanched visibly. Calcu
tta, Alexandria, Valletta and Marseilles – they’d seen people drop like flies within twenty-four hours of first becoming sick. In Calcutta and other ports in India, they’d seen people stepping over bodies as thick on the ground as pebbles on the beach.

  Deke bit at his finger until it hurt. Inwardly he cursed Chinky Charlie for getting sick and dying. His plans for celebrating his homecoming were in serious jeopardy. Cholera meant quarantine. He decided to speak up.

  ‘Only a doctor would know that for sure,’ he exclaimed, determined to further his aims at the expense of upsetting the bosun.

  Displeased at his judgement being questioned, the bosun scowled, ‘I know cholera when I sees it. Fve seen it before in India and weren’t we berthed next to an East Indiaman in Vigo?’

  Averting his eyes, Deke stared at the floor rather than meet the bosun’s accusing glare. He left it to one of the other men to ask how long they would be in quarantine.

  The bosun’s heavy beard and hairy upper lip seemed to devour each other as he sucked in his lips and frowned.

  ‘Until we stops getting sick and dying.’

  By the time they were sailing up the Bristol Channel, four men had been buried at sea.

  Deke fumed as he went about his tasks, regaling those who had been so thoughtless as to die and upset his plans. They were almost home. Ahead of them the River Avon yawned like an open mouth, expelling smoky breath through the thick mist of an English dawn. So near, and yet so far…

  The steam tug that hauled them up the Avon puffed intermittent clouds of black smoke, as if indignant to be towing a vessel destined for quarantine. The line twice as long as normal, keeping plenty of space between her and the diseased ship.

  The Lizzie Brady eventually anchored in the Floating Harbour, 60 feet of water between her and the surrounding quay. A yellow quarantine flag was run up the mast. Everyone on shore would know she had sickness aboard.

  Deke Beasley gazed at the shore, his hands haltingly winding the last sheet around the last cleat. He jumped and almost twisted his windpipe, as a heavy hand suddenly landed on his shoulder.

  The bosun was grim-faced with warning. ‘Don’t even think about it, Beasley. Wait till we gets the all-clear then we’re all ashore. You’ll answer to me personally if you disobey that order. Understand?’

  Deke swallowed, his Adam’s apple seeming twice the size it usually was, such was his fear of the bosun, a man with hands that could snap him in two if he cared to.

  ‘Aye, aye, bosun,’ he said and managed a weak smile.

  The bosun patted his shoulder with a hand the size of a butter paddle, and said, ‘Poor old Chinky. Luck of the draw, eh?’

  Yes, luck of the draw, thought Deke. Trust bleedin’ Chinky Charlie to upset his plans – and the others too. He scowled. It was their fault for getting sick. He was hale and hearty – except for the crabs that was.

  He was still thinking that it was none of his concern when darkness fell, the lights of the city twinkling amid the dark shapes of houses, churches and quayside taverns.

  Deke’s pay was eating a hole in his pocket and his mouth was dry as a sawdust floor.

  He licked his lips. The sky was warm with summer and the prevailing westerly had given way to a warm wind from the south. After ten months at sea, a man deserved a pint. He also deserved a woman. Hopefully Edith wouldn’t have given birth this time. Babies distracted women from giving men their conjugal rights.

  The night was still, the halyards hardly moving among the rigging. The only sound was from down below. The captain had issued extra rum in an effort to raise the men’s spirits and keep them occupied until they could escape the confines of the ship and get ashore. There was singing, even a little laughter, though it sounded forced; no one could forget they had cholera aboard.

  Those crewmembers on deck dozed in the warm air. They were lying up one end of the ship.

  Deke made sure he was at the other end when he slipped over the side and swam ashore.

  The cold water invigorated his aching joints and revived his spirits. Soon he would be partaking of his conjugal rights with his long-suffering wife, p’raps give her another offspring to keep her loyal when he left on his next voyage.

  The fact that he might infect her with crab lice did not enter his head. Neither did the fact that he might also be carrying a far deadlier disease which could kill his whole family.

  * * *

  The last touches were being made to the first new steamship and Tom was filled with excitement. Although trained beneath sails, he was looking forward to voyaging with steam. He knew he was standing at the cusp of a new age and looked forward to all it promised.

  At around four o’clock in the afternoon, the engineer putting the finishing touches made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

  ‘I have to get the nameplate for the helm founded at the brass-works,’ he said in a thick Scottish accent. ‘But I need to know her name.’

  They were standing beneath the propeller, a huge device with eight blades, proven to be more efficient than paddle wheels.

  ‘Ah!’ Tom eyed him thoughtfully. ‘Are you a drinking man, sir?’

  ‘Yes, sir. What else would you expect with a name like Donald McGregor?’

  ‘And when do you need to know her name?’

  ‘She’s a number in the registration book at the moment, sir. She needs a name for launching and for her registration plate. I intended getting the plate founded tonight. It’s a final touch and should be fixed on her helm minutes after she’s launched. But launching takes no time at all. Brass founding takes skill and time and cooling and polishing.’

  Tom nodded in understanding. ‘I’ll come with you to the foundry, Donald, and will tell you her name there, but I expect the strictest secrecy. After the job is done, we’ll christen her in traditional style at a local tavern I know. How does that suit you?’

  The Scotsman rubbed his orange beard and grinned. ‘Suits me fine, sir. Sounds as though we won’t be getting home till late though, not that I’ve far to go.’

  Together they went to the brass foundry and stayed there till late watching the manufacturing process. The heat was as bad as a sugar refinery, though the smell was metallic rather than sweet.

  It was late evening by the time the brass plate was formed. It would cool overnight before it was polished. After drinking more than he’d done for years, Tom decided to take a cab to the nearest inn rather than all the way to Marstone Court.

  They bid each other goodnight, both warm with rum and pride in the new ship. Donald sang her praises – to a Scottish tune – all the way along the street.

  ‘Take care,’ Tom shouted after him before climbing into the cab.

  The heart of the city was dark and empty, though shadowy forms loitered in dark doorways. Tom presumed most of them to be whores.

  By the light of a wall-hung gas light, he saw very different people bundled amidst sticks of furniture outside an old building that had once been a sugarhouse. Intrigued and unsure of what he was seeing, he peered out. The sounds, smells and sight immediately appalled him. Children cried, small faces peered above blankets and worried-looking men and tired women looked on, seemingly helpless to do anything.

  The cabbie cracked his whip in order to push past the mass of blanketed bodies spilling from the pavement and onto the road. The horse surged forward, but someone stopped it. A gaunt face with matted hair appeared at the carriage window.

  ‘Spare a penny, sir?’

  Tom looked past him. ‘What are these people doing here?’

  ‘It’s their home, sir. Mine too.’

  ‘I’ve never seen the homeless furnish the street before,’ he said, his gaze fixed on the barley-twist spirals of an old-fashioned tester bed, propped against the wall, a sad and lonely statement to homelessness.

  ‘They used to live inside the building, but the landlord’s thrown them out on the street ’cos he’s selling the place. See? It’s all boarded up.’

  No light shone out or wa
s reflected in glass panes. The building was a mass of darkness.

  ‘Who owns it?’ he asked.

  ‘Cuthbert. Sydney Cuthbert,’ the man grinned. ‘At least that’s what he calls ‘imself now. But I knows ’im from way back. He used to be Cuthbert Stoke in the days before he turned into a gentleman. Biggest crook in the Pithay. Now he’s got his fingers in anything that makes a profit. Even owns the abattoir some of us ’ere work in. Don’t pay us much though. Seems to think we should reckon it a privilege, though now and again we gets a few innards given to us to make a stew.’

  Tom frowned. ‘Seems Mr Stoke has gone from bad to worse.’

  He passed the man a handful of silver as the cab driver, impatient to get going, looked down at him.

  ‘’Ere,’ said the man, ‘ain’t you Captain Tom Strong? I saw you fight at the Fourteen Stars. You’d have known Stoke, wouldn’t you? He used to arrange them fights. I saw you there.’

  ‘Yes,’ Tom said grimly.

  Tom’s stomach churned as the cab rattled on and the homeless were left to the night and the pile of silver he’d given them. He’d always suspected that Cuthbert Stoke had no scruples. Now he knew it for sure.

  The Greyhound was one of the most comfortable inns in the city and willingly let rooms to late-night arrivals. Tom slept in a feather-filled mattress that dipped beneath his weight and curved around his body. His room was situated above the broad arch that separated the inn from the Post Office next door. Each time a mail coach went through the arch, the sound rumbled up through the building, shaking the windows and rattling the doors.

  Sleep eventually receded, as the sounds of the city filtered into the room from the street below. Sleds scudded over cobbles along with the clattering of hooves and cartwheels. Seagulls screamed above the harbour and the plaintive voice of a cockle seller soared into the air. ‘Buy me cockles! Lovely live cockles, straight from the Severn. Buy me live cockles!’

  Tom opened his eyes and took a deep breath. His mouth was as dry as the air that sneaked through gaps around the windows and doors, yet he felt refreshed.